As he’d intended, it prodded her out of her calm. The flush in her face deepened, for she was a woman to whom few men had ever said no. An edge of ugly rage slid into her voice. “Are you afraid?”
“Madam,” Sun Wolf said, “if it’s a question of having my bowels pulled out through my eye sockets, I’m afraid. There’s no amount of money in the world that would make me pick a quarrel with Altiokis.”
“Or is it just that you’d prefer to deal with a man?”
She’d spat the words at him in spite, but he gave them due consideration; after a moment, he replied, “As a matter of fact, yes,” His hand forestalled her intaken breath. “I know where women stand in Mandrigyn. I know they’d never put one in public office and they’d never send one on a mission like this. And if you’re from Mandrigyn, you know that.”
She subsided, her breath coming fast and thick with anger, but she didn’t deny his words.
“So that means it’s private,” he went on. “Ten thousand gold pieces is one hell of a lot of tin from a private party, especially from a city that’s just been taken and likely tapped for indemnity for whatever wasn’t carried off in the sack. And since I know women are vengeful and sneaky...”
“Rot your eyes, you—” she exploded, and he held up his hand for silence again.
“They have reasons for fighting underhand the way they do, and I understand them, but the fact remains that I don’t trust a desperate woman. A woman will do anything.”
“You’re right,” she said quietly, her eyes burning with an eerie intensity into his, her voice deadly calm. “We will do anything. But I don’t think you understand what it is to love your city, to be proud of it, ready to lay down your life to defend it, if need be—and not be allowed to participate in its government, not even be allowed by the canons of good manners to talk politics. Holy Gods, we’re not even permitted to walk about the streets unveiled! To see the town torn apart by factionalism and conquered, with all the men who did fight for it led away in chains while the wicked, the venal, and the greedy sit in the seats of power...
“Do you know why no man came to you tonight?
“For decades—centuries—Altiokis has coveted Mandrigyn. He has taken over the lands of the old mountain Thanes and of the clans to the southeast of us; he sits like a toad across the overland trade roads to the East. But he’s landlocked, and Mandrigyn is the key to the Megantic. We made trade concessions to him, turned a blind eye to encroachments along the border, signed treaties. You know that’s never enough.
“His agents stirred up trouble and factions in the city, cast doubt on the legitimacy of the rightful Prince, Tarrin of the House of Her, split the parliament—and when we were exhausted with fighting one another, he and his armies marched down Iron Pass. Tarrin led the whole force of the men of Mandrigyn to meet them in battle, in the deeps of the Tchard Mountains. The next day, Altiokis and his armies came into the city.”
Her eyes focused suddenly, an amber gleam deep in their brown depths. “I know Tarrin is still alive.”
“How do you know?”
“Tarrin is my lover.”
“I’ve had more women in my life,” Sun Wolf said tiredly, “than I’ve had pairs of boots, and I couldn’t for the life of me tell you where one of them is now.”
“You’d know best about that,” she sneered. “The men were all made slaves in the mines beneath the Tchard Mountains—Altiokis has miles of mines; no one knows how deep, or how many armies of slaves work there. The girls from the city sometimes go up there to do business with the overseers. One of them saw Tarrin there.” The expression of her face changed, suffused, suddenly, with tender eagerness and the burning anger of revenge. “He’s alive.”
“We’ll skip over how this girl knew him,” Sun Wolf said. He was gratified to see that tender expression turn to one of fury. “I’ll ask you this. You want me and my men to rescue him from Altiokis’ mines?”
Almost trembling with anger, Sheera took a grip on herself and said, “Yes. Not Tarrin only, but all of the men of Mandrigyn.”
“So they can go back down the mountain, retake the city, and live happily forever after.”
“Yes.” She was leaning forward, her eyes blazing, her cloak fallen aside to reveal the dark purple satin of her gown, pearled over like dew with opal beads. “No man came to you because there was no man to come. The only males left in Mandrigyn are old cripples, little boys, and slaves—and the cake-mouthed, poxy cowards who would sell their children to feed Altiokis’ dogs, if the price were a little power. We raised the money among us—we, the ladies of Mandrigyn. We’ll pay you anything, anything you want. It’s the only hope for our city.”
Her voice rose, strong as martial music, and Sun Wolf leaned back in his chair and studied her thoughtfully. He took in the richness of the gown she wore and the softness of those unworked hands. Supposing the city were taken without sack—which would be to Altiokis’ advantage if he wanted to continue using it as a port. Sun Wolf was familiar with the soft-handed burghers who paid other men to do their fighting, but he had never given much thought to the strength or motivations of their wives. Maybe it was possible that they’d raised the sum, he thought. Golden earrings, household funds, monies embezzled from husbands too cowardly or too prudent to go to war. Possible, but not probable.
“Ten thousand gold pieces is the ransom of a king,” he began.
“It is the ransom of a city’s freedom!” she bit back at him.
Starhawk was right, he thought. There are other fanatics besides religious ones.
“But it isn’t just the cost of men’s lives,” he returned quietly. “I wouldn’t lead them against Altiokis and they wouldn’t go.
It’s autumn already. The storms will break in a matter of days. It’s a long march to Mandrigyn overland through the mountains.”
“I have a ship,” she began.
“You’re not getting me on the ocean at this time of year. I have better things to do with my body than use it for crab food. We’ll be a few days mopping up here, and by then the storms will have started. I’m not waging a winter war. Not against Altiokis—not in the Tchard Mountains.”
“There’s a woman on board my ship who can command the weather,” Sheera persisted. “The skies will remain clear until we’re safe in port.”
“A wizard?” He grunted. “Don’t make me laugh. There are no wizards anymore, bar Altiokis himself—and I wouldn’t take up with you if you had one. I won’t mix myself in a wizards’ war.
“And,” he went on, his voice hardening, “I’m not interested in any case. I won’t take ten thousand gold pieces to buy my men coffins, and that’s what it would come to, going against Altiokis, winter or summer, mountains or flatland. Your girlfriend may have seen Tarrin alive, lady, but I’ll wager your ten thousand gold pieces against a plug copper that his brain and his soul weren’t his own. And a plug copper’s all my own life would be worth if I were fool enough to take your poxy money.”
She was on her feet then, her face mottled with rage. “What do you want?” she demanded in a low voice. “Anything. Me—or any woman in the city or all of us. Dream-sugar? We can get you a bushel of it if you want it. Slaves? The town crawls with them. Diamonds? Twenty thousand gold pieces ...”
“You couldn’t raise twenty thousand gold pieces, woman, I don’t know how you raised ten,” Sun Wolf snapped. “And I don’t touch dream-sugar. You? I’d sooner bed a poisonous snake.”
That touched her on the raw, for she was a woman whom men had begged for since she was twelve. But the rage in her was something more—condensed, like the core of a flame—and it was this that had caused Sun Wolf to speak what sounded like an insult but was, in fact, the literal truth. She was a dangerous woman, passionate, intelligent, and ruthless; a woman who could wait months or years for revenge. Sun Wolf did not rise from his chair, but he gauged the distance between them and calculated how swiftly she might move if she struck.