These first dwellings were hovels clearly made from salvaged materials. They were half hidden behind droves of dirty, thin people in ragged, tattered clothes. A woman whose wide grin exposed a few remaining blackened teeth limped up to the wagon, holding up a basket of wrinkled fruit. She did not come too close, Tessia noticed. Others approached as the wagon passed, offering wares no fresher or more appealing. Looking beyond them, Tessia saw that arms were rising in appeal among an endless row of people huddling by the hovel walls, like a flowing salute to the passing wagon. Beggars, she realised, holding out hands or vessels for coin. Looking closer, she saw sores that should be cleaned and covered, signs of illness caused by bad diet. Growths that could be cut away easily enough by a skilled surgeon. She smelled refuse and excrement, infection and stale sweat.
She felt paralysed. Shocked. These people needed help. They needed an army of healers. She wanted to leap out of the wagon and do something, but with what? She had no bag of medicines and tools. No burner to sear a blade clean. No blade to sear clean. And where would she start?
A wave of depression swept through her, like a squall of ice-cold rain chilling her to the core. As she sank into her seat she felt eyes close by, watching her. Lord Dakon. She did not look up. She knew she’d see sympathy and right now she resented that.
I ought to be grateful that he understands. He knows I want to heal these people, but can’t. I don’t want his sympathy, I want the knowledge, resources and freedom to do something to help them. And an explanation of why they live like this – and why nobody else has done anything about it.
The road widened abruptly and they entered an open space. To one side she could see ships and boats tied up to long wooden walkways that extended into the river. On the other a broad road ascended between large stone houses. This, she realised, must be Market Square.
“Should there be stalls here?” she asked.
“Only on market day – every fifth day,” Dakon replied.
The wagon turned and slowly moved with the flow of other vehicles making their way towards King’s Parade. Progress was slow. Occasionally a large and spectacular covered wagon would force its way through, gaudily dressed men using short whips to enforce demands that other travellers move aside. Tessia wondered why nobody protested against this casual brutality. The finely dressed couple and three children she glimpsed inside one such wagon didn’t seem aware of it. Lord Dakon said and did nothing, but she was relieved when he did not order Tanner to speed their way with his whip, either.
She also noticed that most traffic avoided the centre of the road. Even the fancier wagons only dared swing out into the middle if they could leave it again immediately. When two riders came cantering up the centre gap, wearing identical clothing, she guessed that they were servants of some sort headed for the palace. There must be a law against blocking the path of anyone using the road for royal business, and the penalty or punishment must be severe if even those within the fancier wagons were keen to avoid it.
“See these buildings to the left?” Dakon said, drawing her attention from the traffic to the large, pale-stoned walls nearby. “They were built by the Sachakans during their rule here. Though they embraced the Kyralian way of building multiple-storey homes, they imported the stone from quarries in the mountains of their land.”
“How?” she asked; then, as she realised the answer was obvious, she shook her head. “Slaves.”
“Yes.”
“Who lives there now?”
“Whoever was lucky enough to inherit or wealthy enough to buy them.”
“People want to live in houses built by Sachakans?”
“They are well designed. Warm in the winter, cool in the summer. The best of them have bathing rooms with piped hot water.” He shrugged. “While we consider Sachakans barbaric for enslaving others, they consider us so for being unsophisticated and dirty.”
“At least we learned when exposed to their ways. We adopted their technologies, but they remained slavers,” Jayan said.
“They gave us back our independence,” Dakon pointed out. “Through negotiation, not war, which was a first for Sachaka. Did that willingness to talk rather than fight stem from our influence?”
Jayan looked thoughtful. “Perhaps.”
“What was Kyralia like before the Sachakans came?” Tessia asked.
“A lot of independently ruled leys that were in conflict with each other as often as they were at peace,” Dakon told her. “No one ruler controlled all, though the lord of the southern ley was by far the most powerful. Everyone came to Imardin to trade, and he grew rich on the wealth that came from controlling the centre of commerce.”
“Is King Errik descended from that lord?”
“No, the southern lord died in the invasion. Our king is descended from one of the men who negotiated our independence.”
“How did magicians live before the invasion?”
“There weren’t many, and most sold their services to ley lords. No more than seven are mentioned in the few records left from that time. There is no description of higher magic, either. Some people believe the Sachakans discovered higher magic, and that was why they conquered so many lands so quickly. But eventually they lost them again as the knowledge of higher magic spread in those lands and local magicians began to equal them in strength.”
The wagon turned into one of the side streets. Realising she had forgotten to count the streets, Tessia glanced around for some indication of which one they had entered. On the wall of one of the corner buildings was a painted metal plaque.
Fourth Street, it read.
Remembering her lessons on Imardin, Tessia knew that people living in houses closer to the palace were usually more important and powerful than those living further down the hill, although it wasn’t always true. Some powerful families lived closer to Market Square because they or their predecessors had lost their wealth but not their influence, or perhaps because they simply liked their house and didn’t want to move. But the opposite did not happen: no poor or insignificant families lived above Third Street.
Tessia had wondered, back when Dakon had told her of the social structure in Imardin, if there was a constant shuffle of householders as wealth and influence waxed and waned. He had told her that houses changed owners only rarely. The powerful families of Kyralia had learned to hold on to what they had, and only the most dramatic of circumstances wrested it from their hands.
If Dakon’s hosts lived on Fourth Street they must be important. Most of the houses that Tessia could see were Sachakan-built – or perhaps facsimiles. The wagon pulled up before a large wooden door within a recessed porch. A man dressed in uniform stepped forward and bowed.
“Welcome, Lord Dakon,” the man said. He nodded stiffly to Jayan, “Apprentice Jayan,” and then, to her surprise, towards herself. “Apprentice Tessia. Lord Everran and Lady Avaria are expecting you, and bid you enter and join them for afternoon refreshments.”
“Thank you, Lerran,” Dakon said, climbing out of the wagon. “Are the lord and lady well?”
“Lady Avaria has been a bit low and slow, but much better this past month.”
Tessia smiled. “Low and slow” referred to the assumption that someone who appeared pale and tired probably had a cool body and a slow heartbeat. It was not always the case, and the saying had more to do with ideas the uneducated had come up with from overheard comments by healers.
When they had all alighted, the driver took the wagon away, steering it through a much larger opening in the house’s façade. Lerran led them through the doors. Instead of a grand greeting hall, they entered a wide passage. Dakon looked back at Tessia.