Fate Read online

  The girl, to Asher’s surprise, did not bother to appeal to her elders for help. Instead, she rose to her feet, and, in one swift movement, threw herself at the boy head first, butting him heavily in the stomach. He gasped and swayed, reaching up a hand to the mantel for balance, and his grip on the toy loosed. Instantly, the girl snatched it away, retreating to her patch of floor, hugging her prize to her thin chest. The boy took a menacing step towards her, but she raised her left hand, pointing with a curious gesture; the boy jumped back, fell, and his right hand touched the metal grate in the hearth. He yelled, rubbing at a reddening spot. His mother rose wearily to her feet and made to comfort him, glaring at her daughter as though the incident had been all her fault.

  Well, well, thought Asher, amused; a talent for ill-wishing was rare, but obviously useful to those who had it. She raised her tankard and drank a silent toast to the small girl. She, at least, had learned to take care of herself. Which was fortunate, since apparently she had no other defender.

  The door from the outside opened and Asher looked up hopefully, but it was only Carob, her bulk completely filling the narrow doorway. She might have been anything from forty to eighty; in the six years Asher had known her she had not changed at all. Her sparse white hair was drawn carefully over a pink scalp, above a round face that bulged but did not sag, and her tall figure — taller than most men — did not stoop. Her skirts were large enough to make three for Asher, reaching a modest length just above her ankle-boots. She carried two wooden buckets of cheap coal, lifting them lightly as she tramped over to the fire and placed some of the larger lumps on the embers.

  ‘It’s a cold night,’ she observed in her gruff voice, to no one in particular. ‘There’ll be rain before dawn.’ She straightened, then came across to Asher’s table. ‘You should be on your way,’ she said accusingly; round eyes of a pale blue reinforced the suggestion. ‘The first bell’ll go soon.’

  ‘In a minute,’ Asher agreed. ‘You’re a kind inn-keeper, Carob. Not many would feed the fire so close to curfew.’

  She sniffed. ‘It’s cheap!’

  Asher grinned at the dismissive tone. The inn-keeper hated to be thanked.

  The door to the outside was suddenly slammed back against the wall and the wind rushed in, filling the room with blasts of cold, damp air; several of the oil lamps went out at once. Asher shot up from her seat as three grey men marched in, two of them holding thick leather leashes attached to the collars of a pair of Kamiri scent-hounds. The cosy taproom was transformed instantly into a place of chill, cramped confinement in which the women and children sat frozen in awkward attitudes, unwilling to move and draw attention to themselves.

  ‘Your papers.’

  It was hard to distinguish any difference between the grey men; close to seven feet tall, as was usual among the Kamiri, all were broad-built, with dark grey hair and paler grey skin. One, however, sported a beard, his companions only moustaches, and it was the bearded guard who had spoken. Although his words were not addressed to her, Asher fumbled at her belt pouch for her identity papers.

  The three took their time as they went round the tables, inspecting each proffered document with exaggerated care; they seemed to be drawing out the time until curfew, hoping to find anyone who failed to obey the decree of the Kamiri governor of Venture to carry identity papers at all times. Someone had had the sense to close the door, but Asher was cold, resenting the intrusion bitterly. This was another freedom being eroded, that they could not even sit and drink in a public tavern without interruption. She watched the guards angrily; their common uniform of heavy loose jackets lined with fur over grey trousers and boots further detracted from any individuality. Their southerly Javarin homeland was far warmer than the northern port of Venture; she knew they detested the cold, and was glad of it.

  ‘You. Who owns you?’

  The bearded guard stood in front of Cass, dwarfing her. His harsh accent as he spoke the unfamiliar language made the question deeply offensive, and Asher must have moved for Carob placed a warning hand heavily on her shoulder.

  ‘I do,’ she called out calmly.

  The guard swivelled in her direction, dark eyes surveying the inn-keeper’s bulk with mild interest. ‘Show me her papers. For what was she branded?’

  Carob heaved herself up. ‘See for yourself,’ she said, handing over two folded pieces of thick paper, both bearing the city seal. Cass coloured, but stayed very still as the Kamiri’s large hand came down on her face, a long grey finger tracing the crescent scar. Asher’s temper rose, loathing the man for his arrogance, his assurance of an innate superiority. She knew Cass had been branded for theft in her Gormese homeland, when she was only a girl, but she had always refused to explain or defend herself. Asher, recognizing a pride similar to her own, had never thought the less of Cass, nor doubted some miscarriage of justice.

  One of the scent-hounds came to snuffle at Asher’s feet, a large, ugly beast with a reddish-brown coat of thick, unkempt hair and an oddly flat face from which sensitive nostrils protruded at an unnatural angle. Bred to the pursuit of fleeing slaves, it was the size of the snow-leopards inhabiting the north of Darrian, but it lacked the grace of the feline; the thick neck and solid hindquarters bespoke force, not cunning. Surreptitiously, Asher tried to kick it away, but it appeared to have found an interesting scent on her left boot and would not be deterred.

  ‘Your papers.’

  A moustached guard was holding out his huge, grey hand to her. She passed over her papers, taking care no part of his smooth skin should come in contact with her own, her loathing for the grey men making her unable to tolerate even the thought of touching him, as if he were some venomous reptile. She held her breath; her identity papers were a good forgery, but a forgery nonetheless, and she was always nervous of letting them out of her possession.

  The man read with deliberate slowness, passing a finger across her name, age, status, occupation, and place of residence. The paper was stamped with the demonfish seal of the city, the genuine one, supplied by a woman who worked in the Records section of the administration, but the guard continued to hold the paper out of Asher’s reach, a grin visible under his moustache. She sensed his unspoken contempt for a member of a subject race — in fact if not in name — so visibly inferior in physique, so obviously inferior by nature of her sex; the Kamiri respected only military force. She wanted to snatch the paper back, but common sense warned her not to try. She shifted uneasily in her seat, enduring the speculative survey of the guard, whose gaze moved down from her face to take in the rest of her body in the loose-fitting skirts and shirt she favoured, the collar high and concealing. The Kamiri kept slave-women in their compound for their leisure hours, but had been known to resort to consorting with free women; Asher bore the inspection silently but with rising fury.

  Grey men or Darrianite — they’re all the same, she thought contemptuously. All that matters is what they want, how they feel. Her experience of men had left her with a low opinion of the majority, and her work in the city served only to confirm her prejudice; but it was a subject she did not wish to contemplate at length, and when the Kamir finally returned her papers she replaced them in her pouch without comment.

  It seemed an interminable length of time before the guards were satisfied with their investigation, but a dozen women and children hardly represented a major threat to their authority and they departed languidly, leaving the door open behind them in a final show of contempt. Carob moved to shut it with a slam, then gestured to Cass to gather up the empty tankards.

  ‘Best get going,’ she said loudly to the assembly. ‘Curfew’s coming any minute.’

  Two young women who had been playing quietly at cards, and the second pair who had been occupied with domino fortunes, rose and gathered their cloaks, taking their departure with a smile of farewell for Carob and for Cass, obviously regulars. Asher sighed, knowing there was no point in waiting any longer; this was the third night she had come to Carob’s without result
. Mylla would have been back now if everything had gone smoothly. There was always a risk in the escort of escaped slaves to Saffra, but Mylla had done the journey many times and knew the route well; it was not the first time her return had been delayed, but she had never been so late before.

  ‘Can I help, Asher?’ Cass asked, seeing her anxiety. ‘Any message you want to leave?’

  ‘I don’t think so, but thanks anyway. I’ll be here again tomorrow.’

  ‘Anything you want, Asher. Remember that,’ Cass said intensely, touching the brooch she wore on the collar of her tunic, a seven-pointed star, its apices shaped like tiny flames. Asher wore its twin, identifying both to those who knew of its existence as members of the women’s group, pledged to offer help to all women, slave or free.

  ‘Is Essa any better?’ Carob came across to join them; her lapel, too, sported a star, which looked incongruously tiny against her massive form. ‘Tell her from me she’s been ill long enough!’ But the gruffness of her manner did not disguise her look of concern, and Asher only nodded.

  ‘I haven’t seen her this morning.’ As ever, it struck her how very improbable was the friendship between Carob and Essa, the taciturn and the talkative; yet it was these two who were the cofounders of the self-help organization, each in her different way a force for change in Venture. What they had begun as a simple means to help poor country girls who came to the city in search of work had expanded far beyond their original intent. The invasion and later attempted rebellion in Venture had opened up quite different possibilities to the women, and it had been Carob, not Essa, who had seen quite how much could be accomplished now that the women had access to city seals and papers.

  ‘If she’s well enough, tell her I’ve a girl of sixteen from a village in the south that needs a maidservant’s place,’ Carob said briefly. ‘She’ll need papers too; there’s been some trouble at home.’

  ‘I’ll deal with it if she can’t.’ Asher remembered how she had come to Essa six years before in her own time of trouble, first as supplicant, sent by a cousin who had had dealings with the employment agency, later becoming an active member of the group at Essa’s request, a challenge she accepted willingly, remembering how she had found a home, and friendship, among the women of Venture. Runaways to the city were uncommon but not unknown, and she felt a special interest in such girls and took a certain pleasure in flouting the law by hiding them under new names, away from whoever pursued them.

  ‘You should be going,’ Cass advised quietly, looking towards the door.

  Reluctantly, Asher took her tankard across to the table where Cass was gathering the empties on to a wooden tray and put it down. ‘Not ready for a trip north yet?’ she asked with a grin.

  Cass smiled back. ‘I think I’ll stay. For a while longer, anyway.’ It was a standing joke between them, although Asher wondered what loyalty it was that kept Cass a slave in Carob’s inn where she might have been a free woman in Saffra.

  ‘You’ll be here tomorrow?’ Carob asked softly.

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Easy enough to have an accident on the road — a lame horse or bad weather. Mylla’ll be here soon.’

  ‘I hope so.’ Asher wrapped her cloak, a drab brown affair, around her shoulders, and tied a dark-coloured scarf over her mid-brown hair; it was safer to look shabby when out late at night in the old quarter. ‘Good night, Carob, Cass.’

  ‘Take care,’ Carob called after her.

  It was she who had thought of providing a women’s room in her inn, a place to come after a long day’s work, or simply to get out of cramped rooms where there were too many children underfoot. There was nowhere else for women to go without escort, or where their children would be welcomed. Venture was unusual among the cities of Darrian, having lost a higher percentage of its menfolk to the internment camps both at the time of the invasion and after the riots which followed two years later; there were many working women, often with young families, and no one else seemed interested in providing for their leisure hours. Carob provided the setting, clearing a small room previously used as a private parlour for the purpose. At first her male customers had protested vigorously, invading the room and shouting insults at the women, but Carob had been firm. Her tavern served the best beer in the old quarter, the poorest section of the city, and what she said went — or the men did. It had been as simple as that, in the end.

  As Asher stepped outside, she found herself wishing the inn were not quite so far from the hostel in which she lived. Elsewhere in the city, roads and pathways were paved or cobbled, but in the old quarter they were composed of beaten mud and the mounds of refuse which accumulated in an area where too many people lived in too close confines. She shivered, lifting her feet to avoid the worst of the messes, but it was hard to see; it was the first day of the fourth month, and both moons were new and dark. The sky was overcast with the promise of rain, and the sea air felt damp; cautiously, Asher descended the steep steps and hurried in the direction of the main cross street which would take her to the south of the city and her own lodgings.

  A sea wind tugged at her cloak and she gathered it round her, trying not to breathe too deeply as she passed an open ditch into which something had evidently crawled and died some time ago. Voices reached her from the tall tenements as she walked past: babies screaming, a woman crying, other voices raised in argument. Asher wondered what the lives of their owners were like, feeling a rare pang of loss for the home she had left behind, for the different sounds of a country night; for a moment she imagined she could smell damp earth and dusty grain, until a powerful stench of fish brought her back to her present surroundings.

  She kept a wary eye open for robbers as she walked, but there were still a few other people about, for the first curfew bell had not yet tolled. She was safe enough, although the shadowy doorways of the tall, squalid tenement buildings offered many a haven for the thief.

  She had only got as far as the slave market when the first bell boomed from above the law courts, the sound spreading out towards the city walls, and she cursed under her breath; there was still some way to go, and to be caught out after curfew meant two days in the city jail or a heavy fine she could ill afford. She quickened her pace, oblivious to the changes in her surroundings which would have told her, if she cared, that she had left the old quarter well behind. The street she traversed was wide, and paved, and lights shone from behind shutters of two-and three-storey buildings which were still terraced, but well maintained. The houses were broader, the gutters running clear; the air itself proclaimed the increase in prosperity.

  What was that?

  She whirled round, thinking she heard an echo of her own footfalls. Her soft leather boots made little sound in the empty street, but she was sure the other steps had sounded heavier, somehow different. She was often out alone after dark, but it rarely made her nervous now, although when she was new to the city it had terrified her; she had learned to take obvious precautions over the years and, despite some unpleasant encounters, she had never been robbed or assaulted in the streets. It was unnerving to find herself a prey to fear where normally she felt herself invulnerable.

  The sound came again, quite distinctly.

  There was someone there — but where? Asher stopped again, looking back, but there was no one in sight. She hurried on, telling herself she was a fool but listening, nevertheless, for the tell-tale scuffling of another presence.

  She reached the tall Treasury building, its familiar double doors firmly shut and barred, each marked with the eight-tentacled demonfish, the city’s symbol; eight was regarded as a lucky number, marking the days in a week from the quarter of Aspire, the larger and beneficent of the two moons. Asher had, six months previously, been promoted to the rank of chief clerk at the Treasury, at a salary of ten gold pieces a year; it was five less than the men were paid for the same job, but it was three times the wage of a domestic servant, and Asher knew she was lucky to have it.

  She started to run as the s
econd bell began to toll. Now she was sure she could hear sounds of other steps in pursuit, but she did not stop and look back, afraid of being caught by the guard. She felt the first drops of rain on her face, then the skies opened as she reached Scribbers, the residential quarter where she lived. Gratefully, she headed down the narrow street that led to the hostel, panting for breath as she turned into the blind alley to the left and slowing her pace as the building came in sight. She reached it and rapped loudly on the heavy door with the metal knocker, hoping someone would hear her quickly, for she thought she heard footsteps behind her.

  Nothing happened. She waited impatiently, knocking again, staring up at the narrow frontage of the hostel. It had once been an inn with quarters for guests of modest status visiting the city, and extended back much further than was apparent from its modest facade, where the gate which had once led to the stables was now permanently locked, the stables converted to living quarters. It still sported a sign designating it the Inn of the Waxing Moon, but everyone knew it was home to forty women, and they still had occasional trouble with gangs of rowdy youths or young men who saw the barred door as a challenge and made periodic attempts to break in, as if doing so in some way gave proof of their masculinity to one another.

  The door was opened at last by a tall, blonde woman, older than herself, who made no attempt to hide her disapproval.

  ‘Asher — where have you been?’

  ‘Sorry, Margit. There was a bit of trouble at Carob’s.’ She slipped inside, and the other woman carefully relocked and barred the door. Margit was a plump, graceful person, with a long expressive face which was almost beautiful, and she, too, wore a seven-pointed star on her tunic.

  ‘You’re very late. You’re lucky not to have been caught by the guard.’ Margit looked upset. ‘Did Mylla come?’

  Asher shook her head. ‘No. I think something must have gone wrong; she should have been back two days ago, at the latest.’