Read Online Transformation (Rai Kirah) by Carol Berg - Free Book Online
Authors: Carol Berg
Ads: Link
have a name.”
I halted, but said nothing, prepared for another taste of bitter truth.
“Ezzarians don’t like their names used.” He resumed his sharpening, moving the blade rhythmically across the gray stone. It was a statement, not a question, yet it was left open at the end. He was not finished with what he wanted to say. It was very curious.
“You know something of Ezzarians,” I said in the same manner, though I was certain that whatever he knew, it did not approach the truth. Privacy ... secrecy ... was our lifeblood.
“My family is from the south. Karesh.”
Karesh was a small town in the rolling southern grasslands of Manganar, perhaps four days’ journey from the Ezzarian border. We had traded in Karesh when I was a boy, and it had seemed a crowded metropolis to a child from a land of small, scattered woodland settlements. “Karesh has the finest ale in the Empire,” I said. “And our miller would buy no other wheat.”
“Aye.” The thick fingers pressed the shining blade to the stone. The conversation was finished. Much more had been said than words could convey.
I started out the door again, then paused, closed my eyes, and spoke quietly over my shoulder. “Master Durgan, do not cross paths with the Khelid.”
From the corner of my eye I saw his head jerk up, and I felt his eyes on my back as I ran across the busy courtyard to the kitchen door, thinking I was the greatest fool ever to draw breath. One kind word changed nothing. Durgan carried a lash.
The winter Dar Heged was held for twenty-three days in the first month of the year. Every Derzhi House in the northern Empire would send representatives to present the Emperor with their tax revenues, to hear what levies of men and horses and food would be needed for spring campaigns, to resolve disputes with other families, and conduct whatever business needed the attention of their sovereign lord. The streets of Capharna were teeming with warrior nobles and their retinues, grim-faced soldiers guarding the tax-levy wagons, excited families reunited with distant kinsmen or children who had married out of their House, street vendors and shopkeepers and innkeepers raking in revenues from the influx of visitors, fights breaking out between parties to land or property disputes. Dar Heged was a time for marriages and betrothals, treaties and alliances, trades, bargains, and negotiations of all kinds.
I did not observe any of the activity in the streets, only the business brought before the Prince. He sat in the lesser of two huge gilded chairs at one end of the smoky Hall, flanked by ten counselors representing the ten oldest Derzhi families. The counselors were only for show. The Emperor, or in this case his son, had the final and only say in any matter. The line of taxpayers and petitioners stretched across the cavernous room, and the walls were crowded with observers: families, servants, and whomever else had managed to get themselves past the door wardens.
My table was just to the Prince’s right, close enough and angled such that I could see and hear both the Prince and the petitioners who faced him. Just beyond me was another table arranged with scales and balances and an array of gleaming brass weights. It was manned by the Emperor’s chief redyikka, the magistrate of weights and measures. Every village large enough to have a marketplace had a redyikka to keep traders honest with their measures and to ensure proper coinage and fair dealing.
The daily session lasted from early morning until well after the usual dinner hour. My hand cramped from so much writing, and my fingernails turned black from all the ink. Every judgment had to be recorded in a large, leather-bound ledger, and many of them involved additional letters or writs to be sent to other parties not present at the Dar Heged.
The presence of a foreigner and a slave was an affront to the Derzhi, and as they passed behind me or waited for me to finish a paper they needed, they
I halted, but said nothing, prepared for another taste of bitter truth.
“Ezzarians don’t like their names used.” He resumed his sharpening, moving the blade rhythmically across the gray stone. It was a statement, not a question, yet it was left open at the end. He was not finished with what he wanted to say. It was very curious.
“You know something of Ezzarians,” I said in the same manner, though I was certain that whatever he knew, it did not approach the truth. Privacy ... secrecy ... was our lifeblood.
“My family is from the south. Karesh.”
Karesh was a small town in the rolling southern grasslands of Manganar, perhaps four days’ journey from the Ezzarian border. We had traded in Karesh when I was a boy, and it had seemed a crowded metropolis to a child from a land of small, scattered woodland settlements. “Karesh has the finest ale in the Empire,” I said. “And our miller would buy no other wheat.”
“Aye.” The thick fingers pressed the shining blade to the stone. The conversation was finished. Much more had been said than words could convey.
I started out the door again, then paused, closed my eyes, and spoke quietly over my shoulder. “Master Durgan, do not cross paths with the Khelid.”
From the corner of my eye I saw his head jerk up, and I felt his eyes on my back as I ran across the busy courtyard to the kitchen door, thinking I was the greatest fool ever to draw breath. One kind word changed nothing. Durgan carried a lash.
The winter Dar Heged was held for twenty-three days in the first month of the year. Every Derzhi House in the northern Empire would send representatives to present the Emperor with their tax revenues, to hear what levies of men and horses and food would be needed for spring campaigns, to resolve disputes with other families, and conduct whatever business needed the attention of their sovereign lord. The streets of Capharna were teeming with warrior nobles and their retinues, grim-faced soldiers guarding the tax-levy wagons, excited families reunited with distant kinsmen or children who had married out of their House, street vendors and shopkeepers and innkeepers raking in revenues from the influx of visitors, fights breaking out between parties to land or property disputes. Dar Heged was a time for marriages and betrothals, treaties and alliances, trades, bargains, and negotiations of all kinds.
I did not observe any of the activity in the streets, only the business brought before the Prince. He sat in the lesser of two huge gilded chairs at one end of the smoky Hall, flanked by ten counselors representing the ten oldest Derzhi families. The counselors were only for show. The Emperor, or in this case his son, had the final and only say in any matter. The line of taxpayers and petitioners stretched across the cavernous room, and the walls were crowded with observers: families, servants, and whomever else had managed to get themselves past the door wardens.
My table was just to the Prince’s right, close enough and angled such that I could see and hear both the Prince and the petitioners who faced him. Just beyond me was another table arranged with scales and balances and an array of gleaming brass weights. It was manned by the Emperor’s chief redyikka, the magistrate of weights and measures. Every village large enough to have a marketplace had a redyikka to keep traders honest with their measures and to ensure proper coinage and fair dealing.
The daily session lasted from early morning until well after the usual dinner hour. My hand cramped from so much writing, and my fingernails turned black from all the ink. Every judgment had to be recorded in a large, leather-bound ledger, and many of them involved additional letters or writs to be sent to other parties not present at the Dar Heged.
The presence of a foreigner and a slave was an affront to the Derzhi, and as they passed behind me or waited for me to finish a paper they needed, they
Similar Books
