A tight circle of red-armoured men surrounded the wagon whilst the driver unlocked the cage, standing well back and ordering them out with near-frantic impatience. From his guarded expression and the sweat sheening his face Reva surmised he was keen to be away from their guards. She climbed out with difficulty, legs and back aching with every movement. She had tried to flex her muscles during the journey but such prolonged constraint was bound to weaken even the strongest body. The Shield groaned as he stepped down, sinking to his knees with teeth clenched.
“Stand up.” The voice was uncoloured by any anger or threat, the words spoken in unaccented Realm Tongue. Reva looked up at a man perhaps forty years in age, dressed in a plain black robe, his dark hair, greying at the temples, drawn back from a smooth forehead and lean, inexpressive features.
The Shield glanced up at the black-clad, squinting in the sun. “Can’t see a whip on you,” he said.
“I do not require a whip,” the man replied. “You obey me or you die.”
Ell-Nestra jerked his head at the arena behind them. “Here or there, what difference does it make?”
“In there you have a chance of life, at least for a time.” The black-clad’s eyes went to Reva, narrowing in careful appraisal. His gaze was intense but she saw no lust in it, also, she noted with surprise, no hint of cruelty. “My name is Varulek Tovrin,” he told her. “Master of the Great Volarian Arena and Overseer of Garisai, by the gracious consent of the Empress Elverah.”
He turned and beckoned to a pair of red-armoured guards, Reva noting the mass of tattoos that covered his hands from fingertip to wrist. They were unfamiliar in design, much more dense and intricate than those worn by the queen’s Lonak woman, and she could only wonder at the hours, and pain, endured to craft such a complex web into his flesh. He caught her scrutiny and his expression transformed into something shockingly unexpected: sympathy. “She wishes to see you.”
? ? ?
The chilled stiffness of the wind grew with every rhythmic heave on the gondola’s ropes, the hundred slaves below moving with well-drilled uniformity as they hauled her towards the tower’s summit. She was flanked by two of the red-armoured men but they seemed content to allow her to turn about and take in the view, the majesty of the city revealed in full, a true wonder that made Alltor and Varinshold seem like no more than a mean clutch of stunted hovels.
Viewing the pristine orderliness of the vast conurbation laid out before her, she was forced to concede it was the most impressive example of human creativity she would ever witness, every street, park, avenue, and tower arranged according to precise rules of form and function, with hardly a curve to be seen. But the small, dark specks that covered the smooth flanks of every tower in sight told a different story. Volar was a lie, a facade of precision and beauty covering a vile truth.
The gondola halted at a balcony perhaps twenty feet short of the tower’s pinnacle. A female slave of distracting beauty greeted Reva with a formal bow, turning to lead her inside, the guards following close behind. The interior was dimly lit with a scattering of oil lamps, silk drapes of various hues covering the windows and painting the decor a colourful melange that swayed as the wind swirled around the tower. Despite the gloom and the confusion of colour, it took Reva only a second to find the Empress, her eyes long attuned to seeking out the greatest threat in any room.
She sat on a stool before a small table, wearing a plain gown of white, her bare feet poised on the marble floor, toes flat and heels elevated, like a dancer. In one hand she held a length of fabric constrained in a circular frame of some kind, her other hand wielding a needle and thread. Her face was shadowed, the elegant profile drawn in intense concentration as her hands worked the thread through the fabric. Reva’s gaze took in the sight of a dozen or more frames scattered about the floor, each adorned with a mass of irregular, clumsy stitches. Some were ripped and the frames that held them shattered. Reva wondered why the slave girl hadn’t cleared them away.
“You have been using my name,” the sewing woman said, not glancing up from her task.
Reva said nothing. Hearing the slave girl’s suppressed whimper, she turned to find her face tense with warning and barely suppressed tears. She gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head, eyes bright with a silent plea. I’ll find no mercy here, in any case, Reva wanted to tell her. But thank you for your concern.
“So, Lieza likes you.”
Reva turned to see the woman now addressing her directly. Her hands were enfolded in the fabric, a bright spot of blood spreading out from the needle embedded in the woman’s finger. If she felt it, she gave no sign, offering Reva a smile of apparently genuine warmth as she rose and came closer.