Fornella rose and bowed as Lyrna entered, her face impassive until she saw Lord Verniers whereupon she favoured him with a cautious smile. “Highness, my lord,” she said in her basic Realm Tongue. “Two visitors. I am honoured.”
“We’ll speak in your own tongue,” Lyrna told her, dropping into Volarian. “It is important there be no misunderstanding between us.” She told Iltis to wait outside and gestured for Fornella to sit, moving to the table and scanning the scroll she had written, finding it a list of names, places and goods, each name marked with a circular symbol Lyrna recognised. “A writ of manumission,” she said. “These are your slaves, I take it.”
“Yes, Highness. Though the document is in fact a will. The slaves are to be freed upon my death.”
“My understanding of Volarian law is limited,” Lyrna lied. “But I believe a slave, regardless of owner or importance, can only be freed by special edict of the Ruling Council.”
“Quite so, but my brother sits on the Council. I have little doubt he will accede to my wishes in this.”
By the time he hears of your death, Lyrna thought, I expect he’ll be too preoccupied with the imminence of his own demise to care about your final wish. “Am I to take it,” she asked instead, “that your liking for your empire’s principal institution has waned recently?”
Fornella glanced at Verniers, the scholar standing rigidly against the cellar wall and refusing to meet her gaze. “We have made many mistakes,” the Volarian woman said. “Slavery is perhaps the worst, only surpassed by our bargain with the Ally.”
“A bargain that, if Lord Verniers’ account is to be believed, has provided you with several centuries of life.”
“Not life, Highness. Merely existence.”
“And how is it achieved, all these additional years?”
Fornella lowered her gaze and for the first time Lyrna had a sense of her true age in the faint lines now visible around her shrouded eyes. “Blood,” Fornella said after a moment, her voice no more than a murmur. “The blood of the Gifted.”
Lyrna’s memory flashed to the ship, the overseer prowling the slave deck, whip coiled. All here, trade for one with magic. She moved closer to the table, her fists resting on the surface as she leaned towards Fornella, the Volarian woman’s face still lowered. “You drink the blood of the Gifted,” she grated. “That is where your years come from.”
“There is a place,” Fornella said in a whisper. “A great chamber beneath Volar, hundreds of cells filled with Gifted. Those who are party to the bargain go there once a year . . . to drink. And every year, there are more empty cells, and always more red-clads clamouring to share in the Ally’s blessing.”
“And so you need more, and the Ally promised you would find them in this Realm. That is why you came here.”
“And to secure a northern front for the Alpiran invasion, as I said. But yes, the Ally promised this land would be rich in Gifted blood.”
“And when that was all gone, and the Alpiran lands also stripped, what then? Send your armies forth to rape the whole world?”
Fornella’s head rose, her eyes steady though her voice was uneven, the voice of a woman facing her final moments. “Yes. In time, he promised the world would be ours.”
Is it shame I see in your eyes? Lyrna wondered. Or just disappointment?
“I assume it was the promise of endless life that seduced Lord Darnel to your cause?” she asked.
Fornella gave a rueful shrug. “The lure of immortality is hard to resist, especially for a man in love with himself.”
Lyrna moved back from the table, turning to Verniers. “My lord, do you find this woman’s words to be truthful?”
Verniers forced himself to look at Fornella in reluctant but close appraisal. “I doubt she has lied, Highness,” he said. “Even as her slave, I found honesty to be her only interesting quality.”
“And do you think your Emperor would find her believable?”
“The Emperor is wiser than I in all respects. If she speaks truly, he will hear it.”
“And, I hope, understand the value of forgetting past differences.”
Verniers’ face was grave as he met her gaze. “There is much to forget, Highness.”
“And a world to fall if we cannot forge common purpose.” She turned back to Fornella. “There is a man in Brother Caenis’s Order who can hear lies. You will state to him your willingness to travel to Alpira with Lord Verniers where you will tell the Emperor all you have told me. If he hears a lie, Honoured Citizen . . .”
“He will not, Highness.” Fornella’s relief was palpable, her years showing again in the sag of her mouth. “I will do as you ask.”
“Very well.” Lyrna looked at Verniers, summoning her regretful smile. “And you my lord? Will you do this for me?”
“No, Highness,” he replied, the even tone of his voice and narrowness of his gaze making it clear her smile was a wasted effort. This one sees far too much.
“I will do it,” Verniers went on, “for my Emperor, who is great in his wisdom and benevolence.”