Ninavis rested against the wall for balance while she used her other hand to clean her face. She resembled a flamingo, balanced on her one good leg, doing it with far more skill than Brother Qown could muster. “I’m thirty-five years old. It’s been a damn long time since anyone had the right to call me girl.” She focused on Dorna’s hand. “Is that paint?”
Brother Qown knelt next to the guard and rubbed at the gray leopard spots shading the unconscious man’s chin.
His fingers also smeared the makeup.
“Why would a guard fake their coloring?” he asked.
“The same reason so many hulking guards around here don’t understand a fireblood, I imagine,” Mare Dorna said. “’Cause they ain’t Joratese.” She shut one eye and squinted as she studied his features. “This one’s Yoran, or I’m still an acrobat in a traveling tournament show.” She patted the soldier’s pockets.
Count Janel spared the man a cursory glance before she turned back to Ninavis. “Where are your people?”
“The guards took them to the tourney.” A sour, angry look stole over her expression. “I thought those bastards would make all manner of fuss about leaving me behind when they saw I couldn’t walk, but they laughed and said the baron wanted even numbers, anyway.”
Brother Qown finished examining the prone guard. He had a concussion for sure, but the priest couldn’t do much for him with an audience. Qown stood. “Why would they bring prisoners to the tournament? Why wouldn’t they just leave them here in the dungeons or send them off to a proper jail before their trial?”
The count looked startled. “What? Oh no. There’s no trial. Not in the sense you mean.”
“Excuse me?” Brother Qown felt a moment’s sharp outrage. Even in the Capital, trials were standard. It might have been a twisted and warped pretense, favoring those with money and connections, but by the Eight, there would be a trial.
“We don’t keep jails in Jorat. When someone has trespassed our laws, we hold prisoners for long enough to ensure their presence at the next tourney. Prisoners are given to tournament winners under the belief a champion’s idorrá will bring saelen back into the fold. I’ve never heard of a tournament where the number of saelen awarded mattered, however.”
“Awarded?” Brother Qown choked. “You mean ever since Tolamer, we’ve been selling bandits into slavery?”
“Yeah,” Ninavis said, “that’s just what you’ve been doing.”3
The count’s glare would melt glass. “No, it isn’t. The awarded men and women aren’t slaves or prisoners. They are adopted, brought into a new herd for their rehabilitation. It’s not at all the same thing as slavery.”
Ninavis snorted. “You say sword, I say blade.”
“Now, now, my foals. There’ll be time for philosophizing later,” Dorna said. “We need to figure out what’s what with that guard. Why’s a Yoran trying to disguise himself as Joratese?”
“Plenty of people disguise themselves as Joratese,” Ninavis snapped.
“Aye,” Dorna agreed, “but letting folks assume a wine-stain birthmark means you’re a local girl ain’t much of a disguise.”
Brother Qown blinked. Ninavis wasn’t Joratese? Her accent was perfect. After Dorna had pointed it out, Brother Qown realized the large maroon splash across Ninavis’s face didn’t resemble Jorat skin marking as much as a regular birthmark.
“He’s not the only soldier like this either,” Count Janel said, moving the conversation back to the original topic. “Captain Dedreugh should have been able to understand Arasgon. He couldn’t.”
“Dedreugh’s new,” Ninavis volunteered. “Most of the soldiers are. They showed up a few months ago, when Tamin took over after his father’s death. Tamin said he didn’t trust the guards who let his father die.”
“What happened to those original guards?” the count asked.
Ninavis spread her hands. “That’s a damn fine question.” She handed back the handkerchief, now streaked with blood. “Look, I know you and the baron used to be pals, but there’s nothing friendly about him now. You want to help us? Pull him out of power. You’re the only person who can.”
“I’m not his count. I have no authority over him.”
“So don’t give him an order. Kill him. You can get close enough to do it, and you wouldn’t even need a weapon. You’re Danorak. If you say you had a good reason for doing it, people will believe you.”
Janel stared. “That is not how we do things here.”
“To Hell with how you do things! Do you think anyone dares Censure him? As far as the baron is concerned, anyone against him is automatically with the witches. That’s all the excuse he needs to have his men strike us down. He won’t step down from power. If Kalazan’s prophecy is right about you—”
“Wait.” Janel raised a hand. “What of Kalazan’s prophecy? This business with the ‘claimed child’?”
“Oh, hell if I know,” Ninavis admitted. “Kalazan talks like it’s the cure for every problem we have. He overheard Tamin and his teacher talking about it, before the old baron’s death. How this prophecy predicted someone called the demon-claimed child would ruin everything. They needed to track this person down. That’s why Tamin’s so obsessed with fighting demons. Tamin thinks the demons are leading him to this ‘child’—who will kill Tamin if Tamin doesn’t kill him first.”
“I won’t murder Tamin.”
“So you are the demon-claimed child? Because that sounded like a confession.”
Count Janel ignored her and turned to the other two people in the dungeon. “Brother Qown, Mare Dorna, can you smuggle Ninavis to our quarters?”
“They’ll see me.” Ninavis pointed to her face. “This is distinctive.”
“Ha, found it!” Dorna lifted a small tin from the guard’s pockets. She unscrewed the lid, revealing the gray cake makeup the guard must have used to paint his face. “Give me five minutes and your own nana wouldn’t recognize you. Then it’s just getting you back with a bad leg, but I reckon we can manage.”
“What about him?” Ninavis indicated the unconscious guard.
“Drag him behind those crates,” Dorna suggested. “That buys us at least a few hours’ head start, before the other guards find him. We should have a good solid lead on any pursuit the baron organizes by then.”
“We’re not leaving.”
Dorna sighed at Janel. “Foal—”
“We’re not leaving,” Janel repeated, looking her true age for a moment, a sullen teenager about to stomp her feet. “I promised these people if they surrendered, they’d be treated fairly. I refuse to flee as long as there is a chance Tamin will trample my word.”
Ninavis pursed her lips and looked Janel over. “You might just be worth something after all, little noble.”
Brother Qown hid his smile. It wasn’t an occasion for smiling even if he felt pleased by this result. “How will you discover Tamin’s plans?”
Janel straightened her shoulders. “By the simplest method possible: I shall ask.” She gave the three a stern gaze. “Wait in my chambers. I’ll return once I have more information.”