Chapter 4: Unsettling Rumors

The interior of Ashford Abbey was a bright ray of light surrounded by a stuffy gloom. Somehow, whether it was magic or clever architecture, the sunlight that streamed in from the high window down onto the desk where Abbot Mhenlo sat working did nothing to dispel the impenetrable darkness that clouded the rest of the building. “Excuse me, sir,” Lilith said, standing in the shadow. The Abbot did not respond. “I have a message for Meerak the Scribe from captain of the Ashford Guard. She says it’s urgent, sir.”

“He’s outside,” Mhenlo pointed with a spare hand and did not look up from his work.

“Yes, sir,” Lilith said, and scurried towards the door. The massive oak required a fair amount of pulling to open even the foot and a half Lilith needed to slip out, which it did with a thunderous creak. Outside, Lilith found the only one who looked like he might be a monk. He was dressed in the proper robes, but didn’t seem to be doing anything more vital than taking a walk. “Excuse me, sir, I have a message for Meerak the Scribe?”

“That’s me,” Meerak said, extending his hand to accept the letter. Lilith handed it to him, thinking it odd that the monk of the Abbey who seemed who wasn’t doing any paperwork was the one with the title “scribe.” Meerak scanned the lines of the letter and Lilith bowed her head, waiting for him to finish and trying not to give him any excuse to harm her in the meantime. The monks of Ascalon were famous for their inventive torture, and it was common knowledge among slaves that you did not give them an excuse to practice on you. Lilith hardly breathed as Meerak scanned the letter, and then he wandered off without a word. Lilith glanced about herself. Was he composing a message? Should Lilith wait? Or should she be trying to construct a gift for Althea? If Meerak had a response, she’d be punished for not delivering, but if he didn’t, she ran risk of being punished, possibly with death, for failing to complete Osric’s errand. In fact, if Meerak had no response she ran risk of being punished anyway since the captain of the Ashford Guard likely wouldn’t believe her when she said Meerak didn’t respond. Lilith bit on her lip and considered her options, and that consideration was steadily crowded out by a growing notion of how unfair it was to make someone with noble blood put up with this, when the only crime she’d ever committed was to act like a proper noble and not a common money-grubbing burgher like her parents, who disgraced the whole de Magi name.

Fortunately, her counter-productive brooding was interrupted by Meerak’s return. “Here, give this to Armin Saberlin,” he said, thrusting a message into her hands, “he must know immediately what I have seen!”

“But I need a response for the Ashford Guard, not the warmarshal,” Lilith said.

“Never mind the petty guards!” Meerak said, “this is urgent news, and must reach the capital immediately!”

“I, uh,” Lilith bit her lip and thought better of further complaint. He was, after all, a monk. “Yes, sir,” she said, bowing slightly and turning to leave.

“Wait,” Meerak said, and Lilith hesitated, shot through with fear. “Good luck. If what I have foreseen is true, you will need it. We all will.”

“Um…Thanks,” Lilith said, entirely uncertain as to what he meant. “I mean, thank you, sir,” she said, “may I go?”

“Yes, go!” Meerak demanded, and Lilith ran for the gate, glad to be gone from the Abbey.

She took a detour to the other side of Ashford, where the guardhouse was. As she approached, she saw to her relief that the guard captain still manned her post outside it. “Madam guard captain,” she said, offering the message from Meerak, “this is the only response Meerak the Scribe gave me, it’s-” the guard captain snatched it away, “it’s for Armin Saberlin, miss.” The captain checked the writing on the back, addressing it to Armin Saberlin, and then shrugged and cracked open the seal on it, looking over the contents.

After a while, the captain scowled and said “he’d best not continue stirring up trouble in my town because of some mad crock about visions. Take it to the warmarshal.”

“B-but miss,” Lilith began, “the seal.” If Saberlin thought she’d broken it, there was no worming her way out of it. She’d be killed. She’d die as some ignoble slave. She’d never get the justice she deserved for everything that happened to her. She’d never live another day of her life without being terrified of what others might do to her.

“What about it?” the guard captain demanded.

“Please miss,” Lilith said, falling to her knees; she was more than used to outward displays of humility by now. “Please, add a note, just a single line to explain it was you who broke the seal, for official purposes. Please, he’ll kill me for a spy if you don’t, you can use a dagger and my blood as the ink so you don’t even have to bother sending me to fetch a quill.”

The captain sighed with frustration. Her boot slammed into Lilith’s face, she went sprawling to the ground, and blood trickled down from her split lip. “If you die, that’s the Roblis’ problem,” she said, “explain what happened to Saberlin yourself, and if you don’t, I promise I shall come to the de Roblis estate and invoke my right to kill you.”

Lilith ran. She sucked in a deep breath. Deep inside, she wanted to sob, but she refused. She had always refused, for the past year. When first she was sold, she thought she could retain her pride and her dignity, refuse to humiliate herself for her new owners. But the trainers had beaten that out of her in a hurry. And in retrospect, it was foolish of her to try. As though a single girl of merely noble blood could simply defy Adelbern’s injustices into submission, when Prince Rurik, of the blood of Thorn himself, could do nothing more than criticize them, shore them up, lend support to their enemies…But never oppose them directly.

But there was one thing they couldn’t take from her. They could make her pretend to be a slave. They could take her pride and her dignity. They could make her beg for food. They could make her insult herself for their amusement. They could make her thank them for punishing her. But they couldn’t make her cry. Couldn’t make her admit defeat to herself. Couldn’t make her forget that despite the show she put on, she was still a noble, and it was her family who muddied their name by placing greed before honor and duty, and some day that injustice would be rectified. So she took a few more deep breaths and calmed herself, and resolved that she wasn’t going to cry or walk meekly to the chopping block. She would find some way of convincing Saberlin, or of preventing the captain from claiming her life if she did not deliver the message, or something. She may have been bent to their will, but she was not broken. And she never would be.

Composed again, Lilith set out walking towards Ascalon City, but it soon occurred to her that she should avoid Saberlin for as long as possible. Delivering a message late would see her merely beaten. Delivering it unsealed would see her killed. She really should put off delivering the message for as long as possible. She sat down and examined the message itself. How much room was there to add explanations in the first place? Could she forge the captain’s explanation? And so long as it was already unsealed…What did it say?

Warmarshal Armin Saberlin, the letter began.

I must report to you the most dire of all possible news. You know me to be of the faith of the Lunatic Court, and yet I have received a vision from Dwayna. Do not be confused into thinking me a heretic, for it came as much a surprise to me as to you, and understand that for the Marutuk to contact me, this must be either very desperate for advantage against a common foe or else attempting some artifice. I am not a strategist, and thus I entrust the complete contents of my vision to you, our greatest general, that you might puzzle out whether this is war making for strange bedfellows or simply a ploy.

In this vision, Dwayna showed me a massive cauldron that the charr were carrying into Ascalon. This, she told me, was the Cauldron of Cataclysm that destroyed the Crystal Sea completely a thousand years ago. Then my spirit and hers moved across the land at great speed until we were far to the north, in the barbaric homelands of the charr, where she showed me a great fiery beast. This, she said, was a titan, a rebel against the god Abaddon, who created the Cauldron of Cataclysm so long ago. This titan rebel was worshiped by the charr. Then we flew again at great speed, and she showed me a great slumbering beast, that had slept for so long that the earth itself had covered it. This, she said, was one of the five heads of Tiamat which she and her companions had cut off so long ago, and in the millenia since, it had twisted itself into the shape of five new beasts of terrifying power. The rebel titans, Dwayna said, sought to revive this creature, and to that end they would use the charr as pawns to call down a great catastrophe on Ascalon that would destroy us as utterly as the Margonites were destroyed. With us out of the way, the charr would be free to move through the Crystal Desert to Orr and raze Arah, destroying the Marutuk’s stronghold in Tyria so that they would not be able to strike down the five heads of Tiamat as they rose.

I pray to the Lunatic Court that this dire vision is naught but a deceit meant to distract us, and yet truly I fear that it is not. I trust that you, warmarshal, shall be able to determine the truth of things one way or the other.

Yours faithfully,
Meerak the Scribe


“You there!” someone behind her said, and Lilith screamed and folded up the letter and spun around. The man in front of her was dressed common. The burghers were fond of showing off their wealth, so this man was probably just a peasant.

“Yes, sir?” Lilith asked. Because peasants still outranked slaves.
 
“My hogs have got loose,” he said, “I need help rounding them up.”

“I’m not your slave, sir,” Lilith said, “I belong to the de Roblis family.”

“Aye, but these are the king’s pigs,” he said, “I sell my pork straight to Adelbern. Best pigs in the kingdom, mine are. And the way I see it, when the king’s pigs need rounding up, the king’s slaves have got to do their part, and all the slaves belong to the king, don’t they?”

“Well, yes,” Lilith said, “legally speaking the de Roblis are stewards. But that doesn’t mean some random peasant can order me around just because you sell to the king.” Dirk smacked her across the face, and Lilith yelped. “Technically, that isn’t legal either,” she said, rubbing at her stinging cheek, although the peasant and her both knew that the de Roblis family would never consider pressing charges unless some serious damage was done to their property.

“Listen here, missy,” the farmer said, “if you don’t do as you’re told we’ll have to take it up with the Ashford Guard, and there’s only one of us what they can cut pieces off of for fun, isn’t there?”

“Yeah, because you they’d be required by law to chop a hand off of for theft,” Lilith said, “I know what the laws are, and I have work to do, now leave me alone or I’ll call the guards.” Or else summon a swarm to devour him. Either way, really.

The farmer scowled, his bluff called, and Lilith turned and began walking away. She should focus on finding a gift for Althea. She could make the feather into a quill with a few tools, she could probably find those in a workshop here in Ashford, all she had to do was slip in while no one was looking. Making a single quill is something she could manage in an hour, which wasn’t so bad in terms of getting things to Osric on time but who abandoned their workshop for an hour in the middle of the day? “Missy, wait,” the farmer said. Lilith ignored him. “Listen, I need your help, that bastard Orville has turned half the village against me and bullied the other half into leaving me abandoned, and now someone, though I shouldn’t make any spurious accusations, has let the little beauties loose! Wild skale would love to snack on them, or the local stalkers even, they wander near town sometime.” Did Melandru’s Stalkers even live around here? The big cats weren’t on the list of things that tried to murder travelers, so Lilith didn’t really keep track of their population. Either way, Lilith just kept walking and hoped that the farmer tried something stupid so she could call the guards on him. “No one respectable will lend me a hand, but see, no offense missy, but seeing as how you’re already a slave, that don’t much matter to you, does it?” Regrettably it was perfectly legal to go on harassing her all day. At least he was being nice about it now. “And I’ll bet even a common farmer like me could offer you more money than you see in a month for a bit of help. Won’t take longer than half an hour!”

“Any money you give me is property of Sir Roblis,” Lilith said, “I can’t own property.” She wasn’t sure if explaining her lack of rights was better or worse when the person she was explaining to seemed genuinely unaware.

“If I put coins in your hand, and you spend them saying it’s on his orders, and then enjoy yourself some nice meal while you’re out in the village, what are the laws going to do to stop you?” the farmer asked.

Lilith stopped and thought about it. It was a good point and she kicked herself for not thinking about it earlier. Maybe she would’ve been more open-minded about it if he hadn’t started by trying to bluff his way into forcing her to help, “How much?” Lilith asked.

“I’ll give you ten gold,” the farmer said.

“Ten? I’ll take fifty and still only have enough for a cheap dye,” Lilith said.

The farmer barked out a laugh. “Aye, but do you see any dyed clothes on you or me? Twenty gold will buy you three good meals, and I mean good meals, and that’s plenty for an hour’s work.”

 

“An hour’s work and a whipping that’ll stick for a month,” Lilith said, declining to mention that she was already an hour late, and so long as she was back by sunset things were unlikely to get much worse. “Plus, if these hogs are so great, each one is probably worth at least twenty gold by itself, so it’s not like you wouldn’t lose more without my help. Make it thirty.”

“These hogs are my livelihood, missy. I give you more than twenty-five and I won’t be able to keep food on my table while I raise the next litter,” the farmer said.

Lilith considered a moment. What she actually needed the money for was a gift for Althea, and anything short of several thousand wouldn’t let her just go out and buy such a gift. Twenty-five, however, would likely be enough to acquire some tools without stealing them, which was liable to get her hand chopped off. Or her throat slit, if the guards were in a bad mood. “Okay, sure, twenty-five,” Lilith said. “How do I know you’ll pay me after we finish, though?”

“Because I’m a man of the land and a man of my word,” the farmer said, looking offended, “to be honest I’m more worried about whether I can trust a slave not to just pick my pocket and run.”

“I’m not a slave,” Lilith said, “I mean, legally yes, but not really. I was born a noble, and my family sold me for spurious reasons. To any law-abiding subject of the Kingdom of Ascalon, my word is the highest guarantee there is, second only to that of royal proclamation.”

“Aye, and surely no slave could ever tell a tale like that unless it were true?” the farmer said.

“I’m not lying!” Lilith insisted, “I was a de Magi!”

“There’s naught you can say that any slave couldn’t say,” the farmer said, “maybe you’re lying and maybe you’re not, but we both know that I’m who I say I am. I’ll give you the twenty-five we agreed to after my hogs are safe and sound.”

Lilith quietly searched for something, some way to prove what she was saying, or some way to make him back down. But he was right, really. Now that Adelbern and his supporters were muddling the classes together, you couldn’t really tell if slaves were dishonest, or for that matter if nobles were trustworthy. At least the peasants had been left alone. “Okay, you’re right,” Lilith said, “but you had better not go back on your word. I’m really not supposed to be a slave. It’s wrong, and…Please don’t make it any worse.”

“I told you once, missy,” the farmer said, “my word’s as solid as the land I work. The land you’re standing on. Does it feel like it’s going anywhere in a hurry?” He extended his hand to shake. Lilith took it. “I’m Angus. Angus Dirk.”

“I’m Lilith,” she said, shaking his hand “Lilith de Nemo, of course.”

“Right, enough chatter, I’ll search the west side, you search the east, and if you find one of them just chase them towards that pen over there,” he pointed, “they’re good pigs and should stick around so long as no one else comes to scare them out. Might be easier to pick them up and haul them back, but from the look of you, I don’t think you’d be able to manage it.”

“I’ll find them,” Lilith said, and turned immediately to round them up.