He went to meet Ulther in the war room. The place was a suitable testament to the old man’s sense of drama. He kept it on the same underground floor as the cells, to start with, away from the prying eyes of household servants, and it was coldly lit by blue glass lamps which put Thalric in mind of dark chasms beneath the sea. One end of the long table was choked with charts and logistics reports, while at the other was laid out a map, taking in all the terrain between Myna and Helleron. Wooden counters, like game pieces, picked out key locations across the intricately plotted countryside, whilst pinned-out ribbons showed marching routes and scribbled notes held down with tacks.
‘Your area, this, I think,’ Ulther said. ‘To tell the truth, I let them get on with it. One city’s quite enough for me to handle.’
Thalric nodded, welcoming this chance to update himself on where the Empire’s plans had so far taken them. Just seeing those place names made him long to be in Helleron again, where it was all happening. He had only intended a brief side trip to Asta for the interrogations, and then Colonel Latvoc had got hold of him and he had found himself drawn into this. His agents in Helleron must now be wondering what was going on.
He moved around the table, trying to pick out details in the undersea light. Behind him, but extending overhead and blotting the finer details of the map, was the suspended carapace of one of the great forest mantids, an insect that could rend a horse. It had been posed as if in mid-strike, its raptorial arms outflung to shadow the paper landscape below.
‘What do you think?’ Ulther asked him. ‘Another new acquisition. He’s for the throne room eventually.’
‘Is it really necessary?’ Thalric asked, taking an irritated glance at it.
‘You’ve never been to the North Empire, I take it? The hill tribes?’
‘My line of work hasn’t taken me there.’
‘It’s an education. The Empire hasn’t changed them much in three generations, thataway. In between calls from the tax collectors, they’re still cutting each other’s throats and running off with each other’s women.’
‘I’ve heard they’re still a pack of barbarians, if that’s what you mean,’ agreed Thalric. ‘Still, good to recruit for shock troops, I hear.’
‘They do have something we’ve lost, you know,’ Ulther remarked, and Thalric glanced up in surprise. ‘Oh yes,’ the governor continued, ‘they might be savages but they know how to live. Life is short and brutal there, so they take full advantage of it. You won’t find a chieftain amongst them without some trophy, like this fellow, behind his throne — to give him strength, to give him courage.’
‘Don’t tell me you believe all that.’
‘I don’t need to. When people come in, they’ll see my spiny friend here, and they’ll believe. That’s the point.’
Thalric made a noncommittal noise, but Ulther was smiling broadly. ‘When you’re done there, Captain, I have something else to show you. Another jewel in my collection. Perhaps the jewel.’
That caught Thalric’s attention. ‘Lead on,’ he said.
It was a short walk. Ulther took him to the cells, and for a moment Thalric thought the trouble would start right then, but this was a different prisoner, another woman, a local.
‘Her name,’ said Ulther, as if savouring it, ‘is Kymene. But they call her the Maid.’
Thalric was instantly struck by her, less by her appearance than her manner. She had been resting on a straw mattress when they arrived, but she stood up instantly, waiting in the cell’s exact centre with a fighter’s poise. Her skin was the familiar blue-grey of all Mynans, and her hair was dark, cut clumsily short. Ulther had dressed her in a simple sleeveless tunic and breeches, giving her an almost boyish look. Except for a row of bars her cell was open along one side. Despite being kept on display like a wild beast, she stared straight into Thalric’s eyes. There was a challenge and a contempt there, and he felt something respond within himself. Defiance was a dangerous flag for a captive young woman to fly so plainly. Her eyes were steel, though. He felt a shock almost physical as he met their gaze. No surrender, they seemed to say.
‘What’s so special then?’ he asked the governor, trying to keep his voice casual.
‘Special? My dear Thalric, she is the resistance. She’s their adored leader, and a merry chase she led us, too. She was top of the wanted list for all of a year and a season, running the poor Rekef ragged trying to trap her. We tried everything. We infiltrated her followers; she killed our spies. We tortured family members; they lied to us. I’ve never known the like. To capture her in the end I had to turn to freelancers, the wretched scum.’
Thalric frowned. ‘You did well to catch her. When do you start her interrogation?’
Ulther laughed jovially. ‘Not so hasty, old friend. We’ve had her here two tendays so far. We’re breaking her down, piece by piece.’
‘Two tendays, and you’ve not put her to the question?’ Thalric heard the disbelief in his own voice, but Ulther blithely ignored it.
‘I prefer to break them slowly,’ Ulther told him. ‘No sun, no air, no freedom — and no privacy. We’ll rebuild her mind, my friend, piece by piece. Every dawn she is less the rebel and more. . pliable. Soon, what will she not promise for a glimpse of the outside world?’
He wants her for his wretched collection, Thalric finally understood, and it was a sourly amusing thought. The old man had been wise enough, before now, to confine his tastes to imported vintages. To invite this woman into his bed would be a death sentence for him, like as not. The amusing thing was that she had not seen it either. She held on to her pride so hard that she could not grasp the escape being offered to her.
Still. . on meeting Kymene’s eyes, he could see what Ulther so desired there. She was not beautiful in any sense that Thalric usually understood. She was not the scintillating Grief in Chains, or even of the proper imperial proportions of the slave Hreya. In that look, so fierce with lancing disdain, she seemed unattainable, and that was somehow more attractive than mere beauty.
But Ulther was still playing a dangerous game. ‘Should she not have been interrogated immediately, though, concerning her fellows in the resistance?’ Thalric asked.
‘Time enough for that,’ Ulther replied vaguely.
Thalric saw the woman shake her head slightly with a cold smile, and he wondered, Would she talk, even so? Mere pain and the threat of it might be something she was proof against. She was armoured in her belief.
‘Aren’t you going to introduce me to your new sycophant?’ Kymene spoke, and her voice was mocking. ‘You do love to parade them past me.’
‘My dear, this is Captain Thalric of the Rekef Outlander, and he was with me here when I first captured your city,’ Ulther told her. ‘You owe him a debt of gratitude almost as much as you owe me.’
She studied them both, and obviously found nothing to choose between them. ‘Then it shall be paid. Do you want me to curtsey now?’ she said. ‘Or perhaps I should get on my knees, I’m so honoured.’
A soldier came in then, and stood waiting to one side until Ulther went over to him. Thalric watched carefully, thinking, And here it starts. He realized Kymene was watching too. She was kept underground and behind bars, but she was looking out for anything that would help her. He liked to think that in her position he would do the same.
‘What do you mean, gone?’ Ulther suddenly demanded, gripping the soldier by the shoulder strap of his armour. ‘Who took her? Where?’