“There is nothing more important,” Sasha seethed. “A people without dignity and honour deserve to be left to die.”
“You sound like Kiel,” said Rhillian. They spoke Saalsi, which though foreign, was common enough amongst Ilduuri serrin, and even some Ilduuri humans.
Sasha also wore a hat, broad-brimmed yet stylish enough for Andal's ladies, to hide her tri-braid, and the unfashionably short cut of her hair.
Their first stop was a market stall, which thrived upon a courtyard overlooking Lake Andal. They shopped to fill the baskets they'd brought, purchasing from several stalls to avoid suspicion, then stopping for a lingering chat with a particular fruit seller Father Belgride had recommended to them. The moustachioed man made an effort not to seem too friendly, but his eyes twinkled at them as he talked, before darting about the market to see who was looking. Sasha did not understand a word, but Aisha was fluent, and Rhillian somewhat, and both seemed to like him instantly.
“Poor fellow,” Aisha explained to Sasha as they walked on. “His son has an affliction: strange fits and seizures. Serrin treatments help, but now the Stamentaast have stopped his serrin healer from treating non-serrin Ilduuri. His son's condition grows worse, and many of the healer's patients have appealed to the Remischtuul directly, but nothing happens.”
“So many cowards,” said Sasha. “I'll bet many of them feel as he does, and if they all spoke out together, their voice would be powerful. But their fear keeps them divided and weak.”
“Most Ilduuri are not warriors,” Aisha cautioned. “They have the Steel, but ordinary folk are not armed as Lenays are. Speaking out is dangerous for such people.”
“Sheep,” said Sasha, fingering the knife she'd strapped to her thigh beneath the dress. “If not a shepherd then always a sheep, that is the way of it.”
Several passersby said rude things to them in Ilduuri that Aisha did not translate. Most of them seemed more angry at Sasha than the serrin. To be friends with the foreigner, it seemed, was worse than being the foreigner.
Then came a pair of Stamentaast, in green vests with swords at their belts. They stopped the women, and asked questions, but Sasha was not particularly alarmed-it had happened many times in the past few days. Aisha did most of the talking, and Rhillian gave curt, short answers, and her accent was good enough that the two men did not seem to suspect her. Sasha they did not bother to question. She was human, and they assumed her an angry local who did not like Stamentaast. That was common enough, and not punishable. Or not yet.
“It's insane,” Sasha muttered as they were allowed to move on. “Serrin made this place so wealthy. Now being serrin is nearly a crime.”
“Not as much of a crime as being Lenay,” Rhillian cautioned. “Serrin have many friends and ties to the population. Of us three, if they knew our true identities, it would be you in worst danger.”
“Even with a knife I'd take a half-dozen with me,” Sasha snorted.
In the next square, they found a different scene. Two men were hanging by the neck from a pole and gantry. A town crier stood beneath them and shouted to the passing crowd, some of whom regarded the hanged men with curiosity, some with contempt, and others with fear.
“He says that these two men were guilty of conspiring with foreigners to force Ilduur into a foreign war,” Aisha translated as they walked on. “He says to be wary of all who would force the peaceful people of Ilduur into terrible conflicts that shall bring them only suffering and death.”
“Who could possibly imagine that such conspirators exist,” Rhillian said mildly. “Honestly, the paranoia of these people.”
Sasha left Rhillian and Aisha at their meeting with senior Ilduuri serrin. She did not want to sit in their furtive gatherings and listen to their puzzled questions and fearful astonishment that the lovely country that had been their home for so long could turn on them so suddenly. Sasha could defend many of humanity's faces from serrin question, but she could not defend this. This was inexcusable.
She seethed on it as she walked back to Father Belgride's lakeside temple. It wasn't as though the Ilduuri even had the excuse of religious stupidity. Indeed, the priests here were amongst the loudest in calling for the Steel to march, to save their brothers to the north. The Ilduuri priesthood had gained a measure of independence from Petrodor and Sherdaine over the last two centuries, and had grown to enjoy it. The faith had moved on, to become inclusive and philosophical in a way that the haters and howlers of the Regent's army would never understand. Father Belgride sheltered serrin families whose houses had been burned, and took great personal risks to assist those who opposed the Remischtuul. But the hold of the priesthood over the minds of ordinary Ilduuri was limited.
Ilduuri saw themselves as separate. As a single race whose language and customs were more different from their neighbours' than any other of the Bacosh peoples. Even in the good times, when serrin had ruled Ilduur and the Ilduuri had come to see that serrin ways were wise, intermarriage had been frowned upon. Many Ilduuri were friendly, but most simply did not wish to share their lives with the strange and foreign serrin.
Now, many Ilduuri felt that they owed Saalshen nothing. Some even felt slighted, as though the past two centuries had been a terrible endurance of occupation and humiliation, and all its benefits were somehow the miraculous achievements of the Ilduuri themselves. Sasha could not empathise, and felt in no mood to even try. In Ilduur, the people had been shown the most outstanding merit of serrin, and had tossed it aside in favour of the familiar, the safe, and the ordinary.
Sasha paused to look at some knives on sale, and glanced behind her. Was the man in the long jacket following her? She'd acquired some instinct for crowds from Petrodor and Tracato, but she still did not trust that instinct.
She took a side road, to see if he followed her. Ahead, where several streets joined, she heard a commotion. An elderly serrin, walking with a stick, was surrounded by three young men. The young men were taunting him. The old serrin stood with reserve and dignity, and made no effort to defend himself. He tried to walk on, but the men blocked his path and laughed, and knocked the hat off his head.
Sasha did not understand what they called him in Ilduuri, but she did not need to. She was almost pleased, in fact, to have stumbled upon this scene. It suited her mood entirely. Several passing Ilduuri walked on, ignoring the old man's plight.
One of the Ilduuri men snatched the serrin's cane away. He raised it, as though about to hit him with it, expecting the old man to be frightened. The old man simply stood, with weary resignation. The three Ilduuri men laughed.
Sasha headed for the man with the cane. His friend saw her coming and stepped into her path. He leered, predictably, looking her up and down. Sasha punched him in the mouth.
He stumbled, and his friends stared, all frozen in shock. Sasha would rather have had the cane, something swordlike that she could swing. It would be a short fight then. As a brawler, she was more limited, especially with the dress preventing her from kicking. But she could see from the build of these men, from the way they stood and reacted with hesitation and shock, that they were not fighters. She was.
The man with the cane swung it at her. Sasha ducked and drove her shoulder into him, knocking him backwards. His balance gone, she laid into him, left and right fists with no great style, but the ones that connected were painful enough.
The man she'd punched first now kicked at her, a feeble effort, too far out of range. She took the blow, caught his foot, and tried to nail him with a right, only for him to scamper out of range, trip, and fall on his backside. The other two came at her pushing and swinging. Sasha ducked and covered as best she could, took several hits on the body, then blocked and caught one man's arms as Errollyn had taught her, pulling him forward and off balance as she stepped back, and dropped an elbow on his head. It only glanced, but stunned, so she hit him again with a crosswise elbow. He fell, blood pouring.