“My people wish to evacuate Ilduuri serrin to Saalshen,” Rhillian told her, leaning against the window frame to consider the splendid view of lake and city below. “I think we can agree it is not safe for serrin in Andal today.”
“How many of your people will that take?” Sasha asked, chewing a thumbnail.
“Half,” Rhillian admitted.
“And they'll need protection,” Sasha added. “How many serrin to be evacuated?”
“In all Andal, we think there are nearly five thousand. And others who are their friends, whose lives may now be in danger. The populace is angry, and…”
“I can't allow it, Rhillian.” Sasha was almost surprised at the calm certainty in her voice. “You've four hundred talmaad now, I can't lose half of them. The Steel will need wagons for its own provisions and to move five thousand civilians you'll need most of the wagons in Andal.”
“I told them as much,” said Rhillian. “But I did not want to preempt your decision.”
“Will they listen to you?”
Rhillian looked at her for the first time. “My ra'shi holds,” she said. “Their motion and mine make a shadow from the light.” Sasha frowned. Rhillian had become somewhat more…vague, since Kiel's and Arendelle's deaths. As though she had retreated to ancient serrin philosophy for comfort. “Where then should serrin be kept? We have reports of angry mobs even today, roaming Andal searching for stray serrin. They seek revenge.”
“I know. I have Steel on patrol. Troublemakers are to be arrested, killed if necessary.”
“It will get worse,” Rhillian said calmly. “You rule them now. A foreigner.”
“I've invited city leaders to meet our Meraini prisoners,” Sasha said darkly. “They'll see what's happened, and know who is to blame.”
“Do you truly believe they'll care? Sasha, you fight for freedom, yet you will take it from them.”
“Are you on my side or not?” Sasha snapped.
Rhillian smiled faintly. “Always on your side, Sasha. Merely exercising the serrin prerogative to test a position in the hope of strengthening it.”
Sasha sighed. She didn't need to apologise. Rhillian knew. “I really am in charge now, aren't I?” she said glumly.
“A true Lenay warlord,” Rhillian confirmed. “All conquering and terrifying.”
The Remischtuul chambers were in uproar when she entered. City men sat or stood in unaccustomed places about the amphitheatre and shouted outrage at Captain Idraalgen, who remained senior of all Steel present. More soldiers stood about the walls and upon the stage, ready to make a wall of shields before her should any of the hundred or so Andalis present have smuggled a weapon past the searches.
Idraalgen stood aside for Sasha, who half-seated herself upon the grand table edge and waited for the shouting to die down. Men stared at her with some consternation. It looked odd, she supposed. The Steel, deferring to a woman. But she was used to that, and well past caring to try to put herself in their all-too-masculine boots.
“You've met the Meraini,” Sasha said to the chamber. “What say you?”
“You could have plucked them off the street!” one shouted.
“Unlikely, since you've been killing all the foreigners,” said Sasha.
“You got through!” that man retorted. “You and your serrin friends, you could have brought these Meraini actors with you!”
“I'm told many of you have close relations to Remischtuul chairs,” Sasha said coldly. “Your pockets, I'm sure, lately have weighed heavily with Meraini talons. You've also seen the boxes of those we recovered, doubtless from the same mint.”
“You hold this Remischtuul prisoner!” another yelled at her, changing the subject. “We demand all of this body's representatives be released at once! You will pay dearly for any harm that has come to them.”
“Well, I think we already killed a couple,” Sasha said sarcastically. “They were fighting with the Stamentaast outside, after the Stamentaast declared war on this city's serrin population and tried to kill them all.”
“The serrin attacked us!” came the reply. Sasha rolled her eyes. “You came with them yourself! They crossed our borders and attacked us, and now our own traitorous army takes their side against their own people! We Andalis were just defending ourselves, and…”
Sasha did not hear the rest. It was pointless arguing, she realised. These people would believe what they wished to believe. “Let me tell you how this is going to work,” she shouted over them, and silence descended. “You're going to go back into the city, and tell the residents to go about their daily lives, and do nothing else. The Steel will be assembling outside the city over the coming days, and once it has been assembled, it shall march to Jahnd, to defend this land from the very worst enemies of Ilduur that the previous Remischtuul somehow neglected to fight.”
There was much shouting and disagreement at that. “You'll leave us defenceless!” one protested.
“I'm sure that's what this Remischtuul said before they dropped their pants and bent over for the Meraini, in the hope that would gain them some protection,” Sasha retorted.
“You cattle fuckers never bothered to join our ranks and defend this land in the first place!” Idraalgen snarled over the upset that followed. “Small right you have to complain where the Steel should or should not march to next!”
That degenerated into a shouting match in Ilduuri. The eastern regions, Sasha knew, were settling scores. They dominated the Steel, and not all of their grievances against the rest of Ilduur dated to merely within the last two centuries. Kessligh had taught her much about Lenay history that royal tutors in Baen-Tar would never have dared, about how her great-grandfather King Soros Lenayin had made a huge mess following his initial successes, because he had simply supposed that all the fractious parts of Lenayin would unite within the new reality he had imposed, and that the old arguments would disappear. He had been wrong, of course.
Ilduur was nothing like as complicated as her homeland, yet Sasha could see something similar emerging now. Assuming rulership of a foreign land was fraught with dangers, particularly in how many such old arguments she did not know, and was unable to stop from spilling out of control.
Aisha now came across the stage to translate for her, but Sasha held up her hand with a weary look.
“I've told you how it's going to be!” she shouted across the chamber. “You will either comply, or you won't. Be warned, I have no sympathy for people who murder serrin families in their homes, and have so little honour they cannot tell old enemies from old friends!”
“And where will you lead our Steel once you have finished in Jahnd!” came another shout amidst the noise. “Back to Lenayin, to install yourself as queen? You claim to fight for freedom here, yet you tyrannise the people of Andal, and if you win in Jahnd you'll be second in line to the Lenay throne!”
“Some liberator!” yelled another. “She's another fucking tyrant royal! We thought we disposed of all our royals two hundred years ago!”
“Tyrant!” screamed others. “Murderer!”
Sasha repressed a sigh, and was darkly amused that the irony did not seem to touch them. Ilduur had disposed of royals and feudalists because of the intervention of the serrin. Now they tried to dispose of those same serrin and all their wisdom, and protested against those who stopped them for imposing upon Ilduuri liberty-the liberty to murder serrin families. And not for reasons of religious fervour as the Regent's forces did, but in the vain hope of peace, and the cowardly desire for the world to pass them by.
Well, if taking away a people's liberty to behave like scum was tyrannical, then she was a tyrant. So be it.
“Many are saying that, about you becoming Queen of Lenayin,” said Aisha as they strode to Heroes' Square with Yasmyn. Yasmyn had been looking into the Remischtuul's books and accounts, another unexpected skill the former Great Lord of Isfayen had taught her. “They say that you and Koenyg are the natural leaders of King Torvaal's children, and that Damon will not measure up.”