Spoils of War (Tales of the Apt Book 1), Adrian Tchaikovsky [13 ebook reader .txt] 📗

Gaved cleared his throat, mostly to ensure that nobody hit him any more just for speaking. “The treasure,” he hazarded. “It wasn’t where she said to dig. She must have grabbed it while I... I could track her for you.”

Haaked stared at him blankly; Javvi’s look was perhaps a little pitying. “Deserter, what is this treasure?” he asked.

“That she stole,” Gaved explained earnestly. “She’s a thief.” Still no change to their expressions. “She came back here to get... Or why was she in prison?”

Javvi looked almost embarrassed for him. “What else would I do with an escaped slave before I sent her back to her master?”

“A slave,” Gaved echoed.

“Of course a slave!” Haaked bellowed. “My slave! One of my wife’s body servants. And I want her back, you officious little man. And you’ve lost her.”

“She’ll be recovered,” Javvi said, impervious to the insult. “And as for –” but then an old Wasp man had sidled in, head bowed, skulking over to Haaked to whisper something. Bad news apparently, for his master cuffed him savagely about the head and then turned bulging eyes on Javvi again. “She’s taken one of the others!” he got out. “She has stolen another of my slaves!”

Javvi was the very picture of a bureaucrat whose work is never done. “Well they will be easier to track, then, two slaves with empty pockets and no friends. When I caught her, she was attempting to broker some kind of safe passage – perhaps for her and this companion. She will no doubt need to do the same again, and that is how she will be retaken. I will send the deserter back for punishment and then –”

“You will not.” Haaked stared at Gaved with loathing. “He brought her here. You heard him; he came here with her intending to rob me. And I was robbed. Do you have any idea how expensive it is, to ship decent house-slaves out here?”

“Colonel, be that as it may –” but Javvi was destined not to finish any sentences that night, it appeared.

“You go do your job, you little maggot!” Haaked snapped at him. “This one, I’ll keep. This one I’ll make an example of, for the trouble he’s caused me. You’ve ever been whipped, deserter, when you were in the army?”

Gaved faced up to those bloodshot little eyes. “Once or twice.”

He thought Haaked would overturn the desk on him, statues and all, the man looked so angry. “Sir! You will address me as sir! And you have not had a whipping like the one I’ll give you tomorrow. I’ll put you before my house staff and show them what happens to those who dare to break the bonds between master and slave! I’ll have you flogged until the flesh comes off your bones!”

“Colonel Haaked,” Javvi said calmly, “this man is mine to take for Imperial justice –”

“I am justice here,” Haaked said, in a voice like death. “This isn’t Capitas, Captain, and you’re a long way from home with only two soldiers to your name. You are not a colonel and you are not a Wasp, and you will go and do your job like a good servant and not presume to dictate to your betters.”

A muscle ticced in Javvi’s jaw, just the tiniest sign of anger. “May I remind you that I am –”

“Little man, I have plenty of friends in the capital,” Haaked spoke over him. “Yes, and in the Rekef too. So take yourself out of my presence and bring back my slaves.”

And Javvi, face meticulously devoid of expression, saluted, turned and left Gaved to his fate.

Inexplicably, Haaked had not designed his retirement home with purpose-built cells, though Gaved would not have put it past him. Instead, he found himself consigned to a root cellar, his hands tied – again! – and the shutters above him solidly barred from the outside.

It was, he had to admit, not one of his finest hours.

Come morning, he had no doubt that the Colonel would carry out his threat. Whipping a man to death in order to remind the staff of their place was almost refreshingly Imperial, a real taste of home. It put him in mind of what Aelta had said before they came to the house, and before she had abandoned him. And she had been a slave, apparently, so she had known what she was talking about. A woman and a slave, twice forbidden to use the Art within her hands, and so she had trained them to other purposes, a conjurer’s miscellany of sleight of hand and escape artistry. Handy tricks for a slave, no doubt; even handier for someone trying to remain free.

He had not been a very good soldier. Right now he felt that he had been an even worse civilian.  He had been played. He had even known that she was playing him, but vanity and the optimistic dictates of his groin had kept him dancing along right up until the moment that she had left him to his fate.

If I ever see her again, I’ll... He wasn’t sure what, to be honest. The great burning store of betrayed anger that was surely his well-earned pay for this venture was just another thing he had somehow failed to receive. Instead, he found himself hoping that annoyance with Haaked would make Javvi a less than diligent hunter, that the little man would go complain to his superiors first, and cast about for the fugitives’ trail second.

There was a heavy scraping sound overhead. He had not thought dawn would come so quickly. And, indeed, when the hatch was levered open, the sky above was still a night’s showcase of stars.

And her. There she was.

“Can you fly?” came her faint whisper.

“Probably not.” But he called the Art up anyway, despite the awkward position of his arms, and managed a lurching hop off the ground, just enough to spring him at the open hatch. Hands snagged him and managed