Fall of a Kingdom (The Farsala Trilogy) Read Online Free PDF Page A

this city. Not half a candlemark later, in an alley so dark that Kavi had to slide his feet forward to keep from tripping, Sim went up to a door and rapped three times, then twice.
    It opened immediately.
    “We’ll talk outside.” The heavyset man who’d opened the door looked grim and authoritative, but he stank with nervous sweat. The shadow of stubble on his chin showed he hadn’t shaved this morning. Too worried to take care of himself? Or too broke to afford even a few tin foals for the public baths? Kavi’s concern deepened.
    The guard station’s common room looked bright after the inky darkness of the alley. A couple of men, their scarlet tabards tossed over an empty bench, diced idly at one of the tables. In fact, it could have been the common room of any tavern, aside from the lack of a bar—that, and the fact that the row of wooden doors along the far wall had iron bars crossing their small windows.
    “I see the girl before we talk,” said Kavi. Both Sim and Hama knew better than to give the town guard their names.
    The guard stiffened, studied Kavi’s face, and then shrugged and led the way across to one of the cells. The other guards barely glanced up from their game.
    The cell was almost as dark as the alley outside. Kavi could barely see the small form huddled in one corner. “Hey, girl,” he called softly. “You all right in there?”
    The huddled form shot upright with all of Hama’s usual awkward energy, and Kavi’s worst worry faded.
    “What are you doing here?” Close up, the window shed enough light for him to see her face. She looked tense and angry, but there were no tears. Not from Hama.
    “Come to buy you out. But I wanted to make sure you were all right first.”
    “Of course I’m all right. I know better than to be fighting the—oh, no, nothing like that. But, Kavi…curse him with all the djinn in the pit, have you heard what he’s asking?”
    “No.” Kavi suppressed a qualm. How much could it be, after all? “Don’t worry. Whatever he’s asking, we’ll get it.”
    He turned away, nodding his satisfaction to the guard, who looked indignant. “You think I’d rape a child? Or anyone? You think even if I wanted to—which I don’t!—the others would let me?”
    “Not at all, good sir,” Kavi lied easily. “But her mother told me to ask. You know how mothers are.”
    “Humph.” The guard was herding him back toward the door to the alley. “Well, she’s in no danger of that, but she might be getting a flogging—even lose a finger or two—if the magister’s feeling nasty.”
    “That’s a terrible thing for a girl so young,” said Kavi, stepping out into the alley’s cool darkness. “Surely a man like you, a good man, has enough compassion to keep a child like that from the magister’s clutches.”
    It was the standard, reassuring opening to bargaining situations like this one. Depending on how deep a veneer of respectability the guard wanted to put up, he might bemoan the conflict between his compassion and his duty for quite some time before he named his price.
    They’d reached the alley’s entrance now, and the guard stopped. Moonlight glimmered on his perspiring face. “I want forty gold eagles.”
    “ What? Forty eagles ?” For once the outraged shock in Kavi’s voice wasn’t feigned. “That’s absurd. That’s insane! If her family had that kind of money, she wouldn’t be needing to steal!”
    “To support her poor starving mother?” The guard snorted. “Well, I got a poor starving mother too. I can give you nine days to raise it, but if I’m not seeing forty eagles by the fourth day of Ram, the girl takes her chances with the magister.” His voice was inexorable with panic. And why nine days?
    “Your poor starving mother has a fondness for the dice, does she?” Kavi guessed. “Or did she bet too much on the last flags-and-lances match?” A hiss of indrawn breath told him he’d struck the mark. “Azura’s eyes, man! You must have