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

lived during the reign of Kay Kobad, and even though Rostam was as greatly blessed with the divine farr as any man has ever been, that very quality kept him loyal to his gahn.
    Others were not as noble. For many years Kay Kobad’s cousin, Saman, had tried to take the Ghanate from him. But eventually Saman grew older, and Kay Kobad decided to try to make peace with his cousin. He chose Rostam to be his ambassador, for he trusted Rostam’s honor in the face of any bribe or threat, and even Rostam’s enemies respected him.
    So Rostam came to the manor of Saman under flag of truce, riding at the head of his troop, as a commander should. His robes were silk, embroidered with gold that shone like Azura’s own sun; his helm was chased with gold, and even the barding of his steed, Rakesh, gleamed in the sunlight. Only the mace at his side was of plain, battered steel.
    But it was not the wealth of Rostam’s accoutrements that caught the eye of the young woman who walked with her maid in the garden of her father’s estate. It was the keen nobility of his features, the grace and might of his limbs, and, above all, the divine farr, which showed itself in everything about him, as if he were himself a gahn.
    Tahmina, the youngest daughter of Saman, turned to her maid. “Who is this man?”

Chapter Four
Soraya
    T HE ROBES WERE RICHER than any Soraya had ever seen, so crusted with gold embroidery that they could probably stand upright without her inside them. She gazed gloomily in the polished, steel mirror, watching the maids hustle about the small room, under Sudaba’s vigilant gaze. Once, as a child, she had wiggled into her father’s cuirass and put on his helm, which promptly covered her eyes. She’d been all but blind, staggering down the gallery to show off her finery. She swore these robes were even heavier.
    But at least she could see. In fact, Sudaba had braided all her hair back from her face, dressing it even more elaborately than her own. Soraya thought she’d seen an eagle’s drab feather among the hawk feathers her mother braided in, but that had to be wrong. Eagle feathers could be worn only by the gahn and his immediate family, those closest to Azura among men, just as the eagle was closest to him among birds. And Sudaba would never make such a mistake. Which could only mean her mother had done it on purpose. Defiance? Insult? But to whom? And why ? Layers within layers.
    Soraya unclenched her teeth and took a deep breath, trying to slow her pounding heart. She’d been in the city for over a week while this farce was being prepared, and she hadn’t been allowed to see her father once. She’d become so desperate to find out more about his plans that she had approached her mother. Unlike her father, Sudaba took Soraya’s marriage seriously. But the only time Soraya had succeeded in getting her mother alone, Sudaba refused to tell her anything except that her father had everything under control and that all Soraya had to do was obey. She had stressed the final word firmly enough to silence her daughter.
    I could obey better if I knew more about what was going on, Soraya thought for at least the hundredth time. But perhaps she should look on the bright side: Once she was “sacrificed,” in an outland hovel, no one would braid her hair so tightly that her scalp ached.
    Yet another maid entered and approached Sudaba. “Lady, it is time.”
    In an ordinary household the maids would probably be half-blood children, like Jiaan, or the descendants of such—sisters of the men who provided the deghans with foot soldiers and archers when they went to fight. But in the gahn’s household the maids weren’t peasants, but the second, third, or fourth daughters of the poorer deghans. They had watched her, surreptitiously, as they helped her dress. Soraya wondered who they reported to. Layers within layers. She suppressed a shiver.
    “Soraya?” said her mother.
    “Yes. I’m ready.” She turned from the mirror and