you hadn’t been there, we couldn’t leave him in the state he was in. Then—’
‘That’s the charity part,’ Xejen broke in. ‘And as for you, well, Bakkara made the entirely understandable mistake of assuming you were still well connected in the high families, and that you may prove very useful in attracting Blood Koli to come to our defence, to heighten the profile of our plight.’
Bakkara looked abashed and gave an apologetic shrug, but Mishani was not concerned with that. She did not take it personally.
‘By the time you had come to my attention, the gates had been shut and we could not very well let you out,’ Xejen chattered on. ‘Of course, I realised immediately that you did not possess the worth that Bakkara imagined – excuse my plain speaking – because I knew that you and your father were very much at odds. And since you are, after all, something of a heroine to the Ais Maraxa, I would hardly use you as a bargaining chip and deliver you to him.’
‘I am relieved to hear it,’ Mishani said. ‘Am I to take it, then, that my relationship with my father is known to the Ais Maraxa?’
‘Only myself and a few others,’ Xejen replied almost before she had finished her sentence. ‘Many of us were part of the upper echelons of the Libera Dramach, don’t forget; and we were there when you came to the Fold. But your secret is safe. I understand you have been a great help to the Libera Dramach by trading on the illusion that you are still a part of Blood Koli.’
‘I still am, as far as I am aware,’ Mishani said. ‘Legally, at least. My father has not cut me off yet.’ Though he had tried to kill her twice, she added mentally.
‘Your mother’s latest book has not helped matters in your case, I imagine,’ Xejen commented.
‘That remains to be seen,’ Mishani said. Truthfully, she had not even begun to consider the implications that Muraki tu Koli’s latest collection of Nida-jan tales might have.
Xejen cleared his throat, wandering restlessly to the other side of the room. Mishani found his constant motion dizzying.
‘I’ll not dance around the issue, Mistress Mishani,’ he said. ‘You’d be a great asset to our cause. One of Lucia’s rescuers. Someone who knows her intimately.’ He looked up at her sharply. ‘You’d do wonders for the morale of these townsfolk, and lend the Ais Maraxa a good deal of credibility.’
‘What are you asking me to do?’ she prompted.
Xejen stopped for a brief instant. ‘To support us. Publicly.’
Mishani considered for a moment.
‘There are things I would learn first,’ she said.
‘Ah,’ said Xejen. ‘Then I will do the best I can to answer any questions you have.’
‘What are you doing here in Zila?’ Mishani asked, her keen eyes studying him from within the black mass of her hair. ‘What purpose does it serve the Ais Maraxa?’
‘Notoriety,’ came the reply. ‘It has been some years since we first learned of the sublimity of the Heir-Empress Lucia, some time since we broke away from the Libera Dramach whose more . . .’ he waved his hand, searching for the word, ‘secular appreciation of her was blinkering them to the wider picture. In that time the Ais Maraxa have striven to spread the news that there exists one to deliver us from the evil of the Weavers, to end the oppression of the peasantry and to turn back the blight that ruins our land.’
Mishani watched him carefully as his rhetoric became more heated. She knew Bakkara had meant his comment about Xejen being a zealot as a joke, but she was conscious that there was a grain of truth in what the soldier had said, and now that she met him she suspected that Bakkara was not entirely at ease with his leader.
‘But spreading the word is not enough,’ Xejen continued, wagging a finger in the air. ‘The Heir-Empress is a rumour, a whisper of hope, but the people need more than rumours to motivate them. We need to be a threat that is taken seriously. We need the high families talking about us, so that their servants see they are worried . . . so that they see that even the most noble and powerful are afraid of the followers of Lucia. Then they’ll believe, and they’ll come to her when she calls, when she returns in glory to take the throne.’
He was gazing out of the window into the night now. Mishani cast