Tremendous thanks to Nthusiastic for beta reading, helping edit, and making suggestions/good catches!
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Isonei beamed as the new servant, Rimathe, finished relaying a story of his mother schooling a young priest on his prayers at their temple when he was a child, telling him gleefully,
"Draeseth says that Torgan women are strident, but I can't imagine one correcting a priest. If you make a Lerian woman chide you with more than a look you'll regret it! They can make themselves heard!"
She and Rimathe laughed as Krouth finished translating for Mes and Hodrim.
"My mother was a very proud woman and she enjoyed proving to people that her green, Lerian eyes didn't mean she was ignorant."
The green-eyed man finished his glass and she offered him more of the honey wine,
"No. Thank you, your Grace. I wish there had been more of the fish. That was excellent."
"The cook is wonderful. He makes me wish I could eat more."
Hodrim tentatively offered his glass and Isonei grinned impishly at him as she gave him just a bit more. "My father would only let me drink wine with him if I told him exactly what I thought of it and what I tasted. My mothers would chide him when they came home and found us sipping wines he'd bought from Leria or other Aran winemakers. It was one thing to let me have our wine and another entirely to let me drink someone else's."
"I wasn't permitted to have wine until I was nearly of age." Mes dimpled at her. "My mother made her own wine for parties, I don't think I know anyone who ever bought wine in Mun."
"My father was very sour about that!" Isonei grinned, "He could sell lavendela oil and herbs but not our wine to the merchants from Mun. We're proudest of our wine. He said they gave fair prices but they were always so tight with their purses it drove him mad."
Mes laughed and sipped what was left in her cup. "My father said Aran merchants were shrewd but honest. Farther north you could make more profit but there was much more risk." Her smile faded.
The Torgan boy asked a curious question and Krouth answered him hurriedly. Isonei looked to Mes. "He asked why I chose to come here, so far from my family. Master Krouth told him that sometimes we don't have a choice."
"No one should be kept from home and family. What was done to you and to Krouth was wrong and should never have been permitted."
Krouth relayed her words quietly and Rimathe frowned, speaking up,
"I think what was done to Master Krouth was worse-"
"If I tore you from home and family, degraded you and hurt you, forced you to participate in it, but treated someone else worse, would that lessen the wrong done to you?"
The green-eyed servant blinked and bowed his head under her gelid scowl.
"No, your Grace. It would not."
He rose and offered a low bow to both herself and to Mes.
"Forgive my sharpness, but I have very strong feelings about enslavement and if you will be with us you will be as kind to Mes as if she were your sister. I do not tolerate unkindness or cruelty."
"I understand, your Grace. My mother felt the same. She helped a local innkeeper purchase his wife from a traveling merchant, on the promise the woman be given her freedom immediately without any demands being made of her. The woman was half Torgan, half Karisian and the law that says all Torgans are free on Torgan soil did not apply to her."
Isonei blinked and tried to remember the name of the peculiar looking innkeeper's wife.
"Was her name Urzul? The woman your mother helped?"
He smiled in bemusement,
"Yes, your Grace. You know of her?"
"I met her when I first arrived in Torga. She and her daughter, uhhmm, Dura, I think, made certain I was dressed warmly and gave me a bowl of a very nice goat stew in a bread bowl."
Rimathe's face split in a pleased grin,
"Yes! I've had her stew. It's as good as my mother's. She's a good woman."
"She seemed like one."
"You would have been able to speak with her more if you had not sent me away." Krouth sipped his wine with a look of annoyance.
"I was very angry with you, Master Krouth. Being poisoned and stuffed naked into a barrel didn't leave me in a good state of mind. Draeseth said it was your idea when he pulled me out."
The slim servant looked bitterly amused. "I had mentioned that some women in Phaethia were transported that way as punishment. I had not meant to suggest it, your Grace." He spoke Torgan to Rimathe for a moment but it was Hodrim who interrupted indignantly.
"He says that should never have been allowed." Mes murmured, looking pleased. "You might have been cold or frightened."
"I was terrified. I woke up in the dark, being jostled and very uncomfortable. The air was..." She shivered. "When I made noise to be let out, they began to laugh and I realized they were speaking Torgan. Draeseth wouldn't have laughed and he would have done something to reassure me even if he didn't intend to let me out yet. I thought..." She took a breath looking into the middle distance of memory, "I thought he might be hanging from Lothlaerith's Gate or be held in Leria until I was returned and that I was alone and naked with strangers whose intent I didn't know. I prayed for a quick and painless death."
Even Krouth looked taken aback. "I did not know, your Grace. His Highness said you were whispering a prayer for death with he opened the barrel but..." He rose and bowed.
"I wasn't in a good state of mind after that, and I wanted someone to be punished. I had always thought it was better to err on the side of mercy. It was very fortunate that, when I was the most upset, Draeseth was sensible enough not to listen to my anger. It would be a loss, not only to him but to everyone, if you had been killed. You're a good man and the world needs more of them." Isonei placed her hand over her heart and Krouth resumed his seat looking dumbfounded.
Rimathe asked a question and Mes answered at length. The Munian woman looked to Krouth when she'd finished and added something that made him smile before he caught himself.
"I told him that you snapped at Lady Lislora when she said he'd been a bad influence on me."
Isonei smiled and took a deep breath, glancing to Hodrim. The boy had been better behaved than she would have been in his circumstances, with so much of the conversation being undoubtedly dull to a child and in languages he didn't understand. "I need to learn Torgan so that we can all converse in the same language. Dear Hodrim has been so well behaved, he must be bored to tears."
Mes spoke to the child with amusement and he shook his head with a shy smile as he answered her.
"He says he likes to listen to you, your Grace. Even if he can't understand you, your voice is gentle and comforting."
"He is an intelligent boy, I believe he will learn Aran and Lerian quickly with a tutor; more quickly than you may learn Torgan, your Grace." Krouth inclined his head slightly as he spoke.
"You're probably right. It took me a very long time to learn Lerian." Isonei chose not to take offense. "Did you have a tutor, Master Krouth?" The slim man rose and began to clear the table and she gave him a baffled frown. "Krouth?"
The Munian woman asked a quiet question and he answered her in what sounded like Phaethian. Mes winced. "That's an unpleasant topic, your Grace."
"I won't pry." Isonei finished her wine with a concerned frown.
Lapsing into Torgan, the green-eyed servant spoke in a perplexed tone and Krouth answered him stiffly. Hodrim seemed unhappy with something that had been said and spoke firmly gesturing toward her. The slim Torgan servant sank slowly back into his seat.
"There is no word in Aran for my duties in Phaethia as a child, your Grace. I was castrated, which you know, and I spent my childhood and youth receiving the punishment meant for a noble's sons. I was present during their lessons and when they did not pay attention, I was struck. I was not intended to benefit from their education but I was more clever than they were. They outgrew their need for me and I persuaded my owner to sell me at the auction the Torgan Princes would be attending." Krouth sat stiffly in his seat and his face was impassive. "I would not have brought a high price from a Phaethian, but Torgans are known to be less savvy purchasers. Prince Draeseth bought me and set me free the moment we entered his private rooms. I am a Torgan, and no matter what has been done to us, we are not slaves." He lifted his eyes proudly.
Isonei realized her hands had clenched into fists and it took a moment to find her voice, "What are their names? If I can't punish that wretched Empire, I will do all I can to see those people, specifically, punished. That is not a crime that deserves mercy."
His face softened slightly, "I have already seen to it that poisonous whispers fell into the right ears, your Grace. I received my revenge. Knowing that you will not support the Empire here in Torga is enough for me."
"Why didn't you tell me? I would have-"
"You would have made an enemy of Princess Kresh the moment you saw her instead of taking the wiser, less combative course. It has been gratifying to see you come to the conclusion of the Empire's monstrousness without being prodded toward it." He smiled faintly, "Prince Draeseth found my talent for languages useful. He allowed me to study Aran and Lerian, and to train at the temple for a time. I learned a great deal about herbs from reading their books and speaking to the Hallocs."
"Why didn't you chose to be a priest? You'd have made a good one."
Krouth's shoulder's straightened and his smile grew proud for a moment, "I was invited to do so, and I considered it, but I wished to serve Prince Draeseth."
She opened her mouth to speak but the bedroom door opened and Draeseth began to mutter in Torgan. Everyone rose and the side tables that had been brought together to make one for them all to sit at were cleared and pulled apart in a flurry of activity as she made her way to the stacked chairs.
"I insisted that you not be disturbed, Rogath moved them from the door to here." Isonei gave him an impish grin as he stood in his robe, with a look of annoyed amusement spreading over his face.
"I had forgotten about the chairs. He will tease me tomorrow." Draeseth pushed them out of the way carefully and then closed the door before he unstacked them, putting them back in their places. "I was going to ask Krouth to find something for us to eat." He looked at the table with a wry smile. "This is your doing?"
"It is! I thought the two of you might want lunch at some point." Wrapping her arms around his waist, she squeezed him.
He made a pleased sound in his throat. "My loving wife, I did not expect you to be cold when I emerged but I did not expect to be embraced either."
"Krouth talked about when you set him free. I don't think I've ever felt prouder of you. I just wish you understood that it isn't only Torgans that should never be slaves." Tilting her face up she gave him a broad, proud smile and watched him light up.
"For that look, I would die trying to make you proud." Draeseth stooped and kissed her but when he lifted his head he frowned, "Lislora wishes to spend the night in our bed. I did not give her an answer."
