It took two days to gather the people from the surrounding country to hear the Blessed Lady’s words, two days suffering through the feast Mentari organised in her honour and a round of petitions, by far her least favourite occupation. She gave judgement in only the most clear-cut cases and had Arentes note the others for dispatch to Veliss. Despite the apparent comfort and security enjoyed by these people the petitions did give an insight into the fact that war didn’t have to visit your doorstep to cause ill. Complaints abounded of refugees from the east stealing produce and livestock or occupying land they didn’t own, and whilst Tokrev’s armies might not have marched here, his slavers certainly had; weeping mothers telling of sons and daughters stolen in raids. For all their sorrow, Reva took a grim comfort from these tales, her task made easier by the Volarians’ talent for birthing hate in every soul they touched.
She read the edict on the evening of the second day, standing on the porch of Mentari’s house as people crowded the space below, a broad avenue surrounding an elegant fountain of bronze. This time the murmuring was louder when she finished, and the expressions of the crowd not so rapt. However, despite the evident discomfort, there was no open dissent or shouts of disapproval and plenty of godly souls to voice their approval as the Blessed Lady told her lie.
“An eleventh book,” Lord Mentari breathed as she stepped down, the crowd still cheering. “To think I would live to see such a thing.”
“We live in changing times, my lord.” Reva accepted the book Arentes handed to her and checked the notes Veliss had provided on this region. “My honoured advisor calculates your quota as a minimum of two thousand men of fighting age, accounting for recent troubles and the census compiled five years ago. I’m sure the Father will smile upon you should it be exceeded.”
• • •
Touring the entire fief took the best part of a month, town after town, village after village, some swollen with refugees, others nearly empty as many of the occupants had fled in advance of the expected Volarian onslaught. She found her lie most readily welcomed in those places rich in the dispossessed, many of whom had firsthand experience of the enemy’s nature. Even in places where none had been scathed by the war, there were still plenty of willing ears keen to hear the Blessed Lady’s words, though not all were so open to the Father’s message.
“Got four sons and the queen wants three of them,” said a burly woman in a village in the south-western riverlands. People here were renowned for their hardiness, scratching a living from the eel-pots with which they harvested the myriad waterways surrounding their homes, settlements often limited to no more than a few houses and rarely accompanied by a church. The woman glared at Reva as the assembled villagers gave a murmur of agreement, though some were clearly intimidated by Arentes and his fifty guardsmen. The glaring woman, however, paid them no heed at all. “How’s a family s’posed to feed itself with no hands to work the boats and haul the pots?”
“No one will go hungry,” Reva assured her. “Any additional food required will be provided by House Mustor and the queen at no charge.”
“Heard promises from your house before,” the woman replied. “When my husband got dragged off to get his throat cut by those Asraelin bastards. Now you want us to fight for them.”
“This fief was saved by Asraelin hands,” Reva said. “And Nilsaelins, folk from the Northern Reaches, the Seordah and the Eorhil. At Varinshold I fought alongside Meldeneans and Renfaelins. The old age is dead, now we fight for each other.”
The woman pointed a finger at Reva, her voice rising to an angry growl. “You fight for them, girl. I don’t know them, never seen these . . . Volarans you talk of, and any liar can claim to talk with the Father’s voice.”
The guardsmen immediately snapped to attention, their sergeant stepping forward with sword half-drawn before Reva barked at him to halt. “She speaks blasphemy and treason, my lady,” the sergeant said, face rigid with fury as he glared at the woman in the crowd, now standing alone as her fellow villagers moved back, any former sympathy abruptly forgotten. Despite the lack of support the woman stood her ground, glaring at Reva with no sign of fear or regret on her weathered features as the sergeant spoke on, “You were not at Alltor. You did not see what the Blessed Lady did for us. But for her, you, your sons and this village would now be nothing but ash and bone. You owe her everything, as do we all.”
The woman’s gaze didn’t shift from Reva. “Then you’d best hang me, lady. For my sons aren’t yours to take, Father’s word or no.”
Reva’s eyes scanned the crowd, picking out three young men near the back, two of them clearly cowed by the circumstance, heads lowered and no doubt praying for the confrontation to end, but the tallest stood regarding the burly woman with a grim resentment.
