The Winds of Khalakovo - Bradley P. Beaulieu [197]
“I saved your lives.”
He bowed his head. “And I am grateful, but there was no question as to how you’d be entering the palotza.”
“You will take me as I am...”
He looked at her, then to the men behind her, who had taken up the oars once more—now four strong instead of six—and were waiting for orders. “Turn ’round, men. Turn ’round.”
The streltsi did as they were ordered, dipping the starboard oars into the water and pulling hard.
“Stop,” Rehada said, but they did not listen. “Stop!” Only when she had pulled off the circlet did the sotnik nod and the streltsi pull their oars from the water. It felt like betrayal—another in a long list of them—but she could not abandon her cause. Not now. She handed the circlet to the sotnik and waited as he tied the blindfold around her head.
The boat turned and began moving steadily. The rocking had never ceased, but it was more marked now, and Rehada once again found herself fighting off nausea as they continued through the night.
They reached a cave of some kind. She could tell because the wind dropped, as did the waves, and the sound of the oars slapping in the water—as well as the grunting of the men—began to echo. The effect deepened the further they went, and eventually they ran aground.
Rehada was led out of the boat and along a short, sandy stretch. The sand turned to stone, and then Rehada was pulled to a stop. Footsteps receded, a low conversation was held somewhere up ahead, too soft to hear and too difficult to understand with the echoing.
Rehada was transferred to another man, who gripped her elbow forcefully.
Rehada felt someone’s hand reaching inside the large pocket of the cherkesska she still wore. “Your circlet will remain here,” the sotnik said. She guessed it was as much for the other man’s benefit as it was hers. “May the fates guide your way,” he said, offering her an ancient Aramahn saying at their parting. He kissed her forehead, quickly, tenderly, and then his footsteps receded and she was led deeper into the cave.
They came upon an incline and eventually stairs. She was terribly cold now, though she didn’t know why it had taken so long to register. The wind upon the open sea had been much colder, but the memories of the goedrun and the threat of dry heaving were the foremost in her mind. Now there was time to think. And feel.
She tripped several times, for the man said little while guiding her upward.
“It would go faster if I could see.”
“The blindfold remains,” he said gruffly.
The climb upward was interminably long. Sweat tickled her scalp. It ran down her forehead and the small of her back. Her legs burned terribly, to the point where she had to ask to rest several times on the ascent, until finally they came to a place that felt warmer.
“Wait here,” the gruff man told her. His heavy footsteps receded and another hushed conversation was held. Then a door opened and closed with a heavy and echoing thud.
She waited, standing, not knowing where the man had gone, not knowing where she was, though she assumed she now stood in the bowels of Radiskoye.
Now that she was still she realized it was not warm at all. It had merely been the exertion and the relative increase in temperature that had given her that impression. The sweat on her body was drying and the cool air of the room was beginning to sink deep beneath her skin, so she found herself shivering horribly, an impression she did not want to give.
She began to wonder why she was being left alone for so long. Though her hands were tied she could easily have taken the rope off, but she did not want to be found with it off after she had been told to keep it on, despite how foolish it seemed now that they had come so far. She had felt like this many times before—being placed in a position of subservience to the Landed. They seemed to revel in it—keeping the Aramahn beneath them—and she found some of her old hatred returning. She wondered if she had made a mistake by coming here, whether she should fabricate a story and let Soroush do what he would. Let fate take its natural course.
But