Page 36 of Oath of the Wolf
“They also speak the language,” Brynn admitted, then added.“Your interpreter had not arrived last night when we made this plan.”
“Yes.”Tullia glanced over her shoulder to Lena.“That one lacks the backbone for bartering, I think.Far too timid.”
If possible, Lena shrank even more into herself.
“Just as well.This way, Lady Brynn.”Tullia tugged Brynn through the crowd, her servants and attendants falling in around her.
Guin padded alongside Brynn’s skirts, tail and ears up as she investigated their surroundings.
Brynn noticed that two of Tullia’s attendants were lanky men made bulky by their weapons.They also appeared to be wearing mail under their cloaks.How odd that Tullia had armed guards when her father did not.
“Do you like them?”Tullia asked, glancing over her shoulder.“I picked them up in Kersus.All the great ladies there have eunuchs as guards.They don’t speak Valdari yet, but we are working on that.”
Brynn’s mother had told her of the Kelethi practice of mutilating boys and young men.Brynn didn’t know where Kersus was, but she assumed somewhere in the southeast.
Making eunuchs had been outlawed for decades, but the Kelethi government was still almost entirely run by the household eunuchs of powerful families.So, slaves were castrated elsewhere and brought into the empire after.With their manhood completely severed, not only were eunuchs left with no place in society beyond what their masters offered but they were left unable to urinate without assistance.Brynn’s mother had told her in a detached, scholarly tone that they carried quills for the purpose.
It had sounded horrific then and seemed equally horrific now, but Brynn tried to mask her thoughts.
“I’ve been wanting to buy another eunuch,” Tullia mused.“One that has his letters and can write for me.I’d like to have a written history of Valdar and my father’s conquests.What do you think?”
“I think you are quite far-thinking, lady.”Brynn chose her words carefully.“Very learned as well.”
Tullia was magnificent in every way.As tall as a man and dressed in lush fabrics, she moved with utter confidence.She spoke Hyldish effortlessly.Everything about her testified to a quick mind and indomitable personality.Tullia seemed like a woman who had yet to meet an obstacle she could not overcome through sheer force of will.
It was hard to guess her age, but she must be around thirty, assuming Ovrek had been about thirty when he married Sifma, who was probably younger.Tullia was at the age where she had both the gift of experience and the zeal of youth.
“I speak Valdari, Hyldish, Ramthi, and a little Azric.”Tullia sounded flippant, as if those foreign tongues had come easily to her and were barely worth mentioning.“Writing does challenge me, but I can make myself understood in most ports.For years, I handled trade with the south for my father.”
“You must be very well-traveled.”
“More than most, but less than some.”Tullia smiled almost wistfully.“My husband and I sailed to Kelethi and back a few times.That was exciting.”
“It sounds like it.”Brynn didn’t have to feign her sincerity.“Will I meet your husband?”
Tullia shook her head.“He’s dead.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.He was an oaf, but an agreeable oaf.I only wish I’d gotten a son from him before he died.”Tullia let off a sigh that sounded regretful, but not particularly grieved.
Then again, Brynn didn’t know this woman at all.Who was she to judge whether Tullia was grieving?
“My father will hand me off to another oaf, and I will try to manage this one better.Meanwhile, my dear brother will keep swyving his way through the house thralls all while pining over the girl who rejected him.”
Brynn had no idea how to respond to that.
Tullia waved her hand in the air.“My brother thinks using his cock makes him a man.”Tullia laughed, shaking her head.She indicated her eunuchs.“I have better men right here and neither one has a cock.”
“I think we have all wished to be men at some point,” Brynn admitted softly.She had—as soon as she had been able to understand why she had been such a disappointment to her father.
“Why should I wish to be a man?”Tullia demanded.“What is wrong with being a woman?”
“I meant no offense.”
Tullia waved her hand as if to say it was nothing.“I used to spar with spears against Cenric and the others around his age.Did he tell you that?”
“No,” Brynn admitted.“But Cenric has not told me much of his training.”
