After the Evening Bells

5

That afternoon, while she tidied the house and prepared fish stew for the evening, Kellah's emotions vacillated between heartbreak and rage. Maybe she would tell Haman she hated him and never wanted to see him again. Or else maybe she would just kill herself. That would show him—although unfortunately, she realized, her death would preclude her from enjoying this particular form of revenge. Even her best plans were flawed.

It wasn't until that evening—overhearing the conversation of Farek and her father—that she learned what had happened in town. Two Redcloaks had been kidnapped from an alehouse the night before and were subsequently tortured and killed, their throats slit roughly, before being hung by their capes within sight of the makeshift Imperial Administration Office. The words RED CLOAKS GO HOME had been written in blood behind where the two men hung.

Both Kellah's father and brother agreed the violence was not something to be condoned, and yet, what did the Redcloaks expect? This was their home, their country, and it was being treated as if it were one of the Provinces. When Kellah suggested it seemed a little ungrateful how the Redcloaks were being treated, seeing as they fought and died to keep their enemies at bay in the West, Farek commented to her father that it was clear why they ought not to let women participate in politics.

Three days later—after the three supposed perpetrators of the attack on the Redcloaks, as well as their two dozen "co-conspirators," had all been rounded up and hung—word came that, in light of the killings, the Redcloaks would be removing all soldiers from Bajiran and that they would instead only keep a contingent in Zabiz on the sea; if the Bajirani hated their Redcloak protectors so much then they might as well see what it was like without them. The night the news came there was celebrating and music and dancing in the streets—although Kellah only heard about this second-hand from Megah, since her own father forbid her from joining the festivities for fear that violence would break out.