by Victor Poole
Ajalia stood in the open door, and watched the old man beat at the wood. The old man was over sixty, and had a grizzled shag of dirty white hair that hung over his neck. His hands were thick and broad. The smashed wood made a smell like crushed fruit. On the opposite side of the courtyard, Ajalia could see a garbage pit similar to the one she had seen behind Eccsa's house. The pit was filled with a black fluid, and a pair of orange working pants were sizzling on the top, gradually melting into the pool of black sludge.
"Hello," Ajalia said. Her Slavithe was good enough to pass with the natives, and the man did not look around.
"See my daughter about the bread," the old man said. His voice was raspy and deep. He reminded Ajalia of the way her grandfather had looked before he had died.
"I'm not here about the bread," Ajalia said. She moved across the courtyard, and stood at the opposite end of the bench.
"Who are you?" the man said. He had looked up, and seen Ajalia's foreign clothes. Her hair was secured on the top of her head with a pair of silver pins, and she had not taken the last bit of paint from the edges of her cheeks and eyes. Her face was like a flame of vivid color, just a little more than human. Orange and red scraped at the edges of her cheeks, and there were shadows of black just under her eyes.
"Gevad has disposed of his estate," Ajalia said. She drew the sheaf of papers out of her robes. The man stood up.
"I heard about Gevad," he said. He held out his hand for the papers. Ajalia turned to the page with the list of names.
"I think you are free from my list," Ajalia said, "but the house was once Gevad's."
"I know the house was," the man said. His eyes turned reflectively towards the paper. Ajalia was holding it so that he could not see the writing on the page.
"What is your name?" Ajalia asked.
"Who wants to know?" the old man asked cagily. Ajalia sighed.
"What are you making here?" she asked, sitting at the bench. She turned the papers upside down, and tucked them under her leg.
"You are from far away," the old man said.
"I am," Ajalia admitted. She examined the old man's face. "It would be easier," she added, "if I spoke to you. Chad is difficult."
"Who is Chad?" the old man asked swiftly.
"Chad is the acting agent for the new owner. Chad is not very bright," Ajalia said.
"And who are you?" the old man asked. He was peering at Ajalia now with beetle bright eyes. A shard of cunning was shining out of his face towards her.
"I am seeing what I can get out of this transition," Ajalia said. The old man watched her carefully.
"I would like to meet this Chad person," he said finally.
Ajalia picked up the block of yellow wood. It was as long as her forearm, and the red shape inside proved to be some kind of hardened fruit.
"Chad is at the door, gossiping," Ajalia said. She turned the wooden block, so that the sun shone on the red surface within. The old man examined Ajalia, and then ducked into the house. Ajalia picked up the dark rock that the old man was using as a tool. The rock had a roughly chipped surface, as though it had been beaten into shape with a piece of crude metal.
Ajalia lifted a piece of crushed yellow wood to her face, and sniffed it. The aroma of juicy fruit was oppressively tart when the wood was near her skin. Ajalia pressed her fingers into the wood pulp; a vague yellow smear came away on her fingers. The film was tacky, and smelled like fruity sunlight.
The old man came back into the open courtyard, and took the dark stone and the block of wood from Ajalia.
"That young man is of negligible intelligence," he said with grim satisfaction.
"Yes," Ajalia said encouragingly.
"Has a brain like a bowl of mashed dirt," the old man added.
"He has a soft spot for me," Ajalia told the old man.
"My deepest condolences," the old man said.
"How much rent are you paying right now?" Ajalia asked. The old man considered her. She could see the wheels turning in his head.
"My name's Card," he said finally. His lips made a kind of pressing motion when he spoke, as though he were about to weep.
Ajalia retrieved her list, and went over the names.
"You won't find me there," the old man told her. "But my daughter is on the list."
"Name?" Ajalia asked. Her tone was brisk.
The old man considered her one more time.
"Daila," he said.
Ajalia found the old man's daughter in her sheaf of papers. She found the number for the debt, and her heart did a flip-flop of happiness.
"That's a great deal of money," Ajalia said blandly.
The old man said nothing, but his jaw hardened.
Ajalia looked at him, and her lips curved into the smile of a vicious animal.
"I want to trick Chad," she told the old man.
A muscle in the old man's neck twitched.
"Tricking the owner's agent would be highly dishonest," the old man told her.
Ajalia's smile deepened.
"I agree," she said. She tore off a piece of the paper, and asked the old man if he had anything with which to write. The old man gave her a piece of hard pencil from his pocket, and Ajalia scribbled on the long scrap of paper. She handed the paper to the old man, and he rose and took it to the wall that ran around the courtyard.
The old man stood for a long time in the sun, the yellowed shock of white hair draggling over his neck, his face still and impassive. He turned the paper into the light, and examined the words. Ajalia watched him. She felt that this man Card was her first piece of good fortune since coming to this white city. She watched the old man walk heavily to the garbage heap, and put the scrap of paper into the bubbling black tar. The paper dissolved into a hiss of steam, and the garbage pile gave up a loud bubble where the paper had lain.
The old man crossed to Ajalia, and held out his hand. Ajalia shook his hand; his grip was firm, like a living tree.
"Come," Ajalia said, and she folded the sheaf of papers into her robe. The old man left his tools lying on the bench. He followed her into the house.
THE MOUNTAIN QUARRIES
When Ajalia and the old man reached the quarries, the sun was sinking low over the mountains. Card had turned voluble in the long mountain pass; he had told her most of his life history, and the long saga of his daughter's disastrous marriage to a spendthrift son of a wealthy merchant. His daughter's husband had died in a sudden illness shortly after he had been disowned by his father; the dead man's wife and child had been sold to Gevad to clear most of his debts.
"I did not want to take her back," Card told Ajalia as they went over the final hill, and came in sight of the row of squat dwellings that clustered on one side of the quarry road. The houses were low and square. Many of them were stacked on top of one another, their entrances made accessible by long wooden ladders bound together with narrow ropes. The road ran down in a steep incline of gray stone to the long quarry, where men were sifting crumbled stone into baskets, and loading them into long wagons.
"I wouldn't have taken her back," Card said, "if her husband had been honest. I believe in facing the life you make for yourself. But I met the man, before he died. I saw him lie. He was an awful husband. I had thought, before I saw him, that my daughter had been a wastrel. He tricked her, so I took her back."
Card had told her of his and his daughter's struggling business, hustling bread for the eateries in the markets, and living in abandoned housing to save on rent.
Card showed her the way the houses were numbered in the quarries. He pointed out the places where her first servants were lodged.
"Why are they here?" she asked him, when she saw that they were women and children.
Card shrugged.
"They can't afford anywhere else," he said. "Anything in the city takes money. Here they can live on the rocks. Most of the women work the quarry as well, and the children carry as much as they can lift."
Ajalia stood beneath the first square hut that wa
s listed as belonging to Gevad, and considered the building materials, which seemed to have been pulled out of a trash heap.
"This is impossible," she told Card.
"Yes," Card said.
"And it will never work," Ajalia said.
"No, I don't think it will work," Card said.
Ajalia looked at Card. Card looked up at the house.
"Well," Ajalia said, and she put her hands on the rungs of the ladder. The long pieces of the ladder were thin poles of wood that had been strapped to each other with leather thongs. When Ajalia put her foot onto the lowest rung, she found that the construction was sturdier than it looked. She climbed up to the hut, which was above one square dwelling and below another. A narrow ledge ran for a short length in front of the door, which was a mat woven out of yellow plant fibers.
Ajalia raised her hand, and lowered it. She did not think the hut would hold up against a knock.
"Hello?" she called. "Can I come in?"
The mat over the entrance swished to one side. Ajalia peered in, and saw a young woman, and two little boys. They were sitting around a pile of rocks that were black, and the two boys were putting pebbles into a woven basket. The young woman had pushed the mat aside with a long stick. She was holding a sharp metal knife, and a pile of split plant fiber was in her lap.
The young woman said something in a language that Ajalia could not understand. It sounded like Slavithe, but was not the Slavithe Ajalia knew. The young woman spoke again, and Ajalia put her head out over the edge of the platform.
"Card," she called down to the old man, "do they speak another dialect here?"
"Tell her Gevad is dead," Card suggested.
Ajalia put her face back into the opening to the low hut.
"I've come to tell you that Gevad, the house agent, is dead," Ajalia said.
The young woman's eyes brightened, and she clapped her hands together.
"Go and tell mother," she said to the two little boys, who dropped their pebbles, and darted out of the hut and down the ladder like swift spiders. Ajalia moved to one side on the platform before they bowled her over.
"You can come in," the young woman told Ajalia. She was still holding the woven mat aside with her stick. Ajalia ducked into the hut, and sat in the place where the two little boys had been. Her fingers went to the pile of rocks in the center of the floor, and she turned over the dark pieces of stone.
"I've taken the houses and rents from Gevad," Ajalia said. Her eyes were fixed on the stones, which shone like pieces of night between her fingers. Some of the stones were pitted with brown bits of earth that crumbled away at the touch, and others were seamed with lines of gold. The young woman laid the long stick down. She held the sharp knife ready, but her eyes were fixed on Ajalia.
"I've brought with me a man from the quarries," Ajalia said. "He is prepared to negotiate terms of your mother's release from her debts, in exchange for labor and rendered goods."
The knife clattered out of the young woman's hand. Her mouth was open, and tears pooled in her eyes. Ajalia looked up at the young woman, and then looked away.
"It is my understanding that you may have been contracted in marriage for a price," Ajalia said. "If this is the case, and the marriage has yet to take place, I am prepared to nullify the contract, in exchange for a fixed term of service."
The young woman stood up so quickly that her head brushed the ceiling of the little hut. She let out a muffled shriek, and dashed out of the hut. Ajalia leaned out of the doorway; the young woman leapt down the ladder, and scrambled down the road toward the mountains, shouting in the thick dialect Ajalia had heard her use before.
Ajalia picked up a handful of the black stones; they tumbled between her fingers like shining eyes. She let them fall back onto the floor, and looked around the hut. The walls were plastered together with a pale kind of mud; they were primarily constructed of lengths of wood that had been woven through some kind of plant fiber mesh. The floor appeared to be made from a thick wedge of stone. The ceiling was of the same material as the floor. An opening showed in one corner, and Ajalia could hear the clatter of stones above her head.
In one corner of the hut was a cluster of rags and straw that had been piled into the rough shape of a bed; behind this was a series of crude hooks, from which hung three tidy jackets. There was no hint of a kitchen in the hut. Along one wall was a neat row of simple tools, and two more baskets of rocks that had been neatly separated by size. Ajalia was examining these baskets of rocks, when a creaking sound on the platform outside announced the arrival of Gevad's former servant.
The woman was in her late thirties, thickset, and with a pale forehead that receded into a nest of dusty brown hair. Her eyes were a watery blue, and her sleeves were folded back over forearms that were thickly muscled, like a man's.
"What's this about Gevad?" the woman demanded. Her eyes were narrowed, and Ajalia could see a tremor fighting through the woman's clenched jaw. "I won't be moved if he's dead," the woman said bullishly. "I had an agreement with the man, and I will not be moved."
"Gevad is not dead," Ajalia said. The woman's eyes narrowed further, and her teeth began to show. "Gevad has signed his properties over to me. I own his servants, and his debts. Any agreement you had with Gevad must now be renegotiated with me."
"I'll have you out of this house," the woman thundered, raising her arms, her eyes wild. "I won't be turned out," she said.
"No one is turning you out," Ajalia said.
"And you come telling my daughter fanciful tales of freedom, and wealth, and I don't know what," the woman continued. Her chest was heaving, and her breath was interrupted by a slight cough. Ajalia watched the woman, who was quickly beginning to cry.
"Why did you have to come?" the woman asked angrily. "We were just about to turn the corner. I had just gotten the workmen to take my stone. We were going to be free in five years." She looked more closely at Ajalia, who was sitting quietly, watching her. "You don't say much," she remarked.
"My master would buy some of these, if they shone more," Ajalia said, pointing at the baskets of rocks.
"Your master?" the woman said blankly.
"I am a slave from the Eastern lands," Ajalia said. "I am here to establish secure trade with Slavithe. I do not wish to drive you from this place."
The woman began to turn red in the face. Her hands began to flutter up in the air. As she opened her mouth to speak, Ajalia stood up.
"I have brought a man from the quarries with me," Ajalia said. "He is authorized to negotiate terms with you. If you agree to my terms, you will be free."
"You don't understand," the woman blurted out. "I don't owe Gevad money. He owns this house. I paid him to stay in this house. You cannot—" the woman hesitated, and her cheeks quivered. "You cannot help me."
"I am not helping," Ajalia said. "I need servants. I want to buy the service of your daughter, and of your sons. If you sell me their service, they will live with me in the city, and they will be trained to a trade."
The woman let out an unearthly cry of laughter. Fat tears spilled out of her eyes, and her mouth was stretched in a mask of pain.
"You do not understand," the woman gasped, fighting between chortles and sobs. "You do not understand our ways. It is too late."
"It is too late for you," Ajalia said. "It is not too late for your daughter, or for your sons."
The woman's face went suddenly still.
"You are not serious," she said. "You cannot mean this."
Ajalia looked at the woman with a blank stare.
"Why would you do this?" the woman asked.
"The desperate make loyal servants," Ajalia said. "Their gratitude fuels their desire to serve. What I do is good business. I help no one."
"You are soft," the woman said, looking at Ajalia shrewdly. "You will end badly. But I will sell you my children. There will be trouble about my oldest. A man in the city wants to buy her."
Ajalia stood up. She asked for and was given one of t
he black stones that was veined through with gold, and wrapped her fingers around it. The woman opened the mat over the door, and held it for Ajalia.
On the narrow platform outside the door, Ajalia turned and met the woman's eyes. She wanted to tell the woman that she was not soft, but she found no words in her throat. She turned away, and as she climbed down the narrow ladder, Chad appeared, gasping for air and clutching at a stitch in his side.
"You left me," Chad gasped. "Why did you leave me? I had to run to catch up."
Ajalia looked over her sheaf of papers, and went down the row of huts. Gevad had owned several of these stacked huts, and most of his debts were attached to people living in the quarries. As Ajalia climbed up the ladder to her next destination, she heard the thickset woman from the tiny hut speaking to Card; Chad interrupted, and was shushed by the older man.
Ajalia reached the highest stacked hut, and rapped sharply on the wall near the door.
"Hello," she called. "Can I come in?"
The assortment of servants that Ajalia collected from her visits to the quarries took weeks to assemble. Card and Chad went back and forth from the city to the quarries; some of the young women Ajalia wanted to buy had already undergone ceremonies, and were entangled with their new owners, and a very few of the parents in the quarries were unwilling to part with their offspring.
At long last the negotiations were complete, and Ajalia had collected a troop of young women and little boys. Families with little girls had already placed them in service in the city, and boys old enough to work were too profitable in the quarries to part with.
Many of the people indebted to Gevad were single women, or families who had fallen into debt through mismanagement. The grown daughters of these formerly well-to-do families were seen as too old to enter service; if they were beautiful, they found benefactors easily enough, or were sold into marriage when they were old enough to conduct themselves with propriety. Many of these formerly well-to-do young women had never performed hard labor, and were seen as liabilities in the households and businesses that might otherwise have purchased their services.
