by Victor Poole
Ajalia's arms were still bare; her cupped cream sleeves fell just over her elbows, and the angry streams of rushing blood beneath the surface of her skin made hideous shadows under her scars. Ajalia had seen Calles's eyes take in the horrible bruising, but the fabric merchant's wife was too circumspect to show that she had seen.
"Nam must learn to be responsible with money," Ajalia told Calles. "Your patience with her is a great favor to me."
Calles smiled again with pleasure; Ajalia knew that the fabric merchant's wife would have pressed the gown on her without payment if she thought Ajalia would have accepted. Calles worked out the amount with Nam, who grudgingly counted out the coins and gave them to the fabric merchant's wife. Ajalia took her purse back from Nam, and went back out into the fabric stall. She purchased three short lengths of light green fabric from Calles, and made Nam pay with the small coin she had given the girl earlier. Nam grumbled about this, and Calles chastised her roundly for her disobedience.
At last they left the market stall, and Ajalia left Nam standing in the street for a moment to duck into an eatery. Emerging a little later with a steaming basket, she took the young woman back to the little house. Eisle was gone, and the three remaining girls were gathered around a bowl of cold soup in the kitchen.
"I put those things up in the top room," Ossa said right away.
"And we threw out the hair," Sun put in.
"I folded the dress with long sleeves," Clare told Ajalia.
"What did you find?" Ajalia asked, putting the steaming basket down on the table, and taking the orange gown from Nam. The three girls watched her dress herself in the simple gown; the orange fabric lay like a flame over the cream robe beneath; the tight collar hugged Ajalia's sun-darkened skin, and her dark hair was set off with brilliant mahogany lights against the color of the gown.
"I found fourteen coins," Clare said slowly, her eyes trailing lovingly up and down the lines of the orange gown. Nam had turned her face zealously away, as if she was determined not to admire the gown.
"Did you find the narrow set of tools?" Ajalia asked Clare, "or the stone tablet?"
Clare's eyes widened, and she shook her head.
"I looked everywhere," Clare said earnestly.
"One would hope," Ajalia said, unclasping a part of the knife harness, pulling it out from beneath her robe, and looping it tightly around the orange gown as a belt, "that you would have gained some knowledge of secure hiding places in your investigations."
Clare nodded, her eyes still glued to the embroidery on the gown.
"Where did you find that?" Ossa asked finally. All three girls who had stayed in the house stood up, and circled around Ajalia with naked desire in their eyes.
"I've never seen anything like it," Sun whispered, touching the tips of her fingers to the white stitching along the collar.
"Calles, the fabric merchant's wife, sewed it," Ajalia said. She did not add, 'for me,' but she was thinking it, and a flush of pleasure had begun to creep up the back of her neck.
"It's lovely," Clare said. She touched the side of her own plain brown tunic that stretched in a simple piece from her neck to her knees, and the young woman suppressed a sigh.
"Here," Ajalia said, taking the narrow lengths of green cloth from Nam. "I bought these for you. You are going to be a show for the Thief Lord. He will be here soon."
A shiver of excitement and terror ran through the girls.
"I said that before," Ajalia reminded them.
"We are always sent out of the room," Clare said, "whenever anything good happens."
"Well, I am going to need your help today," Ajalia said.
"Don't listen to her," Nam said sourly. "She's tricking us. She's trying to make us feel special, so that we'll trust her. She's a monster."
"Your hair looks awful," Sun told Nam bluntly. Nam's hand rose unconsciously to the place where her hair had been, and her eyes narrowed.
"Nam," Ajalia said, "go to the door, and watch for the boys." She took the first piece of green Slavithe fabric, and began to pluck thoughtfully at Sun's plain tunic.
Nam made a face and stalked from the room.
"She'll come around," Sun told Ajalia quietly. "She was living with her brother, before you came. He had promised to pay her debts."
"He wasn't going to," Ossa put in, her eyes fixed on Ajalia's hands.
"Run up the stairs, and bring me thread," Ajalia told Ossa. The young woman left the kitchen, and Ajalia drew her knife.
"What are you going to do?" Sun asked breathlessly.
"We are going to make you beautiful," Ajalia told her.
When the Thief Lord came to the little house, the sun had climbed over the apex of the sky, and was drifting lazily into the afternoon. The ragged boys had arrived, and lined the walls like soldiers. Their faces and hair had been scrubbed; most of their ears were bright red, which led Ajalia to believe that some of their cleanliness had been forced. Gull and Daniel had arrived, one at each end of the train of boys, their eyes flushed with power and pleasure. Ajalia smiled when she saw them, and thought of her master. She felt a tiny pang for her life in the East.
Nam had been sent up the stairs, with a cohort of little boys, who had been instructed sternly by Gull to tattle if Nam attempted to hurt them. Their instructions were to dismantle and clean the furniture in the upper rooms. The things had been cleaned before the Eastern slaves had left for Talbos, but Ajalia meant to replace much of the furniture in the house, and having Nam dismantle it, and then be unable to reassemble it, was one way to excuse the new things.
Ajalia was in the habit of machinating consequences; she did not care much if they came to pass, but it was a hobby of hers. She wanted to see if she could break Nam of her pride, and exposing her to the power of the small boys who no longer feared her, and giving her a task that she doubted the young woman would be able to accomplish, tickled Ajalia's desire to be moderately wicked and unreasonable.
The Thief Lord entered the house without knocking; Ajalia had set Daniel at the window to watch for the coming of the great man, and Daniel shouted through the house that he saw the Thief Lord down at the edge of the road.
"Is he alone?" Ajalia asked the Slavithe boy. Daniel nodded, his eyes shining.
"Be invisible," she told him. "Go around the edge of the stairs, out of sight, and listen. Keep the other boys quiet," she added, glancing to Gull. Gull had been listening to what she said; he nodded shortly, and passed quickly up the line of boys who had been stationed along the wall, hissing in their ears. The boys gazed on Gull with a sort of worshipful terror, and stood with rigid backs against the snowy white walls. Daniel vanished with a whipping sound around the corner where the stairs lay concealed.
The two large paintings in the front room were well visible in the reflected light; the sun came in through the open window, and filled up the white walls and ceiling with clear fresh light. The paintings shone like gems along the walls. Ajalia had removed the two smaller paintings; they were hidden upstairs, out of sight.
The Thief Lord opened the door and entered quietly; Ajalia looked up from her seat in the corner, where the five young women had sat earlier in the morning. She knew that she looked well in the gown and the cream Eastern robe she still wore. The fabric of the orange gown was of Slavithe manufacture, and her own cream robe was made of finer Eastern cloth; the contrast of the leather belt and the twisted curve of her dark hair; together, these created a picture of exotic beauty that she was not embarrassed to exploit. She saw that the Thief Lord did not recognize her from their earlier meetings; he saw no resemblance between the Eastern master in the gorgeous silk robes and thick false beard, and the slim girl with the shining black hair before him.
Ajalia's face was bare of makeup, but she had dressed the three young women's hair with a dusting of white powder, and put smudges of dark matter below their eyes. She had sent most of her makeup and material goods with Philas and the caravan, but some things she kept still in the attic upstairs, and
she made use of what she had.
Ajalia watched the Thief Lord's eyes pass swiftly over the three young Slavithe women who knelt in a half circle at Ajalia's feet. Their tunics had been slit down the sides, and pieces of green Slavithe cloth had been braided down to close up the slits. Their hair was pulled high, away from their faces, and Ajalia had tied the rest of the green cloth snugly around their bodies, making their tunics drape tastefully over their forms. Ossa, Clare, and Sun looked like a rare hybrid of Slavithe and Eastern styles; Ajalia had dropped shadows below their eyes with the same dark mask she used for her own master's clan marks, and the young women looked like strange visions.
"I see you have acquired some of our own people," the Thief Lord said lightly. He saluted Ajalia with a careless motion, and settled himself on a seat in the room. Ajalia smiled thinly; she watched him move his eyes carefully over the paintings that lay over the walls.
"It is a great pleasure to meet so great a man as your reputation paints you," she said, bowing her head.
"So which one are you?" the Thief Lord asked, his eyes passing down along the long line of quiet boys. "They're awfully quiet," he said, laughing a short, harsh laugh. "I wish my own servants were so well-behaved."
"I am afraid that your Slavithe people are difficult to train," Ajalia admitted, her tongue turning just a hair towards the sounds of the East. She could speak Slavithe flawlessly, but she guessed, correctly, that the Thief Lord would feel more at ease if she spoke with a foreign accent.
"What obedience you see," Ajalia continued, tilting her head a little to the side, and smiling ruefully, "has been imparted to them by your own fine people."
"What do you want?" the Thief Lord asked sharply. Ajalia waited, her head still cocked inquiringly to one side, her smile unmoved.
"Where's your master?" the Thief Lord added, looking around the room. "Is he up the stairs?"
"My master has returned," Ajalia said slowly, "to the East."
The Thief Lord started up out of his seat, his eyes flashing. He caught himself before he stood, and settled down cautiously, but his face now was narrow and cunning. He stared at Ajalia with a new kind of energy; Ajalia saw that she had been right about the danger.
"When does he depart?" the Thief Lord asked lightly. "I would give him a parting gift."
"I am afraid," Ajalia said simply, "that because of his religion, he has been forced to part with your glorious city in the darkness of the night. It is a sad truth, that those who are ruled by a belief in their Gods, are often uncivil to their hosts."
"Gone?" the Thief Lord asked again. "When did he go?" His voice had changed again; he sounded casual, friendly, and interested. His cheeks had smoothed into a creamy softness. His eyes twinkled with good cheer.
"My master is gone," Ajalia repeated. "He has left me with a mission in his wake. I am to speak with you. My associate has delivered the message well to you."
"That young man is a fool," the Thief Lord told Ajalia, grimacing. "He has an honest face, though."
"Chad has been most instrumental to my master," Ajalia agreed, "in negotiating the terms of our trade here in Slavithe."
"What does your master want from me?" the Thief Lord asked. His lips were pressing silently outward in tiny movements, over and over again. Ajalia thought she could see him thinking, planning, looking for weaknesses. She kept her body soft and still, her head poised comfortably on the tip of her neck.
"I have had the pleasure of meeting your son," Ajalia told the Thief Lord. A small twitch came over the Thief Lord's eyelids. He pressed his mouth together into a smile.
"Which son?" he asked, but Ajalia was sure that he knew which son had been meeting with slaves from the East.
"He guided me on the road to Talbos," Ajalia said conversationally. The Thief Lord was caught off guard; his eyes widened a little, and his lips parted.
"Did he now?" he asked lightly. Ajalia nodded.
"There were dangerous thieves on the road," Ajalia told the Thief Lord. "I was frightened. He fought them off with a knife."
"I find that hard to believe," the Thief Lord said, laughing briefly.
"I heard a curious thing in Talbos," Ajalia said. The Thief Lord stiffened at once.
"Yes," he said.
"I heard that you were once a slave," Ajalia said. Her eyes remained impassive, calm, curious, gentle. The young women kneeling at her feet did not move, but Ajalia saw their shoulders climb infinitesimally upwards at her words, as if they were collectively bracing against a storm.
The Thief Lord observed Ajalia for a long moment; finally, his lips parted in a long, hearty laugh.
"What are you?" he asked Ajalia. "You cannot tell me you are only a slave."
Ajalia did not answer him. She widened her smile a little, and tilted her head only a little more to the side. She could feel the weight of her hair pulling at the crown of her head. The Thief Lord's face grew sober.
"What does he want?" he asked, leaning forward. He put his hands together, and laid his elbows on his knees. "Are you his daughter?" he asked suddenly, pointing at Ajalia as though the idea had just come to him.
"My master wishes many things," Ajalia said, but what he wishes most of all is to be your friend."
The Thief Lord stared at Ajalia with a long, piercing stare.
"Be straight with me," the Thief Lord said. "What does he want?"
Ajalia straightened her head, and glanced briefly down at the girls arrayed at her feet. The three young women she had arranged in a fan shape, their backs to her, and their faces outward.
"When I first entered your fair city of Slavithe," Ajalia said, her voice making a gentle lilt over the words, "I took a private room. I am sure you yourself have found at times the desire to be alone?"
The Thief Lord gave her an encouraging nod.
"Sure, sure," he said impatiently.
"When I took the room," Ajalia said, making her eyebrows inch together slightly, "I found that the previous tenant had abandoned these fine pieces." She lifted one hand, and gestured with an open palm at the painting behind her. The large painting behind Ajalia was the picture that showed the great black pool, the white tree made of bones, and the gathering of Slavithe people with their palms filled with the black fluid.
"What is this tree?" Ajalia asked. She made a point of turning slowly in her seat; turning her eyes up to the large painting, she examined again the long sharp bones that piled in a grotesque heap at the base of the tree, and the ecstatic faces of the people who gathered around the black water.
"It is called by my people, the Poison Tree," the Thief Lord said expansively.
"Your people?" Ajalia asked. She turned back to face the Thief Lord. She was no longer smiling. "I thought you were from Talbos," she added in a clear voice.
"You don't have an accent," the Thief Lord said. Ajalia smiled, and shrugged. The Thief Lord began to laugh, a deep, loud, belly laugh. Sun, who was placed just in front of Ajalia, jumped a little at the sound.
"You have startled my girls," Ajalia told the Thief Lord with a smile.
"I like you," the Thief Lord said, rubbing the stubble that dusted over his chin.
"I am interested in your son," Ajalia said, dropping her accent entirely. She stood up, and crossed to the opposite wall, where the second large painting hung. "What is this?" she asked, pointing to the long swirl of lightening that was depicted in one corner of the painting.
"That is the magic from the sky, bolting down into the earth," the Thief Lord said. He twisted around in his seat, laying his arm against the back of his chair. "They say, the people here," he said with a wink, "that the animals and plants in the fertile parts of the land were dragged down from the cloud kingdom."
"And what did your father say of such things?" Ajalia asked. She examined the Thief Lord narrowly.
"You are a quick wench, aren't you?" the Thief Lord asked, giving a quick huff of breath. He met her eyes for the first time, and looked at her thoroughly. "What are you?" he asked agai
n.
"You first," Ajalia said. She saw Clare squirm a little in the corner of her eye. She laughed. "They think you will eat them," she explained, nodding to the young women. "Boys!" she barked, and the long line of boys that ran along two walls jumped. "Upstairs and help the others," she told them, and there was a loud scrambling.
When the room was cleared, save for Ajalia and the Thief Lord and the three young women, the Thief Lord sighed and stood up.
"You shouldn't have done that," he told Ajalia. His shoulders had relaxed, and his jaw was hanging more loosely against his throat. "I do have some dignity."
"You have none," Ajalia told him. His eyes sharpened, and the sharp plane showed again on the side of his jaw.
"Watch yourself," he said.
"My master is gone," Ajalia told him. They stared at each other. Ajalia was calm, serene, like a peaceful pond. The Thief Lord tried to keep his threatening posture, but she was so small, and so beautiful, and so utterly frank in her speech and gaze, that the anger melted from him.
"What do you want?" he asked. Ajalia clapped her hands together, and smiled.
"That is much better," she said. "Now, when I came, I was given one purpose."
"To sell silks," the Thief Lord said drily.
"No," Ajalia said shortly. "The silks were a distraction, an occupation to justify the number of slaves, and the caravan. My master cannot travel freely in this country. It would be seen as . . . eccentric."
The Thief Lord was eyeing her now with renewed interest.
"Go on," he said, crossing to stand next to her. Ajalia went back to her seat behind the young women, and folded her hands.
"There is talk of a great trade road," she said, "to be built between the oasis and Slavithe."
The Thief Lord listened, his mouth tense, his eyes focused on her. Ajalia felt that, for the first time since his entrance, the Thief Lord was listening to what she was saying.
"My master believes there is great wealth to be had," Ajalia said carefully, "in this road."
