He regarded Tsorreh, his eyes dark and hooded with warning. Lycian will not vouch for you if you get into trouble. You will be on your own.
Tsorreh thought Lycian would take great delight in disavowing all responsibility, should anything befall.
Under the direction of Issios, a bevy of servants soon assembled piles of sheets, towels, ordinary robes of cotton and fine-spun wool, and linen underclothing for both men and women. Regarding the sheer quantity, Tsorreh decided that either the household was much larger or more amply supplied than she had first guessed.
Tsorreh wondered how two women could manage such a bulky load, but with the aid of shoulder yokes and capacious wicker baskets, they were able to carry it all. The baskets were heavy, although not unbearably so. As she settled the curved wooden yoke across her shoulders, Tsorreh remembered carrying load after load of library books into safety in the temple cavern. At least, if she dropped this burden, she would not damage it.
She saw very little of the outside streets once they had left the compound itself. All her concentration went to keeping the panniers steady. She kept her eyes on Astreya’s legs, moving in slow, patient steps before her.
The edge of the yoke, which had felt smooth at first, pressed into her flesh. The muscles of her shoulders went from aching discomfort to agony. After a short distance, the rope sandals rubbed blisters on her feet.
I can do this, Tsorreh repeated silently to herself.
They went around and down, following the natural contours of the hill. The streets curved so that after a short period of time, Tsorreh lost sense of direction. Eventually, they reached the bottom of the hill and wound through one district after another. They passed along rows of shops and progressively poorer-looking dwellings. Astreya explained that, as well as washing finished clothing, the cloth-groomers treated newly woven cloth, rendering it soft and pleasing to the skin. The smells of the substances used to treat the cloth, however, were apparently so vile that the groomers were, by law, relegated to areas far away from any respectable residences.
Tsorreh could not tell how long they had been walking. She tried counting steps. She counted backward and forward. She counted in Gelone, in Denariyan, and in trade-dialect Azkhantian. The distraction helped take her mind off her physical discomfort.
Once down from the hill, they passed all sorts of people, many on foot, others riding donkeys or onagers. Occasionally, a chariot rattled past. Now and again, a runner would dart by, well-shod and swift. The first time this happened, Tsorreh jumped in alarm before she realized that no one took any particular notice of the runner. His even pace suggested that he was a courier rather than a fugitive.
Armed men moved through the streets in twos and fours. Pairs of them stood at the major intersections. Tsorreh’s heart raced the first time they came near. The sun gleamed on their helmets and blurred her vision. They were vivid reminders of the soldiers who had marched through the gates of Meklavar and Gatacinne. One of them called out a slang phrase that she did not understand.
“Watch your tongue,” Astreya snapped back, “for it’s more use to any woman than what wags at your other end.” Laughing, the men turned away.
Tsorreh wavered on her feet. Her panniers swung dangerously. For a long moment, it was all she could do to regain control and keep the yoke steady across her shoulders. She was sweating and breathing hard, not entirely from the physical effort.
Astreya, who had gone ahead, paused. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry,” Tsorreh stammered. “I’m not used to—I was surprised by the way those men spoke, that’s all.”
“They thought you were a slave. That’s why they talked to you in such a disrespectful fashion.”
Tsorreh bit her lip. Better that than an escaped prisoner, one Cinath would be as glad to have done with.
“It’s not your fault,” Astreya went on as they walked side by side. “It’s the dress.”
“It doesn’t matter what Gelonian soldiers think of me.”
“Soldiers? Oh no, those were just ordinary city patrol! Riff-raff with no decent manners! No properly trained soldier would speak to a woman in that way, even if she were a slave.” Astreya sounded very much like her mother.
“I don’t understand. They were armed and in uniform.”
“I suppose that all men with swords must look alike to anyone who hasn’t lived in Gelon. See those men at the corner? They’re military; you can tell by the cut of their tunics and see, their breastplates and the medallions on their scabbards. Some of the noble houses have their own armed escorts, and you can identify them by the sashes with their lord’s colors. City patrol don’t wear armor, just helmets.”
Astreya lowered her voice “The ones you really need to watch out for are the Elite Guards, the Ar-King’s private enforcers. Just pray to whatever gods you have in Meklavar that you never see one of that sort.”
Chapter Seventeen
AFTER detouring to avoid the center of the city, Tsorreh and Astreya reached one of Aidon’s many plazas. Although pleasing in shape and clearly designed as a public space, the plaza had seen better days. The paving stones were worn and cracked with the passage of years. Despite her weariness, Tsorreh lifted her head. Booths ran halfway across the plaza in widely spaced rows, while buildings of weathered wood and stone formed a perimeter. Many of these were shops, their entrances sheltered from sun and rain by overhanging eaves. At each corner, a cluster of shrines stood amidst offerings of wilting flowers, ribbons, and fruit.
In front of the shops and at the ends of rows of booths, old men sat gossiping or dozing in the shade, their heads lowered. A woman in baggy, faded pants and tunic, clearly too poor to afford a booth of her own, crouched behind baskets of peaches, nut candies, and fist-sized green melons. Another man, his face a toothless grin, offered crude beeswax idols and pots of honey for sale. A pair of teenagers laughed and flirted as they sold skewers of some kind of meat from a cart.
Women flocked around a fountain of eroded pink stone that had been carved with sea creatures and human figures, now faded and indistinct. One by one, they dipped their jugs and carried them away on top of their heads or braced against their hips. Boys watered onagers and donkeys. Between the fountain and the wall of shops, half-grown children played with pebbles, and street performers plucked stringed instruments, rhythm drums, and finger cymbals. The place had the slightly dangerous atmosphere of a festival. Tsorreh would have liked to stop and stare at the rich variety of costume, listen to the unfamiliar dialects, perhaps sample the strange food. Astreya hurried her on, saying they still had far to go.
As they passed through the crowd at the far end, Tsorreh caught a phrase in Meklavaran, or thought she did. By the time she turned to look, however, the voice had stopped. She searched the milling crowd, but none of the faces or clothing looked familiar. From the plaza, they made their way past crumbling apartment rows.
When Tsorreh stumbled with fatigue, they set their panniers down beside a street shrine that Astreya explained was to honor The Source of Fertility. Tsorreh arched her back, feeling the joints of her spine crackle. The buildings here stood two or three stories tall and might have been comfortable enough once, judging by the ample windows. Overcrowding, disuse, and, most likely, the passage of years, had taken their toll. Greasy stains ran from the cracked roofs and window ledges. Emaciated dogs picked through the piles of refuse that were heaped along the sides of the buildings. Several figures squatted in the shadowed doorways, tipping their heads back to drink from a common wineskin.
The air reeked of stale urine, old wine, and moldering garbage. “What is this place?” Tsorreh asked.
“Haven’t you seen slave quarters before?” Astreya said.
Tsorreh shook her head. “We have nothing like this in Meklavar. If these people are slaves, where are their masters? Why don’t they run away, leave the city? Go someplace clean, where they can live like human beings?”
Astreya explained that being able to live in a place l
ike this was a privilege, and that the penalties for any slave who failed to appear for work at the designated time were extreme. Slave-owners liked the arrangement because they no longer needed to supply food or shelter. Slaves were usually given a little time off to work on their own for enough money to buy the cheapest sort of food and share the meager rent, crowding into the old apartments.
Tsorreh’s temper rose. She did not know what made her more angry, the plight of these poor wretches or the sudden suspicion that Lycian had intended her to see this place as a warning. Her face hot, she turned to the younger woman.
“Were you told to bring me by this route?”
Astreya looked puzzled. “There is no other way. All the outer areas are like this.”
The streets dwindled into lanes of hard-packed dirt lined by fenced yards and sprawling, ramshackle buildings. As Astreya had indicated, the street of the cloth-groomers was well isolated from the richer neighborhoods, in a district that included tanners. When they left Jaxar’s compound, the day had been mild, the breezes cool and laden with pleasant scents of herbs and flowers. The air here reeked of noxious substances. In the stench, Tsorreh smelled sulfur. Within a few moments, her eyes were burning and her lungs felt raw.
Astreya led the way to a yard of modest size. Under an airy lattice canopy, half a dozen youths barely out of their teens marched in place in broad wooden tubs. They had tucked their tunics above their knees to avoid being splashed. The tubs, easily wide enough for a grown man to bathe in, were filled with dark water and sodden cloth. The rest of the open space was taken up by drying racks, frames of wicker on which clean cloth was stretched.
The boys chanted in unison, sweating in the mild morning, but grinned and waved as Astreya and Tsorreh maneuvered their panniers through the gates.
“They’re grooming new cloth,” Astreya said, and headed for the squat stone building. “The laundering is done inside.”
Stepping into the washery was like entering a furnace. Despite the high-set openings, the large single chamber was dark and close. Tsorreh’s breath caught in her lungs. The air was laden with moisture, although the stench was not so bad.
In the center of the room, an enormous vat perched over a roaring fire. The flames cast a red glow over the walls, racks, piles of clothing and linen, and the sweating faces of the washers. An aperture in the ceiling let the worst of the steam and smoke escape.
The washer-chief grunted in greeting and straightened up from where she and two others, a boy and a middle-aged woman, stirred clothes around in the bubbling water. Tsorreh had never seen such a large, muscular woman before, easily a head taller than Shorrenon, and he had been a tall man. Tsorreh did not know the Xian folk well, but guessed that this powerful-looking woman must be one of them.
The washer grinned, revealing a missing front top tooth. “A fair day to you, young one.” She spoke with a slight twang.
Astreya set down her panniers with a sigh of relief. “We’ve brought the laundry from Lord Jaxar.”
“Xathan’s hairy balls! You’re days early! All my apprentices are at work on a rush order from the Palace.” The woman peered at Tsorreh. “What’s this? Has Issios sent me some extra help to make up for the inconvenience?”
“Tsorreh, don’t take anything Czi-sotal says seriously or she’ll have you doing all the work by yourself,” Astreya said tartly. “Everyone knows how lazy Xians are.”
Czi-sotal gave a low, rumbling laugh. She shuffled closer, her bulk shutting out half the room. Although sweat rolled off the folds of her skin, she smelled surprisingly clean.
“Sor-ra, is it?” she drawled as she took Tsorreh’s panniers, lifting them as if they weighed nothing. “You ever wash clothes?”
Tsorreh shook her head. Of all the things she had done in her life, laundry was not one of them. In Meklavar, as here, skilled workers prepared the finished cloth and cleaned it for others.
“Come, then, and I’ll show you how it’s done.”
Astreya went outside to gossip with the boys in the tubs; one was apparently a distant cousin. Czi-sotal showed Tsorreh how she stirred and beat and boiled the tangled lengths of cotton. When they were sufficiently clean, Czi-sotal explained, she took them outside and draped them over drying frames to expose them to the sun, or on curved frames over pots of fuming sulfur for further bleaching. Then more heaps of rumpled, soiled linens and robes would go into the vat.
The enormous woman was clearly deriving a great deal of enjoyment from her captive audience. Years of assuming a polite expression during court ceremonies had given Tsorreh the ability to look interested while her thoughts wandered. She nodded now and again as her thoughts drifted.
The light in the room changed. Something moved in the shadows, something cold and sweltering at the same time. Tsorreh no longer felt the waves of heat from the fire. The red-tinged light went gray.
A massive hand on her shoulder jerked her awake. The grip was hard, the calluses like armor. The large woman shook her, peering into her face.
“Nothing but a wet rag, you are. Outside with you, then. Can’t have you fainting into the wash pot.” She pushed Tsorreh toward the door.
Tsorreh stumbled to the entrance. Daylight blinded her for a moment. She reeled, caught by the sudden brilliance and the cool, sweet air. Her lungs ached when she drew a deep breath.
I must be delirious with the heat, Tsorreh mused. Her cheek throbbed where Lycian had struck her.
Whistling cheerily, Astreya sauntered up. “Come on, if you’ve had enough lessons in laundry. Czi-sotal’s happy to have something to complain about, but our order will be ready in time. She won’t risk losing Lord Jaxar’s custom.”
A smile lit the corners of Astreya’s mouth, and her eyes took on an expression both eager and dreamy. Reaching into a pocket, she clinked two coins together. “We don’t have to go straight back. It will be some time yet before we’re missed, so let’s enjoy ourselves. I saw you looking at the market performers.”
Tsorreh followed Astreya along the dusty avenue toward the center of the city. Perhaps she might find the man who had spoken her own language. It made sense that there were other Meklavarans in this cosmopolitan city, with its diversity of cultures.
If she found a countryman, what then? Her spirits leapt as the thought came to her that she might, with the right help, be able to make her way past the borders of Gelon and eventually return home.
They stopped at a food stall, and Astreya bought pastries: dough twisted around a fruit filling, then fried crisp and dusted with cinnamon and powdered almonds. Then she made for another line of booths that had been set up along one side, and Tsorreh followed. Wares were arranged on tables beneath sun-shades of open-weave fabric, draped over slanted frames. They passed baskets of apples and other fruit, as well as tubers of a dozen kinds, smaller baskets of seeds and dried beans, then on to a row where clothing in bright colors was spread out on tables or hung from ropes strung between the poles of the booths.
They approached several sellers of footwear, leather shoes that looked soft and supple, thick-soled boots, sandals, knitted wool socks, and brocade slippers. Some clearly were samples, to be custom made, but there also appeared to be a stock for direct sale. Tsorreh’s feet burned where the rope sandals had rubbed blisters.
Astreya, seeing Tsorreh’s interest, halted. “Wait here and promise not to wander off. You can look all you want. Just don’t steal anything, or we’ll both be in trouble.”
Tsorreh was about to protest that she was not a thief, when she reminded herself that nothing from her former life was the same. She was no longer te-ravah of Meklavar, wife of Maharrad. She did not know what she was.
“Well, don’t look so covetous, then,” Astreya said. “I know these merchants. If they see a slave eyeing their goods a little too eagerly, they’ll call the city patrol.”
Tsorreh’s mouth dropped open in surprise. The girl was proposing to leave her here, in the market plaza, without supervision? What would prevent her from d
isappearing into the crowd?
Or was that what Lycian had intended, sending Tsorreh and Astreya on this errand? Escape would be easy. Too easy.
Lycian must be very sure that I would be captured again.
Whether Tsorreh were arrested or if by chance she managed to escape, the result would be the same. She would be gone from Lycian’s house.
Tsorreh composed her features into a suitable expression of indifference. “I’ll wait for you here, then.”
Astreya nodded and headed toward the far end of the shops. Her pace increased, her feet flying over the ground. Tsorreh followed for a step or two, in time to see Astreya reach a doorway. The shop looked ordinary enough. A sign painted with a two-handled jar hung above the open door. A young man in a canvas apron had just carried out a similar vessel, easily as tall as his own torso, its neck sealed with red wax, and placed it in a donkey-drawn cart. Spying Astreya, he rushed over and caught her in his arms.
Tsorreh smiled despite herself, but the pulse of warmth faded quickly into sadness. She had never been in love like that, certainly not with Maharrad, not even with the occasional noble who had sought her favor before her marriage. She had become pregnant with Zevaron almost immediately, and then her life seemed to revolve around him and the city and the care of her aged spouse. She’d had a husband, a son, rank, and ease. What more could a woman dream of?
Love was a thing for fools and poets, those without duty.
Then what was this empty ache in her heart, as if it had broken without her knowing why?
The ache shifted to the now-familiar pulse of warning from the te-alvar. Tsorreh glanced around, but the market seemed perfectly normal. People stood bargaining with the vendors at their booths. The tinkle of a dance melody wafted through the air. The sun shone as brightly as before, and yet a shadow seemed to have fallen over the plaza, or perhaps behind her eyes.
The Seven-Petaled Shield Page 22
