by Kate Elliott
“Each vessel is numbered according to the store house, the chamber within the store house, and its place within that chamber,” the factor was explaining to Tuvi, who carried a lantern in each hand. “Mistress Miravia and I crosscheck each week when we do a full accounting. We maintain a standing order with two Ri Amarah houses in Olossi, who take best-quality water white for medicinal purposes.” He manfully did not look at Miravia as he said this, although they all knew what she was: her brushstroke eyes, lighter skin and square face betrayed her origins. “Otherwise, however, oil of naya is only conveyed to other militia encampments and to Argent Hall, by ship or via reeve flights. We control the naya trade, no one else. Mistress Miravia, will you mark off the vessels to be shipped?”
She took a lantern from Tuvi and moved into the first chamber.
“Chief, I would like to show you the locked vault where we keep the water white. We lost a single pot of water white two months ago to theft, so we’ve had to increase our security.” The factor led O’eki and Tuvi into the gloom of the back aisles.
Tuvi’s voice drifted back. “To theft? How can that be?”
Keshad drifted into the narrow chamber behind Miravia, who hung the lantern from a hook and began to mark a manifest as she logged the clay vessels. Such homely pots, to contain such treasure. The air was very close and the grit made him blink.
“Don’t you worry the flame will light the oil and make everything burn?” he asked.
The scarf on her head could not contain her hair. Wisps trailed down the curve of her neck. Her profile, illuminated by the lantern’s glow, had a glorious sheen; her eyelashes shadowed her dark eyes; her hand brushed steadily at the manifest.
“Why are you staring at me?” she said in a low voice, although she was not looking at him.
He had meant to be charming and patient, but what was the point?
“Because I love you.”
Still she did not look! Perhaps her brushstroke stuttered; her hand, holding the ink bowl, might have trembled. “You can’t love me. You don’t know me. You must think you love me, and it must be some story you have told yourself about who I am that you love. But it can’t be me.”
“I saw you that day in the courtyard in Olossi and ever after I can only think of you.”
Still writing, she licked her lips. The moisture made her lips glow, as kisses might. “That means you want to devour me, not that you love me. There’s an easy way to slake that thirst, isn’t there? When a pair of young people wish to devour each other but are already contracted to wed other people because of clan alliances? Then they go to the temple and slake their thirst there? There’s a small temple dedicated to Ushara here. We could meet there—and then I could stop—” Ink spattered; she ceased writing.
He was shaking as he took a step toward her. “Then you could stop what?”
“I could stop thinking of you all the time!” She stoppered the inkpot, shoulders heaving.
“You love me!”
She turned, shoulders stiff and lips pressed together with anger. When she spoke, her words emerged like daggers as she glared at him. “I don’t know you. I can’t love you. Anyway, Mai wants me to marry Chief Tuvi. He’s a good man. Why should you suppose I want to go off with you just because of wanting sex, and leave behind my dearest sister who is my only family?”
The lantern’s flame made her skin gleam.
“I could be your family!”
“Just the two of us? And once the devouring urge is slaked, what is to keep two people together? Mai will always be my sister, because we are pledged in our hearts.”
“So you think! My mother’s sisters sold me and my little sister quickly enough when my mother and father died! They felt no sentimental obligation to their niece and nephew, although we were only twelve and ten, mere children, helpless to save ourselves.”
Her mouth parted as she leaned toward him, genuinely shocked. “You were sold? As a slave?”
Like a good merchant, he sensed the weakness in her negotiating position and pursued it. “We were sold into debt slavery on the auction block in Gadria’s Oval, which you might know is more commonly called Flesh Alley.”
Now he had her sympathy! He saw it in her bold eyes and clear expression. In the way she paused before she replied, as if overwhelmed by pity at the thought of two weeping children. “Is it true, then, as I have heard, that you yourself sold captives into slavery? Young girls? And used the coin to buy yourself free?”
She might as well have slapped him! “People sell slaves or debt all the time!”
“That doesn’t make it right.”
“Only you Silvers say so!”
She was tall and magnificent in a taloos of dark silk, color impossible to distinguish in the dim light. “We are called Ri Amarah, Master Keshad. To call us Silvers is to insult our men and ignore our women, for the women do not wear the silver bracelets.”
She was breathing as hard as if she’d been running, and she blinked multiple times, as if fighting tears or anger or some other mad impulse. “I don’t like what you have done. You’ve selfishly traded in lives to benefit yourself, and without consideration of its effect on others.”
“You think those girls would have lived a better life in Mariha? Here they can hope for a bit of respect.”
“That’s the story you tell yourself! If you say it enough, you may come to believe, and then you can sleep peacefully at night despite the harm you’ve caused others.”
The voices of the men approached down the length of the storehouse.
“You Ri Amarah can’t walk into the Hundred and tell us what our obligations are,” he said in a furious whisper.
Her chin quivered angrily.
“But!” He ran a hand through his hair, trying to sort out thoughts and words. Her gaze fixed on the movement of his hand in his curls and her eyes widened with that glazed inward look women got when thinking of pleasure. “For you, Miravia, I pledge never to sell another slave, their body, their debt, their labor. Ever. Out of respect for you.”
With a shaking hand she unhooked the lantern and, turning her back on him, spoke in so low a voice he was sure he had not heard right. “I will go to Ushara’s temple tonight at the sixth bell.”
She walked around him and out into the corridor, and he was too dizzy and his thoughts too scattered to move after her.
The factor stuck his head into the storeroom and said, “Master Keshad?”
“Yes! Yes, I am. Wagons.”
“I’m sorry?”
The captain had assigned him a task! “We’ll need wagons, with plenty of padding to cushion the vessels. I want to be done loading by nightfall so the ship is ready to depart at dawn, just as the captain has ordered.”
I want to be done by nightfall. By sixth bell.
Only because he had years of experience separating his passions from the work he must do could he concentrate enough to supervise the bringing of wagons, the padding of wagons, the lading of wagons, the hauling of wagons down the long smooth road to the strand. A ship was already fitted with cradles for oil transport; its captain had hauled oil of naya, olive oil, and fish oil in plenty over the last months.
Down at the strand, other ships were being prepared for horse and troop transport. In the interests of time the entire Qin regiment was to be conveyed over the sea to Olossi despite their superstitious fear of water. But the weather was fair; the winds were mild; as the heat built, the days flattened into a monotony of predictable weather perfect for long journeys undertaken at speed over the gentle waters of the Olo’o Sea.
As dusk settled, Keshad trudged uphill with the last wagon to get a final load. The dray beasts were coated with the fine pale loess dust that covered everything in the Barrens. The carter, a voluble fellow, was discussing a recent hooks-and-ropes tournament held as part of the Breaking Ground Festival, in which a local group of laborers had defeated all comers, even several teams made up of young militiamen.
“Them Qin soldiers, they’
re taking to the game right enough,” he opined, “but it’ll take them a few more seasons before they can really get the nuance, neh? Did you see the new fields?”
“No,” said Kesh, his attention attracted by a pair of men dressed in the Sirniakan style—flowing robes over loose pantaloons—who were striding out from the settlement. “What new fields?”
“It’ll be ten years before we’ve really got irrigation enough to feed ourselves, but at the festival we harrowed five fields. Rice will be planted with the rains. Then we’ll see how those irrigation channels work, eh? I tell you, best thing I done was to come out here and establish a branch clan of carters. I had my doubts, with the militia running things, but Mistress Mai made sure we have our own council.”
“Was there any doubt you would not have your own council?”
“With all these soldiers, we might just have been run as part of the army, neh? Not that I resent them, mind you. Two years ago I thought my clan was done for. We had no work. The roads weren’t safe. Now, we’re prospering.”
The Sirniakans were gaining, obviously in pursuit. Keshad swung his legs to the side and leaped off the slow-moving wagon. “Go ahead. Just one more load.”
The man turned. “I don’t trust those Sirniakans, I don’t mind saying. The Qin, they’re all right, but those others—Aui! Very odd birds, if you ask me.”
“I’ll head them off. I don’t want them to know where we store the oil of naya, neh?”
He and the carter exchanged a friendly nod as the wagon moved on. Keshad waited on the road, cursed sure they were after him. They reached him at last, faces slick with sweat.
“Master Keshad?” asked the one holding the ebony baton that Keshad recognized as the symbol of the man’s authority as a slave factor.
“I am Master Keshad. What do you require?”
“Your attendance, Master.”
The prospect of being summoned to an interview with Anji’s mother did not please him. He retained a visceral memory of Anji’s hand clutching his throat; indeed, he could not stop himself from touching his throat with a hand. But he’d accomplished the task set him by the captain, so there was no use delaying the inevitable.
Unlike the carter and the laborers with whom he had worked all day, the Sirniakan slaves did not speak as they walked to the settlement gates and up along the market avenue. As night fell, the market arcades were shuttered. From behind curtains and closed compound doors lifted conversation, laughter, song; an argument; a baby’s squall. A dog barked to mark their passage. Up they walked past a newly built Lantern’s accounting house. The council square had been expanded to include the stone walls originally built to house Kotaru’s temple, which had been rededicated in a larger space outside the settlement walls near the militia camp. A wooden gate with three lintels marked the domain of Ilu the Herald; it had not changed except for the addition of a thatched open shelter with cots where passing envoys could sleep. A flat boulder so deeply sunk in the earth that no one had bothered to excavate it offered a resting place for Hasibal, the Formless One; and in the fading light Kesh saw fresh offerings of flowers laid in a pattern that abruptly reminded him of the offerings Mai and her people made at the altar dedicated to their god, the Merciful One.
The two slaves climbed the steps and passed into the outer audience chamber without removing their outdoor shoes, but Kesh stopped and took off his boots.
“Hurry!” snapped the factor.
It was remarkably easy to channel his anger into overly polite words. “It’s not our way to enter our homes shod in dirt, ver. Our mat makers pride themselves on their fine work. Why should we trample it as if it were no better than the street?”
He set his boots aside and ran a hand over his hair before entering behind the impatient factor. They crossed the matted floor on a trail smeared with dust tracked in from outside. The factor paused by the far doors and rang a hand bell. A door was slid opened; Kesh entered alone. Four low couches in the Sirniakan style had been placed in a square, a table set between them.
“Master Keshad.” Anji’s mother reclined on one couch. “Sit down.”
He sat opposite and rested his hands on his thighs. Female voices whispered and giggled from behind curtains strung across one side of the room. Where slits parted, he glimpsed eyes, or cheeks, or gauzy veils stitched with shimmering thread.
“The ladies admire your beauty, Master Keshad. They’re commenting on it.”
“I beg your pardon, exalted lady,” he said as more giggles assaulted him. His cheeks burned. With the force of will that had gotten him through twelve years of slavery, he refused to look again toward the curtains. “Your words startled me.”
“Are you not commonly praised for your beauty?”
“No, exalted lady.” He was unable to find a posture that did not make him uncomfortable. “Why have you summoned me?”
But he could already guess.
“We traveled a long road together, Master Keshad. I will therefore presume upon our acquaintance to forego the usual pleasantries and formal words and strike directly to the heart of the matter. I made an offer to you many days ago. What is your answer?”
There was more than one way to make trouble!
“I hope you will forgive my blunt speaking, exalted lady.”
“I expect an honest answer.”
The gods-rotted women hiding behind their cursed curtain were still whispering, the sound as irritating as the whine of a disaffected customer who has gotten the worse of the bargaining session through their own hapless negotiation.
“I must decline your most generous offer. I cannot take the captain’s wife off your hands. I do not want to marry her.”
“You need not marry her. You can take her as a concubine.”
“I am hesitant to correct your observations, exalted lady, but believe me when I say she is a rich woman who is well respected among the councils of this region.”
“She is very young!”
“Nevertheless. Most people credit her with convincing your son to fight the army that attacked Olossi last year. Also, the Olossi city council considers itself beholden to her for making it possible for them to overthrow the houses who ruled the council for many years solely to enrich themselves and their allies. Also, it seems she’s been instrumental in supporting local councils and in creating a regional council in Olo’osson so all folk can have their voices heard.”
She said nothing.
“And, to be blunter, exalted lady, your son will never allow another man to take her from him.”
“I can direct my son.”
“You can?”
“You doubt me?”
Keshad smoothed the fabric of his loose trousers over his legs, taking courage in the fine weave and reed green color; these were the best quality clothes he had ever owned. Yet her garb—the silk; the embroidery of gold thread; the headdress plated with gold rings and medallions—was as far above his rich merchant’s fittings as his were above that of a beggar’s tattered loincloth.
“I do not doubt you, exalted lady. But I must still decline your offer.”
“You have given up on the other one? She’s a clever girl, if reckless and possibly even inclined to disrespect. However, her accounting skills are good, she knows herbcraft, and she can even read and write. These are skills not to be scorned.”
“I will win her over in my own time and in my own way.”
“You can have two wives.”
This was like talking to Zubaidit when she got going! “Exalted lady, please listen to my words. It is not what I want.”
“But it is what I want. I can make it worth your while. Name your price.”
Goaded, he laughed. “Exalted lady, your son will kill me if he ever learns that I—or I suppose any man—has—well—Mai—” Aui! He was blushing. “Do you think he cannot?”
“I see.” She might have been a statue examined from a distance, remote and unknowable. She clapped her hands three times, and a slave emerged from behin
d a curtain carrying a small sack, no bigger than a melon, in both hands. The slave offered the sack to Kesh.
“I beg your pardon, exalted lady. What is this?”
“Gold.”
The slave released the sack. Kesh caught it; his arms tensed under its unexpected weight. “I can take no payment for an act I have refused to perform.”
She smiled with real amusement, and for an instant he saw the personality that had captivated an emperor. Captain Anji’s smile was more spontaneous. Hers was a weapon.
“This is not payment. It is not obligation. Nor is it a reward or a bribe. It is a gift. If it were anything otherwise, you would know. But I have the pleasure of making gifts exactly as I wish. I respect your honesty, Master Keshad. Now you may leave.”
So he left, burdened with gold and with a sense that he had missed something important. As soon as he was out on the porch, as soon as he had pulled on his boots and began walking down through the quiet evening streets of Astafero where a man might perfectly well carry a bag of gold without fearing he would be robbed and killed, he saw away beyond the walls in the lowland plain a pair of torches marking Ushara’s temple.
Sixth bell had not yet been rung.
39
THE BABY SPRAWLED naked in his cot, netting draped over to keep off mosks and flies and gnats, to discourage scorpions and snakes. Here in the Barrens the houses had to be elevated off the ground to keep away vermin, or else, as in Kartu Town, furniture must elevate the body away from the earth where poisonous creatures scuttled.
The commander’s complex of tents had likewise been built up off the ground, canvas raised over raised plank flooring. Mai knelt behind Miravia, combing out her hair, which had a tendency to snarl. They were alone except for the sleeping baby.
“It’s very irritating,” said Mai, “that we cannot sleep in the house we raised but must push Chief Berkei out of his accustomed place to accommodate us. Not that the chief complained.”
“You were invited to sleep in the house, were you not?”
“Anji was. In the suite of rooms set aside for his use just as if that woman had built and furnished the house and overseen the settlement. No doubt I was meant to sleep like a beggar on the steps.”
