Once again, his world realigned. Now it was two against the world-himself, and this battered but still-valiant child.
He rose, took her back into her tiny house, and put her to bed as tenderly as if she were his own child, then took himself back out into the night to stare up at the stars and think. He sat on the warm earth of the courtyard, put his back against the stone wall, and stared at the bright points in the sky.
Small wonder that she had wanted to die. How not, when all the world seemed ranged against her?
He hoped that he had done something concrete about that particular desire; in her exhaustion and near to sleep, still confusing him with Marcus, she had begged him to promise not to leave her again. He had promised- extracting from her the promise not to court death again. She had seemed willing enough to give that pledge, but then had begun to realize what had happened, forcing him to respond more personally. He had done so-and now was glad of it. For himself as well as for her.
He leaned his weight against the wall of the house and contemplated the stars above, wondering now at himself, and not so much about her. He, who had sworn to hate all Mazonites, suddenly found his loyalty bound to one small woman. Was it her amazing mercy in the arena, as he had told her, or was there more? He still wasn’t sure. Was it pity? Perhaps in part-and he chuckled a little as he recognized the irony of a slave pitying his mistress. But how could he not pity someone who had suffered such a crushing burden of loneliness for so long?
But it was partly admiration as well. Under that soft exterior, there was a soul of tempered steel. She had not broken under all her misfortune; she had adapted and survived. He could admire that. She was smart, and capable, and possessed of phenomenal magic. With a little help, mostly information that she simply did not have, she could become a formidable power in her land.
She could even aspire to the throne, he realized after a moment. And suddenly his thoughts took a whole new turn.
After all, their prosperity was linked. The more wealth she acquired, the more comfort he would enjoy. And if he could somehow get her to take his careful advice, he might be able to guide her to more than just prosperity. Dared he make an arrow of her, aimed at the Queen? Her ability to conjure was certainly formidable enough. That would be no bad thing-to be chief counselor to the Queen….
Few slaves ever had the opportunities that had just presented themselves to him.
In fact, this might just be preferable to freedom, even for one who had not suffered a conversion of emotion. He had been cursing his fates-but now, he wondered. If he had been set free, it would have been to eke out his way as best he could in the lands outside the borders of Mazonia. Was there any need for scribes outside the lands he knew? He had no idea. He might well have wound up scratching out a brutal sort of existence like a barbarian, hunting and scavenging his food, fighting to stay alive. He had spoken from the passion of the moment when he asked her not to free him, but the matter stood up to more dispassionate scrutiny.
Now-he had fallen into the hands of someone who treated her slaves with courtesy and consideration, who listened to his advice and would probably act on it. Someone who valued his training and his intelligence.
In short, Xylina was perhaps the only woman in all of Mazonia who would treat him as a person, and not as a possession; the only one he could serve with a whole soul.
He pondered that for a while, before the demands of his weary body drove him back to his bed, still marveling at how his life had changed.
Chapter 3
Xylina woke late the next morning, with sun beaming down onto the pale brown, hard-packed dirt of the court outside her room. She felt curiously at peace for the first time since Marcus had died. And why not, after all?
Stretching her arms over her head and enjoying the cool, silken softness of her conjured bed-coverings against her skin, she felt as if some huge burden had been lifted from her shoulders. Or as if she had been ill for a long time, and suddenly woke up healed.
This morning could not possibly have been more different from yesterday morning. She had passed her woman-trial: she was a full woman, and a full citizen. She had a pouch full of coins, she had a slave of her own.
Faro was a good man; that was what was so unbelievable, like something out of a fable. Another like Marcus-someone she could trust to advise her. They had begun as enemies, the deadliest of enemies, but within the course of a day and a night, they had somehow become allies, even friends.
Last night, when she had come so close to finally ending her miserable life, he had convinced her that her life was only beginning. He was the first person ever to show any concern for her since Marcus had died; the first to show her that she had a future. Granted-as an arena slave, his life was tied to hers, and he had a vested interest in keeping her from killing herself. But there was something more there- a concern that had surprised her, for she had not thought anyone would ever care whether she lived or died again. She had offered to free him, and he had refused: that was a key test. This was the kind of empathy, the kind of friendship, she had with Marcus.
And he had convinced her, with hours of careful conversation and persuasion, that Marcus had not “left” her. Her friend had not abandoned her-not of his own will, at any rate. He pulled out of her memory many recollections of her friend and slave’s despair at knowing his days were numbered-and recollections of how he had tried to prepare her for a life alone. Things she had totally forgotten, lost as she was in her own loneliness. Things she was ashamed that she had forgotten.
Where he had gotten this talent for counseling, she had no idea. Perhaps the schooling for scribes included advice on managing difficult mistresses. She was not going to argue about the source, not when it gave her so much more interest in life.
She finally rose, conjured herself a new chiton to pin about herself, then, feeling more interested in how she looked than she had in months, conjured a hot bath for herself. She heard Faro walking about in the courtyard, but the sound was more soothing than disturbing.
Once bathed, she banished her conjuration, which vanished without leaving even a damp spot. A distinct advantage over real water and soap, she thought with a faint smile.
She pinned her newly-conjured length of fabric at her shoulders, and tied it at her waist with another, narrower band, both in shades of blue. Then she stepped out into the courtyard, to see what Faro was up to.
Somewhat to her surprise, she found him examining her yard in minute detail, even pushing one of the two wooden crates she used as a chair up to the shorter wall and peering over it.
“Have you eaten?” she asked, concerned that he had been waiting all this time for her to appear. “I did give you permission to take care of your own meals, didn’t I?”
He jumped down from the crate and dusted his hands.
“Yes, mistress, you did, and I have,” he replied. It seemed to her, in the aftermath of last night’s purging, that his face seemed much more relaxed and open. Probably a good night’s sleep had done him as much good as it had her.
So he had eaten. Well, that was a relief. She went to the cupboard-box and extracted the end of a loaf and some cheese for her own meal, then took a cup to pump out some water. Faro intercepted her, taking the cup, pumping the water, and giving her the cup back, full. She took it, with a brief nod of thanks-it had been a very long time since she’d had a slave; having things done for her felt rather odd.
“What were you doing?” she asked, curiously.
“I was examining your property, mistress,” he told her, as she seated herself on the other crate and began nibbling her food.
“Do you have any idea of what it might be worth?” she asked. “You did suggest that I should sell it.”
“I am not an expert,” he replied, standing between her and the sun, so that he was haloed by it. She realized that he was doing that to keep the slanting sunbeams out of her eyes: another little slave service. Probably he didn’t realize how the light enhanced him.
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p; “Well, I know that, but you are a trained scribe,” she said, with gentle logic. “A scribe has to do many things, at least, that’s what I remember. Surely you can give me a general idea.”
To her pleased surprise, he chuckled a little. “That is true,” he admitted. “And I do have some ideas.”
She leaned forward with interest and began to question him closely, and as what he told her gave her some ideas of her own, she asked his advice on them as well. She couldn’t help but notice how her interest and enthusiasm pleased and intrigued him. Was she that different a mistress from what he had expected? She was only trying to emulate how she recalled her mother talking with Marcus, who had been her most trusted advisor.
When they had formed a plan about how to dispose of the house, she began asking his advice on other matters in which she was ignorant-for a trained scribe was much more than simply a secretary for his mistress. He often handled household accounts and management, and he was frequently privy to many of her political and personal secrets. She distinctly remembered Marcus filling those functions for her mother. And now, in the person of Faro, she had someone who could fill them for her.
She shook her head, still bemused by it all. “Oh, Faro, I’m glad I chose you to fight in the arena. If, as you say, I was fated to win, you were the best possible prize I could have won. I was incredibly lucky-because I wasn’t thinking of life after the match. I thought there wouldn’t be any. What would I have done with one of those other brutes?”
Faro nodded. “I suspect my fortune matches yours. I, too, was not thinking of a life such as this. You are better than I deserve.”
She decided not to debate that. Who ever heard of a mistress exchanging compliments with her slave? “I hope it is a sign that my family’s curse is over, or was false. I never really believed in it, yet somehow I couldn’t quite disbelieve either.”
He looked oddly doubtful. “There are curses, and there are curses,” he said. “Be careful, mistress.”
Later, she sent him out to the bazaar for food for the evening’s meal and for breakfast on the morrow, and she felt rather ashamed of having to entrust that to him. “This is below you,” she confessed, looking up at his eyes, acutely aware how tiny she was next to him. So strange; hard to believe that she had defeated him, and yet she had. “I wish I had someone else to send to do this.”
“You will,” he said, firmly. “And in the meantime, I am pleased to serve you this way.”
And with that, he took the pouch of coins, and left her alone for the first time this day.
She surveyed her tiny home with new eyes, trying to think of it, not as a home, but as something else. While most of the quarter’s inhabitants seemed content to go all the way to the bazaar for what they needed, she had the feeling that they might well welcome something like a small shop here, with foodstuffs-or a bakery. Or perhaps a tavern? That had a great deal of potential, for the last tavern in this quarter had closed when the freedmen expanded their quarter, and bought the building that had housed it.
By the time Faro returned, the bed-clothing that she had conjured the night before had vanished, but she had already produced replacements. They shared a companionable meal, and continued their plotting until after moon-rise, and Xylina went to bed well contented. For the first time in a long while, she slept peacefully and without distressing dreams.
The next day was spent in looking for a new home-and it took the entire day, even after eliminating the poorer and wealthier quarters. She and Faro ate sausage-rolls in the bazaar, without ever going home, until it grew too dark to look any more. They returned home, footsore but content. She conjured new bed-clothing and a foot-bath for each of them, and they both retired to bed. She was so weary she hardly remembered her head touching the pillow. She realized that she felt safe now, because of Faro’s presence, and that was another unexpected blessing. It meant that she could sleep relaxed instead of nervous.
In the morning, she bathed and dressed herself with especial care. She could not conceal the fact that she had conjured her clothing, but shecould conjure something that was as much like what her mother had worn as she could remember. She even dressed her hair in the single, long braid her mother had favored. Thus dressed, as carefully as if she were once again going into combat, she left the house with Faro and headed into the more prosperous quarters of the city.
Then she smiled to herself. Dressing for combat? She had fought naked! Nevertheless, she liked the notion. She was no longer facing arena combat, but the purchase of a house was likely to entail combat-like negotiations.
Acting on Faro’s advice, Xylina went to an information-monger at the bazaar and for a tiny coin bought information on property brokers. As the info-monger recited the kind of property they handled and who their latest clients were, she watched Faro out of the corner of her eye. He shook his head, very subtly, when a broker was not what they were looking for.
At length though, he nodded. She memorized that brokers address, and the process continued.
They ended up with three brokers who seemed likely, and since one was very close to the bazaar, Xylina decided to visit her that moment. With Faro following behind, at the proper, respectful distance, she sought out the address.
As a house, she and Faro had decided that her property was not worth much-but as the site for a small business, say a shop selling staples like flour and salt, or a bakery, or even a tiny tavern, in a neighborhood which had none of these things, it might be worth more. The fact that it had its own pump and well made it much more valuable as a commercial property. The outer room and the forecourt could be made into the shop or tavern, and the rear into living quarters for a woman and two or three slaves. Or, even more likely, it could be run completely by slaves, and the woman who owned them and the property need not set foot there except to collect the profits.
She would not have the connections in the court to gain permission to change her house from a living-place to a residence and commercial establishment. Someone else might. If she found the right broker, she might even be able to trade the value of the place as initial payment on a better home without actually having to sell it. That was what Faro thought, and it seemed worth the trial. What could they lose? The worst that could happen would be that the broker wasn’t interested in such a proposal. The best, that she would want it immediately. And it wasn’t as if they had a great deal to move. In fact, there wasn’t anything that Faro couldn’t carry to a new establishment in one trip. All else was conjuration.
The broker, one Antione Sibelle, recognized her immediately, as soon as she entered the woman’s office. That was something she had not expected.
“By the stars, it’s Xylina, isn’t it? The young woman who bested that monster in the arena a few days ago?” The middle-aged broker rose from behind her desk to give Xylina the handclasp of full citizens, as her secretary remained impassively at his own desk in an unobtrusive corner. Xylina envied her the smooth linen tunic and breeches she wore, the same blue as her own outfit, but obviously not conjured. Other than that, the broker was past her prime, but still fit; her neat, short hair about half gray and half brown, and the hand that took Xylina’s was the hand of a worker, not soft, but strong.
The office was a very pleasant place. It was paved with blue and white tiles, and with plastered walls that had been painted with murals of girls exercising and playing games in a garden. It was well-ventilated by a window which took up nearly the entire wall that looked out onto a garden . It was cool, and comfortable, and faintly scented with flowers from the garden. It held the brokers desk, a case holding rolled documents behind that desk, a chair for the broker and one for her desk, and a smaller desk and chair in the corner for the broker’s slave-scribe.
One day, perhaps, Xylina would have an office like this, and Faro would have a comfortable desk of his own from which to oversee her business.
“A thousand congratulations, Xylina-” she continued effusively. Her clasp was firm and dry; it felt honest, at
least. “My goodness, people are still talking about you! And you are Elibet Harmonia’s daughter, aren’t you?” At Xylina’s nod, she smiled. “Ah, I thought so! Tragic, that earthquake-your mother wasn’t the only loss, though she was sorely missed. You have her look about you, the hair especially, but I’m sure you know that.”
Xylina tried not to show her feeling of sudden disorientation, but it was a difficult task. She hadn’t expected this total stranger to be privy to her own past-or at least, part of it. Antione spoke of her mother as if she had known her personally. That was more than Xylina could say, in many ways. She had only observed her mother as a child; this woman had known her as one adult knows another.
“Here, come, take a seat-” the broker said, directing her to the armless chair before the simple wooden desk. “Now, what can I do for you?”
“I’d like to sell my house and purchase something in either the Moonflower or the Blue Lantern quarters,” she said carefully. She and Faro had paced the entire city yesterday after all, she with an eye to the property itself, and he talking to the household slaves and getting a feel for what the relative prices were in the area. It was in those two quarters-one old and currently out of fashion, one that was brand-new, built to hold the people who had been displaced by those whose houses had been bought by the freedmen, and who had not yet gained a fashionable status-they found properties that seemed to match their requirements.
“As it happens, I am handling homes in both those districts,” Antione replied, her brown eyes shrewd and knowing. “You have a good eye for value, Xylina; I consider both those quarters to be undervalued at the moment. Now, what have you to offer me?”
Now came the moment of truth. How persuasive could she be? She would not admit that her home had once been a stable; it no longer looked as if it had housed horses. “At the moment,” she admitted, “my property is very modest. I have my own house-which is at the edge of the Wall, in the Glass Fountain quarter. It is not a very big house, but it does have some potential, I think.”
If I Pay Thee Not in Gold Page 5
