“I’ve never heard of Hypolyta directly, but I’ve heard of her slaves,” she assured Xylina. “They’re quite famous actually; I just never knew where they came from. Many of them are eventually freed, but continue to work for their former mistresses for a wage.”
“I’m not certain what to do,” Xylina said hesitantly. “Faro is not well enough to guard me if I were to take the money to the tax office-”
“Faro needn’t do any such thing.”
Lycia called for her own manservant and sent him out immediately to the tax-collector and the former owner of the house, with messages telling them to come collect their debts. “Let them come to you,” she told Xylina, with a cynical smile. “Since you are doing them the favor of giving them money. Letthem provide the guards for that money. Why should you? Why should you go to them?”
When she put it that way, Xylina realized that Lycia was right. And after all, both the government and the broker could afford guards. She could not.
The tax-collector arrived first, with no slave to guard her, clearly thinking that this was some kind of ruse. She showed up at the door, and was ushered into the reception chamber where Xylina and Lycia waited. “I hope this is not a waste of my time,” she began. “My time is the Queen’s time, after all-”
“I don’t think it will be,” Lycia said dryly, and Xylina laid out the coronets all in a row on the table. The other woman stared, her frog-like face a blank. “What?” she stammered.
Xylina said nothing, only gestured. The tax-collector was completely shocked and appalled when she realized that Xylina had delivered up the tax-money, and somewhat hysterically demanded that Xylina prove that it was not conjured coin.
Xylina had had enough of the officious creature, and threw the small sack that had held the coins on the table in front of the woman. “Look for yourself,” she said, with barely-concealed fury. “These areminted coins . You know very well that no one can conjure minted coins, only blank disks! And even if I could do so, you have only to look at the coins themselves to see that they were minted in many eras! How would I accomplish that particular miracle?”
Her question was unanswerable, for she was entirely correct. Conjured goldcould have been stamped with imprints taken from real coins, but where would Xylina have gotten so many different coins? And if she had them, why would she have needed to conjure coin?
Even so, all the tax-collector had to do was hold the coins overnight, in a special locked box. They could not last for longer than that if they had been conjured. Xylina would have gained nothing.
The tax-collector could only stare at the coins, her face a mask of panic, as Xylina scooped them all back in the sack and thrust it at her. Her hands grasped it nervelessly, then dropped it. The sack fell right between her feet. Xylina did not touch it. “Take it!” she demanded, as the woman continued to stare at the sack at her feet, speechless. “Take it, and begone with you and your foolish rules!”
Lycia took a hand, then, staring coldly at the woman, since she showed no signs of leaving or even picking up the sack. “Indeed,” the old warrior said, taking an aggressive stance. “You trespass on my hospitality. You have gotten what you demanded, out of all reason or sense. Now sign this receipt and go! You have no more business here.” She drew herself up to her full height, and Xylina saw more than a shadow of the old warrior.
It was the law of the city that a woman reigned supreme in her own house; no one other than the Guard on a mandate from the Queen herself could trespass where she was not wanted. It did not matter that this woman would be going out into the street carrying a small fortune, with nothing but her own skills and her bare hands to protect herself-unless she found a Guard or two on the way. She was not wanted in Lycia’s home; her brief welcome was over, now she must leave.
After all, it was her own fault that she had not believed the message, that she had come out with no escort, without even her own sword. If she ran into trouble, it was on her head.
The miserable tax-collector was forced to put her signature to a receipt specifying that she had gotten the stipulated sum from Xylina’s hands, gather up the sack and go. She bent down and picked up the little sack with shaking hands. And she was clearly afraid, for she was no ex-warrior like Lycia. It could even be that she had passed her own woman-trial simply because she had been lucky enough to find a particularly vulnerable man. A sum of the size she carried would make her a target for ruffians of all types- and tax-collectors were not popular with anyone. If she ran into trouble, she could not count on help from ordinary citizens.
If she lost the money to robbers, she would be forced to replace it out of her own funds. She might even be forced to pay a fine for being so stupid as to risk collected tax-money by going out after it without a guard. She could only hope that word of Xylina’s sudden prosperity had not spread to the underground, and that no one knew, as yet, that she was in a position to pay all her debts.
Xylina did not trouble to hide a smile as the woman left, visibly trembling, with the pouch of gold shoved into the bosom of her tunic. Nor did Lycia; in fact, the older woman practically cackled with glee.
The tax-collector scuttled down the street, everything about her saying that she was grossly unhappy and afraid. Xylina felt a surge of contempt. This toad was a full citizen, with an important job, while she, who had won her woman-trial fair and square against a formidable opponent, was the one who was in trouble!
The other woman, who actually had not yet come forward to demand payment in full though she was entitled to, was far wiser. She arrived with six strapping young armed slaves, and the permit for them to carry swords and daggers. And with her she also brought a bottle of a fine vintage wine.
Lycia warmed to her immediately. They were two of a kind. And Xylina was much happier to see her than she had thought she would be.
“My dear, I cannot tell you how glad I am that you have found a solution to your problem,” the woman said warmly. “I had not troubled you in the hopes that if I left you to think, you would find a patroness somewhere. A young woman as resourceful as you are could not help but find a solution if you were simply given a chance. You had such good ideas for the use of your old house-I thought that a moon or two to get your ideas together and get over the shock would be much better than pestering you at a time when you were confused and under stress.”
Xylina was touched, both by the words and the feeling that the woman meant them. Lycia seemed to think that the woman meant them, too, for she warmed even further.
“Not that you wouldn’t have come calling at the end of a moon or two,” Lycia said, her voice heavy with a certain amount of friendly irony.
The woman shrugged. “And would I have had a choice?” she asked, quite reasonably. “The Queen would be demanding her taxes of me, too. I cannot afford to forgive a debt of that size any more than you could afford to take it on, Lycia, and you well know it. But whatever I could do, I intended to do. I was trying to think of some way that Xylina could work off the debt; perhaps she could have leased her slave to me-it wasn’t my debt that I worried about, it was the tax. Tax-collectors have no heart.”
Lycia shrugged, but she appeared to soften a little more. “The law has less heart than tax-collectors. At least you had the good taste not to come around here like the jackals at the battlefield, looking for bones,” she admitted. “So thank you for that.”
“Indeed, thank you very much,” Xylina said softly, and smiled. “If I am ever in a position to pay that favor back, be sure that I will.”
The woman blinked, as if she had not expected that from the girl, and somewhat sheepishly handed Xylina the bottle of wine. “This is by way of congratulations,” she said. “I would like to toast your good fortune-if you would permit me.”
“I would be honored,” Xylina said honestly. She opened the wine and Lycia sent for goblets; it was a good vintage, not a stingy one.
And this time when their second visitor left, the smiles that followed her were chee
rful and not full of malice.
Xylina sat on the side of Faro’s cot. He looked better now than he had for some time, but there was no doubt that he still needed rest.
He had listened to her with a puzzled frown on his face, and Xylina did not blame him. Told baldly, the entire story sounded like something out of a tale. “I still do not understand this,” Faro said, when Xylina finished her story. “This makes very little sense. We do not know this woman, you say that you do not think your mother knew her, and she is no friend of Lycia’s whowas a friend of your mother’s. Why should she help you in this way?”
“I don’t know,” Xylina admitted. “I agree that it makes no sense at all. I wish that it did, that I could find some kind of explanation. It was not conjured gold, so it can’t be a trap of that kind, at least.”
Now that the debts had been retired, she had an even larger one-and now that she was away from Hypolyta’s rather mesmerizing gentleness, very little about the woman’s actions made sense to her. Lycia was inclined to take it all at face value, but the more Xylina thought about it, the more it seemed to be some kind of trap.
Evidently Faro felt the same. “Could this be the work of your enemy?’ he asked. “Is this a trap of some kind? Was everything properly witnessed and sealed?”
“So far as I can tell,” she said, handing him the contract. “It is all properly notarized, and she called in witnesses from outside as the law requires.”
He looked it over carefully, frowning as he forced his watering eyes to focus properly.
“It seems absolutely correct to me,” he admitted. “And I have made many such contracts in my time. But Xylina, can we retire such an enormous debt?”
She sighed. “We can only try, Faro.” She looked past him, at the blank wall, wishing that the future would reveal itself on that wall. “We can only try.”
Six months later, she had a new house and a thriving business.
The house was small; smaller than the original had been. There wasn’t a garden any more, and not much of a front area. There was one large room for her hired guards to sleep in, a kitchen, a small reception-area, a bathing room and her own bedroom. Faro still slept in her room, on a pallet across the door.
The rest of the area had been devoted to a training yard. True to his promise to do anything to help retire their debt, Faro had (reluctantly) agreed to train young slaves in unarmed fighting and staff fighting. Not that there weren’t other men perfectly capable of giving them the same training-which Xylina was quick to point out- but none of them had Faro’s current notoriety for trouncing ambushers.
That notoriety was considerable. As the story spread- slowly, of course, since she was of no real importance, but it did have some amusement value-the total number of ruffians he had killed grew, doubling and even tripling the original number. Soon there were many Mazonites who were interested in having him train their litter-bearers or bodyguards. After all, it was a nuisance to have to get a permit for one’s slaves to bear arms within the city; it was much easier to give them staves and special training. Pressure from women worried about the “gangs of runaways” changed the law to permit slaves to bear staffs at any and all times, though not swords.
Any man could learn to handle a staff, and one did not have to worry quite as much about watching one’s back as when the slaves were armed with edged weapons. The very idea of men with swords-even for a short period of time and under the proper supervision of a female-made some Mazonites very nervous. That was all to the good so far as Xylina was concerned; it meant that she and Faro had more business.
That was the positive side of their situation. On the negative side, Xylina had been forced to hire six guards to watch over her property. There had already been two more attempts to set her house ablaze; both foiled because she or Faro had caught the fire before it began to spread. Xylina had practiced the conjuration of fire-stifling vapor, learning well from her mistake with water on oil. There had also been a number of attempts at ambushes. It would have been cheaper in the long run if she had been able to buy the slaves outright, but at the moment she could not afford that many trained men.
But she did not have time to think about her finances. There were training-contracts to arrange, a household to run, the training itself to oversee, and a hundred details to take care of. There never seemed to be any end to it. And she never had any time to really look into her financial state. She could only assume that since there was more money going into their account than leaving it, that everything was fine.
There was, however, one matter she realized she had to address. “Faro,” she said one evening before sleep.
“Yes, mistress?” He had been about to lie down across her doorway, as usual.
“I think I don’t know exactly how to say this,” she said, aware of the awkwardness of the situation, but determined to get through it. “I don’t want to offend you.”
“I think you could not do that if you tried,” he said with a low laugh.
“You have been a good slave and a good guard and a good friend. You have served me so much better than I had any right to expect. But I may not have treated you with the same consideration.”
“I have no complaints, mistress.”
“You are a man. You-surely have male needs. And I -”
“I think this is a dialogue we do not need to finish,” he said gruffly.
He was misunderstanding exactly the very way she had feared. “I want you to be-be satisfied-somewhere. As I understand other slaves are. So that your life will have some-some pleasure. But I don’t know how it is accomplished.”
“Oh. There are pleasure houses run by freedmen. Slaves go there when given leave, or in groups by appointment. Their mistresses give them coins to purchase the service, much in the manner of any other market.”
“Take what coins you need,” she said. “Go there when- when you need to.”
“Mistress, I can’t leave you. Someone would see me go, and know that you were not properly guarded.”
This was every bit as difficult as she had feared it would be. “I am prepared to risk it. I want you to be-be taken care of, and I just can’t-do this particular thing for you myself. Please go, Faro.”
He was silent a moment. “Mistress, I thank you sincerely for your offer. But I could not enjoy myself anywhere if I knew you were left vulnerable. I must not leave your side. So I beg you, think no more of this matter.”
“I can’t put it aside,” she said. “You have risked your life to protect mine, and you are making it possible for me to repay my debt of gold. I must give you some-”
“Mistress, I’m sure you don’t want to walk with me to such a house,” he said, laughing.
“Walk there with you,” she said thoughtfully. “Yes, I could do that. Is it safe in their-their antechamber?”
“Certainly. They have women from other cultures, ones without magic, and they guard them well. But-”
“Tomorrow,” she said. “Tomorrow we shall go there. There is one close by?”
“Such houses are everywhere. They do not advertise their presence, but all slaves know their location. There is one near.”
“Tomorrow we go,” she repeated with determination.
And the next day they did. The house turned out to be unpretentious. In fact it seemed to be a knickknack store, with slaves entering and departing fairly constantly. That was its cover. Its real business was in the several chambers in back. Faro showed her to a door that seemed to lead to a store room, but beyond it was a waiting room where several slaves sat. They sprang to attention the moment Xylina entered, looking alarmed. One was armed with a staff.
“Be at ease,” Faro said quickly. “My mistress merely wishes to know the nature of the establishment I might visit. She has no concern about you.”
A freedman appeared, readily identified by his costume and attitude. “I am Bulmer, the proprietor. Is there a problem?”
“My mistress feared I might be cheated or waylaid,” Faro s
aid smoothly. “So she came to see the establishment for herself, as is her right.”
“Come into my office,” Bulmer said.
They followed him to a small private chamber. The freedman turned to Xylina. “Is this a surprise inspection? I assure you we are in order.”
Xylina decided to tell him the truth. “I depend on Faro for protection. There have been incidents. He is concerned that if he leaves the house, I will be vulnerable. So I came here, so that he need not be concerned about his absence. Are your premises safe?”
Recognition came. “You must be the Lady Xylina! And Faro is your trainer. The neighborhood knows of you, and respects you. This is the type of generosity you show.”
“Yes. I want him to-to be able to visit here.”
“But we can not have a lady such as yourself being seen at a place like this!” Bulmer protested. “Someone might misunderstand.”
“Misunderstand?” she asked blankly.
“He means someone might take you for one of their women,” Faro said. “He’s right; you should not be here, mistress.”
“But this problem is readily solved,” Bulmer said. “We can send a woman to your estate. The cost would be more, but the convenience-”
Faro shook his head. “Cost is a concern. I do not wish to deplete my mistress’s exchequer frivolously.”
Bulmer considered. “It occurs to me that my guards could use the kind of training I understand you do. Suppose I send a woman with a guard, and you would train the guard, and the woman would remain until you had time to train her privately? I would consider this a fair exchange on an indefinite basis.”
Faro looked at Xylina, surprised. “If my mistress agrees-”
“I agree,” Xylina said, relieved. This would handle the matter without costing her precious coins.
If I Pay Thee Not in Gold Page 14
