by Karen Miller
There was no time to ask for a pot of her own, hot trickles were tickling her thighs, so she moved away from the tent, hiked up the yellow robe Abajai had given her and let her own water flow. Obid saw her. Shoving the pot he carried at another guard he loped towards her, arms waving, lips peeled back over teeth like knife points, all stained red.
She staggered backwards, fingers clawed. “ Abajai !”
He came out of the tent as Obid reached her with his hand swinging to smack her face. “Obid!” he shouted. “ Hunta !”
Obid dropped to his knees like an axed goat, and pressed his forehead to the dirt. “Master.”
Abajai wore a dark green robe and carried a club with a knot on one end and plaited thongs at the other. He tossed it in the air, caught it again just above the knot and brought the thongs down hard across Obid’s bowed shoulders. Obid was wearing nothing but his loincloth. His light brown skin welted at once and he whimpered. Four more times Abajai struck him. Obid’s fingers spasmed, but he didn’t cry out.
“Stand,” said Abajai. He sounded calm, but stern. “See this one?”
Standing again, Obid looked at her. “Master.”
“This one may not be touched without my nod.”
Obid struggled for words. “Master, this one spilled its water on the ground.”
“Ah.” Abajai dropped to a crouch before her, the scarlet scorpion flexing its claws as he grimaced. “What did I tell you, Hekat?”
“Use pot.”
“If you don’t use a pot, you waste your water. That is the same as stealing my coin. You understand?”
She felt the cool newsun air catch in her throat. The godspeaker saved his second-sharpest rocks for stealers. “No steal, Abajai,” she said jerkily. “No time for pot. Need pish now .”
Abajai sighed. Behind him, Obid’s face was flat as stone. Only his pale blue eyes were alive, they were full of questions. “Hekat, you are precious. But if you close your ears to my word again I will give Obid my nod and he will beat you. Just like you were one of the slaves he guards. You understand?”
Hekat, you are precious . The words burst inside her like a rain cloud, rare and hardly looked for. She nodded, drenched with pleasure. “Yes, Abajai. Water in pot.”
His lips twitched. “ All my words must be obeyed, Hekat. You understand?”
“Yes, Abajai.”
Supple as a snake, he rose to his feet. “Good. Obid?”
Obid stepped forward. “Master.”
Abajai rested a fingertip on her head. “Unless you receive my nod, this one is hidden from you.”
Now the questions in Obid’s eyes writhed like maggots in old meat. “Yes, master.”
“Go back to your business. We leave soon.”
Obid bowed. “Master.”
She watched Obid lope back to the slave line, where his fellow guards pretended not to watch. “Obid not like Hekat.”
Abajai looked down at her, faintly smiling. “Does Hekat care?”
She grinned. “No. Hekat not care.”
“Good,” he said. “It is foolish to care for the feelings of a slave. Now come.”
She returned with him to their camp, where Yagji was brewing tea and cooking corncakes in a pan. He was dressed in a white robe shot through with gold threads. All his godbraids were gathered in a tail at the base of his neck and he’d taken off his red stone eye. Now a green coiled snake dangled round his neck. The stone it was carved from was shiny, she’d never seen anything like it before.
“More trouble, Aba?” he said sourly as she settled on a blanket and watched Abajai portion out food and drink for two.
“No,” said Abajai, handing her a plate and cup. Then he picked up a jug and held it over her corncakes. “Honey?”
“What honey?”
“What is honey,” he corrected. “You must learn proper Mijaki, Hekat. Fluent, pleasing speech. Not this cobbled-together grunting of yours.”
“What Mijaki?”
“What is Mijaki. It is the tongue of our people. We are Mijaki. This land is Mijak, gift of the god.” When she looked at him, not understanding, he shook his head. “He never taught you that much, your father?”
Father. He meant the man? She shrugged. “She-brats like goats. Who want teach goats?”
“Only godforsaken fools,” muttered Yagji.
Abajai shot him a dark look. “What of your mother?”
She sniggered. “Woman not teach. Man beat woman if she talk she-brats.” She sipped from the cup carefully, not sadsa this time, but tea. It was cool enough to drink. She gulped, suddenly thirsty. “Woman try. Talk a little, when man gone.”
“Did anybody else talk to you?”
“Sometimes.” She shrugged. “Man not like. But Hekat listen to man. To man’s boys. To men visit man. Hekat learn words. Learn counting.”
Abajai smiled. “Clever Hekat.” He lifted the jug again. “Honey is sweet. You know sweet?”
She shook her head, staring as Abajai poured a sticky gold stream onto her corncakes. “Eat,” he said, still smiling. “Use your fingers.”
“I thought you wanted it civilized,” protested Yagji.
“That will come,” said Abajai, as she put down the cup and balanced the plate more firmly in her lap. “For now let her touch the world with her fingers. Let it become real. Something to be embraced, not feared. If she is to make my fortune, she—”
“ Our fortune,” said Yagji, and pointed at her plate. “You heard Aba, monkey. Eat! If you don’t eat there’ll be no meat on your bones and the good coin we paid for you will have been wasted!”
More goat words from Yagji. She would listen to Abajai. She folded a corncake in half and shoved it into her mouth. Her eyes popped as the sticky gold honey melted on her tongue. This was sweet? This—this—
Abajai and Yagji were laughing at her. “So? You like honey, Hekat?” said Abajai.
She chewed. Swallowed. Looked down at the other honey-soaked corncakes. Cold now, but she didn’t care about that. “Hekat like.”
“You should say thank you,” said Yagji, sniffing. “Only savages and monkeys have no manners. Say: Thank you, Yagji and Abajai.”
Her tongue yearned for more sweet. “Thank you, Abajai and Yagji.” She smiled, for Abajai alone. “Thank you for honey.”
Abajai patted her cheek. “You are welcome, Hekat. Now eat. The sun flies up. We must go.”
As she obeyed his word, stuffing sweet corncakes into her mouth, Yagji took the honey jar from Abajai and poured it over his own food. “Educate it if you must, Aba, but do refrain from fondling. As slaves go it might be quick-witted but your pet does not understand as much as you think.”
Abajai laughed, and drank his tea.
After breakfast they climbed onto the white camels and the caravan continued, traveling slowly but steadily beneath the hot blue sky. Every highsun Abajai taught Hekat proper Mijaki speech, and Yagji grumbled. Soon after newsun on the sixteenth day the land changed from flat to uneven, with ravines and steep hillsides. Four fingers after the nineteenth highsun they reached a road that twisted and turned like a snake, then plunged downward over a sharp jutting edge. Tall spindly trees with whippy branches crowded close on either side, flogging their faces and arms and legs. The camels complained with every step, and Abajai tightened his arm around Hekat’s middle, leaning back, as they shuffled to the bottom.
She gasped when they reached it. Here was green land spread before them! Thick grass wherever she looked, and more flowering bushes than ever grew in the village. Springs of water, bursting from underground. Aieee! She wished they could stop, she wanted to touch the bubbling water, to run with bare feet in all the growing grass, but lowsun was casting its long thin shadows. They would have to camp soon. Yagji was asleep already, trusting his camel to keep pace with Abajai.
Abajai woke him. “We have reached the lands of Jokriel warlord, Yagji. The savage north is left behind.”
Grunting, snuffling, Yagji straightened from his sleeping slouch.
“At last. I never wish to travel there again, Aba. Make a note.”
“We travel where the god desires,” said Abajai. “Now let us do our duty to the godpost, then seek a pleasant place to camp.”
There was a godpost, Hekat saw, a little further along the road. Tall and grim and scorpion-carved, with a white stone crow at its top. No godbowl for offerings at its base, but a craggy lump of blue crystal. Abajai and Yagji halted their camels and the slave train, and Hekat watched as Abajai went to the godpost, took two small carved cylinders from his robe’s pocket and pressed them to the unremarkable stone. Bright light flared, brief as a falling star. Surprised, she looked at Yagji.
“The warlord guards the borders of his lands,” said Yagji. “Traders travel wherever they please, but still we must announce our presence and prove we have paid our road-right taxes.”
She did not know what a warlord was, or understand what Yagji meant or how Abajai had made the light flare from the stone.
“Tchut tchut,” Yagji said, impatient with her not knowing. “Let Aba explain if he wishes. I couldn’t care less what you know and what you do not.”
But Abajai wasn’t interested in talking of stones and warlords when he returned to his camel. He only cared for making camp. As they rode on, looking for the best place to spend the night, she saw small grey animals with long ears in the grass on either side of them. Abajai gave his word and Obid killed the bounding creatures with a slingshot. Every time he stuffed a limp body into the sack slung over his shoulder he flashed Abajai a broad smile.
“Rabbits,” said Abajai, seeing her confusion. “You do not know rabbits?”
She shook her head. “No rabbits village.”
“You are far from your village now, Hekat. Forget that place, it does not exist.”
She nodded. “Yes, Abajai. How far Todorok village?”
“We will reach it a finger or two past highsun tomorrow.”
“More honey there?” she asked him hopefully.
That made him laugh. “Perhaps. Slaves, too.”
She felt a moment’s prickling. If he found a she-brat more precious than her . . . “Many slaves now.”
“There is no such thing as too many slaves, Hekat.”
They should talk of something else. She frowned, and carefully put her words together in the way he told her she must. “How far is Et-Raklion?”
He made a pleased sound in his throat. “Many godmoons caravanning still. Your village lies at the doorstep of The Anvil, Hekat. The Anvil. You know it?”
She nodded. The Anvil was the fierce forever desert one highsun’s ride from the village godpost. She’d never seen it, of course, but knew of men and boys lured into it hunting sandcats, who were never seen again. She used to wish the man would be so foolish.
“Et-Raklion sits at the far side of Mijak. Et-Raklion city, where the warlord lives, where we live, lies close to the Mijaki border, half a godmoon’s swift travel from the Sand River.”
Bewildered, she wriggled around to look at him. “Border? Sand River?”
He shook his head. “Your world would fit in a stunted nutshell. Hekat. The border is where Mijak ends. The Sand River is a desert, like The Anvil, though not as vast. You understand?”
Beside them, Yagji roused. “Save your breath, Aba. It doesn’t need geography. Teach it a dozen ways to spread its legs and it’ll know more than enough for our purpose.”
She struggled to untangle his meaning. “Mijak ends?”
“Yes.” Abajai rested his warm hand on the back of her neck. “At the Sand River. Beyond the Sand River lie other lands. We do not go to those places, the people there are dead to us.”
“Why?”
Abajai shrugged. “Because the god has said it.”
“Why?”
Yagji squealed and kissed his lizard-foot amulet. Abajai’s fingers closed around her neck, painted nails biting her throat, and his lips touched her ear. “You wish to live, Hekat?”
Heart pounding, she nodded. Abajai’s voice had turned dark and cold. He was angry. What had she done? His harsh breath scoured her cheek.
“Never ask the god why. Not in your heart and never with your mouth. You understand?”
No, but he was hurting her. Again, she nodded.
“Good,” he said, and let her go. “That is all you learn today.”
Yagji had kissed his amulet so hard the carved yellow stone had split his flesh. A thin thread of blood dribbled down his chin. He touched the small wound, stared at the blood, then leaned over to thrust his wet red finger into Abajai’s face.
“See this, Aba! The god bites me! It gives a sign! Dream no more of fortune. Sell your precious Hekat in Todorok, I beg you!”
Abajai gave him a square of white cloth. “The god does not punish sideways, Yagji. You bleed for your own sin, or by accident. Hekat is not for sale in Todorok.”
Hekat let out a deep breath and waited for her heart to slow. She didn’t want Abajai to know she’d been so frightened. For a long time Yagji rode in silence, the white cloth held to his cut lip with trembling fingers. His eyes were wide and staring far ahead, into the gathering dusk.
“We’ll talk on this again, Abajai,” he said at last, very softly. “Before we reach Et-Raklion.”
“We’ll talk of many things, Yagji,” said Abajai, as softly. “Before we reach Et-Raklion.”
CHAPTER THREE
They reached Todorok village a half-finger after highsun next. Hekat stared and stared, so much strangeness to see.
First was Todorok’s godpost. It looked new, untouched by harsh sunshine, unsplintered by windstorms. Twice as tall as the godpost she’d left behind in the village, it was painted bright godcolors: purple and green and gold. Scorpions carved from shiny black crystal crawled around and around to the white crow at its top, carrying messages to the god. The god-bowl at its base was a scorpion too, heavy black iron, tail raised, claws outstretched, and its belly was full of coin. Abajai dropped gold into it as they passed and pressed his knuckles to his breast in respect. So did Yagji show respect. So did she, after Abajai pinched her shoulder and growled.
Barely had she stopped marveling over the godpost than her breath was stolen a second time. Todorok village was big . It had wide streets covered in smooth stones and houses painted white. Their roofs weren’t made of grass, they had scales , like a snake, many different colors. The air was clean, it did not stink of goats and men.
The villagers waving as the caravan passed wore bright clothes all over and coverings on their heads. Strange . They had flesh on their bones. Their skin was shiny and smooth, not baked into cracked leather by endless sun. Some of them were she-brats , not chained in secret but walking freely beneath the sky, no man close to poke and strike.
How could that be?
Abajai and Yagji led the caravan to the center of the village, where the road opened into a large square. White buildings lined every side. One was a godhouse, its door and windows bordered with stinging scorpions and striking snakes. Here were scattered clumps of colorful flowers and water bubbling inside a ring of white rocks to splash unused on the ground.
Hekat couldn’t believe it. If she had ever once wasted so much the man would not have waited for the godspeaker, he would have broken her body himself and tossed it to his dogs.
The villagers gathered to greet them, smiled and laughed, they were pleased to see the Trader caravan. A smiling godspeaker stepped forward as Abajai and Yagji halted their camels. Not stooped and skinny, this one. His arms weren’t stringy, his robes were clean. The scorpion-shell bound to his forehead was uncracked and shiny. He had all his teeth and fingers.
“Welcome, Trader Abajai, Trader Yagji,” said the godspeaker. “It is many seasons since you were seen in Todorok.”
Abajai ordered his camel to kneel, climbed down, and snapped his fingers. Hekat climbed down after him and stood a little to one side, silent and wide-eyed. As Yagji’s camel folded its legs so the fat Trader might stand on the ground, Abaja
i said, “The god sends us where and when it desires, Toolu godspeaker. This far north good slaves grow thin on the ground, like grain without nourishment. But we are here this highsun, to trade for supplies and buy such flesh from you as promises us profit. If you have flesh to sell?”
“I am certain there will be some,” said the godspeaker. “Let us wait in the godhouse as word is sent to bring merchandise for your inspection. I will make sacrifice for your arrival.”
Abajai bowed. “The god sees you, godspeaker. And as we wait . . .” He took Hekat’s arm, tugging her forward. “You see this one?”
The godspeaker nodded, his curiosity almost hidden. “I see that one, Trader Abajai.”
“I wish it bathed and fed and dressed in cotton, with shoes upon its feet and charm-beads in its godbraided hair, for health and beauty and obedience. You will please me and the god to grant my desire. I will make an offering in return.”
The godspeaker’s hooded gaze lingered on Abajai’s scarlet scorpion, quiet in his cheek. Then he raised a sharp hand, so the snake-bones bangled round his wrist chattered. “Bisla.”
A short plump woman stepped forward from the watching crowd. Ivory amulets dangled from her ears and her nakedness was hidden beneath robes too fine for any female, surely. “Godspeaker.”
“Abajai wishes this one bathed and fed and dressed in cotton, with shoes upon its feet and charm-beads for health and beauty and obedience in its godbraided hair,” the godspeaker said, not looking at the woman. “You and your sisters may honor him so.”
“Yes, godspeaker.” The woman held out her hand. “Come, child.”
Hekat looked up at Abajai. “Go with her,” he said. “Obey her wishes but hold your tongue. There is nothing to fear, you will return to me before we leave.”