by Victor Poole
Ajalia leaned her head back against the wall of the building behind her, and thought of Card and the servant girls. Leed had not come back to the forest; she guessed that the boy would appear later, when he had a chance to slip away from Philas.
Ajalia sighed, and stood up. She straightened her clothes, and stepped into the brilliant street. She had left her black hair down around her face; the sharp bangs and steep layers that identified her as her master's face-bearing slave she had cut away with her knife, while Delmar slept. The black dye in her hair, she was sure, was beginning to fade a little. Her hair hung now in thick curtains around her cheeks, and down her back. She needed a mirror to finish cutting her hair; she realized that she could have looked in the bathhouse for something, but the rooms had been dusty and abandoned; she reflected that the building may have been stripped of fixtures long ago.
The people around her seemed not to notice her much; she was grateful for this. She knew she stood out in the street, with her sleeveless orange gown and long hair. The shorn heads of the women around her, and their plain brown tunics and shapeless chests, were a sharp contrast to her own shapely figure, and luxurious locks.
When she came to the cross street that led towards the long row house, she saw Yelin in the street. The beautiful blond slave was dressed in a simple sheath of silver silk; her hair was piled in long waves on her head, and her cheeks were pink with a modest blush. Ajalia angled towards Yelin; the female slave saw her, but made no sign.
"Where's Lim?" Ajalia asked in the Eastern tongue, falling into step beside Yelin.
"You look well," Yelin said coldly in the same language, her chin turned up, and her eyes flicking to the side.
"Thanks," Ajalia said, "where's Lim?"
"I don't know," Yelin said with dignity. "I suppose you would have to look for him in the Thief Lord's house."
"I found some things of Lim's," Ajalia prompted. "I wanted to return them."
Yelin glanced sharply at Ajalia.
"I could take them," Yelin said.
"They seemed quite personal," Ajalia explained. Yelin's mouth hardened; her nostrils flared. "When you see Lim," Ajalia said, "tell him I want to see him."
"Fine" Yelin said between her teeth. The blond slave quickened her pace. Ajalia let Yelin get a little ahead, and then she called out.
"Yelin," she said. Yelin hesitated. Her face turned a little back towards Ajalia.
"What?" Yelin asked. Ajalia smiled tightly.
"Are you with the Thief Lord now, or with one of his sons?" Ajalia asked. Yelin's lips parted in a smile; her teeth were bared, like an animal's.
"Maybe both," Yelin said. "We'll see." Her hard eyes raked over Ajalia's face. "Anything else?" Yelin asked.
"Try not to get pregnant," Ajalia said. Yelin snorted, and spun away. Ajalia watched her walk away. She tried to regret her words, and could not. She could see a curious tightness between Yelin's shoulder blades as the blond slave walked away. She was sure that Yelin was ignorant of Lim's death.
Ajalia walked to the long row house, and knocked at the door. A little boy, one of her Slavithe boys, answered the door. His eyes lit up when he saw Ajalia.
"Mistress is home!" he shouted, running into the house. Ajalia waited at the doorstep. After a moment, Card appeared. His face looked different, sharper and younger than it had before. He smiled widely when he saw Ajalia.
"Hello," Card said joyfully, holding out his hands and ushering Ajalia inside.
"What do I own?" Ajalia asked, as soon as she was inside.
"Did that slave find you?" Card asked. "He was about ready to kill me, I think."
"Philas found me," Ajalia said. "And Leed found me."
"I don't know which one Leed is," Card said, "but that slave, he was unhappy to hear you'd gone."
"He's gone back to Talbos now," Ajalia told Card. "He had an idea of rescuing me from myself."
"I see you managed," Card said. His eyes were on Ajalia's bare arms.
"Would you like to stare at my arms?" Ajalia asked with a smile.
"I would," Card admitted. Ajalia held out her wrists, and Card bent over them, his face puckered with interest. "I've never seen anything like it," he said. Ajalia could see him staring at the faint white lines where the brands had been.
"I am far from dissatisfied," Ajalia admitted. "Now," she said sitting down in the front room. "Where do we stand?"
"I hope you won't mind," Card said, looking unabashed, "but I've disposed of your young women."
"What about the three girls I sent to the seamstress?" Ajalia asked. Card's eyebrows drew together.
"Well, I didn't know about them," he said, "so they're still about. But the others I've sold to a man down south of the quarries. He keeps birds, and grows a lot of seed crops. He needs the hands, and the young women will be useful enough."
"Will they grow to trades?" Ajalia asked. Card grinned ferociously.
"I've taken a page from your book," he said. "They can learn to farm themselves, if they like. There's fallow land down there, under the mountains. The weather is horrible, and the skies are often dark, but the living is good, if they can stomach it."
"Why is the sky dark?" Ajalia asked without thinking.
"The mountain there has a strange way about it," Card said. "Some people say it's an old curse from the days of Jerome, but the air is thicker, just around that mountain top. It rains plenty, but the sun is darker, and the sky stays cloudy more than anywhere else. You can walk ten feet out of the valley, and the air clears. It's curious."
"And no one wants to live there," Ajalia said.
"Aye," Card agreed. "Fallow land, and a living, if they can learn to live with the sky."
"Good man," Ajalia said. "What about my boys?"
Card grinned. "I've booted the one lad, Gull. He was a pushy, nasty thing. Daniel is still here, and running things as smooth as you like. I've got the boys all put into gangs. They're cleaning the streets now, on commission from the Thief Lord's secretary."
"Really?" Ajalia asked. She was impressed. "And the rents?"
"Oh, yes," Card said. He looked embarrassed. "I know you were charging under market rate," he explained, "and you did get a favorable bargain on the materials for fixing up those huts in the quarries, but—" he broke off, his eyes darting up at her, and then down.
"Yes?" Ajalia asked.
"Well," Card said quickly, "if your goal was money, then great, we have money now. But if you were hard set on the properties—"
"What have you done?" she asked. She was calm.
"The other owners, down in the quarries," Card said hesitantly, "they saw what I was about, or they heard, and some of them came down a few days ago, to see Chad."
"Is Chad still our front?" Ajalia asked, watching Card's eyes.
"Oh, aye," Card assured her. "As innocent and indignant as ever. He's a fine honest boy, Chad is, if stupid."
"I value Chad's stupidity," Ajalia said.
"As do I," Card assured her. "No, Chad told the owners of the other huts down in the quarries that, well—" he broke off again, and rubbed his neck with one hand. Ajalia waited, her hands folded peacefully in her lap. She had already grown used to the lack of aches in her arms, and the springy nature of her spine. Her whole body had changed, and she was blissfully taking her renewed health for granted. She had no intention of ever feeling grateful; she wanted to erase the past, and reform her memories with her body like this, her arms free of hideous scars, her body free and cleansed of the life she had lived. She waited for Card to speak. His face grew redder, and his throat swelled up as though he was about to burst.
"Chad told them you were in construction," Card said in a rush. "He offered to restore all the huts down in the quarries, in exchange."
"In exchange for what?" Ajalia asked.
"More houses," Card confessed. Ajalia began to laugh. Card watched her narrowly. "You don't seem upset," he said. Ajalia leaned forward, and patted the table that lay in the room.
"Have you paper?" she asked. "Draw me a map. Let's see what we have."
THE DRAGON TEMPLE
Card went to fetch the things; when Ajalia watched him leave the room, she saw a row of bright eyes and scrubbed faces lining the hall, staring at her. She raised one hand in greeting to the line of little boys. They made no sign, their eyes solemn and vivid in the sunlight that filtered through the windows.
"Which are these?" she asked, gesturing at the boys when Card came back with paper.
"I keep a set on rotation, for the house," Card explained. "Helps with appearances."
"Are they all broken to the house?" she asked. Card made a face.
"Not really," he said, looking at the boys' faces, and waving them away, "but they're quiet now."
"Quiet is a great thing," Ajalia conceded.
"It is," Card agreed. He laid out the paper, and began to draw a rough diagram of the city. "We're here," he said. "Here is the stable district, there's the gate, and that's the quarry." He made a sweeping line to the edge of the paper. "We'll call that the sea," Card said, gesturing at the edge of table that lay beyond the paper.
"All right," Ajalia said.
"Here is the Thief Lord's house," Card said, sketching out little boxes, "and here's the road that runs to the market."
"The little house is here?" Ajalia asked, pointing to the space on the paper between the row house and the Thief Lord's house.
"No," Card said. "That house is here, underneath the second residential road. You'd think it would be here," he said, pointing to where Ajalia had indicated, "but the road doubles down here, and curves in on itself. It ends in a blank wall."
"So here," Ajalia said.
"Yes," Card said. He sketched in the rest of Ajalia's properties, and made scratchy lines to show the roads that ran between each house. "Now," he said, when he had finished this, "Chad has acquired this house, here," and Card marked a square just a little space from the Thief Lord's house, "here," and he made another mark below the first, "and here." He drew a squiggly line above the first box.
"What's that?" Ajalia asked, looking down at the squiggly line.
"Well," Card said heavily. "That's a temple."
Ajalia looked at the squiggly line, and then at Card.
"And?" she asked.
"Well, I can't rent out a temple," Card said. He looked at her, and she looked at him.
"Can I live there?" she asked.
Card stared at her.
"I guess you could," he said slowly. He frowned down at the map he had drawn. "I hadn't thought of that."
"Are the temples in use?" Ajalia asked.
"Oh, no," Card said with a laugh. "Not for a hundred years."
"So they just sit?" Ajalia asked.
"No," he said. "They're cleaned, usually."
"And then they just sit?" she asked.
"Well, no," Card said, grimacing. "They are, you know, inspiring."
"But mostly they just sit," Ajalia said. "When they aren't inspiring anyone?"
Card smiled a little.
"Yes," he said.
"And is anyone going to attack me for living in a temple?" she asked.
"The priests used to live there," Card said. "When there were priests."
"Hm," Ajalia said.
"You have some very nice houses," Card offered.
"I do," Ajalia agreed.
"And you're going to live in a temple," he said with a sigh.
"Yes," Ajalia said firmly, "I am."
She moved out from the little house the next day. Chad had been staying there, under Card's orders, since she had left. She learned from Chad that she had been gone for almost a week.
"It was awful," Chad told her earnestly. "People kept talking to me, and I didn't know what to say."
He glanced at her from under drawn brows; she was pulling the furniture from the little house into a pile at the bottom of the stairs. Chad watched her work, a petulant look on his face.
"Were you with Delmar?" Chad asked finally. Ajalia smiled at him.
"Why do you ask?" she replied. Chad shuffled his feet. He put one hand on the arm of a chair. Most of the furniture had been broken down; she intended to buy new things, but some of the tables, and all of the beds in the little house, were light, and well-constructed.
"You know," Chad said, "that I am always there." Ajalia pushed a table against the wall.
"What do you mean?" she asked. She had found a black mirror of polished stone in the bathhouse nearby, and had evened out her hair. She had no intention of appearing as her master again in Slavithe, and she wanted to erase the similarity in appearance between herself and the way she looked in her full regalia, with her hair down in sharp layers. The roots of her hair, and the ends, were beginning to have a brown hue. She had sent her black dyes to Talbos, with Philas and the other slaves. Her hair had quickly taken on the fluffy waves of her natural texture, and though it was still long, it no longer fell in straight sharp angles around her cheeks and neck. She was sure she could not be recognized as the painted and bearded man who had met the Thief Lord, and who had processed grandly through the city with the caravan. She no longer bore much resemblance to her old self, either, and she found, as she went through the streets, that the Slavithe people did not realize she was the same slave who had made such a stir in the market some weeks ago.
"Well," Chad said, "I know you like Delmar—"
"How do you know?" Ajalia asked. She gazed straight at Chad. His face began to glow.
"Um," Chad said. He looked around the room. "Everyone says so?"
"Who is everyone?" Ajalia asked. Her voice was friendly and interested. Chad fidgeted uneasily with a tangle of thread that had caught on the corner of a table.
"Um," Chad said. "You know."
"I don't," Ajalia said. She went to the wall, and lifted down the large painting that showed the Slavithe people gathered around the black sludge of the poison tree.
"Well, anyway," Chad said, "I'm here, and Delmar isn't too bright, and someday I think you'll notice me."
"I notice you right now," Ajalia said. Chad laughed breathlessly.
"I mean, as a man," he said. His voice climbed slightly. Ajalia set the painting gently against the wall, and turned to Chad.
"I do," she said, and looked at him with a level gaze. Chad's face turned purple, and then red.
"Oh," he said. His eyes jittered away from her.
"Delmar doesn't like Yelin much," Ajalia offered. Chad looked sharply at her.
"Is Delmar with that blond woman?" he demanded. "I thought she was making eyes at Wall. Wall is the Thief Lord's second son," Chad added helpfully.
Ajalia shrugged.
"Yelin is a married woman," she said. Chad looked at her sharply.
"Does Delmar love her?" Chad demanded. "Is he breaking your heart?" Ajalia looked at Chad, and smiled. She knew she looked about as dispassionate as a block of ice. Chad's eyes clouded over with doubt. "I thought Delmar liked you," Chad complained. Ajalia shrugged.
"Young men can be fickle," she said. "Help me with that one." She pointed at the second painting, the one that showed the cord of white lightning in one corner. The rest of the painting was crowded with a mass of green trees and bushes; below the trees was a layer of rich red earth. Within the red earth were cords of glowing gold light. Outlines of animals and birds, concealed in the foliage of the trees, clustered through the forest.
Chad put his hands on either side of the heavy frame, and lifted the painting from the place where Lim had hung it on the wall.
"Are you taking these with you?" Chad asked. Ajalia nodded.
"Thank you for helping me," she said. She saw that Chad's eyes lingered on her bare arms.
"You're welcome," he said. Ajalia smiled. She had heard nothing from Delmar since they had parted in the forest. A part of her suspected that he would never speak to her again, and another, larger part, planned to hunt him down if he made no motion towards her in the next few weeks. She felt patient, and sec
ure in his attachment to her. She thought that Delmar had never received much attention from his parents, and she judged that such attention as he was now likely receiving would act on Delmar like strong drink. She had seen his face change, his mind change almost into a new being when he was under the influence of his parents, and she was content to bide her time. Card had not asked her about Delmar; she knew that the older man watched her, but she had found, thus far, that his discretion exceeded even his business acumen.
Ajalia was satisfied with the disposal of the young women. She had yet to visit the fabric merchant's wife, to see the progress of the three young women she had placed in service there. Card and Chad had both told her, when she asked, that Calles, the fabric merchant's wife, had not sent any message to the little house about the girls.
Ajalia knew that the Thief Lord must be aware that she had reappeared in the city, but the powerful man had, as yet, made no motion to see her.
Ajalia felt a sort of gathering of power within her; she could not have hoped for more fortunate circumstances to unfold around her stay in the city of Slavithe. She missed the clatter of the Eastern slaves, and the hubbub of their familiar language and habits, but she was swiftly growing accustomed to the quiet and peace of the house without them. She had been back in the city for less than a day, and already the silence in the little house, and the scuffling of the little boys, who moved around like ghosts, and whispered to each other, was soothing her into a kind of trance. She loved the quiet. Not since she had hidden in the forest of the northlands, on her way away from her father's house astride the stolen chestnut horse, had she felt so alone, and so calm within.
Ajalia led the procession of her little boys, and the carts of furniture, through the white streets of Slavithe. She had emptied the rooms of their contents, and left a shining white gleam of walls and floors behind. The ground around the garbage pit in the back had been scrubbed and tidied, and the bowls and dishes in the kitchen had been stacked neatly in the cupboards. The dishes were the only things she had left behind; she wanted to create an impression within the walls of the temple, her new residence, and she had no intention of serving Slavithe guests on plain earthenware bowls.