by Victor Poole
Ocher looked over at Wall. The bearded man was no longer smiling. Wall's breath caught in his throat; he swallowed hard, and stood up.
"Goodbye, slave," Wall said politely to Ajalia, and turned on his heel. The click of his boots echoed through the room; Ajalia could hear Wall's footsteps retreating down the long open hall of the temple. When the sound of his steps faded away into silence, she knelt on the floor, and bowed her head to the stone.
Ocher watched her warily. Daniel came in, bearing a ewer of water. Another boy followed behind him, carrying a tray of elegant cups. The two boys walked past Ajalia's prostrate form without comment; the boys had learned to ignore anything odd she did. The boys laid the things down on the low table, and hurried away.
Ajalia raised her head, and came near the table on her knees.
"What are you doing?" Ocher asked her. He sounded deeply amused.
"Making you think I'm a fool," Ajalia said. She poured the water. "Is it working yet?"
Ocher's face smoothed into an impassive mask.
"Why did you ask me here?" Ocher asked.
"I want things," Ajalia said. "You knew this, or you wouldn't have come."
Daniel walked quickly into the room bearing a heavy tray of spiced meats.
"Take the boys upstairs," Ajalia said in the Eastern tongue. "Make plenty of noise."
Daniel nodded, and ran away.
"What did you say to him?" Ocher asked. He was leaning forward a little, his eyes fixed on Ajalia.
"Ask Delmar if I know how to use my knife," Ajalia prodded. Ocher watched her, his lips working a little.
"Can she?" Ocher asked Delmar. Delmar looked from Ocher to Ajalia, and back again.
"What do you want me to say?" Delmar asked Ajalia.
She shrugged.
"She can," Delmar said.
"How do you know?" Ocher asked. He plucked a slice of meat from the tray, and popped it into his mouth.
"She killed a man in front of me," Delmar said. His eyes were fixed on Ajalia. He spoke as if he were in a trance. "Ajalia stabbed him in the throat before he could raise his arm."
"He attacked me first," Ajalia said.
"Is this true?" Ocher asked her.
"Sadly, it is," Ajalia said, "but Delmar veers from the official script. He killed the slave Lim, after Lim viciously attacked him. Delmar was alone in the woods, meditating on the ways of his forefathers, and Lim burst from the foliage. Lim was mad with jealousy. Lim suspected his wife, Yelin, of flirting with Delmar."
Delmar was staring at Ajalia with an open mouth.
"You can't say things like that," Delmar gasped.
"Delmar is really in love with me," Ajalia explained to Ocher. "He's waiting for popular opinion to catch up to his own egalitarian views on marriage with slaves."
"There aren't slaves here," Delmar said loudly. "And I'm not marrying you." The last part came out strangled; she smiled at him.
"You were pretty insistent," she said, "the last time we met."
Ocher was looking back and forth between the two of them.
"What are you playing at?" Ocher asked Ajalia. She smiled at the bearded man, and stood up.
"I could try to kill you," she explained, "but you would win."
"I would," Ocher agreed.
"So I would rather be friends," Ajalia said. "Delmar will be the Thief Lord."
Ocher looked up at her, his jaws working slowly over the meat in his mouth.
"This meat is quite good," Ocher said, taking another piece from the tray and putting it between his lips.
"I want access to Delmar," Ajalia said to Ocher. "And I want to build huts in the level places in the quarries. I will pay for this privilege, but I have learned that I must acquire your permission before I begin."
"Who gave you that knowledge?" Ocher asked.
"Card, my agent," Ajalia said. "He tells me that you are an efficient businessman. He told me I would fare better if I spoke to the Thief Lord," she said, "but I prefer to work with those in power."
Ocher shifted in his seat. Ajalia thought that she saw the ghost of a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.
"What do you want with Delmar?" Ocher asked.
"He is a key to prosperity," Ajalia explained. "I wish to adjust him, and then I wish to use him." She glanced at Delmar, who was sitting with an unreadable expression in his eyes. "I'm really horrible, that is what you are thinking," Ajalia told Delmar, "but you will understand what I am doing when you are older."
"And he really just sits there," Ocher asked, turning in his chair, and propping his chin in his fist. He stared at Delmar as though the Thief Lord's oldest son were an exhibit behind cage bars. "He just sits there, and takes it?"
"He is very docile around me," Ajalia told Ocher. "And his brain turns on. He's quite clever, under the facade of simplicity."
"Oh, I know that," Ocher said. "You don't need to tell me that. Although, if what you say is true, the future may change."
"Your plans for the future?" Ajalia asked.
"What is going on?" Delmar complained. He looked mildly pleased. His face had been furious in the beginning, before Wall had gone, but now, the longer they talked, the more his cheeks turned pink, and his ears burned.
"Hush, child," Ocher said impatiently to Delmar. "And you think you can transform him?" the bearded man asked Ajalia. He was leaning forward a little in his seat, his eyes wilder and brighter than they had been before.
"I can," Ajalia said, "if I am given what I need."
"And you need huts in the quarries," Ocher said drily.
"I need to be kept happy," Ajalia said. "And getting my way, when it doesn't matter much to you, makes me very happy."
"I will not let you build in the quarries," Ocher said.
"All right," Ajalia said. She smiled sweetly at the Thief Lord's man. A muffled clatter came from upstairs. She had heard a collection of steps and bangs, very faintly, coming from above, but she had heard because she had been listening for it. Now the noises became audible enough to draw attention. She saw Ocher's eyes flip upwards a little, and then back to her face.
"You don't mean it," Ocher said.
"Mean what?" Delmar demanded. "She didn't say anything."
"She said she won't develop you," Ocher snapped, "if I don't give her what she wants." Ajalia gazed demurely at Ocher, a charming smile on her face. Delmar looked over at Ajalia.
"Well," Delmar said finally, "I won't be developed, anyway. Whatever that means," he added grumpily.
"You couldn't manage him," Ocher told Ajalia, after a long pause. The silence stretched on for a while. Ajalia waited, and waited, her face a patient picture of serenity. Delmar shuffled in his chair. The bangs from upstairs grew louder.
"What are they doing?" Delmar asked Ajalia. She ignored him. After a moment, Delmar stood up, and began to wander towards the door of the room.
"Sit down," Ajalia said. Delmar came back, and sat. He looked at Ajalia expectantly. Ocher watched this with narrowed eyes.
"How will you do this?" Ocher asked. "This change in him, how will you work it?"
"I want to build those huts," Ajalia said. "You have not even asked me how much I will pay."
"I don't want your money," Ocher said in disgust.
"You want power," Ajalia told him. "I have power. I have power over the future Thief Lord, and I have power over my master in the East. He trusts me. I am irritatingly loyal."
Ocher perked up a little at this; his eyes travelled over the room, over the spacious dimensions, and the ornate carvings of trees and animals that chased each other elegantly around the walls.
"I will listen," Ocher said.
"I have said what I need," Ajalia told him. "I have no more to say."
"You cannot build in the quarries," Ocher told her.
"Then I have wasted your time," she said. "I apologize, and hope to meet you someday on friendlier terms." Ajalia rose, and clapped her hands. "Tell your mother," Ajalia told Delmar, "that Wall is an irr
itating boy."
Delmar stared up at her.
"No, I won't tell her that," Delmar said.
"You can find your own way out," Ajalia told Ocher. She went out of the room, and into the narrow hall that led to the stairs.
The rooms within the dragon temple were high and spacious; behind the final room was a thin passage that led to a long closet lined with shelves, and a twisting stair that ran up the length of the building to the second and third floors. Ajalia went up this stair now, and came into the long, open room in the second floor. Her boys were dancing with wooden clogs on their feet, and throwing a great hollow stone from one end of the room to the other.
They had found the stone in one of the upper rooms; the hollow of the stone had been filled with dust and cobwebs, and a strange ragged cloth of yellow had stretched between the empty spaces. Ajalia had cleaned it, and given it to the boys so they could practice making a hubbub. One of the boys saw Ajalia come in; he stopped kicking his feet against the wall, and the others soon stopped as well.
"Did we make enough noise?" Daniel asked anxiously. Ajalia nodded.
"Perfect," she said. "Now go up to the roof and play."
The boys kicked away their heavy clogs; Daniel heaved the hollow stone into a corner, and followed the others. Ajalia put a hand on his arm when he came past her.
"Have you dampened the stove?" she asked. Daniel nodded, his eyes anxious. She smiled at him.
"You have done well," she told him. Daniel beamed at her. "Go on," she said, and Daniel ran away.
Ajalia lined the wooden clogs up in a neat row. She took a broom that lay ready in the corner, and swept the chunks of wood and rock dust that lay scattered over the stone floor. The hollow rock was of a softer stone than that of the floor, and it left crumbs of dusty gray behind it when it rolled.
When Ajalia had made a careful pile of the rock dust, she saw Ocher standing in the door at the end of the room. He was watching her. Ajalia finished sweeping the long slivers of wood that had shattered away from the wooden clogs, and swept the pile carefully towards the door, where Ocher stood.
"You're in my way," Ajalia said, the broom in her hand. Ocher stepped to one side, and Ajalia swept the refuse towards the blank drop off that lay at the back wall of the stairs. Each landing of the stairs had an opening, a window that ran to the floor, and opened out on the back enclosure, where an ornate garbage pit lay, and a white stone pavilion.
Ajalia swept the rock dust and wood bits over the edge of this opening, and took the broom back into the wide room.
"If I said yes," Ocher began. Ajalia made no sign that she had heard; she kept her body neutral, and soft. She leaned the broom against the wall in the corner, and drew her knife. She did not look at Ocher, but she felt him smile at the fluidity with which her fingers took hold of the hilt. "If I say yes," Ocher said, "what time would you promise?"
"Three years to construct the huts," Ajalia said.
"I meant the new Thief Lord," Ocher said. She looked at him, and saw a hardness in his eyes that had not been there before. His mouth had straightened, as well, and his beard clustered over a firm chin.
"The time that it takes," Ajalia said slowly, "depends entirely on Delmar. He is prone to tantrums."
Ocher watched her examine the edge of the knife; she could see her reflection in the shining metal of the blade.
"Are you?" Ocher asked. She looked at him. "Are you prone to tantrums?" he asked.
"I break people," Ajalia said, "when I lose my temper."
"And do you lose it often?" Ocher asked. She considered his eyes.
"That depends," she replied.
"Depends on what?" he asked.
"On whether or not I am getting what I want," she said with a smile. He grinned.
"I am going to regret this," Ocher told her.
"I would think you were a fool if you did not," she said. Ocher laughed.
"You said you were loyal," he said, turning and looking out of the open window. She waited for him to continue speaking. The heft of her knife was familiar in her hand, and warm. She felt as though she were hugging a friend. "To whom are you loyal?" Ocher asked.
Ajalia considered her answer for some time.
"To my principles," she said. Delmar appeared at the foot of the stairs.
"Are we going?" Delmar called up to Ocher. Ocher waved at him to come up the stairs.
"Come here," Ocher said. Ajalia watched Delmar glance uneasily at her, and then at Ocher. He edged cautiously up the stairs. Ajalia thought that Ocher seemed to be a kind of overgrown nanny for the Thief Lord's sons; they seemed to fear him, and to respect him. She wanted to ask Delmar what Ocher's relationship was to the family; he seemed like a contractual uncle of some kind.
"I got my huts," Ajalia told Delmar. Ocher grimaced at her.
"Are you talking about me?" Delmar asked.
"No," Ajalia said. "We were talking about me. Ocher wants to know if I am a whore, or an assassin. He has not made up his mind about me," she said. Ocher laughed again.
"I said none of those things," he said.
"I am none of those things," Ajalia replied.
"Ajalia is a good person," Delmar said. He had started out to say that she was not a whore, but his voice got muddled around that word, and he broke off and altered his statement in the middle.
"He wants to know why I carry a knife," Ajalia explained to Delmar.
"Yes, I do," Ocher said. "You seem angrier than a slave needs to be."
"And?" Ajalia asked.
"What does your master want?" Ocher asked suddenly. Ajalia looked at him. She thought about lying, and then she thought about the black stone huts in the quarries, and the families that lived in shallow caves, and under lowering skies and rain.
"My master has considered the political overthrow of such a land as Slavithe," Ajalia said. Delmar stiffened; Ocher's face showed no sign of emotional display. Ajalia watched Ocher's eyes. "I am sent before," she said, "to test the waters."
"And?" Ocher asked. "What is your estimation of our defenses against such a man as your master?"
"It is possible," Ajalia said, choosing her words with care, "that a new Thief Lord, and a strong alliance between the cities of Talbos and Slavithe, could, together, withstand the cunning of my master." She glanced at Delmar. "The next Thief Lord could, I believe, furnish such an alliance."
"And you would serve Delmar, rather than your Eastern master?" Ocher asked. Ajalia met his eyes frankly.
"That entirely depends," she said, "on what kind of Thief Lord Delmar proves to be."
"And you wish to make him into a Thief Lord," Ocher said. "What is to prevent you from destroying our land yourself, through him?" Ajalia stared at Ocher, and Ocher stared at Ajalia. The knife lay open and naked between them, like a ray of white sun. Ajalia was holding the blade easily; the point of the metal was directed straight at Ocher's heart. The bearded man either had not noticed this, or did not count Ajalia a threat. "What protects us from you?" Ocher asked.
"My integrity," Ajalia said. She watched Ocher think about this, and think about her.
"I could destroy you now," Ocher said. Delmar stepped closer to Ajalia, his massive shoulders veering to the side, to edge between them. Ajalia saw Delmar move, and made no motion to stop him.
"Your life now is destroying you," Ajalia said. Ocher bared his teeth at her in the picture of a grin. He said nothing. "The Thief Lord is corrupt," Ajalia said, "you see what a man he is. You see his son Wall." Ajalia glanced at Delmar, who was glaring at Ocher through narrowed eyes. "You can see that Delmar is an honest man," Ajalia said. She moved to put her knife away, and Ocher lifted a hand to stop her.
"Keep the knife," Ocher said. "Danger suits you."
Delmar growled in his throat, and put his body in front of Ajalia, his lip curled. Ocher looked at Delmar, and at Ajalia.
"I like her," Ocher told Delmar. "Can I have her?"
"Mine," Delmar said in a low voice. Ajalia slipped her knife back
into its casing.
"If you are patient," Ajalia told Ocher, "and very nice to me, I will find you a wife."
"A wife like you?" Ocher asked.
"He's married," Delmar spat. Ajalia ignored him.
"Not me," Ajalia said, "but more suitable to you." Ocher considered this. "I am too vengeful," Ajalia explained, "and you have a soft heart."
Ocher's breath came in his nostrils like fire; his cheeks had turned a beet color under his beard.
"Yes," Ocher said finally. "And you needn't pay me for the huts."
"The Thief Lord will be suspicious if I simply keep the rents," Ajalia said. "He will suspect you of colluding with me, and he already sees me as a threat."
"How will you pay me, then?" Ocher asked. Delmar's back was tensed; his arm was pressed protectively against Ajalia.
"When they are built," she said, "Card will come and work for you. He will have outgrown my purposes by then."
"Card is your man?" Ocher asked.
"He is honest, and clever," Ajalia said. "He manages my money."
"And you trust him," Ocher said. "I'll take him."
"Three years," Ajalia reminded him. "I'll send a boy with papers to sign."
"We don't use papers much here," Ocher told her.
"You will, soon," Ajalia said. "Keep everything on paper now, if you wish to keep what you have." Ocher let out a thunderous laugh.
"She talks as if she owns the city," Ocher told Delmar. Delmar's mouth was still turned down in a frown; his brows were drawn, and his lips hard.
"Ajalia is mine," Delmar said. "You stay away from her."
"I will send a boy," Ajalia said again. Ocher turned down the stairs.
"I'm taking those meats to my cook," Ocher called up as he went down. "You're out the tray," he added with a laugh.
"She'll have to send to Talbos to get the spices," Ajalia said. "We didn't sell the marsik at market here."
"My cook's a man," Ocher said. He went around the corner of the landing, and disappeared. "Nice meeting you!" he hollered from around the corner.
Delmar waited until Ocher's footsteps could no longer be heard, and then he wrapped his arms around Ajalia.