by Victor Poole
"I look like a woman," Delmar had complained. She had shushed him.
"You can make your own fashion choices when you finish growing up," she told him. "Right now, think of yourself as a dress-up toy."
"I am not a toy," Delmar said with dignity.
"No, dear," Ajalia said soothingly, adjusting the fluff of his hair, "you are the dead falcon."
"I'm not," Delmar said.
"You are," she told him. "You just don't know it yet."
Delmar had looked at the ground, his cheeks burning a little.
"I look ridiculous," he muttered.
"You look dangerous," Ajalia said.
"Everyone in Slavithe wears brown," he had protested, when the time had come for clothes. "Even my father wears brown," he added mutinously.
"Yes, and it looks like poop," Ajalia said soothingly.
"It does not!" Delmar retorted. "And," he said, his eyes flashing, "you are wearing brown!"
"Camouflage," she said. "And this is a nice brown."
Delmar had frowned imperiously at her, his cheeks bunched into a look of utter distaste. When she had taken him to look for shoes, he had finally shown some measure of excitement.
"Everyone is going to laugh at me," he muttered. The people of Slavithe had access to quality goods, but for some reason, Ajalia suspected ignorance and fear of the Thief Lord and his family, the people dressed badly. Some of the merchants, and the wealthy, she had seen, wore good footwear, and some of the women, particularly those connected to the fabric industries, wore good cloth, neatly cut and stitched, but she had yet to see the complete picture of a man or woman dressed in any cohesive fashion.
Ajalia adjusted the buckles along the calves of Delmar's new boots.
"These are nicer than your father has," she observed. Delmar looked at the gleaming, butter-colored boots, and said nothing.
"I look silly," he told her.
"You look like a young man," Ajalia corrected him, "a young man too aware of himself. You have to transition slowly into elegance, or no one will believe in you."
Delmar watched her hold a pair of spurs against the heels of the boots.
"I don't want to learn how to ride," he said slowly. Ajalia smiled at him.
"Your brain is turning on," she told him. "And you have to ride."
"My father—" Delmar began.
"Your father is a fool," Ajalia said. Her voice was low; she was aware of the leather merchant nearby. "Now, you are going to look like a fop for about two months," she said. "Everyone will look at you, and most of the young men will copy you."
Delmar started to tell her she was crazy; she cut him off again.
"First rule," she said. Delmar glanced at the merchant, and closed his lips. His eyes were mutinous. "Wait and see," she murmured. "See the look in Card's eyes, when he opens the door of the oblong house. In less than a week, Chad will buy new boots. Wait and see."
Delmar studied her eyes. Slowly, he nodded.
When Card answered the door, he looked at Ajalia first. He told her he had signed the contract, and that Daniel had taken it off to Ocher. Card looked over at Delmar then, and his eyes widened. Card's mouth puckered, as though he had eaten a sour thing. Ajalia saw that Card did not recognize Delmar at all.
"Who's this?" Card asked sharply, taking in the shapely and well-shod young man who stood so near behind Ajalia.
Ajalia smiled with abandon. She turned and laughed at Delmar, who was staring at Card with his mouth wide open.
"Don't you know me?" Delmar demanded. He looked almost angry.
"Who is he?" Card hissed at Ajalia, who was laughing with delight.
"You two get to know each other," she said, and went past Card into the house. She heard a brief exchange as she went to find Daila and the young women; she heard Card begin to laugh as well. Delmar, she imagined, was glowering. She went through the house to a back room, where she found Sun and Clare bent over a pile of root vegetables. Clare's hands were connected with a twist of rope, and a strange white chain hung around her neck.
"Where's Ossa?" Ajalia asked. The two girls started up when they heard her voice; Sun looked brightly enough, but Clare's eyes were rimmed with red, and her nose was swollen.
"She's gone with Daila to market," Sun said. Her hands were reddened with the peels of the vegetables. Clare watched Ajalia with hunted eyes.
"What are you going to do with me?" Clare asked huskily.
"Come here," Ajalia said to Sun, and led the thick Slavithe girl out of the room. "How has she been?" Ajalia asked in a low voice.
"Clare?" Sun asked. Her mouth creased a little. "Daila beat her for arguing," she said quietly. "Clare said that she would never be so foolish as to have a child, and Daila beat her with a stick."
"She's worse than Nam," Ajalia said. She saw that Sun was watching her narrowly.
"Clare said you took her to see the Thief Lord," Sun said cautiously. "She said you meant to sell her to him."
"No," Ajalia said shortly. She went back to the place where Clare sat. "I hear," Ajalia began, "that you are still going around and offending your hosts."
"She's not my host," Clare said angrily. "Any proper host has manners."
"You bring me greater shame even than Nam did," Ajalia told Clare. "You are rapidly becoming worthless to me."
"I'm not worthless," Clare said quickly, her eyes darting to Sun. "You took me to see the Thief Lord."
"You are a liar," Ajalia told the girl. Clare's cheeks flushed, and her eyebrows tightened. "Are you learning anything from Clare's indiscretion?" Ajalia asked Sun. Sun's eyes were fixed on Ajalia's face; Ajalia thought that Sun had little understanding of what was passing, but the girl's eyes were clever, and sharp.
"I can see that she does not please you," Sun said slowly.
"And what would you do," Ajalia asked Sun, "if I sold you to an old man in the city, as a bride?"
Sun's face blanched; her lips moved down at the corners.
"I don't know why you would do that," Sun said finally.
"You are young," Ajalia said. "You do not see the end of things."
"You don't know anything about life," Clare said angrily. "You're from the East, where they keep slaves, and sleep with their own daughters."
Ajalia did not look at the girl. She kept her eyes on Sun, on the light of comprehension that was glimmering there.
"I've brought someone with me," Ajalia said finally. She went to Clare, and fingered the white chain around her neck. "What is this?" she asked.
"It's nothing," Clare said.
Daila and Ossa came into the room. Ossa was carrying Daila's child. The little boy was sleeping against Ossa's shoulder, his arms draped around her neck.
"Hello," Daila said brightly to Ajalia. She put down the bags she carried, and took her son out of Ossa's arms. "I'm going to put Dasha to bed, and then I'll come back," Daila said softly to Ajalia. Ajalia nodded, and sat down on a wooden chair that lay in the corner. She heard Delmar and Card talking in the next room.
The oblong house was tall and wide; the floors came up in wide sweeps from the walls, and the stairs that lay at either end of the house were curved grandly into the upper floors. The oblong house was the unrentable house in Slavithe; after Card had moved his daughter and grandchild in, the neighbors had come trickling by to visit. Card had told Ajalia that each of the neighbors told the same story; the house was cursed; the rooms echoed strangely; the windows were at an angle to the Thief Lord's office windows, and the top floor was drafty and damp.
The little boys had been sent over the house with their rags and brooms, in the evenings, when they were let out of their gangs. Ajalia had told the boys that she would give one silver coin to the crew leaders, if the house was perfectly clean when she came for a visit. The boys from the cleaning crews hated extra work; they were well broken to their daily work now, but Card let them slack in the evenings. Ajalia had given no boys any coins, but the house was somewhat cleaner than it had been, and Daila had buckled
to scrubbing once their meagre packing had been settled in.
"I've thought of renting out rooms," Daila confided to Ajalia, as soon as she came back into the room. Card's daughter unpacked spools of thread, and a length of brown cloth from the bags. She gave the other bags to Ossa, who took them into the far room. Ajalia heard exclamations in Delmar's voice; the Thief Lord's son was become somewhat voluble. Ajalia thought that Delmar was quickly becoming used to looking presentable. She imagined him smiling shyly, and putting his hands over his knees.
"Card couldn't rent this place to anyone," Ajalia told Daila; the young mother nodded.
"I know," she said, "but he was asking the usual prices, and looking for a family of high standing. I think I could clear out some of the rooms upstairs, and let rooms one by one. There are a lot of couples, and young men," she said, threading a needle, and retrieving a pair of shears from a basket, "who live awkwardly with their parents. They would rent from me."
Daila glanced at Ajalia from out of the corner of her eye.
"I am concerned about Nam," Ajalia said.
"She's the one that chases boys?" Daila asked.
"Her brother rented out the services of her body, I think," Ajalia said.
"Where is she now?" Daila asked, cutting through a length of the cloth.
"Your father sold her to a farmer, down in the dark valley," Ajalia said. Daila nodded firmly.
"A good place," she said. Her needle swam easily up a seam. Ajalia watched the young mother work. She had thought, the first time she saw Daila, that Daila was empty-headed, but the more she came around her, the more she found that Card's daughter ran deep. Clare and Sun were still bent over the root vegetables, their hands scraping the peels away. Red juice stained their fingers.
"My husband would do such things," Daila murmured, his eyes flickering to the two servant girls.
"He would sell you?" Ajalia asked hesitantly. Daila laughed.
"No," she said with dark amusement, "but he would pick up a girl like Nam, if he had the chance." Daila's fingers moved quickly up the seam; she turned the cloth, and stuck her needle in the edge of the hem. She scooped up the thread, and cut a new length.
"Would you mind me renting?" Daila asked. "I would pay you, of course," she added quickly.
"I want your advice," Ajalia said. Ajalia saw Sun's whole face work with the intensity of her listening; Ajalia thought of taking Daila into another room. She looked at the door that led to the place where Delmar and Card could still be heard, their voices rising and falling in a mellow murmur from within.
"Yes?" Daila asked.
"I have no children," Ajalia said slowly. "It is possible that I have the wrong idea of things." Daila waited, her needle poised over the brown cloth. Ajalia glanced at Clare, who was sniffling over the vegetables, her bound hands clumsy. "I see weakness, where some see love," Ajalia said finally. "Is this wrong?"
"You have to be more specific," Daila said. She followed Ajalia's eyes towards the two young women, and smiled. "They are not animals," Daila said. "Speak your mind."
"I want to marry one of them to Chad," Ajalia said, putting her chin in her hands. She saw Clare's back stiffen, and Sun's face flush.
IN PREPARATION FOR THE MASTER
"Which one?" Daila asked. Ajalia shrugged.
"They don't need to know that," she said. "But I am thinking of it. They are all three young, and stupid, and without protection."
"And Chad would protect them?" Daila asked skeptically.
"No," Ajalia said quickly. "But they are old enough to be alive, and somehow, none of them has become real." Ajalia watched Sun's ears turn bright red.
"You said you would do that to Nam," Clare burst out with, "and you never did."
"I could sell Clare," Ajalia said to Daila. "She has a figure, and her eyes are good. If I sell her, she will be broken very soon."
"I know little of slaves," Daila said, bending her eyes back to her sewing. "I don't know how sex works with people like you."
"The East is different," Ajalia told her. "The East is the only safe place to be a slave. Slaves are free there, as men and women. Their labor is forfeit, and their time, but their hearts are free."
"And your masters respect virtue?" Daila asked. Her eyes were curious.
"Those who do not," Ajalia said, "are shunned, and cannot transport their silks. The masters are honest, mostly."
"Then you are lucky," Daila said.
"No," Ajalia said. "I have been wise." Daila looked at her.
"How?" she asked.
Ajalia glanced at the two young women; Ossa came quietly back into the room, and took up her place near the slimy red roots.
"I meant to get free," Ajalia said, "when I went out on my own. I was young, and I was naive. I didn't know how many men would try to sell me."
"I was stupid before I married," Daila agreed. "I believed my husband meant it when he said he chose me above all others."
"I learned better," Ajalia said, "and I went East."
Daila studied Ajalia's face.
"You skipped a big section there," she observed. Ajalia looked at the wall.
"You would never understand," Ajalia said. "It is a thing only slaves understand."
"I have been trapped," Daila offered, "and without choice."
"You have not been sold for money," Ajalia said to her. "It shows in your eyes. You don't see what I see."
"What do you see?" Daila asked. Ajalia studied the shadows that lay along the ceiling. Ossa stood, and lit a pair of candles that were fixed against the wall. The flickering flames made dancing tongues over the white stone. Ajalia laughed, and put her hands on her knees.
"I see that Clare will be broken," Ajalia said, "if she is not diverted from her current purpose."
"And what is my purpose?" Clare demanded, her eyes hot in the darkness.
"To get yourself with child," Ajalia told her. Clare's face blanched, but her mouth quivered with anger.
"Liar," Clare spat.
"Look at her," Ajalia said to Daila. Ajalia pointed at the way Clare's legs were crossed; her lap was filled with the skins of peeled roots. The servant girls were piling the gleaming roots in a wide wooden bucket. The unpeeled roots lay in a heaped pile to the side of the bucket.
"I see Clare," Daila said.
"Look at how her hands move over the vegetables," Ajalia said, pointing again, "and how her arms try to hold a child."
Daila stared at the Slavithe girl. Ossa and Sun were staring as well; Ossa pointed, and laughed.
"She's right," Ossa said softly. "Look!"
Clare was holding one red root in her hand. The crook of her elbow was steady, her shoulder set to one side, as though she cradled a baby's head there. Her lap was shifted, and her whole body yearned up, as though reaching for something tender.
Clare froze, her face crimson. She looked hurriedly at her friends, and then down at her lap. She buried her hands in between her legs.
"She was trying to conceive with a man in the stables, when I caught her," Ajalia said.
"We were only kissing!" Clare hissed, her eyes overcome with shame.
"He was not only interested in kissing," Ajalia told the girl, "and I do not think you even knew his name."
"That isn't true," Clare whispered. She put her hands over her eyes.
"How do you know this?" Daila asked Ajalia. A new light of respect, of curiosity, was in Card's daughter's eyes. "How did you see that?" she asked.
"The girl slaves in the wetlands," Ajalia said slowly, "are bred to their handlers very young. The conceived children do not always live, and the little mothers sit like that, afterwards."
"Have you lost a child?" Daila asked Clare. Clare's face turned white and ashen; she shook her head furiously from side to side.
"She has not yet known a man," Ajalia said. Clare's skin was turning purple with embarrassment. Clare's mouth opened, but no sound came out. Daila studied the bound girl with great interest.
"How do you know t
hat?" Daila asked Ajalia. Clare emitted a tortured squeak of horror. Ajalia ignored the noise.
"Look at her breasts," Ajalia said, "and how her chin thrusts forward without awareness. She has not been touched by a man." Ajalia's eyes rested on the humiliated Clare. "She does not know the mechanics of the act," Ajalia told Daila, and Daila nodded, her lower lip between her teeth.
"Interesting," Daila said. Her eyes drifted to the side, towards Sun and Ossa.
"And so I ask again," Ajalia said sharply, drawing Daila's eyes back to her, "what are your thoughts on marriage?" Daila sighed, and turned her face to the cloth in her lap. Her needle lay limply in her fingers. Daila picked it up, and thrust it forcefully into the cloth.
"A child is more binding than ropes, or a white chain," Daila said. "If you seek surety, marriage is one way." Ajalia watched Daila sew. She had hoped, just moments ago, that Daila would prove to be like her, and that she would be able to make Daila a sort of ally. Ajalia remembered that she had hoped the same thing with Eccsa, Gevad's woman, and that her hopes had been similarly dashed.
"Well," Ajalia said briskly, standing up in the low light of the candles, "I thank you for watching my girls."
"Are you taking them away?" Daila asked quickly. Ajalia saw that her eyes went towards Ossa.
"Ossa is useful to you?" Ajalia asked. Daila met Ajalia's eyes, and nodded. "I have plans for Ossa," Ajalia said, "though I would part with Sun for a brief time, and I would sell Clare for a song."
Daila looked at the other two girls.
"I have no use for Clare," Daila said. Ajalia stood, and went to the servant girl; she lifted the white chain.
"What is this made of?" Ajalia asked, looking for a place where the chain joined together.
"That is carved from bones that hung from the poison tree," Daila said. "It binds the heart, and keeps the body in place." Ajalia suppressed a frown; she unhooked the chain from around Clare's neck, and laid it down.
"Come on," Ajalia said to Clare, untying the length of rope that stretched between her wrists.