by Victor Poole
"I thought you were afraid I would run away," Clare whispered.
"Now your heart is broken," Ajalia said. "You will not run." Clare's eyes darted up towards Ajalia for a moment before drifting down towards her feet. "Come," she said to Ossa, and Sun. The girls stood, their hands stained with red juice.
"I told Card I would pay you for your time," Ajalia said to Daila. "Instead, I will offer you an exchange. You may rent the rooms, and pay me half of what you make."
"Yes," Daila said at once. Card's daughter looked swiftly at Ossa, and then down at her sewing. "I will give the money to my father, when I get it," she said. Ajalia nodded, and led the three young women out of the room.
Delmar and Card were sitting at either end of a low white table. Card had gotten a pair of drinking glasses, and a yellowish mash was in them. Delmar was cupping his glass easily in one hand. His legs were crossed at the knee, and his shimmering boots made a gentle shining in the dark. The room was lit with a tall pair of silver lanterns; these were filled with an aromatic oil that gave off a sweet scent as they burned.
Delmar looked up at Ajalia when she came in with the three young women.
"Card didn't know who I was," Delmar said, a great smile of pleasure in his eyes. Ajalia smiled at him; Delmar was glowing with happiness. Ajalia thought that he had probably never been fussed over about his appearance before; he looked quite gloriously handsome. His shorter hair suited him, and set off the gleam in his eyes.
"Have you found places to build?" Ajalia asked Card. Card nodded.
"About six," he said. "Maybe eight." Card's eyes twinkled a little. "I see you've gotten to work on Delmar," he said. Ajalia grimaced.
"He complained the whole time," she told the old man. Card laughed. Ajalia heard a small gasp behind her. One of the Slavithe girls whispered to the others; Ajalia was sure they were staring at Delmar, and she thought that they hadn't known who he was until Card had said his name.
"Will you come down in the morning, to see the places I want to build?" Card asked. Ajalia sighed.
"Start without me," she said. "I've got things to do." Card made an evil grin, and glanced at Delmar.
"I'll bet you do," he seemed to say with his face, but instead, he said, "That's fine."
"Daila wants lodgers," Ajalia told Card. "Did you know that?"
"I didn't," Card said. "And what do you say?"
"She's to pay half the rents to me," Ajalia said, "and I didn't pay her for watching these." She gestured to the three young women behind her. Ajalia saw Delmar open his mouth, then glance at Card and shut it again.
"Do you need anything else?" Ajalia asked Card. He told her he would send a boy, if he did. She said goodbye, and told Delmar to come along. When they had reached the front room of the house, and Card had opened the door to let them out, Delmar hopped a little, and shuffled closer to Ajalia. She saw that his eyes were turned a little towards the three young women.
"Are they like trees?" he asked in a whisper.
"What?" Ajalia asked. Delmar nodded surreptitiously towards the young women.
"Can I talk in front of them?" he asked. Ajalia glanced at Ossa and Sun, who were just behind her, their hands still stained with the dark remnants of the roots. Clare was following slowly behind the other two, her head still turned down towards the ground.
"Slaves are invisible, like furniture," Ajalia said. "Slaves who do not understand this lose rank quickly."
"But they aren't slaves," Delmar said quietly, looking back at Ossa. Ajalia could see that Delmar did not know how attractive he was to the young ladies; he was wholly consumed with Ajalia's answer. Ajalia could see Ossa's ears burning red, and Sun's cheeks pressed in an involuntary smile. She was sure that neither girl had ever seen such a well-dressed young man as Delmar was now, or such a shapely form set off with fitted clothes.
"Can a slave go wherever they please?" Ajalia asked Delmar.
"No," he said at once.
"Do they own their time, or their bodies?" she asked. Delmar looked at her sideways, his forehead creased.
"No, they're slaves," Delmar said. Ajalia stopped walking. She turned around and pointed at Ossa, Sun, and Clare.
"Where do they belong?" she asked. Delmar looked at the three young women, and then at Ajalia.
"With you," he said. "I guess."
"Why?" she asked.
"Because you bought them," he said. Ajalia looked at Delmar, and Delmar looked at the three young women. "Oh," he said. Ajalia resumed her short walk towards the dragon temple. Delmar hurried to catch up. "But my father says there are no slaves here," Delmar insisted. "He says that slavery is unfair, and barbaric."
"It is," Ajalia agreed, "where there is no honor."
"How can there be honor in slave ownership?" Delmar asked, his face screwed into a look of disgust.
"Do I go where I please?" she asked. Delmar opened his mouth, and closed it. "Do I own my body?" she demanded. Ossa was staring at Ajalia with wide eyes. "Am I with child?" Ajalia asked. Delmar's face was burning.
"No," he said.
"No, what?" she asked.
"You aren't," he said.
"I'm not what?" she repeated.
"You don't have children," Delmar said hurriedly.
"No," she said, "I don't. And that is because I choose to belong to a man who has honor." Delmar's face creased into a look of paternalistic patience.
"You can't choose who you belong to," he said acidly. "You're a slave."
Ajalia stared at Delmar. The faint white lines on her arms seemed to tickle her. She did not know whether to laugh or shout. She turned on her heel, and resumed her walk towards the dragon temple. She could hear Delmar's footsteps coming along behind her, and the whisper of Ossa and Sun's feet. Ajalia knew that Clare was following behind; she had seen the girl's spirit crack in the oblong house. Ajalia could almost feel the tendrils of Clare's shattered heart, trailing along on the white stone ground.
Ajalia was sure that Delmar was not such a fool as he seemed; she was sure that his brain worked, somewhere underneath the heavy words of his father, and the sickly empty eyes of his mother. She was determined to dig beneath the layers of lies and anger, to find the place where Delmar lived in his mind. She was determined to free him from the shackles his parents had built around him, to see him strong and sure of himself. She promised herself that she would see him as the Thief Lord, and that he would be the greatest Thief Lord the city had ever seen.
She glossed over the part of herself that would normally have questioned her motives in this desire to elevate Delmar. Normally she would have been watching, waiting, calculating what she personally was going to gain from this situation. She found herself instead filled with a blind devotion. She wanted to see Delmar happy and whole, and she did not have a name for why she wanted him so. She was sure she did not love him, because she was not invested in his potential interest in herself. She saw that he was going to be powerful, and handsome, and she saw that young women, and powerful women, were going to begin angling at him from every side. She was sure that he would be taken in by one of them at some point, and that his declared ardor for her would shrivel like an uprooted plant in the sun. She told herself this would be so, and still she fixed her mind on his future with a determination and a surety greater than she had found in herself for any other cause.
The night was dark and cold when they went up the steps to the dragon temple. Ajalia sent Delmar to bed; he protested.
"You're still doing interesting things," Delmar said, glancing towards the young women.
"When you stop saying silly things," Ajalia told him, "you can help me with my slaves. Until then, you are barred from slave matters." Delmar looked at her, his eyes wounded.
"I don't say silly things," he said. "I'm very sensible."
"Yes, love," she said. "Now go away." Delmar glared at her.
"I will get you back for this someday," he promised her. She held up her forearm, the wrist turned towards him. Delmar glanced th
at the smooth white skin of her inner arm, and swallowed. "Goodnight," he muttered, and vanished.
"Now, my little ones," Ajalia said, turning to face the three young women. They regarded her solemnly. "You are going to be my slaves for a little, and if you listen well and learn, I will permit you to be sold as wives."
"Wives to who?" Sun demanded.
"To whom," Ajalia said. Sun made a face that expressed irritation. "Your husband will care, if you sound poor or foolish," Ajalia told her. "Can all of you read?" Clare raised her head timidly.
"I can," she said in a low voice. Sun and Ossa both looked nonplussed.
"Learn on your own time," Ajalia told them. "I have things to do in the meantime, so pay attention to what I tell you. I was sent to Slavithe to negotiate a trade agreement between my master in the East and the Thief Lord. Now that I have Delmar, I no longer need to deal directly with his father."
Sun glanced at Ossa with a frown. Ossa made no sign.
"They think Delmar won't be the Thief Lord," Clare told Ajalia. Her voice was dull. She had been crying silent tears, and her cheeks were marked with slick pathways.
"Do you think he will be?" Ajalia asked Clare. Clare stared at Ajalia with empty eyes.
"You want him to be," Clare said. Ajalia smiled at the smirk on Sun's face.
"You," Ajalia said to Sun, "will be the third girl I have gone through so far. Will you not learn from your predecessors?" Sun shifted uncomfortably, and glanced at the other two girls.
"You can't make the next Thief Lord," Sun said. Ajalia looked at her.
"Watch me," Ajalia said.
Denai came through the darkened hall. The moonlight was filtering in long streams through the high windows of the dragon temple. Denai appeared like a shadow in the blue light.
"Daniel told me you were looking for me," Denai said.
"There's a guard at the eastern gate," Ajalia told Denai. "I promised him one of the horses from the East." Denai grinned; in the darkness, his mouth made a dark curve.
"The horses come along well so far," he told her. "I'll sell only two, to begin with. The men in the stables know they're going to be up in the market soon, and they're beginning to froth at the mouth. The Thief Lord will take a mare, if he can."
"Let the guard have one of the good ones," Ajalia said. "He was kind to me."
"Will you keep a breeding pair?" Denai asked.
"Would you like to?" Ajalia asked. Denai nodded.
"I'd keep the white mare, and the two bays," he said. "They have good legs, and their faces are finer than the horses we have here. They'll cross well."
"My black horse moves remarkably well," Ajalia said suddenly. Denai made a face in the darkness.
"That scruffy thing?" he asked.
"He's not been gelded," Ajalia said. "Ride him sometime. He moves like flowing water." Denai nodded slowly.
"I know you're fond of the beast," he said, "but I'll ride him."
"With his action, and the bones of my mares," Ajalia said, "we could have a fine thing."
"I'll see about the guard," Denai told her. "And I'll try the black horse tomorrow. Does he have a name?" he asked.
"Not yet," Ajalia said. "I haven't thought of one."
"I'll tell you what I think, once I've seen his gaits," Denai said. He glanced at the Slavithe girls, and went through the darkness to the tiny room he had chosen for himself. Ajalia suspected that the room had been a closet at one point, but Denai seemed to find it exactly suitable for his needs.
Ajalia dismissed the three young women. She told them to find spaces in the long room upstairs where the household boys slept on mats, and watched them wander towards the stairs she had pointed out at the end of the hall.
DELMAR MAKES HIS MOVE
Ajalia watched Clare meander after Sun and Ossa, her feet dragging as though through thick mud. Ajalia had meant to speak to Clare, but she thought now that she would wait and see. She thought that Clare's heart had been broken in two; if the girl was in a state of softening, Ajalia reflected, she would keep her close, and train her to be a useful second self. She had meant to pair Ossa with Chad, but now that Sun was becoming quarrelsome, Ajalia thought she would wait and see which, if any, of the girls proved sure and steady. Ajalia wanted to groom a personal servant; she wanted someone to talk to, a person she could reasonably trust. She had not realized until these last few weeks how much she had relied on Philas to be a sounding board, but now that he was far removed, her only confidant was Delmar, and he was unreliable at best.
Ajalia moved down the hallway. She made a mental list of the things that she had done so far; her mind was a tangle. She wanted someone to challenge her, someone who could keep up with her plans, and make sure she was not dropping loose ends. She had never been so isolated before, and she was aware that the time was ripe for her to make an egregious error. Things had been going too well for so long; she had not missed any large points yet, she hoped. She thought of the old woman she had rented the tenement room from, when she had first come into the city. She had not gone back for a very long time. Card had the properties she had taken from Gevad well in hand. She thought of Eccsa, who had belonged to, and then married with the house agent. Ajalia had avoided learning of Eccsa's fate; after the day that Eccsa's mother had died, when Ajalia had gotten the slim leather book, she had heard nothing of the blond woman.
Before her foray into the woods with Delmar, Ajalia had begun to organize her household; now that she had returned, and the projects in the quarries had begun, she turned her attention again to the arrangement of an impressive house. She wished again for a person to speak to, someone she could lay all her plans out to. She was beginning to grow weary; she could feel her mind crumbling into apathy at the edges. She was getting tired.
Ajalia walked through the hall towards the stairs, the way the girls had gone. She went up the stairs, and onto the roof. The moon was out, and the stars peeped from behind scraps of white cloud. Ajalia went to the edge of the roof, and sat down with her face pressed between the gaps in the railing. She realized, with her cheek against the white stone, that she wanted Delmar. She wanted him to come and talk to her.
A vision of her mother rose up in her mind. Her mother had been a strong woman, Ajalia thought, in her way. She had no fondness for her mother, or her brother, but she thought that they had lived more sure of themselves than she did.
"Hello," Delmar said. Ajalia told herself that she was imagining things. She looked up at him. He was standing behind her with his arms crossed. She could not see the expression on his face, but his voice sounded stern. She turned back to the railing, and looked out over the dark city.
"I've decided that you aren't being nice to me," Delmar said. He sat down next to Ajalia, and put his arms on top of the railing that encircled the roof. He glanced at her, and waited. "Aren't you going to say anything?" he asked.
"I'm not nice to anyone," Ajalia offered. Delmar grimaced.
"You're supposed to be nice to me," he said. "You love me."
Ajalia opened her mouth, and then closed it. "I don't know," she said.
"You don't know if you love me?" he asked. She shrugged. "Why don't you say anything?" he asked.
"My family was horrible," she said.
"So?" he said. He waited. She didn't say anymore. "I don't think my mother is very nice sometimes," he said.
"Your mother is awful," Ajalia said. "And your father is even worse."
"Well," Delmar said. He nudged Ajalia's elbow.
"We're never going to be friends again," Ajalia said. "I can't like you."
Delmar watched her eyes. She looked at the buildings that stretched over the long city, and the moonlight that spun in blue and silver over the white shapes.
"You don't mean that," he said shrewdly.
"You don't know anything about me," Ajalia said. She drew a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "No one knows anything about me," she said with a chuckle.
"Philas does," Delmar said promptly. Aja
lia looked at him. "You told me that you traded secrets with Philas," Delmar reminded her, "and then he changed. You said that."
"I guess I did," Ajalia said.
"Tell me what you told Philas," Delmar suggested. "Then we'll be even." Ajalia laughed, but her tone was harsh.
"So it's a competition?" she asked. "How much you know about me, versus how much Philas got out of me before he went back to drinking?" Delmar puckered his lips.
"We don't keep strong drinks here," he said. "My father says it makes us better than everyone in Talbos."
"Do you believe your father?" Ajalia asked.
"Philas is unreliable," he said.
"Philas drinks for good reasons," Ajalia said.
"What reasons?" Delmar asked. She said nothing. "You don't do that kind of thing," Delmar said.
"No," Ajalia agreed, "I'm just mean." Delmar nudged gently at her arm. "What?" she asked.
"Talk to me," Delmar said. Ajalia shook her head. "You're sad," he said. She nodded. "Why are you sad?" he asked.
"I don't want to talk about it," Ajalia said. "It's stupid."
They sat in silence for a long time. The clouds blew over the edge of the moon, and the light darkened. Ajalia could see the flickering balls of torches down in the distant streets of Slavithe.
"I wasn't looking for you, when I came here," Ajalia said suddenly.
"I know," Delmar said.
"I came for other things," she said.
"You told me," Delmar said. Ajalia looked at him.
"How do you know," she asked, "that I am not using you?"
"You told me you were," Delmar said. "I know you are. It's okay."
"No, it isn't," Ajalia said. "You'll hate me forever when you realize it's true."
"I already know it's true," Delmar pointed out. "I don't look angry, do I?"
Ajalia thought to herself that he should be angry. If he had not been broken into pieces by his parents, she reflected, he would have been indignant.
"I'm going to talk to you," she said.
"Good," Delmar said firmly. "I want you to talk to me, about everything." Ajalia could see the shadows under his eyes, and the fall his hair made over his forehead. "I like your hair," she said.