by Victor Poole
"There are leaves you can wrap up," Delmar said, "under the bandages." He had rolled over onto his side, and was watching Ajalia.
"Are you going to get me some?" Ajalia asked.
"What? Bandages?" he asked.
"Leaves," she said. "I can get my own bandages."
"What are you doing today?" Delmar asked. He climbed into a sitting position and put his chin into his hands.
"Stuff," Ajalia said evasively.
"But you could do it all tomorrow," he suggested. The sky outside the window was turning lighter. "Why do you do things all the time?" he asked. Ajalia bristled.
"What does that mean?" she asked. He shrugged.
"It doesn't mean anything," he said, "I'm just curious."
"What do you want?" she asked. Delmar smiled.
"Come out with me. I'll show you my hiding place," he said at once. Ajalia smiled in spite of herself at the happy look on Delmar's face.
"You have a hiding place?" she asked. She opened the bag she had packed before the caravan had left, and retrieved hair pins.
"I didn't know that was yours," Delmar said. He looked at the bag.
"It's mine," she said.
"Will you come with me?" he asked.
"No," Ajalia said.
"Why?" he asked promptly.
"Because," she said.
"Because why?" he asked. Ajalia sighed. She had felt all sorts of comfortable and pain-free upon awakening, but now the feeling of dread and heaviness was growing in her.
"I don't know," she told him. "I have things to do. You make me feel guilty. I don't like feeling guilty, so I'm going to avoid you." Delmar studied Ajalia's face.
"Really?" he asked.
"Yes," she said. He regarded her with a strangely contented look.
"Okay," he agreed. She blinked.
"You're fine with that?" she asked.
"Well," he said, "I did get you to kiss me and sleep with me, so I feel like I'm winning anyway."
"That wasn't sleeping together," Ajalia told him. "That was benign cuddling."
"You were asleep. I was asleep," Delmar said patiently. "We were sleeping."
Ajalia laughed. "You're a baby," she said. "Don't talk like that around other people."
"Talk like what?" Delmar asked. Ajalia stared at him. She realized that he was not trying to be clever; he genuinely didn't know what she meant. She tucked her hair pins into the mass of black hair she had turned up on her head, and collected the slim leather book from beneath the orange dress.
"So that's where it is," Delmar said, his eyes gleaming.
"Mine," Ajalia reminded him.
"Sure," he said. He watched her fold the orange gown and tuck it into the bag.
"You are a crazy person," Ajalia told Delmar.
"I'll get you leaves," he told her, and went out. A strange emptiness filled the room as soon as he had gone; Ajalia felt curiously alone. It was not so much that she felt any differently than she ever had when she was by herself, but that with Delmar she began to have a sense of having found someone like her, someone who saw things, and knew things, or wanted things in the same way that she did.
She told herself to stop being such a sentimental fool, and went down to the room where the little boys lay heaped together like a pile of small animals. Daniel was curled up with his back to the door; he rolled away when she opened it, and sat up, his eyes bright in the half-light of the morning.
"Should I wake them up?" Daniel asked. Ajalia shook her head no, and beckoned to Daniel to come out. He came into the hall, and she closed the door.
"Where's Gull?" she asked in a low voice.
"Gone somewhere," Daniel said. "I don't know where."
"Keep track of him better," Ajalia said. "He can't plot if he's under your eyes."
"Right," Daniel said, rubbing his nose.
"I'm not keeping all of the boys," Ajalia told Daniel. "I'm taking you out in batches today, to watch how they act around you. Gull will have to stay here, to keep order."
Daniel nodded fervently.
"Do you know their names?" she asked him.
"Not all of them," Daniel admitted.
"All right," Ajalia said. "Have you got your money?" The little boy nodded fiercely. "Go and buy food," she said. "Cheap as you can find, and filling. I'll talk to you again when the sun's higher."
Daniel pivoted, and scrambled down the stairs. Ajalia watched him go, wishing that her body would limber up. Ever since Delmar's magic had touched her skin, she had felt an overwhelming weariness throughout all her body. She felt sometimes as though she could hardly muster the effort to breathe. Her bones sagged down towards the floor, and her hips ached. She thought it ridiculous that Delmar's golden light should have affected her so deeply. She hardly recognized herself. Ajalia thought of herself as a spry person; she had always been quick on her feet, and her movements were fast. Now she felt as though she were swimming upstream against a pool of sludge; she did not know when she was going to feel like her old self again.
Ajalia told herself that she would feel better tomorrow; she conveniently ignored the fact that she had told herself the same thing the night before. She also determinedly ignored the hollow ache under her collarbone, that had begun to grow out around her from the moment Delmar had vanished behind the door to the stairs.
"Ridiculous," Ajalia whispered, and went on a search for Nam. She found the Slavithe girl tumbled in a heap on one of the narrow beds, in a room partway down the hall.
"I didn't have to stay with Chad," Nam spat viciously at Ajalia through half-opened eyes.
"We're moving house," Ajalia told her. "Chad will be here tomorrow."
Nam uttered a bark of laughter.
"You don't follow through," Nam said triumphantly. "It was an empty threat."
"Keep telling yourself that, Nam," Ajalia said. "I'm buying furniture today. Do you want to come?"
"I look like a poor person," Nam complained.
"You are a poor person," Ajalia pointed out.
"You said I was going to be the pretty one," Nam said quickly, her eyes watching Ajalia carefully.
"Then if anyone looks at you, they will be struck by the contrast when you are better dressed," Ajalia said. "And I would be careful if I were you," she added. Nam looked up at her. The girl's shorn dark hair was mashed against her head, and her eyebrows were drawn together in an angry cloud.
"Why?" Nam spat.
"Because you look terrible," Ajalia said, "and I'm looking over the other young women today for your replacement."
Nam sat bolt upright in the bed.
"You can't do that," she spluttered.
"Can," Ajalia said with a smile.
"Don't!" Nam said desperately.
"I see by your reaction," Ajalia said mildly, "that there are pretty girls to compete against." In the past weeks, Ajalia had sent Card to gather some of Gevad's former servants within the inner rings of the city of Slavithe; she had not met every young woman herself yet.
"None of them are as smart as me," Nam said quickly.
"I doubt that," Ajalia told her. "Don't get your hopes up."
"I can be useful," Nam said urgently. "I can earn money on the side, too."
"Well," Ajalia said. "You are not doing so well with me right now."
"It isn't my fault," Nam said hotly. "My brother did it."
Ajalia's whole body seemed to burst into flame; her cheeks were hot to the touch, and her eyes burned.
"Are you blaming your situation on your brother?" Ajalia asked.
"It was his fault," Nam said quickly. "I had no choice."
Ajalia wanted to slap the girl. Her fingers pulsed with the anger of her past.
"I will have to agree to disagree about that," Ajalia said mildly. "I have found, when faced with the prospect, that there are usually all manner of choices. You chose not to take them."
"He would have beaten me," Nam said angrily. The scars on Ajalia's arms throbbed.
"You disgust me," s
he told Nam. Nam's eyes darkened, and the thick young woman's mouth turned down in a delicate pout.
"You don't know anything about it," Nam informed her. "You clearly don't understand what you're saying."
"Right," Ajalia said. "Right. Well, it was nice knowing you, Nam."
"What do you mean?" Nam asked instantly, her eyes darting to the door behind Ajalia. "What does that mean?" she asked again. "What are you saying about me? What are you going to do?"
"Well," Ajalia said. "I think I'll just leave you here. And you're right," she said, turning away, her hand on the door, "about Chad. It was an empty threat. You win, Nam."
Ajalia closed the door, but she saw the smile of triumph that covered the thickset girl's cheeks before the metal door met the stone frame.
I want Delmar, Ajalia thought to herself, and stumbled down the stairs. Gull was sitting in the front room of the little house with Leed, putting long rows of string out on the floor. The furniture in the front room, together with the beds in the rooms, and the various pieces of small furniture that had come with the house, were all that was left. The bits of knocked-together furniture that Philas had directed the slaves into making with the remnants Ajalia had gathered from her small tenement had all been broken down, and fed into the garbage pit in the back enclosure of the house. The plant materials, Ajalia had learned, and the wood fibers, all sank into the black tar with a smell of good dirt, and emitted long streams of steam. Each piece of garbage fed into the pit actually created a very little bit of the black tar, the juice of the poison tree bark, and as the black fluid was regularly scooped out of the pits to clean the floors of the houses, and to scrub the streets of the city, the pits never seemed to overflow. Ajalia had not yet learned where any excess of the black fluid was kept or disposed of. She had shown her fellow slaves how to water down the black substance weeks ago, and they had used the pit behind the little house to keep the white floors and walls of the little house snowy white and clean.
Gull was sitting on an end of the long couch; he leapt to his feet when he saw Ajalia.
"Don't jump like that," Ajalia said wearily, waving a hand at the boy. "Stop trying to impress me," she told Gull. "I already see what you are."
"I'm not in charge," Gull said, after glancing hesitatingly at Leed, as if checking to see if the boy would get him into trouble for saying so.
"You're not going to be in charge," Ajalia said. "Being in charge isn't that great, either."
"Being in charge is the only best thing," Gull informed her. "It's the only thing that matters."
"Look," Ajalia told him, "I am all for a forging-ahead spirit, and all that, but you have got to do this in a way that does not interfere in any way with my actual work. I don't even want to know that you're doing it. Do you understand me?" She looked over at Leed; the little boy was watching her with steady eyes.
"Yes, miss," Gull said.
"Call me Ajalia," Ajalia said.
"Yes," Gull said. Ajalia sighed.
"Did you see Delmar go out?" Ajalia asked Leed. Leed's eyes flicked unobtrusively towards Gull, and then back to Ajalia. Leed nodded.
"Should I follow him?" Leed asked.
"No, I need you," Ajalia said. She felt just as tired now as she had been the night before. She shook herself. She wanted to sit on the couch, but she had the sickening feeling that if she sat down, she would be unable to get up again.
"All right," she said to the boys. "Where is Chad? Didn't I send someone for Chad last night?"
"Me," Gull said. "I went out last night."
"Where is he?" Ajalia asked. She pushed down the feeling of annoyance that was bubbling under her ribs. She was normally exceedingly patient with her fellow slaves, but it had been many years since she had worked with so many raw people at the same time, and she was more annoyed with the situation than she wanted to admit.
"Chad said it was too late to take them all out at once," Gull said. "He said he'd come and see you this morning."
Ajalia cursed under her breath. "Go and get Daniel," she told Gull. "Stay with Daniel until I come back. Watch him for me," she added. Gull gathered up the lengths of string; he stuffed them all into his pockets and went up the stairs.
"What do you want?" Leed asked her. Ajalia sighed and glared longingly at the couch.
"I want Delmar," she told the boy. "But I can't have him. Come on." She straightened her clothes and buffed her cheeks with the heels of her hands.
"Gull is lazy," Leed told her as they went out the front door. "And Chad is a louse."
"I know," she told Leed. "Teach me something in old Slavithe."
Leed rattled off a long string of words.
"Slower," Ajalia commanded. She blinked heavily in the dawn light; she put one foot down in front of the other. Leed said one word. Ajalia repeated what he had said.
"Translate," she told him.
"The dead one," Leed said. Ajalia said the strange word again. "You have to curl your tongue to the side," Leed said critically. "Like this." He said the word again. Ajalia copied him. "Good," Leed said. He said the next word.
"What does that mean?" Ajalia asked.
"Fondness for," Leed said.
"Are you saying sappy things to me in old Slavithe?" Ajalia asked the boy.
"I'm not," Leed said with angry face. "But he's going to say this kind of thing to you, and he won't tell you what it means. He'll think that's cute."
"Good boy," Ajalia said.
"You'll pay me later, I bet," Leed said hopefully.
"We'll see," Ajalia said. "Maybe Delmar will restrain himself."
"Ha!" Leed said. Ajalia was leading the boy down the dimly lit streets towards the long row house, where Chad and the girls had been staying.
"So you think Delmar likes me?" Ajalia asked.
"I have to teach you words," Leed reminded. Ajalia sighed.
"Proceed," she said. The air in the dawn-colored white street seemed to press in like a damp cloth against her mouth and nose. Ajalia lifted her chin towards the sky and told herself to get ahold of herself. She repeated the words that Leed told her, and listened patiently to his translations.
"Now tell me how to say 'slave,'" Ajalia told Leed.
"Anihou," Leed said. Ajalia repeated the word. "It's very close to the word for falcon," Leed told her. "They called the king the falcon when they first came here, because he was the greatest slave."
"Did you used to stay with your uncle?" Ajalia asked Leed.
"My father is a revolutionary," Leed said matter-of-factly.
"You remind me of me," Ajalia said.
"I'm not like you," Leed told her. "I have no broken parts." Ajalia looked down at the little boy.
"You are trying to make me small, aren't you?" she asked. "It won't work."
"You're weak, though," Leed said. "It might work."
"No," Ajalia said. "You don't know pain yet."
"I bet I can win," Leed told her.
"Go ahead," Ajalia said. "I don't mind."
They walked for a little while in silence. Leed turned to Ajalia with a serious face.
"I think you're okay," Leed said. She looked at the boy, and nodded. His mouth was grim.
They had come to the long row house. Ajalia unlocked the door, and went in. She had expected a mess, but the back of her shoulders still clenched together in annoyance at the state of the interior.
"Find Chad," she told the boy, and sat down against the back of the front door, closing her eyes. She did not think she had ever been so tired in her entire life. It was as though she had never slept, and Delmar had awoken all the deprivation and the loss within her body. She told herself to grow up; she told herself to act more rationally. She banged her head softly against the metal door. She began to wonder if she should go and travel through the quarries more thoroughly. She had been to the main quarries, where the gravel and the shallow pieces of stone were dug out of the mountains, but a deeper quarry lay behind the first great mountain; this was the quarry that Gevad ha
d been sold into, and there were mines there.
Ajalia opened her eyes, and watched the shadows in the house. Chad appeared, his head tousled, and his eyes wary.
"What do you want?" Chad asked. Leed appeared behind Chad, and gave Ajalia a wry look. Ajalia smiled.
"You are doing the worst job," Ajalia told Chad. "Why didn't you come last night?" Chad shifted uneasily. "You can't get the girls to mind," Ajalia guessed, "can you?"
"Card is coming today," Chad said, rubbing the side of his hair. "I'll get him to help me."
"That's good," Ajalia said encouragingly. "That's fine. Now how many young women do you have here?" She pressed her hands into her face, and made gentle circles over her eyes.
"Are you all right?" Chad asked. "You look funny."
"She's pretending," Leed said aggressively.
"Hush, Leed," Ajalia said. She held out a hand towards Chad. "Help me up," she said. Chad took mincing steps towards her and grasped her hand. Ajalia pulled herself up; Chad stumbled towards her when she pulled on him. She laughed, and leaned against the wall.
"What do you think?" Ajalia asked Leed. "Can I make it today?"
"You'll be fine," Leed said. "I think you feel sorry for yourself."
"Good," Ajalia said, taking a deep breath. "That's very good. Get those girls down here," she said to Chad. Chad shifted uncomfortably, and looked around as though he wanted to find an escape route appearing in front of him. Leed gave Chad a look of deep loathing, and then kicked the Slavithe man hard in the leg.
"Ow!" Chad howled, clutching at his leg. "What did he do that for?" he asked Ajalia. Ajalia shrugged. She stared at Chad until he turned and limped out of the room.
"Help him," Ajalia told Leed.
"You need me," Leed said.
"Get out," Ajalia said sharply, and Leed ran away. She leaned against the wall and thought about looking at her arms. She had never felt so weak or out of sorts before. It was as though she could no longer command the use of her limbs. Her eyelids kept drifting closed.
INTO THE FOREST