Someone must have brought it here and set it loose.
Someone wanted her dead.
But who? And almost as importantly,why ?
Chapter 4
Xylina gazed at the wreck of her garden. The sun, directly overhead, illuminated the damage pitilessly. Healthy young plants, carefully nurtured from seed and watered by hand, had been uprooted and scattered across their beds. Young vegetables had been partially devoured. Something-or someone-had gotten into it while she and Faro had been out, and had destroyed all the tender young plants, leaving them to wilt in the sun. By the time the two of them had returned, it was too late to save any of them. They would have to be planted over again from seedlings rather than seed, or else they wouldn’t mature before the first frost. It had been almost too late when they planted the seeds, though luck had been with them, and the plants had grown quickly.
Replacing the plants would cost money; money they could ill-afford. Not replacing them meant that they would have to buy all of their food, instead of only staples and meat.
“Guinea-fowl,” Faro grunted, straightening from his examination of the ruined beds. “Look, you can see the scratch-marks, and the places where they pecked the seedlings apart. Somebody turned a whole flock of guinea-fowl loose here. Too bad there aren’t still some birds here; you could have conjured a net over them, and they’re tasty eating.”
Xylina shook her head, feeling doom descend upon her, a heavy weight settling on her heart,
“What’s the matter, little mistress?” Faro asked, evidently reading her sinking spirit from her expression.
“It’s the curse,” she blurted, without thinking. “I’m cursed, nothing I do is going to turn out right! I’m going to destroy anyone who is with me!”
Faro turned to give her a reproving look from under his black brows. He left the ruined garden and came to stand at her side, blocking her view of the withered plants. “That’s rot,” he said shortly. “I don’t believe in magic curses, and neither should you. Ido believe in accursed people: people who send snakes through gates and toss guinea-hens over a wall. Someone wants to ruin you, but that doesn’t mean you’re under some kind of a mythical influence.”
Xylina shook her head again, wishing she could believe him. But why else would snakes appear where there were none, or guinea-hens mysteriously turn up, destroy onlyher garden, and vanish again? Surely if anyone else had seen the fowls, or had their gardens destroyed, the neighborhood would be buzzing with indignant homeowners.
Faro seemed to be reading her mind. “Guinea-fowl can fly,” he reminded her. “And you don’t know what they did in other yards; just because the neighbors aren’t out in the street complaining, doesn’t mean they didn’t have problems.They have garden-slaves to chase off the pests; you don’t. The birds might stillbe here, in someone else’s garden. For that matter, they might have been some fool’s idea of watch-fowl or garden-birds, and they might have gone home again. You don’t know that you were the only one with a garden the birds invaded.”
But she knew he was wrong, deep in her heart. She knew that if she asked-which she would not-she would learn that no one else’s property had been touched, that no one had a flock of guinea-hens, and that no one had seen or heard anything. She knew this, because no one else’s gate had been smeared by paint-wielding vandals, no one else had rotting garbage appear overnight in their forecourt, and no one else had to fortify her doors and windows against intruders when she left. She had asked her neighbors if they had been disturbed, or had even seen or heard anything, after the first two incidents, and had been rewarded with odd looks and denials of trouble.
“This is such a quiet neighborhood,” said one woman. “We’ve never had any incidents before.”
Before you moved here… That was what had been implied. After that, she had stopped asking.
The protection against intruders, at least, had been relatively easy. She simply conjured massive metal plates in front of all of the portals whenever she and Faro left, and banished them when she returned. But the first time it had happened, she and Faro had come home to find all their food ruined, the cushions on the furniture slashed, and the walls smeared with filth. It had taken them several days to clean up the mess, and both of them had been forced to take up needle and thread to mend the slashes. At least she was buying this place and not leasing it. She would not have to account to the owner for the damage done.
Once again, Faro seemed to be able to read her mind, understand her doubts and fears without any word from her. “People did all these things, Xylina,” he said gently. “Not curses, not gods, not some invisible hand. People. Someone does not want you to succeed, and that is the simple truth. You have an enemy-it might even be an enemy you ‘inherited’ from your mother, a feud you did not even know about. It would suit that person for you to believe in this curse, for that would make you despair and look no further for your persecutor. I think this has been going on for years; that was my concern when I first joined you. Your misfortunes seemed too patterned. But I didn’t want to alarm you with a foolish conjecture. Now it no longer seems foolish.”
That made sense-and as his words sank in, they made Xylina angry. She raised her chin defiantly, taking heart from Faro’s inexorable logic. “You’re right, Faro,” she replied, letting her anger burn away her despair. “You’re right. I don’t know who or what is behind this-but-but I’ll bedamned if I give in to her! No one is going to break me!”
Faro nodded approvingly, and his expression lightened just a little.
She surveyed the ruined garden with renewed determination. “Well, we’ll just have to get seedlings somewhere,” she said. “We can’t just give up the garden; we need the food we can grow ourselves.” She thought for a moment. “Don’t farmers thin out their plants now and again?” she asked her slave. “Wouldn’t seedlings be cheaper from them rather than from a nursery?”
“I’d have to go outside the city, but I think you are correct, little mistress,” he replied, his eyes warming. “We would have to take a chance that the roots had been damaged, but if I speak with another slave, we might be able to persuade him to take some care in the thinning and in his selections. It would probably take several days, one day for each kind of seedling we need-”
“Why would you have to go outside the city?” she asked. “Couldn’t you make an arrangement with the farmers’ slaves in the city market? I’ve often seen slaves there rather than the farmers themselves. Couldn’t you ask them to bring in seedlings with the vegetables, perhaps pay them some in advance?”
Faro smiled slowly. “I could indeed,” he said, dusting off his hands on his tunic and nodding. “I think that would be the best plan. And one slave will often do something for another that he would not for his mistress. If I make it clear that my own future dinners depend on this garden, it may make a distinct difference.”
“Then, once we have replanted, I can conjure a metal net to protect the whole garden-yes, and the forecourt too,” she told him with grim determination. “That will let the sun in and keep birds-and anyone else-out. And perhaps I had best conjure some kind of barrier at the front gate as well. Then the only damage they will be able to do will be to the exterior wall.”
“Good.” Faro nodded approval of all her remedies. “We have an appointment tonight, do we not?” he asked, abruptly changing the subject, as was his habit when he felt the subject had been exhausted.
Xylina grimaced; in the ruin of her garden, she had forgotten that. Though they had gone to the marketplace every day to post Faro’s services for hire, the men of the quarter had been as yet unwilling to use him as a scribe, and the women were not sufficiently intrigued by his novelty value to become steady customers. She had finally interested one of those wealthy women in her idea of using Faro as a kind of entertainment; he would “perform” at a party held by the noted merchant Klyta Stylina tonight. Faro had not particularly liked the idea, but he had to admit it was a faster way of making their payments on
this new dwelling than hiring himself out as a market-scribe. At a copper-bit for every letter and tally, it would take a long time before the house was paid for-and the plan he and Xylina had formulated together depended on being able to buy more slaves and educate them, so that she could supply a cadre of trained scribes to anyone who might need them. Merchants just setting up a new business for instance, or someone whose trusted scribe had become ill or had died. He was convinced there was a need for such a cadre; she was inclined to agree with him.
But none of this would take place while they were struggling simply to make ends meet.
“What are you going to do?” she asked. “I need to know if I’m going to act properly as a foil for your performance. You know, I am sorry to be asking you to perform like some kind of trained dog-and that is exactly what they will think of you. I’m not very comfortable seeing you in that role, and I wish I didn’t have to do this.”
“I know,” Faro replied, and his smile turned feral. “I honor you for that, little mistress. Well, since they are expecting a trained dog, I think we should give them a trained wolf instead. It will give them a feeling of threat- that if you were not there to restrain me, I would tear them to pieces.”
The unbidden thought occurred to her,As he would, if he had the chance . The smile alone said it all. Xylina was under no illusions; Faro hated the Mazonites for what they had done to him. He honored only her, for seeing him as an intelligent being, for treating him as one. And perhaps for being a friend. She sensed, beneath his words, as they spoke of many things in the hours between dusk and bedtime, that he had been as lonely as she in his own way. He was just too different from the other men to have taken pleasure in the gossip and harem-politics, in the trifles of dress and status in the household. His mind ranged as far as the stars; confining it to the narrow rooms of the harem was as wrong as clipping a falcon’s wings and making an ornament of him. If he had been a woman, she had no doubt that he would have been Queen by now.
He did not fit; neither did she. Perhaps that was why they were friends as well as mistress and slave. She could not see a slave without seeing the man beneath the livery, the human being. And she was only one step above slavery herself, having endured poverty for so long. Indeed, most slaves were better off than she had been, in the last year before her woman-trial.
In this, she knew that she was following in her mother’s footsteps, for her mother had been Marcus’ friend as well as his owner, and had not been wealthy or even moderately secure.
“I shall recite some of Arimis’History of the Slave Revolt , unless you choose otherwise,” he continued. “That will titillate them with my boldness. Then I shall lift some weights, until I have alarmed them. Then I shall complete the performance by lifting some large weight, with you perched atop it all.”
She nodded. “What if I conjured the weight for you?” she asked, tilting her head to one side. “If there are to be performing creatures here, we might as well both perform.” She hoped that this offer would ease the bitter feelings he must be experiencing, but to her surprise he saw something more in the idea.
“That is an excellent thought, little mistress,” he exclaimed. “Think of all the powerful women who will be at this affair-and you will demonstrate your ability at conjuration before them all, in the guise of an entertainment! They will be impressed, and when they have time to think about it, they will also wonder just how good you truly are, and wonder why they have heard and seen nothing of you except for the arena-trial.”
That gave her pause. “But what if one of them is this unknown enemy?” she ventured. “Would this not make her angrier, and inclined to make further attempts to destroy us?”
“We learned one thing in our training as gladiators,” he told her, his eyes darkening with unpleasant memories. “The one who loses his temper loses the fight. You saw for yourself how that was true, for if I had not lost my temper, I think I might have won even against you.” He paused. “It is my habit to review my experiences, and I think that if I had grabbed one of your rods from the air and hurled it instantly back at you, I might have scored. You must see that no other opponent ever has the chance to use your conjurations against you; you must be ready to abolish them the moment they leave your hands.” He paused again, and she nodded, appreciating the advice. Then he continued. “If this enemy of yours is among these women, I think it would be a good thing to goad her into losing her temper, for it will make her rash and inclined to act before she plans. Thus, she will expose herself, and we can take steps to rid our path of her.”
Xylina tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and looked up at him, thoughtfully. “Are you really sorry you did not win?” she asked quietly.
He took a deep breath, and his expression stilled for a moment. She knew she should not have asked; he had, after all, tacitly reassured her on that point. Yet reassurance seemed to be something she could never quite completely accept, so she had to verify it, and re-verify it.
“At the time-yes,” he said, after a moment of silence. “But now-” He shook his head. “I cannot say. If it had been anyone but you, I think I would rather have died. No, I would have died. I would have kept attacking until she was forced to kill me. You-were so different, I did not know how to react. Often I still don’t. When you leaped onto my back, naked, and I felt your breasts and thighs on my body, my will to fight faded, even before you conjured the wire at my neck.” He gave her a crooked smile. “So now you know the great secret, little mistress.”
So he had been aware of her body. She had not thought of that at the time. Her femininity had been a weapon! There was more, much more, unsaid between them. But she would not force him to say those things aloud.
“We should go back to the marketplace before the farm-slaves return to their mistresses,” she said instead. “Then we can get something done about new seedlings before we need to prepare for this exhibition. Should I conjure you a costume, do you think?”
“Yes to both,” he replied, going to hold open the door to the house for her. “And we should discuss the costume on the way to the marketplace.”
The evening was an unqualified success, at least insofar as Xylina was concerned. Faro had given a performance that pleased both of them, and had caused a sensation for their hostess, who obviously had not expected that the slave would be nearly so erudite. The guests had gasped at the demonstration of weight-lifting, which had ended with Faro hoisting an incredible pile of “stone” pieces, with Xylina enthroned atop them in a slab-sided “chair” of her own conjuration. Perhaps they suspected that Xylina had conjured a very light form of stone; it didn’t matter. The women had expressed their enjoyment to the wealthy merchant at being entertained in such a surprising way. And the hostess had, in her turn, expressed her pleasure in the form of an addition to the agreed-upon fee.
The entertainment had been held in a spacious and luxurious room just off an inner garden of the villa. The perfumes of night-blossoming flowers mingled with the subtle odors of incense and the exotic fruits and wines that the merchant served her guests. The guests half-reclined on scarlet upholstered couches, and were served by discreet slaves, who saw to it that the cups remained full and the bowls of fruit at their sides remained cool and attractive. Perfumed lanterns lit the room, giving them plenty of light to perform by, yet preserving a warm intimacy. There were about a dozen guests, all of them dressed in rich fabrics and heavy gold jewelry. Some of it might have been conjured, but Xylina doubted it. She didn’t recognize any of them, but she hadn’t really expected to-the women who had attended her mother’s entertainments were not generally found among the merchants, but among the artists and warriors.
Faro had somehow managed to keep the proper balance between “dangerous” and “under control.” Xylina had no idea how he had managed, for she had seen the signs of anger on him many times during the evening. But then, she had trod a fine line herself as she was drawn into the conversation. She had tried to convey the impression that she
was much more aware of city gossip and the current tales among the wealthy Mazonites than she actually was. Her conjurations had at least impressed many of the merchants and wealthy women at the party; she had caught more than one of them regarding her with an appraising look when they thought her attention was elsewhere.
But there was no indication that any of these women were her mysterious enemy, or even if indeed such an enemy existed.
Both she and Faro were as tired at the end of the entertainment as if they had been putting in a day of heavy manual labor. Conjuration took a great deal out of a woman in terms of concentration, if nothing else. And Faro had been lifting huge weights until his bare torso, minimally decorated with “gold” chains, ran with sweat.
Her attention was not always on the conversation; when it drifted away from her, she found herself coming back to the mysterious enemy, and the threat she posed. At least the house was secured against intruders; it would take an entire crew of workers with a winch and levers to remove the conjured stone blocking the front gate, and another crew with metal-saws to cut through the conjured mesh she had created between the top of the outer walls and the house itself. The good thing about protecting her property with conjurations was that she could, quite literally, create something that had no entrance. Where there was no way to get in naturally, an intruder would have to create one at a huge cost in terms of time and effort.
Faro continued to amuse the women reclining on their couches around him with his audacious replies to their questions for more than an hour after their performance was over and the hostess had paid Xylina. But as the night lengthened and the party showed no signs of breaking up, she gave Faro the signal that they should take their leave, and whispered as much to the hostess.
“I’m certain you have things to discuss that you would rather outsiders did not hear, great ladies,” Xylina said into a momentary lull in the conversation. “I am, after all, only a very young woman, and by no means could I have anything to contribute to your wise counsels. So with your permission, we will take our leave.”
If I Pay Thee Not in Gold Page 7