by Victor Poole
She walked through the darkened streets until she came to an area of town that was darker, and thinner, and more rickety. The buildings were of stone here, too, but the stone was old, and dirty. She knew there had to have been some poverty-stricken place in the city, and here she had found it. She found a likely-looking building, and went inside. It had been divided up into tenements, and there was no obvious office, or place of management. She walked up a set of stairs that were as wide as the stairs in the little house, but which were crowded with piles of old cloth and ratty boxes. She listened at the doors she passed, and heard coughing and quiet conversations. The tenements she usually found were noisy affairs, but in Slavithe, it seemed, even the poor people were classy. She gathered her robes up away from the filth on the steps, and walked until she came to a door that seemed promising.
Ajalia had a knack for finding whoever was in charge. She had a sense that pointed her to the person who had the most lines of authority snaking out of them. This made her effective as a slave, and had helped her to get into a good position when she had negotiated her own sale from the slave traders to the Eastern merchants. Most slaves were auctioned willy-nilly at the markets, but Ajalia had been clever; Ajalia had negotiated a deal with her managing driver, and he agreed to let her sell herself as long as she got a high enough price for him to take a fat cut out before passing it on to his own owner. She had done just that, and though her first Eastern master had been something of a heel, she had found a way to work herself into a trade to another house, and from there it had been but a short step to her current master's household. She had no intention of leaving her master at all. He was the only man she cared to belong to, and she assumed that she would stay with him until he died. She had formed only nebulous plans about what her plan of action would be upon his death, but she had determined that, at any price, she would not pass to another's ownership.
She did not think of this as plotting for her freedom so much as she thought of it as not belonging to anyone but the man she had accepted as a master.
Ajalia rapped sharply on the door she had picked, and after several minutes, a shuffling old woman appeared at the door. The old woman had a thin face, but she was wearing so many layers of dirty brown cloth that she looked like a hunchback. Her eyes had a bright gleam in them; Ajalia had been right. She could tell the old woman was in charge of the building.
"I want a room," Ajalia said. She pulled three coins out of the purse in her robes, and held them out to the woman. Ajalia did not look down at the coins, but the old woman did, and Ajalia could see her listening carefully, to hear any jostling of other coins. Ajalia had been careful to make no jostling at all.
The old woman's mouth pinched up a little.
"Rent's due in advance," she said cautiously. Her eyes travelled to Ajalia's face, and she smiled a little. "Hiding, are we?" she asked.
"Yes, grandmother," Ajalia said peaceably. The old woman grunted. She had already taken the coins. Ajalia did not look at them; in the corner of her eye she could see the old woman turning the coins, making the metal flash in the dim light. The old woman was trying to see if Ajalia was a cheat. Lim would not have been able to resist the sight of flashing money. Ajalia was stronger than Lim.
"I will pay you in advance," Ajalia said.
"Keep your money," the old woman said. "I'd rather have a cut of those robes."
"I can't give you these," Ajalia said. She took off her travelling robe as she spoke, and bit the thread that bound the lining with her teeth. The thread came off with a snap, and Ajalia put her hand into the robe. "Will this do?" she asked.
The old woman licked her lips, and nodded. Ajalia passed her the thing she had pulled up out of the robe. The old woman wrapped the chain of thin-beaten gold metal around her neck, and winked at Ajalia.
"Don't pay me," the woman said, and smiled a sickly, weak smile. Her eyes were strong and bright, and the rest of her face looked like the mask of a demented old crone, but Ajalia saw through the front. Ajalia did not smile, but her eyes met those of the old woman, and the old woman nodded just a little. "And don't ever come back to my door," the old woman added shrilly, and slammed the door closed.
Ajalia stepped back just in time, and the door made a rattle that traveled through the building. The door was made of a thin sheet of metal; it made a similar sound to the door that had led to Gevad's house, but it was not nearly so thick, and the reverberations it made were weaker.
She turned away from the door, and it opened again, quietly. The old woman wordlessly held out a thin black key, and then vanished behind the door again. This time, the door made no sound in closing. Ajalia took the black key and began to climb the stairs.
She found an empty room partway up the flight of stairs. It sat somewhere around the top third of the building, and she knew it was empty because there were no lights shining under the door. Most of the other doors had thin strips of light, and those that didn't were somehow warm and filled-feeling. She knew there were sleeping bodies on the other sides of those doors.
She stopped outside her door and put the key into the mechanism. The metal made a gentle squeaking noise, and the mechanism slid out. She opened the door, and a rush of stale night air met her face. She wanted to clean out the room at once. Lim and Philas would be missing her shortly; Lim would want her to arrange the sleeping quarters of the slaves, and Philas would want someone to chat with for five minutes about the lack of a nightcap. She looked around the room, and a pang tore at her heart. She didn't want to leave this little close room, with its shuttered window and cluttered floor. It felt like home already. She laid the black key on a box that lay near the door, and went to the window. The shutters were nailed closed, but she pried one of the boards away, and put her nose out into the night. The air was deliciously cool, and tasted of crisp leaves and leftover sunlight.
She took off her great robe, which had been tailored for her master, and she hung it over a broken chair. The room was filled with junk from the previous five residents, who had shuffled in and out of life with a kind of detachment and carelessness as regarded their physical possessions that showed their inner inability to cope with money. This was what Ajalia thought of the previous tenants, as she sorted efficiently through their garbage, and straightened up.
"It will be very nice in here," she said softly. "Soon enough, it'll be just like home."
She sat down on the broken chair, balancing the edge so that she could make sure not to fall over, and she tried not to cry. After a moment, she wiped her nose, cleaned the tears from her eyes, and put the robe of her silk merchant master back over her shoulders. She picked up the black key and went down the stairs. She did not lock the door behind her. She hoped that someone in the building would go in the room and steal some of the garbage. She had arranged some of it specially to look as though it still belonged to somebody, and she thought her chances were pretty good. She was sure that someone above or below her had noticed the room being filled with a person for a few minutes; she knew she was acutely aware every time her master added new slaves to the household, even when she walked into the estate from far away, and had only just felt the energy in the home. The house always tasted metallic when there were new slaves, almost as though the new bodies had brought in old blood. She did not care for the smell, or the taste of slaves, but as soon as the slaves came in, she neutralized the smell by taking their fear away.
She was sure someone, or a couple of someones, in this building would have noticed that a new body had made a place in the empty room, and she was sure that they would tell others. She hoped fervently for a parade of poor residents to stream in and out of the little room. Perhaps, if she was very lucky, the room would be swept nearly bare when she returned in a few days. She went down the rest of the stairs and into the darkness. She could not remember the way back to the little house, merely because it was colder now, and she had cried. She always forgot her way after she cried. She let her feet wander without direction, and found her
self soon enough at the door of the little house. She looked up at the windows, and remembered just in time that she ought to go in the back. She let herself into the front door with a mix of anger and resentful defiance, and found herself in an empty room. No one had missed her. She had only been gone for a sliver of the night, and she walked quietly up the stairs. Lim was arguing with a slave on the first landing.
Ajalia passed the arguing pair. The slave was claiming that Philas had given her permission to save a pile of food in the room upstairs, and Lim was waxing eloquent about selfishness and theft. The Eastern words were cloying against Ajalia's ears; she had started to get used already to the softer, deeper sounds of the Slavithe tongue. She moved her mouth around the words as they would have sounded in Slavithe, and they were friendlier, and more filled with warmth. She passed farther up the stairs, and Lim called after her. She pretended not to hear.
"Ajalia," Philas called from within a room.
THE UNPACKING BEGINS
"What do you want?" she answered, without going in. Her tongue felt dirty. She wished she was speaking Slavithe. She did not know what was off with her. She had always been rather fond of the Eastern words, but now she felt nothing more than contempt and disgust for the sounds that twisted up in her mouth. The air seemed to clap against her teeth, and scrape unpleasantly over her lips.
"Come and have a chat," Philas answered. His voice was muffled through the door. Ajalia didn't know why she had thought so well of Philas before this. He suddenly seemed old and filthy. She didn't want to hear him complain about booze, and then invite her to share his bed. She didn't want to talk to anyone at all. She opened the door, but didn't go in.
"I've got to sort out the sleeping quarters," Ajalia said. She added a harried frown to her face. Philas frowned. Ajalia smirked inside. He never liked it when she was grumpy. She was never really grumpy, as far as he knew. He thought she was only peevish.
"I'll do it," he said, and his voice was plaintive. "It's a shame these primitives haven't fermented any of their fruit."
"A true shame," Ajalia said with a straight face.
"Are you mocking me?" Philas asked, his mouth turning up at the corners.
"I could never, ever mock such a large person as yourself," Ajalia said solemnly.
"Get on, then," he said, but he was smiling. Ajalia grinned, and went back up the stairs. "Ajalia," he called after her.
"Not today," she hollered back, and she heard him laughing. He had meant, sleep with me, and she had said, once and again, not this time. Theirs was a never-ending dance, but it cheered them both up. Ajalia went to the top of the house, and flushed the slaves out of all the rooms, and down into the main room downstairs. She was harsh and strong, and her robe swept grandly behind her as she followed the last slaves down the stairs. It was dark in the house. The last light from the leftover candles was burning low. Ajalia made a note in her mind to find new lights tomorrow. The old wax was malleable and dirty; it had already made several waxy stains against the walls.
"Listen," Ajalia said as she came into the crowded bottom room, "I want you all to speak Slavithe now. I don't know how many of you I'm going to sell."
An outcry met these words. Several of the slaves turned and appealed loudly to Lim. They wanted him to shout her down, to say that they couldn't be sold into such a nowhere land as Slavithe had turned out to be. None of them cared that much, but they had a good master, and Ajalia knew that none of them had eaten better than they had with her master. It was more a matter of form than anything, for any of them to protest loudly the idea of being sold. It was considered the right thing, and most masters enjoyed the idea of loyalty and fondness between master and slave.
"She's right," Lim said. "Never know what's coming. We might have to economize on the journey back. Learn as she says, and you'll be more useful, at any rate."
Reassured, the boisterous ones quieted down, and Ajalia started to speak in Slavithe instead. The words roiled pleasantly around in her mouth. Philas had not come down, but she imagined his look of glee as she explained to the slaves that they were going to arrange their own sleeping arrangements. None of them spoke enough Slavithe to have any idea what she was saying, and Lim nodded solemnly along with everything she said. She did not say anything that was outright mutinous against Lim, but she kept a very stern look in her eyes, and everyone followed along diligently until she had finished. She stood up, and went first up the stairs, and the slaves sat for a moment, staring at each other, intimidated, before Lim said brusquely, "Well, go on, do what she said now." He bustled up behind Ajalia, and patted her on the shoulder. "Well said, you know," he said. "Well said." He went past her, and she waited until he had gone into a room before she went up the stairs herself.
She wanted to go back to her little room in the poor tenement, but she had to wait until the slaves finished settling down. It was going to take several days before she would be able to go back there safely. She went to the top floor, and found a pile of rags and paper in a narrow attic. One of the slaves had stuffed a pair of silk pieces of cloth and an expensive ring of Eastern gold underneath the pile, and Ajalia sighed. If Lim found out, he would throw a fit. He was going to do inventory tomorrow, and if she brought the hoard down now, he would get out of his settled mood, and she would be up for another two hours searching the slaves.
Ajalia picked up the silk squares, and hissed in displeasure. They were not part of this trip's shipment of goods. Someone had been hoarding these for years. She began to wonder if she had found Philas's hoard, before she remembered that Lim had traded this colored silk on a trip three years ago. She began to be angry. The gold ring was immaterial; everyone stole and hoarded gold in the East. She had done so herself for many years. Stealing and keeping silk was an insanity that only amateur slaves resorted to. The colors were distinctive, and the Eastern chiefs had long since developed systems of marking and tracking particular batches of silk. If Lim were caught with these pieces, he would pin them on Ajalia, and if Ajalia was pinned with stealing silk, she would be demoted. Such a trick would never have worked in the East, when she was on the spot and in her master's eye, but in the distant land of Slavithe, where Lim had technical authority over her, a disaster was possible. Ajalia pulled a pile of lint from the inside of her robe, and began to pull the silk squares to pieces. She mixed the lint together with the unraveled threads, and scuffed the damaged silks under her shoes. She took the ring down the stairs with her.
"Lim," she called, long before she reached his door. "Lim," she said, more loudly still. A shuffle of noise came from within his room, and she waited, leaning against the wall opposite the door.
She heard his footsteps come over the floor. His door didn't open. "What do you want?" he asked gruffly from the other side of the door.
"Have you got Yelin in there?" she asked loudly, and a squeak came from inside the room.
"No," he said. "And we're to talk in Slavithe now, aren't we?"
"Right," she said, and stuffed the dirty pink silk under the crack of the door with her toe.
The door slammed open with a bang, and Lim appeared, his eyes wild. His cheeks were red.
"You've, you've," he blustered. "You've stolen silk!" His voice was not higher than a whisper.
"It looks as though you have," she said blandly. She waited to see what he would say. He had been caught off guard, and Ajalia could see Yelin's curious face from the sliver of light through the door.
"Hello, Yelin," Ajalia said conversationally through the crack. Yelin beamed widely, and waved at Ajalia. "I am going to teach you a new word in Slavithe," Ajalia said to Yelin. She switched to Slavithe, and said, "Blackmail."
"Blackmail," Yelin said, with a quaint accent.
Lim did not know what was being said. He had never learned any Slavithe. He was watching Ajalia with narrowed eyes. His mouth was slightly open, the lips quivering together.
"Lim is blackmailing Ajalia," Ajalia taught Yelin, who repeated the phrase with delight. Lim
heard his own name, and Ajalia's, and he burst out with violence.
"What did you say? What are you teaching her?"
Ajalia looked straight at Lim. "Lim is blackmailing Ajalia," she said in the Eastern tongue, and Yelin giggled and repeated the phrase again in Slavithe.
"Shut up!" Lim shouted at Yelin, but he was no longer dangerous, and Ajalia laughed at him. She handed him the squares from the floor, and he waved his hands.
"Burn them, please," he said, smiling, but Ajalia was firm.
"You burn your own evidence," she said, and Yelin exploded in peals of laughter, as he grudgingly accepted the pink squares. They would have to be burned. Ajalia had damaged them too much for them to be of any use.
"Did you find anything else up there?" he asked, taking the squares from her. She saw that he was planning to deny everything, and to burn the squares from the standpoint of a responsible manager who protected his wayward slaves.
Ajalia put her hand into her robes, and when she withdrew her hand, the golden ring was prominently displayed on it. She touched her hand to her cheek.
"No, nothing," she said solemnly.
Ajalia watched the muscles of Lim's jaw work in waves, from the edge of his neck down to his chin. She imagined him chewing on his tongue in fury. The ring was massive and beautiful. She didn't recognize the design. He may have been holding on to this piece for years, and as she watched his face transform from red to a patchwork of yellow and white, she realized that the ring must have been more valuable to him than she had supposed.
Ajalia realized that she ought to be flattered that Lim hated her enough, saw her as enough of a threat, to risk losing such a valuable piece only to tarnish her reputation. She took note of the fear and rage in his eyes, and her smile dimmed a little.