The Slave from the East (The Eastern Slave Series Book 1)

by Victor Poole

  "I bought the fabric myself," she said in the Eastern tongue, and Lim wrinkled his nose.

  "So what?" he asked.

  Philas, watching the exchange, began to laugh.

  "So the trade belongs to her," Philas told Lim. He spoke in the Eastern language as well. The crowd of Slavithe men and women were watching this scene with rapt attention, looking from Ajalia to Lim, and from Lim to Philas. None of the Slavithe had any idea what was going on between them, and Ajalia could see they were all dying to know what was happening.

  "I'm in charge," Lim said.

  "And it's my cloth," Ajalia said simply. "You can't sell my cloth."

  "I already have," Lim said.

  "That had thread in it that belongs to master," Ajalia countered. "This," she said, holding up the braided belt of cream, "is mine."

  Lim ground his teeth. He moved forward, and Ajalia could see that he meant to snatch the belt out of her hands. Ajalia stepped very close to Lim. His eyebrows rose in surprise. She put her face against his ear, and whispered, so that Philas could not hear, "If you hurt me, Philas will kill you."

  She went back to the robed figure, and busied herself over the robe. She laid the panels back, this time with a delicate twist at the lapels, and made a single stitch in each side, to hold it down with the needle that she had still tucked into her sleeve. She did not look at Lim, and after a moment, she heard him resume his talking to the people, explaining that all of them would be able to commission silk robes, as soon as he agreed to cut the silk.

  Philas translated for him, and the crowd began to murmur together. Philas told the Slavithe people that all of them would have the opportunity to bargain, and that much of the silk would be apportioned out before it was cut, so that no one with the money for silk would be left out of a bargain.

  The crowd grew calm, and loud, speculative chattering rose up between the different parties. A larger group of Slavithe had begun to collect around the edges of the first group. When Ajalia had arranged the robe, she tucked the braided belt around her own white clothes and began to examine the crowd, memorizing the faces of the wealthy.

  She had hoped to be able to work on side ventures openly, but Lim, it seemed, did not play fair. She would have to begin her embroidery business quietly, on her own time. Now that the encounter was over, Ajalia felt a rush of white hot rage at Lim. She was past the stage in her life when threats had been acceptable. She had become too important to threaten by the time she was thirteen, and here was Lim, treating her like a household girl with ideas above her place.

  She set her teeth together, and began to think of what she was going to do to Lim. It would have to be permanent. She was forming a complete picture of his character, and it was not a character she wished to linger over long. She had lived with bad people in her past long enough to know that if Lim was behaving like this after a day and a half, he had no plans to improve his behavior in the future. She was annoyed that he had not shown his true colors on the caravan. She wanted to talk to Philas, to see if he had known that Lim was a deal-stealing dirt bag, or if that was news to him as well.

  If they had been at home in the East, Lim would never have dared to treat her like this. Everyone knew that Ajalia was master's favorite, and everyone walked carefully so as not to needlessly offend her. She was not rude, and she did not abuse others, but no one messed with her. No one had ever tried to mess with her, because no one was willing to mess with the master.

  Ajalia's master was not a bad man, but he was just, and he had no problem disciplining slaves, or selling them to the coal mines. Lim was not a fool. He had belonged to Ajalia's master for a long time, long enough to have seen the few slaves go that had gone, and he knew that blackmailing, stealing, and framing other slaves was behavior that their master found abhorrent.

  He had waited, and waited, until there was six month's difference between himself and his master before he had acted like this, and Ajalia resented him for it. She glanced at Philas; he was still translating, moving back and forth between Slavithe customers and Lim. The Slavithe people were beginning to buy up everything that was not silk, or silk thread. She saw the poorer people pressing forward, pooling coins to buy glass jars of spices, and she saw several of the long-haired women purchasing gold chains, and glass rings. One of the wealthy men purchased the fluffy doll and the robe that Ajalia had arranged, and after he had paid Lim he moved over to Ajalia discreetly, and held out money, gesturing wordlessly to her belt.

  "I speak your language, good stranger," Ajalia said.

  A brief cloud passed over the man's face, and then he smiled.

  "I would purchase your belt for my wife," he said.

  Ajalia unwound the belt, and gave it to the man.

  "I will trade," she said. "Do not pay me with money, but help to spread my good name among your brothers. Tell them that Ajalia is honest."

  "I will do better than that," the man said, folding the belt around the figure, and lifting the robes so that they would not touch the ground. "I will tell my wife about you, and she will tell her friends."

  "I thank you," Ajalia said, and bowed.

  "If ever you find yourself dissatisfied," the Slavithe man murmured quietly, pressing closely for a moment to Ajalia, "you will find ready employment in my house."

  He stepped back, and grinned at Ajalia, and she smiled at him. He was like a child, beaming over the robe he had bought for his wife. The Slavithe man was not very old, not over forty, and his face was honest.

  In any other city, the man's words would have sent anger coursing through Ajalia's bones, but here, and now, and in his eyes, there was only the conspiratorial desire for good needlework. The man was pleased with Ajalia, with her words, with her discretion, and with her stitching, and he was offering to poach her, a slave, from Lim.

  If the situation had not been so sweetly naive, so pleasant in its non-creepiness, Ajalia would have laughed in the man's face. Here was proof positive that Slavithe had no slaves. Ajalia took the man's name, and waved kindly at him as he departed through the now-darkening streets, bearing his purchase home to his wife. She suspected that the man had a little family, and that they were all clustered at home around some manner of fireplace, doing some adorably innocent fireside task, and waiting patiently for him to return and tell them what had happened at the market today.

  A manner of wrenching sob, an echo of pain, coursed through Ajalia's body, not because of the picture she had formed, but because of the reminder it made surface of her own home, and her own father, and their own, not-adorable, fireplace.

  Ajalia took three bottles of spices, one of each color, and the bottles of different shapes, and passed through the market. She walked right in front of Lim, and saw him glare at her as she passed. She said nothing to Philas, and he did not notice her go. The sun had set completely, and the light had gone out of the streets. A ruddy glow still swept against the white stones, but now it was cast by the torches and lamps that hung over corners, and against the walls of houses and stalls. The sky was shrouded with scrappy clouds that obscured the stars. The moon had not yet begun to rise.

  Ajalia had heard that the moon in Slavithe looked incredibly large, but she did not believe it. She had also heard that the magic of Slavithe made the women younger and stronger, and that their horses were the finest in all the world. She had seen the horses, and she had seen the women, and she did not believe the moon would pass muster either.

  She passed through the streets, and wound her back to where Lasa's house lay. The streets were warm still, and clean, and people passed up and down at regular intervals. Ajalia felt that the scene was off somehow, and it took her some time to figure out why.

  There was no trash in the corners of the street, up against where the buildings began. There was not even a black rim of dirt, or of old growth, or mold climbing up between the stones that paved the street. The streets looked like nothing so much as a swept and scrubbed kitchen counter. Ajalia stopped walking and looked around her.
The city was peaceful. It felt peaceful to be walking in it. She wanted to sit down right in the middle of the street, and watch the people going past, and make up stories about their lives, about where they were going and who they were going to meet.

  Ajalia turned in a slow circle, and imagined herself living in this city. She had never felt this way before, never felt drawn towards a place. She had never imagined that there could be a place that would feel so like this place felt. It was as though ugliness had never come into Slavithe at all. She could not believe that there was not ugliness here, no rotten human behavior, or horrible, conniving plotting, but it was somehow different. It was hidden, or compartmentalized, or swept into a drawer that was labeled, "Evil, do not open."

  She could stand in the middle of this street, and know that the tall rich woman with the brown hair was in the palatial house far away, and she could know that the woman who was evil like her mother was evil was here, in this city, and she could still like it here, and feel at home, and feel a quiet pool of peacefulness spreading out from her heart.

  Ajalia walked more slowly to Lasa's house, and knocked again at the door. The same servant as before answered the door, and vanished at once without speaking. Ajalia waited, and after some time, Lasa appeared. Lasa was wearing a dark brown gown that was long, and cut low, with a feminine fringe at the edge. It was the single most attractive piece of clothing that Ajalia had seen so far in the whole city.

  "Hello, adored friend and renter," Lasa said. She brought Ajalia inside and began to chatter about the market stall full of silks, which she said she had gone and seen earlier in the afternoon. Ajalia gave Lasa the money for the little house, and Lasa stopped talking at once.

  "I was worried," Lasa said, as she was counting the money, "that you were not going to pay."

  "Many people do not," Ajalia said agreeably.

  "You know," Lasa said, plopping her fingers delicately into the money, and opening her eyes more widely, "people say that people don't pay, but they really, really don't. I mean, everyone agrees that not paying is a problem, and that many people try not to pay, but they really, really do try not to pay. It is shocking."

  The phrase, "It is shocking," made Ajalia remember the time before, in the afternoon, when the cloth merchant had made her sit down with a vessel of water, and Ajalia stared at Lasa with new eyes. She was wondering if Lasa was the type of person who made strange women sit down because their faces were white. She did not think Lasa was that type of person, but she didn't mind if she wasn't. She liked Lasa, and she wasn't sure why.

  "I brought these," Ajalia said, holding out the spice bottles. She watched Lasa's face, to see what would pass over her eyes.

  Lasa took the bottles, and smiled. "You brought me a present," she said. Ajalia nodded. "Why are you sad?" she asked Ajalia.

  "I'm not sad," Ajalia said.

  "Your face is sad," Lasa said. "Is it because you are a slave?"

  Ajalia looked at Lasa. "How did you recognize me?" she asked. Lasa shrugged.

  "Your eyes are the same," Lasa said. "And your smile is the same."

  "I don't think I have ever met anyone who recognized me after I took the paint off," Ajalia remarked. She stood up, and looked around the room. Lasa's house was extraordinarily bare, and had hardly any furniture or decoration in it. The floors were bare stone, and aside from three simple wooden chairs, there seemed to be no furnishings.

  "Do you live here?" Ajalia asked.

  Lasa laughed. She nodded, and took Ajalia up the stairs. She showed Ajalia room after room that was bare of any adornment. At the very top floor was an attic, and Lasa opened a trapdoor, and showed Ajalia a long row of stacked furnishings, hangings, and things for living with.

  "My mother left the house this way," Lasa said. "She will never come back, but I have kept it this way. There is a little room on the bottom floor, and I live there."

  "Why?" Ajalia asked.

  "Why do you remain a slave?" Lasa asked.

  "That is a silly question," Ajalia said.

  "How did you learn to speak Slavithe?" Lasa asked. She led the way down the long winding stair, and put Ajalia back into the bare room with the three wooden chairs. Ajalia expected to be shown the last room, where Lasa lived. She was beginning to wonder if Lasa was lying about her little furnished room.

  "Where did your mother go?" Ajalia asked, but she did not expect an answer.

  "She went East," Lasa said. Ajalia saw that Lasa was trying to provoke her, to make her show emotion, and Ajalia prevented her eyes from changing.

  "Oh," Ajalia said. She let the silence sit between them, becoming more pregnant with the stillness. Ajalia stood again, and moved to the window. "Why is your dress different to the clothing of your people?" Ajalia asked, looking out into the street. The night was darker now, and the moon had begun to rise. A rim of thick, burning blue was showing over the edge of the city walls.

  "Why do you speak my language so well?" Lasa asked. "People here do not leave."

  "Maybe I learned to speak Slavithe from your mother," Ajalia said. She turned and leaned against the window, staring at the shadow in the room that was Lasa. She could not see Lasa from here at all. She preferred it this way. She did not trust Lasa's twinkling eyes.

  "You are a tough little woman," Lasa said lightly, and Ajalia gripped her teeth together.

  "How much would you pay for a slave?" Ajalia asked.

  "I would not buy a person," Lasa replied.

  "How much do you pay your servants here?" Ajalia asked.

  "That is different."

  "You don't pay them," Ajalia said. She had not known this before, but she could hear from Lasa's voice, from the way that she used words about her servants, that she did not pay them money. "They are slaves," Ajalia said. Her heart fell a little, but she felt a surge of victory. She had thought that Slavithe was too good to be true. She was anxious to expose all of the city's most sordid secrets. She thought that if she found enough bad, she would stop liking it here. She didn't want to like it here any longer. She decided that when she left Slavithe, she would never return. She did not like this city, that shone with marble, and hid slavery with plain dressed masters.

  "They aren't slaves," Lasa said.

  "Can they leave you?" Ajalia asked. Lasa did not reply, and Ajalia, with some effort, withheld a snort. "I expected more of you," Ajalia said, and she felt confused by her own tone. She had grown accustomed to being hardened and rough, to always thinking the worst of others. Here, she somehow thought people would be good. In any other city, Lasa would have seemed to her a perfectly healthy example of a slave-trading master, but here Lasa seemed somehow monstrous.

  Ajalia moved forward, and picked up the spice bottles from the wooden chair where Lasa had set them.

  "You will not need spices," Ajalia said. "Your servants will buy them in the market, when you buy your silks."

  Ajalia saw Lasa start forward, just a fraction, and Ajalia held in a laugh. She knew what Lasa was after, now.

  "Did you think I would give you silk, if you were my friend?" Ajalia asked. Lasa did not reply, but Ajalia saw the truth in the sudden clench of Lasa's well-formed jaw. "The silk is worth more than my life," Ajalia said gently, and left the room. Lasa followed her down the last steps into the entryway to the house. Ajalia stopped at a door that lay near the front door, and knocked at it. There was no answer within, and she pushed open the handle.

  Lasa was standing behind her, not saying anything. Within the room was a bright red and yellow glow from a little fireplace. An old, old woman was sitting near the fire. Ajalia could see that the old woman was blind, and that she could hardly hear. The old woman was turning a narrow distaff in her hands, and making thread. A basket of plant fiber was at the foot of the old woman's rickety chair. The room was filled with hanging herbs and root vegetables. Two old rugs were on the floor, and some clumsily executed paintings hung on the walls.

  "This is your mother," Ajalia said. Lasa did not say anything, but A
jalia knew she was right. She felt right. She went into the room, and pressed the little jars of spice into the old woman's hands.

  "Lasa? What have you gotten now?" the old woman said. Her voice was like dying leather. Ajalia did not know why, but the picture of the old woman made a deep impression on her heart. Ajalia felt as though she were looking at a living sculpture of herself, of what she would become, of who she was inside.

  "Is this your mother?" Ajalia asked, turning to Lasa. Lasa was still just outside the door. Ajalia could see the bare outline of the dress, and the lines of Lasa's neck.

  "Yes," Lasa said.

  Ajalia did not need to see any more to know what Lasa was. She had seen this setup before, of a useless person living in a little space, and another woman living under a new name, with a bright face and clothes that were striking.

  "I will make sure that you do not get any silk," Ajalia told Lasa. "It cannot be done. I cannot help you. The silk is reserved for those with wealth."

  "I have wealth," Lasa said.

  "You are a slave," Ajalia said.

  "I am a servant," Lasa said, too loudly. "I am a servant, never a slave. I have never been sold."

  "You are a slave," Ajalia said. She went back out to the entrance way.

  "It is temporary," Lasa said, and Ajalia could hear that Lasa still believed it. "I will be free in a little while."

  "Whose house is this?" Ajalia asked. She felt almost weary. The world was the same, no matter where she was, but she had hoped, at least, to find an honest woman in Lasa.

  "Gevad has the deed," Lasa said. Ajalia remembered the house agent, the man with the growing baldness and the too-clean sandals, and a shudder went down her calves.

  "And he wants to marry you?" Ajalia asked.

  Lasa jumped forward and closed the door on the old woman. She made a frantic shushing noise as she did so, and pushed Ajalia out of the front door.

  "He isn't serious," Lasa said. "How did you know?"

  "It is the same everywhere," Ajalia said. "You will never be free."

  "I am earning my way free," Lasa insisted.