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

by Victor Poole

  "No," he said.

  "Yes," Ajalia said solemnly.

  "I thank all our local gods that you did not receive further harm," he added fervently.

  "I join my wishes to yours," Ajalia said. "What are your local gods?"

  The fat man began to laugh. "You are funny," he said, as his cheeks and lips quivered with jollity. "We haven't got any gods," he added, wiping his face with his sleeve. The sun was just beginning to rise visibly, and a sheet of hot gold light was pouring over his eyes. "We believe in magic," he confided, his mouth folding with business-like efficiency into the familiar scowl. Ajalia could see deep creases at either end of his face, where his chin had pushed his lips up into his cheeks.

  "That bridle has not sold for a long time," Ajalia said. The merchant glanced at her with suspicious eyes, and she did not smile. "Because it is so fine, and so expensive," she added grimly.

  "Mm," the fat merchant said.

  "Well, I will have to find something I can afford," Ajalia said briskly. She turned away, and before she had gone far, the fat merchant called after her.

  "Have a nice day," he said. She could hear a lilt in the bottom of his voice, beckoning her back. She did not turn back.

  The market was waking up, and the first few servants and Slavithe citizens were beginning to come into the market for their morning shopping. Ajalia followed a small group of servants as they wound their way through the narrow lanes that crisscrossed through the sides of the market. There were a series of broad roads that ran through the main area of the market, connecting the fabric and metal stalls to the furniture and household areas, but between these main byways were countless narrow lanes that snaked up and down and in and out of the stalls.

  Ajalia had chosen a little cluster of young men who were each carrying a large wicker basket. She guessed that they were in quest of food, and she wanted to secure her own supplies before the sun grew too hot. She wished that she had thought to bring her boy along with her, to carry things, but as she followed the servants deeper into the market, their path absorbed her attention. She took note of the different stalls and hangings that she passed, and took in the faces of the merchants and servants that marked the way.

  Finally, the group of servants stopped at a little out-of-the-way shop that looked like nothing so much as a black hole into a narrow warehouse. They spoke briefly with a pale old woman in a brown wrap, and then vanished into the plain entrance. Ajalia hung around the corner. She waited until the servants emerged again, carrying their baskets, which were now bursting with food. She turned away until they passed her, and then she went towards the black doorway.

  "What do you want?" the pale woman asked.

  "My master is a great trader from the East. He must entertain the greatest of your citizens in the course of his stay here." Ajalia made herself as small as possible, and kept the bloody sleeve of her robe tucked into her palm. She crossed her hands over the worst stains on the fabric.

  "What's your master's name?" the old woman asked. Her eyebrows were like white worms, and her skin was nearly translucent.

  Ajalia said her master's name, and the old woman chortled.

  "I haven't heard of him," she remarked, and licked the tip of a charcoal pencil. "Sounds quite foreign. How shall I mark him down?"

  Ajalia spelled out the common pronunciation of her master's name in Slavithe letters, and the old woman noted them down behind the narrow ledge that ran around the open door.

  "Payment upon receipt," the old woman said blandly, and then added, "I don't deliver."

  "My master has many slaves," Ajalia murmured, and the old woman harrumphed.

  "Such a pleasure," the pale one snapped, and Ajalia went away. She studied the route that had brought her to this place. She went out to the main market street, and then backwards, until she had memorized a permanent set of markers that would guide her slaves to the warehouse. When she was sure she would be able to find the place again, she went back to the stall that was stuffed with Eastern silks, and bustling again with curious Slavithe people.

  Lim had appeared, and the trading was nearly ready to begin. The silks were almost too alluring; Ajalia felt uncomfortable with how earnestly the people looked at them, and with what fervor they touched the shimmering edges. The Slavithe men and women seemed to look at the silks as though they were filled with a kind of magic.

  "We should wait," Ajalia said to Lim, who ignored her. "Wait until a feast day. They're too eager. They'll pay too much."

  "Then I'll charge too much," Lim murmured to her. His eyes were creased with greed. "We could be on the way home in three days."

  "Master wants a permanent trade route, not a coup," Ajalia said. Philas was not around. Lim looked more comfortable now; there was no sign in his face that he had set a trap for Ajalia last night. He had all the unassuming charm of an innocent babe. "Did Yelin tell you?" she asked him with a smile.

  "Tell me what?" Lim asked irritably.

  "She was caught by a nice young Slavithe man trying to solicit favors for pay."

  Lim turned and stared at Ajalia. "What?" he asked. He blinked a few times. Before he could recover his composure, the Slavithe merchant who had lent them the stall strolled up. He offered grave sympathies to Lim and Ajalia, and his gaze was directed compassionately towards Yelin. Ajalia translated his words to Lim, and Lim began to blush and bluster. He did not know what to say, but the Slavithe merchant saw his reticence as proper shame, and patted him consolingly on the back. He explained once again about his own unfortunate family connections, and Ajalia translated these words, as well. By the time the Slavithe merchant wandered away, Ajalia was pleased, and Lim was furiously red.

  "That was not fair," he said to Ajalia.

  "Truce?" she asked.

  "Never," Lim said stoutly.

  "I told him you're her brother," Ajalia added, and Lim glared at her.

  "Fine," he said. "Truce. Just stop this."

  "Wait until a feast day," Ajalia said.

  "Why?" Lim asked. "They don't have much religion in them. I've checked."

  "Something odd is going on," Ajalia said, and she mentioned the strange dynamic between the rich woman with brown hair and the other citizens. "We don't understand the wealthy yet," she said. "I do not think we will keep long whatever money we make."

  "And you think the feast days have something to do with this?" Lim asked her. He finally looked interested in something she was saying. His eyes were keen now, and he looked around at the Slavithe men and women with something more like scrutiny than greed.

  "I think the festival display will tell us much," Ajalia said. Lim studied her. "Watch the ones with long hair," she said, nudging her chin at the wealthy women that moved around the stall. "Those without status have to cut theirs."

  Lim stared at Ajalia's hair for a moment, and then he smiled. "We will wait for a feast day," he said. He turned and looked at the stall, and waved his hands at the silks. "They've seen enough," he said. "Pack it all away, and sell everything else."

  "Do you want to hold back on the thread?" Ajalia asked. Finally, she thought, something was happening. Finally, there was going to be something other than futile politics on this trip. Finally, she was going to get something done.

  "Sell it all," Lim said dismissively. "All but the silk."

  Ajalia turned to the slaves within the stall, and clapped her hands. "Pack away the silks," she said loudly, and then repeated herself in the Eastern tongue. A discontented murmur rose up among the crowds of shifting Slavithe people at her words.

  "I have to change," Ajalia said to Lim. He glanced at the state of her clothes, and nodded. "Feed them," she added, nodding to the slaves, and passing Lim a cluster of coins.

  "Did you pay the rent?" Lim asked, pocketing the money.

  "Have them lay everything out in plain rows," Ajalia said. "I'll be back."

  She wound through the jostling bodies in the market. A few of the Slavithe women tried to catch her by the arm, to ask her wh
y the slaves were pulling down the silk and folding it into long stacks. Ajalia would wait until the slaves had carried the massive piles of silk home before she sold the other goods; they had lost the silks' covering sheath to the rich woman with brown hair, but the slaves would use one or two of the robes, turned inside out, to protect the enormous bundle from dust in the street as they carried it home.

  Ajalia went to a new eatery, and bought some food. She took it with her, and stuffed it into her mouth as she walked to the little house. She had not been there for what seemed an age, and when she arrived and passed through the front door, she clicked her tongue in dismay. The rooms were all slightly out of kilter. There were no overwhelming messes, but the house was not pleasant to be in. She shouted for the slaves in the house, and when they appeared, she set them to work. She looked for Philas, but could not find him.

  Ajalia changed her clothes and brushed out her long black hair before leaving the house again. She met Philas in the street. He was walking with a bounce in his step, and a small drinking vessel was in his hand.

  "The house is awful," she complained.

  "I'll fix it," Philas sang merrily.

  "You're drunk," Ajalia accused.

  "Not," he replied, passing her.

  "I'm going to sell everything," she said. "The silk is coming back to the house in a bit."

  "I'll store it very tidily," he exclaimed, going into the house.

  Ajalia sped up and made it to the market just as the slaves carrying the long shimmering robes concealing the silks came out of the main entrance. Ajalia ran towards the fabric stall, and slowed to a stately walk just as she came within sight of the groups of Slavithe people that were just beginning to move away, grumbling to each other in disappointment.

  Ajalia climbed quickly behind the counter and began to sell silk thread. She caught the attention of most of the people gathered around the stall, and the crowd began to grow after a few minutes. She sold the first skein of silk, and began to sell another. The crowd grew as the sun rose higher into the sky. By noon she had worked through half of the silk thread, and was making obscene amounts of money. The crowd's voracious appetite seemed only to grow with time, and Ajalia set aside part of the silk skeins, and moved on to the bottles of spices. These sold slowly at first, until Ajalia sent a slave to an eatery for a tureen of soup, and sent samples of the spices out into the crowds in bowls of soup. Someone from the eatery where the soup had come from showed up after a little while, and bought up most of the spices that were left.

  As Ajalia moved through the items that lined the counter and hung from the ebony chains, and as the sun reached its zenith and began, very slowly, to climb down, the masses of Slavithe people grew larger and larger. Ajalia thought that this must be one of the most interesting days in their market's history; she could not imagine such a spectacle happening on any regular basis. Slavithe people were buying, and then hanging around to watch other people buy. She did not know how many people lived in the city, but she felt as though at least half of the total population was cycling through the market to stand and watch, or bid and then clutch their purchases and watch others buy.

  As the sun dwindled into evening, Ajalia had sold most of the golden chains and necklaces, and the glass rings were gone. The row of goods on the counters had dwindled as well, and now formed lonely-looking lines over the white stone. Ajalia's voice was still strong as she played the crowd, drawing bids from the eager buyers for the remaining goods. The slaves from the East hung about the stall, moving the things into cleaner rows as Ajalia sold each item, and collecting the money for Ajalia.

  Ajalia was using a wide-necked leather bag to hold the money, and as each slave dropped a new handful of coins into the bag, she checked their palms for hidden coins, running her fingers a little up their sleeves, and between their fingers. After the first two thieves were caught, the rest gave up on the attempt, but she checked anyway. Her mouth pattered on throughout the process, keeping the attention of the people engaged on each item. She told about the way the gold was smelted from the interesting mountains of the East, and how the gold and glass was chosen specially to complement the colors of the silks. When she held up the last two skeins of silk thread, a murmur of anticipation ran through the crowd.

  Ajalia told them how the silk was harvested from the leaves of the golden trees of the East, and how the tiny deposits of silk matter were broken down and combined into the long threads that were bound first into skeins, and then colored and woven into the shimmering fabrics of the East.

  The bidding grew more intense. There were a few wealthy women who were fighting like animals, though civilized ones, over the last two skeins of colored silk. Those who had purchased silk earlier were clutching their purchases closely, watching the action anxiously. Ajalia sold the last threads, and as the sun sank behind the mountains and the city wall, she sold the last few things that lined the stall's counter.

  LIM LOSES HIS HAIR

  As the torches throughout the market were lit, Ajalia sent her slaves home, and began to count over the money in her great leather bag. She took it into the room behind the stall, and locked the door to count over the coins. She had made a great deal of money. She sorted through the coins, and as she worked, she began to slip open the lining of her inner robe, and put coins into the tiny pockets, which she had sewn herself, and which had a secret opening along the inside, where coins such as these made an invisible and silent lump. She lined her waist with coins, and then filled the pouch with coins. The pouch itself also had a lining, but the leather was so stiff that it could not be detected from the outside. Ajalia had learned many tricks from her first Eastern master, who had been a thief and a smuggler as well as a merchant; he had been an expert at moving small metals, precious or deadly, through borders, and from place to place. He lined his own pockets as often as he brought profit to those he traded with, and he was often without means to support his slaves, but he always had an enormous cash reserve for himself.

  Ajalia had not approved of her first Eastern master, as a human being, but she had absorbed everything he had done, quietly, and on the sly. She often knew more accurately what he held in reserve than he did himself, and when she was sold, she took a chunk of his gold with her. He never knew where it had gone, and she took care never to be found out. She had never been without money since then; it was a habit, and a sort of intuitive self-preservation. She had enormous sums of money that no one would find, and she herself kept herself from thinking of them at all.

  She had learned long ago to find out what people were thinking about, and how to read the language of their bodies. If she had thought about her money, Lim would have known she was thinking about money, and he would have suspected that she was thinking of greater sums than her official pay would produce.

  Slaves were not paid, officially, but the higher ranking ones were always paid, unofficially, in an official sort of way. The money was always earmarked for official-sounding purposes, like travel expenses, or money for clothing the lower-ranking slaves. All the best masters did so, and all the best slaves expected salaries of some sort. Though they were owned, and though freedom was not something that was ever particularly on the horizon for them, they could own things, and they could buy spouses, and have children, and through their children, slaves could do many things.

  Ajalia had trained herself never to remember the piles of money she had buried in different parts of the continent, or of the secret stashes of gold that lay stuffed into hollow trees. Some of Ajalia's caches were tiny, only a few coins, and some were massive bundles worth at least the price of a home. She had always stolen, ever since she had been sold into slavery, and her scrupulous practice of hiding what she stole meant that she had an almost limitless supply of backup plans. She would think of them if she ever needed to, but she never needed to because she also kept back much of the money she was entrusted with for trading, and managing traveling expenses.

  Ajalia had been poor when she was a chil
d, and she had learned early the psychological power of the coin. She did not mind how much she had saved, as long as she had enough saved. There was not a number in her mind, ever, but there was a feeling in her heart, and whenever she felt threatened, she stole more.

  Lim was threatening her now. She knew that he had plead for truce, but she also knew him now to be a liar, and one capable of going to extensive lengths to get what he wanted. She could see that he wanted her disgraced, or at least demoted, and she knew that he was not going to stop trying to reach his goal. Going back home early was never an option; retreating was a sign of weakness that would spell her demise more surely than anything Lim could plot against her. She did not know the laws of this country, and did not think it likely that she could get away with putting a price on Lim's head. The land that was mostly bare of booze and whoring was not likely to yield a mass of experienced assassins, which, Ajalia thought, was unfortunate. Her greatest chance was that Lim would make a great enough mistake to doom himself in their master's eyes. He was ultimately responsible for the caravan, and though Ajalia's master relied on her to see things went well, the success or failure of the caravan rested finally on Lim. She hoped to trip him up somehow, but she would have to wait for a suitable opportunity, and there was no telling how far Lim was willing to go to get at her before such an opportunity presented itself.

  She began to plan. After she had lined the leather pouch with a number of coins, and finished tucking coins into the soles of her shoes and the ends of her sleeves, and when she had pulled the thick tie out of her hair and stuffed it with a few coins as well, before winding the plain fabric back over and around her dark locks, she began to form pictures in her mind, of how she would go about foiling Lim for now.

  Ajalia did not think she was being followed, but she had not tested this theory of her not-followableness yet. She had been followed before, in other cities, when someone, or several someones, had glimpsed just how much money was gathered into her leather pouch. She was young, and she was small, and she was female, and whatever the diversity of Leopath, these signs of weakness were universally preyed upon.