Gambling Heart

by Thom Lane

  “Yes, Master.” He was flattered, all too clearly, that the great wise mage wanted his help. Needed it, even. I was more cautious, because one of us had to be. My master was all about the risk, the game and the excitement of it; I was all the other way, slow and careful, my eye on the next step and not taking chances. “What do we have to do?”

  “Just what we would have done anyway, without him. Work our way into the game, and try to win. That’s your job,” flicking my ear again, “to stay in the shadows and keep me winning. Don’t get caught. Can you do that?”

  “Yes, Master.” I tried to sound sure. Even if there were mages in the game. Now that I knew what to watch for, how sensitive they were, I could be subtle, keep below their notice and still help my master.

  I thought I could.

  “Good boy. One other thing,” and this time his fingers closed on my ear, twisting it hard. “The next time another man’s slave offers to numb away a beating, you come to me first and ask if he may. Understand?”

  “Yes, Master.” Of course he could smell the numb-oil on me; of course he was mad. Numbing a beating afterwards is like ducking a blow beforehand; no master would be happy. Some would wait for the effects of the oil to wear off, and then beat the slave again. It was the risk I’d run, for the sake of a day’s relief. I glanced up at my master, trying to look open and honest and vulnerable, not at all sly or sneaky.

  “I suppose you’re going to tell me it was just so you could carry my things and not lag, eh? Not let your soreness slow me down?”

  I shook my head determinedly. I wasn’t going to tell him anything of the sort, or anything at all. A wise boy doesn’t offer excuses, ever. You just wait and hope that the free folk will do that for you, find their own reasons not to bother with the whip or the switch or whatever other punishment comes to hand. Sometimes you’re lucky, sometimes not. If not, you take your lumps and learn your lesson, try harder to make them happy.

  A mean boy might have tried to blame Tam—he did it before I knew what he was planning—but that would be feeble and unfair. And untrue, and I wasn’t going to lie to Master Jensen anymore, not about anything.

  My fate hung in the balance, maybe, for a moment. But there was a cloud of dust rising on the road ahead—another party approaching. Master Jensen shifted his grip and kissed me roughly; then he cuffed me stingingly and sent me back to his heel with a jerk of his head. I wouldn’t find out till nightfall, maybe, whether or not I was due any further discipline. There was nothing new in that—and in the meantime, as he’d said, I could match his stride and carry his pack and feel only the weight of that and the warmth of the sun on my skin, the warmth of his hold on my heart.

  We passed a deal of other traffic on the road that day. Caravans of merchants taking timbers and silks and salted meats to Amaranth in wagons; coffles of slaves destined to be sold in the same markets, carrying loads of spices and jewels and perfumes that were worth more and far more than they were themselves. Parties of horsemen, riding hard. Shrouded palanquins carried on the shoulders of strong sweating bucks, with guards and attendants packed around. Other people’s lives, mysterious and fanciful: it was all wildly exciting, to a boy who hadn’t been outside his own city before. I made up strange exotic stories for them all, and still wouldn’t have changed my life for theirs. Not any of them. Not so long as Master Jensen held my leash.

  Not even if he whipped me raw, tonight and every night. Sometimes you just know when you’ve found your home.

  * * * *

  Around midafternoon, the road found a river and the low hills settled into broad open pasture. Here was the settlement my master had spoken of: tents and wagons and more permanent structures, with board walls and doors below their canvas roofs, all laid out in rough streets according to a rough authority. Here were the traders selling dry goods, here the ironmongers and blacksmiths and farriers, everyone who kept the wagons rolling and supplied. Here were the taverns and the eating houses and the brothels, all on the same street, often the same places: everyone who kept the wagoners and other travelers happy overnight.

  Overnight or longer. There were dormitory buildings too, a street’s worth of them, for those who decided to stay; and then, of course, there was the Street of Games, the gambler’s paradise. Open tents offering cards and dice and other games of chance or skill to anyone who fancied their luck; doors closed on private games, harder to access and harder to play.

  I saw my master’s nostrils flare, just at the sight. Even without Master Lucan’s commission, he’d have wanted in. Past those closed doors, into those private games.

  I may have sighed, just as privately. I may have wanted to hug him, to laugh at him, to tell him he was incorrigible, impossible. Of course I didn’t do any of that. I just carried his bags and followed at his heel, quiet and obedient and overlooked.

  No sleeping out on the grass, not for my master, not now. If Master Lucan had offered to cover expenses I hadn’t heard him do it, but even so: we went first to find a bed, somewhere comfortable and never mind if it was expensive. A single room, if walls of canvas and timber make a room, if a young man counts as single when he has his slave boy with him. I did just about keep my eyes from bugging out of my head at the price he agreed, and guessed that Master Jensen was making a point, to anyone who cared to listen: that he had money, and that he was planning to stay.

  There was no lock on the door, but a part of the price covered burly watchmen, inside and out. Even so, I decided to keep the bulk of my master’s wealth—which meant basically anything more valuable than I was—close at hand, on my person if not his. Where I could dissuade people from thinking we were an easy touch, and yell out if anyone tried to snatch it regardless, from my person or his.

  Besides, he’d need his money with him, if he was going to join a game. Nobody would be offering credit, in a place like this.

  Just as he’d need me with him, because nobody would be offering a fair game either. My best hope was to even the odds, and give him a decent fighting chance.

  He was no fool, my master. He knew. The first thing he did once we’d settled in, once he’d unleashed me and watched me unpack, he took me to the Street of Tailors and bought a tunic for me: dark and demure and discreet, the sort of dress that five slaves out of ten might be wearing, nothing that anyone would notice. I stood quiet while he dressed me, only pulling a brief regretful face at him, only to win a quick kiss and a promise for later, for when he would take it away again.

  Then he took a meal, simple seared meat folded into bread. If he fed some of it to me, that wasn’t a comment on the quality: only that he wanted us both at our best, and me not distracted by pangs of hunger and yearning after other masters’ meals. And maybe a little that he enjoyed feeding me from his fingers. If you’d asked him, he’d only have talked firmly about how it reinforced our proper relationship, me on my knees and utterly dependent, taking my nourishment from his hand. If you’d asked me—not that anyone ever would—I’d only have shrugged awkwardly and mumbled something about a slave always being hungry, feeling grateful for any scrap I’m offered, never too proud to beg for free folk’s leavings. Not allowed to be proud, I might’ve said.

  And we would both have been telling you the truth, or a part of it; and neither of us would have felt any need to say the rest of it. How much I loved to lick and suck and nibble at his fingers, any excuse he offered; and how he offered those excuses time and time again because he enjoyed it too, my warm wet mouth closing around his flesh. I knew he did, because I was right there at the height of his groin, and I knew just how stiff his cock had grown inside his clothes, how short and sudden his breath became.

  Even that evening, when we should both have been focused on what lay ahead: even then, his fingers couldn’t find my mouth without my suckling at them like a thirsty calf. Maybe we were both just snatching at distraction, any chance to turn our thoughts aside; maybe he was right to cuff me away with a growl of irritation, but I didn’t believe him for a moment.
Not even that little moment before he pulled me back close, making as if to wipe his fingers dry in my hair but really just clamping them around my head and giving it a shake.

  “No fooling now, Jay,” he said sternly, while his eyes were saying something entirely other, while his thumbs were lightly tracing the outline of my jaw.

  “No, Master,” I assured him earnestly. As soon as he stopped offering me the opportunity to play, I would be the perfect discreet slave boy at his heel. Too much was hanging on this evening. More than just our mission from Master Lucan: my master’s future and therefore my own, they were in this mix together and might still be the least of it. Our very lives were in the balance too, perhaps.

  “Good. Up, then, and follow close. And keep quiet, and keep alert.”

  He didn’t need to tell me, but sometimes it does free folk good to give unnecessary orders. And to see them promptly and exactly obeyed, that too. I soothed my master’s soul by treading very precisely at his heel, two paces back: not close enough to crowd him, not far enough to stray. I could see how his head turned just a fraction every now and then, so that he could check on me from the corner of his eye. It warmed my heart, even while I worried that I was being a distraction again, when I really didn’t want to be. He should be totally focused on his task and trust me to mind my own.

  If he hadn’t learned by now that he could trust me absolutely—well. Some masters are adorable, but they aren’t always very quick.

  From casual campsites to vast cities, people cluster together in their trades and guilds and tribes. It’s purely human to seek out your own kind. Let half a dozen bucks bed down in a barn, they’ll all sleep together in the same heap of straw.

  This place was half campsite, half shantytown, and the same rule applied. This one rude street was all smoke from the charcoal fires and bake ovens, all jostling crowds as people queued and chewed, all grease and bones and burned crusts underfoot. I could have snatched a daily meal from beneath people’s heedless boots, if I’d been left free to do it; I saw lurking shadows between the crowded tents and huts and wood stacks, to suggest that others did.

  From the Street of Cooks, we went to the Street of Brewers, conveniently close. Here were kegs of beer and wine on simple trestles, finer bottled wares for sale in the privacy of shadowed tents. Finer, or else stronger: my master left me outside a booth while he went in with silver in his hand, and came out again with a leather flask and no coin.

  “Master…?”

  Not my place to criticize; the least hint of it would only earn me a beating—and even so. I’d risk bruises sooner than I’d risk him. And I knew his weakness for alcohol, and I couldn’t bear to see him throw us both away for a ha’penny flask of brandy…

  He grinned at me wolfishly, swilled his mouth with the brandy, and spat carelessly over his own boots. “What’s the matter, sweet thing—afraid your idiot master is going to get drunk and spoil everything? Again?”

  Yes, Master—but of course I couldn’t say that. I just looked at him yearningly. He grabbed me by the collar and steered me roughly into the shadows between one booth and the next. No lurkers here; no easy pickings to attract them. You can’t snatch up spilled drink from the dirt. Besides, at a silver ha’penny the half flask, who’d be careless enough to spill?

  My master would, apparently; he tipped the flask deliberately, to let the most of its golden liquor run to waste. Mostly over himself.

  “Now run and top this up with clean water,” he said, handing me the open flask. “Don’t lose what’s left in there, I want to keep the perfume; just dilute it as much as you can.”

  My smart master. He’d smell drunk and still be visibly drinking, from his own supply because what wise man would trust another’s pour, with money in the case? He’d been drugged before this; every serious gambler would at least know similar stories, and not begrudge his caution. Likely some of them would have drugs to hand, in case someone was careless.

  None of them were likely to have someone like me. I was more afraid that there might be someone like Master Lucan, a full-blown mage who would know what I was and what I did, from the first touch of my tentative, untrained mind. I was too weak for this; I’d never felt so helpless. Helpless to protect my master or myself. He shouldn’t be leading me into this situation in the first place; we were neither of us ready for it. Going in blind, at the behest of a stranger who admitted that he was just using us both. Master Jensen was mad to say yes. And to trust me, that too, when I was so obviously inadequate…

  That’s when I recognized what I was feeling. Every slave with a new owner feels this way sooner or later, and usually sooner. You’ll never live up to what they expect; you’ll never satisfy them; you’ll never be good enough. Whether it’s cooking their meals or polishing their boots or tending their horse, dancing for their pleasure or sweating in their bed. It doesn’t matter how hard you try or how well trained you are, you feel like you’ll always fall short. It almost doesn’t matter whether they’ll mock you for it or beat you or sell you to someone else; your own fear of failure seems to bite deeper than their contempt ever could, or their leather, or their rejection.

  There’s a kernel of truth to it too, because of course a good owner is always demanding better service, swifter, smarter. What else could keep us on our toes, alert for the least sign of their desire? The perfect slave always has the whip in the corner of his eye; the perfect master always has it within his reach. You ought to be a little bit afraid, all the time, of the one who owns you; they ought to make sure that you are.

  But that never should be the whole truth, and it almost never is. You worry when you’re new; probably you earn those beatings, and more; but that’s what helps you learn more quickly, how to please him. How to be the perfect slave. It’s different for everyone, but for most of us that terror goes away when you find that you can after all raise a shine on his boots or a smile on his face. Or a swelling in his pants, that too.

  What I was feeling now was just the same thing, I decided, only exaggerated because he was scared too. I knew he was, however hard he tried to hide it. If he’d been confident and easy, he’d have saved that brandy and drunk it for real as he played, my cocky master. This time, though, we both knew we were playing out of his league. Even with me as an ace up his sleeve, he would have to bluff and bluff; we didn’t even know the game yet. Only that it was deadly. Potentially deadly. If we could trust what Master Lucan told us, and we didn’t even know that for sure…

  No wonder he was nervous, then; no wonder I was terrified of failing him, dooming us both. I’d have liked to hold his hand, if he’d have let me. No chance of that. I’d have settled for an old slave trick instead, walking in step with him, to feel that we were together one way at least, marching to the same unheard rhythm, the pounding of our hearts; but he’s that much taller than me I’d have looked like I was mocking him, stalking along giant-strided at his heel. At best, that would attract the kind of attention I really didn’t want for either of us. At worst he’d pick up on it—or some friendly soul would tip him off, your boy’s making a fool of you—and I’d earn myself a beating immediately and scowling dark looks all night, just when we most needed to be working hand in glove.

  So no, no tricks tonight. I played the perfect humble slave boy, head up and eyes down, practicing to be invisible. It was a game I’d played all my life, second nature to me, only I couldn’t remember ever meaning it so earnestly. I wanted to be perfect for his sake, not to let him down when he most needed me; I wanted to be invisible for both our sakes, not to betray us both to calamity. Master Lucan had caught me trying to turn his mind, and that had cost me a sore ear last night and no more, unless this whole adventure was the price we must both pay for my foolishness. The people we were going up against now, though—well. We really didn’t know—we didn’t know anything—but Master Lucan’s warnings had been graphic. If they caught me the way he had, neither one of us was likely to walk away so cheaply.

  So. Food in o
ur bellies, the smell of brandy heady on my master and the flask in his hand, we made our way—well, he made our way, while I just followed in his wake—towards our goal, or Master Lucan’s. That way led us down the Street of Jewels, where my master’s head was drawn irresistibly left and right, one stall and another. On another day I think he might have paused, rummaged through a tray or two of trinkets, perhaps bought some beads or ribbons to pretty me up. Some masters like to dress their slaves like dolls: all in matching livery, or chopping and changing colors and styles to complement their own clothes, or just however takes their fancy on any particular day. Now that he’d started to dress me at all, I thought his fingers itched to go further. He could play with me as he chose, of course, and I’d be happy to play along—but not tonight. I took his straying attention as a promise for the future, and only hoped we might both live so long. And stay together, of course, that too.

  I hoped he’d always have the chance to keep me.

  Nothing I could do about that myself. He’d forbidden it, and I’d promised, and either one of those would be enough. Both together were absolute.

  There wasn’t much in the way of real jewelry, to be seen in the Street of Jewels: just gewgaws and trumperies, good to adorn slaves like me but nothing fit for free folk. Certainly not a wealthy man like my master. Sometimes I thought he still forgot just how much money we had behind us now. I didn’t have the luxury of forgetting it; I got to carry it.

  Most of it, at least. A little I’d left casually hidden in my master’s baggage back at the room, where curious fingers might find it if any came feeling for it: enough to convince them that Master Jensen had coin enough, that he was a genuine player drawn by the rumor of a game, not a con man on the make. We both thought that was important.

  A little more I’d left more carefully hidden, where no one—I hoped!—would think to look. That was for my own reassurance, that if things went disastrously wrong there might still be enough money in reserve to take my master away from here with a whole skin. And, hopefully, a slave boy padding dutifully at his heel…