Flesh and Fire

by Laura Anne Gilman

  Something glittered on the wall, like still water in winter, and the boy stared into it.

  A boy stared back.

  “Haven’t seen yourself in a while, have you, my boy?” For the first time, Detta’s voice was gentle. “That’s you, yes. That’s Jerzy.”

  “Jerzy.”

  The name was easier to say now. The name belonged to the dark-eyed, pale-skinned figure he saw in the mirror: naked, scarred ribs and protruding ears and dark red strands sticking wetly to his skull.

  “It used to be brighter,” he said.

  “What?”

  “My hair. It used to be. . .brighter.” It was a memory, a scarce scrap of one: himself, much younger, a shining cap of curls on his head that a much larger hand tousled with affection. . .red, like a fox’s summer pelt. Fox-fur. His sleep-house nickname made sense now.

  “You get older, it darkens,” Detta said. “Likely, you make it to adult, it will be dark like a paarten’s pelt, and attract women the same way, all wanting to pet it.” She stepped back and examined him critically. “You’re older than I thought. Fourteen? Maybe. Doubt you even know. We need to put some meat on those bones first, to see how you’ll turn out. Go on with you, get dressed. Sooner you’re tested, sooner we know what to do with you.”

  Those words blurred the image of the younger boy and brought him back to the reality of his situation: naked and shivering in a room he shouldn’t be in, facing. . .what? A test. He longed to ask about it, but knew better. Detta might seem kind, but he didn’t know how far that might go. The wrong question and she might turn on him. The wrong answer and he might be back out in the dirt of the field, the crowded stink of the sleep house.

  He didn’t want to go back there. Not now. Not ever. In the brief span of a bath, everything had been turned upside down, inside out, and changed. He would do anything to stay here.

  His tunic and pants were folded neatly on a small wooden stool the same polished sheen as the doors and floors. While he was bathed, someone had taken his clothing away and. . .done something to it. The tunic was still stained and the pants worn at the knee and backside, but they felt. . .cleaner somehow. He slid them on and discovered that the old, knotted lacing of the pants had been replaced with a new cord.

  That one small thing made a lump rise in his throat, hurting when he swallowed, and he didn’t know why.

  He finished dressing without a word, and then turned to where Detta was waiting.

  “Maybe you’ll do” was all she said. “Master will decide.”

  He followed her out of the room, his scrubbed feet newly sensitive to the cool texture of the floor. This time they did not walk through the kitchen, but out a different door into a courtyard, open to the sky. There was a small fruit tree at the center of it, and a small stone well off to the side, but Detta led him past without a chance to look more closely, through another door at the other end, and they were through into another part of the building.

  The floor underneath here was not stone, but polished wood, smooth and warm underfoot, and the walls were not white daub but a smoother, creamier texture, almost like clay. He felt the urge to touch it, but dared not. His skin might be bathed, but he was still afraid he might leave a mark, a smudge of slave on the clean surface.

  They were in a small square room with three doors, all closed, plus the open doorway they had come through. Two of the doors had metal handles on them, the third did not. Tall yellow candles were placed in metal holders on the wall. They were thinner than the ones used in the sleep house, but with the same steady flicker that lit the way almost as well as sunlight. The familiarity soothed him momentarily.

  “On you go, then,” Detta said, pointing at the door without the handle. “Inside. The Master’s waiting.”

  She was new, unknown and therefore dangerous, but he wanted her to come with him. Wanted it the way he couldn’t remember ever wanting anything before, with a hunger that scared him.

  He didn’t say anything to her, didn’t even look at her, just walked forward and reached out to push the door in.

  It moved before he could touch it, swinging open in soundless invitation.

  He stepped in, and it closed behind him.

  “Good luck, boy,” he heard a faint whisper, and then forgot all about it, staring in astonishment at the vision in front of him.

  Bottles. Dozens of rare glass bottles, green and brown, racked in wooden frames taller than he was, wall to wall, each bottle bearing a small tag hung around its neck.

  The wealth of the House of Malech, there in front of him.

  The temptation was too great; he could no more resist than he could stop his own blood from flowing. He stepped forward, stopped, and then moved forward again, drawn to one wall in particular. His arm reached out, unworthy hands touching the wooden frame, not quite yet daring to touch the bottles directly.

  Wine. Crafted wine. Spellwine.

  “Sin Washer be gentle,” he whispered, and let his fingertips graze the cool glass neck of one bottle. It was smooth, smoother than anything he had ever touched, smooth and rough at the same time, and the skin under his nails tingled at the contact.

  “You dare, slave?”

  He jerked back so hard his arm spasmed, and his bowels clenched in fear that he had disturbed the bottle, but he didn’t dare even look at it to make sure it remained intact. He fell to his knees and cast his gaze down on the floor, not even bothering to beg for forgiveness.

  And yet, a dangerous thought crept into his mind. The Master— Vineart Malech—had ordered him to be brought here. The Vineart had put him in front of temptation. If the Vineart would then have him punished for it, that was his master’s right over a slave he owned. . .but it was unfair!

  “You think you are worthy to be in the same room as my work? To look upon a decade of crafting—to touch the bottling of my genius?”

  Years of training took over, and it was as though the Master’s voice filled the room, filled his head until there was no room for his own thoughts, no thought save obedience and unworthiness. He bent his face to the floor and cowered, waiting for the fatal blow.

  “Stand up, slave!”

  The boy stood up, wishing for his dirt back, to look like every other slave, to be back in the field where there was a chance to remain unnoticed, unobserved. Unpunished. He had never heard of a slave being taken into the Master’s home. He had never heard of any coming out, either.

  “Why are you here?” that harsh voice demanded, like one of the silent gods suddenly taking an interest in mankind again.

  The boy trembled, speechless. Was this the test Detta had spoken of, to answer the unanswerable? Was the Master Vineart insane? No. Impossible. There was a reason to all this, some reason he was too insignificant to understand. A game, maybe, the Master played to amuse himself. But he did not know the rules, could not play. . .

  Once before he had played a game he did not understand, had trusted another, and it had landed him in a slaver’s cart, carried off, stripped of who he had been, sold into the endless cycle of planting, waiting, and Harvest.

  The Vineart had broken that cycle. Why? He could feel the strain of trying to chase down every thought, and forced them into some sort of order.

  “Do you not have a tongue, slave? Was it washed away with your grime?” A shove accompanied the question, a rough hand on his shoulder that rocked the boy back and almost made him lift his gaze. Another slave touching him like that would be cause for violence. He stifled the urge, and merely absorbed the blow.

  Another came, this one harder. “No spine, to go with the lack of tongue? Is this what I raise in my fields, useless lumps of flesh? Useless lumps that come into my home, covet my wine?”

  The boy didn’t understand, but the anger in his master’s voice made him angry as well.

  “No wonder your parents sold you. If this was the best they could do, I pray they produced no more after you! Useless even as a slave.”

  The boy shuddered, his skin practically ripp
ling with the effort of remaining still and silent, and all control of thought and temper fled.

  “Look at me, boy!”

  A direct command, and he raised his head to stare up at the Vineart, looking at him squarely for the first time, fear and anger evenly matched. The dead have nothing left to lose.

  He glared into a narrow face, olive-toned skin framed by long graying hair swept back at his neck. A mouth that was thin and stern, chin covered with a sparse, pointed beard, nose scarred across the bridge as though it had taken one blow too many, years ago. The boy hesitated, and then let his gaze lift higher, into the Master’s eyes.

  Cold and blue, staring directly down into the boy’s soul as though he were Sin Washer come back from the heavens to judge them all.

  Another shove, this one actually pushing the boy back down, and he fell on his backside with a solid, painful crash. The Vineart sneered. “Nothing there but flesh. No tongue, no spine, no brain. I wasted water, cleaning you up.”

  “Then why did you? Why ask my name, bring me here, dunk me in water, clean my clothes? Why did you do any of it? Why not just leave me in the field where I belonged? Why show me all. . .all this?”

  The words fell out of him, without thought or hesitation. Jerzy’s voice cracked, and he didn’t care. He just wanted an answer, for once, before whatever fate the Master determined fell on him.

  “Ah.”

  That one sound was so filled with emotion, the boy wasn’t sure he had actually heard it.

  He wasn’t dead, though. Slowly, Jerzy began to understand that. The overseer had not broken his neck. The Vineart had not struck him dead with magic for his effrontery, for his insolence. Risking greatly—and risking nothing at all, at this point—the boy stood up, and looked again at the man in front of him.

  “What is your name, boy?” the Vineart asked again.

  “Jerzy.” It came almost easily this time, the memory of the boy-who-had-been, the boy of shining red hair and clean limbs ghosting faintly in his brain.

  His master smiled, and like that, that simply, his eyes transformed from ice into sunlight, not warm but clear and welcoming. “I am pleased to see you yet live, Jerzy. I was worried there, for a moment.”

  Utterly baffled, Jerzy could only stare as the Vineart turned away from him, walking over to the wall of bottles and selecting one. The others disappeared, as though by. . .magic. Had they ever truly been there at all? No, they must have. He had touched one!

  “Have you ever tasted vina, the wine of those grapes you have spent years picking and crushing?”

  The open-jawed gape of before was back, all other thoughts forgotten. The Master was insane. There was no other explanation. Slaves did not drink wine, slaves did not taste grapes. Slaves did not dare.

  “No, Master.” But the memory of the spray on his lips just hours before made him hesitate, and the Vineart noticed it.

  “Hrm.” Two simple clay goblets waited on a low wooden table, off to the side. The Vineart uncorked the bottle and poured out a small dose of pale red liquid into each bowl.

  Jerzy’s hand twitched, as though it meant to reach out and take one goblet. He stifled the motion, and prayed it had gone unnoticed.

  “Take one.”

  A command, for all that it was gently spoken. Was this the moment, then? Some game the Master played, to bring him all the way to this and then. . .

  His imagination failed. He couldn’t think of what might happen then. So he took the left-hand glass and stepped back out of easy reach.

  “Excellent. Why did you take that one?”

  “I. . .don’t know.” He looked down at the goblet in his hand, the way the liquid shimmered and moved when he tilted the bowl. “There’s something about it. . .but they came from the same bottle. They should be the same.”

  “But they aren’t?”

  “No.” Jerzy waited, but the Master was better at it. Nervous, but not knowing what else to do, Jerzy lifted the rim of the goblet to his lips. But rather than sipping, he sniffed, letting the smell rise into his nostrils.

  Warm berries and a hint of spice. A tang of something he didn’t recognize, sharp and bitter, but not unpleasant, promising warmth and pleasure. Another whiff, and something in his blood stirred, making him breathe faster, and his skin begin to sweat. He couldn’t know what he knew, and yet he knew.

  “There’s something in this. . .it’s spellwine.” Not juice, not even mustus. Spellwine. His voice barely contained the awe he felt, and his hand shook so hard that the Vineart stepped forward quickly to lift the goblet from him before he dropped it. But there was no condemnation, no anger in his voice when he asked the next question.

  “And the other one?”

  Jerzy reached out and took the other offering, and dipped his nose to the surface. Berries again, and spice, yes, like the cooks put in porridge, but this time the sharpness was quickly overlaid by an almost ordinary sweetness. He mourned the loss of the sharpness, and was repulsed by the sweeter odor, although it was not an unpleasant smell, of itself. A second sniff, but the feeling of movement within him did not return.

  “It’s not the same. It’s. . .not spellwine?” But they had come from the same bottle; he had seen the Master pour it directly. “Something in the bowl. The sweetness. There is something blocking it. Blocking the magic.”

  He hadn’t known anything could do that. He didn’t know anything. . .but he knew this.

  The Vineart smiled. “Congratulations, young Jerzy. You passed.”

  “Passed what, Master?” At this point, he was so confused, so turned around and exhausted by all that had been thrown at him, intoxicated by the mere smell of the spellwine, Jerzy didn’t care about anything but getting an answer. “What is all this for?”

  “For you,” Master Malech said, looking down into the first goblet thoughtfully. For the first time Jerzy noticed a mark on the back of the Master’s hand; a dark red drop, almost invisible against the olive of his skin, as though something had burned him there, years before, and long scabbed and healed.

  The Master noticed where his attention lay and, with his free hand, he reached out and lifted Jerzy’s left hand, turning it so that the boy’s own palm lay exposed to view.

  Jerzy stared at it like a new discovery; with the accumulated grime washed out of the crevices and out from under his nails, the skin looked pink and defenseless. “My twenty-third year,” Master Malech said thoughtfully, touching the bright red mark on that newly washed wrist. “A surprisingly difficult vintage, that. I only bought two new slaves, I remember, although we needed seven.”

  Jerzy stared at the mark as well. He had almost forgotten.

  A hustle from the slave-pen, given bare moments to take whatever belongings they cherished. He had only one, a now-ragged scrap that had once been a tasseled scarf. He wrapped it around his wrist and allowed the slaver to shove him back out again. The large tent they came to was overbright, and too warmly heated, and he started to sweat immediately.

  The slaver presented him to the man: tall and lean, his face in shadow despite the lamps. Unlike the slavers, who smelled of sweat and tallow—familiar, comforting smells—this stranger reeked of something harder, sharper. The slave sniffed the air without thought, trying to identify the aroma.

  The stranger laughed. “Yes, yes. He will do.”

  A slaver grabbed his shoulders, forcing his left arm forward, and the boy tensed even as the stranger sipped from a silver cup, watching him. The stranger nodded once, and the slaver unwrapped the scrap and let it drop to the floor. The boy didn’t have time to mourn the loss before the stranger leaned forward and spat onto the boy’s upturned hand. The slaver, no stranger to this process, held him still even as the boy screamed while the liquid etched into his skin. . . .

  “And now, as grapes are pressed into wine, we press this slave into something greater,” the Master said, almost to himself, letting go of the boy’s wrist. “You knew the grapes in the crush were weak. You sensed the difference between the po
urs, and were able to think it through to determine why. And you have not allowed servitude in the fields, or the scorn and abuse of the overseer, to break your spirit. Magic, knowledge, and strength. Those are the three things that are needed. Three things that cannot be taught, only learned. The three things a slave must show, in order to become my student.”

  This time Jerzy did drop the goblet. It slipped from his suddenly numb fingers, and dropped a handspan toward the floor. . ..

  And stopped there, caught by a simple lift of the Master’s finger, with not a drop of the wine inside disturbed. Jerzy’s breath caught. How had the Master done that? There had been no spellwine poured, no decantation. . .Jerzy had never seen magic worked, but the stories all said that it needed both spellwine and decantation in order to happen!

  “It may not be spellwine any longer,” Master Malech said mildly, not remarking on the boy’s shock. “But it’s still an excellent vintage. It would be a shame to waste it.”

  Jerzy, his hand shaking, retrieved the goblet and lifted it to his mouth, waiting until his master lifted the first cup in a salute and took a sip himself before allowing the liquid to touch his tongue.

  It was. . .Jerzy had no words for it. Sharp and bitter, full and sweet, tingling on his tongue and making his mouth water. A smell like the flowers outside, the dampness of an old barrel, and the crack of air before a storm. . .

  “Relax,” his master said. His voice was stern but his eyes were gentle over that narrow nose, not cruel or cold at all. “There will be time for you to learn what you are tasting. For now, simply enjoy.”

  Jerzy nodded and took another sip, this time letting the liquid rest on his tongue and then swallowing the mouthful without trying to understand it. The bitter and the sweet melded, and he felt the still-tense muscles in his back begin to relax.

  None of this could be real. He would open his eyes and still be in the slaves’ sleep house, old Wax snoring in the bunk above him, the day-chime about to ring and another day in the field about to begin. . .