A Bait of Dreams

by Clayton, Jo;

  The boatman complied silently. He brought her to the landing and waited until she stepped out. Gleia dug into her sleeve and tossed him a second drach. “Wait here till I come back. Then I want the thread shop.”

  He shrugged and settled down to sleep until she chose to return.

  She stood looking down at him a moment, fingers stroking the house badge sewn on her right shoulder. That was what made them all polite to her. In an odd way she had the power of Lorenzai behind her. She rubbed at her nose as she turned to inspect the crowd around the stage.

  It was loosely packed on the outside. Gleia managed to work her way through spectators, mostly men, as they laughed and yelled their appreciation. As she got nearer the platform the crowd was denser and quieter. It was harder to push through them. She wriggled and shoved, mostly ignored, as they stared in fascination at the stage. At last she broke through and came up against the edge of the platform. She closed her hands around the outer plank, pushed back with elbows, bumped her body about until she’d moved the staring men aside enough to have breathing space. Then she looked up and met Shounach’s eyes.

  Swallowing a growing excitement, she pulled back her hood so he could see her face better, then she clicked her fingernails against the slave ring.

  He nodded, his painted mouth stretching into a quick grin. And he never missed one of the blue spheres circling his head.

  She watched him for a while. He began spinning slowly on his toes, turning round and round without missing one of the growing and shrinking number of glowing spheres. When he faced her again, the blue spheres expanded suddenly to head-sized blurs that flickered in and out of existence, changed suddenly to smallish gilded dragons that snorted and cavorted and shot out miniature tongues of flame as they rose and fell around his masklike face. Then one by one they changed to crimson jewels catching the light of the suns in dozens of facets and shining red rays out into the crowd and up at the canvas overhead, dancing red light flickering and darting over dazed faces. The balls kept circling and changing. The Juggler was on his toes, then sitting cross-legged, then circling slowly, then whirling. And the spheres kept circling.…

  Gleia blinked and wrenched her eyes from the firgure. Time was passing, time she couldn’t afford. She looked up. Hesh was peeping from behind Horli and both were two-thirds of the way up the eastern arc of their day. Sighing she began pushing her way back through the crowd.

  The boatman swung the taxi against the ladder. Gleia climbed up, clutching her packet of thread. She smiled at the man, flipped him a third drach, then walked slowly down the pier and hesitated at the base of the cliff. After one look at the winding track, she rebelled. The morning’s play-acting had worn her out. There was a little time before midday, a little time before she had to return to confinement and irritation. She stepped back on the pier and looked along the crescent toward the middle. A lot of activity there, water-taxis darting about, groups of men gesticulating, snatches of music coming out of the taverns. She began walking along the wharves, heading toward the taverns in the center of the crescent, looking down the short side-alleys as she moved past them. Behind the great warehouses, hovels cobbled together from driftwood and whatever scraps of refuse were usable, clustered like starlings’ nests against the stone. She saw occasional drunks sprawled in and around these places. Otherwise there were few people this far from center.

  The wharves were mostly empty, the ships having discharged their cargoes and retreated to the breakwater where anchorage was much cheaper. Many of their captains and master traders were engaged in marathon bargaining in the rented barges out in the market. What ships were left creaked slowly in the rocking water and the erratic breeze with drowsy watchmen curled up in the few patches of shade on deck. There were sneak thieves among the sea-wrack living in the hovels, driven by desperation that made them disregard the death-by-torture of the captured thief.

  This end of the crescent was still and somnolent in the growing midday heat so it was startling when a hoarse voice called, “Hey, girl.”

  She looked around. For a moment she saw nothing, then a waving hand caught her eye. A large fat man was sprawled in the meager shelter of a warehouse doorway. His face was moon-round and sweating. There was an amiable grin on his whiskery face, a twinkle in his bloodshot blue eyes. Wisps of greasy white hair stuck out in a dirty halo around his face. His grin widened as he met her eyes. He lifted a wobbly wineskin. “Want a drink?”

  “Why not.” She strolled across the planks into the narrowing shade under the eaves of the warehouse. She glanced back over her shoulder at the suns. “You’ll fry your brains, bareheaded like that.”

  He chuckled. “Got it figured.” He slapped meaty knee tenting his tattered robe. “I don’t gotta move ’fore I run outta juice.” He handed her the skin and watched as she drank. “You new here?”

  She slapped the stopper home and gave the skin back. “Thanks. Yes, I’m new. How’d you know?”

  “Thought so. Why I yelled. Only one kinda woman down that way. You too new here to figure that. Thought I’d let you make up your mind ’f you wanted that kinda game.”

  She settled herself cross-legged beside his feet, looking down along the crescent to the activity in the middle, then shivered. “I owe you, old man. I wouldn’t like that.” She started and blinked as a gong note boomed out over the water. “What’s that?”

  The old man grimaced and squirted more wine into his mouth. “Openin’ the Big Gate,” he grunted. He sniffed. “Look up, you’ll see yourself a sight.”

  Gleia tilted her head back, shading her eyes with her hand.

  The massive gilded gate split in the middle and the two leaves turned slowly outward as she watched. The heavy structure above the gate was swinging slowly over and down while a broad wooden platform slid out from inside the gate. The platform was ornate with carved and gilded railings. The gong sounded again and as the reverberations died away she saw dark figures visible as little more than black shapes jutting above the gilded rail. Two of them picked up a third and tossed him over the side.

  His screams wheeled around the harbor as his body plummetted toward the buildings at the center of the crescent. Down and down. Until there was a crunching noise, then a sudden silence.

  Gleia pressed her hand against her mouth and closed her eyes. Why? She pulled her hand away. “They threw him over. Why?”

  She could hear the wine slosh as he took a long drink. She looked around to see him cuddling the limp skin against his chest. He rubbed his face with his free hand, producing a papery rasping sound. “Ayandar’s figurin’ to come down. He don’t walk like ordinary folk. Got that madardamned lift. Don’t trust it either. Says the stone want blood, don’t want it to be his, so he give it some.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “Well, so’s he. But don’t say that in front of anyone up there.” He waved the wineskin vaguely in the direction of the cliff top. Then he dabbed at the sweat on his face. “He gettin’ crazier by the day. Now he meddlin’ with the merchants’ guild. They take a lot. Not that. One a these days they get together and toss him over the cliff like that one.” He waved a broad meaty hand toward the center. “You listen to them down there.…” He stopped and drank some more. “They’d kick him over tomorrow if they weren’t shit-scared of the Ayandar’s Apartas, those guards of his.”

  She took the skin from him. “You’re talking too much, old man.”

  He grinned at her, vaguely amiable, not quite present any longer. “You gonna tell on me, sweet thing?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Anyway, who pay attention to a headrot like me? You don’t want drink, give that back.”

  She sighed and handed the wine over, then dug in her sleeve, pulling out a handful of change she had left from buying the thread. With a second sigh she flipped two silver drachs onto his billowing stomach. “Enjoyed the talk.” She rose to her feet, stretched and yawned. “Time I was getting back.”

  He fished the coins out of th
e folds of his robe. “Girl, they’ll have your hide, you come back short. Here.”

  She waved his hand away. “Mistress didn’t bother counting. Keep the damn money; better you than her, old man.” With a laugh she went back along the wharves.

  As she leaned into the climb, she thought, this whole place is going to explode soon. Madar! Got to figure a way out. And money. Or something I can turn into money. Tonight. I’ll work on that tonight.

  Late that night she set the avrishum aside and rubbed her eyes. Then she stood and walked to the window. She leaned into the embrasure and looked out. Fog is heavier tonight.

  Aab was a ghost of herself, shimmering through a dozen veils. The water was velvet black except for faint blurs from the ship lights. Once again she wondered about Shounach. What was he doing in Thrakesh? Juggler. Not waiting for me, I’m sure. Curiosity was like an itch between her shoulder-blades, irritating and in a place she couldn’t scratch. She sighed and left the window. Forget Shounach. Time to get to work.

  She crossed the room and tapped fingertips against the wood. Hard. Small tight grain. Good. She opened the door a crack and shut it again on the weaving needle she’d salvaged from the sewing room, using the wood as a vise to hold the end as she bent the rest toward her and used a metal darning egg to hammer it flat. Several times she took out the needle and examined the bend until she was satisfied that she had a reasonably right-angled turn. She dealt with the other two needles the same way.

  During the afternoon she’d fashioned some muslin into a crude bag. With a grin she slipped its strap over her shoulder and patted it down against her side. Back to beginnings. Thief before, now thief again.

  With her picklocks tucked into her sleeve pocket she slipped from the room and made her way to the grating. Her old skills came back faster than she’d expected as fingers remembered how to feel with the probes and force back the wards. It took her about five minutes to get the lock open and only two to lock it behind her.

  She flitted down the stairs breathing hard. At the bottom of the flight she stopped and pressed her hands hard against her chest, struggling to calm herself.

  When she felt steadier, she took a candle from her bag and lit it at one of the wall lamps. The halls down on this floor were much better lit than those in the warren above. She wrapped a rag around the candle to catch most of the drippings and looked around. Loose on the family floor. Curiosity was almost as big a drive as her need to finance her escape.

  She wandered through the halls, poking into sitting rooms, several empty austere rooms that were merely spaces for housing bodies temporarily while they waited to talk to Lorenzai, and finally Lorenzai’s public office. Which turned out to be as empty of interest and value as that depressing series of waiting spaces. She thrust her head into a series of sewing rooms. They were all the same, bare and uninteresting. She turned a corner.

  The door to the anteroom before the maze was an uncurtained archway. She was in front of it before she realized where she was. She froze. But the mute slave was gone. The room was empty. After her heart slowed and her breathing steadied, she blew out the candle, ran on her toes across the small room, and entered the maze. Eyes closed, counting her steps, she let body memory help her thread through the complicated turns.

  Light touched her eyelids. She jerked to a stop and opened her eyes. The exit to the maze was near, one more turn and she’d be out into the other anteroom. She listened. Not a sound. She strained against the wall, holding her breath, listening with all the intensity she could summon. Nothing. She edged past the corner.

  The room was empty. On her right there was a shallow alcove. On the couch inside, the mute lay, eyes shut, breathing steadily, a thin blanket over his legs and torso.

  Not daring to breathe, she padded across the room and stepped into the corridor. Legs shaking, heart pounding, a pulsing pain in her temples, she leaned against the wall and let the air out of her lungs.

  When she was calmer, she went soft-footed down the carpeted passage, trying doors as she came to them. One or two were locked. One led to a library with stacks of scrolls resting on wide shelves. She poked about in there for a few minutes but little light trickled in from outside and she didn’t dare relight her candle for fear of leaving splotches of wax behind. She went out again and stood in the corridor looking at the turn close ahead. Amrezeh’s bedroom lay around it. She rubbed at the scars on her face, then shivered and started forward.

  Amrezeh’s bedroom. The door was open a crack. A lamp was burning inside. She could see the glow. She dropped onto her stomach and edged the door open a little more. Holding her breath she pushed her head through the opening until she could see most of the room. It was empty. The bedding was turned back, the side door swung half-open, showing a small sliver of another lighted room beyond it. Still on her stomach, she eased inside.

  All senses straining, her stomach knotting and unknotting, she went rapidly and neatly through the jewel case. Leaving the more spectacular jewelry untouched, she slipped two from the small hoard of coins into her loot bag, then several heavy gold chains twisted together and pushed into the back of Amrezeh’s jewel case.

  The half-open door itched at her. She fidgeted from foot to foot, her eyes jerking back and forth between the two temptations. Leave now or go on? With a small gasp she danced on her toes to the wall and stood just beside the opening, listening intently. Nothing. She stroked her scars, sucked in a breath, then dropped to her stomach and worked her head slowly through the space between door and jamb.

  Another bedroom, also empty. A simpler room, with massive furniture and somber colors like the robes Lorenzai wore. His room His kind of self-discipline, she thought. He does this more to rule himself than to fool others. Letting the air trickle out of her lungs she went limp, lying on the carpet, chin propped on her fist, resisting an urge to giggle. Layer on layer on layer. That man. Breath puffed from her nose in tiny whuffs. She pulled her hands away and buried her face in the carpet to stifle her laughter.

  When the fit passed, she sighed and snaked into the room. She stood, hands on hips, inspecting it. Then she stiffened. Voices. Muffled. Coming from beyond heavy portiers. Must open into a room there. On her toes again, she ran to the drapes and listened. The voices were louder. Lorenzai and Amrezeh. Quarreling or close to it. She edged the paired drapes apart and put her eye to the crack.

  The room beyond was large with elaborately carved panels masking the stone of the walls. Big leather chairs scattered about. A rack of scrolls. In the center of the room, a table—a heavy slab of wood polished to a high gloss. On it, near one end, a round metal tray holding a cha pot and two used cups. Thrown in a crumpled heap beside the tray, a soft leather pouch.

  Lorenzai wasn’t talking anymore. He sat behind the table, bending over a small wooden box with the lid turned back. Whatever it contained was shining erratically, turning his face into a pattern of harsh black lines and shifting planes of light.

  Amrezeh was stalking back and forth in front of him, scowling, her bedgown whuffling about her, her small bare feet kicking at the carpet’s thick pile. She glared at him repeatedly, then stalked on, chewing at a knuckle, her eyes glittering, the blonde hair flying out in wisps from her face. She wheeled and slapped her hands down on the table. “How much longer?” She threw her weight on quivering arms, every muscle tense. “How much longer are you and those cursed merchants of yours going to sit around talking? HOW MUCH LONGER DO I HAVE TO SMILE AND SMILE AND LET THOSE BITCHES TREAT ME LIKE.…”

  “Like what you are, the Ayandar-before’s bastard daughter got on a concubine they despised.” Lorenzai lifted angry eyes to meet hers. Then his face softened. “Rezeh, sit down. Let me work.”

  Behind the curtain, Gleia stifled an exclamation. I’ve walked into something all right. The old man knew what he was talking about.

  Amrezeh thrust her hands into her hair and pulled, expelling her breath in an angry hoarse cry. Once again she slammed her hands on the table. “I want them dea
d. Now!”

  When he didn’t answer, she backed away, flung out her arms in a gesture that should have been absurd but was not, mainly because of her real passion. “Why the hell did I marry you?”

  Lorenzai surged to his feet, his massive body knocking the table several inches forward. “Your loving father,” he shouted at her. “He wanted his bastard daughter out of sight before she made scandals even he couldn’t swallow.”

  She shrieked and leaped at him, fingernails striking at his eyes.

  He shoved her hard away from him, but Gleia was astonished to see that he aimed her carefully at one of the large leather chairs.

  Amrezeh bounced, then sat staring at him, trembling, tears trembling in her eyes, slipping out one by one and sliding down her face. Her breasts heaved. Her breathing rasped hoarsely in new silence. Lorenzai watched her sit up and rearrange her bedgown, his face somber. “Catch your breath, Rezeh. There’s time. There’s plenty of time.” His brief burst of anger was already under control.

  She let her head fall back. “Yes,” she said tiredly. “Too much time.”

  Lorenzai resettled himself in his chair. He pulled the table toward him, the legs groaning over the carpet. With a quick glance at Amrezeh, he thrust his hand into the box and pulled out a small egg-shaped crystal. He snapped it from hand to hand, called, “Rezeh! Look up. Careful with this.” He tossed the crystal to her, smiled as she let it drop in her lap. “Get it to the Ayandar tomorrow. He’s been after me for months to provide him with an Eye. Do it discreetly. Your neck on it and mine.”

  She nodded absently and stared down at the crystal in her lap.

  Behind the curtains Gleia could read a familiar fascination and revulsion in her face. Amrezeh touched it, jerked her hand away, touched it again, began stroking it. The veils of color shimmered about her, starting to coalesce into forms.

  With an exclamation of horror, Lorenzai leaped across to her, knocking the table askew in his haste. He wrenched the Eye from her and dropped it on the carpet beside the chair. She tried to twist away, but he forced her back and held her against the leather until her struggles subsided.