Freedom's Apprentic

by Naomi Kritzer

  “There’s a lot of it up on the steppe,” Tamar said.

  “Exactly,” I said. “But the Greeks can’t go up hunting for it because of the Alashi, and the Alashi don’t sell it to the Greeks. That’s why I’m not really sure what it’s worth.” I tilted it in the dawn light, watching the colors shift from gray to luminescent blue-green. “My mother lives upstairs from a gem-cutter, so I know what he’d spend to buy an uncut ruby or sapphire or onyx, and what he’d sell them for after cutting them. But he never touched karenite. I’d never seen it in raw form before coming up to the steppe.”

  “Could you try selling it to a gem-cutter?”

  “It’s the sorceresses who want it.”

  “Do you know where you can find a sorceress?”

  “Daphnia,” I said.

  “Are any of the slaves you need to free down in Daphnia?”

  “Yes. Uljas was sold down there.”

  “Then let’s go there next.”

  Tell me about the slaves you need to free,” Tamar said that night when we made camp again. I noticed that she never called them the slaves you took back.

  “There were five,” I said. “Now there are four.”

  “Yeah, and where are they? One was in Elpisia, one’s in Daphnia, where are the others? Are they men or women? Are any of them still with Kyros?”

  I took a deep breath and listed them. “The one down in Daphnia is a man, Uljas. I think he was sold to a military officer down there. It’s a big city, and he may be hard to find. Then there are two other men, Burkut and Prax. Burkut was a house servant who just took off one day; it wasn’t clear why. When he ran, he didn’t take any water with him, and when I found him he’d just about dropped from exhaustion and thirst, but he still tried to run away, and he started crying when I reached him. Burkut was sold to a farm south of here. Prax was the only one who ever fought me; he had this piece of broken pottery that he used as a knife, and he managed to cut me before I got it away from him. He was sold to a mine. And not because I told Kyros about the knife, either, because I didn’t. I know which mine, but I don’t know how I’m going to get him out. Then there’s Thais. She was sold to someone in Casseia. Casseia is weeks of travel to the south, maybe months, and I don’t know the name of the person who bought her.”

  Tamar let out her breath in a sigh. “Practice,” she muttered. “Well, if we can free a man from a mine, and find Thais, then freeing the other concubines from Sophos should be easy.”

  “It’s not too late for you to go back to the Alashi . . .”

  “Not a chance. I don’t know if we’ll be able to do this together, but you’ll have no chance at all without me, I know that already. Even if you knew where to find the wells, which you don’t.”

  I wasn’t sure I believed that I needed Tamar to do this, and I wondered if I should tell her that I didn’t need her and try to send her back to the Alashi where she would be safe. But I was afraid that I might succeed in sending her away. What if she left me? If she leaves me, I’ll be alone. “I’m glad you came along,” I said instead. “I’m glad you’re here to help me.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  We looked down at Daphnia as we approached it. “Arachne’s eyeballs,” Tamar breathed. “Is all of that the city?”

  Daphnia was an old city, far older than the Penelopeian Empire; the Danibeki had called it Chach, back before the rivers were bound. Daphnia itself had plenty of water. It was built on the banks of the Chirchik River, and from our vantage point we could see the sparkling web of canals that flowed from the river through the city. The city was walled, though it was far enough from the threat of the Alashi that the wall hadn’t been maintained. I felt a slight pang, looking down, that Tamar was seeing the city for the first time so late in the year. The trees that lined the streets had mostly dropped their leaves, and the gardens were mostly brown and dead from the cold fall nights. From above, Daphnia looked almost as dull brown as Elpisia, though at the height of summer it would have been a luminous green.

  The houses were crammed together like nondescript pebbles, but a handful of buildings rose up like trees on a plain, looming over everything else. One, built of the same clay brick as all the rest, was the Temple of Alexander; the other, built of white marble that had been ferried, block by block, by bound djinni, was the Temple of Athena. The white building glistened like a pearl in the bright fall sun, and I glanced at Tamar to see her reaction. She was staring down silently.

  “Take a good long look,” I said. “You’re going to need to act at least a little bit jaded if we’re going to pretend we’re merchants.”

  “Yeah,” Tamar mumbled.

  I had been fretting for the last two days about our horses’ tack; Alashi saddles were distinguishable from Greek saddles by even the most casual glance. A slow approach to the city set my mind at ease. There were merchants who rode with Greek-style saddles; there were merchants who rode with Alashi saddles; there were merchants who had horse tack so strange I wasn’t even sure what it was for. Even as two women with Alashi clothes and Alashi saddles, we would not stand out. Not in Daphnia, anyway.

  There were a dozen different gates leading into the city, and I led Tamar down to the gate I usually entered by when I was working for Kyros. It was watched over by soldiers from the Daphnia garrison, but they were just there to keep an eye on things, and they didn’t stop us as we dismounted and led our horses into the city. The walls here were very high. As we passed through, I glanced up to see a flock of sparrows roosting on the wall take sudden flight as a larger bird flapped toward them.

  The streets were busy but not crowded. Daphnia was full of merchants during the summer months, but this time of year most preferred the warmer climates. We attracted a brief curious look from a slave out on an errand, but no one else gave us more than a cursory glance. Though the walls of Daphnia were high, the buildings mostly were squat one-story houses made of clay bricks; some of the shutters were open wide to let in the sun, others were closed to keep out the cold wind. Ravens picked through rubbish piles. Even in the cold, the dank smell of human waste rose from the canals. As we crossed a little wooden footbridge over the canal, I spotted a red flower still blooming despite the cold.

  I heard a muffled exclamation from Tamar and she grabbed my arm and pointed up. I saw a dot of color, something red and gold. “It’s a sorceress’s palanquin,” I explained. “It’s like a box of silk cushions, carried by djinni. Aerika, I mean—we should call them aerika, here among the Greeks. The sorceress rides inside.”

  One of the gusts of wind that blew down from the steppe caught the edge of Tamar’s sleeve and whipped it out like a banner; she caught it and pulled it close around her arm, shivering. “Let’s do our business and find somewhere to stay.”

  My first visit to Daphnia had been with Kyros, the year I was twelve. I’d been overwhelmed by the crowds. Our second day in town, he took me to the marketplace and we got separated. I spent a frantic hour trying to find Kyros again, without success, and finally sat down, in tears, on the steps outside the Temple of Alexander. I had no idea how to get back to our inn—in my inexperience, I hadn’t even made careful note of its name, so I couldn’t ask for directions, and felt too foolish to ask a priest at the temple for help finding Kyros. The only solution I could think of was to go back up to Elpisia, but I didn’t have my horse, and I had very little money. Fortunately I decided to spend the night in the temple courtyard, and that’s where Kyros found me, an hour or so later. I quickly dried my tears, ashamed. Kyros said something kind and led me back to our inn for dinner and wine. That evening, he gave me his ring—a heavy gold ring set with a garnet, and a thong to hold it around my neck. “If you get lost again, or if you ever need help in Daphnia, go to the Temple of Alexander and show my ring.”

  I’d been to Daphnia many times since. Kyros had dealings with several sorceresses in Daphnia, and had me carry messages fairly regularly. I was no longer overwhelmed by the crowds or the maze of streets. I had a favorite room a
t my usual inn, which they would put me in without asking if it was available when I arrived. I wouldn’t be able to stay there this time, of course. I wondered if there was another inn in Daphnia that had a room with a window overlooking a climbing rosebush in the inner courtyard, and a window on the opposite wall with a view of the Temple of Athena.

  “Where are we going?” Tamar asked.

  “To a sorceress named Phoibe. I’ve never met her, but she has a reputation for being relatively calm and predictable, for a sorceress. Also, she has a nice house. I’ve always kind of wanted to see the inside.”

  “Are you sure she won’t recognize you?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  “Not completely sure?”

  “It’s possible she saw me from a distance once, and found out my name. But that’s true of anyone in Daphnia.”

  “Maybe we should go to a city you haven’t visited as many times.”

  “We’d run out of food before we got there. It’ll be all right, Tamar. She won’t recognize me.”

  Phoibe was also reputed to be trustworthy—not the sort who would steal our karenite and have us thrown back out to the street. Still, I wanted to take only the larger chunk of karenite, and leave the smaller piece with Tamar, who could wait for me a short distance from the house.

  But Tamar balked at that. “You left me behind when you went to get Nika. I want to come this time.”

  “You can come when I go to get Uljas. But I want you to have the karenite in reserve, in case the sorceress reacts badly.”

  “I think you just don’t trust me not to act like a small-town slave girl.”

  “Well, I don’t trust you not to act like you’ve never been anywhere like Daphnia before. We’ll just tell people you’re new at this job if anyone wonders. But there’s no reason you need to come with me right now.”

  “There is,” Tamar said. “I need to start learning more than just how to wait. There will always be a reason to leave me behind. But sooner or later you’re going to need a second person.”

  I shrugged at that. Tamar was clearly in a mood to be stubborn, so I decided to bring her along and hope for the best.

  Phoibe’s family lived within a walled enclosure, much like the ones Kyros and Sophos lived in. There was an outer wall with a gate, and a series of inner buildings, including a large house for the family. The outer wall was brick, like everything else, but well kept—she had a slave who scrubbed it clean seasonally. I’d caught a glimpse through the gate once and seen a fountain built of blue mosaic tile, and a lush garden. I turned to Tamar as we approached the gate, intending to tell her not to gape like she was seeing the land of the djinni, then thought the better of it. If Tamar tried to act like she’d seen it all before, she’d probably look even more suspicious.

  There was a door in the wall; it was closed. I knocked on it and an elderly male slave opened it and gave me a dour look. “We don’t want any,” he said.

  I shoved my foot up against the door so he couldn’t close it. “I’d like to speak with Phoibe.”

  “What’s your business with her?”

  “That’s not for your ears.” When I’d visited a stranger with a message from Kyros, I’d always flashed his ring to the gatekeeper and had been ushered straight in. Unfortunately, I had nothing to show off this time, and he narrowed his eyes and started trying to shove the door shut.

  Tamar stepped forward. “Let us in to see your mistress,” she said, and slipped something into his hand—a small wineskin. He gave it a suspicious sniff and I saw Tamar raise her chin to give him a level look. He cracked a faint smile—a knowing smile—and opened the door.

  “If you’ll just wait here,” he said, “I’ll go see if she’s available.”

  I glanced at Tamar and she rolled her eyes and whispered, “Just because you never took a bribe when you were working for Kyros doesn’t mean no one else there did.”

  “What did you give him?”

  “Kumiss.”

  I made a face. “Why kumiss?”

  “Slaves don’t usually have money. We—they—trade alcohol for favors.”

  The courtyard was as beautiful as my fleeting glimpse had promised. A fountain bubbled up at the center, the dark blue tiles shining in the sun. More tile formed a reddish diamond on the ground, and apple trees stood at the points of the diamond. I could see the scrub of a faded flower bed along the sides of the diamond; there would have been red flowers growing there during warmer seasons, but the blooms were long gone and the beds were covered in brown leaves. Though the streets of Daphnia smelled even more foul than Elpisia, Phoibe’s enclosure was scented with lemons and sweet incense.

  “This is pretty nice,” Tamar said casually. I looked at her. She had the offhand voice right, but her shoulders were hunched, and her wide eyes darted around the interior courtyard, trying to covertly take in everything at once. I suppressed a smile, but didn’t say anything. As a “merchant” who wouldn’t have known to bribe the door guard without assistance, I was hardly in a position to complain about Tamar blowing our cover story.

  The servant returned a short time later and said, “Phoibe will see you.”

  When I had visited other Weavers in Daphnia on behalf of Kyros, I had nearly always been taken into a receiving room, with a desk and comfortable chairs. But Phoibe’s servant ushered us into her workroom. A huge mahogany loom stood at one end, with a half-completed tapestry on its strings. There was a chair beside the loom, but it faced a workbench; on the bench I could see tools and wire and beads, the pieces of a spell-chain not yet assembled. Phoibe rose from the chair as we entered.

  “My servant tells me that you may be of interest to me,” Phoibe said, “but that you refuse to state your business.”

  I bowed. “We have something that may be of interest to you,” I said, and drew the karenite out of my pocket.

  Phoibe sucked in her breath and crossed the room in a few long strides. Sorceresses were always mercurial and tended to get worse over time; during my years working for Kyros, I’d learned to tell whether a sorceress was melancholic or touched by the cold fever. Cold fever, I thought, looking at Phoibe. But at least she’s not as frantic as some I’ve seen.

  She clasped my wrist to study the karenite in my hand. “Beautiful,” she murmured under her breath. She released my hand and whirled to pour a cup of tea from a pot that sat on her work table. She had not prepared for visitors, so offered me her own cup. “Thank you so much for coming to me,” she said, a little breathless. “Where did you get that?”

  “We are merchants,” I said, and hesitated; I’d planned a story before coming here, but now I wasn’t certain how much I wanted to try to tell. “This was a find, however, not a purchase.”

  She took my wrist to study the karenite again and then went to look at her work table. “How much do you want for it?”

  That, of course, was an excellent question. I had only a vague sense of the price karenite brought to the Alashi; I thought it would probably be higher here but I wasn’t sure how much. The sorceress’s excitement implied strongly that it would fetch a very good price indeed. “I know you will make me an excellent offer,” I said. “Better than the offer I had elsewhere.”

  She looked at me with narrowed eyes, trying to gauge whether I really did have another offer, or was just trying to drive up the price. I kept my face neutral.

  She licked her lips. “Two hundred alexanders,” she said.

  Two hundred alexanders. My mask slipped; I knew she saw the shock in my eyes. That would pay for everything. Everything! I could practically buy everyone out of slavery with that kind of money. I got it back into place and said, “My other offer was for nearly twice that.”

  She laughed, and I knew I’d given myself away. “Yet you came here, and I’m sure you know it’s because I’m more trustworthy than the other sorceress. Two hundred and twelve.”

  “Three hundred,” I said.

  “Two hundred and twenty-five, and that is my final offer.”
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  “Done,” I said, wondering how much I was underselling myself. But look on the bright side—all that money! And another piece yet to sell . . .

  Phoibe went to her workbench, unlocked a strongbox, and counted out the coins. Then, with a little bit of a flourish, she took out a drawstring bag made from thick patterned linen and gave that to me as well. I knew looking at the way she touched it that she had woven the cloth. At her nod, I put the karenite on her work table. “Be sure to come to me the next time you . . . run across something like this. If my gate guard gives you any trouble, show him this.” She took a silver brooch off of her own collar and pinned it to the bag. It showed a silver bird, wings spread. “My maid will show you out.” She gave me the bag.

  Back out in the street, Tamar blinked a little in the sunlight. “Let’s go find somewhere to stay,” she said. “Somewhere really nice.” She dropped her voice and hissed, “Two hundred and twenty-five alexanders? Can we go buy Uljas and the others?”

  “It would be suspicious, just knocking on someone’s door to try to buy a slave. Did anyone do that with Sophos?”

  “Aislan’s officer tried to buy her once, but other than that, no.”

  “We can think about it. Remember, we have to live on this money for a while. We need a tent, horses . . . If we use it to buy Uljas’s freedom, and Prax’s, we’ll be pretty much back where we started.”

  Tamar shrugged. “Or we could get robbed on the road as soon as we leave Daphnia and be back where we started, too.”

  “True enough.” I glanced at Tamar. “We’d better buy nice lodgings tonight like you suggested, just in case. Imagine how stupid we’d feel if we saved our money, stayed somewhere cheap, and then got robbed tomorrow.”

  The best inn in Daphnia would have been too conspicuous, but we found one that made my old favorite look shabby. From the outside, it looked like a Greek household, with a wall and an inner courtyard, but the gate guard was rather more welcoming. We brought our horses into the courtyard and looked around. It wasn’t as opulent as Phoibe’s courtyard, but it was a whole lot fancier than Kyros’s. There were trees, with wicker benches under them for hot summer afternoons, and a fountain—though this one had no mosaic. The water trickled down over an upturned tortoise shell, as large as my two cupped hands. In the corner of the courtyard, I saw a palanquin draped with blue velvet and gray silk. A sorceress’s palanquin.