Dakkar sat down in his chair. All around the curl of his ear little red stones glittered.
“Ask your brother,” she said. “I was with him the whole time.”
“My brother,” he said, contemptuous. “The next time you leave Matuko I’ll have you arrested.”
“May I go now?” she said. “Akellar.”
“Go.”
She went back through the Varyhus toward Saba’s compound. One of the men who had taken her to Dakkar followed her, making no attempt to stay hidden. In the little market between the Varyhus and the Lake District she stopped to buy a drink of water. The slave vendor recognized her.
“Out spying, nigger?” he said. “Sneaking around for the blacks?” She dropped the money and the cup into the street and walked away.
Several watches went by. Illy and David took up her energy. Illy’s constant demands had rubbed Paula’s feelings to callous. For the fifteenth time she made up her mind to break off the affair. As usual she decided to wait until Saba came back, which would muffle the explosion. David fought in the street, in the yard, with his brothers, with strangers. He was always battered. She wondered if he knew about her and Illy. With no warning, Dakkar had her dragged off across the city again.
He was sitting in the same chair where she had last seen him, as if he had not moved in twenty watches. Now there were three other men standing around him. When she was before him, he said, “Two watches ago a pack of slaves murdered an old man, down in the Varyhus. What do you know about it?”
“Nothing,” she said, impatiently.
“Do you recognize this dirt?” He flicked out his hand, and the man on his right gave her a holograph: a pale slab-jawed face.
“No,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him.”
“It won’t do you any good to lie.”
She held the holograph out to his aide. Saba’s son scowled at her. Her temper was burning short. “I’m not lying,” she said.
“These street-dirt kicked and beat an old man to death.” His right hand on the arm of the chair flexed, unsheathing his claws. “You were seen talking to that slave in the Varyhus market.”
“Oh,” she said. “The water vendor. I don’t know anything about him.”
“There are half a million slaves in Matuko, and you talked to that one just by coincidence?”
“If you ask the slaves, Dakkar,” she said angrily, “you’ll find they don’t like me any more than you. Why don’t you leave me alone?”
“I can make you talk,” he said. He made a gesture, and his soldiers took her off behind the bilyobio tree. She stood uneasily watching Saba’s son while he signed a document and read a tape. He would not dare hurt her, or even threaten to hurt her. After a while two more of his men brought Pedasen into the yard.
Her stomach knotted. She sank her teeth into her lower lip. Dakkar straightened.
“Take them inside.”
She reached her house again in the low watch, lay down across her bed, and cried. When she ran out of tears and sobs, she rolled onto her back. David was standing at the foot of the bed. She sat up.
“Did I wake you up?” She wiped her eyes on her hand. Her throat was sore.
“Where were you?” He climbed over the foot of the bed toward her. The old white bedshirt he wore had been Saba’s: it was filthy. “What happened? Where you hurt? Why were you crying?”
She shook her head. “I’m all right.” His hands were scraped and swollen from fighting. She took his wrist, cold to her touch.
“Why were you crying?”
She shook her head again. Taking his hand in both hers she kissed his palm. “They killed Pedasen.” She began to weep again. He tugged on his hand and she freed him.
“Who killed him? Who?”
“Dakkar.” She rubbed her eyes dry.
“Why are you crying? He was just a slave.”
Her eyes felt bathed with salt. She wiped her face on her sleeve. In the end, Dakkar had believed her, but by then the eunuch was dying.
“He was a slave,” David said. “He didn’t mean anything.”
“I’m sorry I woke you up,” she said. “Go back to bed.”
He sat on the foot of the bed, watching her soberly with his strange long eyes. His hair was sprouting like bristles over his head. She said, “Don’t you care? He lived here. He loved you since you were a baby.”
His gaze flinched away from her. Suddenly busy, he picked at the cover with his fingers. He had no claws yet; he still used the flats of his fingers. He muttered, “My father wouldn’t care,” watching his hands.
“Go back to bed, David.”
Whenever she slept with Illy, she dreamt that Saba walked in on them. One watch she woke with a start and smelled a hot metal reek and saw him standing at the foot of the bed.
“Get up and put your clothes on,” he said.
Illy was still asleep, her arm around Paula’s waist. Paula shook her hard, to wake her. Saba grabbed the bedcover in both hands and yanked it flying away.
“I said get up!”
Paula scurried off the bed and gathered her clothes. Illy raised her head. “Saba!” She sat upright, thrusting out her hand toward him. “Saba, wait.”
He unbuckled his belt. Paula was pulling on her dress. Her clumsy fingers jammed the slide closing. Illy cried, “No—Saba, listen to me. It isn’t what you think.”
“Go over to your house and wait,” he said to Paula. He doubled the belt up in his hand.
She went out through the sitting room to the door. Behind her the belt cracked and Illy screamed in pain. She burst into a run out the door and across the yard. A man waved to her from the Manhus steps: Sril. She went into her house through the kitchen. The kusin was drinking from the hose. At her sudden entrance it darted under the table.
David was asleep. She stood on the threshold of his room watching him. She could not bear to lose him. The boy slept on his stomach, the cover bunched in his right fist. The back door slammed.
She went down to the kitchen again. Saba was half-sitting on the table, his arms crossed over his chest. The kusin had gone.
“That’s a low point, even for you. How could you do that to me? I thought you cared about me.”
She shut the door into the hall, so that David would not waken. Saba had his temper back. He watched her cross the kitchen and draw a cup of water to loosen her throat. The kusin had left the window over the hose slightly open. She shut it hard.
“What did you do to Illy?”
He came up behind her. “She did it to pay me back, didn’t she? For chasing around.”
She put the cup down on the counter. Pedasen’s frightened face appeared in her memory. Illy’s frightened voice. He slouched against the counter beside her, his elbow bracing him up.
“Why are you so white, Paula? You think I’m going to whip you too, don’t you?”
“No,” she said, evenly.
“How long have you been debauching my wife?”
She turned on him, ready to blast him, and the hall door sighed. She and Saba in unison turned toward David, coming into the kitchen. The long shirt hung rumpled to his knees.
“Papa!” He leaped up into Saba’s arms. “When did you get back? Will you take me to
“Say good-bye to your mother.”
She gripped the edge of the counter in both hands. Her heart began to thud. David twisted around in Saba’s arms. “Good-bye. Where is she going?”
