for the day she and Nallo had encountered them on the trail, she'd not spoken to one. Every gaze shifted to stare with fear or apprehension at the newcomers.
If Nallo were here, Avisha knew what she would do.
'The hells!' She grabbed the boy by the wrist. 'Come on.' She jiggered the latch and found the door unlocked. They slipped through while every eye in the courtyard was fixed on the Qin soldiers.
She closed the door behind them and sank against it, breathing hard. A stand of hatmaker's pipewood screened the door. Jerad fumbled at his trousers — she'd made him put on his only pair so he would look respectable — and with a snivel of relief let go of his water. The spray rattled so loudly Avisha thought the whole city must hear, but the clamor of horses in the courtyard drowned him out. Her arms ached, and she looked around to see if there was anywhere she might put down Zi.
They stood in the shadowed corner of a walled garden. A larger garden lay beyond a second wall, green with fruit and nut trees, but this modest garden was laid out in a square with beds and troughs for medicinal plants, now overgrown and neglected, and stands of pipewood or shrubs of rice-grain-flower and purple-thorn and other such useful plants set against the walls. In the corner opposite her hiding place, a second door stood ajar. Just a few steps from it, a young woman sat on a bench. With her shoulders bowed, she was weeping too softly to be heard, but weeping nonetheless, wiping her face with the back of a hand as she lifted her head.
She was an outlander! She didn't look like the Qin, with their flat faces and broad cheeks. She was some other breed of outlander. She wore sumptuous silks, the kind of cloth only a rich woman could afford or that, if the stories were true, a rich man would lavish on
a valuable bed slave. A broom lying slantwise across the walkway and a hem of dust on her silks betrayed that she'd been sweeping.
Avisha gaped. How could she risk dirtying such magnificent silks by wearing them to sweep in? What manner of person was she? Had she tried her luck at a marriage contract only to be rejected? Or did she live in this grand compound?
Jerad coughed as the river slacked to a trickle, and ceased.
'Who's there?' said the girl in a cool, firm voice. You'd never have guessed she'd been crying.
Avisha stepped out from the pipewood, trying to keep her voice calm and her hands from shaking. 'I'm sorry, verea. I was just waiting out in the courtyard with the others when my little brother had to pee. He's just nine, you know how it is, and tired from all the waiting.'
The girl examined Avisha and the sleeping Zianna critically. 'Where is he?' she asked with a pretty smile but a searching gaze.
'Here, Jer, come out,' said Avisha.
The boy stumbled out to the open square, still tying up his trousers. He saw the other woman, and his mouth dropped open. 'Her eyes are pulled all funny. Is something wrong with her?'
'Hush! Don't be rude! I'm so sorry, verea. He's just a sprout. We've never been to the city before. We don't see outlanders where we come from.'
'No offense taken,' said the girl as her shoulders relaxed. She squeezed back the last of her tears and sniffed hard, then wiped her nose with the back of a hand. The more she spoke, the more you could hear the funny way she had of speaking, the sounds squished tight so it was hard to understand her. 'What is your name?'
'I'm called Avisha, verea. This is my brother Jerad, and my little sister Zianna.'
'You are here for the interview?'
'Surely I am. There's quite a few out there, truly.'
'That's a surprise. In the first five days after the announcement in the markets, only fourteen women came to the gate. I do not know why so many crowded in today.'
'Do you live here?' Avisha gestured to the peaked roofs that marked the buildings of the greater compound.
'1 do.'
'Sheh! Whoever is gardener of this place should be hauled out and whipped. No one is taking care of these valuable plants!'
'It has been neglected, that is true.' The girl examined the garden as if she was really getting a good look at it for the first time. 'Why are they valuable?'
'To start with, that's a nice stand of hatmaker's pipewood, although it needs thinning. My mam would crush the seeds of purple-thorn — there — to kill insects in the storeroom. You can perfume clothes with the rice-grain- flower…' Now that the girl's flush of tears had faded and her face was more at ease, Avisha saw that she was lovely despite her odd features. She had lustrous black hair bound into a long tail with a ribbon; the tail hung to her hips. 'Or you can put a spray of the flowers in your hair, like an ornament.'
All at once, she felt sorry for the other girl. No one rich enough to wear silks of such quality would also wield a broom. She knew the tales as well as anyone. A rich merchant house could afford foreign slaves, and of course a life slave had no rights at all. Nothing about them belonged to themselves, not like a debt slave, who might hope to pay off the debt and walk free of all claim. No wonder the poor girl had been crying. 'You're from the south, aren't you?'
The girl had been scrutinizing the rice-grain-flower, brushing at her hair where an ornamental flower might adorn her, but she turned back to Avisha. 'I am, that's true.'
'You have a funny way of pronouncing things.' The idiotic words sounded worse now that they hung in the air, awaiting an answer, so Avisha stumbled on. 'I'm sorry for your trouble. I saw you were crying. We didn't mean to interrupt. It's just the boy had to pee so badly and didn't want to wet himself.'
'Vish!' hissed Jerad indignantly.
No, I'm glad you came.' The girl patted the bench. 'Sit beside me. I am glad of a girl my own age to talk to.' As Avisha approached, the girl indicated a shady spot in one corner of the paved square.
'Ooof!' Jerad stopped short with a squeal of outrage followed by a childish giggle. 'Did you see what she did?'
'What did I do?' asked the girl, alarmed.
Avisha wanted to slap the runt, but he didn't know any better. 'Nothing, verea. It's just rude to point with your finger like that.'
'Ah.' The girl stared at her for a moment with her mouth open in a smile that wasn't quite sincere and wasn't quite false; anxious, maybe, or embarrassed. She had all of her teeth, and they were as white as the landlady's string of precious pearls, so perfect that Avisha felt a stab of ugly jealousy for the careless beauty she would herself never ever possess. Then the smile faded, and the girl rose, with dignity, revealing a shawl that she had draped over the bench and on which she had been sitting. This she spread in the shade. 'The little one can rest here.'
'My thanks!'
It was such a relief to have Zi's weight off her arms and back that Avisha almost wept, but instead she sank down on the bench beside the outlander and rested her head wearily in her hands. Still suspicious, Jerad sat down cross-legged beside Zi. His head drooped, his eyes closed, and he dozed off.
'Why do you want to marry one of the outlanders?' the girl asked. 'Most Hundred folk don't seem eager.'
'There's a good group waiting out there today.'
'Good, or numerous?'
Avisha laughed. 'There are a lot of them. There were two women there, dressed as fine as ever I did see, in city fashion, nothing like we'd ever see in my village. All they could talk about was how much coin they mean to demand in exchange for marrying. I didn't think that was nice. But there was a nice father, telling his daughters they'd best be polite, and that they could look things over and make their own choice if they wished to wed an outlander. That was kind of him, for usually the clan gives you no choice. You know how it is.'
Only what a stupid thing to say to a slave who was no longer her own person!
The girl smiled softly. It was hard to tell if she was happy or sad. 'Truly, sometimes a person isn't given a choice.'
Impulsively, Avisha reached toward her, but drew back before she touched the other girl's arm because the gesture seemed so intrusive, so bold, so intimate. 'Eiya! I shouldn't chatter so much. That's what Nallo says.'
'I don't mind your chatter. I like it. You remind me a little of my sister. Maybe it's only that we're of an age.'
'I was born in the Year of the Ox.'
