looking young man from a respectable clan. But there was still a speck of blood on the palm of his right hand. There was always blood on his hands; she just pretended there wasn't. The smokes Ramda gave her hid her aches, but they couldn't hide the blood. They couldn't hide the screams.
'Eh, there is the lovely Mai. How are you faring, Niece?' He fetched up before a fruit stand. 'Have you sold your quota today? Ensnared a wealthy husband, eh?'
Father Mei's eldest daughter sold fruit in the market, and she stared placidly at Girish from under the shade of a parasol. 'Uncle Girish. Here you are. Sales are good today, although the peaches are a little underripe. Of course Father Mei will choose a suitable husband for me. Maybe next year.'
'You are such a stupid stupid girl, Mai,' he said with a grin. 'Here, give me a peach.'
He grabbed, but the girl snatched up a peach and pressed it into his hand before he could topple her neatly stacked pile. He sulked, then spotted a pair of young men strutting down another lane. 'Hei! Hei!' he called.
As he turned to go after them, Mai slipped a peach into her hand. 'Here, Cornflower. Something for you.'
Horrified, she tried to hand it back, but he was already trotting toward his friends, and the leash, tugged taut, forced her to stumble along after lest he whip her for slowing him down.
His friends greeted him with lively expressions of joy — obviously drunk — and they fell to talking about some race meant to be held out beyond the walls in a few days' time, not that any of the locals were allowed to ride horses on penalty of death, but they could bet on the Qin soldiers who would be racing for the honor of their individual companies. Glancing back, his smile twisted and a flare of anger widened his eyes.
'Did you steal that, demon?' He snatched the peach out of her hand. 'Whew! A nice ripe one. Here.' He offered it to his friends.
'Not after the demon touched it!'
He shrugged. 'Eh, you're right. Tainted now. Probably make any of us sick.' He squeezed it until juices began to run, then gave it a
heave up over the rooftops. They walked on, chattering, as she trailed behind, grateful she had not been beaten. At length the friends left him, and he made many twists and turns through back alleys and arrived at a tavern's back entrance. Slipping inside, he was stopped by two Qin soldiers lurking in the corridor.
'Chain the demon up outside,' they told him. 'The commander does not want the creature anywhere close.'
'Chain her outside, and anyone who sees her will know I came here and wonder why.'
They grunted, and settled on shoving her into a tiny storeroom. She sank down between two barrels, head resting against the wall. It was nothing more than a thin barrier of wood, and through it she heard Girish's whine and the calmer rumble of a man speaking with the Qin way of chopping off k's and swallowing r's.
'This man said this, this man said that…' Names and complaints rolled off Girish's tongue as the Qin officer questioned him for details of the most incriminating and treasonous remarks made by the inhabitants of Kartu Town.
She shut her eyes. If she did not think, she would not hurt. How many days until he went back to Ramda's? He usually could not afford to go more than once a month, so she had another passage of the moon to hunger for the smoke. She could still taste it in her mouth, but the warmth had drained out of her.
'Hei! Hei! Lazy demon!'
The leash flicked so hard against a breast that she gasped. Hurry. Hurry. She scrambled up, and he hit her a few more times as the Qin soldiers watched impassively. When he pulled her past them, they stepped back so as not to touch her. An open door revealed a man dressed in a golden tabard, sitting on a pillow as he sipped from a cup. He glanced up with his demon-scratched eyes. Seeing her, he made a warding sign and gave a signal, and an unseen servant closed the door.
Out on the street, folk stared as Girish strode past with her on a leash behind. The Mei demon, they called her. Girish liked their whispering and pointing. Today he hummed under his breath, always a bad sign. He rarely used her, and then only at night when he was particularly restless and couldn't sleep. His brothers, and the other males in the house, eyed her when they thought he was not
looking, and their desire pleased Girish, who dragged her everywhere with him on the leash so he could gloat that he held what others lusted after. Everyone knew what he was, but they stared as at the smoke on the ceiling and pretended not to see and hear, not as long as the blood did not touch them.
Despite its orderly environs, the slave and livestock market stank of piss, fear, manure, and despair. Giggling now, he strode to the open corrals behind his favorite warehouse.
'Master Girish! So nice to see you. Please, please, this way. What are you looking for?'
'Ah, eh, yes. My mother desires a few children, pretty ones, to decorate her chamber and wait on her. What do you have that's fresh and new, nothing damaged.'
She stared at her feet, browned by the sun. Long sleeves covered her pale arms, and loose trousers covered her pale legs, the jacket buttoned up to her neck. A cap shaded her face; he whipped her if she forgot to wear it. But her feet and hands might turn brown, resembling the color of human skin. She wondered that if she were to turn brown all over, if she would become human, but maybe a demon could never be human, no matter what it once had believed it was.
'Cousin! Cousin!'
Her ears puzzled over the strange word. Her mind made a funny twist, and suddenly she was staring at her feet in the middle of a dusty, stinking, filthy pit of demons wondering why she was hearing true speech again. She looked up. In the fenced area in front of her huddled about twenty children, very young, dressed in little more than rags and looking thin and dirty. She saw him immediately because his dark hair and coloring and features were instantly familiar. He was a boy of the tribes, no more than eleven years of age, someone like her taken as a slave and sold away into demon land.
'I like the look of that one,' said Girish, following her gaze. He pointed at the boy. 'Where's it from?'
The merchant shrugged. 'Western tribes. There are so many of them out there, and they're all savages. I bought it on the Qin borderlands. You can see it's not a demon, not like that one you have there. I'll purchase her from you. Female demons are rare, I don't mind saying.'
'Not for sale.' Girish had a hefty pouch of coin in his hand. She'd never seen him with so much coin. He was usually begging for more, but not now. With a satisfied smirk, he counted out silver into the merchant's open hand. 'Send that boy and the other three I indicated to Ramda's house. You know the place.'
The merchant frowned uneasily, scratched his ear with his free hand, and sighed as he closed his hand over the payment. 'If you say so, Master. It's just that Ramda's house is known for-'
'Eh? What's that?'
'Nothing, Master. I hear you can get a good smoke there. I'll have them there by this evening.'
A small voice trembled from the huddle of child slaves, speaking words no one but she could understand. 'Cousin! Can you hear me? Aren't you of the tribes?'
Girish yanked so hard on the leash she fell onto her buttocks. Laughing, he dragged on her so she had to scramble backward on heels and forearms trying to get turned around as he cut back through the slave market. Eventually he tired of the joke and let her clamber to her feet.
'Come on, come on.' He took a brisk pace, humming and giggling, until they reached the Mei compound.
'Mountain!' he shouted. 'Mountain! I want a bath. Right away, you fat oaf!' He slapped her. 'Demon, brew me some tea. You know how I like it.' He strode off.
She remained in the family courtyard, shaking as with a fever. The boy's hopeful, frightened, desperate gaze burned in her mind's eye.
One never knows what gifts a stranger will bring. She touched the beaded nets that capped the ends of her braids. The memory of the boy's gaze was enough to make her remember Mariya and Orphan and Kontas and the tribe, when after all this time she had forgotten.
'Cornflower?'
The master's youngest brother paused while walking across the paved courtyard. Shai was the worst of them, because he stared the most at her when he thought no one was looking.
'You look like you've been dragged through the dirt,' he added. Mercifully, he looked away. He had thick arms and strong hands,
these clenched now as he muttered. 'Why does everyone look away and say nothing when they know what is happening?'
