pursuit.” The creature added slyly, “There is, of course, a third way to Purdimal: the tunnel-cars built by your ancestors before the Time of Darkness. We could be in Purdimal-or even in Ke’er-in a trice. I know where they lie in the Underworlds beneath the city for I travelled hither by that means. Those who guided me would demand further payment, of course, which I cannot now provide. The labyrinths are risky-and the favoured province of the Worm Lord. Would you dare that route, Etqole?”
“You do not hoodwink a child, Mihalli-master! I have heard tales of those places-and of what guards them! You paid me money for my services, and you shall see me earn it. But I’ll not offer my tasty flesh to the Dlaqo- beeties or to any others of the horrors of the pits! Still, your slave caravan is no better-nay, worse! Try it, and the last journey we take is the ‘high ride’ on the impafer’s stake!”
“Ah, brave Etqole! No one asks you to go. Indeed, Zhu’on and I can travel in a separate party-charcoal merchants, tanners of Chlen-hde, coppersmiths-and thus keep an eye clapped to old Chnesuru.”
“Shall I then be cheated of the bigger share of my pay?” the swordsman cried, “and of my revenge upon the priest-and a little time with the girl? You would cast me aside so soon?”
The creature made an odd, non-human growling sound. “Then join us. Or shut your shop and go your way!”
For a time there was only the soft wash of the oars. Finally the swordsman grumbled: “Cha, I’ll not be left behind! Yet let us risk no more than is needful. We make no visible connection with the slaver but remain apart-as you say. I shall travel as a noble, with sufficient coin for good food, wine-”
“Ohe, and a golden palanquin, and a cortege of little girls to sin g as you journey, and a pisspot all set with emeralds, and-” “Shut up,
Zhu’on. Else you’ll wear a second gullet!”
“Be silent, both of you! We approach the river gate. Tell me, Zhu’on, when does Chnesuru depart?”
“Tomorrow is the twelfth of Pardan. He leaves the day after, master. ’ ’
“Find him. Give him several golden reasons to advance his calendar a day. We must make haste.”
“Ohe, there’s one more crack in the pot,” Etqole interrupted in still-sulky tones. “What of the white globe and the silver rod? Quro said the Worm Prince got the first, but the second…” “The globe has no value now. As for the rod, who knows where it is? Still in the temple of Thumis, mayhap? And perhaps our employer has no need of the rod but seeks only to find the Man of Gold and destroy it… This is no affair of ours.” Fingers of mist and a dappled greyish light curled along the deck before Harsan’s staring eyes. They were out upon the river, then, and it was dawn.
Zhu’on’s voice came once more: “Master, what of the real Lord Arkhane?”
The Mihalli gave a low chuckle, almost human. “Why, let him wake where I put him, in the Chalice of Silence. His Legion of Ketl may believe his pleas and pull him forth-or they may serve him boiling water for his breakfast…”
Chapter Twenty-Three
This was the task Tlayesha hated most: ministering to the field-slaves. The women she did not mind; the children she treated with affectionate patience; and Chnesuru’s “special wares” were interesting, if sometimes sad or strange. But the field-hands-! A blister here, a stomach pain there, a suppurating sore, a fever, a flux, a nose mashed in one of the interminable fights in the pens! Often they teased her, pinched her, laid hands upon her, or even tried to pull aside the thin veil she wore to conceal the deformity of her face.
That thought she. pushed firmly from her mind.
Far back down the Sakbe road Bey Sii lay to the southeast beneath the blanket of pre-dawn mist. Somewhere there the sun would shortly stride up into the sky to begin another weary day. Tlayesha sighed and set down her bucket of water and bag of medicaments. They were ten days out of the capital now, and pompous old Chnesuru was in the worst mood she could remember: a trustee slave had decamped, taking a woman and two sacks of Dna — flour with him, and the pair had not yet been recaptured. -And already Tlayesha. had more than she could handle to keep her charges healthy!
Was this the slave Mtiru the cook had sent her to cure? Yes, he lay with a cheap clay amulet of Balme, the healing Aspect of Mother Avanthe, pressed to a red and infected cheek, and he moaned softly in his sleep. He must be treated. Chnesuru kept his merchandise in the best possible health. Soon the month of Halir would come, when the crops were, cut and the demand for field-hands would beat its peak. At every village and Sakbe — road tower the overseers of the manors of the nobility, the stewards of the temple farms, the officers of the Emperor’s state lands, and the elders of the agricultural clans awaited Chnesuru’s coming with impatience. Slaves might not do all the work-, but if the Chlen-caxt of the Empire had four wheels, then the slave population certainly made up two of them.
She squatted down on her heels beside the man and took out a clay pot of salve, a relatively clean rag, and her most treasured instrument, a needle of rare iron fixed in a wooden handle.
“You’re not asleep,” she said. “Get up, and let me look at that cheek.”
A sullen eye opened, and the fellow made a great pretense of waking up, a big muscular man burned almost black by the sun. Tlayesha was used to such responses; she brought her needle up to point directly into the open eye. The slave sat up.
“In the name of Qon, girl, it’s only a boil.” He was probably trying to ingratiate himself. Many thought she worshipped Qon, Lord Belkhanu’s canine-headed Cohort. The clergy of the Temple of Qon wore veils to conceal their faces-some odd tenet of their sect-but theirs were invariably yellow while Tlayesha made do with any bit of fabric she could find.
“It must be seen to, man. No pretty Aridani lady will buy you for her harem until that carbuncle is gone.”
“Cha! Go tickle the boy with the shaking sickness there! He needs healing more than I!” He reached out a hand to caress her thigh, but she set the needle’s point firmly against the skin of his wrist.
“Be patient. Bountiful Chnesuru arranges harlots for all of you tonight when we reach Tkoman Village.”
“The decrepit hags he provides are only useful to frighten demons!” He gave a coarse laugh. “Why not minister to me yourself? Are you not a physician? Some say that you are ugly, but others claim you are so lovely that you hide your face to keep us all from going mad. For my needs, my lady, you can keep your head-scarf; the parts I want are lower down.”
“I am no slave to lie upon the open road with field-hands. Master Chnesuru employs me-for what his coppers are worth. Come-let me lance your cheek, else I must advise him that he would profit by having you altered for service as a eunuch. Mayhap you would enjoy the soft life of a servant in some clanmaster’s harem!”
The slave grunted and spat, but he held up his face and made a show of feeling no pain. Tlayesha salved the boil and rose, dodging a final pat on the backside. She walked on down the line.
There sat the boy with the shaking sickness. They had picked him up outside of Bey Sii, the Gods knew why! Some demon must have muddied Chnesuru’s wits that day! They’d be lucky to get twenty Kaitars for him. A hereditary disease, people said, and reason enough for his clan to sell, him off for a pittance. No room for such in a peasant’s household! At first they had had to feed him, and he had not even been able to hold his bowels. He bore bruises and manacle-scars on his wrists as well. Fright and nervousness at being sold into strange hands had doubtless added, too, to his condition. Now he was steadier, and she had only to see that others did not steal his food or kick him too severely when he stumbled and drooled.
She stopped beside the boy. Actually he was a youth as old or older than Tlayesha herself. She had got into the habit of thinking of him as a boy, a child almost, because of his malady. He had no name, or if he did he could not control his tongue to tell it. She did not even know if he understood Tsolyani. He was almost certainly from some low clan of Livyanu, for his face and torso were covered with Aomiiz, the arabesques of red, blue, and black tattooes every Livyani received in childhood. They indicated the wearer’s clan, city, and religious affiliation. Yet when two of Chnesuru’s Livyani slaves had tried to question him, they had got no farther than had Tlayesha. There was a riddle indeed.
Like most of Master Chnesuru’s slaves, the boy wore no shackles. The lot of a slave was no worse than that of many peasants, and at least a slave’s belly usually stayed full. A squad of overseers, a few guards, and the ever-present row of impaling stakes that graced the gates and plazas of the cities of the Five Empires were enough
