were connected by bridges of woven grass. Sections of the wooden causeway had been widened at regular intervals and made into wharf-like platforms. Travellers along the Sakbe road used these as halting places, and the First Dwellers came there, too, to sell their swamp-fruits, eels, reptile skins, bird plumage, and fangs of ivory-white Ssar — wood from which all manner of batons and staffs were carved. No tax-gatherer ever visited the villages of the Hehecharu, and as long as their inhabitants left the Sakbe road in peace and surrendered a few copper Qirgals a year, no administrator bothered them.
Even so, everyone distrusted the First Dwellers. They were indisputably human, but they were squat, wide- mouthed, and of a mottled greyish tinge, like meat left too long in the sun. They were clearly related to the Old Ones of Purdimal, the Heheganu, who were similar, if still uglier. But one rarely saw those latter creatures any more, except deep in Old Town in Purdimal. One of Chnesuru’s Mu’ugalavyani overseers held the theory that both of these odd races were related to-or intermarried with-the nonhuman Swamp Folk who lived along the Putuhenu River in his own land. The slaver himself heaped scorn upon this idea: was it not well known that the slave-breeding clans had tried all of the possible combinations of races in the past and had ended with nothing save frustration?
Whatever the truth might be, the Hehecharu behaved meekly enough, spoke little, and never stayed the night on the platforms along the Sakbe road.
Chnesuru followed his usual custom and did not halt at the first of the wayside platforms. He decided instead to go on to the second one some ten Tsan farther into the swamplands. The quicker one marched, the quicker out of these fens-though Purdimal itself was but little more appealing.
Like the other platforms, the one the slaver chose extended out some ten man-heights to the side of the roadway. It was perhaps twenty man-heights long, and at its southern end stood a handful of rude pavilions used by the Hehecharu peddlars during the day. To the north, the platform ended in a crumbling guard tower, its stones hauled from great distances and sunk who knew how far down into the ooze to provide a firm foundation.
There were few other wayfarers: two or three parties of merchants, soldiers from several legions, a courtesan and her retinue, and the litter belonging to the nobleman whom Tlayesha had seen at Village Tkoman. Just after dark, however, a company of about forty Shen mercenaries arrived, members of one of the Imperium’s nonhuman auxiliary legions, possibly “The Splendour of Shenyu” itself, to judge by their crested helmets and the tail-plumed Kaing — standard that two of the huge reptiles set up before their officer’s tent.
These new arrivals crowded the sleeping accommodations beyond reasonable capacity. The Shen arrogantly took over the best places near the tower, and Tlayesha observed their commander and two of his hulking black troopers go in to pay their respects to the captain of the road-guard garrison. (In Avanthe.’s name, what had the man done to deserve posting to a place like this?)
Some of the merchants joined with Chnesuru in occupying the peddlars’ hovels-in spite of the fact that Chnesuru was a slaver, a Salarvyani, and of low clan-status. At this point no one cared. The courtesan and her servants were allowed to sleep there as well, but the rest were left to put up their tents beside the roadway wherever they could.
No one wanted to sleep near the platform’s outer railing, and Qoyqunel had to use both words and blows to persuade some of the older male slaves of the wisdom of this. The supply wagons and the sick-cart were stationed in front of the row of huts, and Old White-Side presently emerged from one of these buildings to order the cookfires lit, the armoured Chlen-beasts fed and watered, and the women and children to begin the evening meal.
The insects were unbearable. Even now, during the month of Halir, there were so many pests that cooking was slowed by half! Slaves slapped and scratched and grumbled until they were issued sleeping-shawls in which to swaddle themselves, and some of the men were set to flapping cloths at the bumbling Agpiz-beetles lest these fly into the cookpots and become unwelcome additions to the stew. The Hu — bats and the black and purple Qasu — birds were even greater nuisances, for they dived to snatch morsels not only from the pots but from peoples’ bowls and fingers as well. Qoyqunel was forced to remind Miiru the cook with the flat of his sword that the gasK-birds were sacred to Lord Wuru, the Cohort of mighty Hru’ii, and hence not to be swatted with a spatula.
Tlayesha was happy to share space in a tent with one of Chnesuru’s nonhuman overseers, a beautiful bone- white female Pe Choi named Itk t’Sa. These creatures were so graceful, the males a gleaming ebony and the females just the opposite: the hue of summer clouds, with shadings of pearl-grey along their ear-ridges. Female Pe Choi were uncommon outside of their homeland in the Chakan forests, but Itk t’Sa had joined the caravan in Mrelu a year or so before. She gave no reasons for leaving her people but quietly took charge of Chnesuru’s occasional nonhuman slaves and aided Tlayesha with the human women and children. She was marvellously deft. Tlayesha had attempted to befriend her but had met with a wall of placid, amicable-and unbreachable-aloofness.
Itk t’Sa gave her human companion a polite nod and went on preparing herself for sleep. She used the chitinous ridges on the outside of her upper pair of hands to scrape and brush her face and limbs, refused the water Tlayesha offered her (did the Pe Choi ever bathe, or did they only rub themselves clean in this fashion?), squatted down, folded her six limbs tightly, and curled her segmented tail around her body.
Tlayesha undid the laces of her high leather walking boots, removed her sleeveless over-tunic, and loosened the drawstring of her skirt. Her veil, too, she laid aside. Automatically she glanced over at the Pe Choi, but Itk t’Sa had her long head down between her two upper limbs, asleep. What would a Pe Choi know or care about human uglinesses anyway? From her medicine bag Tlayesha brought forth a piece of Baliir-bark to bum in their clay lamp; its pungent smoke would make their tent uninviting to any insect guests.
She had just begun to wash herself as best she. could in the narrow confines of the tent when she heard a scratching sound at the tent-flap. She fumbled her veil back over her face and peered out.
The sick boy stood in the doorway. She had forgotten about him! His face was spotted with scarlet insect bites. Although she had given him a sleeping-shawl, it was obvious that it had provided little protection. She made an impatient sign for him to enter and close the flap. There was room for him to sleep at her feet.
She turned away to find the Pe Choi staring at the boy. The intensity of the lambent green gaze surprised her.
“Do you know this slave?” she asked.
Itk t’Sa did not reply at once. The slave boy returned her look with the same fierce concentration. He was not trembling now.
“No,” the Pe Choi replied at last, “I think not. Yet he is familiar…” Abruptly, surprisingly, she said something guttural and clicking in her own harsh language.
The boy strained forward, seemed to listen, and then made a monumental effort to reply. Once this would have been enough to convince Tlayesha that he was witless indeed; no human had ever mastered a nonhuman tongue! Yet he was so determined, so serious! He opened his lips with such care that lines of muscle stood out upon his jaw. Then his malady overwhelmed him. His whole body shook, and he strove to keep his clenched teeth from chattering.
The Pe Choi looked at Tlayesha. “He is-how do you call it? — mind-harmed?’ ’
“Yes. The shaking sickness. Some intelligence is left to him, more than most cases, I think. With training he may make a useful household slave. Certainly any master will be able to discuss his secrets in this man’s presence without fear of disclosure.” Tlayesha found herself speaking rapidly, as though to hide something. She discovered, to her own bewilderment, that she harboured certain further, unformed suspicions. She did not know how to put these into words.
“You have examined him well? It is really the shaking sickness?”
“I–I believe so. I am no skilled physician, of course, like those in the temples of Thumis or Ketengku…”
The Pe Choi looked from Tlayesha back to the boy. Then she put her head back down between her forearms. Her attitude suggested that human affairs were no concern of hers. Tlayesha could not see the boy’s expression; he had turned his head so that his face was in shadow.
Later, Tlayesha awoke in total darkness, jolted from sleep by a stab of pain in her wrist. She slapped with her other hand and felt a fuzzy something wriggle weakly and squish under her fingers. The clay lamp had gone out. Where one insect could find a way a thousand others would follow! The bowl of the lamp was dry. There was nothing for it but to get up and beg more oil from whichever of the overseers had been given the miserable duty of guarding the supply cart this night. She prayed it would not be Old White-Side.
She retied her skirt, settled her veil over her head, and arose. The slave boy was instantly on his feet as well.
“It is all right,” she gentled him. “Come, we go to get more oil.”
