Fists pounded on the far door. 'Master Feden! Master Feden! We've news! Terrible news.'
'He's busy!' she shouted. 'Come back later, when I'm through devouring him.'
But they were desperate. Her reply did not raise a single answering retort, not even a lewd joke. 'Terrible news. You must open up. Villages are being attacked and all the folk in them murdered. A lad escaped. Hurry, Master Feden! We brought him, to tell his tale.'
A new voice joined the chorus. 'Master Feden! It's Captain Waras! Master Feden, open up, by the gods. You must convene the council. What will we do? What will we do? We've been betrayed!'
The merchant had been frightened before, then flushed with rage and doomed triumph as he contemplated being murdered in cold blood by the Devouring woman. Now his complexion faded to a ghastly gray. 'Villages massacred? Can it be true?'
She said nothing. Joss found he could not move his limbs, as if he had fallen into sucking mud and gotten trapped.
Then she moved, too quickly for him to stop her. She unlatched and slid the door open, and behind it unlatched and slid open a second, secured door. Captain Waras strode in, looking first at her, then at Master Feden, and finally at Joss. He was so flustered and shaken that he did not act as a guardsman should, to assess and react to the threat. He waited, hands loose at his sides, sword in its sheath. A pair of guardsmen walked in, supporting a lad of some fourteen years, a slender boy with the wiry legs and arms of an experienced rider. He had the stone- shocked look of a person who has seen something he dares not believe but cannot deny.
Joss rose. 'Give me your report,' he said, finding his reeve's voice. 'Quickly, while we still have time.'
The lad lifted his chin, responding to the command.
'They marched in along West Track, from Hornward.' He spoke in a flat tone, all emotion smothered. 'I was at the Olossiward end of the village, stabling the horse for the night, and then… and then.. 'Almost he cracked, but he swallowed and blinked multiple times. He held on. 'I rode away as fast as I could and though they rode after me they could not catch me and I rode all night and I changed horses at the villages and I warned them and some believed and some did not but I got torches and I kept riding through the night, oh the gods have set their hands down on this land, what will we do? Everyone. Everyone who could not run. They were all killed. All dead. Slaughtered like animals.'
His eyes rolled up. He fainted.
The guards stared at the fallen youth, then at each other, waiting for someone to give them an order. Joss crossed to the lad and knelt beside him to be sure he'd not cracked his head; his breathing was even, and the reeve arranged his limbs more comfortably. Zubaidit sheathed her knife and went to the window, leaning out to stare into the darkness.
Feden wheezed out a breath. 'Betrayed,' he muttered, as if trying on the word as he would try on a new jacket, one as finely made as that which slipped around his bare legs now to reveal pudgy knees and ample thighs, a man with plenty to eat and plenty to boastfully display. With plenty to lose.
'We have been betrayed,' said Captain Waras. 'Everything these allies of yours promised the council, Master Feden. Lies. They said no one would be hurt, only that we would get our trade routes back and extra portions and a larger share of the market for those who cooperated with them and a lesser share for those who did not. That they would put down the revolt of the Lesser Houses.'
Feden had long since ceased struggling against the bonds. He sagged, and his chin drooped, and trembled. 'Betrayed,' he said in a strangled voice.
'I must return to Clan Hall with these tidings,' said Joss.
Zubaidit turned back to survey the chamber and the stricken men: merchant, captain, guards, and fallen boy. 'No matter what you choose to do, you can be sure that the reeves of Argent Hall will see everything.'
'What will we do? What will we do?' Feden broke down and wept.
She spun the knife through her fingers, an entertainer's trick that was not at all charming in her hands. When she smiled, Captain Waras took a step away from her.
'I have an idea,' she said, 'but you won't like it.'
41
Shai envied Mai her ability to sleep when his every nerve jangled. She sat back-to-back with Priya near the fire, her head drooping gracefully and her fingers tucked under her belt. Shai had already bundled up his sack of carpentry tools and his meager possessions, leaving them with the neat pile of goods that would go with his niece at dawn, when the man with pulled eyes and turbaned head came to take her away.
Honestly, he was shocked that Captain Anji had let her go so easily. It was all very well for a man to claim that his people and his god abjured slavery. You could say anything, but that didn't make it true.
One of the soldiers appeared out of the night and placed driftwood on the fire, then faded back into the dark. In his wake, Anji came back from the main campsite and beckoned to Shai.
'Come. You'll attend me.'
Together with Sengel and Toughid, Shai walked with Anji to the ford, and there the captain called across the channel to the men on guard.
'I have a request. Is there anyone I can speak with?'
There was a big bonfire illuminating the bank and much of the length of the channel, to make sure no one snuck across. By its light, a man walked through the multitude of sentries and halted at the edge of the water, not so far away, really. His feet were hidden in reeds. The creak of bowstrings sounded faintly from farther back, at the edge of the fire's light, covering him.
'I'm sergeant in command of this cadre. What do you want?'
'You know our situation,' said Anji. 'Since we have to return to the south, we'll have to hire ourselves out as guards again, if we're allowed. Do you think I can go over in the morning and arrange for a hire?'
'Not my decision,' said the sergeant. 'I was told you're to ride straight out.'
'There'd be something in it for you if you could see to it that one or a pair of your men might run into town on my behalf. I saw the makings of another caravan-'
A fellow came up beside the sergeant and spoke to him, too low for Shai to hear.
The sergeant nodded and raised his voice to call to Anji. 'That group rode out two days ago. There's no hire waiting for you. You'll just have to go.'
'In that case, I've need of coin. Are there any merchants in town willing to buy flesh?'
'Buy flesh?'
'Yes. Much as it grieves me, I'll have to sell my concubine.'
It seemed every guardsman on the far bank heard him, for there was a rush of sound that briefly drowned out the bass cry of the river. Their voices rose, and jokes came, laughter in plenty although the words themselves were washed together.
'You can imagine,' said Anji into this so sternly that those men quieted and there was only one last laugh, choked off, 'that I'm unwilling to part with such a valuable flower for anything less than top price. As I said, if you've a man willing to run into town, perhaps a few of your merchants might be willing to come out here at dawn to bargain with me.'
The sergeant whistled. 'You're a cool one. I thought you told the council she was your wife.'
'Slaves can be wives. She lent respectability to my offer, but it wasn't enough. I can purchase ten more just like her in any market in the south. She's too much trouble to me at the moment. She takes two slaves to keep her, and they slow me down.'
'Thought you didn't want to ride back south,' said the sergeant. 'Are you changing your story, eh?'
'It doesn't seem to me I have a choice. Now, are you willing, Sergeant? There'd be something in it for you, as well.'
'How much could I get my hands on?' asked the sergeant with a coarse laugh.
'A bit of coin for your trouble. Anything else you'll have to arrange with the merchant who buys her.'
'Whew! I doubt I can afford it. She'll go to the houses up on the hill, for certain. Well, I'll send a runner in to Flesh Alley, but I can't promise you any of them will be willing to creep out of their comfortable beds before the
