was unlaced from the back and discarded. Anterastilis, who was a little over forty and perhaps ten years younger than Rina, was full-breasted but flabby, with folds of flesh rolling from her belly, and sagging buttocks and thighs dimpled with fat. Not for her the privations suffered by the rest of Carthage, Rina observed, not for the first time.
Anterastilis stretched, yawned, belched, and allowed Rina to lead her by the hand to her bath, where she climbed down the steps into the hot water, sighed and settled back. Rina took sponge and pumice stone and rubbed at her flesh. Rina could smell spiced meat on her breath, and wondered what the meat could possibly be. Dog, perhaps?
‘That rabble on the council,’ Anterastilis murmured sleepily. ‘Only come here for my husband’s cellar, I’m sure of it. And because he lets them fight. .’
The way the young dominated life in Carthage had been among the most profound shocks for Rina on arriving here. Back in Northland she’d known the theory, of course. Farmers routinely died young. The women died of backbreaking toil and relentless child-bearing, the men died in the course of hazardous sports like hunting, or of fighting in wars, and everybody just died of famine or the diseases they caught from their animals. Even in the cities, even in the long-gone good times, more had died than were born, and the population depended on immigrants from the countryside. The result was a city that felt to fifty-one-year-old Rina like a playpen full of squabbling children. Even their councils fizzed with youthful aggression. Barmocar, in fact, was among the most elderly still serving-
‘Ow!’ Anterastilis slapped her face with a wet palm, hard enough to sting. ‘You pinched me, you useless sow!’
‘I am sorry, sorry,’ Rina mumbled, head lowered. Concentrate, Rina — concentrate! For if you earn enough disfavour you will be banished from here, and then how will you live?
With the bathing done, Rina helped Anterastilis out of the bath. Rina took special care, wary of the woman’s drunkenness; a fall would be disastrous, for Rina. She walked Anterastilis to the massage table. This was a slab of marble heated from beneath by a system of furnaces and pipes that circulated hot steam — a primitive contraption by Northland’s standards, but effective enough. Anterastilis lay on her back, a pillow under her head, naked, and closed her eyes.
Rina warmed her hands on the slab, and took oil jars down from the shelf. These were exotic products from the mysterious countries of the east, and even now Rina had no real idea what most of them were, but she had quickly learned which her mistress preferred, and how they were to be applied. She began with handfuls of a gelatinous oil applied to Anterastilis’ heavy stomach, Rina’s strong hands kneading the flesh. Then another handful for Anterastilis’ collarbones, and then the breasts themselves, which sagged to either side as if deflated.
This was the moment when Anterastilis would let her know how she wanted the session to proceed.
Sure enough Anterastilis pushed Rina’s hands away, and as she massaged her own heavy breasts, Rina moved down to her thighs, which parted softly Rina worked the oil into the flesh of the thighs, teasingly, slowly moving up to the folds of her sex.
Rina had no idea if this was merely sexual, if Anterastilis was a woman unsatisfied by her husband who demanded such services from all her maids, or if it was the kind of power display Rina had endured from Barmocar. Anterastilis’ motives made no difference to Rina. She had to perform these hateful acts anyway, for it was that or the street. She was an Annid! But the sheer repetition of it had taken her to a numb space beyond degradation.
Anterastilis seemed tired, as well as drunk. The session was proceeding more quickly than usual, and maybe she wanted to get it done before she fell asleep. Rina was relieved. There were times when her mistress asked her to use a variety of aids, expensive items carved of ivory, applied to her vagina or anus. Now, as Rina pushed her fingers inside her, Anterastilis moaned, and reached up to grab Rina’s small breast, squeezing it painfully through her thin shift.
Then Anterastilis yelped, slapped Rina’s hands away and sat up, the oil glistening on her bare flesh. ‘You scratched me!’
Rina cringed. ‘Madam, I promise-’
Anterastilis pulled at her crotch, her legs akimbo. There was a slight red line on the inside of her right thigh. ‘Look at that! By Tanit’s mercy, I am bleeding.’
There was a stinging cleansing lotion on the shelf. Rina reached for that.
But Anterastilis grabbed her wrists so the bottle fell and spilled on the floor. ‘Show me your hands. Show me!’
It took her only a heartbeat to discover the nail Rina had broken on the wall.
‘Look at that claw! Look at it! How dare you bring that anywhere near my body? And these nails! They are filthy. What have you been doing, woman?’ She peered at Rina’s face, and abruptly grabbed her neck. She was surprisingly strong. Rina resisted for a heartbeat, she couldn’t help it, then suppressed her instincts and yielded. Anterastilis dragged Rina’s face to hers, and sniffed noisily. ‘Wine! I can smell it on your breath. Where does a woman like you get wine from? From whoring — is that it, Northlander?’ She released Rina.
‘Madam, please-’
‘Out.’ Anterastilis began throwing jars at Rina’s head. They were too solid to smash, and rolled noisily to the floor. ‘Out! You will be whipped for this. Wait until my husband hears of it. Flayed! Get out, woman, out!’
Rina fled, in no doubt that Anterastilis meant every word she said.
45
Her punishment was delivered by the head of house: ten strokes of the whip. She had suffered three the time before, delivered by a former soldier who seemed to enjoy punishing non-compliant women. She forced herself not to cry out, not to weep — not to beg.
Later Thuth, the Libyan cook, rubbed in a solution of salt and unguents that she said would help the healing and maybe reduce the scarring, all the while berating Rina for her stupidity in fouling up such an easy job.
She had the evening to recover.
But when she showed up for work with Anterastilis the next day, the head of house sent her away. Instead she was put to menial work, sweeping floors, clearing the courtyard of the debris of yet another dust storm. It was harder than her work for Anterastilis, but not so degrading. And the steady labour might or might not help her back heal.
She slept little, those first nights after the whipping. She had to lie on her front, or try to sleep sitting up. The lack of sleep gave her time to think. You had very little time to think as a servant of the Carthaginians; your workload was heavy, your sleep and rest times short, the patterns of your days chaotic. Now she had time to reflect back on her brief meeting with Alxa, those unimaginably precious moments, worth ten times the whipping she’d suffered as a consequence. And time to puzzle out again exactly why it was Alxa had chosen to contact her mother at just the moment she had.
It was when she overheard grim reports delivered to Barmocar of authenticated cases of the blood plague not far from the city that she began to suspect the truth. Alxa had wanted to see her because she knew, from her own network of informants, that the plague was coming. And Alxa, following her own self-appointed mission, was not going to stay away from the afflicted.
It was a month since her meeting with Alxa. One night, while her bed was still occupied by the snoring night maid, Alxa once more pulled on her cloak, and her Northlander boots, about the only worthwhile possession from home she had left, picked up a small purse with a few treasured Carthaginian coins, and slipped out through the grounds. That gap in the external wall had been roughly patched up, but the dry stonework was loose — mortar was in short supply like everything else this dismal winter — and she easily pulled a few stones loose, clambered over the wall, and slipped away into the dark. There was an abandoned property not far away, a small warehouse, used by some of the younger staff for love-making. Tonight it was empty save for the scuffling of rats.
She sat, favouring her back, wrapped herself in her cloak, and waited for dawn. It wouldn’t be long until her absence was discovered. The night maid who shared her bed might tell on her; she was the kind who liked to win favours that way. One way or another Rina would be in for another whipping, or maybe this time just a chucking-out
