A Bait of Dreams (14 page)

Some distance to her right she saw a crowd gathered on a flat, open barge with a platform in the middle and an orange-and-blue canvas roof stretched out like a huge tent. In the center of the crowd, on the stage a meter above their heads, a gaudy figure postured and turned, a man with long red hair flying in the erratic breeze. Shimmering blueness swung up and down, sometimes replaced by glimmers of gold that vanished and returned to blue as they touched his white painted hands, swinging up and around the blankness of his white-painted face. Shounach. He was too far for her to make out his features, but it had to be Shounach.

She moved her hands and the chains clinked. She frowned down at them. He was so close. She slid her eyes cautiously around. No one was paying any attention to her. Without the chain she could be over the side and away. Without the chain. So close and so far away. She looked wistfully at the tiny colorful figure as the boat slid between two tall barges, blanking out the scene.

Gleia sat in a wooden straight-backed chair, shut into a small bare room with a single barred window set high in the wall. The chain was off her neck. She was free of any restraint at all. Simply she could not leave the room. She'd expected—well, she didn't know, something more like Carhenas when several ships were new in port and celebrating their temporary victory over the treacherous sea. But the slave market she saw was extraordinarily decorous. She wasn't exposed naked on a block. There was no auction with cold-eyed buyers prodding and poking her.

The Captain had greeted the barge master as an old acquaintance. The small sober man had inspected the chains of captives, nodding, shaking his head, clicking his tongue, muttering offers as he moved. Occasionally the Captain had argued. Occasionally the murmured price was raised. When the barge master reached the end of the chains, the slaves were led away to be cleaned and re-clothed.

When she was clean, with her hair washed and towelled as dry as possible, then combed neatly back from her face, a tiny Mariti slave handed her a fresh cafta with narrow vertical strips of black and white. The material was coarse, unpleasant to the skin, but it was clean, and Gleia accepted it with a gratitude that annoyed her when she became aware of this sneaky surrender of her body.

In the little room she sat mute as the barge master brought in a series of men to look at her and at her work. They all dismissed her with a glance but her work held them. She surprised herself with the intense pride she felt when she saw their appreciation.

Then the barge master led in a man, he treating him with extravagant deference. Despois Lorenzai, the little man called him. He was a big bulky man but looked solid—with the strength of a mountain tars and something of its feral quality. The belly that pushed out the front of his robes was more muscle than fat. He kept a sober demeanor, spoke in low measured tones; but when he stood over Gleia, his eyes brooding down at her, when he arched his heavy body over her to peer at the brands on her cheek, she sensed a wildness in him that was sternly repressed but not eradicated. With this meager evidence she decided that he was a man who might succeed greatly or might destroy himself utterly but taking impossible chances. Amused at her mindleaps, she watched him turning her caftas over in his hands, examining the stitches and designs with a glow in his eyes that the barge master read as quickly as she.

The small man murmured a price. Gleia wrinkled her nose, disgusted. She'd wanted to hear the price set on her. Though she had no intention of remaining a slave, fetching a respectable sum would soothe her pride and give her something to laugh about with Shounach later on.

Lorenzai raised a heavy eyebrow and turned to leave. Hastily the barge master plucked at his sleeve and began talking again in low swift mutters. The merchant looked over his head and met her eyes. The laughter in them challenged him, and he began bargaining in earnest.

She waited in the small room until Lorenzai's housemaster came for her. He was a short brown man whose head topped out at Gleia's chin. He had a round wrinkled face like an ancient, evil baby. With a smirk on his face he bent over her and snapped a slave ring about her neck. When she stood, he looked evilly at her and stalked out, leaving her to follow as best she could.

Gleia carefully suppresed a smile as she moved through the narrow corridors to the landing where the water-taxi waited. She was forever barred from his favor by the length of her head.

The water-taxi was square-ended and narrow, roofed with bright colored canvas stretched flat over a rectangular frame. There was a seat for one person at the bow, a second seat in the center of the boat, and a third for the boatman at the stern. It glided smoothly from the landing and slid toward the end of the line of wharves. Gleia pushed back her hood and let the breeze wandering over the water flow through her hot sweaty hair. The little room had been airless and dull. She sighed with pleasure, not caring if Ussuf heard.

Hesh and Horli were approaching zenith, Hesh visible as a tiny bead of blue on the side of Horli. It was coming up high heat so the bustle of the morning was dying to a drowsy amble. Gleia glanced toward the tent barge as it came into view, but the crowd was breaking up and the stage empty. She was disappointed, then surprised at the extent of her disappointment. He's finished for the day, that's all. He'll be back, I hope.… Days before the month ends. Days yet.

When the one-eyed boatman reached his customary mooring, he swung the boat against the ladder and waited. Ussuf swarmed up onto the pier, tossed him a silver coin, then stalked away. Gleia snorted with amusement, pulled up her hood, and hauled herself onto the dock. Then she sped along the worn planks toward Ussuf who was waiting impatiently at the start of a switch-backed scratch that wound up the black stone to one of the smaller gates.

The trail was too steep to climb comfortably. Ussuf kept altering his pace, slowing abruptly until she nearly bumped into him, then speeding up until her legs ached from trying to keep up with him. Her temper began fraying, the anger boiling in her to match the heat radiated by the black stone. She kept stumbling on the carefully roughened track; at times she was forced to stop and wipe the sweat from her face so she could see where her feet were taking her.

By the time she reached the top, she was trembling with fatigue and fury, but she looked into the housemaster's small bright eyes and smiled, so angry that acting was no effort at all. His sly glee dissolved. Disappointed, he wheeled and stumped through the gate in the wall, the ends of his head-cloth fluttering out in small wings beside his ears. Gleia clamped her mouth shut and followed.

There was a guard lounging against the planks of the gate. Startled, Gleia stared at him. His leathers were decorated until no inch remained untouched His eyebrows were gilded and his moustache twisted into fierce points that extended beyond the wings of a headcloth stiff with gold thread. The cloth was held on his head by gilded cords whose tasselled ends hung down beside his ear, brushing against his shoulder each time he moved.

Ussuf was waiting impatiently at the end of the alley that led from the gate into a wider street. She hurried toward him, but couldn't resist a final look back at the guard. He preened as he met her eyes, obviously convinced that he'd stunned her with his magnificence. Gleia followed Ussuf along the broad inner street, looking with interest at the elaborate façades of the great houses. They were built of the same black stone as the cliffs and carved as thoroughly as the guard's leathers. There were few people in the street, all of them in the black and white stripes of slaves. Gleia shook her head, puzzled, wondering if Thrakesh's boasted strength had gone hollow in the middle. That ridiculous guard.

Humming softly, Gleia bent over the fragile material, her fingers sliding the needle in and out with quick precision. The oil lamp threw a steady glow over the sleeve bands with their scrollwork of leaves and vines in olive and ocher. One lay beside her on the table, its design completed. The other was close to being finished. She yawned, set the work aside and stood up. Rubbing at the brand scars on her face, she strolled across the small room and leaned into the window embrasure.

Small Zeb was a skinny crescent swimming through a light mist, while Aab was an opaline nail-clipping on the horizon. Gleia sighed and moved her shoulders until she rested comfortably on crossed arms, looking out across the harbor of Thrakesh.

Aab edged higher, lighting up the tips of the waves with her thinning crescent of silver.
Slave.
Gleia grimaced at the shimmering water.
Tomorrow,
she thought.
Somehow I'll get out and find him.
She ran her eyes over the dark bulk of the market and the pinpoints of light that marked the positions of the ships anchored out by the breakwater.
Wonder where he is now.
She sighed again and pulled away from the window.

As she settled at the sewing table and took up her work, she thought about the heavily carved outer walls of the merchant's house.
I could climb down on those carvings,
she thought.
Have to get over the wall, though. That'll take a bit of doing.
She chuckled as she considered Lorenzai and his probable attitude toward her plans, then sobered. Not a man to be taken lightly, her new owner.
Once I'm out, I better keep going.
She set the last stitches then held the band up close to the lamp, checking to make sure the work needed no final touches. He would tolerate sloppy work as little as he would being cheated. She nodded. It was good. Simple but effective. Wrapping the sleeve bands in muslin, she set them aside, then stretched and yawned. A long day. Lifting the chimney, she blew out the lamp and wound the wick down. In the new darkness Aab's light painted a square of silver on the door close to the floor. She made a face at it, glanced at the bed and groaned. Then she went to the door and opened it, stood listening. No sound. No sign of anyone in the hall outside. She went out.

A single oil lamp burned where the corridor met another running at right angles to it. Some light trickled into the gloom beyond the small circle of brilliance. Gleia frowned, closed her eyes and sought the memory of how she was brought here, then she straightened and reached out for the wall. Her fingers trailing along the stone, she moved slowly off down the corridor.

Slowly, carefully, she worked her way into the maze of corridors and through the slave dormitories under the roof, then went down the narrow flight of stairs toward the floor below. And found the way blocked by a grating with a large clumsy lock.
Very sensible of Lorenzai,
she thought.
Must sleep better at night. Slaves aren't known for their kind thoughts about their masters. May he walk Aschla's seventh hell for messing up my plans.
She stood a moment fingering the lock, her mind going back to her childhood and the lessons Abbrah had forced on her.
Too long ago? Have I forgotten the touch? I've got no tools.
Sighing, she turned and started back up the stairs, not that displeased at having to sleep instead of explore. She was very tired.

A pounding on the door jerked her from a heavy sleep. She sat up, groaning and bleary-eyed. In the fuzzy red twilight she pushed reluctantly onto her feet and stumbled to the battered table propped against the wall at the foot of the bed. With both hands she lifted the heavy ewer and poured a dollop of water into the bowl. The night had given the water a pleasant chill that stung away the last wisps of sleep.

When she was finished she poured the water from the bowl into the slop bucket then sat on the end of the bed and began combing her hair. Nothing up here. The comb scraped on the slave ring. She worked a finger under the ring and ran it around inside the curve. Have to get rid of this thing somehow. Her mind flew back to the spring before when the thissik had locked her into another neck ring.
At least this won't explode. I wonder what you're doing here, Juggler. Wish I was out of this and with you.
She dragged the comb impatiently through the last of the tangles, tied her hair back from her face with a scrap of material, then slid into her slave cafta. She wriggled the cafta into place and went out to breakfast.

As she'd half-expected, the other female slaves were still taking their attitude from Ussuf, giving her surreptitious pinches and glowering looks. A little man who resents anyone taller than him. Especially a female slave with privileges. She looked briefly around at the sullen faces, then kept her eyes on her dish, eating the porridge with a quiet concentration its taste scarcely deserved. Again her solitude was driven home to her. There was no one here she could trust, no one to laugh with, to tease and quarrel with. She bit into a section of quella fruit beside her bowl. I've grown soft, never used to need any company but my own. Never even wanted it. Tetaki. Temokeuu-my-father. Jevati. Shounach. You've spoiled me, my friends. She washed her fruit down with a last swallow of cha, trying to wash away the thorns of loneliness with it.

She spent the hours after breakfast in the sewing room allotted to her, sketching designs and waiting to be summoned. When the morning was half gone, a slight blond girl came drifting into the room and beckoned to her. Gleia saw the ring around her neck and was abruptly angry. The child winced as she saw the flare of anger, and Gleia hastily controlled herself. “What is it, little one?”

The girl touched her lips, shook her head, then beckoned again. Gleia rolled up her designs, thrust them in a pocket and followed her.

At the entrance to the wizard maze an aged Mariti male, tongueless and blind, wrapped soft white cloths about their faces and led them into the maze.

The wizard maze filled the large room beyond the bare anteroom with sliding panels and dead ends. Whenever Lorenzai ordered it, the route was changed by sliding the panels about and locking them in place to open new ways and close the old. The maze was the only entrance to the master's private quarters.

Her determination fueled by a growing annoyance, Gleia put to work a skill she'd learned almost before she could walk. Her sense of direction and her direction-memory never missed. She kept track of turns and twists, silently counting her steps as the mute led her along. When they came out into the bare room on the far side and the mute took away the blindfolds, she knew she could retrace that route whenever she wanted.