A Bait of Dreams (5 page)

Temokeuu folded his arms across his chest. “I have some small influence.”

She frowned. “I don't understand.”

“I will stand for you in the court.” He smiled suddenly, the shimmering tips of his opaline teeth barely visible behind his wide smooth lips, his dark green eyes glinting with a sardonic amusement. “It is surprising how much alacritous justice becomes in the presence of influence.”

She shifted uneasily, abruptly conscious of the smallness of the cabin, the closeness of the two seafolk males. “My debt becomes heavier by the minute. What do I say?”

Temokeuu's mouth twitched as he recognized her growing discomfort. He moved back and opened the door. As he stepped out, he said, “When your bond is cancelled, what then?”

“I don't know. I thought about heading south for the winter.” She shrugged. “Or stay on with Habbiba now that I don't have to lick her feet or watch her humors.”

“Come here.” He noted her hesitation. “Think about it. I'll leave you to make your decision once we're finished at court but there is a place for you in my house if you choose to take it.” He went quickly up the steps of the ladder and swung out onto the deck.

Gleia scrambled up beside him and stood quietly waiting for Tetaki, enjoying the feel of the breeze fingering through her hair. “I'm a thief, remember?”

“I owe you my life. My son's life.” He chuckled, a warm affectionate sound. “A small dirty-face wild thing scolding me like my mother for letting my boy walk into danger.” He touched her face. “A good spirit in so small a package. That is why I let Tetaki spend so much time with you. You were good for him. Come with us. Be a daughter of my house.”

“I want to work my own way.” She looked uncertainly at him, looked away.

“What makes you think any of the People are allowed to drift at other's expense?” He laughed. “Go back to your place, young Gleia. Rest. Here.” He handed her the jar of ointment. “Put this on what you can reach in the morning. I will wait beside the Hall of Records.”

On the wharf again, she found the fog had closed in thickly. She could hardly see the lanterns hanging from the mast. A muscle twitched in her thigh, reminding her of the Ranga Eye. She shuddered. No, she thought, no more chances. I don't need to sell it and it's too dangerous. I can damn well get along without it. She limped to the end of the wharf and pulled the crystal from her pocket. For a moment she hesitated as her fingers involuntarily caressed the smooth seductive surface. Was it so bad after all? Beautiful.… The crystal throbbed and warmth began to climb up her hand. “Go charm a fish,” she cried and flung the eye out into the water.

The fog was bunchy and treacherous around the scavengers' hovels. She walked with intense wariness, moving silently along the rutted path. The last few meters she ran full-out, forgetting the pain in her leg as shadows came at her out of the dirty yellow-white muck. She slammed the door on the reaching hands and scurried up the stairs, flitting past Miggela's ambush before the ratty figure could come out and stop her.

She stood in the doorway, wrinkling her nose at the unlovely mess waiting for her; cursing the crystal she lit a candle at the guttering tallow dip smelling up the hall, then marched inside, slamming the door behind her. After bringing a measure of order into the chaos, she got out the brazier and the cha fixings, using the candle to light shreds of paper beneath the last of her charcoal sticks. While the water was heating, she yawned and scratched, feeling amazingly good in spite of the miserable day behind her. She pulled the cafta's ties loose and dragged it over her head. Once she had it off, she turned it over to examine the ruined back where the whip tails had sliced through the cloth. There was a weight dragging the pocket down.

She thrust her hand in and her fingers closed on a smooth curved form. Warmth leaped up her arms. Her hand came out. Came up. She couldn't open her fingers. The films of color danced around her, painted the streamers of fog crawling through the open window. I threw it in the bay, she thought. I heard it splash. I felt it fly out of my fingers. I heard it splash.…

come come come come sister lover sister no more trouble no more pain we love and laugh and live in butter-rich sunlight there is no anger no hate no oppression here there is no anguish here there is no hurting we live in beauty no hunger no want no abandoned children we have as gift everything everything we want we need don't fight us come all you have to do is will it want it come you can come sunlight and beauty sunlight and joy come come sister lover (They were all around her, glorious wraiths twittering alluringly, antennas flicking encouragement, affection, love, promising all those things her soul longed for.) come sister (they whispered) come lover

The whistle from the boiling water reached her, the small shrill sound cutting through the spell the fliers had woven. She swung around, deliberately bashing her fist into the wall, the sudden pain breaking her loose from the Eye's hold. She ripped a piece off the ruined cafta and tied the crystal in it, then hooked the rag over the handle of the wardrobe door, breathing a sigh of relief as she walked across to make her cha.

At the House of Records, Gleia watched Temokeuu walk toward the main entrance. He looked over his shoulder at her, the sharp angles of his narrow face throwing off glints of red and blue from the two suns, then he vanished through the door she had no right to enter. She sighed and pushed through the bonder's gate.

In the salla, body disciplined to the proper stance of humble submission, she stopped in front of the clerk's desk and waited for him to notice her.

“What you want, bonder? Be sure you don't waste my time.” His fat arrogant face was creased in a frown meant to emphasize his importance. He fiddled impatiently with some papers piled in front of him.

“By Thrim and Orik, the bonder's law,” she said meekly. Fishing in her pocket, she pulled out a silver obol, laying it on the desk in front of him. “Thrim and Orik.” She placed two more oboli on top of the first. “I come to buy my bond.”

He grunted as he swept the coins off the desk. “Straighten up, bonder. Let me see your mark.”

She lifted her head.

“Closer. You think I can read the sign across the room?”

She leaned across the desk. He touched the brand. “Thief. That's fifty oboli.” His hand slid down her neck and moved inside the cafta, stroking the soft skin there as he moved his pale tongue over dry lips. “And an investigation to see if you've reformed. There's a lot of work in voiding a bond.” He took a fold of her flesh between his fingers and pinched. She closed her eyes against the sudden pain. “Unless you can convince me how reformed you are.”

Gleia stiffened. She hadn't planned on paying that sort of bribe. If she refused him, he'd set a thousand niggling obstacles in her way until she exhausted her money and her strength and sank beaten back into the slow death of her bondage. For the moment anger paralyzed her, slime trying to make himself big, then she forced the anger and the sickness down. If that was the price, it was no big thing. No big thing, she told herself. Not when set against the very big thing she wanted, the right to spit in the face of slime like this and walk away. She thought of Abbrah. No big deal. She leaned into the fat clerk's hand, smiling at him.

He wobbled his pudgy body around to the gate and swung it open. “Interrogation room this way.” When she'd moved through the gate, he shoved her along the hall and pushed her into a small bare room with a lumpy couch, a soiled chair, a washstand with a basin and cracked ewer on it. Gleia pulled off her cafta and lay on the couch waiting for him.

The Kadiff was sitting behind his high bench looking bored. He tapped long slim fingers on the desk top as the clerk led Gleia in. “What's this?”

“Bond buyer, noble Kadiff.”

“Umph. Bring her here.”

Gleia came to the desk, suppressing her annoyance at the servile behavior expected of her. She glanced quickly and secretly around as she bent her body into a low bow. Temokeuu came quickly from the shadows and stood beside her. The Kadiff raised his eyebrows and looked a trifle more interested.

“Noble and honored Kadiff, may I offer a small evidence of my appreciation for your Honor's condescending to disturb your magnificent thoughts to hear my small and unimportant petition?” She reached back and touched Temokeuu's arm, inviting him to share her game. His fingers touched hers, nipped one lightly, letting her know he was appreciating her performance. Her irritation faded in the pleasure she felt at this sharing.

The Kadiff inclined his head and she came closer, feigning a shy timidity, inwardly contemptuous of the man for swallowing her mockery, he was no better than that nothing clerk grinding on her body dreaming himself a rutting male taking his pleasure though what pleasure he could get out of that business she certainly couldn't see. After a hasty calculation she placed six gold pentoboli on the table in front of him and backed away.

He tucked the coins into one of his sleeves. “You have investigated her reform?” he asked the clerk, his words perfunctory, making it obvious he was bored with the whole thing and didn't care what the man said.

“Yes, noble Kadiff.”

The Kadiff sniffed. “No doubt. Have you sent for the bond holder?”

“Yes, noble Kadiff. The caftamaker Habbiba. The wardman was sent and should be here momentarily.”

“While we're waiting you'd better send for the brander. If we have to cancel the bond, he should be here.”

“It will be done, noble Kadiff.” The clerk scurried out, looking pale at having forgotten this.

The Kadiff tapped the end of his long nose with a neatly polished nail. “It's unusual to see one of the seafolk in this place.” He looked around disdainfully. “Let alone one of your status, ambassador.”

Gleia fought to keep her face a mask. A little influence, he said?

Temokeuu bowed his head with a delicately exaggerated solemnity, that delighted Gleia. “I owe blood debt to this person, noble sir, and would stand surety for her.”

The Kadiff folded his hands. His attitude altered subtly. He sat straighter, looked more interested and considerably more respectful. “Fifty oboli for the bond. You need ten more for the brander.”

“I have it, noble Kadiff.” She kept her eyes on her feet.

“A lot of money. You're fortunate to have a sponsor, young woman.”

Temokeuu bowed slightly. “The honor would have been mine, save that my daughter has earned the money to redeem herself.”

“I didn't know sewing girls made such pay.”

“If you please, illustrious Kadiff, my designs have received some praise and brought much money into the pockets of Habbiba my bond mistress and she has seen fit to share some of the bounty with me,” Gleia murmured.

“Share!” Habbiba came storming into the room, the hapless wardman trailing behind. “The creature wouldn't work without extra pay. Why am I dragged out of my house? For this?” She jabbed a shaking finger at Gleia, then her hands went flying, touching her earrings, dabbing at her lips, brushing down over her chest. That and her angry lack of respect provoked the Kadiff into a scowl of petulant displeasure.

“Be quiet, woman.” He glared at the wardman who hastily came up behind the angry Habbiba. “You are here,” he went on, “as required by law to witness the canceling of a bond.”

“What!” Forgetting where she was, Habbiba shrieked and lunged at Gleia, small hands curved into claws. The wardman caught her and got a scratched face for his pains. He wrestled her back, holding her until the Kadiff's astonished roar broke through her rage, putting her on notice that she was in danger of a massive fine. The thought of losing money quieted her fast. “I most humbly beg your pardon, noble Kadiff,” she shrilled, falling onto her knees in a position of submission. “It was only my anger at the ingratitude of this girl that made me forget myself. I gave her a home and a trade and paid her well, better than she deserved, and now she wishes to leave me when the Maleeka herself has asked for her to work the cafta her daughter will wear on her nameday.”

Gleia saw the Kadiff lean back, his eyes shifting uneasily between them. “May a lowly one have permission to speak, magnificent Kadiff?” she asked.

“Granted.” His eyes moved from the fuming Habbiba to the stern face of Temokeuu. Like black bugs they oscillated back and forth as he tried to calculate where his best interest lay.

“The design is completed,” Gleia said. She spoke slowly, clearly. “The design is the important thing. There are sewing girls with skills greater than mine to execute the work.”

Driven—as far as she could see—by his distaste for Habbiba and his instinct to bow before the power Temokeuu represented, the Kadiff scowled at Habbiba, willing her to confirm what Gleia said. “Is that true?”

Habbiba glared furiously at Gleia but didn't quite dare lie. “It's true,” she muttered.

“What?”

“It's true.”

The Kadiff sighed with relief. “That answers your objection, woman. And you, bonder, I hereby cancel your bond. The fifty oboli, if you please.”

Gleia stood in front of the wardrobe. Deliberately she unhooked the rag bundle and took it to the bed. She sat holding the bundle in her lap. “Well.”

The crystal moved inside the cloth like something alive.

Rubbing the skin beside her new brand, Gleia contemplated the bundle. “Looks like I've got several ways I can go from there.” She poked at the cloth, rolling the hidden Eye about. “I can stay here and work for Habbiba. If she gets bitchy I can quit any time and go with a competitor.” She wrinkled her nose and stared at the window without seeing it. “And I'll know what every day will be like the rest of my life. Every day.” She shivered. “Or I could head south.” She poked at the crystal some more, scowled at the straggles of thread unraveling from the edges. “A bit too hairy, I think. Look what happened to me in Carhenas and this is a place I know.”