The Godspeaker Trilogy (11 page)

“And what of Hooli?” Yagji demanded. “Does Hooli thrive?”

The slave bowed low. “Master Yagji, he thrives.”

As Yagji made silly happy sounds, Abajai gestured at Obid and the other slave. “Take these ones and the cart to the villa’s rear entrance, Nim. Help them unload the coin boxes into the strong room, then see them to the slaves’ quarters for food and a mattress. We will receive no visitors tonight.”

“Yes, Master Abajai!” said the slave Nim. Hekat could see him wondering about her, his gaze kept slipping sideways to stare, but he didn’t say a word. He just stood back so she and Abajai and Yagji could pass by.

“Hmm,” said Yagji, grudging, as they walked up a paved torchlit pathway to the villa. “It would appear my gardens haven’t died .”

Hekat marveled at Yagji’s gardens, stretching as far as the largest goat pasture in the village. Flowers rioted in perfumed profusion, pink and yellow and pale blue and mauve. There were fountains, bubbling, their deep bowls filled with flitting green-and-silver striped fish. Delicate trees with silver branches and whiskery seed pods drooped towards the dark green grass. More torches flamed from tall poles. There was a crimson godpost, topped with a black scorpion. A vivid carved snake sinuously embraced it; the fat drop of poison at the tip of each exposed fang was a green gemstone larger than her own clenched fist. Hekat clutched her snake-eye amulet, amazed.

“The godsnake of Et-Raklion,” said Abajai. “It is our symbol, given by the god itself. Proof that Et-Raklion is its most blessed city.”

Ahead, the villa. Built of that same pale cream stone, perhaps one hundred tall man-paces wide, its roof was tiled in black and gold. The enormous double front doors were painted black and bound with bronze. Hekat stared. Aieee, it was beautiful!

The paved path ended at four wide stone steps. As Abajai put his foot on the first one the doors were thrown open.

“Master Abajai! Master Yagji!”

Another slave, wrapped head to toe in blue and golden fabric. His head bristled with godbraids like a spiny zikzik, shy sly predator of the desert. Over his robes he wore a green silk shawl, edged around with tinkling amulets. He wasn’t a young man, Hekat realized. He was just well fed, and that made him look younger.

“Yes, Retoth,” said Abajai. “Your masters are home.”

“And we’re starving,” announced Yagji. “Get out of the doorway, you stupid man, and find us some food at once!”

Retoth bowed low, then retreated into the villa. “Of course, of course, master. Baths are being prepared for you now. I have roused the kitchen and your chambers are being scented as we speak.”

Hekat followed Abajai and Yagji inside, and Retoth closed the double doors behind them. Stranded, struck dumb, she looked around her, at the shiny blue-green stone floor, at the green walls with images of people and places bound inside golden borders and hung from hooks, at the gold and silver tables covered in carved-stone people and animals, at the bowls and bowls of freshly cut flowers. Inside the villa was light as day, there were so many lamps and candles burning.

“This is Hekat,” said Abajai to Retoth. “You and I will talk of her in due course. For now she goes below, but not with the others.”

“Yes, master,” said Retoth, smiling as though he knew a secret. He clapped his hands, and moments later a short woman slave with greying godbraids and lines on her face appeared. Her robes were wool, and dyed a soft yellow. “Nada! Take this Hekat below the stairs. See to her comfort and settle her in the single chamber.”

“Abajai?” said Hekat, uncertain.

“Go,” said Abajai. “Keep your counsel and obey Retoth and this slave Nada, or you will displease me.”

Displease Abajai? She would rather throw herself from the top of Raklion’s Pinnacle. The slave Nada turned and walked away. Following, Hekat was proud her eyes did not waste water.

The slave Nada led her along a wide lamplit passageway to the back of the villa, then down a long steep flight of twisting stairs to more lamplit passageways and many rooms. Hekat stared, astonished. Rooms below the ground? She had never heard of such a thing. She would ask Abajai what that meant when she saw him at newsun; there was no point asking the woman Nada. She was a slave. What would she know?

The slave Nada took her to a bath chamber, where the water flowed from bronze fish-heads stuck on the wall. Amazing! While the bath filled, the slave Nada undid Hekat’s godbraids. Then she pointed to a cupboard against the wall. “There is soap and a sponge. I will fetch you a clean robe.”

Not afraid this time, Hekat stripped off her filthy clothes and slid into the bath. She washed her body, she washed her hair, all crinkly from the godbraids. The soap foam stung her eyes but she didn’t care. She was clean, she was clean, she would never be dirty again. She lived in Abajai’s villa. It was beautiful, and so was she.

The slave Nada returned with towels and a brush and a dark blue robe. Hekat climbed out of the bath, water streaming down her lovely clean skin. As the slave Nada waited, she dried herself, pulled on the robe, then dragged the brush through her hair over and over until it was smooth and barely damp.

The slave Nada led her to a lamplit kitchen, where she sat at a table with four slaves who stared at her and would have spoken, but the slave Nada frowned them to silence. Not caring she was stared at, Hekat ate hot meat and drank cool sadsa. When her belly was filled to bursting she followed the slave Nada out of the kitchen, past other rooms and two more staring slaves until they reached a small chamber with a bed in it, but no windows.

“Sleep,” said the slave Nada, holding the door wide so light from the passageway beyond spilled inside. “I will fetch you one finger after newsun. There is a pishpot under the bed, if you need it.”

As the chamber door closed, Hekat climbed under the blankets. Her head touched the soft pillows, her body sighed, and within a heartbeat she was sucked from the waking world and into sleep, where for once the dream dogs did not find her.

Hekat woke before the slave Nada came for her. Someone had put a lit candle beside the bed. By its small light she used the pishpot and soon after that the slave woman arrived, with a tunic, leggings and shoes for her to wear. Hekat dressed, and walked with her to the kitchen where the slave Retoth was waiting.

“Where is Abajai?” she asked him. “Abajai and Hekat eat breakfast together.”

The eight slaves eating at the kitchen table made little noises of surprise and stared at her with stupid faces. Nada stared, and the big kitchen slave in charge of cooking. He stopped stirring a pot hanging from a hook above the firecoals, wiped his arm across his face and looked at her as though she was demonstruck. It seemed the whole room held its breath.

The slave Retoth smiled. “Poor child. The master has told me you come from the savage north. Forget that place now. Forget the caravan upon the road. This is Et-Raklion, we are civilized here. We are civilized in this house, where the master’s lightest breath is law. It is his want that you attend me. Do I go to him now and say you will not?”

An arrogant man, this slave Retoth. She would speak to Abajai of him when next they sat together. Until then, she could play his stupid game. She shook her head. “No, Retoth. Hekat attends you.”

He smiled again, his eyes were watchful. “Good. Eat now, then Nada will show you the places in this house where you might put your feet. Put your feet in these places only, not in the places she does not show you. Then you will be properly godbraided. Afterwards I will come for you, the master has tasked me with tasks for you.”

Hekat looked at him. “All of this is Abajai’s want?”

“Every word I speak reflects the master’s want,” said Retoth. “Of that you can be certain.”

“I am certain of Abajai,” she told Retoth.

More shocked noises from the watching slaves. She looked at them sideways, feeling contempt. Goat people. Bleating like goats, huddling like goats.

They would make me small, the slaves in this house. I am not small. I wear no slave-braid. I named myself. I call him Abajai, he is not my master. Abajai is my friend.

Retoth departed, she ate hot cornmush, she frightened the stupid slaves with her eyes. The slave Nada took her back to her chamber, four more women slaves joined them. They brought a tall stool, six burning lamps, combs, brushes, and a wooden box full of beads and amulets and tiny silver godbells. Hekat sat on the stool and the slave women stood round her, godbraiding her hair.

When they were finished it was after highsun. She slid off the tall stool and shook her head. The godbraids reached just past her shoulder blades, the beads and amulets rattled and clattered, the tiny silver godbells sang; she would make a pretty noise wherever she walked, people would hear her before they saw her, they would say to each other, Who is this girl-child with singing silver godbells in her godbraided hair?

She would tell them: I am Hekat, precious and beautiful .

After the highsun meal, Retoth said to her, “Come.”

He did not own her, she was not his dog. She stayed at the table. “Where do we go?”

“To the Merchants district. To the bazaar.”

“What do we buy there?”

“You will see. Come .”

It was Abajai’s want she play Retoth’s stupid game, so she followed him up the stairs and along the passageways towards the villa’s front doors. Within one closed room she heard sharp raised voices. She felt her heart leap.

“That is Abajai,” she said, and stopped. “I will see him.”

Retoth slowed, turning. “Not before he sends for you. The master meets important men this day. He has no time for bratty children. Come.”

She folded her arms. “I am not a bratty child. I am Hekat.”

He halted, and pointed his finger. “I am chief slave of this house! I can beat you if you do not obey.”

She speared him with a look. “No, Retoth. You cannot touch me.”

Retoth’s hands became fists. Ugly feelings struggled in his eyes. She knew he wanted to unfold his fingers and slap her beautiful face but he did not dare. He said he could beat her, she knew he could not. If Yagji could not beat her, or make Abajai beat her, no slave born in the world could raise a hand to her.

“Tcha!” said Retoth, and stalked away. “You waste my time. You will see Abajai when we return. He has said so.”

Hekat smiled, and followed him.

Retoth did not speak to her on the long walk from Abajai’s villa to the Merchants district. She didn’t care. Being in the fresh air was better than sitting below the villa’s stairs. She could see the city in sunshine now. She would have so much to tell Abajai when she saw him again.

There was a special place for people to walk, so the many slave-carried litters in the streets were not slowed down. Some of them traveled quite swiftly, their muscular slaves running in a flat-footed shuffle. The litters were beautiful, carved from exotic polished wood inlaid with bronze. Some were curtained in heavy silks, others were open so the world might admire the masters and mistresses they bore, wearing rich fabrics and jeweled amulets, bright as songbirds in rainbow colors.

At the end of some streets stood a godpost with a godbowl at its base. She saw a godspeaker dressed in brown linen and snakeskin empty the offerings from one of the godbowls into a leather satchel slung over his shoulder. He was very young, his brow bound with the tiniest scorpion. Retoth bowed his head as they passed him. So did she, after Retoth poked her with his elbow.

There were images of the hooded godsnake wherever she looked, not just on the godposts at the end of the streets. It was painted on the walls enclosing some of the houses, or sat as a bronze statue on top. It was picked out in green and blue and red stones where they walked, and in the middle of the road.

The godsnake of Et-Raklion was everywhere.

Twisting her neck, she looked up at Raklion’s Pinnacle, rising from the center of the city. In the bright sunshine she could see a wide road winding round and round, leading past the barracks and the palace to the godhouse at its peak. If she squinted she could see many moving figures on that road, traveling up, traveling down. The scorpion on top of the godhouse’s godpost blazed black and crimson in the light. The god’s great eye, watching them all.

The roads and walkways grew steadily busier the closer she and Retoth got to the Merchants district. Now there were open slave-drawn carriages, hung with bells and amulets, seating one or two people and rolling swiftly on polished wooden wheels. The slaves wore a harness over their shoulders, their godbraids bounced and rattled as they ran with the carriages jingling behind them.

Hekat stared. One day she would ride in a carriage like that. Proudly, with Abajai, so all Et-Raklion would know she was precious. She thought of the man in that savage north village, and was sorry he would never know that sending her away with the Traders was the only good thing he had ever done.

She and Retoth reached the bazaar at last, an enormous covered place crammed end to end and side to side with stalls and booths and foodsellers with trays on leather straps around their shoulders, hawking sweet jellies and spiced nuts and pastries dripping with honey. The air was almost too thick to breathe, so many smells, sweet and sour and sharp and soft. They filled her lungs and made her gasp. There were more people beneath this one high roof, shouting and laughing and singing and arguing, than lived in that village in the north.

Retoth took her by the arm and pulled her close. “Stay with me!” he bawled into her ear. A few steps away a woman and two men played drums and cymbals and a wailing wooden recorder. It was hard to hear Retoth above their noise. “My shadow, brat, or Abajai will be displeased!”

She pulled a face. Retoth used Abajai’s name the way the man had used his goat-stick, what a stupid slave. Abajai would never hurt her. But she’d be Retoth’s shadow, all the same. It would be easy to get lost in this shouting, stinking, crowded bazaar.

He took her to a booth filled with racks and racks of clothing. Two fat women pounced, like sandcats on rock mice. She was pulled behind a saggy curtain, poked and prodded, made to undress, then try on tunic after tunic, pantaloons, robes, so many clothes, till she wanted to scream. The only reason she did not scratch out their eyes was because they had a mirror that showed all of her body, from her godbraided head to her bare brown toes.