An Antidote to Fire, Chapter Two

I carried Luce into the Bergmarkian Embassy in a canvas sack. The ball was a formal affair, so foot-wrappings were not appropriate. Instead, I had bound Luce’s wrists and ankles, removed the cheap slave-bells, and left her barefoot.

Ahead of me, Belzac carried his Orane in a similar sack, disdaining the assistance of the embassy’s arbi. It helped that Orane was petite, although Belzac had more strength than one might guess from his age and lack of height. Behind us, Belzac’s arbi pulled his oversized rickshaw away.

During the short trip to the Embassy the two slavegirls had lain side-by-side, with only their heads exposed, chatting with each other. Belzac and I had sat next to them silently watching the traffic. Draft animals aren’t permitted in the city of Renes, and in any case the world of Trion doesn’t have horses (or any other riding animal, for that matter). Outside of Renes, Cernians use vosk as draft, milk, and meat animals.

I had yet to encounter a vosk, except as dinner, but I understood that they were vaguely cow-like or buffalo-like creatures with a fair bit of goat in the mix. The females and gelded males are docile enough when pulling carts, and even when used as pack animals, but they object strenuously to being ridden. And as I’ve said, they’re not permitted in the city. So in Renes people walked or rode in arbi-carried sedan chairs or arbi-pulled rickshaws.

As I carried Luce into the entrance hall, I felt her squirm with memory, and my Master’s ear heard her recognition of the place. I felt it too. We had been in the Bergmark embassy only once before, just after I had rescued her from the Ysbene. The Black Druid had contrived to recapture her, with Ysbene aid, and she had come within an ace of being branded. Or rather, she had been branded, but I had fortunately saved her before any fire poison could be rubbed into the burn.

An embassy arbi led us through a set of double doors and into an area carpeted in red and yellow - the Kingdom of Bergmark’s colors. In an alcove set off from the main hall, Belzac exchanged his boots for formal guest-slippers and removed Orane from her sack. He freed her ankles and set her barefoot on the carpet, leaving her arms bound. I did likewise with Luce. The Bergmarkian aide stationed there looked us over to ensure that we met the standards, and nodded approval. Orane gave him a grave look of acknowledgement, and then, unexpectedly, a haughty toss of her head. A moment later, Luce followed suit. The aide’s lips twitched as he turned to announce us to the party already gathered in the hall.

This hall had only a few dozen candles burning, but it was even more lavishly equipped with mirrors and chandeliers than Belzac’s hôtel. The alchemically enhanced glass took the light and multiplied it by a thousandfold or more to produce an especially bright and ostentatious display. Luce and I both blinked.

“It’s a good light for jewelry, master,” Luce said. I nodded, looking around for familiar faces. I didn’t see any, at first, but there was a lot of jewelry, sparkling in the light. The slavegirls wore tunics and sleeveless gowns of brightly dyed fabric, in solid colors as the current style demanded, and decorated with jeweled brooches and belts. In addition they wore bracelets and anklets and collars, jewelry set in their long hair, and in some cases ear-cuffs and jeweled ear-chains. No earrings, however. The piercings would have to be cauterized and the fire poison applied to keep them from healing over, and that was something Islander masters would not do.

The men wore jewelry as well, if not nearly as much as our female property. We all had our red-crystal amulets, of course, and many of us also wore rings, neckchains, and masculine armbands set above the elbow. In all, it made for a colorful, sparkling spectacle in which the plain wooden arbi, circulating with trays of food and drink, were almost invisible.

I finally saw a familiar face: Marlon del Saville, dressed in the comfortably sloppy clothing he favored. It was completely out of place in this formal setting, but he could get away with it since he was easily the richest man in Cern. Talking with him was another familiar face, Karl Troken-vor, the Bergmarkian ambassador, and an earnest young man I didn’t recognize. Nearby, sitting on one of the fat sausage-shaped cushions that served as Bergmarkian chairs were Marlon’s twin slavegirls, Ceci and Daisi. They were talking with another slavegirl, a busty blonde. I heard Ceci telling her “Yes, both of us wore spectacles in the commune. When we were sold, our new masters applied the usual eyewash, and for some reason it didn’t ‘take’ on me the way it did with Daisi. The theory is that somewhere deep inside I didn’t want to stop wearing them, so I still have them even though my sister doesn’t.”

My Master’s ear heard Luce’s curiosity. She knew I could hear what the other slavegirls were saying, even if no one else could at this distance. I waved permission, and she turned to join them, walking with the usual care of a slavegirl with her arms bound.

I headed to Marlon. “ ‘Evening, lad,” he greeted me, and introduced the earnest man standing next to him: “This is Pierce, one of my associates. Pierce, this is John-Smith, the adept everyone’s talking about.”

Pierce lifted his fist, and after an instant I lifted mine, in the mime-a-toast gesture that Cernians used instead of shaking hands. “I’m pleased to meet you, John-Smith,” he said.

“Pierce is a pretty good trouble-hunter for me, when he’s not fighting duels,” Marlon said. Pierce fingered his shoulder gingerly.

“Recently?” I asked. “You should be letting your slavegirl fawn over you.”

He smiled in embarrassment. “That was the object of the duel. A gentleman offered to buy my slave, I insisted on a price of ninety-eight Sceptres and bloody steel - and he paid it, yesterday morning.”

Ambassador Troken-vor and I nodded our understanding. In order for a slavegirl to be a slave, there has to be at least a theoretical possibility of her being sold. Otherwise she would diminish mentally, not as fast as if she were freed outright, but just as surely. But by law and custom a master’s asking price for his slavegirl can include ‘bloody steel.’ In some cases it’s a formality: The buyer offers a small blade for the seller to prick his finger on. In most cases, however, it involves a duel - and I knew of a few cases where it would really mean ‘over my dead body.’

“You know the Ambassador, of course,” Marlon went on.

“Good to see you again,” Troken-vor said. He extended his hand, and I took it in for what I still thought of as a ‘normal’ handshake. In this world, only the Bergmarkians had that custom.

“I’ve been following your project with some interest,” he went on. “All the civilized world is wishing for your success.” Which I thought was an interesting way of putting it. The Four Empires hated the though of an antidote, and so Troken-vor’s phrase insulted them in a diplomatically deniable way.

I trotted out my stock response: “It’s a hard problem. The more I investigate it, the less confidence I have.”

“But you have made such progress already; with your ice-maker, your miniature arbi, and your test planks. All you need is a little time - and proper support, of course.”

“I’ve been receiving very generous support,” I said. It was almost an understatement: Marlon, the Crown of Cern, and many anonymous donors had provided an embarrassment of riches. I had been able to move out of the small associate’s lab in Belzac’s hôtel and into a much larger one in the next building over. In the new lab, I had devised an alchemical treatment for wooden strips that allowed me to try out my test-antidotes on something other than living beings. Other alchemical adepts considered this to be even more astonishing than my ice-maker, and their praise left me feeling uncertain. Were they overestimating me, or was I underestimating myself?

“But it would help to be closer to sources of supply, would it not?” Troken-vor asked. “Not to have to rely on smugglers and smuggled goods? The Kingdom of Bergmark does have a small industry in special toxins. Tightly regulated, of course, but not completely illegal the way it is in Cern.” His tone and expression were both entirely reasonable as he said this, and I reminded myself again that he was an experienced diplomat. He had hit on a sore point: I had test-strips, but without the missing shipment of reagents I wouldn’t be able to produce anything to test.

“Well then, Karl,” Marlon rescued me. “You can arrange a shipment in your diplomatic pouch. There’s no need for you to lure John-Smith and his lab to Bergmark.”

“It would be my duty to lure John-Smith to Bergmark, if I though I could succeed. As it is...” Troken-vor shrugged, and then changed the subject: “I see your Luce has already met my Leota. I should introduce her to you, as well.”

I could hear the faint Bergmarkian accent of the blonde slavegirl, and as we wandered over I started paying attention to her words. “Oh, but I do hope you can come see it someday.” She gestured with careful grace. Her arms weren’t bound behind her like Luce’s, but her wrists and ankles were fettered with golden chains. “It’s a deep blue, like a perfect sea-grotto, except of course it’s fresh water. I think that’s an advantage, actually. Masters bring their girls there for bathing and swimming, and there’s a bakery nearby that sells the best cinnamon sweetcakes.”

“I’d very much like to see it, sometime,” Luce said. “After my master finishes his project. Until then I’m afraid he’ll be too busy for such a trip.”

“I understand,” the blonde said. As I got closer, I saw that she wore a noticeable amount of makeup. This was a point where Bergmarkian custom different from Cernian. Cernian slavegirls used their master’s aqua vita to keep themselves young and healthy, and stronger elixirs on occasion, but except for perfumes they normally didn’t bother with mundane cosmetics.

A moment later, Troken-vor introduced her to me: “This is my Leota, John-Smith.”

“My lord,” Leota bowed her head to me. She wore a pleated slave tunic, white with gold piping that matched her hair. Her fingers and toes had several rings on them that matched the shackles on her wrists and ankles.

I looked expectantly at Troken-vor and Pierce. “Leota has already been introduced to me,” the Pierce said as he looked at Luce.

“Ah,” I said, taking the hint. “Pierce, this is my Luce.”

“My lord.” Luce bowed her head in imitation of Leota. He smiled at her.

“What is your price for her?” he asked me.

“One-hundred-two Sceptres - and bloody steel.” I felt mildly pleased at the way I managed to bring out the formula without hesitation.

“I will have to look elsewhere then,” Pierce said. “Not that you wouldn’t be worth bloody steel, to a man with an unwounded shoulder,” he added to Luce.

“Thank you, my lord,” Luce said. She edged closer to me, and when I touched her my Master’s ear heard her pleasure at being bargained over. She knew it was an irrational pleasure, but she didn’t care: She still felt it. Slavegirls love the idea of being bought and at the same time hate the idea of being sold. They call it the “paradox of sale” and it keeps them from thinking straight about their own sale and purchase. So they don’t bother trying.

I lifted my hand to summon an arbi. My Master’s ear had also heard a growing hunger and thirst in Luce, and it was my responsibility to feed her. Most of the other slavegirls in the room had their ankles hobbled but their hands free, or at least cuffed in front of them so that they could eat and drink. But Luce still had her hands tied behind her and her ankles free. I had foolishly left all my locking cuffs and fetters at the hôtel, and Luce wasn’t ready to be the only unbound slavegirl at the party. So I sat beside her on the sausage-cushion, and fed her sweet wine and nibblements from a tray brought by the arbi. I smiled. Having a bound slavegirl eat from your hand is one of the more pleasant ways of establishing your mastery over her.

As I fed Luce, I was vaguely aware of Pierce talking with Ceci and Daisi, and of Leota whispering to her master. Then Troken-vor said, “John-Smith. Perhaps you will find these useful.” I looked up to see an arbi with another tray, not of food and drink, but of a dozen little devices.

“Oh, how clever!” Ceci said as she and her twin sister leaned forward to look more closely at them. Leota sat back, beaming with pride.

“My Leota made them,” Troken-vor said, “and she’s teaching our arbi to make more. It’s her hobby.”

I picked up one of the little gizmos. It was a rope-lock of a new and clever design, locking with a key, rather than using a simple locking-lever. I held it up, looking into it as I turned the key, and saw the nubs inside the lock close down. I turned the key again and felt the lock open smoothly as it sensed my maleness. Like many of the locks in the Island Kingdoms, it had been elixired to resist being opened by slavegirls.

My Master’s ear heard Luce’s curiosity, so I untied her hands and allowed her to examine the locks. She turned one over in her hands, held it up to the light, and tried the key. It wouldn’t turn for her, of course. “They are clever, master,” Luce told me. “Most rope-locks are too simple to take elixiring.”

I retied Luce’s hands in front of her, threading a pair of the rope-locks onto the ropes and fastening them in place. Luce could now reach the knots, barely, but the locks kept her from untying them. She tried, briefly, to confirm this, then went back to examining a third lock, holding it with her tied-together hands. Ceci and Daisi sat looking over more of the rope-locks while Leota pointed out various features. We masters sat watching them, listening with our Masters’ ears, and nursing our drinks.

After a few minutes of this, Troken-vor said. “If you will excuse me, I see Ambassador Farad by the buffet. I’d like to catch him with his mouth full.”

Ceci and Daisi looked up at that. “May we accompany you, my lord?” Ceci asked, blinking at him through her glasses.

“May we accompany him, master?” Daisi asked with an identical tone and expression, except without glasses.

Marlon opened his hand in a permissive gesture. Troken-vor thought for a moment, and then nodded. “With your permission,” he told Marlon, “I’ll take these two and abandon Leota to you for a bit.” Ceci and Daisi stood and followed him as he made his way across the room. A minute later, Marlon and Pierce also wandered off, escorting Leota between them.

I snagged another glass of yellow wine for myself and sat on a cushion, continuing to watch Luce. She continued to examine the rope-lock, working out its mechanism. “Foolishness,” a voice said from over my shoulder. I looked up to see Ambassador Zheng from the Sinon Empire. “It’s foolishness to allow your slaves to examine their locks,” he went on. “Even from your Islander perspective: It increases their chances of escaping the locks and running away on their big feet to become wild women. Sinon has had its differences with the Island Kingdoms, I know, but not so much that I’d wish diminishment on this beauty here.” He raised a glass of yellow wine in a half-mocking salute.

Luce smiled at him. “I thank you, my lord, for your concern,” she said, matching mockery for mockery. “But Harmonizer girls are said to be slaves to curiosity as much as to their masters. If a master is willing to let that curiosity be satisfied, a girl can only be grateful.”

“And a master can only be pleased by his girl’s gratitude,” I added. “Especially if it can be bought by such simple trinkets.”

Zheng raised an eyebrow. Ambassador Farad, from the Ysbene Empire, would have answered that a slavegirl should simply be beaten until she was grateful to her master for stopping. Zheng was more subtle. “Certainly a master’s whim is not for a slavegirl to question,” he said. “I had merely hoped that you would have a more sensible attitude, John-Smith. A saucy and inquisitive slavegirl requires so much work to keep contained. A little ignorance, a little adjustment applied to Luce, and you could relax and enjoy life. You would not have to struggle with your intractable problems.”

My Master’s ear heard Luce planning a tart retort. She didn’t like any of the ambassadors from the Four Empires, but she especially didn’t like Zheng, despite - or perhaps because - she was one-quarter Sinonese herself. Her grandfather had left Sinon to escape the anti-Harmonizer persecution there.

“I like Luce as she is,” I said, nudging her in a signal to keep quite. “She’s pleasant to look at, pleasant to hold, and she keeps me amused. She gives me good advice, and I only have to keep her properly helpless.” Luce stretched to kiss me and nibbled at my ear. My Master’s ear heard that her display was for Zheng’s benefit, but it also heard her genuine affection for me. I felt absurdly pleased as I enfolded her in my arms. “And she’s wonderfully affectionate,” I added as I gave Zheng my best ‘disingenuous’ look. “I value her far too much to try the experiment you advise.”

“So I see,” Zheng said. “But I should like to see you experiment anyway. With your permission, I would like to offer you a true Sinonese slave as a gift. She would show you the advantages of modesty in a girl.”

“Modesty.” The word tasted foul. Zheng’s idea of ‘modesty’ was to chop the feet off a girl, cauterize the stumps, and then apply the branding poison so that they couldn’t be regenerated. I though of Zerbino’s Hoshi, chop-footed and unnaturally shy. I had never had the chance to listen to her with my Master’s ear, but I had once listened to a shipment of branded girls from Ysbene. The spikes of terror in their spirits still gave me an occasional nightmare, and unlike Ife, they hadn’t benefited from a miraculous healing. I wanted to find the antidote in order to help them. But at that moment I also wanted to find the antidote in order to shove Zheng’s smugness up his nose.

Now Luce was trying to hold back my anger, worrying about it and knowing that my Master’s ear would hear that worry. I considered several retorts, listened to Luce’s response as she deduced each of them, and forced myself to smile. “Thank you sir,” I settled on, “but no. I prefer to watch my slavegirl dance, from time to time.”

I saw a momentary glitter in Zheng’s eyes, before his diplomat’s mask fell back into place. “I too enjoy watching slaves dance from time to time,” he said. “It’s quite a spectacle, in a barbaric sort of way. There will be a dance later this evening, I understand, and I hope we can watch it together.” His return smile was as unfriendly as my own. “At the moment, however, I see Ambassador Farad with his mouth full, and if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to go catch him at a disadvantage.” He sketched a bow and moved off, stiff with the Imperial hauteur that he usually managed to disguise.

“Is that a new clich矩n the diplomatic circles?” I asked Luce, trying to lighten the mood. “ ‘I see Ambassador Farad with his mouth full, and I’d like to catch him at a disadvantage?’ “

“It would seem so, master,” Luce agreed. “Perhaps we can introduce a new clich笠Maybe ‘I see Ambassador Zheng is spewing wine out his nose, and I’d like to catch him at a disadvantage.’ “

I choked on my own wine. When I could speak again, I managed to rasp, “It’s hard to imagine Zheng doing that. Farad, yes, or the Ularian Ambassador, what’s-his-name.”

“Count Dorland, master.”

“Yes, him. But not Zheng.” I grinned, then sobered. “So what did you make of that odd encounter?” I asked. “As nearly as I could tell, Zheng was just playing the inscrutable Sinonese Poobah to keep us off balance.”

“He was frightened, master,” Luce answered, turning serious herself. “He was frightened of you and your project, and he wanted you to stop. I could tell that you didn’t take him seriously, but he really would have given you a chopped-foot girl if you had agreed. It would have been partly a bribe, and partly just to slow you down.”

“Hm. Maybe I should have asked him for a girl who still has her feet - tell him that I wanted to chop them myself. And then I could delay forever about doing so. You’d have an esoeur.” I used the Cernian term meaning, roughly ‘slave-sister.’ Sometimes they were actual sisters, or even twins like Ceci and Daisi. More often, however, they were just two slavegirls owned by the same master. “It would still slow me down, dealing with two of you at once.”

“You’re still not taking it seriously, master,” Luce said. “Mmm,” she added as I rubbed the back of her neck.

“No... I was assuming that Zheng is just being petty about delaying me. Spiteful. But if he’s seriously trying to stop the project - can he?” I asked. “I thought he was being petty because he couldn’t do anything more.”

“Mmm. I thought the same, master. In fact I told you so, remember? It’s nice of you not to task me with that. Mmm.”

I continued to rub her neck. “Well, we both agreed, and then this new data came in. So what do you think now?”

“He’s serious, master. He’s frightened and desperate. He knows, or should know, that the odds are against him, but he’s still willing to spend a fortune and call in many favors to try to stop you. It must have been a major effort for him to divert the reagents we didn’t get today.” She looked up. “Here comes lord Pierce, to offer his help about that, and to tell us about the rumors.”

Pierce took a seat on a cushion across from us. “John-Smith. Luce,” he nodded, and then went on in a lowered voice: “I heard you had some problems with your latest shipment.”

“Who told you?” I asked. “Marlon?”

“Ceci,” he answered. “It’s the same thing, in the end. But the rumors are all over, and some of them are strange.” He paused, and then went on. “I’d like to help, if I can. I’d like to see you succeed, and if you need a trouble-hunter, Captain Marlon said he’d be willing to second me to you.”

Luce beamed. I didn’t begrudge her. “I’d like to take your help,” I told Pierce. “Shamelessly, in fact. I’ve been spending silver like water, and I think I’ve broken half the smuggling laws in the kingdom, but I don’t seem to be getting any forwarder. I’ll take all the help I can get.”

“I couldn’t help much before by contributing silver,” he said. “Not like Captain Marlon. But I know people in Brost, if you’re going there.”

“My master’s ashamed to have spent so much of other people’s money, my lord,” Luce told him. “He thinks it’s been wasted.”

“Luce,” I said with mock severity. “This is a diplomatic party. You’re not supposed to tell the truth here.”

Pierce smiled briefly, and then went serious again. “I don’t think the money’s been wasted,” he told me. “You’ve already produced some valuable innovations: Those wooden planks, for testing poisons. The miniature arbi you’ve made. And that ‘ice’ of yours - that’ll be worth all the silver you’ve spent, all by itself.”

“Once I get the bugs worked out, maybe,” I said. “But I need those reagents before I can do anything further.”

“Bugs?”

“Problems. Faults. It’s a term from my Past.”

“Oh,” Pierce said. He looked past my shoulder. “I think we should talk about this later.”

Three or four men came up from behind me, accompanied by an equal number of slavegirls. “John-Smith!” one of them said. “I’ve heard you were having problems with your reagent shipment.” I made myself smile and prepared to be noncommittal.

Some time later, I was relieved to hear the music start. The - ‘chamber orchestra’ would be the best term - consisted of eight musicians in a typical pattern: A man and his slavegirl playing a pair of stringed instruments called zinntaurs, another man and slavegirl playing woodwinds that were identical to the recorders of my Past, and four arbi forming a percussion section with drums and chimes. Arbi obviously can’t play wind instruments, and they’re also poor at playing strings. They can handle percussion instruments, however, especially if they have human musicians to follow.

As the introductory music played, men and their slavegirls gathered to form a dancing circle. I led Luce toward it. She feigned reluctance, but my Master’s ear heard her eagerness to get away from our questioners. If I hadn’t started pushing her in the direction of the circle, she might have tried to drag me.

The circle itself was just an open area on the carpet, perhaps 30 or 40 feet across, with people standing around the edges. Shortly after we reached it, the music changed to a traditional dance melody. Ambassador Troken-vor unchained his Leota and released her into the circle. She began to spin in place, arms raised above her head, and then to work her way clockwise around the circle as she whirled. We men began to clap in time to the music. Other slavegirls entered the circle and moved clockwise around it, spinning, skipping, or capering as they went. Some of the men entered the circle to dance the male counterpoint, leaping and stomping in place. I didn’t, though; I didn’t know the steps well enough. I did untie Luce, however, launching her to dance in the circle as I clapped time to the music.

The dance came to an end, with the slavegirls returning to their masters. A few were led off at once, but most of the slaves were tied before being led or carried off. I gave Luce a hug and a kiss, raising a few eyebrows. The other men acted as if their girls were made of spun glass, until they could shackle them and listen with their Master’s ear. I grinned and knelt before Luce to hobble her ankles, using the slaver’s rope and the rope locks that I had stuck in my sash. At once my Master’s ear could hear her again; she was amused by the others’ reaction to my hugging her while ‘deaf,’ but all in all she preferred my second hug and kiss. When I could listen, my hold on her was subtly different and more comfortable for us both.

The musicians began playing the introduction for the second dance, and I stripped Luce’s tunic from her before unhobbling her again. When the dance began, about half the slavegirls were launched into it nude, except for their jewelry. This dance had the girls moving in a more intricate pattern inside the circle, while we men linked arms and danced slowly counterclockwise around the circumference. The warm room grew warmer.

By the third dance, all the girls were nude, and very pleasant to look on. The music came with a faster tempo as the dances continued. Occasionally a sweating girl would drop out, to be shackled and toweled by her master, and allowed to cool down. Occasionally a new girl would join the dance. Luce, I knew, wanted to dance through the whole cycle. She was good dancer. Not the best one there, perhaps, but far from the worst.

In the middle of the eleventh and final dance, the major-domo announced “His Excellency Farad ib Farad, Ambassador of the Ysbene Empire, and -” I heard Ambassador Farad cut him off, but even my ears couldn’t make out what he said, over the music. I wondered what was going on. I knew Farad had already been here - not only had I heard people using him as an excuse to break away from talking with me, I had seen him myself, over by the buffet. He must have left, and then returned with a slavegirl of his own. Which also was puzzling. Men in the Island Kingdoms despise the way that Imperials treat their slavegirls, and the other way around. As a result, there’s an unspoken rule against masters from the Four Empires bringing their slavegirls to affairs hosted by the Island Kingdoms, and vice versa.

About half a minute after the announcement, the music slithered to a halt and a wave of consternation swept through the room. Luce came up to me. I pulled a pair of thumbcuffs from my sash and locked her thumbs in front of her, then took a towel from a nearby arbi and started drying the sweat from her.

“What happened, master?” she asked.

“Ambassador Farad left, and just came back. He -” My Master’s ear heard the understanding ring through Luce, as she deduced events before I finished describing them. “He brought in a girl of his own,” I continued. “I don’t know why. We’d better let someone else rescue her; I don’t think there’ll be any shortage of volunteers.” Luce nodded. There was ‘history’ between Ambassador Farad and us. Our last encounter with him had ended with a grudging exchange of apologies - with the apologies being exchanged in this very building, in fact.

Then I heard Luce’s mood turn to wry disagreement. “You may not have a choice, master,” she said. I looked up and followed her gaze. The crowd had parted around Ambassador Farad, keeping their distance from him, and he was heading directly toward us. He had a switch in his right hand, and his left hand held the end of a leash. The other end was attached to the collar of a nude slavegirl who crawled in front of him.

She kept her head down, so I couldn’t see her face, but she looked like a Sinonese girl. Her hair was long, black, and glossy, and her skin a golden tan. And her feet had been cut off, long enough ago for the stumps to have healed.

I sat down on one of the sausage-cushions, and pulled Luce down to sit beside me. She slid on down to sit on the floor at my feet, and I realized that she didn’t want to set herself above the other girl. I patted her shoulder to signal my understanding, and heard a faint smile from her. Then I locked my stare onto Farad.

He stopped in front of me, and slapped the girl with his switch. “Display yourself, bitch,” he told her. She rose to her knees and placed her hands behind her head. Her features were Sinonese, and at the moment ravaged with woe. Her left breast had a fresh brand on it, a cruel placement even by Ysbene standards. Normally the Ysbene brand the thigh. With my physical ears I heard quiet gasps from the people nearby - and through my Master’s ear I heard a shock of recognition from Luce. A shock I shared.

Cold. I told myself. I must be cold, and wait for Farad’s strike before attempting a riposte.

Farad spoke with an oily voice at odds with the malicious gleam in his eyes: “John-Smith. I would like to present you with a small token of the gratitude that Ysbene feels for your contributions to all mankind.” He proffered the leash in his left hand. I didn’t take it. I sat still, stalling, thinking fast, or trying to.

Accepting this branded girl as a gift wouldn’t diminish her, the way it would an unbranded Cernian slavegirl. But I knew it would hurt her in a different way. I might refuse her, but that would leave her in Farad’s hands. I might offer to purchase her, rather than accepting her as a gift, but I hadn’t brought nearly enough coin with me for that purpose.

Then I saw Pierce, standing behind Farad, holding up a coinpurse and gesturing with it. Luce understood at once, but my Master’s ear could only hear that she did understand. Pierce repeated the gesture two more times, and then I finally got it. I looked back at Farad and smiled my own smile - or at least showed my teeth.

“I thank your excellency,” I intoned. “However, I cannot accept such a jewel; it is far too worthy a gift for my poor self. On the other hand, I would like to recommend my friend Pierce to your attention.”

Pierce stepped up at his cue. “Your excellency,” he said. “I should like to purchase this jewel from you. How much do you ask for her?”

Now it was Farad’s turn to think. He’d have to name a price; if he didn’t, Pierce could challenge him to a duel for the girl’s possession. Given the crowd’s mood, Farad might even be forced to duel on the spot. The same applied if he named an absurdly high price. He’d have to guess a number high enough to discourage Pierce but not high enough to justify a duel.

“Three hundred golden scepters,” Farad said at last.

“Done!” Pierce said, and held out a purse fat with coins. A flash of anger passed over Farad’s face, and then he forced himself to laugh.

“I missed my calling,” he said. “Instead of an Ambassador for the Sultan, I should have been a slave dealer, among you Cernians. I would have made a fortune, cheating you.” He handed to leash to Pierce with a flamboyant gesture, and took the coinpurse in exchange. “She is yours!”

(If you want the rest, you’ll have to buy the e-book, available at Fiction4All.)