The Godspeaker Trilogy (8 page)

Even so. He would send for her soon. She was precious, he must miss her as she missed him.

While she waited she learned her Mijaki picture-letters and word-symbols, practiced writing them with her stylus on the damp clay tablets the tutor brought with him each day, and read aloud from the baked clay tablets he left behind for her to study. And when she was outside in the slaves’ garden, pulling weeds and raking leaves and spreading chicken dung on the vegetables, she would hear in her head the chiming of his tambourine, and lightly dance the steps he taught her.

When Abajai sent for her at last he would be so proud of his clever, beautiful Hekat.

He summoned her a finger before lowsun on the twenty-ninth day.

She was in her chamber, practicing her writing, when the slave Retoth entered unannounced. Such a rude man, she did not like him. “Get up,” he said. “The master wants you.”

She liked best to write lying flat on the floor, with the soft pink woven carpet tickling her skin. She leapt up. “Abajai sends to see me now? Aieee, I must dress for him!”

Retoth folded his arms. “You are dressed already.”

“Tcha!” she said scornfully, and rummaged in the wooden trunk that contained her fine bazaar clothes. “I must be beautiful for Abajai! He will wait for me.”

“Arrogant wretch,” said Retoth, under his breath, but that was all. He knew she was right.

She selected a tunic striped in emerald and lapis blue, and pantaloons the color of flame. She pulled off her yellow shift, it didn’t matter that Retoth could see her skin. He was a gelding, not a man. Except for Obid, all the villa’s male slaves were geldings. Gelding made men docile, Nada said. Otherwise they got themselves in trouble.

Beautifully dressed for Abajai, with her snake-eye amulet dangling for him to see, she followed Retoth upstairs into the villa. Abajai sat in the same lavish room as before. Yagji was there too, reclining on his favorite couch with his stupid monkey Hooli leaping and capering and spitting date stones on the carpets.

She was so pleased to see Abajai, she wanted to run to him, to dance for him, to show him he could trust her above the stairs, in the villa, in the city of Et-Raklion.

But she didn’t run, or dance. His face told her he wanted her to walk, to be silent, to hold inside all her shouting pleasure. She obeyed, because she loved him.

“Retoth,” said Abajai, relaxed on his own couch. “You give a good report of Hekat below the stairs?”

Retoth’s face was sour but he could not lie. “A good report, master.”

“And what does the tutor tell you?”

“The tutor tells me Hekat learns swiftly, master.”

Abajai turned to Yagji, who had captured the monkey Hooli and was holding it in his arms. “Was I not right, Yagji?”

Yagji shrugged. “Half right, so far.” He began brushing his stupid pet’s brown and white coat with an ivory-backed brush. “As for the rest, Aba, it remains to be seen.”

Abajai took a large clay tablet from the table beside him and held it out. “Read this to me, Hekat.”

The tablet was heavy. If she dropped and broke it Abajai would be angry. She would keep hold of it no matter how cruelly her fingers ached. She studied the tablet’s writing closely, then took a deep breath.

“‘For obedience pleases the god,’” she read slowly, sounding out each symbol with teeth and tongue. “‘Sacrifice pleases it. Offerings—offerings—’”

“Swell,” said Abajai. “That symbol means ‘swell.’ Do you know the word ‘swell,’ Hekat?”

Mute, she shook her head. She could not read Abajai the tablet. She had failed him. Pricky tears burned her eyes.

“It means to increase,” said Abajai. “To make larger. It is an old-fashioned word. Keep reading.”

Blinking, she looked again at the clay tablet. “‘Offerings swell the—the—’” Aieee, another word-symbol she did not know. She knew the word-sounds, weren’t they enough? She stared at it, heart pounding. What did the stupid tutor say? The stupid tutor said to look at the word-symbols around the word-symbol she did not know and see if they could help her guess its meaning. She looked again at the other word-symbols. Offerings swell the something . But what?

That symbol there, it was almost the sign for the god. Almost, but not quite. Memory stirred, showed her the time she and Retoth walked through the streets to the bazaar. Godposts on street corners. Young godspeakers tipping coins into their leather bags . . .

“‘ Godbowl !’” she shouted, triumphant. “Abajai, Hekat knows this word-symbol now, it means godbowl!”

Abajai clapped his hands. “Well done, Hekat. Keep reading.”

“‘Offerings swell the godbowl. The scorpion stings the man with—with—’” It was no good. She had not been reading so very many highsuns. She could not guess the rest.

“‘With a heart like stone,’” said Abajai. “These words are given us by Et-Raklion’s high godspeaker, Hekat. Can you see his name writ on the tablet?”

She looked, hard. Yes. There was a name there. The stupid tutor had taught her to write her own name, and Abajai’s, and even Yagji’s. She frowned at it, sounding it out in the silence of her head.

“Nagarak,” she said at last. “The name is Nagarak.”

“Yes, it is,” said Abajai. “You have been listening to your tutor, Hekat. Abajai is pleased with you.”

Abajai is pleased . The words sang in her heart, she could not keep her laughter secret. Abajai retrieved the clay tablet, then from a wooden box by the chamber window took a painted tambourine. He gave it to Retoth.

“Make music, Retoth, so Hekat can dance.”

Dancing, said the stupid tutor, was a way of honoring the god. Dancing made the body lithe and supple, it stretched the muscles and strengthened the heart. When she danced her silver godbells sang without ceasing, as the music sang within her blood. She felt alive, she felt connected to the ground and the sky and the air all around her. It seemed she knew how to dance before the stupid tutor showed her one thing about it, as though the dance was already inside her, waiting to come out.

She danced for Abajai, honoring him.

When she was finished, her body warm and glowing, the last tambourine chime died away, even Yagji praised her.

“Very pretty,” he said, with the stupid monkey still in his arms. “That was a pretty dance.”

“Hekat is graceful,” said Abajai. “Graceful and beautiful.”

“Abajai . . .” She stepped forward. “Abajai, I have been good. I work in the garden, I clean in the kitchen, I study with the tutor five fingers every day. I am not savage now, I read and dance, I have sweet breath and clean skin. When can I join you in the villa?”

“In the villa?” said Yagji, and tittered. “So, Aba, not so intelligent after all.”

Abajai frowned. “You live beneath the villa. Hekat, with the other slaves. That is your place here.”

He did not understand. She clasped her hands behind her back. “Abajai, Hekat is thinking. Hekat wants to be a Trader.”

Retoth dropped the tambourine, bang jangle jangle. Hooli shrieked and leapt out of Yagji’s arms. Abajai sat up very slowly, his lips pinched, his eyes cool.

“I am not stupid, Abajai,” she said, eager to explain. “I can learn Trader business. You have no son, I can be a son to you. I can help you in your Trading.”

“ Aieee !” said Yagji, and fanned his face. “It says it’s not stupid, then asks to be one of us? Aba, Aba, did I not tell you? Did I not warn you? Did I not—”

“Silence, Yagji!” said Abajai, standing. “Hekat, are you demonstruck?”

Demonstruck? Dry-mouthed she stared up at him, so tall, so looming. “Abajai?”

He shook his head, as though he were pained with disappointment. “You are a slave , Hekat. I bought you with my silver coin. You were there, you saw your father sell you to me. You are not like a child of my bloodline, you are property .”

Property? No. No. That could not be right. Hekat was precious, she was not a slave . “But, Abajai, how can that be true?” she whispered. “I rode on the white camel, I slept in your tent. I did not eat the slave food with the slaves. I never wore slave chains. I have no slave-braid.”

“ There !” said Yagji, pouty and cross. “Perhaps now you will grant me my wisdom, Aba. Buy it a slave-braid, I told you in Todorok. Don’t make a pet of it, I said from the start. Would you heed me? No, you would not. And see what has happened? It is grown proud and ignorant, this precious slave of yours, it does not know its place in the world.”

“Yes, I am precious!” she said, ignoring Yagji. “I am Hekat, precious and beautiful. I read, I write, I dance. I wear silk and linen, I am taught by a paid tutor, your slaves are not taught.”

Abajai sighed, and dropped to one knee before her. His warm hands rested on her shoulders. “Hekat. Listen to me. It is true I have treated you differently. I bought you fine clothes, and pay a tutor to teach you. This does not mean you are not a slave. I have done these things to increase your value.”

Increase her value? It was a good thing Abajai’s hands held her shoulders, she would float away if they did not, her body felt so light, her head was a cloud.

“Abajai will sell me?” she asked him, faintly.

He could not sell her. How could he sell her? He loved her, she was certain. She knew she loved him. She knew what love was now, the tutor read her stories about men and women loving.

Stupid Yagji rolled his eyes. “ Tell her, Aba. Tell her now what you should have told her from the first. Put her straight and end this nonsense!”

H
eart pounding, Hekat glared her hate at stupid Yagji. She was hot, she was burning, if she touched the fat man he would burst into flame.

“Aieee!” he cried, and clutched his amulet. “See her eyes, Aba! She wants to hurt me, she is wicked ! I will not have her here anymore! You say Hekat is an investment? Investments become liabilities if they are not realized in time. She reads, she writes, I grant she dances with the god’s grace. And yes, she is beautiful. But Aba, she is a blight upon this household. The other slaves dislike her, she sows discord below the stairs with her arrogant ways! Ask Retoth. He will tell you.”

Abajai stood, his face a frown. “Am I to care for what slaves like or dislike? Am I not master of this villa?”

“You are to care if their disliking creates unrest,” said Yagji crossly. “Twelve other slaves we have here, all unhappy because of a thirteenth that daily costs us hard-earned coin. Is this good practice? You know it is not. The slaves obey because that is what slaves are for but they are not brute beasts, Aba, you have always said so. Our household is never plagued with slave mischief because you know that is true. But now you have forgot, you are so besotted with this wretched creature you cannot think past the gold coin you think she will fetch! You say the god guided you to that village? I say you listened to a demon!”

“ Tcha !” said Abajai, his hands turned to fists and the scarlet scorpion in his cheek writhing. “Speak blasphemy and the god will smite you. I am not besotted , Yagji. Hekat is blooming, true, ripe enough now to make a man look twice, but her full blossoming is yet to come. Are you deaf to me, Yagji? Have I not said to you, over and over, since we left the desolate village that spawned her: of Hekat I will create a concubine worthy of a warlord. Why else do I spend our good coin upon her? She is no common, ordinary slave, to be bought and broken and put into harness. She is a godgift, so we might be wealthy beyond our lifetimes. I will not sell her before she is ripe. I will sell every other slave here and change bed linens myself before I do such a foolish thing. Would you settle for a trickle of silver when soon enough she will give us a river of gold ?”

If Yagji said something in return, Hekat did not hear his words. Her body was breathless, and in her ears a terrible roaring, raging flames to blacken the world.

It was true. He meant to sell her. Gold mattered to Abajai, she did not. She was a thing to him, not a person, not his precious and beautiful Hekat. She was walking, talking, dancing gold. She had no words. There were no words. There was only pain like the devouring of dogs.

I loved you. I loved you. I thought you loved me.

Abajai said, “It is a pity you misread your purpose, Hekat. I hope you understand it now?”

She nodded. “I understand,” she whispered. Her throat was tight, it hurt to talk. “I am Abajai’s slave.”

“Yes. My slave. Still precious, still beautiful. But no more than a slave. It was foolish of you to think anything else.” He turned to Retoth. “Take her beneath the villa, Retoth. I think she will give you no more trouble.”

Retoth’s face was solemn but his eyes were laughing, he was laughing at her, he was pleased to see her brought so low. “Yes, master,” he said. “I think she knows her proper place.”

Hekat flinched. Retoth snapped his fingers at her in passing. She did not scold him, but followed him to the door. Five paces from it she slowed, and turned.

“Trader Abajai? You never loved me?”

“ Loved you?” said Yagji, and flapped his hands. “I was right all along, it is stupid, stupid !”

“Masters do not love their slaves,” said Abajai, impatient. “I am fond of you, Hekat, I wish you no ill. But love you? Aieee! Perhaps Yagji is right. Perhaps you are stupid.”

She ran at him screeching, reaching to claw out his eyes, his tongue, to tear his long godbraids out of his scalp. His swinging fist caught her, clubbed her sideways, she fell onto a low table and smashed it flat. The monkey Hooli screamed from the curtains and Yagji threw himself backwards, squealing.

Dazed, half unconscious, Hekat felt Abajai drag her onto her feet. His flat hand struck her, hard stinging blows. At first she fought him but it made no difference, he was strong, she was weak. In the end she stood there just like the woman, and let him hit her.

He was no different from the man.

“There,” he said, when he was finished beating her. “You are punished, Hekat. Now go with Retoth, you will sit in your chamber until he gives you permission to leave, you will eat no dinner. Tomorrow you will get your slave-braid in the godhouse, I will have no more of this nonsense. If your defiance continues the god will smite you. Do you understand?”

Her eyes were full of pricky tears. She would die before she let them fall. “I understand, Abajai.”

“I understand, master ,” said Abajai, sharply.

She nodded, even though that hurt her head. “I understand, master .”

“Good. Now go.”

She followed Retoth down the stairs, to the slaves’ place. He banged her chamber door shut behind her. She vomited the remains of her highsun meal into the pishpot, chicken and cornmush and spicy fried greens, then curled into a ball on the beautiful carpet, paid for by the sale of girls like herself. She felt small and cold yet still burning hot.

Yagji is right. I am stupid. Stupid.

In her dreams the man’s dogs chased her, howling and growling and running behind Abajai’s camel. Blood and spittle dripped from their open jaws, their claws like stone scythes scrabbled in the dirt. Abajai wasn’t riding his camel, he wasn’t warm and solid and comforting at her back, he was riding Yagji’s camel. There was Yagji, there was Abajai, and there was the stupid monkey Hooli, they rode the white camel all happy together, laughing and pointing at Hekat alone, and the man’s starving dogs were coming . . . they were coming . . .

“ Abajai !” screamed Hekat, and sat up on the floor.

In the chamber’s darkness her breathing sounded loud and frightened. Her skin was sweaty, her tunic and pantaloons damp and twisted about her body. She wiped her sleeve across her face and stood, silver godbells tinkling, feeling her heart hang hard on her ribs.

Retoth would not give her flint and striker to light her chamber lamp, she counted eight paces to the door and pulled it open, one finger wide. The passage beyond was lit with three candles, and she could hear no sounds of slaves walking or talking. It was late, then. The quiet time. She opened the door a little wider, some faint light creeping in, she counted six paces to her bed and sat. Her head felt sore, her mouth tasted mucky.

If I stay in this place, Abajai will sell me. In this place I am a goat fattening in the slaughter-pen, waiting for the knife. Waiting for a rich man’s coin to buy me. If I stay in this place I am truly a slave.

It did not matter that Abajai had given the man coin for her. She was not a slave, a weak nothing person like Retoth or Obid or Nada. Not in her heart, where she was her true self. But if she stayed here past this night Abajai would have her marked with a slave-braid and then she would be a slave, in Mijak’s eyes she would be property forever. Even if she cut off that slave-braid with the sharpest knife her hair would grow back again red as blood. A slave-braid was given by the god for life.

I have to run.

Shuddering, she remembered that runaway slave in Et-Nogolor city, the sound of his babbling agony, the flies in the slashed-open cavern of his belly. If she ran and was caught, that would be her. She would die as that slave died. Running was only the start, she had to run to somewhere, find a place where she could safely hide and make a new life.

But where? In Et-Raklion she knew Abajai, she knew Yagji, she knew the stupid tutor. They were the only free men she knew in all of Mijak, except for the man, and she couldn’t go back to the savage north. Even if she knew how to get there, even if she could journey so far on her own . . . she never would. That life in the village was slavery too. The man was poor, and Abajai was rich. Otherwise, they were the same.

Where can I go? Where will I be safe, and free ?

Gossip in the kitchen, slaves laughing over sadsa. Talking of other slaves in the bazaar, in the Slaughter district, with tales of Raklion warlord and his beautiful palace, his mighty warriors, the city within a city that was their warrior barracks.

Home to ten thousand fierce fighters and their horses, was Raklion’s barracks. Home to the blacksmiths who shod those horses, the artisans who forged the warriors’ weapons, crafted those leather chest-pieces to keep their godsparks safe inside, who built sleek swift chariots and the wheels they rode on. The cooks who fed the warriors and the workers, the laundries that kept their tunics clean. The stables to house the horses, the pens to house the animals whose carcasses fed the hungry ten thousand. Some were slaves who worked there, others were poor folk, eking out a living. That’s what the slaves said, gossiping in the kitchen, the laundry, in the villa’s gardens.

The barracks of Et-Raklion. A city within a city . . .

Surely one she-brat could find a home in such an anthill, unnoticed. Surely Abajai would not think to look for her in Raklion warlord’s warrior barracks.

He would not, she knew it. In the barracks she would be safe. All she had to do was reach them. Except she’d learned other things from slaves’ gossip in the kitchen: godspeakers walked the streets of Et-Raklion in the quiet time and to be found by a godspeaker then was to be punished by the god. If a godspeaker found her running away . . .

Hekat dropped to her knees on the beautiful carpet, she clenched her fingers into fists and pressed them to her pounding heart.

Let me leave here, god. Guide me to the warlord’s barracks. If you do this—if you do this for me—I will be yours forever. I will serve you with my last breath. My blood and bones will belong to you. I will be Hekat, slave of the god.

How long she knelt there, she did not know. The god did not speak to her, or if it did she could not hear it. Did that mean the god was not listening? Or had the god turned its back to her, was she unworthy to serve? Was Yagji right, did the god not see her heart at all?

The god sees me. It sees me. It saw me in the savage north, it will see me in Raklion’s barracks. It will. It must. I am Hekat, beautiful and precious. I was chosen by Abajai. I was chosen by the god.

Her heart still pounding, she got off the floor. If she was truly leaving it had to be now. Her godbells sang with every step she took and Retoth slept light as sadsa froth. She took a towel from the shelf by her bed and wrapped it round her singing godbraids so he would not wake. Then she slipped from her chamber, slid the nearest burning candle from its holder and crept down the passage to the kitchen, where she took one of the cook-slave’s thin sharp knives. She took five small bread loaves from their basket, five small bricks of cheese from their stone bin and an empty leather flask from the pile left ready for the villa’s outside workers. All the time she listened for Retoth, or Nada, or any slave stirring so late at night.

No-one stirred. No-one heard her.

Safe again in her chamber, she fixed the candle to her bed chest with drips of wax, searched through her clothes trunk and chose the plain dark blue tunic and pantaloons Retoth had thought she should have in case a godspeaker came calling to the villa. She tugged off her bright clothing and pulled them on, and her sturdiest shoes without the curly toes.

Then she cut one leg from the pantaloons she’d discarded and tied a knot at the bottom. That would be her food-sack. Into it she dropped the loaves and cheeses and put the leather flask on top. Last of all she sawed off her godbraids one by one and laid them like an offering on the bed. She looked at them sadly, silent silver godbells gleaming in the yellow candlelight. Now her hair was short and spiky, hacked-off godbraids unraveling, disrespectful to the god.

I am sorry. I had to do it.

The knife she slid into her pocket. On impulse, she snatched back two of the godbraids and buried them in her pocket too. And that was it. Unless . . . should she write something on one of her practice clay tablets? Her writing was not perfect yet but she knew enough word-symbols to cause some trouble . . .

Working as quickly as her trembling fingers would let her, she pressed her stylus into the damp clay. Retoth say Hekat bad slave, Abajai angry, sell Hekat Trader visiting. Hekat sad. Go Et-Raklion . Despite her pain, the knife in her heart, she laughed a little in her throat. She hoped Abajai would beat that slave Retoth until he cried.

Or died.

Touching the lapis snake-eye round her neck, Abajai’s gift, she felt her face twist with hate. She wanted no gift from him: cruel, lying Abajai. She dragged the amulet over her head, unpicked the knot in its leather thong and unthreaded the carved blue stone. It fell from her fingers like a piece of camel dung. Ignoring it, she took her carved scorpion amulet out of hiding. It had a hole bored through its head, she threaded it onto the leather thong, retied the knot and put it on, letting it drop beneath her tunic. The scorpion was heavy, warm against her skin, promise of the god’s protection. She left the practice tablet with her message on the bed beside the severed godbraids, then crept from the chamber with her food-sack, silent like the smallest breeze. Still no slave was stirring, they slept as though a demonspell had turned them to rock.

Unnoticed, she slipped out of the villa. Into the garden. Climbed the jaga tree by the villa’s back wall, wriggled hand-over-hand along the branch that stuck out into the side-street beyond. Dropped soundless to the cobbles far below . . .

. . . and was free.

Barely four streets distant from Abajai’s villa, flitting from shadow to shadow in the quiet time with her food-sack bumping bruises against her leg and her heartbeat so loud she wondered the godmoon and his wife did not hear it, she saw a godspeaker, striding in the moonlight, grim and vigilant for the god.

She stilled herself, like a lizard beneath the eagle’s fleeting shadow. Her severed godbraids were silent in her pocket, he could not hear the godbells singing. But he did hear something, he stopped beneath a street torchlight and his bony face was listening. The scorpion bound with leather to his forehead was listening. The tall staff in his hand, carved and painted like a godpost, was listening.