The Last Hour of Gann (130 page)

Amber’s mind remained perfectly still, but her body did not want to be whipped before she was sold. She
got up.

Watching her as he bounced Rosek roughly on his knee,
Dkorm rattled out a laugh. “I believe that is surprise I see on that ugly face,” he remarked. “I told you it would happen, didn’t I? Although I confess I’m a bit surprised myself. Most of Zhuqa’s toy cunts last at least a year.”

“Did I hear my name
?” Zhuqa asked, walking suddenly through the door with an expression of polite interest. “Was there something you wanted to say to me? Perhaps on the subject of my women?”

Dkorm snapped to attention, yanking Rosek into the crook of his arm and pinching her squalling snout shut with his hand. “No, sir! I was just…just…”

Zhuqa’s gaze dropped to Rosek and hardened. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Dkorm let go and actually swept his hand behind his back like a kid trying to hide a forbidden candy bar. Rosek gasped in
air and shrieked it out. Xzem held Zhuqa’s baby and trembled. “Nothing, sir.”

“Eshiqi,” said Zhuqa. “Take Rosek.”

“Sir—”

Amber lifted the struggling baby and stepped back.
In the next instant, Zhuqa was across the room with his hand around Dkorm’s snout, whose explanations became a choked wheeze.

“You,” said Zhuqa, very calmly, “are making me regret giving you this assignment. Do you think—”

Dkorm began to struggle.

“—I would give the care of my
child to anyone? Eh? Answer me.”

Dkorm pitched himself back against the wall, slapping and scratching at Zhuqa’s restraining arm.

“I’m beginning to think you don’t want it in your care,” said Zhuqa. “And I’m beginning to feel offended.”

Amber could see Dkorm’s chest heaving, bulging outward with each whistling effort at breath like an alien parasite was about to burst free.

And then Zhuqa’s hand opened. With a howling gasp, Dkorm dropped flat over the crates, bags and barrels that had been his chair all day and just breathed for a while.

Zhuqa watched him until he’d lost the hoarse, shuddery quality on his inhales, and then he sat down beside him. “How are things with my child, Dkorm?”

“…fair…sir.”

“Good to hear. Good appetite, I trust?”

“…better.”

“Yes, it had some trouble early on.” Zhuqa glanced at Amber. “But we seem to have solved it. Cry much?”

“…some.”

“And Rosek, eh? Healthy?”

“…think so.”

“Healthy lungs, it would seem.” Zhuqa gave the baby in Amber’s arms a tolerant smile. “She’s quiet now, though. Do you know why she’s quiet now?”

And before Dkorm could suck in enough of a tortured breath to answer, Zhuqa the Warlord had seized him by the throat and yanked him up. “Because someone is comforting her,” he hissed. “Can you comfort a baby, Dkorm? Can you do that for me? Because babies cry,
all
babies cry, and when
my
baby cries, I want to know that the man I have honored with its care is not
pinching its fucking mouth shut
!” he roared, seizing Dkorm by the snout and shaking him hard.

Rosek, falling asleep in Amber’s arms, jerked and let out a wail. Amber rocked her, rubbing her little back as Xzem whispered and together, they quieted her to sniffles.

“Do you see that?” Zhuqa demanded, pointing. “Do you see how she did that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“There are a lot of restless men waiting for this sale,” Hruuzk called.

“One thing at a time,” Zhuqa told him, and put his face very close to Dkorm’s. “My patience with you is right down to its last grains. So. Get up. Fetch little Rosek and if she cries and you can’t co
mfort her, I’m going to kill you. Do you mark me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Go.” Zhuqa released him and unclipped the hooked sword from his belt.

Dkorm stood up, understandably shaky on his feet. He took a few steps
toward Amber, hesitated when Rosek began to tear up, then very carefully took her and pressed her to his shoulder. He patted her back, mimicking Amber’s swaying motions, and did not appear to breathe at all until Rosek sniffled herself quiet.

“This has been,” said Zhuqa, “your final forgiveness.” He hung his sword back on his belt.
“I suggest you go someplace private and meditate on that until you come to some lasting conclusion. Go.”

Dkorm went
. Xzem twitched as if to rise and follow, but Zhuqa’s pointing hand defeated her. She settled back down, staring after Rosek with haunted eyes.

“Are you coming to watch the sale?” asked Hruuzk.

“No. My Eshiqi is upset and wants to go home.”

Hruuzk grunted and patted Amber on the head when she came close enough. “You know I’d never presume to give you advice—”

“Never,” Zhuqa agreed thinly, watching Dkorm disappear in the crowd.

“—but why haven’t you just given the sprat to Eshiqi to raise up?”

“For the same reason I haven’t given it to you.”

Hruuzk’s broken spines flared. “I could do it,” he said, sounding wounded. “Half the bodies under my hand are sprats, you think I don’t know how to raise one?”

“I think,” said Zhuqa, softening enough now that Dkorm was out of the room to give his slave-master a friendly tap to the arm. “I think you have enough to do. My Eshiqi has too much to learn right now. A child would be a distraction. Perhaps when it’s weaned and not so needful, eh?” He glanced back at Xzem, smiling. “It will need a mother when Xzem is gone.”

Xzem ducked her head and nuzzled at the infant that suckled her.

“I’ve never seen a slave so quick to take to a sprat,” Hruuzk agreed. “Must have lost one of her own. Sure you won’t come? I expect good coin for Gold-Eyes here.”

“I can trust you, can’t I?”

Hruuzk widened his good eye and pushed his broken spines forward. “Yes,” he said gravely. “Trustworthy as the wind and tides, sir. Why, my sire was turned out from Fol Mgesh for an excess of trustiness and to his great pride it was a trait I took on.”

“To it,
then,” said Zhuqa, hunkering down to watch his child at Xzem’s breast. “We’ll settle tomorrow.”

“To his trust, men say of me,” Hruuzk loudly muttered,
leading his slaves out into the packed hall. “And they’ll sing it at my pyre, I’m sure. All right then. Quiet up, you pack of animals! Quiet up and clear a path! If I can’t reach the bidding block, I’ll buy these dips myself and you can all poke each other!”

The door shut behind the last lizar
dlady, muting much of the noise, which then slowly receded as the men making it followed Hruuzk to wherever it was they went to auction slaves. At length, there was quiet. Even the children, as keyed up as they were, stayed in the back room and did their work without their usual chatter while Zhuqa was there.

“How is it, Xzem?” Zhuqa asked finally, gazing grimly down at the drowsing infant. “Say truth. Is it strong?”

Xzem hesitated.

“Truth,” he said again, his voice
hard.

“It is not ill, my lord,” she told him.

“But…?”

“But it was a difficult birth and the mother…suffered.
What weakens the womb, weakens the child.”

Zhuqa grunted, expressionless.

“It has a good appetite and a strong grip. If it can be kept warm and dry and allowed to rest, it can grow strong.”

“Do you say it will live?”

Xzem bent her head even lower. “I say it can live, my lord.”

Zhuqa grunted again
and stood. “There is a difference, isn’t there? All right. I’m pleased. Is there anything you require?”

“No, my lord.”

“You have enough to eat? And Rosek? She’s comfortable?”

“We are both kept very well, my lord.”

“Good. Eshiqi, come.”

The hall outside the workpit was empty now, but Amber could still hear the crowd somewhere in the labyrinth of the ruins, jeering and hooting as Hruuzk called out bids. Zhuqa tipped his head to listen, but took her to the stair and down into the dark.

“You’re very quiet,” he said, when they’d passed the last set of guards and were alone in the long corridor leading to his private room.

“I don’t have anything to say to you.”

“Again?”

She glanced at him, but he just kept walking with the same distracted look about him.
“I don’t have anything to say.”

He
grunted thoughtfully.

They walked.

“You’re quiet too,” she said.

“I’m a quiet man.”

Her feet rooted so suddenly that she stumbled. He caught her—he was so damned fast—and waited for her to steady herself before he continued on. He was smiling, just a little.

Lucky guess. It had to be. Meoraq had picked up English fast, but not that fast. All the same, she was glad she’d kept
the bitchy out of her mouth for a change.

He unlocked his door and held it for her. His lamp was already lit inside. There was food on the table—
tachuqi and roots and what looked like a short stack of pancakes. Zhuqa had to tap her shoulder to get her attention again. “Take off your clothes.”

She did and he took them, feeling out every
fold before tossing the robe carelessly over a crate.

“Now you,” he said, and put his hands on her.

She waited, staring fixedly at the wall while he satisfied himself that she had no weapons socketed away, and when he was done, before he could give an order, she moved in close and touched her cheek briefly to his chest.

His spines flared.
“My Eshiqi,” he said, rubbing her back. “When Hruuzk called to you, you didn’t know he saw me coming, did you? You thought he meant to put you on the block with the other slaves.” And he smiled, like it was funny.

Amber didn’t smile. She didn’t swear at him either, or
call him names or make any of the sarcastic comments she might have made if it wasn’t for the little matter of how much English he might or might not understand…and if he wasn’t right.

“Come to my table,” he ordered, moving ahead of her to take his seat—still the only seat—and giving his thigh an inviting pat.
When she sat, he pinched off a large bite of tachuqi meat and offered it up. “Hruuzk tells me you’ve been a good worker. You may think Hruuzk praises all the women who have played Zhuqa’s House with me, but he doesn’t. You have been my loyal woman…and a good mother to my child.” He watched her eat. “Did you lose one?”

“No,” she said, but thought of Nicci. “Never had one.”

“I’ve lost five so far. I try not to see omens in piss anymore, but…this is my sixth.” He took a bite for himself and chewed, gazing up at the ceiling as if he could see through it to Xzem and the baby, far above them. When he swallowed, he looked at her again. “A child needs a mother.”

“A child needs not to grow up in a place like this even more.”

“As the Word says, a father is God upon the living world,” said Zhuqa, giving her another bite of meat. “The only God my son is likely to know. I can train a son. I can take him on hunts and raids. I can teach him blades and spears and grappling. I can be proud of him. I can even be fond of him, from a distance. But even a warlord’s son needs a mother to hold him.”

“I guess you’re not always a dirty girl, are you? Sometimes y
ou’re a real sweetie. A prince among thieves. Or a princess.”

He grunted, rubbed her thigh, fed her another bite.

“What if it’s a girl?” asked Amber. “What happens to all your fatherly affection and pride then? Do you sell her?”

“Eh?”

She put her hands together in the teardrop-shape, but he continued to look blank. Amber made rocking motions with her arms, then realized she’d never seen Xzem rock a baby that way. For that matter, she’d never seen a human rock a baby that way, either. Awkwardly, she cupped her arms as if holding a baby upright at her breast and rocked back and forth instead. This put unpleasant pressure on her sex, but after she’d again made a teardrop-shape and repeated the baby-rocking, his light bulb finally came on.

“You think it will open up female?”

“You’ve got a fifty-fifty chance, don’t you?”

Zhuqa grunted and stroked his throat, studying her t
hrough narrow eyes. “Zhuqa the Warlord has only one use for daughters,” he said after a long silence. “But in Zhuqa’s House, all children are prized. If I gave her to you, would you be grateful?”

“That depends. So far, all of your promises have only been good for a year.”

He grunted, but in a thoughtful way that made her wonder again how much of what she said he was starting to understand. It didn’t help when he said, “This place will never be better than a raider’s nest to anyone who has ever known a true home, but you might be surprised how long a child can be happy here, if it’s cared for.”

“That’s a horrible thought,” said Amber, taking the piece of tachuqi he offered her.