struck. For safety’s sake we isolated you. Think of the last four days as quarantine… and consign them to a forgotten past now that you’ve recovered your wits.”
Lies. He hadn’t been struck ill. He’d been struck hard from behind and knocked unconscious. The lump still throbbed. And he’d been imprisoned: a dank, windowless chamber behind a bolted door was a cell, not a sickroom. He tried to shame his silk-voiced host with a dramatic frown, but he was no match for those dead, black eyes. Thoroughly defeated, he stared at the carpet.
“You have recovered your wits, haven’t you?” The pale man chuckled again. This time there was palpable malice weaving through the mirth. He rang a small crystal bell.
A boy came immediately through a drape-concealed door, a heavy ceramic serving tray balanced on his shoulder. A bright and fashionably elaborate tattoo covered his cheek. Zvain wouldn’t have noticed the tiny brand scars if he hadn’t been looking for them.
The slave gasped and stopped short, the tray tottering in his hands. Zvain followed the slave’s glance to a short-legged table upended against the wall, where it was obviously not expected to be. He met the other boy’s eyes and shared his panic. It would have been no effort to help his age-mate, but the slave-master watched, and he stayed where he was.
He couldn’t breathe as the slave hooked a feet around a table leg, righted it, and dragged it slowly across the carpet. The tray tilted precariously more than once. Crockery slid and clattered, but nothing spilled, nothing fell, nothing broke before the tray sat in its proper place. The slave sank to his knees, trembling with relief. Zvain stuffed his own trembling hands beneath his thighs.
The tray displayed delicacies guaranteed to attract the attention of any boy, slave or free: morsels of crispy meat, dried fruits glistening with honey and powdered spices. What little he’d eaten in the last four days did not deserve to be called food. His mouth began to water, and his gut betrayed him with a rumble.
“Eat whatever you want, as much as you want.”
The slave-master’s silky voice squelched his appetite. There were countless ways to tumble from freedom into slavery. One way was to perform a slave’s work; he’d avoided that. Another way was to fill one’s gut before one knew the price of the meal. While me tattooed slave mixed water and herbs for tea, Zvain rubbed the lump on his skull.
He assumed that he’d fallen prey to one of Urik’s innumerable slavers. It seemed a reasonable guess and, in a way, inevitable. Orphaned children didn’t starve in King Hamanu’s city. If they couldn’t attach themselves to someone bigger and stronger, they got snatched by slavers. He’d tried to attach himself to someone bigger and stronger: Pavek, the templar. But that hadn’t worked.
His own fault.
Pavek had come to him with promises of vengeance, but had seemed more interested in groveling for his old friends at the city-gate. Zvain remembered that last day. They’d quarreled in the morning and barely patched things up before Pavek started working up his day’s sweat. He’d promised to pray for the man, then been told to stay put. Pavek was always giving him contradictory orders. To show his mettle, he’d wandered off, but Pavek was gone when he got back. An old man said itinerants had hired Pavek to guide them through the city streets. And he, gith’s-thumb fool that he was, had gone searching after his supposed protector.
Pavek’s fault.
If that blundering templar hadn’t blundered into his life he’d never have been wherever he had been when the slavers caught up with him.
The slave finished making the tea. He bowed to his master and left the chamber without having said a word. Belatedly, Zvain wondered if the other boy’s tongue had been cut out and, not surprisingly, his own tongue soured. “There’s caution, Zvain—”
He sat bolt upright; until that moment he’d believed—hoped—the slavemaster hadn’t known his name. He didn’t remember giving it away, but the lump on his skull covered an empty spot in his memory. Maybe he had been delirious… Certainly, he couldn’t be too cautious, now.
“And there’s foolishness. I can taste your fear, Zvain: that’s the taste of foolishness. I know you’re thirsty; I offer you tea.” Using his left hand only, the slave-master filled a shallow bowl with fragrant, red-amber tea and pushed it closer.
He shrank away as if the tea were poison, as it could well be.