Chapter eleven
The Princess Natema Cydones of the Noble House of EsztercariHow my brothers in obi would have laughed to see me now! How those fierce fanatical clansmen would have roared their mirth to see their Zorcander, their Vovedeer, dressed like a popinjay! Three days had passed since my futile attempt at escape. I knew I had been bought from the marble quarries. When the Princess Natema wanted anything men trembled for their lives until that thing was brought her. Now I strode the tiny wooden box in the attic of the opal palace I had been given as my room — strange, I had thought when a gray-clad slave girl had shown me in with a furtive, scared look — and stared at myself in contempt.
I had refused to don the garments; but Nijni, the fat, dour, ever-cham-chewing slave-master had w
