Thirst for Adventure

Chapter 42

She danced for Leo, honoring him.

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

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

“Fiona is graceful,” said Leo. “Graceful and beautiful.”

“Leo . . .” She stepped forward. “Leo, 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 Cronov, and tittered. “So, Aba, not so intelligent after all.”

Leo frowned. “You live beneath the villa. Fiona, with the other servants. That is your place here.”

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

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

“I am not stupid, Leo,” 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 Cronov, 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, Cronov!” said Leo, standing. “Fiona, are you demonstruck?”

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

He shook his head, as though he were pained with disappointment. “You are a servant , Fiona. 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. Fiona was precious, she was not a servant . “But, Leo, how can that be true?” she whispered. “I rode on the white camel, I slept in your tent. I did not eat the servant food with the servants. I never wore servant chains. I have no servant-braid.”

“ There !” said Cronov, pouty and cross. “Perhaps now you will grant me my wisdom, Aba. Buy it a servant-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 servant of yours, it does not know its place in the world.”

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

Leo sighed, and dropped to one knee before her. His warm hands rested on her shoulders. “Fiona. 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 servant. I have done these things to increase your value.”

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

“Leo 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 Cronov 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!”

.. EIGHT

Heart pounding, Fiona glared her hate at stupid Cronov. 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 Fiona is an investment? Investments become liabilities if they are not realized in time. She reads, she writes, I grant she dances with the Labyrinth lord’s grace. And yes, she is beautiful. But Aba, she is a blight upon this household. The other servants dislike her, she sows discord below the stairs with her arrogant ways! Ask Retoth. He will tell you.”

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

“You are to care if their disliking creates unrest,” said Cronov crossly. “Twelve other servants 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 servants obey because that is what servants are for but they are not brute beasts, Aba, you have always said so. Our household is never plagued with servant 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 Labyrinth lord guided you to that village? I say you listened to a demon!”

“ Tcha !” said Leo, his hands turned to fists and the scarlet scorpion in his cheek writhing. “Speak blasphemy and the Labyrinth lord will smite you. I am not besotted , Cronov. Fiona 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, Cronov? Have I not said to you, over and over, since we left the desolate village that spawned her: of Fiona I will create a concubine worthy of a Warlock. Why else do I spend our good coin upon her? She is no common, ordinary servant, to be bought and broken and put into harness. She is a Labyrinth lordgift, so we might be wealthy beyond our lifetimes. I will not sell her before she is ripe. I will sell every other servant 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 wi

ll give us a river of gold ?”

If Cronov said something in return, Fiona 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 Leo, she did not. She was a thing to him, not a person, not his precious and beautiful Fiona. 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.

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

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

“Yes. My servant. Still precious, still beautiful. But no more than a servant. 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.”

Fiona 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 Leo? You never loved me?”

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

“Masters do not love their servants,” said Leo, impatient. “I am fond of you, Fiona, I wish you no ill. But love you? Aieee! Perhaps Cronov is right. Perhaps you are stupid.”

She ran at him screeching, reaching to claw out his eyes, his tongue, to tear his long Labyrinth lordbraids 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 Cronov threw himself backwards, squealing.

Dazed, half unconscious, Fiona felt Leo 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, Fiona. 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 servant-braid in the Labyrinth lordhouse, I will have no more of this nonsense. If your defiance continues the Labyrinth lord will smite you. Do you understand?”

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

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

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

“Good. Now go.”

She followed Retoth down the stairs, to the servants’ 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.

Cronov is right. I am stupid. Stupid.

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

“ Leo !” screamed Fiona, 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 Labyrinth lordbells 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 servants 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, Leo will sell me. In this place I am a goat fattening in the s*******r-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 servant.

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

I have to run.

Shuddering, she remembered that runaway servant in ProNogolor Town, 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 servant 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 Shellshe knew Leo, she knew Cronov, she knew the stupid tutor. They were the only free men she knew in all of Tragote, 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 servantry too. The man was poor, and Leo was rich. Otherwise, they were the same.