Thirst for Adventure

Chapter 35

standing as though they still wore chains. Fionas pulled the pen’s gate shut and the penkeeper fastened its lock. She heard the penkeeper say to Fionas, “Your master’s a mad one, keeping that. Don’t you see its evil eye?”

“I do not speak of my master,” said Fionas. He sounded sullen. Fiona thought he wanted to agree with the penkeeper but did not dare.

“My eye not evil,” she said, loud enough for them to hear her. “My eye beautiful. Fiona beautiful. So the mirror say, and the woman Bisla, and Leo when he look at me.”

The black dog with white eyes growled, and Fionas said, “I see you no talking. I say the word. Leo’s nod.”

If she made trouble he’d tell Leo, and Leo would be angry. So, no making trouble. She pulled a face at Fionas because that was not talking. Fionas slitted his eyes at her, then went with the other guards to unpack supplies from the pack-camels so she and the merchandise could eat and drink. The penkeeper returned to his stool and made sure he didn’t look anywhere near her.

The floor of the pen was dirt, not colored stones like the road. She’d had too many highsuns of sitting on the camel, her legs itched to run. But the pen was crowded, no room for running, instead she walked around its inside edge and smiled to see Leo’s servants cringe as though they were goats and she a prowling sandcat. Like a sandcat she bared her teeth, laughing aloud as they remembered their chains were gone and fought each other to get away.

It was a good feeling, to see them fall over in their fear.

Fionas and the guards fed and watered themselves first. After that they watered the camels, then they carried bowls and cups, bags of food and jars of water into the pen with the merchandise. “Sir!” said Fionas, and all the servants bumped their skinny haunches to the ground and held out their hands for a bowl and a cup. The bowls were filled with bread, cheese and cold roasted corn. Each cup received a ladle’s worth of water. The servants’ eyes were greedy, their tongues licked their lips, but they could not eat or drink until Fionas gave his nod.

Fiona did not sit. She could see Fionas wanted to make her but did not dare. He knew if he could make trouble for her she could make it for him, too. He shoved a bowl and cup at her, his face angry.

“Eat,” he said, and the merchandise obeyed him.

She stared at the bowl, letting her face show her distaste. She had not eaten servant food once since Leo saved her from the man. She did not want to eat it now, it reminded her of that life she no longer lived, the nameless she-brat she’d left behind in that village. But her belly was empty and her mouth was parched.

She drank the water, then put dry bread in her mouth and chewed, and chewed, and swallowed. Outside the pen the penkeeper told Fionas and the other guards to help him clean up pish and dung. Fionas’s eyes showed he did not want to, but he could not say no. He was a servant, the penkeeper was free.

> Fiona smiled, and ate her food.

On the other side of the pen she heard a scuffle. Grunting. Still chewing, she went to see. One of the servants had dropped its bowl. Its bread and cheese and corn were in the dirt. Other servants were stealing them. They would never dare to steal from a bowl, Fionas beat servants who sinned like that. But food in the dirt belonged to whoever picked it up fastest.

The servant who’d lost its food was on its hands and knees, it was trying to cover its bits of bread and cheese so the other servants’ sneaking fingers couldn’t snatch them. Its face was wet, it was wasting water.

“No! Mine! You’ve eaten your food, this is mine!”

She leaned against the pen’s railings and watched. The servants were so busy growling and snatching and pinching they didn’t care or try to run away.

Very soon there was no bread or cheese or corn kernels left to steal. The hungry servant sat in the dirt with its empty bowl, its face muddy because its eye-water had mixed with the pen’s dust.

Surprised, she realized she knew this one. This one was the fat boy from the lizard-roofed village Todorok where the woman Bisla had called her beautiful. But it wasn’t fat anymore. It had used up its fat running on the road behind Leo and Cronov’s white camels.

Beneath the fat, this servant was beautiful.

He said, “You could have helped me.”

She chose a piece of sticky white cheese and pushed it between her teeth. “Why?”

The servant was maybe five seasons older than she was. He looked at her, his beautiful eyes dull with hunger and hurt, then dragged his fingers through the dust, searching for any corn kernels the others had missed.

“servants should help each other.”

She spat out cheese-rind. “ Tcha ! servant? Fiona is not servant. I have name. I wear clothes. I ride with Leo.”

“I have a name too,” the servant said. His voice was low, and unhappy. “My name is Vortka.”

She nodded at the chafed places on his wrists and ankles. “You wear chains, not clothes. You run on the road behind the white camels. Your name far behind you.”

The servant’s scabby fist struck his chest. “Not in here! In here I am Vortka. I was sold because my father died and the Labyrinth lord gave my mother to another man. He had his own sons. He did not want my mother’s son. He wanted gold. He got gold and I got chains. Why do you have clothes? Why do you ride with Leo?”

She shrugged. “I am beautiful.”

“You are not so beautiful,” the servant muttered.

“The Labyrinth lord not see you!” she said, scorched with rage. “The Labyrinth lord not see you, stupid servant!”

“The Labyrinth lord already not see me,” he said, sounding sad again. “The Labyrinth lord not see me when it blew out my father’s Labyrinth lordspark.” He squeezed water from his eyes with a dirty finger, then smiled at her. “I lied. You are beautiful. What are you called?”

There was one piece of bread in the bottom of her bowl, and one piece of cheese. All the corn was eaten. She picked out the bread and threw it at the servant’s feet.

“I am called Fiona.”

The servant Vortka snatched up the bread and crammed it into his mouth. “The Labyrinth lord see you, Fiona,” he said, his lips smeared with dirt.

She turned her back and walked away. She did not know why her fingers had picked out the bread and thrown it at that servant. Give her food to a servant? Talk to a servant? Had a scorpion stung her, to do such a thing?

She swallowed the last lump of cheese, threw her empty bowl to the ground, then sat down, far from the merchandise, to wait for Leo’s return.

.. FIVE

He came at last, with Cronov and a Labyrinth lordspeaker and two other men. Behind them panted a young male servant harnessed to an empty cart. The servant unstrapped itself from the cart’s leather traces, then went away.

The men with Leo wore plain dark robes and Trader charms around their necks. They were maybe a little younger than Leo, their eyes were sharp. They didn’t seem like men who were easily fooled, or foolish.

The Labyrinth lordspeaker was young and her robe was the finest Fiona had ever seen, sewn all over with gold amulets and bronze charms and singing silver Labyrinth lordbells. Stitched into the robe’s hem were lumps of the blue stone her snake-eye amulet was carved from, that Leo had told her was lapis lazuli. The scorpion-shell bound to the Labyrinth lordspeaker’s forehead was white. Its claws were painted crimson, its sting banded purple and gold. She had never seen a scorpion-shell so fine.

Around her neck the Labyrinth lordspeaker wore a chunk of green crystal, large as a fist and threaded onto a leather thong. She pulled it over her head and held it in her hands. When the crystal touched her flesh it flared into life. Leo’s servants cried out then, pressing against each other and the pen’s railings. Cronov and the two Traders snatched at their amulets and closed their eyes, trembling. Leo stood quietly, his gaze calm upon the Labyrinth lordspeaker.

The Labyrinth lordspeaker said, “The Labyrinth lordstone sees the hearts of those known to the Labyrinth lord.”

Leo bowed his head. “What servants the Labyrinth lord sees I gladly gift to its Labyrinth lordspeaker and the Labyrinth lordhouse of ProNogolor. Come into the pen with me, that the Labyrinth lordstone might seek for hearts known to the Labyrinth lord.”

The Labyrinth lordspeaker nodded, then released the crystal to dangle from its leather thong on the end of her finger. There it swung gently, all its blaze dead like a cold fire. Leo opened the pen’s gate. The black dog cowered as the Labyrinth lordspeaker passed by, it did not growl or bite.

“Fiona,” Leo said, not looking at her. “Leave this pen and stand with Cronov.”

The Labyrinth lordspeaker said, “The Labyrinth lord looks at all offerings, Trader Leo.”

“Forgive me, Labyrinth lordspeaker,” said Leo. “This one is not mine to offer.”

The Labyrinth lordspeaker nodded, and Fiona went to Cronov. For once he touched her, his fingers taking hold of her shoulder. He felt frightened.

Leo clapped his hands. “Fionas!”

Fionas came and poked the servants with his spear until they stood in a line around the pen’s edge. The Labyrinth lordspeaker walked to the nearest one and held up the leather thong so the crystal was in easy reach.

“The Labyrinth lord sees you,” she said. “Take the crystal.”

Panting with fear, the boy clutched the crystal but nothing happened.

“The Labyrinth lord sees you,” said the Labyrinth lordspeaker. “But not your heart.”

She took back the crystal and gave it to the next servant. “The Labyrinth lord sees you,” she said. “Take the crystal.”

Whimpering, the woman took it. For the second time, the crystal did not wake.

“The Labyrinth lord sees you, but not your heart,” said the Labyrinth lordspeaker, and moved to the next servant.

Fiona had counted, there were thirty-seven servants in Leo’s caravan. One by one the Labyrinth lordspeaker gave them the crystal and said her words and waited. One by one, the Labyrinth lord did not see any hearts. If the Labyrinth lordspeaker was angry or disappointed her face did not show it.

She gave the crystal to the servant calling himself Vortka. When that servant’s fingers closed around the rock it came alive in a blaze of light. The servant Vortka gasped, and stared without words at the Labyrinth lordspeaker.

“The Labyrinth lord sees you,” said the Labyrinth lordspeaker. “The Labyrinth lord sees your heart.” She took back the crystal. “Stand apart from the unseen. You belong to the Labyrinth lord until it strikes you dead in its eye.”

Dazed, the servant Vortka stumbled away from the others. Fiona looked at Leo, to see how he felt about the Labyrinth lord taking one of his servants. She couldn’t tell. His face was quiet, and so was the scarlet scorpion in his cheek. Cronov’s face she could tell like the open sky. He was pleased to please the Labyrinth lord, he was sorry to lose more coin.

The Labyrinth lordstone saw no other servant’s heart after Vortka’s. The Labyrinth lordspeaker put the leather thong with its threaded green crystal around her neck and clicked fingers at the chosen servant Vortka. He followed her out of the pen and waited, looking only at the ground.