Shadow Gate (49 page)

A company of Qin soldiers clattered past, in a hurry to get to the border on some military errand, so they only stole what they could easily carry on their horses—wool thread, vials of western spice, saddle blankets, silver
bars—but when they ripped open the canvas entrance to the whores' wagon and saw her, they made warding signs, hurried back to their horses, and cantered off as if fleeing from an approaching storm.

Which hit several days later.

The sandstorm raged for an eternity. When they dug themselves out, two wagons and a pair of dray beasts had vanished beneath the shrieking winds and blowing sands, and four drovers trapped in shelter without water had died of thirst.

Outside her wagon, the master said, “We sell the demon in the next town. The old bitch spoke true: Demon eyes bring bad luck. So, take your turn now if you still want.”

T
HE NEXT FIVE
days were the worst she had endured even after everything that had come before.

I
N THE TOWN
, the master took the precaution of bribing a priest to certify her as human even though everyone in the caravan knew she was the demon who had called down the storm and poisoned the spring. Then he sold her in a private auction.

Before he handed her over to her new master, he slapped her, and said, “Now I hope you will suffer as you made us suffer.”

H
ER NEW MASTER
examined her with the ugly lust she had come to recognize in male faces, but he did not touch her even after the merchant collected his coin and departed. He made her hide her hair and face under a draped cloth, and led her out of the private room in the merchant's hostel into a courtyard where two other persons fell into step beside him as they crossed under the hostel gate and out into the town.

“For Girish?” asked one.

“For Girish. Better a slave than a wife.”

“Yes, Brother. Girish cannot be allowed a wife.”

She was surprised, because they spoke the same kind of demon speech Mima had taught her. It was the speech all the merchants and guards knew, but in the towns, people usually used other words if they weren't speaking to the merchants.

She walked three paces behind them through the confusing babble of what she now knew was called a street. This one stank as usual but besides that twisted and turned and changed direction, yet since she kept her face shrouded and her gaze fixed on his feet, she saw nothing except the red-clay earth on which they walked, the well-made leather sandals he wore, and the occasional piles of steaming manure from dray beasts which they must avoid. The person he conversed with had soft, dark feet encased in good leather sandals. The third person, with big hairy callused bare feet, remained silent.

Once the master paused to talk to another man, making elaborate greetings in babble words but afterward slipping into the speech she could understand.

“A good harvest, eh, Master Firah? We drink plenty of wine next year from your grapes.”

“If we have any wine to drink! What think you about the meeting with the Qin commander? I like not the new regulations, and the high tax. What think you, Master Mei?”

“I think we obey, or the Qin kill us. For me, an easy choice. For you, a different choice?”

“Heh heh, no, not at all. Just talking.”

“My brother Hari got arrested and taken away for ‘just talking.' ”

“Sorry to speak of it. My apologies, Master Mei, for reminding you of your family's ill fortune. Any news of your daughter, eh? I hear talk from my wife that maybe now the girl is old enough, a marriage may be arranged.
We have a good, strong son, sure to inherit the business. If you are interested, come talk.”

The master grunted irritably. “I do not speak of my daughters out on the street.”

“My apologies. My apologies.”

They walked on.

The sandaled companion said, “Brother, Firah has much coin and a good vineyard.”

“Not for my orchid.”

“True. True. We can do better for her.”

“She is too young for marriage!”

“Heh, Brother! She is old enough, fifteen now. Plenty old. And maybe we can offer that teakettle as part of the bargain.”

The master's voice was his whip. “Enough!”

“Pardon, Brother. Pardon. I mean no disrespect. So, eh, ah. Is the slave a pretty one?”

“It is a slave.”

“I hope it was cheap. He'll damage it soon enough.”

“Maybe not this one.”

After more turns, they walked under a gate into a dusty courtyard that smelled of dusty water and dusty leaves.

“Take it into the storehouse,” the master said.

He went away. The barefoot one led her into a building. As soon as they walked into the dim confines she began to shake, for here exactly were cribs like the cells of the brothel. She was afraid to cry, because crying got her whipped. They walked to the end of the corridor and into a room with a window onto another courtyard shining so brightly green that the colors made her eyes hurt. A fountain splashed, moisture tickled her nose. She clutched the cloth tightly around her head, but kept a slit open toward the window so she could see the beautiful green foliage and the flowers, orange and white and pink, nestled along the branches. Four young children played beside the fountain; a woman seated on a stool nearby mended clothing.

The door opened.

“Look it over,” said the master. “You'll see why I bought it.”

A hand tugged on the cloth, and she released it and cringed as she saw five people staring at her: the master and another man who looked enough like him to be his brother, two women, and a huge barefoot man. All but the master made warding signs.

The two women were likely cousins or sisters. They stared at her for a long time, then looked at each other, as sisters and cousins will, sharing stories in the tilt of a head and the shift of a mouth and the way an eyebrow lifts. Then they looked at the master and his brother, at the stiff way the men were standing.

The older of the women said, “Mountain, take its clothing off. I don't want to touch it.”

Reluctantly, the big man minced forward and began the difficult task of removing her clothing without actually touching her.

“It's a demon, husband,” said the younger one. “Look at those blue eyes! Just like cornflowers. Bad luck! Why do you bring a demon into our clan?”

“For Girish.”

“Grandmother won't like it,” said the brother.

The master snorted.

The older woman said, irritably, “Grandmother has been letting Girish do as he pleases. I've already been put to the expense of purchasing and training new slaves. She's blind to his habits—”

The master's expression darkened. “Do not speak of my honorable mother in such a tone, Wife!”

She flinched. “Pardon, Husband. Pardon.”

The younger woman broke in, “What if it is diseased? It could infect everyone—”

The slave tugged off her dirty undertunic. She stood naked before them. The master's hand strayed low, but with a deliberate shift he reached up and scratched his jaw instead. The brother had no such control. Her pale
skin and pale hair and blue eyes never ceased to excite and horrify. That was what demons were: an evil lure to tempt people into the wastelands where they would be devoured down to the bone.

The older woman's horror receded as her gaze narrowed with calculation. “No other man in Kartu can claim to own a demon. It might content Girish, now that he's clamoring for a wife.”

“An allowance, and the demon,” said the brother. “That might shut him up.”

“Pardon, Husband,” said the younger woman to the master, “pardon me that I speak out so boldly, but if you perhaps might be willing to tell Girish also that you will take the demon away from him if he molests the slaves.” She hesitated, dipping her head submissively.

“I am not unaware of the trouble Girish has caused you, or of his disordered and repulsive habits,” said the master with a stern frown that squelched conversation. “Let us see if this contents him.”

“It's so ugly,” said Girish with his habitual giggle as he hauled her into the smoky interior of the narrow house and shoved her toward a stained couch hidden behind a screen. “I don't know what you see in it, Ramda.” His hands were shaking with excitement as his voice rose in a petulant whine. “What do you have for me today? You promised me something new.”

Ramda was a thin, nervous man who never looked directly at her. He flicked a hand toward the curtained entrance to the back rooms, not watching as Girish pushed past the curtain and vanished.

“Here.” Ramda handed her a lit smoke.

She brought it to her lips and sucked. Warmth spread from tingling lips down into her throat. She sighed,
taking another suck as the warmth spread throughout her body. When Ramda limped over and dropped his trousers, she took another suck and let him press her back onto the couch with its lumps and damp spots. After a while he finished. Other customers came and went in the main room, and sometimes after coin changed hands a man might step behind the screen and lie down on top of her, breath hot against her face. The ceiling of the hall was half obscured by threads of smoke that traced patterns along the wood. She followed their slow dance with her eyes, the way smoke crawled up the slope of the eaves or pooled beside brackets and beams. Coin jingled. Men laughed. Dice rolled. A child's thin scream penetrated the smoke, and for a moment all fell quiet.

Then they started up again, gaming, drinking, smoking, talking. She drowsed in the warmth.

An argument erupted in the main room. The warmth was beginning to wear off as the smoke lost its hold. Ramda never gave her more than one for herself, and every time the ache of its leaving prodded her like a fresh wound. She fumbled with the ties of her long jacket, closing it over her naked body. Shoved from the other side, the screen clattered down on top of her. She fell off the couch, found herself sitting on the loose trousers slaves wore, her thighs sticky.

“Come! Come!” Girish shouted at her as he wiped blood from his hands with a cloth. She struggled clumsily to get the trousers on, unable to remember having taken them off.

Ramda shuffled in behind him. “Get out!” His hair was mussed as if he had combed it with his hands. “That's the second one this month you damaged. I don't want you to come back.”

“You cheating dog! You said it was a new one, but I saw the same one last week over at Nonku's chop. I wanted a fresh one. One that will really be scared.” He grabbed her by the braids and tugged her. She tripped
over the trousers, which she hadn't gotten up over her knees. The long jacket bunched and tangled around her hips. He slapped her once, twice, a third time. “I hate you! I hate you!” He spat at her. “You're the cause of all my trouble, demon!”

“Here, now,” said Ramda, hands trembling as he picked up the screen and set it aright. “No need to hit it. It's just a slave.”

“It's a demon. I wanted a wife, and they gave me a demon because they are pigs and scorpions, my own relatives! They're just jealous because Mother loves me best.”

“You're drunk, Girish. Would you get out?”

“If you don't let me come back, you'll not get to poke her again, eh? And what of the other men? I know you sell her stinking flower while I'm inside, heh, heh.” He rubbed his fingers together as if he was feeling the texture of a coin. “Don't think I don't know that you're padding your sleeve with a little coin on the side, selling the demon while I'm busy elsewhere, eh? Heh.”

She wrestled her trousers up and tied them, then tugged down the long jacket.

Ramda stared mournfully at her, remembered himself, and looked away. “If you damage my goods, you can't come back, Girish. I can't keep replacing the things you break.”

Girish handed him coin. “You can replace it. Here. Get some new ones this time.”

Ramda sighed, taking the coin. “You're rich, suddenly. Did Father Mei increase your allowance?”

“My brother?” Girish dropped the bloodied cloth to the ground, spat on it. “He begrudges every copper.”

He hooked the leash to the slave bracelet she wore on her right wrist and yanked her after him, out the door and into the alley. The sun's light staggered her; its heat was a blow. When she stumbled, he whipped her with the end of the leash.

“Come on! Come on!” He whipped her again, and
again, smiling as she cowered. “Put your hands down. Put your hands down.”

So she did, and let him strike her across the torso and shoulders, shuddering under the lash, until he grew tired of the sport of seeing her cower submissively before him.

“We're late. Stupid demon. Why do you always make me late?”

She walked behind, her gaze fixed on the ground, as he hurried onto a side street and through town to the market. Now, seeing acquaintances, he was all gracious smiles, smooth greetings, heartfelt inquiries after aged relatives and promising children, and unctuous agreement with whispered diatribes against their Qin overlords. Women in the marketplace flirted with him as he browsed their wares, because he was a good-looking young man from a respectable clan. But there was still a speck of blood on the palm of his right hand. There was always blood on his hands; she just pretended there wasn't. The smokes Ramda gave her hid her aches, but they couldn't hide the blood. They couldn't hide the screams.

“Eh, there is the lovely Mai. How are you faring, Niece?” He fetched up before a fruit stand. “Have you sold your quota today? Ensnared a wealthy husband, eh?”

Father Mei's eldest daughter sold fruit in the market, and she stared placidly at Girish from under the shade of a parasol. “Uncle Girish. Here you are. Sales are good today, although the peaches are a little underripe. Of course Father Mei will choose a suitable husband for me. Maybe next year.”

“You are such a stupid stupid girl, Mai,” he said with a grin. “Here, give me a peach.”