CHAPTER SEVEN
T AMAR
From the hills above it, Daphnia looked like a green gem cupped in a bird’s nest. The grasslands around us were turning yellow and brown from heat and drought, but Daphnia was watered by canals. I’d seen those canals last fall, but Daphnia’s gardens had been dead and brown from the cold. I remembered Lauria’s disappointment that I hadn’t seen it in its glory. Now I knew why.
Janiya, Alibek, and I went to Daphnia because of Zarina. Zarina was the bath slave at the inn I stayed at with Lauria. I had tipped her well, and in return she had warned us when we were about to be arrested. With Lycurgus dead, Zarina seemed like our best hope of finding the Younger Sisters. No one knows more secrets than a well-placed slave. And Daphnia wasn’t far from the farm. Janiya agreed this step made sense. It would be up to me to talk to Zarina. I hoped she was still at the same inn.
I turned to Janiya. “We probably shouldn’t bring all of the karenite into the city. If we get stopped…searched…well, you’re supposed to be able to hand it over to the temple, but I think if they found our sacks of it, they’d just execute all three of us.”
“We can’t just leave it sitting out by the side of the road,” Janiya said. “One of us will have to wait with it—either me or Alibek, since you’re the one who knows Daphnia.”
“I don’t know Daphnia. I only went there once.”
“I’ve never been there at all. Nor has Alibek. Which one of us do you think you want with you?”
I almost said I wanted Janiya just because Alibek was so irritating. But I made myself stop and think about it. “I don’t expect I’ll be recognized. But anyone who remembers me will probably remember that I was with a woman. If I’m with Alibek, there’s less chance I’ll be recognized. That’s important, because Lauria and I got in some trouble.”
Janiya nodded. “I’ll wait for you outside the city. Do you want me to hold all the karenite?”
“Give me one piece,” I said.
“Just one? Are you sure?”
“If we need more, we’ll come to you.”
Money we would need plenty of—money for the room at the inn, money for bribes, money to buy wine to bribe slaves, money for clothes that would let us move around the city without attracting attention. Janiya handed over most of the coin, and I divided it between myself and Alibek. We looked like bandits from the steppe, but there wasn’t much we could do about that right now. Lauria and I hadn’t attracted attention because we looked like bandits. Plenty of merchants arrived as dirty and ragged as us. We attracted attention because we came in with nothing, then visited a sorceress and suddenly had enough money for an excellent inn.
Alibek, though, looked doubtful. “What are we going to say we’re here for?”
“We’re traders. With money and no goods at the moment.”
“Traders of what?”
“Exotic fragrances,” I said. I raised an eyebrow at him. “Think you know enough about perfumes to pass?”
“Not if I’m talking to a real fragrance trader.”
“Unlikely.”
“Then yes.”
I hid the piece of karenite inside one of my waterskins, in case we were searched. Only a very thorough searcher would find it there. “Let’s go.”
“Wait, one more thing,” Alibek said. “Are we going to pretend we’re married?”
Traders working together, a man and a woman—they’d likely have some sort of family relationship. “Cousins,” I said. “If anyone asks.”
The guards at the city gate waved us through. Alibek glanced at me. “Where to?”
“This way.”
I found the inn easily. The outside was very plain, and for a moment I thought I might have the wrong place. But I remembered the old man who opened the door, and inside, there was a fountain that used a tortoise shell as a basin. Scarlet flowers spilled from boxes all around the courtyard, and a bench stood in the shade. The bathhouse was where I remembered it, the door opened a crack. I hoped Zarina was inside, because if not, I was going to be out of ideas.
As with my first visit, the innkeeper wanted to see our money before he showed us a room. My first time, he’d ignored me and spoken to Lauria. This time, he ignored me and spoke to Alibek. I wondered idly if he would take us to the room Lauria and I had stayed in, but no. Instead, he suggested a choice of two rooms. One overlooked the courtyard, he explained, and was shaded from the midday sun. The other had a view of the Temple of Athena, and got a bit of sun but also enjoyed a nice breeze in the evening. The courtyard room had a single, large bed. The room with the view of the temple had two beds, with curtains that could be drawn for privacy. “I’d like an evening breeze,” I said, not giving Alibek the chance to make the choice. “Also, we’ve been on the road for weeks. I’d like to take a bath as quickly as possible.” The innkeeper told us dinner would be up at sundown and said a bath would be readied as soon as I’d like to come down.
Alibek sat down on one of the beds, pulled off his boots, and drew his feet up to sit. “Mind if I take this one?”
“It’s yours.” I sat down to dig through my pack. I’d bought some spirits of wine just to tip Zarina.
“I’m going to go down and see Zarina.”
When we’d come in the fall, the bathhouse had been shut up tight, with a roaring fire, to keep it as warm as possible. Now, in the heat of the summer, the shutters had been replaced with loosely woven cloth that offered privacy without keeping out the breeze. The water was tepid to let bathers cool off. I was relieved to find Zarina, her blue-black hair gathered loosely mid back. She’d worn a light shift even in winter, but her clothing now was nearly transparent.
I set the wineskin on the shelf where she kept the soaps and oils. “Do you remember me?” I asked.
She looked me over and quirked an eyebrow. “Where is your companion?”
“I’m working with someone else now, a man. Alibek. He may be down later.”
She gestured toward the bath, and I shed my clothes and stepped into the water. Zarina helped me scrub clean—I still found it uncomfortable to be bathed by someone else—then gave me a towel and a light robe and started combing out my hair. “You’re as generous as always,” she said. “Can I offer you assistance of some kind?”
“Yes,” I said. “I need to find a sorceress who is one of the Younger Sisters.”
“Still looking for trouble, too.”
“It’s what I need. Can you help me?”
“I can give you a name. What you do with it is up to you.”
I nodded.
“Pelagia. Her house is near the Temple of Alexander. She has a statue of a leaping fish outside her house.”
“All right.”
“She’s unpredictable.”
“They all are.”
“She’s worse than most. I wish you good luck. Tread softly or you won’t be back to share your generosity with me again.”
There was a pause.
“Do you remember the question I asked you last fall?” I had asked her if she would like to run away with us, to be free.
“I remember it well.”
“Do you ever regret your answer?”
“Sometimes. But rarely.”
“If you’d like to change your mind…”
“My answer hasn’t changed.” She’d said, No thank you, I think you’re likely to end up dead. And some things are worse than slavery.
When she finished combing my hair, I left my clothes to be washed, slipped on borrowed sandals to go with the borrowed robe, and went back up to see Alibek.
“What next?” he asked. “Can we find Pelagia tomorrow?”
“I want clothes first. Something that will blend in. We’ll have a tailor come tomorrow.” I looked him over. “You should go bathe. New clothes on a filthy man—not good for blending in.”
Alibek gave me a nasty look, which I didn’t understand. “Look, you can tell her you want to bathe privately, if you don’t like being ‘assisted.’ She knows you’re with me. She likes me. I tip well.”
“She will know me for a slave,” Alibek said. He gestured toward his back. His scars.
“She knew me for a slave, too, when Lauria and I were here the first time. She will hold her tongue. Trust me, Alibek.”
He stood up, finally, and went down. He returned a bit later, clean and wearing a robe, like me. He was silent for a while, then said, “I don’t understand turning away from freedom. Especially…” He let his words trail off, but I knew what he meant. Alibek had been a harem slave, like me. Zarina was expected to offer certain other services, beyond a bath.
“Surely there were favored slaves in Kyros’s harem—slaves who believed that their job wasn’t so bad. There were slaves like that where I came from.”
“Zarina has her wits about her, though. Not like some. She deserves better.”
“I thought you said it was a bad idea to free slaves—that they were a burden on the Alashi.”
“Some of them, yes.”
“I don’t think Zarina would really fit in, in a sword sisterhood.” I caught his eye. “But I’d still take her with us if she’d come.”
Slaves brought our food up at sunset. It was even better than I remembered. The lamb was tangy, with a thick gravy I could soak up with the soft, chewy bread. There were also apricot tarts the size of my palm. I sighed happily over my food. “Did you get tired of the Alashi food?” I asked as I finished. “I got so tired of it during my summer with them I thought I was going to cry.”
Alibek shook his head, absently. “I liked it. Why wouldn’t I like it?” He looked up at me and narrowed his eyes. “The food was better when you were a slave, is that it?”
“No! Why do you take every word I say the wrong way?”
“Why would you complain about the Alashi? About their food, of all things?”
“I can’t believe you never got tired of it.”
“Did Lauria complain the way you do?”
I stood up, furious. “The Alashi were her life. She loved the steppe, and so did I.” I stomped off to my bed and threw myself down on it, turning my back on Alibek as if to dare him to say another word. He fell silent. I listened to him finish his own dinner, prepare for bed, and lie down. He took a breath, as if he was going to say something—then let it out, his words unspoken.
The tailor came in the morning, and we paid the rush fee. That meant we’d have new clothes by evening. In the meantime, our own clothes were dry, but I was reluctant to go out in them. Lauria and I had put on our coats and hoped no one would notice us—but we had been noticed, and in any case, it was no longer coat-wearing weather. I went down to the inner courtyard to sit in the shade and watch the other guests—and to avoid Alibek. Naturally, no sooner had I gotten settled on the bench in the shade than I saw Alibek coming out to the courtyard and looking around for me. “The room is getting very warm,” he said, sitting down next to me. I thought it was probably more that he was bored, and irritating me amused him, but I moved over and made a space for him to sit down.
A new guest was arriving. He was a merchant, well dressed, with heavy gold rings on nearly every finger. He had an apprentice with him, and a couple of servants. I thought he would certainly have slaves at home, but traveling with slaves was a lot of trouble, and he had enough money to employ servants instead.
“Back in Kyros’s harem,” Alibek said softly, “I always liked to see guests like him. They have a tendency to be generous. All those rings—it makes it easy to slip a present to a slave who’s pleased you.”
“Ha,” I said. I glanced quickly around the courtyard to see if anyone was listening, but no one was nearby. “I never got presents.”
“You weren’t very good at your job, then.”
“I hated it,” I said, trying to keep the edge out of my voice and failing. “Sophos gave me to men who wanted to hurt me, not who wanted to pretend I was their lover. Not the kind who gave gifts.” I swallowed, then added, “Men like that always wanted Meruert. It would’ve been pointless for me to try to come on to them. If it was a busy night and I knew there was no escape, I’d sometimes look for a man who seemed very drunk. Sometimes I got lucky and he passed out right after he took me back to the room. I’d yank off his boots, untie his pants, mess up his clothes a little, and leave the bedclothes rumpled. I figured when he woke up in the morning he’d think he just didn’t remember the good time he’d had.”
Another guest was passing through the courtyard. This was a woman—wealthy and powerful, whoever she was. It was clear just from her bearing.
“Did Sophos offer the harem to female guests?” Alibek asked.
“He rarely had them.”
“Kyros did, on occasion. I got picked to serve a female guest one time. She didn’t really want much, once she had me back in her room. I think she was mostly showing off her importance. She had me rub her feet while she drank wine. I told her she was beautiful, and she gave me the rest of the wine. She was pockmarked, actually, but she liked the flattery.”
Another man passed by—an officer. I felt myself tense up as he passed, and once his back was to me, I pointed and said in a low voice, “That’s the kind of man I tried to avoid.”
“Why?” Alibek asked.
“He’s the kind who hurts girls.”
“How do you know?”
“I just know.” My voice was flat. The conversation wasn’t fun anymore.
“What tells you?”
“The set of his shoulders, the cold eyes—” I broke off. “The smirk, the way he walks, like he thinks he owns everything he sees. If they don’t want to hurt you, they want to humiliate you.”
“Yeah,” Alibek said, and let out a breath. “I’d have said it was something about the boots. His boots were too well kept.”
“I never noticed boots.”
“The men with really grubby, filthy boots—they usually wanted something quick but were never generous, at all. The ones with well-kept boots were more likely to be generous. But the ones who were really meticulous, with the perfectly kept boots—watch out.”
“All of them?”
“No, not all. Just some of them.” He twitched his shoulders up, like he was trying to shrug away an unwanted touch. “I steered clear of all of them, though, if I could.”
A sorceress’s palanquin sat in the corner of the courtyard. As I talked with Alibek, the sorceress herself came down. She wore blue silk, a rope of pearls, and six spell-chains that I could see. She passed into the bathhouse, though she didn’t look dirty, and closed the door.
“Did Sophos ever entertain sorceresses?” Alibek asked.
“No. Did Kyros?”
“No, but his wife had been a sorceress. She hated the harem—all of us.” Alibek ran his finger along an old scar on the side of one arm.
“Have you ever met a sorceress before, aside from Kyros’s wife?” I asked.
“No.”
“They’re a crazy bunch.”
“That much I know. I’ve known people who were owned by them in the past…”
“Oh yes,” I said. “Though you know…we met a sorceress last year who was really pretty much owned by her slaves. They knew her secrets and used them to control her. That was interesting.”
“Surely they weren’t open about that.”
“We stayed there for the winter. The servants liked me. They told me the story.”
“Hmm. Does she live in Daphnia?”
“No, she’s in Casseia. It’s a long way away.”
“So what was the secret?” Alibek’s eyes held only curiosity now. The mockery was gone.
“She had once been a slave herself—owned by a sorceress in Persia. She’d spied on her mistress, and then after her mistress died, she ran away, went to Casseia, and told someone in the Sisterhood of Weavers that she was her old mistress’s apprentice. And it worked! They took her in, she learned sorcery—or finished learning, I’m not sure—and now she’s a sorceress with a merchant company and a houseful of servants.”
“A houseful of servants who own her.”
“Well, yes.” I checked around us for anyone listening, then added, “The servants approached me before I left. They have a conspiracy of their own—they believe women as crazy as the sorceresses shouldn’t run an empire. Instead, it should be ruled by servants, and the sorceresses should serve them.”
“They’re right.”
“They wanted me to help them.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because I think it’s better for the Alashi for the Empire to be run poorly.”
“An empire run by servants might not be invading the steppe.”
“Not this year. But in a few years…” I’d had this same conversation with Lauria. “The sorceresses need karenite. They have to have it. They’ve used up the karenite down here, and the Alashi control what’s on the steppe. You can’t let your enemy control something you need that badly. You can’t. Sooner or later…” I shrugged.
“We can’t win against the Greeks,” Alibek said. “We can hold them off—we can distract them with disorder. But unless the Empire falls, they can wait a year or two and try again.”
“They’ll never defeat the Alashi.”
“They could kill most of us. And scatter the remnant.”
“So you think we need to overthrow the Empire to be safe?”
“We need?” The mockery was back. “You do have ambitions for a former slave girl. Don’t you?”
I had started to relax in his company at last—now my hands clenched. “I meant the Alashi. Not you and me.”
“Oh.” His lips twitched.
I wanted to scream at him to stop laughing at me, but that would only make him laugh harder. I stood, clenching my teeth. “I think our midday meal is coming,” I said.
Alibek caught my arm. “I think that after we finish here we should go down to Casseia and talk with the servants again.”
“We’d need to talk to Janiya,” I said, hoping that Janiya would have more sense. “It’s for her to decide. Not me.”
Our new clothes arrived late in the day—too late for us to go out. I went to bed after dinner and pretended to go to sleep. I was tired of Alibek’s mockery, and this way he would leave me alone. Again, I heard him rattling around for a while. He finally went to bed, and I heard his quiet breathing on the other side of the curtain.
I didn’t mean to go to the borderland that night. I had nothing new to tell Zhanna, I’d given up hope of ever finding Lauria, and I did not want to see Kyros. But there Kyros was, almost as soon as I slipped into sleep. “Hello, Tamar,” he said, with a friendly smile that made me want to punch him in the face. “It’s good to see you again.”
“What do you want?”
“It’s been a while since we’ve had the chance to chat. Lauria still hasn’t told us anything useful, but then again…you bought her some time. Some time. Would you like to tell me something that might buy her a little more?”
I felt sick. I had nothing prepared to tell him. “Go rot in Zeus’s lost hell,” I said.
“Oh, Tamar,” he said, shaking his head sadly. “Don’t you know Lauria is my daughter? We’re on the same side here. Neither one of us wants to see her hurt—you don’t, I don’t. It’s just a matter of giving enough information to the magia…”
“If you wanted to protect Lauria, why did you take her to Penelopeia?”
“My orders were to execute her immediately. I took her to Penelopeia hoping she’d be able to talk her way out if she were face-to-face with the magia. A mistake, clearly.” He shook his head sadly. “What can you tell me?”
My breath was uneven. “I could tell you how we broke the slaves out of the mine.” That seemed harmless enough.
“All right. That’s something I’d like to know.”
“Lauria slipped in by having one of the slaves from Sophos’s harem sell her there as a slave. She was on the inside and I was on the outside. She took in poison and put it in the guards’ food. Meanwhile, I went to the guards and told them I was a sorceress. One of the Younger Sisters. I tried bargaining with the officer in charge for some of whatever they were mining, with some success, until the uprising started and I cut the man’s throat.”
Kyros leaned forward. “Where did you hear about the Younger Sisters?”
“Lycurgus,” I said. No reason not to offer up a dead man.
“Hmm. What do you know about them?”
“That you’re in trouble. That they’re after the Weavers and greatly outnumber them,” I said. I was making this up—I had no idea if the Younger Sisters outnumbered the Weavers, but the whole purpose of our mission was to set them against each other as a distraction. Maybe this could be to my advantage after all. “You think the Alashi are the greatest threat to you, but you’re wrong. Your enemies are in your own house. They’re among you. You’ll never know who they are—I couldn’t tell you their names if I wanted to, I don’t know any! But they’re strong and growing stronger. If you had any sense, you’d change sides now.”
That would be a good line to leave him with. I pulled back and felt the borderland slipping away. “Wait,” I thought I heard Kyros say, and I shrugged and made some noise of false regret. I opened my eyes to the darkness of my own bed, and Alibek’s breathing. “Arachne’s web,” I whispered out loud. “Let it turn out all right, telling him those things about the Younger Sisters.” The fact that I’d made it up didn’t make me feel better. It could be true, after all.
I closed my eyes again, because it was a long way to morning. As I slipped into sleep, I told myself firmly to stay away from the borderland. I didn’t want to have any more talks with Kyros tonight.
We dressed in our new clothes in the morning. I was struck by how very Greek Alibek looked, dressed in his white linen tunic. He visited the bathhouse for a shave and a trim. I went down so that Zarina could brush my hair and braid it. It had grown out over the winter, and I hadn’t gotten around to cutting it short again. Back in Greek lands, I found it hard to shake off the thought that I was a runaway slave and not the merchant I pretended to be. But Zarina held up a mirror for me, and after looking for a moment, I felt calmer. I looked older than I remembered—a woman, not a girl. I saw certainty rather than fear. Besides, it hardly mattered what Pelagia saw when she looked at me. I would have karenite to offer her, and nothing else would matter.
Alibek and I walked together to the neighborhood of the Temple of Alexander. Soldiers filled the streets everywhere I looked. The crowd hummed with cheer, as if they were going to a festival. I could hear happy shouts as soldiers met old friends. I wiped my sweaty hands on my new clothes and I heard Alibek’s breath quicken, but the soldiers were busy, and no one noticed us.
The Temple of Alexander made me think of a big tortoise, squatting over the city. Soldiers waited in a long line to make their offerings. For their own good fortune, most brought a male animal—I saw roosters, goats, sheep, and even a young bull. A few had fruit or flowers. Coming out, they looked eager—energetic. Sometimes, when Lauria was seized by the cold fever, it gave her strength, rather than merely driving her to distraction. The soldiers looked like that. One met my eyes and gave me a pleasant nod, and I felt a hint of pride until my knowledge—enemy! Other side!—caught up with me, and then I felt sick.
We didn’t know exactly where to find Pelagia’s house, and were too nervous to ask directions, so we wandered until we saw the statue of the leaping fish. The fish balanced lightly on the curve of its tail, mouth open. The doorstep had a mosaic made of white tiles, some shiny and others dull. I stepped close and knocked on the door.
No one answered.
I knocked again and waited. After a little while I took a step back and looked at the house. No smoke rose from inside, but this time of year someone might keep only embers burning during the day to avoid heating up the house. Midday meals could be eaten cold.
I knocked again. This time the door opened a crack. “Go away,” the servant hissed.
I offered him a small wineskin, but he pushed it back. “Not right now. It’s a bad time.”
“Your mistress…”
“…will see no one, and your wine doesn’t make it worth it.”
“I could give you spirits of wine.”
“She beat a doorman half to death once for letting someone in unbidden. Not worth it. She sees no one. Go away.” He shoved the door shut. I snatched my hand clear just in time.
Alibek looked at me. “That’s it, then? Do you have another name?”
I knocked again. The doorman said from the other side, “I will call for soldiers to come. I will have them search your pockets, don’t think I won’t!”
I stepped back, swallowing hard. How did he know? Oh, he was no fool. He could guess easily enough. I wondered how many others would know—was it time to lose our shiny pebble? But maybe Zarina would know another name. I held on to it for now.
“That’s it?” Alibek asked again as we walked.
“I think the servant knew what he was about,” I said. “Have you ever seen a sorceress in a dark fever? Have you heard stories?”
“But if you have something she wants…”
“They’re not reasonable.” I swallowed. “We’ll ask Zarina if she knows anyone else. Or maybe we can wait this one out.”
“How long until she, you know, changes? And when she does, will she get more reasonable or less reasonable?”
“There’s no way to know.” Zarina had said this one was particularly bad. I shook my head in frustration. Surely other Younger Sisters lived in Daphnia.
But Zarina knew of no others. “How much of a hurry are you in?” she asked as she rinsed my hair. “Pelagia can’t stay dark forever.”
“Do you think anyone noticed me today?”
“Hmmm, maybe. You’ll know if someone knocks on your door to buy your wares.”
“Ugh,” I said.
“Why are you so set on finding the Younger Sisters? I can give you a dozen names of discreet, halfway sensible Weavers who will pay you well.”
“I don’t need money.”
“Then I can’t help you. The Younger Sisters keep their names secret. I know about Pelagia because she’s so shattered, she doesn’t keep secrets well.”
I shook my head in frustration and disgust. “No doubt some of your sensible ones are in the Younger Sisters, or at least sympathize.”
“Yes, but I don’t know which. Some are quite loyal to the Weavers, even if they feel that the Weavers are ungenerous with materials they need. It’s as much to do with friendships as self-interest.”
I caught Zarina’s hand as she combed my hair. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to come with us?”
“My answer still stands. I think you’re as mad as any sorceress.” I turned to look at her, and she gave me a wry smile. “I know what you were. I have eyes and I know what to look for.”
“Then you know why I don’t understand.”
“I am not abused here—in fact, I am well protected. I have enough to eat. I live comfortably.”
“But you’re a slave. Things could change. You could be sold.”
She laughed. “You could be executed.”
There wasn’t much I could say to that, so I thanked her and went back up to my room.
“Did she know another name?” Alibek asked.
I shook my head.
“So now what?”
I lay down, thinking about what she’d said about friendships, rather than self-interest. “It’s possible to send messages to sorceresses through the Temple of Athena,” I said. “I’ll go tomorrow.”
“Who are you going to send a message to?”
I closed my eyes, reminding myself that she was a friend. “Zivar,” I said. “The sorceress Lauria and I stayed with last winter.”