“Ay-yah.” Carup looked briefly surprised. “The AshKalap have a farmhold close to a village called Pattan Haria on the west shore of Tabaga.” She gulped at the tea. It was too hot; she shuddered as her mouth burned, but seemed to welcome the pain. When the bowl was empty, she set it down and stared into it; her face twisted with… something. There was tragedy in what birth had done to her. The mark distorted and denied all her expressions. Nothing came out right. Suffering was grotesque, a laugh was uglier than a snarl. “My father sold me when I was eight,” she whispered. Trembling fingers stroked the mark on her face, then she jerked them down and began crumbling a cake into sticky fragments. “He said no one would want to marry me or even take me in to warm his bed. I was too ugly. He said he’d never make back the cost of my food and clothes, so he might as well get what he could out of me. He said they had perverts in the city that might find me…” She took the bowl Brann had refilled and gulped at the steaming tea. “Might find me…” She sobbed. Her hand shook, but she took care to set the bowl down gently. It didn’t break. No tea spilled. “I’m sorry.”
“No, child, don’t. Say what you want to say.” Brann took one of Carup’s hands and held it between hers. As she’d spoken to many of the women visiting her, keeping up the role of holywoman, Jantria, she spoke to Carup: “Hearing what comes to me is the task the Gods have set me. Say what you must and know that I will hear it.” She waited, feeling the tension in Carup, the need to talk and the fear of casting herself into deeper trouble. It was hard for Brann to understand the girl. Her own life was complicated and often dangerous; for the most part, though, she’d managed to control events rather than endure them. Time after time, one god or another had meddled with her, driving her this way and that; even so she was able to finesse a degree of freedom. She could see that Camp was different, that the options she had were much more limited; she could even see reasons why this was so, but that was the mind’s eyes, not the heart’s.
A bad taste in her mouth because she was going to use this unfortunate girl as unconscionably as the girl’s beast of a father had, she leaned closer and smiled at Carty and prepared to entice from her everything she knew about the courtesan and her doulahar. “Were you brought right away to Dil Jorpashil?”
Carup sighed and freed her hand so she could sip at the cooling tea. “Ay-yah, the Agent brought us straight here.”
“What happened then?”
“I was afraid… what my father said… but it didn’t happen. The Chuttar Palami Kumindri’s agent bought me for a maid.” Carup sighed with weariness and managed at the same time to project a touch of pride. “You must have heard of her. The Chuttar Palami Kumindri is the premiere courtesan in all Dil Jorpashil.” Her mouth turned down. “The Housemaster treats me like a dog. I work hard, I’m up before the sun every day, be never says word one to me, he pretends he doesn’t even see me.”
“Then you’re still a part of the Chuttar’s household?”
“Ay-yah.” Carup sighed again; her eyelids drooped. The emotional storm had passed and she wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep. A group of merchants came bustling past their table, kicking into her. She cringed automatically, tugged her chair farther under the table, made herself as small as she could.
Brann pressed her lips together, angry at the merchants because they were arrogant and thoughtless, angry at the girl because she hadn’t spirit enough to resent them, at herself because she couldn’t do anything about either. Her voice deliberately mild, she said. “How long has it been?”
“Ten… years…” Carup blinked, straightened. The color drained from her face, leaving the red-purple stain more glaring than ever. Her eyes were fixed past Brann’s shoulder.
Brann twisted around. The stocky woman, Elissy, Carup called her, was standing under the scalloped edge of the canvas, looking angrily about. Braun saw her and she saw Carup at the same moment. She came charging across to the table. Brann stood, held up a hand, palm out. “Gods’ peace be on you, Elissy friend.”
“I’m no friend of yours, beggar. Carup, get over here. By Sarimbara’s Horns, what do you think you’re doing, lazing about like this?” She turned her scowl on Brann. “Who you? What you think you doing with this girl?”
“I am the Jantria Bar Ana.” Brann suppressed a smile as she saw the consternation on the woman’s face, the sudden shift of expression. The past two weeks had apparently given her a formidable reputation.
She nodded gravely at Elissy, shifted her gaze to Carup. I need more, she thought, a lot more than I’ve got. Ten years that girl has been in that house. She’s not stupid, poor thing, might be better for her if she was. Get to it, woman… She set her hand on Carup’s shoulder, turned the girl to face her. “Carup Kalan,” she said, lowering her voice to its deepest register, speaking with a deliberate formality. “Would you care to serve me? My household is small, but you will not go hungry. You will clean my rooms and yours, you will do the laundry, you will buy food for our meals and do such cooking as you are trained for. In return, I will buy you out of your present place and register you at the Addala as a freewoman. I will provide a room and a bed, food and clothing and I will pay you five dugna a week.”
Camp’s face twisted into a gargoyle grimace as she struggled to decide; she had security, she knew where she would sleep, where her meals would come from, that she would be safe on the streets from pressgangs, pimps, muggers and assaults and she had a shadow share in the prestige of the Chuttar Prime, but she also knew that she’d be thrown out like refuse if she got sick or hurt too badly to work any more. Or when she was too old to work, though too-old was a long time off, at eighteen you’re immortal. She hated her life, that was obvious, but she was afraid of venturing from its comfortable certainties, that too was obvious. Brann as holywoman/healer had prestige also, was presumably trustworthy, Carup being gullible enough to accept communal judgment about what was holy and what wasn’t, but the Jantria was a stranger. From another land, another people. That was suspect, frightening. Brann was poor; Carup had a slave’s ingrained contempt for the poor. Brann had treated her with kindness and acceptance, had stood between her and the rabid dog and had beaten it off, a powerful omen for the superstitious, and like most slaves Carup was deeply superstitious. Brann offered her manumission and a degree of control over her life. That was attractive in theory but terrifying in actuality.
With a suddenly acquired dignity that made Brann as suddenly ashamed of how she was using the girl, Carup said, “Sarimbara’s Blessing, Jantria Bar Ana, I will serve you.”
“So be it, child. Go with your companion now. Wait and trust me. I’ll send for you when the thing is done.”
7
Two days later.
The Housemaster tugged at heroic mustaches that hung from the corner of his tight mouth down past his chin to tickle his collar. He scowled at the Basith, a go-between Brann hired to handle the exchange because she didn’t want to go anywhere near the doulahar. “Why this object?” He jerked a thumb at Carup who was kneeling at his feet, but didn’t look at her. She offended his eyes and he’d let her know that every day of her life since she’d walked through the service portal.
The Basith was a typical Jana Mix. He had black hair like the coarse baka wool the nomad tribes wove into tent cloth, a tangle of watchspring curls about a widening bald spot; he had a nub of a beard on the point of a long chin; he wore a Phrasi merchant’s ring in his left ear and a Gallinasi coup-stud in his right ear, one of the prized ruby studs. His eyes were dark amber, long and narrow, set at a tilt above prominent cheekbones, clever eyes for a clever man. He was the son of a courtesan and an unusually rebellious Dhanik who took the boy into his sar despite the screeches of his proper wives and saw that he got a lawyer’s education. A week ago the Basith’s wife had ventured timidly into the Kuna Corti to see the holywoman about an ulcer on her leg; she came back with the ulcer closed over, with the cancer that caused it cleaned out of her and with a proper appreciation of Brann’s worth. Which was why he was here now. He masked his distaste for the man in front of him, for that unfortunate creature crouching at the Housemaster’s feet, and prepared to do what he was hired for. “The holywoman is but following the instruction of her god. This is the slave she wants. This is the slave she shall have. Place a price on her, if you please, Callam. Then we will see.”