The woman, her head lifted high and proud, strode along with great dignity despite her nakedness, and Maya had to stretch her legs to keep up with her.—As she walked, some soldier’s instinct told her she was being watched, and gradually she became aware of stealthy movement within the gloom of some of the stone shelters—the pale shadow of a face or hand round the edge of a doorway, the flash of an eye in a window embrasure as a head ducked quickly beneath the sill. All too soon, this furtive spying on her began to turn from irritating to unnerving. “Licia . . . ?” she asked uneasily, not wanting to betray her disquiet.
“Don’t worry,” the lacemaker shrugged. “They’re nervous of strangers, that’s all. We have a rule that only one of us comes out to greet a newcomer—usually, incomers are either terrified or dangerous. We’ve found from experience that it’s wisest to give new captives a little while to settle in. You’ll meet the others later, when the work gangs return from the fields, and we can introduce you to everyone, all together.”
Soon they reached a low, doorless, windowless stone dwelling, indistinguishable from the rest, near the shore of the lake. Licia ushered the warrior inside, into a single room with nothing but a thick layer of some thick, soft, fibrous stuff on the floor. Nevertheless, the hovel was spotlessly clean and brightly lit with more of the glowing golden globes, which burned, this time, with a clear and steady light instead of the usual irritating flicker.
Maya reached up a curious hand to the Phaerie lamps, which hung from the ceiling like clusters of some alien fruit. Her fingers were bathed in a deep and steady warmth, like summer sunlight. “Why are these different?” she asked Licia.
The lacemaker snorted. “Those wicked buggers keep the big cavern lights flickering like that all the time, so none of us can think straight—you’d be surprised how it gets to you after a while. But they can’t do that in here because of the lace. I need a clear, bright, steady light for that kind of fine work, or I’d go blind—and what worries the Phaerie more, the lace turns into a mess of tangles.” Her face twisted in a humorless smile. “I’m the best lacemaker in Nexis—or I was.”
With a wave of her hand she indicated a plain wooden table at one end of the room, on which there lay a thick pad of cloth, a cluster of delicate, spindle-shaped lace bobbins, each topped with a colored bead, and spools of shimmering, rainbow-hued thread that looked finer than spider silk. “My work is in tremendous demand among the Phaerie,” she told Maya with no modesty at all. “Even the males, including Lord Hellorin, are very conscious of their finery. So that gets me the occasional favor. And at least I get a table and a stool for working. Most folk have to make do with squatting on the floor like dumb beasts in a byre.”
She reached out and hooked a long-legged stool from beneath the table. “Here, girl—sit down. You look a bit shaky, which is no surprise. Put it in the corner, so you can rest your back against the wall.” She reached deep into a shadowy niche hollowed into the thick stone of the wall, and produced a roughly made pottery cup. “Here—” She handed Maya an apple and a hard heel of some kind of bread, “We won’t be fed again until evening, when the workers come back from outside, but I usually keep a little something back for emergencies. You’ll feel better for some food inside you, and I’ll go and fetch you some water. You take your ease awhile—I won’t insult you by saying don’t fret, but you can put it off till later. Worry’s like yeast—if you go on feeding it, it’ll keep indefinitely. I’ll be back before you know it.”
Left alone, Maya sat down gratefully as instructed, feeling too weary, beaten, and betrayed even to wonder or care where the lacemaker had gone—although the warrior had a strong suspicion that Licia had used the fetching of water as an excuse to go and report to her fellow-slaves. Though her stomach was aching with hunger, Maya left the food untasted on the table. She knew she should be thinking of ways to find D’arvan, she ought to be planning some sort of escape, but she was tired, so very tired....
“There—I told you I wouldn’t be long.”
“What?” Maya’s eyes flew open. She jerked upright, just saving herself from falling off the stool.
Licia held out the crude cup and Maya, who would have sold her soul just then for a mug of taillin laced with strong spirits, sipped, and made a face. It was water, plain and simple, but harsh with minerals and warm—about the temperature of a comfortable bath. The lacemaker, watching her, raised a sardonic brow. “You’ll have to excuse us, but the wine consignment doesn’t seem to have arrived yet.”
“Is this all they give you to drink?” Maya asked in dismay.
“Not at all—you can have it cold, if you’d prefer.”
“Seven bloody demons! Licia—do the Phaerie treat you cruelly?” Judging from the cold-blooded severity of the blow she had received from the Phaerie woman, Maya suspected she already knew the answer.
“What do you think?” Licia’s pale blue eyes were smoldering with bitter rage.
“We’re less than insects to them. We artisans are lucky at least—they appreciate our skills and take better care of us—but the lives of the common laborers have absolutely no value to them at all. If they injure or kill a few Mortals, so what? There’ll always be plenty more.”
Maya was appalled. Somehow, she had never suspected her lover’s people to be like this! Suddenly the Magefolk insistence on banishing the Phaerie made a great deal of sense. “Has no one tried to escape?” she asked.
The lacemaker shrugged. “You think they haven’t dealt with that little problem? What do you think these are for? Decoration?” She fingered the slender chain around her neck. “They do say this metal is a mixture of true gold and Phaerie blood, and it contains part of their magic. It may not look like much, but believe me, it’s absolutely unbreakable. There’s no way to get it off—and folk have died trying. And these chains don’t just mark us as slaves, as property. They also keep us here. The Phaerie have set fields of magic all around the boundaries of their realm, and if anyone should try to pass through them wearing one of these, the chain will turn white-hot and literally burn their head off their shoulders.”
Maya was too aghast to speak. Involuntarily, her hand went to her throat, as if to persuade herself that her captors had not placed the hideous device around her neck. The chill of the metal seemed to eat into her fingers, and her heart brimmed over with dread. “These—they don’t come off?” she whispered.
“Not ever?”
Licia shook her head. “I’m sorry, my dear. In all the years the Phaerie have been keeping Mortal slaves, not one of those chains has ever been removed. We don’t think they can.” She scowled. “Even the accursed Magefolk were better than this lot,” she burst out angrily. “At least under their rule we were free to go our ways—until they all got themselves killed, that is, and let the Phaerie run amok.”
For a moment, a faint, flickering spark of hope flared up in Maya’s heart. Ah, she thought, but the Magefolk were not all killed. She could only pray that D’arvan possessed enough strength and power to force his arrogant father to see that Mortals should not be enslaved. “We’re more than brute animals,” she whispered to herself. “We’re not put here just to serve them.” She was enough of a realist, however, to know perfectly well that right and wrong had little influence on the world. Again, she touched the chain around her neck. Slave, it said. Base and lowly animal. In the end, it all came down to a question of might. The Phaerie have the power to enslave the Mortals, Maya thought, and there’s nothing we can do to stop them. The fate of our race is entirely dependent on their mercy, and our only hope is that somehow they can be persuaded to spare us.