Where he had gotten this talent for counseling, she had no idea. Perhaps the schooling for scribes included advice on managing difficult mistresses. She was not going to argue about the source, not when it gave her so much more interest in life.
She finally rose, conjured herself a new chiton to pin about herself, then, feeling more interested in how she looked than she had in months, conjured a hot bath for herself. She heard Faro walking about in the courtyard, but the sound was more soothing than disturbing.
Once bathed, she banished her conjuration, which vanished without leaving even a damp spot. A distinct advantage over real water and soap, she thought with a faint smile.
She pinned her newly-conjured length of fabric at her shoulders, and tied it at her waist with another, narrower band, both in shades of blue. Then she stepped out into the courtyard, to see what Faro was up to.
Somewhat to her surprise, she found him examining her yard in minute detail, even pushing one of the two wooden crates she used as a chair up to the shorter wall and peering over it.
"Have you eaten?" she asked, concerned that he had been waiting all this time for her to appear. "I did give you permission to take care of your own meals, didn't I?"
He jumped down from the crate and dusted his hands.
"Yes, mistress, you did, and I have," he replied. It seemed to her, in the aftermath of last night's purging, that his face seemed much more relaxed and open. Probably a good night's sleep had done him as much good as it had her.
So he had eaten. Well, that was a relief. She went to the cupboard-box and extracted the end of a loaf and some cheese for her own meal, then took a cup to pump out some water. Faro intercepted her, taking the cup, pumping the water, and giving her the cup back, full. She took it, with a brief nod of thanks-it had been a very long time since she'd had a slave; having things done for her felt rather odd.
"What were you doing?" she asked, curiously.
"I was examining your property, mistress," he told her, as she seated herself on the other crate and began nibbling her food.
"Do you have any idea of what it might be worth?" she asked. "You did suggest that I should sell it."
"I am not an expert," he replied, standing between her and the sun, so that he was haloed by it. She realized that he was doing that to keep the slanting sunbeams out of her eyes: another little slave service. Probably he didn't realize how the light enhanced him.
"Well, I know that, but you are a trained scribe," she said, with gentle logic. "A scribe has to do many things, at least, that's what I remember. Surely you can give me a general idea."
To her pleased surprise, he chuckled a little. "That is true," he admitted. "And I do have some ideas."
She leaned forward with interest and began to question him closely, and as what he told her gave her some ideas of her own, she asked his advice on them as well. She couldn't help but notice how her interest and enthusiasm pleased and intrigued him. Was she that different a mistress from what he had expected? She was only trying to emulate how she recalled her mother talking with Marcus, who had been her most trusted advisor.
When they had formed a plan about how to dispose of the house, she began asking his advice on other matters in which she was ignorant-for a trained scribe was much more than simply a secretary for his mistress. He often handled household accounts and management, and he was frequently privy to many of her political and personal secrets. She distinctly remembered Marcus filling those functions for her mother. And now, in the person of Faro, she had someone who could fill them for her.
She shook her head, still bemused by it all. "Oh, Faro, I'm glad I chose you to fight in the arena. If, as you say, I was fated to win, you were the best possible prize I could have won. I was incredibly lucky-because I wasn't thinking of life after the match. I thought there wouldn't be any. What would I have done with one of those other brutes?"
Faro nodded. "I suspect my fortune matches yours. I, too, was not thinking of a life such as this. You are better than I deserve."
She decided not to debate that. Who ever heard of a mistress exchanging compliments with her slave? "I hope it is a sign that my family's curse is over, or was false. I never really believed in it, yet somehow I couldn't quite disbelieve either."
He looked oddly doubtful. "There are curses, and there are curses," he said. "Be careful, mistress."
Later, she sent him out to the bazaar for food for the evening's meal and for breakfast on the morrow, and she felt rather ashamed of having to entrust that to him. "This is below you," she confessed, looking up at his eyes, acutely aware how tiny she was next to him. So strange; hard to believe that she had defeated him, and yet she had. "I wish I had someone else to send to do this."
"You will," he said, firmly. "And in the meantime, I am pleased to serve you this way."
And with that, he took the pouch of coins, and left her alone for the first time this day.
She surveyed her tiny home with new eyes, trying to think of it, not as a home, but as something else. While most of the quarter's inhabitants seemed content to go all the way to the bazaar for what they needed, she had the feeling that they might well welcome something like a small shop here, with foodstuffs-or a bakery. Or perhaps a tavern? That had a great deal of potential, for the last tavern in this quarter had closed when the freedmen expanded their quarter, and bought the building that had housed it.
By the time Faro returned, the bed-clothing that she had conjured the night before had vanished, but she had already produced replacements. They shared a companionable meal, and continued their plotting until after moon-rise, and Xylina went to bed well contented. For the first time in a long while, she slept peacefully and without distressing dreams.
The next day was spent in looking for a new home-and it took the entire day, even after eliminating the poorer and wealthier quarters. She and Faro ate sausage-rolls in the bazaar, without ever going home, until it grew too dark to look any more. They returned home, footsore but content. She conjured new bed-clothing and a foot-bath for each of them, and they both retired to bed. She was so weary she hardly remembered her head touching the pillow. She realized that she felt safe now, because of Faro's presence, and that was another unexpected blessing. It meant that she could sleep relaxed instead of nervous.
In the morning, she bathed and dressed herself with especial care. She could not conceal the fact that she had conjured her clothing, but she could conjure something that was as much like what her mother had worn as she could remember. She even dressed her hair in the single, long braid her mother had favored. Thus dressed, as carefully as if she were once again going into combat, she left the house with Faro and headed into the more prosperous quarters of the city.
Then she smiled to herself. Dressing for combat? She had fought naked! Nevertheless, she liked the notion. She was no longer facing arena combat, but the purchase of a house was likely to entail combat-like negotiations.
Acting on Faro's advice, Xylina went to an information-monger at the bazaar and for a tiny coin bought information on property brokers. As the info-monger recited the kind of property they handled and who their latest clients were, she watched Faro out of the corner of her eye. He shook his head, very subtly, when a broker was not what they were looking for.
At length though, he nodded. She memorized that brokers address, and the process continued.
They ended up with three brokers who seemed likely, and since one was very close to the bazaar, Xylina decided to visit her that moment. With Faro following behind, at the proper, respectful distance, she sought out the address.
As a house, she and Faro had decided that her property was not worth much-but as the site for a small business, say a shop selling staples like flour and salt, or a bakery, or even a tiny tavern, in a neighborhood which had none of these things, it might be worth more. The fact that it had its own pump and well made it much more valuable as a commercial property. The outer room and the forecourt could be made into the shop or tavern, and the rear into living quarters for a woman and two or three slaves. Or, even more likely, it could be run completely by slaves, and the woman who owned them and the property need not set foot there except to collect the profits.