Replacing the plants would cost money; money they could ill-afford. Not replacing them meant that they would have to buy all of their food, instead of only staples and meat.
"Guinea-fowl," Faro grunted, straightening from his examination of the ruined beds. "Look, you can see the scratch-marks, and the places where they pecked the seedlings apart. Somebody turned a whole flock of guinea-fowl loose here. Too bad there aren't still some birds here; you could have conjured a net over them, and they're tasty eating."
Xylina shook her head, feeling doom descend upon her, a heavy weight settling on her heart,
"What's the matter, little mistress?" Faro asked, evidently reading her sinking spirit from her expression.
"It's the curse," she blurted, without thinking. "I'm cursed, nothing I do is going to turn out right! I'm going to destroy anyone who is with me!"
Faro turned to give her a reproving look from under his black brows. He left the ruined garden and came to stand at her side, blocking her view of the withered plants. "That's rot," he said shortly. "I don't believe in magic curses, and neither should you. I do believe in accursed people: people who send snakes through gates and toss guinea-hens over a wall. Someone wants to ruin you, but that doesn't mean you're under some kind of a mythical influence."
Xylina shook her head again, wishing she could believe him. But why else would snakes appear where there were none, or guinea-hens mysteriously turn up, destroy only her garden, and vanish again? Surely if anyone else had seen the fowls, or had their gardens destroyed, the neighborhood would be buzzing with indignant homeowners.
Faro seemed to be reading her mind. "Guinea-fowl can fly," he reminded her. "And you don't know what they did in other yards; just because the neighbors aren't out in the street complaining, doesn't mean they didn't have problems.They have garden-slaves to chase off the pests; you don't. The birds might still be here, in someone else's garden. For that matter, they might have been some fool's idea of watch-fowl or garden-birds, and they might have gone home again. You don't know that you were the only one with a garden the birds invaded."
But she knew he was wrong, deep in her heart. She knew that if she asked-which she would not-she would learn that no one else's property had been touched, that no one had a flock of guinea-hens, and that no one had seen or heard anything. She knew this, because no one else's gate had been smeared by paint-wielding vandals, no one else had rotting garbage appear overnight in their forecourt, and no one else had to fortify her doors and windows against intruders when she left. She had asked her neighbors if they had been disturbed, or had even seen or heard anything, after the first two incidents, and had been rewarded with odd looks and denials of trouble.
"This is such a quiet neighborhood," said one woman. "We've never had any incidents before."
Before you moved here... That was what had been implied. After that, she had stopped asking.
The protection against intruders, at least, had been relatively easy. She simply conjured massive metal plates in front of all of the portals whenever she and Faro left, and banished them when she returned. But the first time it had happened, she and Faro had come home to find all their food ruined, the cushions on the furniture slashed, and the walls smeared with filth. It had taken them several days to clean up the mess, and both of them had been forced to take up needle and thread to mend the slashes. At least she was buying this place and not leasing it. She would not have to account to the owner for the damage done.
Once again, Faro seemed to be able to read her mind, understand her doubts and fears without any word from her. "People did all these things, Xylina," he said gently. "Not curses, not gods, not some invisible hand. People. Someone does not want you to succeed, and that is the simple truth. You have an enemy-it might even be an enemy you 'inherited' from your mother, a feud you did not even know about. It would suit that person for you to believe in this curse, for that would make you despair and look no further for your persecutor. I think this has been going on for years; that was my concern when I first joined you. Your misfortunes seemed too patterned. But I didn't want to alarm you with a foolish conjecture. Now it no longer seems foolish."
That made sense-and as his words sank in, they made Xylina angry. She raised her chin defiantly, taking heart from Faro's inexorable logic. "You're right, Faro," she replied, letting her anger burn away her despair. "You're right. I don't know who or what is behind this-but-but I'll be damned if I give in to her! No one is going to break me!"
Faro nodded approvingly, and his expression lightened just a little.
She surveyed the ruined garden with renewed determination. "Well, we'll just have to get seedlings somewhere," she said. "We can't just give up the garden; we need the food we can grow ourselves." She thought for a moment. "Don't farmers thin out their plants now and again?" she asked her slave. "Wouldn't seedlings be cheaper from them rather than from a nursery?"
"I'd have to go outside the city, but I think you are correct, little mistress," he replied, his eyes warming. "We would have to take a chance that the roots had been damaged, but if I speak with another slave, we might be able to persuade him to take some care in the thinning and in his selections. It would probably take several days, one day for each kind of seedling we need-"
"Why would you have to go outside the city?" she asked. "Couldn't you make an arrangement with the farmers' slaves in the city market? I've often seen slaves there rather than the farmers themselves. Couldn't you ask them to bring in seedlings with the vegetables, perhaps pay them some in advance?"
Faro smiled slowly. "I could indeed," he said, dusting off his hands on his tunic and nodding. "I think that would be the best plan. And one slave will often do something for another that he would not for his mistress. If I make it clear that my own future dinners depend on this garden, it may make a distinct difference."
"Then, once we have replanted, I can conjure a metal net to protect the whole garden-yes, and the forecourt too," she told him with grim determination. "That will let the sun in and keep birds-and anyone else-out. And perhaps I had best conjure some kind of barrier at the front gate as well. Then the only damage they will be able to do will be to the exterior wall."
"Good." Faro nodded approval of all her remedies. "We have an appointment tonight, do we not?" he asked, abruptly changing the subject, as was his habit when he felt the subject had been exhausted.
Xylina grimaced; in the ruin of her garden, she had forgotten that. Though they had gone to the marketplace every day to post Faro's services for hire, the men of the quarter had been as yet unwilling to use him as a scribe, and the women were not sufficiently intrigued by his novelty value to become steady customers. She had finally interested one of those wealthy women in her idea of using Faro as a kind of entertainment; he would "perform" at a party held by the noted merchant Klyta Stylina tonight. Faro had not particularly liked the idea, but he had to admit it was a faster way of making their payments on this new dwelling than hiring himself out as a market-scribe. At a copper-bit for every letter and tally, it would take a long time before the house was paid for-and the plan he and Xylina had formulated together depended on being able to buy more slaves and educate them, so that she could supply a cadre of trained scribes to anyone who might need them. Merchants just setting up a new business for instance, or someone whose trusted scribe had become ill or had died. He was convinced there was a need for such a cadre; she was inclined to agree with him.