And discovered it as soon as she entered her gates. There was nothing left; even the walls had crumbled and collapsed under the intense heat. Xylina felt like collapsing, herself. There was nothing but a blackened husk where her house had been-
A house for which she still owed more than three-quarters of the price in gold, a debt for which she was still responsible. With no place to live, and no way to earn the rest of the price. Now that it had been destroyed, the original owner would surely demand the rest of the price immediately. And where would she live? She could not remain a guest in Lycia's home forever, no matter what the woman said.
She returned to Lycia's home in a daze, hardly knowing what guided her feet. The slaves met her at the door, saw her face, and immediately fetched Lycia. Lycia seemed to realize exactly how she was feeling, and the older woman wisely refrained from offering her any empty words of consolation. Instead, she took Xylina into the rear of the house, sat Xylina down in the garden, gave her a cup of watered wine, and left her alone.
She stared at the wine, trying to comprehend the magnitude of her disaster. And the cause. Surely no fire that burned that completely could have been natural or set by the hand of humans.The curse . That was all she could think. Only the curse could have so destroyed everything she had built up.Surely no human agency had created a fire like that; no human could. The fire had spread so quickly-as if it had a will and a life of its own. It had reacted as if the water she had poured down upon it were oil, feeding the flames. And yet it had not spread beyond her walls. Granted, her neighbors had soaked down their walls and roofs, but it still seemed uncanny, supernatural. And what was more supernatural than that curse?
And if the curse was, indeed, in operation, what chance had she of recovering from this? None. None. Anything she did would turn to a disaster, and anyone who was associated with her would be caught up in that disaster.
Despair came down upon her, smothering her in dark, heavy clouds. The sun lost its warmth, and the bright garden seemed as desolate as a desert. Her heart ached, her mind went numb. There was no reason to go on, no reason to try. She was doomed, anything she tried was doomed. What worse could happen to her now?
"Xylina-"
She looked up from her despairing thoughts to see her hostess standing in the doorway, a frown on her lean face, and a stranger beside her. The stranger stood very stiffly, and she did not look at all friendly. Her square face was tight, her lips pursed.
"Xylina," Lycia said, and there was a note of anger in her voice, "I didn't want to bring you more bad news, and I'm certain that there must have been a horrible mistake, but this-person-insists on seeing you. She says that she has official business that you must deal with right now."
The person was a middle-aged woman with a hard, disagreeable face, wearing the livery of the Queen. "Are you the owner of the house on the other side of that wall?" the woman demanded, arrogantly. She pointed at the back wall of the garden, where wisps of smoke still rose into the air.
"What's left of it, yes," Xylina replied dully. "A few bricks and a ruined garden. Why?'
"Then you owe sales tax of twenty percent of its value," the woman said, a smirk of indecent satisfaction on her face. "Due immediately. This is the law, and you must obey it, or suffer the consequences."
Xylina stared at her, unable to believe what she had just heard. Sales tax? But the house had not been sold, it had burned! She had not realized any profit on it! How could she be taxed for a sale that had not happened? Was the woman stupid? Did she not understand what had occurred? Finally she blinked once, and said, as if to a very simple-minded person, "I'm afraid you've made a mistake. The house wasn't sold, it burned. There was no sale. There was no profit. In fact, it is a loss-"
One she had no way of making up, much less paying a tax on! She continued to stare at the official, but the woman did not drop her eyes. In fact, she looked pleased, if such a disagreeable face could assume such an expression. Xylina could not help thinking that this official looked like a frog, with her wide, down-turned mouth and eyes that bulged ever so slightly. Her complexion was even an odd olive-green.
"Are you living in the house?" the woman asked, as if Xylina were the simple-minded one. Her bulging eyes narrowed, and her mouth quirked up, just a little, as if she were anticipating something.
Like a nice juicy fly? But perhaps the fly was Xylina....
"No," Xylina replied testily. "Obviously not. It burned to the ground. I told you that."
"Can you live in the house?" she continued, ignoring Xylina's sarcasm. Her mouth quirked again. Xylina's heart sank. There was no mistake.
But she still had to try to make this woman see sense. "Of course not," Xylina snapped, her temper and her voice both cracking. "There is no house. It's gone. It is no longer there to be lived in!"
"Then if you are not living in it and cannot live in it, and no longer have the use of it, it is sold," the tax collector said, her tone triumphant as she displayed her "logic." "There are no exceptions. You owe the Queen her sales tax. It is due immediately."
"I think not," Lycia said icily. "It is the law that no tax is due immediately."
"But in view of the situation," the woman amended smoothly, "you may have until the end of the moon to pay it."
She turned on her heel and left, with Xylina and Lycia dumbfounded in her wake. Xylina had thought nothing else could go wrong; now she knew better. Lycia was the first to recover.
Lycia's reaction was a continuance of her outrage. She was not cowed by that officious official.
Then again, she was not threatened with yet another debt she could not pay. And what would the consequences of not paying be?
"I simply cannot believe this," Lycia said angrily. "That is the most ridiculous piece of bureaucratic nonsense I have ever heard!Sales tax on a house that has been destroyed? There must be a mistake somewhere!"
Lycia’s gray hair was standing out all over her head from the way she kept running an agitated hand through it. Xylina could only sit and shake her head in despair. There was no way out. Punishment probably would be banishment-and that could be worse than death. She could be caught by enemies of the Mazonites, be tortured, be made into a slave herself. Death would be preferable.
Maybe she should just kill herself and get it over with, she thought savagely. The more she thought about it, the more it seemed that was the only solution, although she did not voice her conclusion to Lycia. She should never even have tried all this. It was useless from the start. Useless, hopeless. She never had a chance. No one would ever miss her. No one would care-
But even as she thought that, she realized, with a sob that she choked back, that she no longer had the freedom to escape by killing herself. If she died, Faro died. His life was tied to hers, by the same law that had sent him to the arena in the first place. An ordinary slave would simply be taken as partial payment for the debt, but an ex-arena slave would die when his mistress died. He did not deserve death. How could she do that to him? And she knew that she could not take him to the border and free him; he would not accept his freedom. Even if he changed his mind, she would not be able to get to the border, because debtors were not allowed to leave Mazonia, and they would assume she was trying to flee.
Another sob rose in her throat, and this one escaped. Then another, and another. She tried to hold them back, but they fought past her will, and burning, painful tears followed them. As the hot, shameful tears came of their own will into her eyes and trickled slowly down her cheeks, scalding her like acid, Lycia clutched at her short hair, wearing an oddly helpless expression herself. She didn't know what to say or do-and Xylina could not help herself.