some kind of a leader. If you can catch this man, we will be eternally obliged to you. Without him, perhaps the Kardis will lose heart.' He spoke as though he thought such a happening was unlikely.
'I'll do my best.'
'Are your apartments, er, suitable?'
'Ideal. I notice they have separate access to the street.'
'I thought – you being a Brother – it might be best -' He trailed off, embarrassed.
'You were right. I do like to come and go unobtrusively. Should I disappear for a few days at any time, please do not concern yourself.'
He nodded tiredly. 'Is there any way I can help you? The orders you brought are explicit. You are to have every facility extended to you.'
'You have already very kindly arranged for a woman to attend my slave and for a physician to see her, but there is something else. I would like the services of a bronzesmith. Someone who is discreet and absolutely trustworthy.'
He nodded again, with a total lack of interest. 'I'll get a military man.'
His despair irritated me and I was relieved when I finally left his office and headed back across the gardens to the apartments where Aemid and Brand and I had been quartered.
Brand greeted me at the door. 'Guess what,' he said cheerfully. 'There are no brown snakes in Madrinya.'
'Don't tell me – they're yellow instead.'
He laughed. 'You spoiled my line. No, there really are no snakes. But wait till you see the beetles. They're the size of a man's fist, and they're everywhere! Be careful not to tread on them; they spit back.' He pointed to a blistered patch of skin on his ankle.
I grimaced. 'How's Aemid?'
'Worse. The Governor's physician has been. He says she's just worn out, emotionally as much as physically. She has to be kept quiet for a few days. He agreed she would be best sedated, just as you suggested.'
'Good. This whole trip has been more of a strain on her than I anticipated.' Still, I thought, this couldn't have happened at a better time from my point of view…
PART TWO
The next morning, after the smith had left, I surveyed myself in the mirror with smug satisfaction and then showed myself to Brand. 'What do you think?' I asked and spun on my heel so he could see me from all sides.
His lips gave the faintest of quirks. 'Not particularly appropriate to your personality.'
'Hmph. Why do I have the feeling you mean that as an insult?'
'Slaves do not insult their owners. It is not wise.'
I turned to face the mirror again. The woman who stared back was not the one normally there. This woman was a slave, wearing a bronze slave collar around her neck, and she was wholly Kardi. I smiled, and felt no guilt at breaking my promise to Aemid. How could she have ever thought I would let her dictate the way in which I served Tyrans? She knew me not at all.
I turned my head to see myself better. My hair, instead of being caught up high on my head, was free about my shoulders. It was crimped because I had slept with it plaited, and it lacked its usual artificial gold highlighting. As a consequence, it appeared
T'HAPTER NINE
darker and thicker. The change made my face seem younger, but also more peasant-like. The anoudain I wore was typically Kardi: the bodice and the panels of the overskirt were pale green and embroidered, the trousers darker.
My satisfaction suddenly vanished. This wasn't me. This was a Kardi woman. Disgust crawled my skin. Or was it foreboding?
'You are unrecognisable, Legata,' Brand was saying, 'but it takes more than clothes and hair to fool people.'
'Are you worried about my command of the Kardi language? I am fluent, I assure you. Aemid taught me well. If I use outdated idioms I can explain it away by saying I have lived in Tyrans for years, as a slave to the Legata Ligea. Don't worry about me, Brand. I've gone in disguise often enough in Tyrans.'
'But never as a slave.' He reached out and touched my collar. 'This does more than encircle your neck. It turns you into a chattel. A thing. You can no longer behave as though you have any rights to anything. A slave has no rights. And don't forget, in Tyrans you had the Brotherhood behind you no matter what hellish hole you stepped into. The Brotherhood is a long way from here.' For a brief moment he deliberately unveiled his feelings so that I was swept with his concern, his fear for me.
I turned from the mirror, sobered, to stare at him in silence. 'Ah,' I said at last – a sigh of understanding and acceptance. 'Stupid of me. How long have you known I could read feelings as well as lies?'
'Since I was a lad. It took me a little longer to find ways to hide my emotions from you; What do you do, smell them?'
I shook my head. 'No. It's more like having another sense altogether. One that interprets die way people
feel. I don't need to see the person, or hear them speak, and I certainly don't need to smell them.'
He wanted to ask me more, I could tell. I did not give him time to frame another question; I didn't want to have to explain the inexplicable. I said, 'You are much cleverer than I ever gave you credit for, Brand. I had no idea you hid yourself deliberately. I always thought my inability to read you was a flaw in my talent – that what you did was more, um, instinctive, rather than intentional.' I forced a smile. 'I will be careful. Moreover, you will be following me. Get me a water ewer from the kitchens, and then we'll go.'
Madrinya may have been a Tyranian city, but the area just beyond the Governor's residence managed to retain its Kardi appearance. The street leading to the well-square was of hard brown earth; the walls on either side were adobe, the plainness of their facades broken only by the house gates.
I had no intention of lingering, but when I heard music I came to an abrupt halt. The sounds of several stringed instruments being played in harmony drifted out from one of the houses through a gate left ajar: Kardi music, a plaintive, mournful tune with a complex counterpoint weaving through the melody. It was the first music I could remember hearing in Kardiastan and so it should have been alien to my ears – yet I was suddenly awash with longing, so moved I stood as still as a temple pillar, forgetting where I was going, oblivious to the presence of Brand behind me. The clothes I wore, the language I heard spoken around me, served to reinforce something the music awakened.
I had thought of Kardiastan as a cultureless, barbarian land. This music did more than give me the
lie, it stirred the Kardi soul I hadnt even known I possessed. The wrench of that melody pulled me into another world, into memories of childhood I had tucked away out of reach.
Playing hopsquares. Being cuddled when I cried. Sitting on a man's knee hearing stories told. Paddling at a lakeside. Loving and being loved…
The thoughts I had then were of things that had never bothered me before. I'd never thought a brown skin made me a Kardi. I'd never thought an accident of birth ensured my allegiance. I was Tyranian by inclination, by upbringing, by desire, by citizenship. Yet now the mere sound of a few instruments made me question who I was.
Shaken, I blocked out the sound, quenched the memories and walked on. Don't be stupid, Ligea. You are Gayed's daughter, educated to be a highborn woman ofTyr.
The well-square was a wholly Kardi scene too, but at least it aroused nothing in me except a vague distaste. By the time I arrived, it was crowded. In contrast to Tyr, the market stalls along one side conducted their business without argumentative bargaining or noisy rivalry. I saw no beggars. In the middle of the square, in the scant shade of a deformed tree, slaves and free Kardis waited their turn to draw water. The stone well with its narrow steps was only wide enough for one person to go down to the water's edge at a time, but those in the queue were orderly, chatting among themselves, with no pushing or jostling for position. They came just for drinking water, I knew; professional water sellers transported water used for general household purposes up from the lake in amphorae on shlethback.