Forged by Fire (12 page)
These being the grades of miscegenation found within the boundaries of Malacar, and the appella tions assigned to each:
When a man of fa-pim blood plants his seed in the garden of a Djimbi woman, the resultant bud shall be known as a munano. A saroon comes from the pairing of a fa-pim man and a munano, a ginar from a mu nano and a Djimbi. A sesif comes from the pairing of a fa-pim man and a saroon, and a farasin from a mu nano and a ginar. A sasangai comes from a ginar and a Djimbi, a memeslu from a fa-pim man and a sesif, and a senemei from a fa-pim man and a memeslu.
Any Djimbi who labors upon a Malacarite Clutch is justly considered a freeborn serf. However, pair ings between all grades of Clutch Djimbi are against Temple statute, for such unions perpetuate the ab errant Djimbi bloodline. Therefore, if two Djimbi should beget offspring, mother and progeny become the property of the Clutch overseer, to dispose of as and if he sees fit, and the future increase of such chat tel shall likewise be forfeit to overseer and Temple, be they sired by a man of fa-pim or tainted blood. Be it known that Djimbi chattel have no standing in a griev ance court in any Clutch or on any lands governed by the Emperor Fa.
By declaring all Djimbi freeborn, yet by creating a law the Djimbi couldn’t help but break, the Temple of the Dragon had foisted the responsibility of slavery upon the Djimbi themselves. In effect, Temple was declaring that the Djimbi enslaved themselves by breaching Temple statute when they mated within their own race. Bondage was therefore transmitted like a birth defect from mother and father to child and grandchild, through the generations.
Miscegenation can be forgiven all those of fa-pim blood, for which of us has not petted one of the pretty little senemeis belonging to a neighbor as a handmaid? Truly, it is the duty of every fa-pim man upon Xxamer Zu to seek out such comely gardens and sow his seed frequently within them, registering such unions in the census annals, so that should any offspring result, he may be rewarded for his duty when said offspring are harvested, in later years, by overseer or Temple. The resultant flowers that grow from such unions bear a hue much more pleasing than the starkly mottled shades that result from coarse piebald pairings, and thus a man not only assists in decreasing Clutch debt, but increases the quality of the property owned by his Clutch overseer.
I stared at Savga.
Her skin was the color of wild honey, her whorls faint, small, and few. I remembered she’d called herself a sen emei. I’d assumed she’d been employing a Djimbi word for
bastard
. But no. She’d been employing one of the Emper or’s words for a grade of human chattel, one of the more
pleasing
grades.
I remembered, too, the scroll the daronpu had read from, before Savga and I had been chained and led away from the arbiyesku. I uncurled the first piece of parchment I’d come across, the one pungent with fresh ink. I looked over the names, carefully this time, then uncurled the second piece of parchment, and a third.
I found what I was looking for: Tansan’s name, and be side it, the name of the three bayen lordlings who’d vio lated her, nine months prior to Savga’s birth.
What would those lords have done with the reward had I not prevented Savga from being sold into slavery? Split the lucre three ways?
In a different ink, in the third column adjacent to Tansan’s name:
Arbiyesku Xxamer Zu Keau’s Waivia
. It was anno tated to include the common name Savga. Cruel irony that they’d listed Savga as Keau’s firstborn, knowing full well she was a by-blow from one of the three bayen lordlings. The registrar had listed her as such merely as a means of identifying her and Tansan.
The names of Runami and Oblan were also on the list, as well as those of the two arbiyesku boys who’d been taken alongside us that day. Seventeen pieces of parchment, in cluding the one I held, listed names of women who had been violated by lordlings doing their duty for their Clutch overlord. Seventeen pieces of parchment, belonging to a scroll numbered sixty in a series. No wonder the youth of Xxamer Zu disappeared into the jungle, the city, Hamlets of Forsaken. No wonder Xxamer Zu’s population was a third of what it had once been.
Again, I wondered if such harvesting had been practiced in Clutch Re. But no: Djimbi rishi were uncommon on that vast estate. My mother had been one of a tiny minority, as Waivia had been.
I remembered, then, what Fwipi had called Tansan.
My memeslu daughter.
I’d thought, at the time, that memeslu had meant
seditious
. No. A memeslu was the result of a pairing between a fa-pim man and a sesif, a sesif being yet another grade of interbreeding. A fa-pim man had there fore sown his seed into Fwipi’s womb. Tansan, too, was a bastard child. As was Fwipi.
I’d thought that by having my own Clutch, I would find a sense of belonging, create a world of safety and security. I thought I’d have, finally, a home. But it wouldn’t be as sim ple as that. I had to
make
myself a home, alter age-old prac tices, defy even more Temple laws. Change things. Fight.
Again.
I abruptly shoved the scrolls aside and rose to my feet. I didn’t need to know how many more of the children and adults in Clutch Xxamer Zu were bastards, to be harvested in the future to pay off the overlord’s debts.
Just knowing that such harvesting existed was bad enough.
As I lay drained and shivering in the wake of the attack, I thought she might talk. But no. She remained mute. She pushed herself into a corner of the room and held herself tightly.
I despised my body, that it could, with its base responses, betray both me and a child so recently devastated, and I was furious with Daronpu Gen that he hadn’t forewarned me that his charmed purgatives would be effective for a limited time only.
“I’m fine, Savga,” I croaked. “I just need some . . . medi cine. Maybe Yimtranu will have some.”
The idea at once held massive appeal. Surely Yimtranu had something in those ancient cabinets of hers that would dull my cravings. Distilled spirits, maska root, dream mushrooms, poppy extract . . . She’d told me herself that her house had once made great good medicines.
As wet and unsteady as a newborn fawn, I got to my feet, and, leaning heavily against wall and post, wobbled the few paces to the top of the attic stairs. Candlelight flickered be low, and I could hear Yimtranu talking to someone. A man. I summoned my strength to descend the rickety stairs—and was frozen in place by what Yimtranu was saying.
“. . . need more dragon’s milk. Usual quantity, for the usual fee.”
A rumble from the man, followed by a curse from Yim tranu.
“He plays a dangerous game, raising the price,” she croaked. “Well, go to him; see if you can bargain the toad down. If not . . . walk away. He’ll lower in a week or two, rather than risk his master discovering his stolen hoard.”
Another rumble from the man, followed by the clink of coins, footsteps crossing creaking planks, and the groan of a door opening.
My mind raced. If Yimtranu was reduced to making cock quickeners for bayen lords so she could feed her family, it was feasible that she was illicitly using dragon’s milk—venom—in her products, because of its powerful aphrodisiac qualities. And it sounded like the man I’d just overheard was the one procuring the venom for her.
I flew back into the room where Savga still sat in one cor ner, and wrenched the latch off the shutters. I flung them open and leaned far out. There walked a lone figure, down at the end of the alley, about to turn a corner.
“Stay here,” I gasped to Savga, whirling around. “I’ll be back by morn.”
The fear in her eyes cut me to the quick.
“I’ll come back,” I insisted, but the fear remained. Irri tated, I bent, heaved her onto one aching hip, and clattered down the stairs.
“The child’s soiled herself,” I called to Yimtranu as I passed her. “She needs to be washed.”
“Only whores walk about at this time of night,” Yim tranu snapped at my back, but I was already through the door, Savga bouncing on my hip.
Outside, I readjusted my hold on her and ran for the end of the alley. Turned the corner where the man had turned. Passed a cluster of old men playing dice on the ground. Passed a young boy pissing against a wall while a cur circled about him, whining.
We reached a crossroads of alleys. Heaving for air, I stopped, looked left, looked right. . . .
There he was. Surely it was him, his lean body bent slightly, as though he were walking into a wind. I took a shuddering breath, switched Savga from one hip to the other, ignored my protesting ribs, and followed my quarry down the alley. Then down another, keeping to the shadows, ignoring the looks of any I passed.
We came out, suddenly, onto the dark and empty mar ket square of Xxamer Zu. To the right of us loomed the Clutch Temple. My quarry was crossing the square, heading toward two abandoned buildings.
“Can you walk for a while, Savga?” I panted. I felt cruel asking, for she was wan and hadn’t eaten all day, but my ribs were a screaming agony, and I didn’t want to lose the chance to discover where I might find a supply of venom just for the sake of carrying a child. . . .
She gave a small nod.
I quickly set her on the ground, grasped her hand, and towed her across the empty market square.
Our feet slapped against the hardpan, still warm from the day’s heat. Wind sent a ball of dead grass tumbling a short way across our path; a cluster of men gathered out side a tavern jeered at us. Savga looked at me anxiously.
Foolish,
a voice hissed in my mind.
You should have left her behind. Go back, before you both get hurt!
My quarry disappeared down an alley between the two abandoned buildings. I tugged Savga after him.
She sucked in a sharp breath at the darkness and close ness of the alley, which reeked of human excrement. Every instinct within me shouted that we should turn back. In stead, I gripped her hand tighter and pulled her into the dark.
The scurry of a rat. The snores of a vagrant. Savga whim pered.
“We’re almost there; keep going,” I murmured.
We came out onto the bayen thoroughfare. Oblivious to his two female shadows, my quarry was turning into the garden of a bloom-covered mansion that was ablaze with light.
“Quickly,” I said, pulse racing. I could
feel
the venom call ing me. I dragged Savga along at a stumbling pace, keeping my eyes glued upon the mansion that was so alive with light and music.
I paused at the fore of the mansion’s dusty drive. In the dark, the white facade of the building was eerily spectral, and the lights blazing from every room sent attenuated fingers of shadow flickering over the jumble of rickshaws that were gathered outside, around a leaf-littered fountain that looked as if it had never spouted water. A profusion of flowers, black as ink in the night, spilled from the balconies ringing the mansion’s upper floors. The smell of roasting onions and game hung in the air. Laughter, heady cigar smoke, and the music of cymbals and mizifars spilled from the open windows of the mansion.
A revel was in full swing inside. I suspected that either the host or one of his guests had procured venom to add to the festivities, and somehow Yimtranu’s messanger had been alerted to it.
“Around the back, servants’ entry,” I muttered. “Savga, keep silent, even if spoken to. Understand?”
Her eyes were as shiny as glasses of dark tea, and her little chest was heaving hard. She pursed her lips and nod ded. She was shivering. I grabbed her hand, threw back my head, straightened my shoulders, and marched down the drive.
Pebbles crunched under our feet. The gambling rickshaw pullers glanced up. I ignored them and continued on my way to the back of the mansion.
A bayen woman on a balcony was giggling and batting away the groping hands of a lord, but her giggles had a sharp, breathy edge to them, and her struggles against his persis tence looked more real than play. He was undressing her.
“Keep walking,” I murmured to Savga.
We rounded the back of the mansion and came to an abrupt stop. A huge open-air kitchen teemed with activ ity in front of us. Fires blazed beneath spits; Djimbi men chopped wood; women bustled around brick ovens and trestle tables. Knives flashed; feathers from plucked birds flew. Children darted hither and thither, fetching and car rying braces of dead songbirds and buckets of water. The smell of hot pastries, sizzling garlic, human sweat, and roasting meat swept over us. Beside me, Savga reeled.
I frantically scanned the activity. I’d lost my quarry.
I cursed, then cursed again. But I wasn’t giving up yet. I tugged Savga forward.
Young rishi women—senemeis, all—were carrying filled platters from the outdoor kitchen down a short flight of stairs and into the mansion. They were dressed in clean bitoos of sheer, white linen, and the swells and curves of their breasts and rumps teased the eye as they walked.
My
bitoo hardly compared to theirs, nor my lean, hard body to their curves . . . but I’d be damned if I was going to let that stop me.
I marched up to a trestle table, bold as you please, and reached for a platter. A large, perspiring Djimbi woman was arranging raw chilies and cubes of fried dragon egg white around a whole roasted iguana that sported a charred mango in its gaping mouth.
I picked up the platter, even as the woman was placing more cubes of fried egg white upon it.
“It’s not ready,” she snapped, wiping the back of an arm across her forehead and leaving behind a streak of soot.
“My master demands it now.” I lifted my chin imperi ously. “This girl and I provide a certain type of entertain ment for him that he insists must be accompanied by a meal of roast iguana. He’s been waiting too long for it already.”
The big woman glanced with scorn and pity from me to Savga, then turned her back on us, too busy to engage in argument.
“Stay near me, Savga,” I hissed as we wended our way through the melee and down the dank stairs, into the blaz ing light of the mansion. One of her hands clung to the back of my bitoo as she followed.
I suspected that the upper level of the mansion was where the bedchambers existed. During my youth, some of the bawdy songs the women of danku Re had sung while they’d made clay pots in the studio had been of bayen revels such as these; we children would later reenact the scandalous behavior of the drunken rich, converting by imagination the tops of crumbling compound walls into the bedchambers of aristocrats.
Venom, if it were being illicitly used, would be found up stairs, alongside beds and privacy.
There was another kitchen inside the mansion, crammed with rishi. Pots clattered, steam billowed, orders were barked above the cacophony. Holding the platter high above my head, I pushed my way through the swarm, fol lowing one of the white-clad senemeis bearing a laden platter. Through the chaos of the kitchen she unknowingly led me, and up a flight of stairs. We walked pressed against one of the cool stone walls of the stairwell to allow pas sage down for a stream of white-clad young women bear ing empty platters.
At the top of the stairs stood two huge, muscled rishi men, ridiculously tricked out in crimson turbans and matching loincloths. They stood on either side of the stair well, arms crossed and thick legs braced, their backs to us. I plunged on.
I reached the top stair and stepped out into the blaze of light and heat cast by the hundreds of candles of a glass chandelier that was suspended from a vaulted ceiling. Bayen lords and ladies in elegant dress swirled beneath those lights, while rishi children, crammed in tiny iron cages that swung from the ceiling, waved huge plumed fans over the heads of the aristocrats below.
A meaty hand grasped one of my biceps and brought me to an abrupt stop.
“No entry,” one of the huge Djimbi men guarding the stairwell said. His face was implacable, his eyes indifferent. His lower lip had been pierced with a gold ring.
I lifted my chin haughtily and repeated the lie I’d told the cook.
The guard blinked basilisk eyes. “No entry.”
“I don’t think you realize whom you are rejecting,” I said frostily. “I’m the Wai Vaneshor’s Wai ebani, and he’s summoned me, this girl, and this food, and is expecting ser vice—”
“No entry.”
I was quivering inside. But, driven by the knowledge that I was close—so close—to a source of venom, I plunged on.
“You cannot forbid me entry!” I said, raising my voice. Djimbi women clad in white glanced my way as they hur ried down the stairwell behind me. And, too, a lord and lady turned and frowned in our direction.
The mountain of muscle that was still holding me in his relentless grip turned and bent a thick neck toward a very young rishi girl—no more than eight years old—who sat to one side of the stairwell. She, too, wore white, as well as an expression of fear.
He barked something at her; she leapt to her feet and nimbly darted into the crowd of aristocrats.
If Daronpu Gen wasn’t present—and there was no rea son to assume that he would be—not only would I be de nied access to the mansion (and the venom hidden within its fine walls), but I would suffer severe punishment for my lie and intrusion.
As would Savga, behind me.
It was as if a brittle sheath of glass that had surrounded me up to that point shattered, and I realized, for the first time that evening, the extent of my madness.
I turned to Savga and mouthed,
Run
.
Her grip tightened on my bitoo and her lower lip thrust out, even while she looked terrified. She shook her head in refusal.
“Curse you, Savga,
go
. Run so fast you won’t get caught. You know where to go.”
If he heard, the mountain restraining me showed no in dication. Bless him, he was Djimbi, and would allow the young girl behind me to escape my fate . . . if she had sense enough to do so.
“Savga . . .” I started to hiss, but the grip on my arm jerked me so that I was facing forward again.
And staring direct into the eyes of Rutgar Re Ghepp.
His dark hair was slightly tousled above his slender brows, and his full lips, centered below high ivory cheek bones, were parted in astonishment. His eyes, the color of chestnuts streaked with gold, rapidly turned dark as he overcame his surprise.
He studied me, chiseled nostrils flaring like an agitated dragon, and he looked away. I think we were both remember ing the last time we’d faced each other over a courtyard of dead Auditors. Behind Ghepp, a cluster of lords and ladies had gath ered and were looking at me with disgust and indignation.
Ghepp faced the mountain of muscle who was restrain ing me. “Take her outside,” he coolly ordered. “Two of my paras will escort her to the stockade. I’ll deal with her later.”
Behind me I felt swift, sudden movement.
I didn’t dare look over my shoulder and draw attention to the six-year-old girl escaping down the crowded stair well at my back.