Servant of the Empire. Janny Wurts

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СКАЧАТЬ still, passage through the jammed streets was painfully tedious. Finally the tenements fell behind as the road crooked with the bend in the river Gagajin. Here the gloom lessened, but only slightly. In place of the mildewed tenements were warehouses, craft sheds, and factories. Dye shops and tanneries, butchers’ stalls and slaughterhouses crowded the way, and the blended stinks of offal, dye vats, and steam from the tallow Tenderer’s left a reeking miasma in the air. Smoke from the resin makers’ fires coiled in clouds from the chimneys, and at the riverside, docked to weathered pilings, lay commerce barges and other floating house-shacks. Vendors vied for any cranny that remained, each crowded, tiny stall serving its wares to clusters of wives and off-duty workers.

      Now Lujan’s warriors were forced to shove the crowds aside, shouting, ‘Acoma! Acoma!’ to let the commoners know a great Lady was passing. Other warriors closed tightly against the sides of Mara’s litter, placing their armoured bodies between their mistress and possible danger. The slaves they kept herded together, and the press became so tight that no man could look down to check his footing. The soldiers wore hardened leather sandals, but the slaves, including the bearers, had no choice but to tread on bits of broken crockery and rivulets of sewage and other refuse.

      Mara lay back against her finely embroidered cushions, her fan pressed hard to her face. She closed her eyes in longing for the open meadows of her estate, perfumed with summer grass and sweet flowers. In time the factory quarter changed, became less odorous and crowded, more inclined toward industries of the luxury trade. Here weavers, tailors, basket makers, cordwainers, silk spinners, and potters toiled. An occasional jeweller’s stall – guarded by armed mercenaries – or a perfumer’s, frequented in this less fashionable quarter by painted women of the Reed Life, was nestled between shops offering less luxurious merchandise.

      The sun had climbed to midday. Drowsy behind her curtains, Mara fanned herself slowly, thankful that, at last, the bustle of Sulan-Qu fell behind. As her retinue continued down roads shaded by evergreens, she was lying back, attempting to sleep, when one of the bearers developed a limp. At each step she was jostled uncomfortably on her cushions, and rather than cause a man needless pain, she ordered a halt to look into the matter.

      Lujan detailed a soldier to inspect the bearers. One had cut his foot in the poor quarters. Tsurani, and aware of his place, he had striven to continue his duty to the verge of fainting with pain.

      Mara was still nearly an hour from her estate house, and, maddeningly, the Midkemians were once again speaking among themselves in the nasal braying that passed for their native language. Irked by their jabbering as much as by the delay, she motioned to Lujan. ‘Send that redheaded barbarian over to replace my lame bearer.’ Slave he might be, but he acted like a ringleader, and since the stinks of the poor quarter had left Mara with a headache, she was willing to consider almost any expedient to make the barbarians less quarrelsome.

      The warriors immediately brought the chosen slave. The bald one called out in protest and had to be cuffed aside. Knocked to his knees, he continued to shout, until the redhead bade him be silent. Then, blue eyes fixed in curiosity on the elegant Lady in the litter, he came forward to shoulder the vacant left front pole.

      ‘No,’ snapped Lujan at once. He waved for the slave to the rear to come forward and assigned the redhead to stand behind. This way a warrior with an unsheathed sword could march at the barbarian’s back, insurance against trouble or threat to their mistress.

      ‘Home,’ she ordered her retinue, and her bearers crouched to shoulder their burden, the redheaded barbarian among them.

      The first steps forward were unmitigated chaos. The Midkemian was over a head taller than the other bearers, and as he straightened with his load, and strode ahead, the litter canted forward. Mara found herself starting to slide. The silk trappings and cushions offered no resistance to her motion. Lujan’s fast reflexes spared her an unceremonious spill onto the ground, and a slap of his hand warned the barbarian to hold his pole level. This the huge man could do only by hunching his back and shoulders, which placed his curly head just inches from his mistress’s curtains.

      ‘This won’t do at all,’ Mara snapped.

      ‘A fine triumph for Desio of the Minwanabi, if you came to hurt through a slave’s clumsiness,’ Lujan said, then he added a hopeful smile. ‘Maybe we could dress these Midkemians as house slaves and give them to the Minwanabi as a gift? At least they might break much of value before Desio’s First Adviser orders them hanged.’

      But Mara was in no mood for jokes. She straightened her robe and removed mussed pins from her hair. All the while the barbarian’s eyes watched her with a directness the Lady found disturbing. At length he cocked his head to one side and, with a disarming grin, addressed her in broken Tsurani as he stumbled along.

      Lujan drowned him out with a shout of outrage. ‘Dog! Slave! On your miserable knees!’ He snapped his head at his warriors. Instantly one rushed to take the litter pole, while others seized the redhead and threw him forcefully down. Strong arms pummelled his shoulders, and still he tried to speak, until a warrior’s studded sandal pressed his insolent face into the dust.

      ‘How dare you address the Lady of the Acoma, slave!’ shouted Lujan.

      ‘What is he trying to say?’ asked Mara, suddenly more curious than affronted.

      Lujan looked around in surprise. ‘Can it matter? He’s a barbarian, and that brings you no honour, mistress. Still, his suggestion was not without merit.’

      Mara paused, her hand full of tortoiseshell pins. Sunlight glinted on their jewelled heads, and on the shell ornaments sewn to her collar. ‘Tell me.’

      Lujan raked his wrist across his sweat-streaked brow. ‘The wretch suggested that if you would call over three of his fellows, and dismiss your other slaves, they might carry your litter more easily, since they are closer to the same height.’

      Mara lay back, her pins and fallen hair momentarily forgotten. She frowned in thought. ‘He said that,’ she mused, then looked at the man, who lay face down in the dust with a soldier’s foot holding him immobile. ‘Let him up.’

      ‘Lady?’ lujan said softly. Only his questioning tone hinted how close he dared go in direct protest of her given order.

      ‘Let the barbarian up,’ said Mara shortly. ‘I believe his suggestion is sensible. Or do you wish to march through the afternoon, delayed by a lame bearer?’

      Lujan returned a Tsurani shrug, as if to say that his mistress was right. In truth, she could be as stubborn as the barbarian slaves, and rather than try her further, the Acoma Strike Leader called off the warrior who held the redhead down. He gave rapid orders. The remaining bearers and the one warrior lowered Mara’s litter to the ground, and three of the taller Midkemians were selected to take their places. The redheaded one joined them, his handsome face left bloody where a stone in the roadway had opened the gash on his cheek. He took his place no more humbly than before, though he must have been bruised by rough handling. The retinue started forward once again, with Mara little more comfortable. The Midkemians might have meant well, but they were inexperienced at carrying a litter. They did not time their strides, which made for a jolting ride. Mara lay back, fighting queasiness. She closed her eyes in resignation. The slaves purchased in Sulan-Qu were proving far too much of a distraction. She made note to herself to make mention to Jican; the Midkemians should perhaps be assigned to duties close to the estate house, where warriors were always within call. The more experienced overseers could keep watch until the slaves had been taught proper behaviour and could be trusted to act as fate had intended.

      Irritated that something as trivial as buying new slaves had evoked so much discomfort and confusion, Mara pondered the problems sent СКАЧАТЬ