Paul Kearney: Kings of Morning

He touched the purple stripe on his chiton as if for reassurance. It marked him as a slave with a difference. The guards of the slave-city could not raise their whips at him, and he was spared the casual abuse meted out to the young in the lower levels. Not only that, but those who wore the stripe were marked for better things, the possibility of advancement. Not freedom, never that — even Auroc was a slave, bound to service in the ziggurat for his lifetime — but there were degrees of servitude. Kurun had even been allowed to accompany his superiors to the world under the sun above, when they were short-handed on feast-days, or sometimes simply as a forgotten afterthought. To breathe the same air as the Great King himself on the sacred summit of the ziggurat. For such moments he had strained and connived and laboured all his short life.

Auroc saw him, raised a hand and barked at one of his assistants to mind the fish. Smoke hung in the air here, but not enough to sting the eye or taint the food. Ventilation shafts led out to the slopes of the ziggurat, and on still days the spit turners would be set to cranking on the massive wooden ceiling fans that hung below them, greasing their axles with olive oil that they licked from their fingers.

The heat was shattering, a shimmering vice that sucked the water from men’s bodies. It rose from charcoal grills, radiated from the bread ovens, and seemed to be soaked deep into the very stone of the floor. Auroc raised a dripping gourd from one of the water-jars that were stationed everywhere and drained it dry. ‘Kurun, you little brown-faced shit — you took your time. Follow me, boy.’ A knowing look. Kurun nodded and patted his sash. Auroc closed one eye for a moment.

There were bakers of bread, butchers and fishcutters and poulterers, pastrymen, wine-mixers, choppers, slicers, kneaders, charcoal-lighters, and all manner of specialists strewn across the kitchens of the ziggurat. Each had apprentices, scullions, and every shade and shape of other underlings below them, as officers led men in an army. It was a caste system, based not so much on race or class but on expertise, and at the apex of this enclosed, stratified world were the cooks, men who received their orders direct from the chamberlains of the world above, in that rarefied fiefdom which was the Court itself.

Auroc was true Kefren, as tall and pale as a mountain birch, with the violet eyes and raptor’s nose of his kind. He was lord and overseer of the kitchens, and on occasion had even been summoned above to be complimented on his work by the Great King himself. On especially important state occasions he needed the discipline and level-headedness of a general at war, and he demanded the same of those under him. Anyone who failed him was shipped with bewildering speed to the Slave-City, and a lifetime of toil in the dark.

He had taken a liking to the slim, otter-quick hufsan boy that was Kurun, noting his good looks, his quick mind, and the streak of ruthlessness in his nature which had made him leader of the spit-turners in two short years. Kurun had become something of an anomaly in the kitchen under Auroc’s wing. He came and went largely as he chose, but worked hard, was good-humoured, and well-liked for the many small acts of kindness he performed for both high and low. Most importantly, perhaps, he had the capacity to keep his head even in the most pressured panics, when the bulbs in the sand-clocks were running empty and the Great King himself was waiting to be served.

‘What did he charge you?’ Auroc asked, holding out one long-fingered hand.

‘Two silver surics, master. But I beat him down.’ Kurun handed over the oilskin packet, and then added to it a clinking stack of coinage. ‘It is all there. But I gave a copper to a beggar I know down near the Sacred Way.’

Auroc studied his palm, and then the taut face of the boy before him.

‘You are very free with my money, Kurun.’

‘You promised it to me for running the errand, plus I saved you more than that with my haggling.’

Auroc tilted his head to one side, like some huge predatory bird, a golden vulture with a shrewd eye.

‘Your logic is sound. That works with me — but it will not do with everyone. To some it will seem presumptuous. Even the money you save does not belong to you. Your wages do not belong to you, unless I say so. Do you understand me, boy?’

Kurun lowered his head. ‘I do, master.’ He did not see the smile that flitted across the tall Kefre’s face.

‘Very good — another lesson learned. Now I have a further errand for you.’

‘Yes, master?’

‘Go to Ramesh the linen-master, and tell him you are to be clothed in something suitable for the Palace.’

Kurun’s face snapped up, eyes shining. The questions danced on his tongue like bubbles of gold, but he said nothing, merely nodded. He bowed deeply to Auroc, then turned and dashed away as though afraid his master’s mind would change. Auroc chuckled.

Fat Borr wiped his hands and paddled over to the Kitchen-Master. ‘He’s a likely sort, little Kurun,’ he said. ‘You spoil him, chief.’

‘Maybe,’ Auroc said. ‘But mark me, Borr; in ten years that boy will stand where I stand now, or even higher. He has it in him.’

Borr snorted. ‘He’s hufsan.’

‘He will not let that hold him down. I think it may be time to let him see a little more of the sun.’

Borr shrugged, his bald pate gleaming with sweat, his quivering jowls ashine with it. He had a pale, porcine face with surprisingly kind eyes. ‘As you think best. But be careful, chief. Even this place has not yet taught him deference, and the folk above do not care for wit and spirit in a slave. I know.’

Auroc set a hand on the fat man’s round shoulder. ‘He who has not felt the flame does not fear the fire. I cannot watch over him always, Borr, but if he learns a little humility in the world above, it will be no bad thing. It will round out his education.’

The kitchens geared themselves up for the daily frenzy of the evening meal. The Under-Steward had sent down a menu, and after looking it over, Auroc had hissed between his teeth and cursed softly. As the undercooks gathered about him he snapped out orders, then up-tilted the shortest sandclock and clapped his hands. Striding about the kitchens like a warlord inspecting his front line, he made the undercooks break into a storm of activity, and in turn those below them were shouted at and cuffed as they kneaded, chopped, stirred and seasoned at their stations. When the kitchens had broken into a purposeful cacophony, Auroc took his place beside the pulley platforms, reached into his sash, and broke open the oilskin package Kurun had brought him from the Lower City. He balanced some poppy-red powder on one thumbnail for a second and then sniffed it up, blinking, eyes tearing over.

Kurun appeared, now dressed in a snow-white chiton with a purple stripe of pure silk, his hair greased down and shining. Auroc looked him over.

‘Ask Yashnar for some kohl — she’ll put it on for you — and carmine for your lips. Lose your sandals; you will go barefoot above. Make sure your toenails are clean.’ Auroc stared up at the sandclock. ‘Be quick, Kurun. I will send you up with the first course.’

The boy swallowed, as nervous as Auroc had ever seen him. ‘What shall I do up there, master?’

‘Make sure no dishes get left behind. Stand still and keep your mouth shut. Do not meet anyone’s eye. Be decorative, Kurun, like a footstool no-one uses. Do not stray from the platform, and count the dishes back in; we were short two platters yesterday. Those bastards above think I can’t count. Do you mind me now?’

The boy swallowed again. ‘Yes, master.’ He raised his head and looked Auroc in the eye. ‘Thank you for this.’