Jo Clayton - A Gathering Of Stones

Vechakek came from the SunParlor off the main lobby of the Inn; he stepped in front of Maksim, put his hand flat against Maksim’s chest. “He’s off,” the Minder said. “He doesn’t like being ignored, he won’t put up with it. The association is terminated.” he held up a sheet of paper folded once across the middle. “The account for services rendered. Pay now.” He was a massive Henerman from Hraney, a half-mythical country supposed to be somewhere in the far west. His skin was pale mahogany, hard and hairless, polished to a high gleam; he wore his coarse black hair in twin plaits that hung beside his highnosed face; he had a taste for sarcasm and sudden violence that made folk walk tip-a-toe around him. Would-be clients tolerated his insolence; they had to if they wanted to arrange a liaison with Jastouk.

Maksim stared at him until he backed off a few steps. “Don’t touch me again,” he said quietly.

Vechakek’s face went rigid and darkened across the cheekbones, but the Henerman couldn’t quite work up the nerve to come at a man who was rumored to have few equals in power and none above him but the gods themselves. Then the anger washed out of his face and Vechakek was smiling, his pale blue eyes swimming with malice; he knew something. Something was going to happen, something which Maksim wouldn’t like, no, not at all, which Vechakek planned to sit back and enjoy.

Maksim read that and wondered; the Henerman seemed very sure of what he knew; it was a thing to puzzle over but not just now. He held out his hand. “Give me the bill.” He unfolded the paper, examined the list of charges; there were things he might have challenged, but in spite of the unhappy ending of this interlude, Jastouk was a dear and a delight; besides, he didn’t feel like wasting energy on petty cheating. “Wait here,” he said.

Todich and the boy were in the sitting room of his suite. The kwitur was curled up in one of the armchairs, either asleep or making an effective pretense of sleeping. The boy was standing by an open window, staring out into the foggy dank afternoon.

Maksim crossed to the fireplace and took down the battered leather box sitting on the mantle. As soon as he touched it, he knew the boy had been fooling with it, trying to get it open. A thief and incompetent at it. No doubt that was the reason his people sold him. Young idiot not to realize a sorceror would have wards on anything he wanted left alone. Maksim put the box on a table beside Todichi’s chair. He grinned down at the little creature. “Ah! Todich, you should have told him it was futile fooling around with this.” No answer. The boy’s shoulders twitched, but he didn’t turn around.

Maksim opened the box and counted out the coins he needed from his rapidly diminishing store of expense money.

He was going to have to tap one of his caches before he started to Silili; what with the auction and Brann’s call on his purse, he had barely enough coin left to pay his bill at the Inn. Other years he’d have added a handsome tip when he paid Jastouk off; not this time, he couldn’t afford it and the hetairo hadn’t earned it. He divided the fifty Kukral aureats Vechakek demanded into four piles, wrapped them first in the bill, then in a clean sheet of writing paper. He sealed the ends with red wax from his private store, stamped his mark into the wax and spun a small bind about the packet, keying it to Jastouk’s touch. If Vechakek intended to take his percentage before he handed over the coin, he was out of luck. It was a small favor, perhaps meaningless, all Maksim could do for his temporary lover-let the hetairo get full measure for once, not just what his Minder decided to hand over.

He tugged at the cord and gave the packet to the maidservant who came to answer the bell. “Take this to the man in the SunParlor,” he said. He gave her a five cupra piece for her pains, watched, amused, as she pushed the broad coin into her sleeve, flirted her lashes at him, then bounced from the room.

He brushed his hands together, brushing away Jastouk and Vechakek with the nonexistent dust. For a moment he stood gazing at the door, then he sighed and crossed to the largest of the armchairs. When he was settled, his feet comfortable on the hassock, he laced his fingers together across the hard mound of his stomach and contemplated the narrow back of the M’darjin boy. Occupied with Jastouk’s sulks and making the boat ready for a trip into the Tukery, he’d ignored his new acquisition, noticed the boy only as a minor irritation to be brushed aside when he got underfoot. With Jastouk gone and the trip imminent, it was time to find out what he’d got. “Come here, boy.”

The boy came slowly away from the window. When he reached the hassock, he fell on his face, elbows out, hands clasped behind his head.

“Get off your belly, buuk.” Maksim looked at the cringing figure with distaste; he understood why the boy was that way, but he didn’t have to like it-and it woke painful memories he’d tried hard to erase. “What’s your name?”

The boy scrambled to his feet. “Davindolillah.” He looked sideways at Maksim, added, “Sabr.”

“So you’re a thief.”

Davindo opened his eyes wide. “No.”

“And a liar.” Some of his sourness washed away; the boy amused him. “A bad liar,” he said, cutting off Davindo’s parade of indignation before he could get it going. “By which I mean an incompetent liar. Unconvincing. Where did the slavers get you, Davindolillah? By which I mean: what is your homeland?”

“Majimtopayum,” the boy said, pride thrumming in his voice. “The Country of the River Which is Wide as the Sea. My father is Falama Paramount, he has five hundred wives and his wives each have five hundred cows and five hundred boats and five hundred acres each of beans and maize and taties,” he boasted, piling improbability on improbability, head back, eyes flashing, strutting where he stood. He shook himself and mimed a becoming humility. “I am not the eldest son…”

Maksim suppressed a smile. The boy could prove amusing enough to earn the coppers he cost.

“And I am not the youngest son.” Davindo slapped at his skinny chest. “Only the favorite. There was weeping and wailing and tearing of hair when the slavers stole me from my father’s house. When I was born, the Wamanachi prophesied over me, the Great Wamanachi said of me, I shall be Puissant and Terrible to the Enemies of the Land, inside and out. I shall be Sung down the Ages, Father to many sons, Warchief to my people, Paramount among Paramounts. That is what he said.”

“Most interesting. No. Be silent, Davindolillah.” He inspected the boy more closely than he’d done before. Davindo’s small size and round face had fooled him as they had the slavers. The Caller had rated him about six. Maksim measured him against his memories of himself at six and rejected the number; he was at least double that though still on the child’s side of puberty, a tough, clever little streetrat, defending pride and person with everything in him. Maksim saw the desperation behind the boasting, knew it intimately because it was his own when he was five, six, ten; it made him sick and turned him crueler than he’d meant to be.

“If I sent you back, would your people simply sell you again?”

The boy pressed his lips together. Anger flashed in his black eyes. His first impulse was to attack with the slashing invective he’d acquired in his home streets, but he’d learned enough about being a slave to keep a tight rein on his temper. “I was stole,” he muttered.

“As you say. I am going to give you your papers. No. Be quiet. I don’t intend to discuss my reasons with you. If you wish to go home, I will pay your passage and put you on a ship with a master I trust to make sure you get there. If you prefer to stay in Kukurul, I will arrange schooling for you or an apprenticeship. Well?”