Lynn Flewelling - Shadows Return

And still the door stayed open and the guards visible, and Seregil played the chastened slave and humbly performed the tasks required, all the while watching and listening, and biding his time.

One evening a week or so after their truce, Ilar came in hobbling a little and lowered himself into the chair with care.

“Are you hurt, Master?” Seregil asked, trying not to sound too pleased.

Ilar scowled and shook his head. “It’s nothing.”

“You’re in pain. What happened?”

Ilar gingerly raised the hem of his robe to show Seregil a dozen or so angry red welts across the backs of his calves.

Seregil stifled a grin; they were clearly the marks of a whip. Putting on a mask of concern, he touched a finger to one of the wounds, making Ilar hiss in pain and jerk away. “Did Master Yhakobin do this to you?”

“It’s your whore’s fault!” he snarled, shoving Seregil away. “His blood is so tainted by Tirfaie filth that the rhekaro is not right. The first was useless, and the second is an enigma.”

“Maybe your master is not doing it right?” Seregil asked without thinking.

Ilar cuffed him on the ear. “You forget yourself, Haba. I’m already in a foul mood. See this?” He held out the arm with the slave mark. “That should be branded over by now. I should have earned my freedman’s mark the day that boy was delivered. It’s not my fault he’s a half-breed! Ilban knew it when he made me his promise. But still I wait and bear the brunt of his frustration. How many of the wretched things does he get to make before he holds up his end of the bargain, eh?”

Seregil bowed his head. “Forgive me, Master Ilar. I’m sorry to add to your cares.” He nodded at the stripes. “That must have hurt a lot.”

“Oh don’t pretend to care! Just make yourself useful. Here.” He took a small pot of salve and some linen wrappings from his pocket and tossed them to Seregil.

So Seregil tended the wounds. The alchemist had probably wounded Ilar’s pride more than his body, he thought, disgusted at such a fuss over so small a matter. The skin was hardly broken. Ilar had hurt him far worse and not given it a second thought. Lips pressed tightly together to hold back any snide observations, he dabbed the salve carefully over each welt as if they were war wounds, then set about wrapping the linen.

“You have a deft touch, Haba,” Ilar murmured, watching him with rapt attention. “But I suppose you must have needed it in your former line of work?” For once he wasn’t sneering. He sounded tired and discouraged.

“I did. But I wonder how you know about all that, Master?” Seregil replied softly, still concentrating on his bandaging. This was new ground.

“You know of a necromancer named Vargûl Ashnazai?”

The name was like a hot poker pressed to Seregil’s heart, linked as it was to memories of blood-streaked walls and severed heads chattering on his mantelpiece, and a hank of Alec’s hair knotted around a dagger, left for him to find. “He was a very memorable man,” he managed at last.

Ilar chuckled at that. “His uncle, Duke Tronin Ashnazai, is a good friend of my master. It was from him that I heard of your adventures against Duke Mardus and his cabal. Duke Tronin had the story from a nobleman who was with Mardus’s entourage. Seems he’d witnessed you killing Mardus, and that Orëska wizard-what was his name, Haba? Ander? Nander, or something like it?”

“Yes,” Seregil whispered. “Something like that.”

“It was most perplexing news, too, as I’d understood that the man was your patron in Rhíminee. Tell me, Haba, do you kill all your friends in the end?”

Seregil sat back and kept his clenched hands pressed to his thighs, biting the inside of his cheek as he forced himself not to lash out. “No, not all of them. And I didn’t kill that necromancer, though I’d have been happy to do the deed. Alec had that honor.”

“Ah. Well perhaps we’d better keep that between us, eh? Oh, and this as well.” He reached into a pocket and took out several long black slivers of what appeared to be broken horn. “Your protégé is a very clever boy in some ways, even if he is quite gullible. I left a spoon within reach and he did exactly as I’d expected, making a lock-picking tool. Earlier he even picked a padlock with a file. You must have been a very good teacher. Not that you’ll need such skills here. But you are neat-handed-a fact I mean to make use of.” He reached into another pocket and passed Seregil a clay oil vial, then propped one foot in Seregil’s lap.

Swallowing another morsel of his pride, Seregil obediently warmed some of the rose-scented oil between his palms and began to massage the offered foot. It was something else he was good at, and though Ilar never took his eyes off Seregil, he relaxed noticeably.

“I think I like this tame new Haba, even if I don’t trust him one little bit.”

“Thank you, Master. The feeling is mutual.”

Ilar slapped him hard on the cheek so fast Seregil didn’t have time to brace himself. He went sprawling and the flask of oil spilled over his lap and the rug.

“You are my property now, Seregil, and you’d do well to remember that. I can do whatever I like with you, even torture and kill you, and no one would lift a hand to protect you. You are of no more worth than a candle or a glove-something to be used and discarded at my whim. What do you think I should do with you?”

Seregil pushed himself up, righted the flask before it could empty, and lifted Ilar’s foot back into his lap. “I wouldn’t be much use to you dead,” he observed, working his thumbs up the arched instep in a way that made Ilar gasp.

“Don’t be too sure of that, Haba.”

They were quiet for a while. Seregil kept his eyes on his work, trying not to choke on the heady aroma of the oil. “What will you do with your freedom when you get it, Master?” he asked, when he sensed from the occasional low moan that Ilar’s mood had improved sufficiently. “Where will you go?”

“Go?” Ilar was resting his head on one hand now, eyes hooded with unabashed pleasure as the massage continued, but the question drew his brows together. “Alec asked me the same thing, you know. So common with new slaves who haven’t come to terms with their situation.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Where would you have me go? Home to Aurënen? Like this, with the brands of shame on my skin forever? Have you ever seen a freedman in Aurënen?”

“Not that I know of,” Seregil admitted, slowly working the stiffness from Ilar’s toes. “But maybe they avoid the baths.”

Ilar snorted softly. “Even without these marks, I doubt I’d be very welcome. I’m certain you told them of my role in your downfall?”

“I didn’t have to. You ran away-Master. That spoke for itself.”

“It was that or the fate of the two bowls, wasn’t it? Tell me, how did you escape execution?”

“ Teth’sag was declared against me, but the rhui’auros spoke for me and they exiled me instead. It might have been the same for you. You weren’t the one who committed the murder.”

“No, but your father and sister had their eye on me all summer and would have accused me as your seducer.”

Seregil forced himself to stay gentle as he worked his fingers over the delicate sinews and bones of Ilar’s ankle. “You did seduce me-Master,” he murmured.

“Perhaps, at first,” Ilar replied, suddenly wistful. “But I told you before, I began to love you, too.”

Seregil paused and took a deep breath, but he couldn’t hold back any longer. “So much that you sent me to that tent that night, knowing what had to happen?” he asked, fighting to keep his voice low. “Even if I hadn’t killed that man, I’d have been ruined anyway. That was what the Virésse were paying you for, right?” He broke off and rubbed oil carefully over Ilar’s long toes again, as if that could smooth his outburst.