Those first three days were dismal, black and full of rain. Darak would go out early with Ellak, Gleer, and three or four others, plus about ten men dressed as skull-guards, and pack animals carrying examples of his goods. I was not allowed with him, for apparently the sight of a woman in a merchant’s place of business was an unheard-of thing in the towns. I gathered they were dull times; endless bargaining and signing of papers. The plains’ cloth went easily, but the weapons were harder. At night, when I saw him, Darak would growl angrily at the underhand dealing and cheating by which his agents tried to trick and trap him—they were robbers. It was amusing to listen to his arrogant and righteous fury, he, who had stolen the goods in the first place. But then, he was Darros now. Except once when he rode bare back a mad horse in the marketplace three streets away.
So I spent my days, locked in the dreary hostelry hall, crouched around the fire with the others as they played their endless dice games, or alone if they were at a brothel. The women they had brought with them sulked and ordered endless food, which put too much weight on them. They were as unused to this life of sitting as any of the men. There were a few of us about on the morning of the third day, and, as the hall was virtually ours, Maggur hung up a painted wooden target, and he and I and another man began to shoot against each other with our bows. My bow had taken the damp, and did not do well until I had waxed and resined it. By then there were more in the game, and they had split into teams. Maggur’s team had called themselves the Rams, partly, I think, because three or four of them had just come in from a brothel. The other side retaliated with Dragons, and were a man short.
“Come and shoot for us, Imma,” one of them called. “These bastards have an unfair advantage.”
While the women lazily watched, plucking eyebrows because it was the fashion in Ankurum, and mouthing lumps of candied fruits and sugar-sweets, the Rams and Dragons did battle, occasionally degenerating into fights and wrestling matches on the floor. Maggur was the best of his side, and I the best of mine. In the end, I beat him.
“Dark was the day I taught you,” he said to me. “You’re quicker even than Kel.”
He looked around for Kel’s grin when he said it, then checked as he remembered Kel was dead. There was an awkward silence between us which Darak luckily broke up, coming in early with a lot of noise and an incomprehensible group of people.
He strode at once to me and got my arm.
“Put that stuff away, and come upstairs.”
A man near us laughed at his urgency, and Darak clouted him a casual blow across the back that sent him staggering.
He marched me out of the hall, and up to our long and icy room. I was surprised to find the people he had brought with him had scuttled after us.
“Wait,” he said, and shut the door on them. He threw wood on the dying fire and straightened. He looked irritated and amused at once.
“A sale?” I asked.
“Not yet. Ankurum is worse than a tribal krarl for etiquette. The agent I’ve been dealing with is having what he’s pleased to call a supper tonight. He wants me there, and I gather this is where I’ll meet my customers. It means a few hours tedium, weak wine and nibbly tidbits on eggshell plates. I want you with me.”
“Why? I thought the merchants of Ankurum swooned at the sight of a woman.”
“Only in their weapon shops, it seems. There’ll be expensive ladies present, and I haven’t the time to get tangled with them if I’m to fish my merchants out of the pool. You’re my shield against it.”
I did not want to go, but I saw the logic of what he said. Coolly I asked him, “I am to go like this?”
“Outside: three dressmakers and a woman for your hair. At least you won’t have to paint your face.”
“You think the shireen will not excite comment?”
“Quite an amount, I hope. A beautiful tribal mistress is enough to daunt the most ardent whore. It should be interesting. Besides, you’ve the exquisite manners they adore, though where you got them—”
He opened the door again suddenly, and the women jumped. I could see he had been bullying them.
“In,” he said, “and hurry. Do as I told you and she tells you. She has the last word on it. I want it done by sunset at the latest.”
He strode out, and I saw the male equivalent of the female victims start frantically after him down the corridor to Ellak’s room.
They had brought materials with them, Darak’s choosing, and at first I had thought his gaudy bandit’s tastes would have doomed me to freakishness. But he was a cunning man. He knew at least what not to wear in a merchant’s circle, even if his soul cried out in deprivation. I could see he had even been afraid of his own judgment when he had picked out this stuff. Each cloth shown me was of a plain and muted color, and thereby he had erred the other way. But I found the beauty of the pile at last, a heavy silk, the luminous white of alabaster. There was measuring then, and a lot of fuss. Thankfully, what was elegant in Ankurum was also simple, a sleeveless dress dipped low at front and back, fitted to a little beneath the breasts, then falling in free folds to the feet. There were sandals for these, bleached leather with gold studs, and already one of the women was stitching at some thing, a new shireen, this time of black silk.
Between measurings, I bathed, sharing my bath with the numerous swimming beetles that lived in the sides of the tub.
By late afternoon I was dressed. They had been most industrious, and clever also, as the mirror they had brought showed me. The hairdresser, who had been preparing her perfumes and combs and heating her tongs intermittently in the fire for hours, flew at me in terror of Darak’s ultimatum. She rubbed my hair through with a sweet scented oil, combed and brushed it down, then tonged every strand into cork screw curls. Most of these she piled on my head in loops and coils. What was left, hanging free down my back, twisted like contorted serpents. Most women, she informed me, would use false hair in such a style, but knowing she had no match for the milk-whiteness of mine, she had contrived it without. This was due probably to the thickness of my hair, but no doubt she had earned a little extra for her quickness.
Darak came in without a knock, and the women jumped up in a flurry. He inspected me, then grinned, and paid them rather generously and shoved them out. He shut the door and leaned on it, looking at me.
He had acquired a tunic during the afternoon, black, ribbed with black velvet, again, very discreet, but he looked well in it. There were agate buckles on his new boots.
“You’re beautiful,” he said. He came and sniffed at my hair. “Beautiful,” he said again. His hand slid across the skin of my neck and arm. “White on white. You were clever to choose that. Your smooth skin—it never browns or reddens. Or scars,” he added. His fingers moved again. He remembered even now where Shullatt had stabbed me, though all trace was gone. Suddenly he stood back, his face a little stiff.
“I brought you this.”
I took the piece of silk, opened it. I stared down into a cool green deep; eight oval eyes stared back at me. All of me reached toward it, but I wished, in that time of blindness, that he had not bought me jade to make me see. They had favored jade, and I had not worn what I took from Shullatt since we left Kee-ool.