Lies. He hadn't been struck ill. He'd been struck hard from behind and knocked unconscious. The lump still throbbed. And he'd been imprisoned: a dank, windowless chamber behind a bolted door was a cell, not a sickroom. He tried to shame his silk-voiced host with a dramatic frown, but he was no match for those dead, black eyes. Thoroughly defeated, he stared at the carpet.
"You have recovered your wits, haven't you?" The pale man chuckled again. This time there was palpable malice weaving through the mirth. He rang a small crystal bell.
A boy came immediately through a drape-concealed door, a heavy ceramic serving tray balanced on his shoulder. A bright and fashionably elaborate tattoo covered his cheek. Zvain wouldn't have noticed the tiny brand scars if he hadn't been looking for them.
The slave gasped and stopped short, the tray tottering in his hands. Zvain followed the slave's glance to a short-legged table upended against the wall, where it was obviously not expected to be. He met the other boy's eyes and shared his panic. It would have been no effort to help his age-mate, but the slave-master watched, and he stayed where he was.
He couldn't breathe as the slave hooked a feet around a table leg, righted it, and dragged it slowly across the carpet. The tray tilted precariously more than once. Crockery slid and clattered, but nothing spilled, nothing fell, nothing broke before the tray sat in its proper place. The slave sank to his knees, trembling with relief. Zvain stuffed his own trembling hands beneath his thighs.
The tray displayed delicacies guaranteed to attract the attention of any boy, slave or free: morsels of crispy meat, dried fruits glistening with honey and powdered spices. What little he'd eaten in the last four days did not deserve to
"Eat whatever you want, as much as you want."
The slave-master's silky voice squelched his appetite. There were countless ways to tumble from freedom into slavery. One way was to perform a slave's work; he'd avoided that. Another way was to fill one's gut before one knew the price of the meal. While me tattooed slave mixed water and herbs for tea, Zvain rubbed the lump on his skull.
He assumed that he'd fallen prey to one of Urik's innumerable slavers. It seemed a reasonable guess and, in a way, inevitable. Orphaned children didn't starve in King Hamanu's city. If they couldn't attach themselves to someone bigger and stronger, they got snatched by slavers. He'd tried to attach himself to someone bigger and stronger: Pavek, the templar. But that hadn't worked.
His own fault.
Pavek had come to him with promises of vengeance, but had seemed more interested in groveling for his old friends at the city-gate. Zvain remembered that last day. They'd quarreled in the morning and barely patched things up before Pavek started working up his day's sweat. He'd promised to pray for the man, then been told to stay put. Pavek was always giving him contradictory orders. To show his mettle, he'd wandered off, but Pavek was gone when he got back. An old man said itinerants had hired Pavek to guide them through the city streets. And he, gith's-thumb fool that he was, had gone searching after his supposed protector.
Pavek's fault.
If that blundering templar hadn't blundered into his life he'd never have been wherever he had been when the slavers caught up with him.
The slave finished making the tea. He bowed to his master and left the chamber without having said a word. Belatedly, Zvain wondered if the other boy's tongue had been cut out and, not surprisingly, his own tongue soured. "There's caution, Zvain-"
He sat bolt upright; until that moment he'd believed- hoped-the slavemaster hadn't known his name. He didn't remember giving it away, but the lump on his skull covered an empty spot in his memory. Maybe he had been delirious___Certainly, he couldn't be too cautious, now.
"And there's foolishness. I can taste your fear, Zvain: that's the taste of foolishness. I know you're thirsty; I offer you tea." Using his left hand only, the slave-master filled a shallow bowl with fragrant, red-amber tea and pushed it closer.
He shrank away as if the tea were poison, as it could well be.
"A man can starve himself in the presence of food, but he can't not drink. You're thirsty, Zvain. Desperately thirsty. Why not slake your thirst? What are you afraid of?"
Zvain shook his head, not daring to speak. The hard-eyed slave-master was right. With each breath, each heartbeat, the tea grew less resistible.
"Watch-I'll drink from your bowl myself-" And the half-elf did, draining it in two deep swallows. When he lowered his hands, the tea had stained his lips crimson. "Would I do that if it were poisoned?"
Possibly, poisoners usually developed a tolerance for their preferred poisons, strictly to reassure their victims. But Zvain's concerns weren't about the purity of the tea.
"I won't eat your food or drink your tea. I won't take anything from you. I'm free, and I don't want to become a slave."
The slave-master sat back with a dramatic sigh. "First it's prisons, now it's freedom and slavery! Where do you get such suspicious thoughts, Zvain? You were brought to my house sick and witless. If it's awing you're worried about"- his voice turned harsh and Zvain looked up; owing was exactly what he was worried about-"it's a little late for caution. You already owe me your life, boy."
Zvain was speechless. His jaw dropped, but words refused to form.
"Eat the food I offer, Zvain; you've eaten it already." The slave-master brought his right hand out of the folds of his tunic, revealing red-and-black enameled talons fastened over the tip of each finger. He speared one of the spiced fruits and brought it delicately to his mouth. He reached for another, but paused with one talon pointed at Zvain's heart "If I meant you harm, boy, nothing would spare you. Do not tempt me with what you do not want."
An enameled talon flicked downward, piercing a honeyed bit of fruit. "Take what I offer you," the slave-master purred as he raised the talon.
Touch that food, Zvain told himself, and he'd be fed, clothed, sheltered, and owned as surely as if he'd been paraded naked through the slave market. But freedom was precious only when you had coins in your pocket.
Deliberately ignoring the morsel on the slavemaster's talon, he selected the smallest of the remaining fruits. He chewed it slowly. The spices crunched, the honey filled his throat with a subtle warmth that tickled his nose from the inside and made his eyes water. He'd seen folks drinking mead, broy, and the other liquors that reddened their faces and made them laugh too loudly at things that weren't funny. He'd seen folks slumped in corners, half-empty bowls still clutched in their hands, and he'd seen them retching when the morning sun struck their eyes. He'd sworn to his mother that he'd never be so foolish.
And his mother was dead.
He reached for a second morsel and chewed it as slowly as he had the first, meeting the slave-master's black eyes as he did. The fear was still there, but far to the back of his thoughts. He pretended it was gone, and, after a moment, it was.
"How did a fine, intelligent boy like you come to be dressed in rags, scrounging garbage in the elven market?" Wariness nudged his rapidly blurring thoughts: He didn't now where he'd been when he'd been hit over the head, but
"Not th' elven market. Not scroungin', neither." His mouth felt... odd. His tongue, odder.
"What were you doing?" the slave-master asked patiently, using his unencumbered hand to pour another bowl of tea.
Zvain slurped the amber liquid eagerly. He was wiping his mouth on his forearm when the chamber began to spin. A fast grab to the cushions steadied the chamber, but sent the bowl flying. The slave-master held out his taloned hand. The bowl slowed, swerved, and drifted to a halt on the pale palm.
"Oh, no-" Zvain murmured. His gut rolled. Color drained from his vision.
"What were you doing in dyers' plaza? Why were you running? What were you looking for in the cloth maze? What or whom?"