She saddened. "One of many. He had a theory that he had a duty to have as many children as possible, in the hope that some of them would grow up to be rainlords. Not sure if he was successful, though, because we don't see too many rainlords these days.
"Fortunately he didn't require me to bear him a child. All I had to do was be his when he wanted it. And only his. For the water entitlement alone I might not have done it, but for the right to dance? Sometimes I think I would have sold my soul." But the look she gave Terelle then was one of devastation. "Sometimes a price can be too high, Terelle. Remember that." Terelle did indeed remember as she climbed uplevel on the morning of her fourteenth birthday. How much, she wondered, was she willing to pay to be free of the snuggery?
As usual, Jomat the steward opened the door to her, but only with reluctance. He always resented her intrusion on Amethyst's time, although he had never actually refused her entrance. Every time, he would open the door a crack first, and wait for her to ask for entry. Then he would lean forward to stare at her with his myopic eyes, running his gaze over her body. And always, always, he would smile pleasantly and then lay down his poison, disguised as casual conversation.
"Arta Amethyst is such a kind lady," he might say as he pulled himself laboriously upstairs, wheezing as he went, with sweat beading along his forehead and running down his nose. "Always so generous to the girls who come for lessons or advice. Never turns anyone away, even when they are not worthy of her attention. She hasn't the heart to be honest."
Another time, as he ushered Terelle in through the front door, brushing his hand against her thigh, it was, "Arta Amethyst tells me she finds your dances delightfully naive. They remind her of when she was unskilled." On her previous visit he had remarked, "Arta Amethyst said yesterday she was so looking forward to the next time you came. She finds your downlevel simplicity so refreshingly charming." And he had smiled, his eyes glistening at her. "Your visits do her so much good, my dear. Do come whenever you can get away from your duties in the snuggery." She had come to hate his smile, his unctuous statements, the sting in the tail of every remark.
This time, as his gaze lingered on her budding breasts, he murmured, "How lovely you are looking today, my dear!" He smiled suggestively. "Quite the young lady now, eh? Please do go up. Arta Amethyst will be so sad when you are no longer able to come."
For once, Terelle could not keep her irritation in check. As she joined the dancer, she burst out, "Oh, that man is horrible! Why do you keep him on?"
Amethyst raised an eyebrow without saying a word.
Terelle's indignation dissolved into embarrassment. "I'm-I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that."
"I hope that is not the kind of manners they teach you at Opal's, child."
"No, Arta. I'm sorry. It's just that-oh, it doesn't matter."
Amethyst looked at her shrewdly. "You are upset about something else. Sit down here beside me. What is it?"
To her shame, Terelle found her chin wobbling as she verged on tears. She fought the temptation to cry. "My bleeding has come," she said simply. "I've run out of time."
Amethyst looked away with a sigh. "Oh, Terelle, I don't know what to say to help you. It seems to me that you have tried hard. I have been to see a few people, too. I didn't want to tell you for fear you would be discouraged, but I couldn't find anyone who would take you on, not when it would mean paying back the snuggery for so many years of free water, plus your father's sale price. Opal even wants interest, and legally she can do that. That's a small fortune."
"You went to see Madam Opal?"
"I sent a friend to inquire. I was wondering if I could afford to pay off your debt. I can't. I must conserve what meagre wealth I have for my old age, once I can no longer dance."
Terelle's spirits sank. She had wondered if Amethyst could-or would-be prepared to buy the debt; it had not occurred to her that the dancer could not afford it.
"Then what will I do? I could run away, but where could I go? I might have just enough tokens to pay for a caravan seat to Breccia City or Pediment, but what would I do in another city? It would be the same there!"
"Opal can't force you into prostitution."
"No, but if I can't pay the debt, I can be forced to work it off. It would take my whole life if I was doing work that didn't involve the upper rooms." Even as she said the words, she hated the bitterness she heard in her own voice.
"And if you refused to work it off, you'd have to go to court and they'd sentence you to the city's labour force. Which would mean something far more unpleasant, like the lye-makers. I know."
Terelle nodded miserably. "It's not fair."
Amethyst looked at her in compassion. "Have you told Opal you don't want to be a whore?"
"Of course. She dismisses it as-as girlish qualms. She thinks I'll 'settle down' once I've had a few men." She shuddered. "I've seen the men who want me now. Watergiver have mercy, I don't want that! It's just not fair."
"No, it rarely is." She pondered, then added, "There are people who live without allowances or regular jobs, you know. Down on the thirty-sixth. Have you ever been there?"
Terelle shook her head.
"I was born there. There are ways to live. People who want casual labour often employ workers from the lowest level. It's worth a try. If it doesn't work out, well then, you can always go back to the snuggery."
"They'll come looking for me. I know it."
"Yes, no doubt. The important thing is for them not to find you for a while. If you can hide out for half a year, they may not bother to look any more."
"Is it possible to hide there?"
Amethyst gave a derisive laugh. "Every second person on the level is hiding from something! Go there. Have a look for yourself. Then decide. For now, let's forget your woes. We'll dance together. It will make you feel happier."
But later, when it was time for Terelle to leave, she added, "Be careful, my dear-don't trust anyone who lives on the thirty-sixth until they have proved themselves, and be careful of the highlord's enforcers as well. Those men love an excuse to use their swords on the waterless. However, there are better things to be found on the thirty-sixth level, too. It all depends on whether you want to take the risk involved in finding them."
I do, Terelle thought. I'll risk anything. It was true, Terelle decided as she looked around the main thoroughfare of the thirty-sixth. Bad and good, all mixed up. Freedom, of a kind. That was the good. But then there was the poverty. And the dirt. And the smell.
She had never been curious to visit Level Thirty-six, believing what she had been told: that this was the lowest level not only of the city, but of humanity; here were the dregs that had sunk down from the city above. Thieves, criminals, murderers, the waterless, the undeserving. They clung to the hem of the city's robe like grime, impossible to brush off. They received no free water allotment, yet still they survived. They sucked up the city's moisture and held on to life.
Terelle had heard tales-the young bloods who came to the snuggery were full of stories of how they'd survived a night of debauchery down in the dregs-but nothing had prepared her for the reality. The lack of order, the commotion, the stench, the untidy milling movement of it all. She had never seen so many people in such a small space, never heard so much noise, never been assaulted by so many different odours all at once.
Yet it was the absence of colours that she noticed first. The drabness. The dreary shades of brown seeping into everything. Skin, clothes, buildings-all coated with the misery of a hue that had no spirit, no animation. The shade of dust, of dead leaves, of detritus, of a life sucked dry of beauty. The colour of dirt.
On the other levels, each homeowner paid taxes and in return the streets were kept clean, the tunnels and cisterns were kept in good repair, and the nightsoil was collected each morning and carted outside the walls to be dried and processed into manure. On the thirty-sixth, none of that happened. Street urchins collected rubbish uplevel to bring downlevel, where it was sold and re-used, and there were piles of it everywhere. Privies stank. Rats scampered up and down walls and through lanes, heedless of the daylight or the throng of people.