Feden's clearinghouse wore a banner of green and orange silk, ghastly colors pieced together in a quartered flower. Its front had seven gates, doors built to a doubled height and width, but only the servants' entrance remained open at this hour. They drove through the open doors, nodding to the yawning guard, who recognized Keshad and passed him through with an uninterested wave. The wagon rattled down a high arched corridor built of stone and into the dusty, treeless courtyard where Master Feden's hired men and slaves hauled water from the cistern, laded handcarts for transport into town, and loitered in the shade offered by rooftops.

"It's Kesh!"

The slaves sweating at their labors set aside their tasks and came over to gather beside the wagon. They looked, but did not touch.

"How'd the run go?" asked old Sushad, wiping sweat from the drooping side of his mouth.

Kesh nodded, too full to speak, and the others, who had been whispering and eager, fell silent and moved away to let Tebedir drive the wagon into a bay at Kesh's direction. Tebedir unhitched the horses and led them to a trough built against the outermost wall of the courtyard. Kesh counted up costs in his head. Feden would charge him for water and feed and stabling, so he had to work quickly and reach the master before it came time to raise the Shade Hour flag.

Footsteps slapped the dirt. He turned.

Nasia slipped into the shaded cover of the cargo bay. She wore a short linen tunic. Her legs and feet were bare, dusty from the courtyard, and she had a smudge of whiting powder on her nose, a smear of oil across her knuckles, and a fresh bruise on her cheek.

"Is it true?" she asked in her soft voice. She didn't touch him. Her slave bracelets glimmered as she raised her hands, and dropped them again. "They're saying in the halls that you've earned enough to buy your freedom."

"Maybe so."

She waited, but he shook his head.

"I told you already," he went on. "I told you honestly. I'm going for Bai."

Her face would never be beautiful, but she had eyes as lovely and expressive as a doe's, wide and almost black. "You can't," she said, trembling. "You can't possibly be able to buy her free from the temple."

"A treasure fell in my lap. It's now, or never."

She choked down tears, but he did not comfort her. He had told her the truth all along, and probably she had never believed him. Hope is a cruel master.

"Master Feden hoped we might tie the binding," she whispered. "He gave permission."

"And give him our children's labor to fatten his purse, and more debt for us to pay off? No."

"If you can hope to go for-her-you could buy off my debt instead. You could."

"I don't have time for this."

"Did you ever love me, Kesh?"

"I never told you I did. I like you, that's all."

"I got-I got-" She pressed a hand to her abdomen. "They made me drink the herbs. I lost a baby."

Eiya! Nasia had gotten pregnant. Maybe with his child. Or maybe with the child of one of Master Feden's customers. No matter.

"A child born to a slave is better off not being born," he said. "Would you want that? To begin a child's life when it's in debt already? It was for the best. You'll see that, in time. Anyway, this is the end of it, Nasia. You're a good girl. If I can ever help you, I will, but now I have to hurry. I can't afford to pay a whole day's stabling charge."

She began to cry, but silently, as slaves learned to do. Old Sushad slid into view from around the corner. He said nothing to Kesh, just a look with that half-frozen face and his little finger flicked up. Kesh turned his back. He counted the water skins and satchels hanging along the wagon on either side. He took two days' worth of the remaining flatbread and smoked meat, not at all tasty. The rest he left for Tebedir, who must make a return journey south over the pass to the empire, a good long way even if he got a hire. By the time he looked around, Nasia and Sushad had vanished away into the courtyard, where the ordinary noises of folk at their labor sounded again. Not one person, people he had known many years, came to greet him. Nasia was better-loved than he would ever be. No doubt they hated him for her sake, but he did not care.

By the time Tebedir returned, Kesh had unloaded the two chests, leaving only the treasure inside. Tebedir remained behind to guard the wagon, and Kesh hauled the chests to the wing door. It was a struggle to get them inside, as the door had been weighted so it easily swung shut if not being held. His fellow slaves passed him, going in and out. Not one stopped to help. No one looked him in the eye; not one person said a single word to him.

Aui! News of Nasia had traveled quickly.

But they were only bodies, moving in the monotonous dance of servitude. Their feet shuffled along a wood floor smoothed by generations of barefoot slaves walking quietly, as they must. They grunted, or coughed, or cleared their throats, and if they wept, they wept silently, as Nasia had. The men walked with heads bent. They went mostly bearded, trimmed tight along the jaw, and in general without the luxury of a mustache. Their hair was cut close to the head, easy to care for, nothing to get in the way of work. The women, depending on their station and age and what labor they were set, wore their hair shorn or pulled back in a ring and bound with slender iron chains so that the length of captive hair swayed along their back and buttocks.

He was well rid of them all.

He dragged the chests, one with each hand, and halted panting beside the rear door into the lesser exchange room, the only one he was permitted to enter without permission. He propped open the door and got the chests in, closed and locked himself in, and unrolled a colorless silk viewing cloth over the larger table. Dust motes spun where light poured through windows not yet closed for Shade Hour. It was hot, and getting hotter, but Master Feden would not quite be done for the day, not if his routine had remained unaltered in the last many months. Not if these windows were still open.

On the silk he arranged combs and mirrors and oil and saffron and shell dice, the handsome little items that he had picked up in southern markets on his journey. When he had all arranged to his liking, he rang the bell three times, twice two, and thrice again.

He was too unsettled to sit. He paced, wiped his brow, and rearranged the combs, liking the new pattern better, liking how it set off the richest among the lesser. Feden would want the best for his own family, to show off their long, glossy black hair, the pride of every man and woman who was neither hireling nor slave.

The master's door opened, and the man himself walked through with a shaven-headed clerk in attendance. He was a man made powerful by wealth, stout but not flabby, with his uncut hair braided and looped back in a man's threefold at his neck and shoulders.

Master Feden made no greeting, but walked slowly around the table while the clerk made a running tally and checked it against Keshad's accounts book. The pen scraped in the silence. Outside, the sun's light baked the stone plaza, seen beyond the thick posts where, soon, the slaves would unroll the cloth awnings over the wooden porch. So had Keshad done twelve years ago, when he was a lad sold into Master Feden's service. Unroll the awnings; close the windows; haul water; beat carpets; sweep and rake and look away when some clumsy soul got a hard cuff on the cheek for moving too slowly or simply for looking at a customer the wrong way or any way. Watch the massage girl you fancied be traded away for a mare. Listen as your young friend cried when he discovered he had missed the debt payment and was indentured for another year, during which new debts for food, drink, oil, pallet space, training costs, and interest would accrue, with more added on if you got sick or injured and a healer had to be brought in from the temple.