1

He was a handsome man, somewhat less than middle-aged, with a physique thatbespoke a soldier, not a pnest. He entered the bazaar-stall of Kul theSilkseller with an authority that sent the other patrons back into the dustyafternoon and brought bright-eyed Kul out from behind his bolts of cloth.

'Your grace?' he fawned.

'I shall require a double length of your finest silk. The colour is notimportant - the texture is. The silk must flow like water and a candleflame mustbe bright through four thicknesses.'

Kul thought for a moment, then rummaged up an armload of samples. He would havedisplayed each, slowly, in its turn, but his customer's eyes fell on a sea-greenbolt and Kul realized it would be folly to test the priest's patience.

'Your grace has a fine eye,' he said instead, unrolling a half-length andletting the priest examine the hand and transparency of the cloth.

'How much?'

'Two gold coronations for both lengths.'

'One.'

'But, your grace has only recently arrived from the capital. Surely you recallthe fetching-price of such workmanship. See here, the right border is shot withsilver threads. It's certainly worth one-and-seven.'

'And this is certainly not the capital. Nine Rankan soldats,' the priestgrowled, reducing his offer further.

Kul whisked the cloth out of the priest's hand, spinning it expertly around thebolt. 'Nine soldats ... the silver in the cloth is worth more than that! Verywell. I've no choice, really. How is a bazaar-merchant to argue with MolinTorchholder, High Priest of Vashanka? Very well, very well - nine soldats itis.'

The priest snapped his fingers and an adolescent temple-mute scurried forwardwith the priest's purse. The youth selected nine coins, showed them to hismaster, then handed them to Kul who checked both sides to be certain theyweren't shaved - as so much of Sanctuary's currency was. (It was not fittingthat a priest handle his own money.) When Kul slipped the small handful of coinsinto his waist-pouch, Torchholder snapped his fingers a second time and amassively built plainsman ducked under the stall's lintel, holding the doorcloth until the priest departed, then taking the bolt from the silent youth.

Molin Torchholder strode purposefully through the crowded Bazaar, confident theslaves would keep pace with him somehow. The silk was almost as good as themerchant claimed, and in the capital, where better money flowed more freely,would have brought twice what the merchant had asked. The priest had not risenso high in the Rankan bureaucracy that he failed to savour a well-finessedhaggling.

His sedan-chair awaited him at the bazaar-gate. A second plainsman was there tohold his heavy robes while he stepped over the carved-wood sides. The first hadalready placed the silk on the seat and stood beside the rearmost poles. Themute pulled a leather-wrapped forked stick from his belt, slapped it onceagainst his thigh and the entourage headed back to the palace.

The plainsmen went to wherever it was that they abided when Molin didn't needtheir services; the youth carried the cloth to the family's quarters with thestrictest instructions that the esteemable Lady Rosanda, Molin's wife, was notto see it. Molin himself wandered through the palace until he came to thoserooms now allotted to Vashanka's servants and slaves.

It was the latter who interested him, specifically the lithe Northern slave theycalled Seylalha who practised the arduous Dance of the Consort at this time eachday. The dance was a mortal recreation of the divine dance Azyuna had performedbefore her brother, Vashanka, persuading him to make her his concubine ratherthan relegate her to the traitorous ranks of their ten brothers. Seylalha wouldperform that dance in less than a week at the annual commemoration of the Ten-Slaying.

She had reached the climax of the music when he arrived, beginning the dervishswirls that brought her calf-length honey-coloured hair out into a complete,dazzling circle. The tattered practice rags had long-since been discarded, butshe was not yet twirling so fast that the priest could not appreciate thefirmness other thighs, the small, upturned breasts. (Azyuna's dance must bedanced by a Northern slave or the movements became grotesque.) The slave's face,Molin knew, was as beautiful as her body though it was now hidden by theswinging hair.

He watched until the music exploded in a final crescendo, then slid the spy-holeshut with an audible click. Seylalha would see no virile man until the feastnight when she danced for the god himself.

2

The slave had been escorted to her quarters - more properly: returned to hercell. The beefy eunuch turned the key that slid a heavy bolt into place; heneedn't have bothered. After ten years of captivity and especially nowthat she was in Sanctuary, Seylalha was not likely to risk her life inescape-attempts.

He had been there watching again; she knew that and more. They thought her mindwas as blank as the surface of a pond on a windless day - but they were wrong.They thought she could remember nothing of her life before they had found her ina squalid slave-pen; she'd merely been too smart to reveal her memories. Neitherhad she ever revealed that she could understand their Rankan language - hadalways understood it. True, the women who taught her the dance were all mutesand could reveal nothing, but there were others who had tongues. That was howshe came to learn of Sanctuary, of Azyuna and the Feast of the Ten-Slaying.

Here in Sanctuary she was the only one who knew the whole dance but had not yetperformed it for the god. Seylalha guessed that this year would be her yearthe one fateful night in her constricted life. They thought she didn't know whatthe dance was. They thought she performed it out of fear for the bitter-facedwomen with their leather-bound clatter-sticks. But in her tribe nine-year-oldswere considered of marriageable age, and a seduction was a seduction regardlessof the language.

Seylalha had reasoned, as well, that if she did not want to become one of thosemutilated women who had trained and taught her she'd best get a child from herbedding with the god. Legend said Vashanka's unfulfilled desire was to have achild by his sister; Seylalha would oblige the god in exchange for her freedom.The Ten-Slaying was a new-moon feast; she bled at the full-moon. If the god wereman-like after the fashion of her clan-brothers, she would conceive.

She knelt on the soft bed-cushions they provided her, rocking back and forthuntil tears flowed down her face; silent tears lest her guardians hear and forcea drugged potion down her throat. Calling on the sungod, the moongod, the godwho tended the herds in the night and every other shadowy demon she couldremember from the days before the slave-pens, Seylalha repeated her prayers:'Let me conceive. Let me bear the god's child. Let me live! K-eep me frombecoming one of themF

In the distance, beyond walls and locked door, she could hear her less fortunatesisters speaking to each other on their tambours, lyres, pipes and clattersticks. They'd danced their dance and lost their tongues; their wombs werefilled with bile. Their music was a mournful, bitter dirge - it told her fate ifshe did not bear a child.

As the tears dried she arched her back until her forehead rested on the softmass of her hair beneath her. Then, in rhythm to the distant conversation, shebegan her dance again.