Re-creation: gift for a slave (The Three Lands) by Dusk Peterson

CHAPTER TWO

  It was Andrew who found the solution to the problem of the paper falling apart, of course. He dug into the chest in which Peter kept all his most special treasures, and which even Drogo was not permitted to open. Peter had shown the contents of the chest to Andrew on the first day of his service in this chamber: Peter’s copy of The Law-Structure and the Division of Powers, given to him by his much-beloved aunt before she and his not-so-agreeable uncle and cousin moved to the Central Provinces of Emor; a portrait of his mother, whom he had never known, because she had died when he was born; the royal emblem brooch that Lord Carle had given him just that month; and a glass bowl that one of Peter’s ancestors, the Chara Lionel, had had commissioned hundreds of years before, after the Battle of Mountain Heights.

  Peter had explained the origins of his treasures to Andrew – all except the brooch, which Andrew would not have understood, since he had not been there when Lord Carle had spoken so tenderly of his love for the Chara’s law. It had not mattered; Andrew had been most interested, not in the brooch, but in the bowl, which Peter’s father had once described as “one of the greatest treasures of the empire.”

  The craftsman who had created it had been a master at glass-blowing. There was scarcely a single air-bubble within the glass, and the bowl was smooth to the touch. What wavering occurred in the glass, right at the brim, captured colors from the air and trapped them. The colors shifted when you looked at the brim from different angles.

  Carefully now, Andrew placed the paper basket within the bowl. The basket just fit, with the masked border running alongside the colorful brim of the bowl. Together they poured in the winter-hard earth that Andrew had managed to dig out of the garden, and which they had warmed and softened next to the fire. The fragile basket split its seams almost immediately, but the earth settled into the bowl, like mud at the bottom of an iridescent lake.

  Andrew stared down at the remainder of what he had brought, his eyes fierce with concentration. He had a bit of dirt across his cheek, but it looked merely like a different tone of brown on his skin. Peter liked Andrew’s dark skin, in the same way that he liked Andrew’s dark hair and eyes, his soft vowels and slow consonants, and the way his hands moved when he grew excited while speaking. Peter’s own hair was very ordinary yellow, and his skin was chalky white, just like the skin of most of the people he had met in his life. Andrew was far more interesting to look at.

  “The twigs are too long,” Andrew said finally. “I’ll have to break them to the right size.”

  “I’ll do that,” said Peter quickly. “You just tell me what to do.”

  It was fun and amusing to be the servant for once, following Andrew’s exacting instructions on the proper way to snap the twigs. Peter sat on the floor, which was made of cold marble, and set to work at the task, while Andrew stood next to the table, carefully arranging the other objects in the bowl.

  After a while, it ceased to be fun and amusing to sit on a cold floor, snapping twigs, and Peter would have stood up to see how the younger boy was progressing if it had not occurred to him that Andrew and the other slave-servants did this sort of dull work all the time. So Peter stayed on the floor, and thought about the division of labor, so necessary to keep the empire running, but so very tedious for the men and women and children who were given the lower jobs.

  After Peter had reached the end of his task, he sighed and began to stretch out his weary legs, but at that moment Andrew dumped a pile of moss next to him and told him that the moss needed to be cleaned of dirt.

  Peter looked at the moss. There was a great deal of it to clean. He looked up at Andrew and asked, “How do you keep from screaming with boredom and running from the task?”

  Andrew did not pretend to misunderstand. He never pretended to misunderstand. He said, “If you know that you’re going to be beaten if you don’t finish the job, that helps.”

  Peter felt heat flood into his cheeks. “Oh,” was all he said, and turned his attention back to the moss.

  Outside the corridor, the Chara’s guards murmured to each other, the shaft-tips of their spears scraping against the floor as they shifted position. The scribes to the Chara’s clerk, let free from work early on this special evening, emerged from the clerk’s quarters, laughing and chattering. Peter could only recognize the voice of the newest scribe, who stammered badly; Peter had never been given the opportunity to speak more than a few words to the boys who worked daily across the corridor from himself. Nor had he spoken much with the noble-boys and noble-girls in the palace. He had only the one cousin, living far away from him, and all of the other boys and girls he met were very formal and respectful to him. It made him want to throw things at the wall sometimes.

  It had occurred to him, more than once, that a boy who was training to be High Judge of a land and three dominions ought to be allowed to spend more time with the people he would be duty-bound to judge in court, should they commit crimes or offer witness. Of course, everything would change in just over a year. His law studies would reach their end, and he would emerge from his quarters, like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon. From that point forward, he would spend most of his time visiting the various portions of the palace, and the tents of the army headquarters nearby, and even journeying into faraway portions of the empire. He had taken one trip already, south to Koretia – but he was forbidden to return there by the Chara, because Peter had nearly been assassinated on that trip.

  Peter tilted his head to look up at Andrew, who was moving a broken pebble with great concentration onto a pile of smooth pebbles. It remained a wonder to Peter that he had first met Andrew in Koretia, when Andrew was still free. Of course, he knew that such a thing was not impossible. Many of the Koretians who had been captured during the Emorians’ conquest of the Koretian capital had been sent as slaves to the Chara’s palace. Hundreds of slaves were needed to run the palace. But that Andrew should have been sold to a council lord, of all people, and that Peter should have happened to see Andrew in Lord Carle’s quarters . . . Somehow, Peter was quite sure that they were meant to meet each other. Perhaps it was only so that the Chara To Be could become more familiar with the lives of his ordinary subjects.

  But it was more than that; he knew that in his heart.

  “I need the moss now,” said Andrew, breaking into Peter’s reverie.

  Peter looked down. “It’s only half done. I was daydreaming.”

  Andrew said nothing. Looking up, Peter saw that the slave had a darkly ironic look in his eye which he hid by ducking his head to stare down at the creation basket.

  Peter felt suddenly sick. “What kind of beating would you have received if you didn’t finish your work in time?” he asked.

  “From Lord Carle? None at all. He would have lashed me with his tongue, which is far worse.”

  Peter nodded slowly. He had witnessed Lord Carle berating Andrew on the day that the council lord had sentenced his slave to a prolonged beating. Both the cutting words and the beating still puzzled Peter. He could not imagine how a man who so manifestly loved the Chara’s law, and who acted with such generosity toward the Chara’s son, could be needlessly strict with his slaves. Perhaps Andrew had simply allowed his temper to get the best of him in Lord Carle’s presence. He had a temper; Peter knew that much about him, though the slave was still a stranger to Peter in many ways.

  Andrew had come over to gather the moss; Peter quickly brushed the dirt off the rest, saying, “Can I see the basket now?”

  “Not yet,” replied Andrew imperturbably. Peter grinned. It was so very hard to find servants who would say no to him – even Drogo said yes when he really meant no.

  “What else do we do besides make the creation basket?” asked Peter. “You said there were songs— No, I forgot, we’re not singing songs. Nuts in the fire, you said? I have some shelled Daxion nuts by my bed.”

  He looked hopefully at the pile of nuts on the sideboard, but Andrew shook his head. “It has to be nuts still in their shells. The shells hav
e to crack as they’re tossed into the fire.”

  “Oh.” Peter frowned. He was unlikely to receive nuts with his dinner; Daxion nuts were expensive and reserved for special treats. And if he asked Drogo for nuts that still had shells . . .

  “Is there anything else you do?” he asked.

  Andrew seemed at first not to hear him. Then he said, “There are vows.”

  “What kind of vows?”

  Again, Andrew hesitated. Finally he said, “Blood vows.”

  Immediately, Peter regretted asking the question. He understood now why Andrew had been reluctant to reply. Blood vows . . . The Koretians vowed their blood on all sorts of matters, but the most common type of blood vow, before the arrival of the Emorians, had been blood vows to kill.

  Peter stared down at the moss, brushing it lightly with his finger. It was soft and springy and looked surprisingly green for a winter plant. Koretia was green year-round. It was a hot land, filled with people with hot tempers, who had created the gods’ law. Lord Carle had once described the gods’ law as “a way to murder and be praised for it afterwards.” Peter’s father, not surprisingly, had abolished the gods’ law once he had brought Koretia under the protection of the Chara’s law, though he had been careful to point out that he was not forbidding the practice of the Koretian religion. The Koretians could still worship their gods, just as the people in Emor’s northern dominions did; they simply would not be permitted to murder each other in the names of their gods.

  Peter became suddenly aware, as he supposed he ought to have been aware before, that he was helping Andrew celebrate the founding of a bloody system of justice that the Chara had outlawed. He told himself he was being silly. Tossing nuts into a fire had nothing to do with creeping up on innocent strangers and slitting their throats in order to continue a blood feud. Nor was there any harm in a creation basket, a sign of life rather than death. Probably all these customs had existed long before the gods’ law took shape, and no doubt they continued to exist now that the gods’ law was abolished. He was quite sure that his father, who had courteously attended a service for the dead held by the Koretian priests after the battle at the Koretian capital, would not mind Peter cleaning a few bits of moss in order to make his homesick slave happy.

  “There’s drinking too,” said Andrew unexpectedly.

  “Oh? What kind of drinking?”

  “Wild-berry wine,” Andrew said firmly. He had very decided opinions on wine; he had established that on his first day of service, when Peter had made the mistake of inviting him to pour a cup of Emorian wall-vine wine for himself.

  Now Peter was prepared. He leapt up and went over to the corner where he had stored the bottle of wild-berry wine he had asked his father for, as a New Year gift. His father, somewhat dubious of Peter’s new, exotic tastes, had ordered a bottle from the vintners who sold wine to the palace.

  “The version with honey added,” the Chara had said when he presented the bottle to Peter. “You wouldn’t like wild-berry wine in its native form, I assure you.”

  Now Peter struggled with the cork, wondering how the slaves, who were forbidden to touch anything that might be used as a weapon, managed to get wine bottles open. Andrew, after one curious glance, had gone back to arranging the basket. Beyond him, in the corridor, a woman giggled. A man responded, and Peter realized that the “woman” was actually Lord Sutton’s latest slave-servant, Eugene.

  Peter made a face. Eugene was a eunuch. All of Lord Sutton’s slave-servants were eunuchs. Peter had been puzzled by this until he had overheard Drogo gossiping with another free-servant about Lord Sutton’s taste. The conversation would not have meant much to Peter the previous year, but just this year, the Chara had decided that it was time that Peter understood his “marital duties.” And so, with the air of a time-pressed man who must nonetheless clear his schedule for an important talk that only he can deliver, the Chara had explained what sort of duties Peter would be required to undertake when he married.

  It had been an interesting talk. Peter’s father and mother had loved each other very much, and so they had spent a good deal of the Chara’s leisure hours undertaking these “duties.” Peter was quite sure, by the end of the talk, that he would make a good showing on his wedding night, however far in the future that might be. The Chara had not married until he was nineteen; it was unlikely that Peter would marry earlier than that, since he was not yet Chara himself and therefore had no pressing need to beget heirs.

  He had been shocked, though, when he had grasped what it was that Lord Sutton did with his eunuch servants. Of course, Peter knew that some of the unmarried lords made use of their female slaves in such a way, and he also had known, from a very early age, that eunuchs were not men. That was made clear in the Law of Inheritance, which forbade eunuchs from inheriting property and titles that were assigned only to men.

  But Eugene looked like a man, even if he did not sound like one. The idea of Lord Sutton taking someone who looked like a man into bed with him . . . The thought made Peter’s stomach churn, and he felt even more sick when Drogo suggested, with a laugh, that Lord Sutton was the sort of man who would sleep with true men if the law permitted it.

  Peter had felt sorry for Eugene after that. Neither man nor woman, dressed as a man, yet forced to be used as a woman . . . Peter had resolved that the first thing he would do when he became Chara would be to forbid the bedding of eunuchs against their will. He had puzzled for some time as to how eunuchs could be willingly bedded, since they could not sleep with women. Perhaps, he thought, they could sleep with each other, and would not mind that.

  It would provide them with companionship, at any rate. He remembered a long-ago dinner conversation with Lord Carle, in which his father’s friend had told him that commoners usually slept on pallets rather than beds, and sometimes the commoners could not even afford pallets for everyone in the family, so the family members slept together.

  “That sounds uncomfortable,” Peter had said doubtfully.

  Lord Carle had given him his quirk of a smile. “It has its benefits. When I was young – oh, older than you are now, but I was not so well off as I am today – I shared a pallet with a friend when we were staying in an inn. It was . . . companionable. Yes, that is the word.” He stared off into the distance, his smile fading, and then, with an abruptness that was almost rude, he had turned the conversation.

  Peter thought now of the pallets that the slaves slept on. The basement where the slave-quarters was located was very cold; the floor must be colder than in Peter’s chamber. And punished slaves were not even permitted a pallet.

  Peter frowned as he remembered the shock he had felt when he had found that Lord Carle’s heavily beaten slave was lying naked on the floor of the punishment chamber. Andrew’s legs had been modestly drawn up to hide his groin, so the slave had not been displayed in a shameless fashion. But the room had been winter-cold; it was amazing that Andrew had not died from the chill alone.

  As Peter placed the still-corked bottle of Koretian wine on the sideboard next to his bed, he sighed, so heavily that Andrew looked up and stared enquiringly at him. Peter explained, “I have so much to do once I become Chara. It’s hard to know where to start. There are so many injustices to right. It frustrates me.”

  “That,” said Andrew, “is why you will be a good Chara. —Come see.”

  For a moment, Peter stayed motionless by the table, his heart thudding rapidly like a war-horse at full gallop. This was the first time Andrew had given any indication whatsoever that he respected the Chara’s son, though Peter supposed the fact that Andrew trusted his new master not to punish him should be indication enough of his respect. Finally, picking up the bottle again, Peter came over to look at the finished basket.

  o—o—o

  It looked like Koretia. That was Peter’s first thought as he stared down it. Perhaps the resemblance came partly because of the shape of the basket, but mainly it was because of the trees. There were dozens of them: little bare twi
gs sticking up, as though the autumn leaves had fallen from them. Peter had never seen autumn tree-leaves himself, but he had looked at pictures of what Emor was like in the olden days, when the Charas were first given the law. The tiny trees were everywhere in the little creation basket: atop bright green moss that looked like meadowland, between cracks of pebble mountains, along trailing paths composed of vine tendrils, over hazelnut hills, next to bridges composed of bits of bark, surrounding blue-black berries that Peter supposed must represent houses, and around the earthen border surrounding a large leaf.

  “What’s that?” Peter asked, pointing at the leaf.

  “A lake. It doesn’t look much like a lake, I suppose. I’ve never seen lakes, only the moat around the capital, which was always muddy. But there are small lakes in Central Koretia, so I thought I should include one.”

  Peter stared at the brown leaf, trying to envision lake-water, but seeing only dry leaf. “It looks as though the lake has dried up in its bed.”

  “I suppose so.”

  Andrew’s voice had turned toneless. Peter glanced at him. The younger boy was expressionless, as he had been when he spoke of his burial.

  “Wait!” Putting down the wine bottle next to the basket, Peter hurried over to the sideboard and picked up the pitcher there. It was still full of the water that Drogo had delivered. Nearly spilling the heavy pitcher in his haste, he brought it over to the basket, then cautiously tipped it. A few drops landed where he had aimed them, upon the leaf. He set the pitcher aside, and he and Andrew leaned forward to look.

  The water was as iridescent as the bowl, capturing the colors around it: brown and green and black and the undyed cream color of Andrew’s slave-tunic. As Peter leaned further forward, the lake turned suddenly golden, as though sunlight had fallen upon it. It took Peter a moment to realize that it was reflecting the royal emblem brooch, which he had decided to wear today.

  He straightened up and looked over at Andrew and then realized, startled, that Andrew was smiling faintly at him. That did not happen very often. In fact, it had happened only once: on midwinter’s eve, shortly before Lord Carle had Andrew beaten for three days.

  Peter smiled back. “It’s very good. I like the trees.”

  Andrew turned his gaze back to the basket, his smile lingering at the corners of his mouth. “You don’t have many trees near the palace, do you?”

  Peter was surprised until he realized that, of course, Andrew would only have seen the small stretch of Emorian land between the black border mountains and the palace. “We don’t have any trees in Emor,” he replied. “Only in the dominions. It’s fields here in Southern Emor, and then there are mountains with shrubs on them, and then come the plains of the Central Provinces of Emor. After that come the northern dominions, but the trees there are all evergreens. Or so my father said,” he amended. “He saw them when he was young, before he became Chara.”

  “No broad-leafed trees?” Andrew’s smile had sunk away during the speech. “But you have fruit trees, don’t you?”

  It was on the tip of Peter’s tongue to say no. Then he remembered Lord Carle’s orchard, on his country estate. Of course – Andrew must have assumed that, since Lord Carle had trees on his estate, trees were common in Emor.

  “No,” he replied. “There’s only one orchard in Southern Emor. We have some vineyards, though, in the borderland,” he added. Too late, he remembered that the vineyards grew wall-vine grapes.

  “No trees,” murmured Andrew, staring down at the tree-filled landscape he had created. The iridescent water was beginning to sink away, absorbed into the winter leaf.

  Peter touched his arm. “Let’s have the wine now,” he said.

  Andrew, without glancing at the label of the bottle, reached over, uncorked it with a practiced twist of the hand, and poured wine into one of the gold goblets at the end of the table. Peter’s gaze had wandered past him to the fire. The logs there were burning fiercely; more logs were stacked nearby, placed there by Andrew the previous day. Peter wondered suddenly why his chamber had always been heated by wood, if trees were so scarce in Emor. Surely logs must be expensive, if they had to be carried all the way from the dominions?

  He looked around his chamber again, seeing it with new eyes. Gilded furniture, an expensive tapestry on the wall, a bed . . . Andrew had probably never slept on a bed, even before he became a slave.

  And a glass bowl. The most beautiful glass bowl in the world, and Peter could afford to fill it with earth. What must Andrew think of a boy who was spoiled with such riches?

  He became aware that Andrew was holding out the goblet. Or rather, he was holding a gold tray, with the goblet upon it. It was not the first time he had served Peter this way, but for the first time Peter realized that Andrew would not serve himself unless Peter urged him to.

  Of course he would not. He was Peter’s slave.

  Peter nearly choked on the wine, though it tasted very good: sweet, like cider. His father had said, over and over, that the gap between nobleman and servant was too wide to be bridged by friendship. Lord Carle had said the same. And Andrew . . . what did he think behind those inscrutable eyes, behind those carefully trained motions of service?

  What could you give a slave who, by law, could own nothing? What would tell Andrew that Peter wanted more than service from him?

  “Here.” He thrust out his goblet suddenly, in Andrew’s direction.

  He had offered the gift impulsively, without thinking whether Andrew would even understand, but from the widening of Andrew’s eyes, Peter guessed that the slave had this much familiarity with Emorian custom. Andrew stared at the goblet. Slowly he reached out to take the half-filled goblet in his hand. For a moment he stood there, as though he were a balance weighing the wine. Then he turned, refilled the goblet, and handed it back to Peter.

  This time Peter could not even taste the wine; the bitterness in his mouth was too great. He could not tell whether Andrew had rejected the wine of friendship, or had misunderstood what Peter was offering, or simply was too cautious a servant to make assumptions. And not knowing, Peter could not ask.

  “You can drink the wine too,” he told Andrew.

  Andrew silently poured some wine into one of the plainer cups, sipped from it, and began coughing. Peter remembered just in time not to pound him on the back. “What’s wrong?” he asked the slave.

  “It’s sweet.” From the way Andrew spoke, it was clear that he considered sweetness to be the greatest crime a vintage could commit. “What is it made of, some sort of Daxion fruit?”

  Sighing inwardly at his continued inability to select the right gift, Peter was still composing a reply when a knock sounded on the door. Peter spun around, trying to figure out where to hide the creation basket from Drogo.

  It was too late; following some previously given training, the servant opened the door. Andrew – seeing that the servant was overladen with a silver tray holding a serving platter, two plates, and eating knives – hurried forward to hold the door open. His gaze lingered on the servant.

  So did Peter’s. The food was quietly placed on the sideboard; then the servant carefully backed away. Head down, hands clasped together at the front, eyes looking up through thick lashes, waiting.

  Peter managed to clear his throat. “Thank you, Laura. That will be all.”

  A shy, pleased smile; eyes lively with curiosity under the lashes; then the milkweed-pale hair shimmered as the servant ducked her head further and curtsied. She left the room without a word.

  Peter went to the door, ostensibly to see that it was shut, but actually to watch as Laura went over to a handcart and began pushing it down the corridor, her hips swaying as she walked. After a few minutes, the girl turned the corner and disappeared from view.

  As he slowly closed the door, Peter turned to see that Andrew’s gaze was focussed, not on the Chara’s son or on the chamber they stood in, but on the northern wall, as though he could see through it to watch Laura’s progress. His eyes turned to me
et Peter’s.

  Peter bit his lip. Smiling slightly, he said, almost apologetically, “She’s very pretty.”

  Andrew gave a slight nod.

  Peter took a deep breath and moved away from the door. “My father brought her into service this year; she was part of a shipment of slaves from the latest troubles up in Arpesh. The Chara told me that her father was involved in plots of rebellion . . . but she had been in free-service already, so the Chara decided she was trained well enough to serve his quarters. She usually cleans his sitting chamber . . . but sometimes, when all of my slaves are busy, she comes over and cleans my chamber.” He kneaded the back of his neck, as though a pain were developing there. “It’s rather hard to study when she’s here.”

  “I imagine so.”

  There was no amusement in Andrew’s voice, only sympathy. Peter flashed him a smile, relieved that there would be no need to explain further. “Well, you must have seen more of her than I have; you live in the same part of the slave-quarters together. Have you found that she—?”

  The rest of his query was broken off as the door burst open.

  Peter jumped in place as he turned to look at the door, startled by the sudden entrance. Andrew, snarling like a wildcat, skidded in front of Peter, placing his body between the Chara’s son and the intruder. The intruder got no further than the threshold, though; immediately, guards were around him, pulling him back. Peter heard garbled voices from the struggle that followed: “. . . only want to see how he . . .” “. . . not without permission, sir. If you apply for entrance . . .” “. . . will be cold by then. Surely you would not spoil good food . . .”

  Peter was still trying to peer round Andrew’s body – Andrew, though three years younger, was as tall as his master – but the conversation, as much as the intruder’s accent, told him who this must be. “It’s all right, Emmett, Beorn,” he called out. “Let him through.”

  The guards, with a doubtful look at Peter, let go the intruder. He shook his clothes into a semblance of order, glared at them, and immediately turned and beamed at the Chara’s son. Then his gaze moved, and his face fell.

  “Oh, it has been delivered already!” he cried, his palms embracing his face with dismay as he stepped forward and the guards unobtrusively closed the door. “I had hoped to see your expression upon its arrival!”

  Peter turned to look at the platter. Amidst his concerns over its manner of delivery, he had not taken in what lay on the platter, next to the date salad: a piece of meat, bird-shaped, but far too small to be poultry.

  “I thought we weren’t having meat for dinner,” he said blankly.

  “Oh, so I am in time – thank the Song Spirit!” The cook flung his arms up in the general direction of the sky. “It is beautiful, is it not? It is the finest dish I have prepared in my twenty years of serving the Charas! It is my summary, it is my essence of all that I have done—”

  Peter barely managed to stem the flow of words. “It looks appetizing. It will, er, make a good New Year meal.”

  The cook beamed again. “You understand! It is a meal fit to be served to the Spirit herself, should she come down to care for her children. And it took so little time to make: a roasting over the fire, with the drippings saved, and then the drippings were mixed with flour and goat’s milk and just a touch of honey, and then I poured over it the dried apples I had saved from the harvest—”

  Peter had seen Andrew flinch at the word “apples”; he hastily said, “It looks delicious. I’m sure I’m quite fortunate to have had you prepare it.”

  The cook clapped his hands together and held them to his breast, as though only manful effort kept his heart from springing forward. “Ah, but when I have such ingredients, how can I go wrong? Apples from the orchard of Lord Carle, goat’s milk from your father’s nearest estate, flour grown and milled in the finest farming country in the world – the Central Provinces – and then, as the crowning touch of it all, a songbird from the Chara’s very own garden!”

  Peter stared at the tiny little bird on the platter; then his gaze moved over to Andrew. The slave had ducked his head, and he was toeing the floor.

  Peter cleared his throat. “Well, we don’t want such a splendid meal to go cold.”

  These were, perhaps, the only words he could have spoken that would have persuaded the effusive cook to leave. “Of course, of course!” the cook said, bowing as he backed up. “And you will tell me, afterwards, if it was to your liking?”

  “Certainly,” said Peter firmly. “But I have no doubts that it will be a meal for . . . Well, a meal fit for the Chara To Be.”

  The cook kissed his palms and then turned the palms outward, as though flinging his kiss to the entire world. “It will be, Lord Peter, I promise you! Such ingredients! And on such a special day!”

  “Do you celebrate the New Year in Daxis?” Peter asked, curious, as Andrew opened the door to let the cook out.

  “But indeed!” The cook’s smile shone brighter than the many candles in the room. “This is the day on which the Song Spirit sung her first lullaby to the Daxion people. May you and your servant” – here he gave a little bow to Andrew, so overwhelmed by the moment as to ignore the slave-tunic – “receive all the blessings and joy that the Spirit sends you. Such ingredients!” And with that final, ultimate summary, he disappeared from view.

  Andrew closed the door. He looked at Peter. Peter looked at him. Then they both smiled.

  “‘Such ingredients!’” repeated Peter, keeping his voice low so that it could not be heard outside the chamber. “Andrew, you are a marvel. Where did you get the bird?”

  Still smiling, Andrew came forward and began to meticulously carve the tiny feast-bird. “In the inner garden. He told you.”

  “But how? You didn’t have time to set a trap, and you don’t own a dagger.”

  Andrew’s smile faded, and he was silent a minute, long enough for Peter to remember that Koretian boys his age had usually already received their daggers of manhood. Then the slave said, “It was trapped in a thorn bush. When I came upon it, it was fluttering its wings, trying to escape.”

  “And you captured and killed it?”

  “Yes, of course.” Andrew turned a puzzled gaze upon Peter. “What would you have done?”

  “I’d have let it go free.”

  Andrew said nothing. He simply looked at Peter, a long look. Then he turned his attention back to carving the bird.

  Peter realized then how rude his response had been. He added quickly, “But I’m too sentimental. My father often says so. He says I need to learn how to wield the Sword of Vengeance. Maybe I should take lessons from you.”

  “I didn’t use a blade.” Andrew kept his eye on the platter; he was moving the dried apples from the platter. “I wrung its neck.”

  “Oh.” Peter felt faint at the words, which was foolish, for every day he ate meat that had been slaughtered for him. “I thought you didn’t hunt when you lived in Koretia?”

  “Killing poultry isn’t hunting. My mother used to have me buy live pullets from the poulterer, kill them, pluck them, and resell them at a higher price to noblemen who couldn’t be bothered to have their servants do the task. It brought us in a little extra money. —There.” Andrew finished dividing the meat. He had placed all of the apples onto one of the plates, Peter noticed.

  Peter came forward and, knowing which serving must be his, picked up the plate with the apples. “I suppose,” he said, trying to keep envy out of his voice, “that you could have used a blade if you wanted. I mean, you would have been trained at bladeplay earlier than I’m being trained, wouldn’t you?”

  Andrew sent him an unreadable look. “Yes. But I couldn’t wear a dagger of manhood now, you know, even if I were free.”

  “Oh?” Peter eyed him curiously, but decided not to pursue this particular line of enquiry. Andrew could get touchy sometimes, talking about what he could or could not do in the palace. “Did you own a blade once, though? And what kind of blade was it?” As he s
poke, he moved over to the bed and sat down, preparing to be enlightened.