Tasia’s heart thundrered. It was so loud that she was sure it would give her away.
Should she find a way to slip the sandals off, and then use a foot to push them beneath the bed? She looked at Linna’s feet. She also wore sandals, but hers were distinctly worn, and one of the straps had been sewn back on with thread a different color than the rest of the sandals.
Which was more suspicious: A slave wearing a noble woman’s sandals, or a bare-footed slave? Tasia racked her mind, desperate to pull up a memory of seeing even a single slave on Lord M’Tongliss’s estate in bare feet. She couldn’t remember seeing any of them with bare feet… but then again, she couldn’t remember seeing any of them with sandals, either. Until a moment earlier, it hadn’t occurred to Tasia to look at the feet of any of the Lord’s slaves.
Fool, fool, fool, Tasia chastised herself.
Observation was always to precede defense. Had she learned nothing from Joslyn’s patient self-defense lessons?
“No common tongue, eh?” asked the second magistrate, the owner of the long and bony feet. “Very well.” He said something in Terintan. But Linna did not move even an eyelid, so neither did Tasia.
Halia coughed again. “Excuse me,” she said when she finished. “It seems my brother-in-law left us with more than a messy room; one of his children had a cough while they were here, and it seems I have picked it up.”
The Western magistrate of the fat feet let out a derisive snort. “That is nothing but a superstition of the uneducated, Lady Halia. Coughs cannot be ‘caught’ from another person; their fundamental causes are solely internal, having to do with the humours, the circulation of dirty blood, and — well, no doubt it would be too complex for you to grasp.”
“No doubt, Wise Man,” Halia agreed, and despite the Terintan accent, Tasia thought she detected a wryness to the woman’s tone.
“Your girls did not answer my question,” said the bony-footed Wise Man.
“Yes, Magistrate,” said Halia. “They are sisters from a tribe just south of the Seven Cities. Their dialect is rather different from ours.” She said something else in Terintan.
“L’Linna,” the girl beside Tasia said, her voice barely above a whisper.
Tasia had to commend her acting job. Had she been a magistrate instead of a co-conspirator, she would have been convinced that Linna was nothing more than a frightened, cowed slave girl offering the magistrates her name.
A finger poked Tasia’s leg.
“Joslyn,” Tasia breathed, saying the first female Terintan name that came to mind.
She cursed herself. How many Wise Men knew the name of the palace guard hand-picked by Cole of Easthook who had later helped the traitorous Princess Natasia to flee from those who would bring her to justice?
A better question was probably, How many Wise Men did not know the name of Joslyn of Terinto?
“Hmm,” said the bony magistrate. “L’Linna and Joslyn.”
His grey robes rustled as he stepped in front of Linna. Leaning down, he put a hand under the girl’s chin, tipping her face upwards. Tasia’s gaze slid to the side, studying him as best she could through her peripheral vision. Pock-marked with a hooked nose, his mouth hung halfway open as he inspected Linna. The scent of onion coming from his breath was nearly overpowering.
“How old is she?” the Wise Man asked Halia.
“Fourteen summers, Magistrate.” Halia added a cough.
The Wise Man, his fingers still under Linna’s chin, turned her face this way and that. “This one is a little scrawny for her age,” he said, as dispassionately as if he was inspecting a horse or a hunting dog. He looked over at Halia. “You do realize, don’t you, that while the Empire does permit slavery, there are strict laws against their abuse or neglect?”
Halia coughed a few times before answering. “Yes, Magistrate.”
He gave a satisfied nod and stood up, turning towards Tasia. She dropped her head even further, placing her chin upon her chest.
“This one, on the other hand — this Joslyn — she looks hale and hardy,” he said. “How old is she?”
“Twenty summers, Magistrate.”
“Fair-skinned for being a Terintan,” said the first magistrate, the fat Western one.
“She is only half-Terintan, sir,” said Halia. “Her father was an Imperial soldier of the Northeast. Her mother was a woman of the night in Hebil.”
“Ah, yes,” said the bony magistrate. “That explains quite a bit. But better a slave in Paratheen than a whore in Hebil, eh?”
The bony magistrate reached out. Tasia felt two fingers upon her chin. She resisted the tug he gave her, not wanting to lift her face to his. Then she realized a slave would not resist a magistrate, and she looked up. But she kept her eyes lightly closed, hiding her distinctive green eyes from him.
“Why won’t this one open her — ”
The magistrate’s question was interrupted by a violent fit of coughing from Halia. Tasia dropped her chin again and opened her eyes just enough to see what was happening.
Halia was doubled over a few feet away, coughing uncontrollably. Both Wise Men turned towards her.
“You!” the fat one said, pointing at Linna. “Fetch help! This woman needs water!”
But Linna did not move.
“They do not speak the common tongue,” the bony magistrate reminded his friend. “Come, let’s walk her out of here. Poor woman. She requires some fresh air to re-settle her humours.”
Halia let herself be half-lifted by the men, not resisting when they supported her and walked her from Tasia’s guest room.
Linna waited until they had disappeared from sight, then grabbed Tasia’s hand, tugging her towards one of the room’s tall windows.
“This way, ma’am,” she said. “Quickly, now.” She threw open the window. “Do you climb well?”
Tasia thought briefly of her childhood with Nik as they explored every corner of the palace and its grounds, including the high corners.
“Reasonably well,” she answered.
Linna hopped onto the window sill. “The climb is not too difficult at this corner. And if you fall, you probably will not die.”
With that lukewarm reassurance, Linna extended a hand and a foot around the outside of the window. A moment later, she was climbing with a spider’s grace up the side of the building.
Tasia glanced over her shoulder, wondering how long it would take the magistrates to return to this room — or if they would return at all. Maybe she would be better off taking her chances sneaking out into the hallway and into another part of the house.
Or she would walk outside the room and run directly into them.
“Mother Moon,” she muttered, then headed to the open window.
5
~ THEN ~
Joslyn had never seen a place like Paratheen, and following a few feet behind Master’s cart, she couldn’t stop herself from looking in every direction and gawking. Low, dust-colored stucco buildings sprawled everywhere, butting up one against the other — and sometimes one atop the other — like cells in a honeycomb. Many of them were dome-shaped, reminding Joslyn of the rounded bliva tents used both by the desert nomads and by tinkers like Master and Mistress, who owned Joslyn and her older sister Tasmyn.