The Bristling Wood - Katharine Kerr [182]
“I won’t try to escape. I’m too weary, and I don’t even know where I am.”
Laughing, Brindemo lowered his bulk onto the cushions and motioned for the prisoner to perch on the edge of the dais. He took out the bill of sale and studied it, his lips pursed.
“Your name,” he said at last. “Is it truly Taliaesyn?”
“I suppose so.”
“What? Surely you know your own name.”
“I don’t, at that. I don’t remember one blasted thing about my life until a few weeks ago.”
“What? Were you hit on the head or suchlike?”
“That could be it, couldn’t it? A strong blow to the head makes men lose their memories at times. But I don’t know. No one told me.”
Brindemo tapped a gold-trimmed tooth with one corner of the bill while he looked over his purchase.
“Tell me somewhat. Baruma, did he … well, hurt you?”
Taliaesyn winced and looked at the floor.
“I see that he did, then. It will make you easy to manage.” Yet there was a thread of pity under the trader’s cold words. “I do not like to cross Baruma. Do you blame me?”
“Never.”
“But then, I do not like to cross the archon and the holy laws of my city.” He studied the bill of sale again. “If I break the law, it is as painful and perhaps even more expensive than crossing Baruma.”
“That thing is forged, isn’t it?”
“Ah, the opium must be wearing off.” He held the bill up to the light coming in the window. “It is very cleverly done, very, very professional, but then, one expects that from Baruma. May he mistake a candlestick for a cushion and sit upon it! Try to remember who you are. I perhaps can help you. You have kin and clan in Deverry?”
“My father was an important merchant there. That much I remember.”
“Aha! Doubtless, then, he will buy his son back at an honest price if only he can find him. If. Do your best to remember. I cannot keep you too long—what if Baruma comes back and asks for you?”
Taliaesyn shuddered, but this time, he despised himself for doing so.
“I see you understand.” Brindemo gave a shudder of his own. “But I sell you to decent place if all else fails, and then, when the beloved father comes searching, I tell him where. Perhaps he thanks me with hard coin?”
“Of course.” Taliaesyn found it surprisingly easy to lie, considering what was at stake. “He’s always been generous.”
“Good.” He reached up and clapped his hands together. “We give you food, a place to sleep.”
At the signal a black-skinned man came through a door near the dais. Close to seven feet tall, he was also heavily muscled and wearing a short sword in an ostentatiously jeweled scabbard. Even without the sword Taliaesyn wouldn’t have been inclined to argue with someone whose hand was as broad as an ordinary man’s head.
“Darupo, bring him something to eat. I’ll wager Baruma’s been keeping him half starved.”
The fellow nodded, gave Taliaesyn a sympathetic glance, then disappeared again. While he was gone, Brindemo returned to his game, moving ivory pegs along tracks in the board in response to throws of dice much like the ones in Deverry. In a few minutes Darupo returned with an earthenware bowl of vegetables in a spicy sauce and a basket of very thin bread, almost like rounds of parchment. He showed Taliaesyn how to tear off strips of bread and use it to scoop up the sloppy mixture in the bowl. For all that the stew was difficult to eat, it was delicious, and Taliaesyn dug in in sincere gratitude. It occurred to him that feeding him well was a sound commercial proposition, because buyers would pay more for a healthy slave than a sick one, but he was too hungry to care about the ethics of the thing. At his dicing, Brindemo sighed suddenly and looked up.
“The omens are wrong no matter what I do.” He waved his hands miserably at the board. “I have this dark feeling in my heart, or however you Deverry men say it. I might