‘You have Candarian? That will be fine. Bring it unmixed, with a jug of water. What is dinner, friend Morax?’
‘Aren’t we the lordly one!’
‘We have some choice country sausages of our own making. Or a stew of chicken, even now being prepared.’
Crispin opted for the stew.
On the way up to the room over the kitchen he tried to understand why he’d done what he’d just done. No clear answer came. In fact, he hadn’t done anything. Yet. But it occurred to him, with something near to actual pain, that he’d last seen that huge-eyed look of terror in his older daughter’s face, when her mother lay vomiting blood before she died. He’d been unable to do anything. Enraged, nearly insane with grief. Helpless.
‘They perform this abomination all over Sauradia?’
He was naked in the metal tub in his room, knees drawn up to his chest. The largest tub wasn’t particularly large. The yellow-haired girl had oiled him, not very competently, and was now scrubbing his back with a rough cloth, for want of any strigil. Linon lay on the window-sill.
‘No. No, my lord. Only here at the southing of the Old Wood … Aid-wood, we say . . . and at the northern edge. There are two oak groves sacred to Ludan. The … forest god.’ Her voice was low, close to a whisper. Sound carried through these walls. She spoke Rhodian acceptably, though not easily. He switched to Sarantine again. ‘You are Jaddite, girl?’
She hesitated. T was brought to the Light last year.’ By the slave trader, no doubt. ‘And Sauradia is Jaddite, is it not?’ Another hesitation. ‘Yes, my lord. Of course, my lord.’ ‘But these pagans still take young girls and … do whatever they do to them? In a province of the Empire?’ ‘Crispin.You are better not knowing this.’
‘Not in the north, my lord,’ said the girl. She scrubbed the cloth across his ribs. ‘In the north a thief or a woman taken in adultery … someone who has already forfeited their life is hanged on the god’s tree. Only hanged. Nothing … worse.’
‘Ah. A milder barbarism. I see. And why is it different here? No thieves or adulterous women to be had?’
‘I don’t know.’ She did not react to his sarcasm. He was being unfair, he knew. ‘I’m sure it isn’t that, my lord. But… it may be that Morax uses this to keep peace with the village. He … allows travellers without Permits to stay, especially in autumn and winter. He’s wealthy because of it. The village inns suffer. Perhaps this is his way of making it up to them? He gives one of his slaves. For Ludan?’
‘Enough. It is blindingly obvious no one has ever taught you how to give a rubdown. Jad’s blood! An Imperial Inn without a strigil? Disgraceful. Get me a dry towel, girl.’ Crispin was aware of a familiar, hard anger within him and struggled to keep his voice down. ‘A fine reason to kill a slave, of course. Relations with the neighbours.’
She rose and hurriedly fetched a towel from the bed-the excuse for a towel they had sent up. This was not his bathhouse in Varena. The room itself was nondescript but of decent size, and some warmth did seem to be rising from the kitchen below. He had already noted that the door had one of the newer iron locks, opened with a copper key. The merchants would like that. Morax knew his business, it seemed, both the licit and the illicit sides of it. He was probably wealthy, or on the way to it.
Crispin controlled his anger, thinking hard. ‘I was correct down below? There are people here tonight without Permits?’
He stood up and stepped, dripping, out of the small tub. She was flushed from his rebuke, anxious, visibly afraid. It only made him more angry. He took the towel, rubbed his hair and beard, then wrapped himself against the cold. Then he swore, bitten by some crawling creature in the towel.
She stood by, hands awkwardly at her sides, eyes downcast. ‘Well?’ he demanded again. ‘Answer. Was I correct?’
‘Yes, my lord.’ Speaking Sarantine, which she clearly understood more readily, she sounded intelligent for her station, and there was life in the blue eyes when the terror was at bay. ‘Most of them are illegal. Autumn is a quiet time. If the taxing officers or soldiers come he bribes them, and the Imperial Couriers are back and forth too often to complain … so long as they are not put out by the other patrons. Morax takes good care of the couriers.’