Lujan’s attention returned to his mistress as Mara lifted her robe clear of the dust. Pale green in colour, the otherwise plain cloth was meticulously embroidered at the hem and sleeves with the outline of the shatra bird, the crest of House Acoma. The Lady wore sandals with raised pegged soles, to keep her slippers clear of the filth that littered the common roadways. Her footfalls raised a booming, hollow sound as she mounted the wooden stair to the galleries that ran the length of the palisade. A faded canvas awning roofed the structure, shading Tsurani lords and their factors from the merciless sunlight. They could rest well removed from the dust and dirt, and refreshed by whatever breeze blew in off the river as they viewed the slaves available for sale.
To Lujan, the gallery with its deep shade and rows of wooden benches was less a refuge than a place of concealing darkness. He lightly touched his mistress on the shoulder as she reached the first landing. She turned, and flashed a bothered look of inquiry.
‘Lady,’ said Lujan tactfully, ‘if an enemy is waiting, best we show them my sword before your beautiful face.’
Mara’s mouth turned upward at the corners, almost but not quite managing a smile. ‘Flatterer,’ she accused. ‘Of course you are right.’ Her formality with Lujan became gentled by humour. ‘Though among Jican’s protests was the belief I would come to harm from the barbarian slaves, not another Ruling Lord.’
She referred to the inexpensive Midkemian prisoners of war. Mara lacked the funds to buy enough common slaves to clear her pastures. So, seeing no other alternative, she chose to buy barbarians. They were reputed to be intractable, rebellious, and utterly lacking in humility toward their masters. Lujan regarded his Lady, who was barely as high as his shoulder, but who possessed a nature that could burn the man — Lord or slave or servant — who challenged her indomitable will. He recognized the purposeful set of her dark eyes. ‘Still, in you the barbarians will have met their match, I wager.’
‘If not, they will all suffer under the whip,’ Mara said with resolve. ‘Not only would we forfeit the use of the lands we need cleared before spring, we would lose the price of the slaves. I will have done Desio’s work for him.’ Her rare admission of doubt was allowed to pass without comment. Lujan preceded his mistress into the gallery, silently checking his weapons. The Minwanabi might be licking their wounds, but Mara had additional enemies now, lords jealous of her sudden rise, men who knew that the Acoma name rested upon the shoulders of this slender woman and her infant heir. She was not yet twenty-one, their advisers would whisper. Against Jingu of the Minwanabi she had been cunning, but mostly lucky; in the fullness of time her youth and inexperience would cause her to misstep. Then would rival houses arise like a pack of jaguna, ready to tear at the wealth and the power of her house and bury the Acoma natami – the stone inscribed with the family crest that embodied its soul and its honour — face down in the dirt, forever away from sunlight. Her robe neatly held above her ankles, Mara followed Lujan around the first landing. They passed the entrance to the lower tier of galleries, which by unwritten but rigid custom was reserved for merchants or house factors, and climbed to the next level, used only by the nobility.
But with Midkemians up for auction, the crowds were absent. Mara saw only a few bored-looking merchants who seemed more interested in the common gossip of the city than in buying. The upper tier of galleries would probably stand empty. Most Tsurani nobles were far more concerned by the war on the world beyond the rift, or in curbing the Warlord Almeoho’s ever growing power in the council, than with purchasing intractable slaves. The earliest lots of Midkemian captives had sold for premium prices, as curiosities. But the novelty lost attraction with numbers. Now grown Midkemian males brought the lowest prices of all; only women with rare red-gold hair or unusual beauty still commanded a thousand centuries. But since the Tsurani most often captured warriors, females from the barbarian world were seldom available.