Irona 700 (3 page)

Now the boy looked seriously alarmed. “You're wrong, 700! Only the goddess could make one token refuse to fall like that.”

She suspected otherwise. “How about you, last year? Did you just pick a disk out of a pile, or did somebody give it to you?”

Zard squirmed, seeming younger than ever. “I took the first one I found.”

“Had you been told you were to be chosen?”

“Of course not!”

That was a lie, too.

“You swear that nobody gave you a particular token?”

He tried to seem indignant. “If you think my family bribed somebody to have me chosen, you're crazy. They're well off, but not like that. The goddess chose me because the Seventy need me. I spoke five languages even then. I'm up to eight now.” When Irona didn't comment, he added smugly, “I'm already making myself useful to the Seven, translating at meetings with allied envoys. Several Sevens have told me so.”

Again, Irona did not comment.

He tried to seem cheerful. “But you know that this is the happiest day of your life, don't you? From now on you can have everything you've ever dreamed of!”

“Like the man I was going to marry?”

Zard 699 lost his grin yet again. “Chosen can't marry. But you could send for him! If your tutor doesn't mind. Ask her.”

A tiny flicker of hope in the ashes of her dream. … “Send for him? To do what, to be what?”

“Your escort.”

“He means gigolo,” announced a new voice, a stern, haughty voice. Its owner was a tall, angular woman in a shimmering sea-green tunic. She went to a window and adjusted the slats, flooding the room with light.

Zard sprang to his feet. Irona followed his lead more slowly—not because of weakness, but because the padded chair was hard to get out of. Already the Source Water was bringing her back to life.

“Irona 700, ma'am,” Zard said. “Trodelat 680.”

Majestic as an iceberg, Trodelat advanced. She held out both hands. “Congratulations on being chosen, Irona. The goddess never makes mistakes. I'm sure she has very good reasons for wanting you among the Seventy. Yesterday, they elected two potential tutors for today's newcomer, one male, one female. I won, obviously.”

She turned to regard Zard with high disdain, aided by the fact that she was taller than he. “And you, '99, should return to your own tutor and ask him to explain to you the difficulties of moving and storing thousands of brass disks. You have completed your obligations to 700 and are free to go.” Evidently Trodelat 680 had been eavesdropping for some minutes.

Zard flushed angrily and stalked out of the room.

Still holding Irona's hands, Trodelat looked down at them and frowned. “Poor child! Tell me about yourself.”

“My father is a sea hunter, part owner of
South Wind
. We live in Brackish. I have five brothers and five sisters.” And one almost-betrothed harpooner.

“Can you read and write?”

“I know my numbers. I help my mother with the shopping.”

“We'll teach you all the rest. How are your teeth?”

Teeth? Irona automatically bared them, starting to feel like a slave on the auction block.

“Remember to rinse your mouth every day with Source Water. And your hands, too. That will soon get them in shape.” Trodelat released her and went to uncover another window. “Source Water doesn't let people live forever, but it does keep us healthy. The tide ebbs for all of us eventually, but those who drink Source Water every day stay healthy until they drop dead.”

Trodelat herself, more visible now, was revealed as feminine perfection. Her skin was smooth as ivory, her eyes clear as gems, and not one hair was out of place or curled the wrong way. It seemed that curly hair worn short was the mode among the rich; Zard had it, and so had the Dvure boy. Trodelat 680's collar and sea-green tunic were obviously the uniform of a Chosen, but she expressed her individuality by wearing even more jewelry than Zard: rings, bracelets, a jeweled belt. Although her collar proclaimed her as being twenty years older than Irona, which would make her older than Mother, she certainly did not look it.

She was trying to seem motherly. “I know just how you feel; we all do. We all went through it, even the First himself. Being a Chosen is a very great honor, a very great responsibility, and very well rewarded. You will live like a queen all the rest of your days. The city gives you anything you want freely, so you are never tempted to accept bribes or play favorites.

“And don't worry that you don't know what's expected of you. Of course you don't! You receive a two-year education. I will be your tutor. That means I'll see you are housed and fed and dressed and taught all the things you will need to know to help run our great empire. Or almost all the things. We keep on learning all our lives. We work hard, but we are well paid. Now, we have years ahead of us, but have you any immediate questions?”

“What did you mean about thousands of brass disks?”

Trodelat made a scoffing noise. “That silly boy! You think that box could hold enough disks for every sixteen-year-old in Benign? After an hour or two, they would need arms like anchor chains to reach to the bottom! I imagine the temple has four or five hundred disks. It will certainly have teams of slaves to carry them back up. Of course there must be a way into the box from underneath, and when the basket under the hole is almost empty, it has to be refilled. You got your disk as they were making the change, that's all.”

What she said did make sense. But Nis Puol Dvure had looked very surprised. However full of his own importance he might be, surely he could not have been so sure of being chosen unless he had been promised?

Trodelat was frowning. “Your token did not fall like the others, my dear. You were granted the miracle. I don't deny that priests sometimes take bribes, but they can't work miracles. Only the goddess can. … Mm? You think you know how it could have been done?”

Irona nodded timorously. Who was she to argue with one of the Seventy or blaspheme against the city's patron goddess?

“Interesting,” her tutor murmured, considering Irona with narrowed eyes. “Ignorance is not stupidity, and the goddess does not choose idiots. But I strongly suggest you do not voice your suspicions to anyone else. No one at all! Meanwhile, are you recovered enough to travel? Any more really urgent questions?”

They were going to make Irona Matrinko into Irona 700, who would be a different person altogether, and she did not want to be another person. “Who pays for all this teaching and feeding?”

Her tutor chuckled. “Very smart question! You do.”

“I don't have any money.”

“But you have something else of value. Tomorrow I will take you to a meeting of the Seventy. The First himself will be there, and most of the Seven, and the rest of us. I will present you, and you will take your seat among us. And thereafter, starting immediately, whenever we vote—to appoint a magistrate, pass a law, raise a tax, even to declare war—your vote will count as much as anyone's.”

“And I vote the way you do?”

Trodelat laughed. For the first time her mood seemed sincere. “Well done! Very well done! Yes, that is my reward. During our tutelage we follow the lead of our tutors. Your vote gives me a very slight advantage in the bargaining that precedes important votes. It's a sort of game, really. After our two years' tuition we choose seniors to follow, but then we call them patrons. Mine is a very fine lady, Obnosa 658. I almost always follow her lead in voting, although we all support our friends, too, and she understands when I ask for leave to differ on a vote. You will meet her tomorrow. Come, let us go home, to my home.”

“Wait! What about my family?”

“I can write them a letter if you wish. If your father can't read, he can take it to someone who can. The law forbids you to see your family during your two-year tutelage. I know that is hard, and I wept when it happened to me, but it is for the best, believe me.” Again she studied Irona's reaction. “They would have to kneel to you now, child.”

Irona imagined them all kneeling to her, even Sklom.
And Father?
She shuddered.

Again Trodelat made an effort to seem motherly. “But think how proud they will be when they hear the wonderful news! How the neighbors will rush to congratulate them!”

Irona nodded, but it was much more likely that Brackish would throw rocks and insults, and perhaps even drive her family out of the village. They would consider that Irona had gone over to the enemy, the Benign bloodsuckers.

“A lover?” Trodelat was puzzled by her reaction.

“Oh, no! Betrothed.” Not even that, really.

“Tell me about him.”

“His name is Sklom Uroveg. He's a harpooner.”

The Chosen grimaced. “And would you like me to invite him to come and live with you and be your servant?”

The thought was so impossible that Irona could only stare.

Trodelat nodded, satisfied. “I'll show you what I mean. Guard!”

The man she had summoned must have been waiting right outside the door, probably listening to every word, because he entered at once. He was a very large man, clad in a bronze cuirass and a skirt of bronze plates. He was armed with spear, sword, and dagger. His bronze helmet was elaborate, with a crest in the shape of a swan, and a gap at the back through which his hair hung in a thick braid. If the helmet was strong enough to be useful and not just decoration, it must be very heavy to wear. His arms were impressive, although not up to Sklom's standards.

He halted and thumped the butt of his spear on the marble floor.

“Ma'am?”

“Jamarko, this is Chosen Irona 700, who will be living with me now.”

He pivoted toward her, thumped his spear again, and went down on his knees. “Your servant, ma'am,” he told her sandals.

Irona recoiled so that she almost fell back into the chair. Trodelat gestured encouragingly. Irona shook her head, not understanding.

“The correct response is, ‘Rise, guardsman.'”

“Rise, guardsman.” Irona could feel her cheeks burning, mostly because she knew that her ignorance had been deliberately thrown in her face.

She could almost swear that the soldier bore a faint smirk as he straightened up and glanced at his mistress for orders. He had an old white slave brand on his right shoulder, and a freedman brand, more recent, on his left. There were slaves in Brackish, of course, although her mother could not afford one. Father would not use them on the ship because he found them lazy and untrustworthy.

“Irona 700 and I will be returning to my residence,” Trodelat said. “Two litters, and I want the best bearers.”

“Always, ma'am!”

“No. This morning's were pathetic.”

A dangerous glint showed in the big man's eyes. “I am rebuked. I will choose them myself, ma'am.”

The shocks were coming too fast. Irona had never even seen a litter before that day, let alone ridden in one.

“We shall be mostly going uphill, my dear,” her tutor explained as they headed through the temple to a gate on the inland side, “so you recline with your head at the front. It's more comfortable that way. Keep the gauze curtains drawn always, then you can see and not be seen. Order the outer ones closed if you wish. Today your bearers will follow mine. I'll explain how to signal your orders another day.”

Irona had not realized how steep the city was. She felt sorry for the slaves who had to carry her litter. They were required to maintain a fast jog, while Captain Jamarko and his five armed assistants ran alongside or ahead. The stairs and alleyways were still crowded because of the festival—although Sklom had told her that the city was always crowded. One of Jamarko's men beat a drum to warn pedestrians to clear a passage. Anyone slow to move was roughly thrust aside.

The temple was located near the docks, in the Old City, built on the limited flat land near the shore, where it rubbed shoulders with warehouses, businesses, and markets. The Mountain rose steeply above it: not in a continuous grade, Irona now realized, but in innumerable shelves and terraces, separated by cliffs and chopped up by ravines. Traffic moved on human feet. There were few roads of any length, and many staircases, even bridges. At the summit, she knew, stood the First's Palace, where the business of government was done.

Feeling sorry for slaves and other pedestrians was a pointless exercise when she should have been admiring all the splendid buildings and spectacular views, but she arrived at her destination with almost no memories of those. The size of Trodelat's house amazed her. It had at least thirty rooms, and the one she was told was to be hers—all to herself!—was twice the size of her father's house.

There she was taken in hand by a couple of body slaves, whose names she had to learn again the next day. They washed her all over with Source Water, trimmed off nine-tenths of her hair, shampooed the remainder, and then rubbed it up with a sea marten fur. This, they explained, had the power to make hair curly and shiny and it certainly worked for her. She had not known why sea martens were so prized, although she knew how pleased her father was when his men managed to catch even a single one. They were smaller than otters, and yet so valuable that
South Wind
would put about at once and race straight home with this one tiny cargo, so that the pelt would be delivered fresh to the tanners. Sea martens were found only in the far north, so they were probably tainted by the evil of the Dread Lands.

The girls dressed her in a tunic of sea-green silk, which she felt much too short, and delivered her to a twilit terrace, where her hostess-tutor was waiting. As soon as Irona took the other chair, slaves began bringing out tables laden with food. Food! It was only then that Irona realized that she had not eaten all day. Slaves offered dishes and she said “Yes!” every time, until her plate was heaped like the Mountain.