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didn’t quite understand. A slave who spoke so to the Master. . .It was incomprehensible, impossible. And yet this Detta stood there with her hands on her rounded hips, her graying curls swaying as she shook her head and contradicted the Master without any fear whatsoever. Even when he thought he was dead, he would never have dared speak that way, or to look the Master straight in the eye like that.
    Whoever this Detta was, she clearly was no slave and therefore had standing far above his own. He ducked his gaze back down to the stone floor, before he was caught and punished for that as well. So many things he didn’t understand, rules he didn’t know. He reminded himself that he should already be dead; what more could happen?
    The woman made a disapproving noise. “At least the hair on this one’s short, less chance of anything hiding in there. All right, come on then, you. I don’t bite, although I will slap you if you cross me.” She made a gesture, catching the boy’s gaze. “Come forward then, what’s your name?”
    “Jerzy, mistress.” Saying it the second time was no easier than the first, but at least his voice didn’t crack this time.
    “Well then, come along, Jerzy. I’ll have the managing of you, for now.”
    “Master?” He wasn’t going anywhere without permission, if not a direct order.
    “Go with Detta, boy. She’s quite right; you stink, and I doubt you’ve cleaned some of those crevices since you were a babe in arms.”
    The boy didn’t understand what the Master meant, but he knew an order when he heard one. Bowing his head in obedience, he followed the woman Detta when she turned and went back under the stairs.
    The arched doorway she disappeared through wasn’t visible from the main entrance, but once he walked through it, another world opened up before him. Where the hallway was grand and slick, the hall he was in now was far homier, almost comfortable, and he was able to breathe more easily, without fearing he might accidentally touch something and ruin it. White-daub walls and reddish-brown clay tiles on the floor echoed the sound of Detta’s steps back at them, and made him aware for the first time of his bare feet, coated with dust and juice. His toes wiggled against the cool tile, and he opened his mouth to ask a question, but Detta kept walking ahead of him, and his courage failed.
    “Mistress?” he ventured finally.
    “Detta,” she said. “Just Detta. I’m no mistress of anything, save this household, and there’s no need for titles for that, not for one such as you.”
    More words he didn’t understand, but had to obey, somehow.
    “Detta.” He was just trying the sound of the word out now, not trying for her attention. She seemed to understand that, nodding in approval and walking through another arched doorway.
    This one led to a large room, still with white-daub walls, but lined with plain wooden benches around a great table, light coming in through tall, narrow windows on the far wall. The clean and bright lines of it, so different from the large but dark sleep house, made him forget the question he’d meant to ask.
    “This is the meal hall,” Detta said. “If you’re not dining with the Master in his study or the workroom, you’ll take meals here with the rest of us—we’re not grand enough to warrant a second hall.”
    Dining with the Master? The boy decided at this point that they were all mad and any moment someone would strike him for daring to be here at all, but until then there was nothing to do but play along.
    And then they were through that room, into a space that was filled with noise, heat, and bodies, a huge table at the center, and a massive fireplace against the far wall.
    “Roan, Geordie, you useless sacks, mind the spits! And you, Lil, I know those breads should be ready for the oven by now, if you weren’t slacking. Must I stand over you every breath you take, make sure you don’t choke on your own air?”
    None of the workers did