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were embroideries on his own childhood experiences. But since entertainment was the desired effect, and temporariness seemed the evening’s hallmark, there was no reason to shun prevarication. Five times during the night, he made jokes the Vizerine thought wickedly funny. Three times he made observations on the working of the human heart she thought profound. For the rest, he was deferential, anecdotal, as honest about his feelings as someone might be who sees no hope in his situation. Gorgik’s main interest in the encounter was the story it would make at the next night’s supper of gruel and cold pig fat, though that interest was somewhat tempered by the prospect of the ten-hour workday with no sleep to come. Without illusion that more gain than the tale would accrue, lying on his back on sweaty silk his own body had soiled, staring up at the dead lamps swaying under the striped canvas, sometimes dozing in the midst of his own ponderings while the Vizerine beside him gave her own opinions on this, that, or the other, he only hoped there would be no higher price.
    When the slits between the tent lacings grew luminous, the Vizerine suddenly sat up in a rustle of silks and a whisper of furs whose splendor had by now become part of the glister of Gorgik’s fatigue. She called sharply for Jahor, then bade Gorgik rise and stand outside.
    Outside Gorgik stood, tired, lightheaded, and naked in the moist grass, already worn here and there to the earth with the previous goings and comings of the caravanpersonnel. He looked at the tents, at the black mountains beyond them, at the cloudless sky already coppered one side along the pinetops: I could run, he thought; and if I ran, yes, I would stumble into slavers’ hands within the day; and I’m too tired anyway. But I
could
run. I…
    Inside, Myrgot, with sweaty silk bunched in her fists beneath her chin, head bent and rocking slowly, considered. ‘You know, Jahor,’ she said, her voice quiet, because it was morning and if you have lived most of your life in a castle with many other people you are quiet in the morning; ‘that man is wasted in the mines.’ The voice had been roughened by excess. ‘I say man; he looks like a man; but he’s really just a boy – oh, I don’t mean he’s a genius or anything. But he can speak two languages passably, and can practically read in one of them. For him to be sunk in an obsidian pit is ridiculous! And do you know … I’m the only woman he’s ever had?’
    Outside, Gorgik, still standing, eyes half closed, was still thinking: yes, perhaps I could … when Jahor came for him.
    ‘Come with me.’
    ‘Back to the pit?’ Gorgik snorted something that general good nature made come out half a laugh.
    ‘No,’ Jahor said briskly and quietly in a way that made the slave frown. ‘To my tent.’
    Gorgik stayed in the large-nosed eunuch’s tent all morning, on sheets and coverlets not so fine as the Vizerine’s but fine enough; and the tent’s furnishings – little chairs, low tables, shelves, compartmented chests, and numberless bronze and ceramic figurines set all over – were far more opulent than Myrgot’s austere appointments. With forty minutes this hour and forty minutes that, Jahor found the slave gruff, friendly – and about as pleasant as an exhausted miner can be at four, five, or six in themorning. He corroborated the Vizerine’s assessment – and Jahor had done things very much like this many, many times. At one point the eunuch rose from the bed, bound himself about with blue wool, turned to excuse himself a moment – unnecessarily, because Gorgik had fallen immediately to sleep – and went back to the Vizerine’s tent.
    Exactly what transpired there, Gorgik never learned. One subject, from time to time in the discussion, however, would no doubt have surprised, if not shocked, him. When the Vizerine had been much younger, she herself had been taken a slave for three weeks and forced to perform services arduous and