Laldasa (14 page)

The senior officer gave the respectful greeting, his eyes lighting as they swept up Ana's body to her face. “Rani,” he said, smiling. He glanced over her shoulder at Kenadas, who had drawn up about a foot behind her, and his smile evaporated.

“I have never seen an arrest being made before,” Ana said, affecting sultry curiosity. “Is this young man a real criminal? What has he done?” She fixed the Avasan with an interested gaze. “Is he very dangerous?”

“Well, he's not precisely a criminal, Rani,” the officer explained patiently. “He's yevetha. No leaf. No cree. Not a mark on him. Now, as to how dangerous he is ... ” He shrugged. “ ... there is no way of knowing. I suspect he's from Avasa, in which case he is likely wilder and rougher than he looks.”

“Ah, I see.” Anala nodded, hiding her insistent anger behind affectation. She tossed back her hair and shifted her weight from one foot to the other, drawing the Sarngin's eyes to the subtle movement of her hips. “What will happen to him?”

The Sarngin read her interest and grinned. “It's to a dalali with him, Rani. Badan-Devaki, to be exact. You can visit him there, if you've the urge.”

Repulsed by her own behavior and the assumption she could readily see in the Sarngin's eyes, Ana looked the Avasan man over from head to toe, speculatively. He sent back a gaze that was at once defiant and frightened. A muscle in his jaw clenched and unclenched.

“I don't suppose,” she said, “that you could just let me have him.” She made her voice like nectar and made the most of her pale eyes, hoping her growing rage was tucked safely out of sight.

The officer lingered in her eyes for a moment, but ultimately glanced at his partner and shook his head. “Sorry, Rani. I would delight in your pleasure, but the law says I must take him to a dalali.”

“Oh. Too bad.” Ana pouted prettily, then shrugged. “Well, at least, as you say, I can find him there. Badan-Devaki, you said?”

The officer nodded.

Ana gave the prisoner a hard glance. “What is your name, pretty man?”

“Hadas,” he said, his voice a low growl. “Hadas Gupta.”

The junior Sarngin chuckled. “That'll be ‘Hadasdas' before too long.”

Ana ignored him. “You're Avasan by birth, are you?”

“Yes ... Rani.” He bowed his head and stared at the ground. There was nothing subservient in the gesture; he, too, was hiding rage.

“You are very pretty, Hadas,” she said. “I will see you again.” To the Sarngin she said “Good day to you. May your careers be interesting.”

And short, she added mentally as she left them and continued on to the top of the hill, Kenadas striding in her wake. Once there, she glanced back. The Sarngin and their hapless charge were just turning the corner below.

She felt Kena's eyes on her face. “He was lured to that house, Kena. Lured there, robbed of his identity and sent into slavery.”

“This is what happened to you, isn't it, Rani?”

She nodded. “Very nearly. And now I wonder, to how many others has it happened?”

oOo

“We will not concern Jaya with this just yet.”

Jivinta Mina paced her grandson's study without the aid of her cane, which sat propped against a couch near the hearth. She was impressive and Ana was willing to be impressed by such a woman.

“You and I will look after it, Anala. After all, what would Jaya do? Buy the young man back! I can do that ... as a gift for my darling grandniece.” She smiled conspiratorially at her ‘grandniece.'

Ana was stunned by the suggestion and not a little queasy at the thought of returning to the dalali. She had imagined that she would tell Jaya of this latest development and he would simply take care of it. She saw the irony in that, but it failed to spur her conscience.

“I can't go into Badan-Devaki, Jivinta. Someone might recognize me.”

“No one will recognize you, Ana. Trust me.”

Two hours later, standing in the Badan-Devaki foyer with her hair bound in a red turban, her hands covered with matching gloves and her skin dusted to a deep, creamy gold, Ana thought her own family wouldn't have known her.

The Sarojin Matriarch took it upon herself to do all the talking, while Ana, fake tendrils of straight, black hair peeking from beneath her turban, glanced archly about like the Rani she was reputed to be. “As you can see,” said the Sarojin matriarch archly, “my grandniece has the famous Sarojin coloring. I want for her a young man that will complement her beauty. Someone exotic. Someone close to her in age. Someone fresh and possessing a certain innocence. Do you have anyone like that?”

They did, in fact. They had several such young men. Ashur Badan showed them vipics. Several of the youths might have been Avasan. One of them was golden of face, hair and eye. Young, handsome and exotically fair.

Mina and Ana both expressed interest, prompting Ashur Badan to lead them to a tiny gallery that reminded Ana of nothing so much as the inside of the jewel box that sat upon her dressing table at the Saroj. She shivered reflexively and concentrated on the cluster of auction items.

Badan singled out Hadas and removed him from the group. He moved with the lethargy of the drugged, his amber eyes showing not even a spark of the defiance Ana had seen in them just hours before.

She forced to her lips a plastic smile of admiration. “He's lovely,” she said. “Let's get him.”

In the end, Mina Sarojin paid a steep 8,000 dagam for Hadas ... and another 1500d for Item #25—a young girl who had caught her eye. She loudly proclaimed the girl would be a godsend to her poor overburdened house-das.

“Damn broker,” Jivinta grumbled to Ana as she paid for her purchases. “They push the legal age of das down every year. That little girl couldn't be more than twelve.”

Ashur Badan's all-hearing ears caught the comment. He padded solicitously to her service. “Is there a problem with your purchases, Rani Mina?”

“This girl.” Mina pointed to the blank-faced child she had just collected. “Are you sure she's above the minimum age for permanent service?”

“I assure you,” said Badan, “that all is quite legal. The Non-Separation Code does not extend to orphans. This girl had no family to separate her from.”

Something that flickered momentarily in the child's dark eyes made a lie of that statement; Mina snorted and turned toward the foyer.

“Excuse me,” said Ashur Badan, halting her. “But since meeting your lovely grandniece, I am haunted by the feeling that we are already acquainted. What was your family name, again?”

Ana shot Mina a flickering glance, using all her resources to remain calm.

“Sadira,” she said, tilting her head up so she might look down at the dalal. “From Darupur, originally. I'm certain we've never met. I could not forget such a man as yourself, Badan-sama.”

He preened, flattered where no flattery had been given. “Ah, well. Then, we have met only in my dreams. Every man has a vision that haunts his sleep.”

“Never forget such a man as that, eh?” muttered Mina Sarojin as they climbed into her coach. “You're sly, Ana. That man is as slimy as the underside of a moss snake.”

“Which, of course,” said Ana, “was what I meant.”

Chuckling, Mina seated herself on the padded bench with a regal flourish and eyed her two acquisitions as they slid in across from her.

“Go ahead and laugh, child. It's permitted,” she told the girl, then asked, “What's your name? I can't keep calling you ‘girl' and ‘child.'”

“My name is whatever pleases the Rani.”

“Completely proper. And completely idiotic. What is your given name?”

“Dana, if it please the Rani.”

“'Dana' pleases ‘the Rani' very well, thank you. Now tell me, Dana, are you an orphan?”

The girl's eyes displayed anger, unease, and resignation in swift succession. “I'd make Badan-sama a liar.”

“Badan-sama is a liar already. You can't make him one. I want the truth, Dana. Do you have a family?”

Dana lowered her eyes, blinking rapidly. “Yes, Rani.”

“Where is your family, then? Kasi?”

“Kalpali,” she said. “My mother and two little brothers.”

“How did you come to be in the Badan-Devaki?”

“My father was killed two year past in a logging accident. Mata tried t'work, but it's hard with the baby so young. I thought I'd do some, but there isn't much doing for a girl my age ... not that's blessed by Tara-ji. One day this woman shows at our place and says she can find work for me in a Big House in Kasi. Take one load off Mata's hands, I figured. Ma didn't want t'do it,” she added defensively, “but they had to eat. So I say, ‘yes.' Wasn't til we were on our way here in the skycoach I find out where I'm going. I tell them I'll go to the Sarngin, but they say I'm legal to them ‘cause I'm an orphan by law.”

“What?” Ana exclaimed. “But you have a mother-“

“A new interpretation of the law,” commented Jivinta Mina wryly. “And a new interpretation of ‘family.' A family without a father is no longer a family. It's a body without a head—it ceases to be.” She looked, again, at Dana. “Tell me, child, what skills has your mother?”

The girl's eyes lit up and she nearly smiled. “She paints things, Rani. Tiny, tiny things. Whole villages in porcelain spice cups and palaces in the bowls of spoons. She paints me a cup once that's a flower inside and out with a green stem for a handle and a little, tiny wood-deva in the center ... ” Her eyes swung away suddenly. “They took it. Said it wasn't allowed, to have things from before.”

Ana gritted her teeth. Violent, black rage boiled in her heart, and for a brief moment she imagined Ashur Badan and Devaki-sa sold, homeless and friendless, into ignominious slavery. Contrition followed, swiftly.

Mina said, “You must tell me how I may contact this talented mother of yours, Dana. Perhaps she could paint some things for me.” Then she poked Hadas's knee with her jambu-wood cane. “What about you, young man? Where are your people?”

Hadas jerked his eyes back from their glazed stare out the coach window and brought them to Mina's face. He seemed to have difficulty focusing.

“What?”

Ana grimaced, doubting Hadas Gupta had been the most quiescent of acquisitions. “You're from Avasa, aren't you?”

He nodded, visibly pulling himself together. “Yes. Peradnatok. In the Sagara. My parents ... run an inn ... the Blue Pearl.”

“I've heard of it,” said Jivinta Mina. “A very fine, very beautiful inn, if the brochures are to be trusted.”

Hadas fixed her with a knife-sharp gaze. “What will happen to us?”

“You must understand that you will not be treated as das in my House and the House of my grandson, the Nathu Rai Sarojin. We have not purchased you for that purpose—either of you. We have purchased your freedom that we may return it to you. You will be reunited with your families in due course. That's easy for Dana, but not so easy for you, I fear, Hadas.”

“Why?” asked Hadas, voice and jaw tightening. “Why not so easy for me?”

“Because you're Avasan, “ Ana answered. She pulled the turban and wig from her head, allowing her fat, cherry braid to fall to one shoulder.

Hadas reddened. “You!”

Ana grinned at his expression. “I told you I would see you again.”

They spent the afternoon outfitting their guests with new clothing and disguising Hadas's palm. Jivinta Mina sent Kenadas back to the dalali to collect Dana's belongings. Her clothing and other personal effects had been destroyed, but one of the attendants had kept the flower tea cup. Kena returned with it in hand, presenting it almost reverently to his mistress. It was exquisite and displayed considerable talent. Mina admired and praised it highly before returning it to its rightful owner. Then she set about assigning aliases to her new charges.

Dana, whose age, accent and lack of education precluded her passing as anything but a rural child, was placed in Heli's able hands to help about the household. Hadas became another member of the Sadira clan, newly arrived from Avasa on holiday. He and his “cousin” Ana spent some time getting their stories straight, then went to their rooms to dress for dinner.

oOo

When she told him what they had done—that yet another Sadira ‘cousin' had joined the household—Jaya was stunned to silence. It was a condition Anala took advantage of by steering him into his study. He slid into one of the chairs flanking the massive black fireplace, watching her warily while she danced a dance of sheer excitement.

“Jaya Rai, it was him. It was them! The same men!”

“Who did what, Ana?”

She paced the rug in front of the hearth, making emphatic gestures with her hands. “Who lured Hadas into a house near the warrows, took his id and left him for the Sarngin. Sound familiar?”

Jaya sat forward in his chair. “You're implying what happened to you—what?—wasn't a simple robbery?”