‘A dagger,’ Brindemo whispered. ‘The word means somewhat?’
‘Somewhat.’ He spoke slowly, almost reluctantly. ‘I can’t find the memory. It just twitched at my mind, like.’
Brindemo sighed with deep drama.
‘Twenty-five zotars! Easily I could sell you for twenty-five golden zotars if only we could find the truth. Do you know how much a zotar is worth?’
‘I don’t, at that.’
‘It would buy ten pigs, and five of them fertile sows, even. So twenty-five zotars … ai!’
‘My heart bleeds for you.’
‘Ah, the sarcasm, and how can I blame you? It is a good sign. Your mind is coming back to life. But, I tell you, I have a guest coming tonight. He has spent many years in Deverry as a wine merchant. He might recognize you, or know somewhat to jog your mind. I cannot stand this. Twenty-five zotars, and here you sit, unsaleable. It aches the heart, as you say in your country.’
While they waited for Arriano to arrive, Brindemo taught the slave the proper method of pouring wine and passing a tray of cups around to guests. Taliaesyn took the lesson with a grave interest that had a certain charm, rather like an intelligent child who has decided to please his parents by doing something they want even though it strikes him as ridiculous. Yet Brindemo was always aware that he was docile only because his memory had gone. Taliaesyn moved like a knife fighter (the professional athletes of the arena were Brindemo’s only cognate for that particular gliding walk, the stance that was both relaxed and on guard at the same time), so much so that seeing him fussing over the silver tray was unsettling, as if a lion were wearing a collar and padding after its mistress like a pet cat. I never should have bought him, he thought miserably; I should have told Baruma no. Yet his misery only deepened, because he knew full well that he was in no position to deny the man known as Baruma anything.
Arriano came promptly when the temple bells were chiming out the sunset watch. Brindemo met him at the door himself, then ushered him into the main hall, a long room with a blue-and-white tiled floor and dark green walls. At one end was a low dais, strewn with many-coloured cushions arranged around a brass table. After they settled themselves on the cushions, Taliaesyn passed the wine-cups around, then perched respectfully on the edge of the dais. Arriano, a wizened little man who hid his baldness under a white linen skullcap, looked him over with a small, not unfriendly smile.
‘So, Taliaesyn,’ he said. ‘Our Brindemo here says you come from Pyrdon.’
‘So I’ve been told, master.’
One of Arriano’s bushy eyebrows shot up.
‘Talk to me in Deverrian. Oh, what … ah, I know. Describe this room.’
As Taliaesyn, somewhat puzzled, obligingly gave him a catalogue of the furniture and colours in the room, Arriano listened with his head cocked to one side. Then he cut the list short with a wave of his hand.
‘Pyrdon? Hah! You come from Eldidd, lad. I’d wager good coin on it – the Eldidd sea-coast, at that.’ He turned to Brindemo and spoke in Bardekian. ‘They have a very distinctive way of speaking there. As you might have expected, Baruma was lying like a scorpion.’
‘May the feet of the gods crush him!’ Brindemo felt sweat run down his back. ‘I don’t suppose you recognize this supposed slave?’
‘Not as to give you his real name, no. From the way he moves and all, I’d say he was a member of their aristocracy.’
‘What? I was thinking of him as a knife-fighter or boxer or some other performer like that.’
‘You forget, my dear old friend, that in Deverry, the aristocrats are all warriors. They start training for it when they’re little children.’
Brindemo groaned, a long rattle that gave him no relief. Taliaesyn was listening with an understandable intensity.
‘One of the noble-born?’ the slave said at last. ‘Here, this Baruma fellow said I was a merchant’s son.’
‘Baruma lies as easily as the rain falls,’ Arriano said. ‘If I were you, Brindemo, I’d stop babbling about zotars and get rid of this man as fast as you can – but to a decent master, mind. If his kin come storming through here with blood in their barbarian hearts …’
‘I know, I know.’ Brindemo could barely speak out of sheer frustrated greed. ‘But twenty-five zotars! Ai!’
‘Will all the gold in the world sew your head back onto your shoulders if …’
‘Oh shut up! Of course you’re right. Baruma wanted me to sell him to the mines or the galleys, but that’s completely out of the question if the man’s an aristocrat.’
‘I should think so! May Baruma’s sphincter loosen and his manhood plug itself!’
‘And may diseased monkeys feed some day upon his heart! Very well, then. I’ll sell him as soon as I can find the right sort of buyer. If you hear of someone, let me know – for a commission, of course.’
‘Of course.’ Arriano held out his hand. ‘More wine, Taliaesyn.’
Even though Taliaesyn served the wine exactly as he’d been taught with all the proper courtesies, the harsh, brooding look in his eyes made Brindemo profoundly uneasy. I’d best get him out of here soon for my own sake, he thought, but ai! twenty-five zotars!
Taliaesyn had been given a cubicle of his own to sleep in, because Brindemo was afraid to have him gossiping with the other slaves. If Baruma came back, neither the slave nor the slave merchant wanted him to know that they’d been trying to unravel his secret. Although the cubicle had room for nothing more than a straw pallet on the floor, and a tiny niche in the wall for an oil-lamp, it was private. After he’d been locked in for the night, Taliaesyn sat on the pallet for a long while, considering what Arriano had told him. Even though the lamp was out of oil, he could see perfectly well in the moonlight that streamed in the uncurtained window. It occurred to him, then, that it was peculiar that he could see in the dark. Before he’d been taking it for granted.
A few at a time, Wildfolk came to join him, a gaggle of gnomes, mostly, all speckled and mottled in blue and grey and purple, quite different from the ones in Deverry, or at least, so he remembered. At the moment, he was disinclined to trust anything he ‘remembered’ about himself. Who knew if it were real or some lie of Baruma’s? He did, however, have a clear memory picture of solidly coloured gnomes, in particular a certain grey one who was some sort of friend. Apparently he’d been able to see these little creatures for some time.
The ability to befriend spirits was so out of character for what he knew of Deverry aristocrats that he considered this strange fact for a good long time. Although he remembered little about himself, his general knowledge of the world seemed to be intact, and he was certain that your average warrior-lord did not go around talking to Wildfolk. Yet here was a particularly bold gnome, a dirty-green and greyish-purple with an amazing number of warts running down its spine, who was climbing into his lap and patting his hand with one little clawed paw as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
‘Well, good eve, little brother.’
The gnome grinned to reveal bright purple fangs, then settled into his lap like a cat. As he idly stroked it, scratching it behind the ears every now and then, Taliaesyn felt something pricking at his mind like a buried splinter trying to force its way out of a finger. The Wildfolk, the very phrase, ‘little brother’, both meant something profound, something that would give him an important key to who he was if only he could find the lock. It was a secret, a very deep, buried secret, hidden even from Baruma, perhaps.
‘I wish you lads could talk. Do you know who I am?’
The pack all shook their heads in a collective yes.
‘Do you know my name, then?’
This time