‘He’s prime stock. Your Highness. When I reach Ansu, I’ll put him out front for the mine-owners to look at. They’ll buy the lot just to get him. I know good merchandise when I see it. I could sell cripples if I could wave Eliar in the buyer’s face.’
‘What’s it like down there in those salt mines?’ she asked. ‘How would you describe them?’
Althalus feigned a shudder. ‘I’d really rather not, Your Highness,’ he replied. ‘Over to the east, in Wekti, Plakand and Equero, criminals beg to be executed when they’re sentenced to be sold into the salt mines as a punishment for murder and the like. Being sent into those mines is far worse than a death sentence. If a slave’s unlucky, he’ll last for ten years down there. The lucky ones die in just a few months.’
‘Why don’t we talk about that?’ Andine almost purred.
Althalus described conditions in the salt mines at some length, exaggerating only slightly. He mentioned the prevalence of blindness, the frequent cave-ins – during which lucky slaves were crushed to death. He covered the darkness, the perpetual chill, the continuous choking dust, and dwelt at some length on the burly men with whips. ‘All in all,’ he concluded, ‘murderers and the like are very wise to prefer hanging to the mines.’
‘Then you’d say that being sent to the salt mines is a fate worse than death?’ Andine said, her lovely eyes all aglow.
‘Oh, yes,’ Althalus assured her, ‘much, much worse.’
‘I do believe we can strike a bargain here, Master Althalus,’ she decided. ‘A hundred gold wheats for the lot, you say?’
‘That was my offer, Your Highness.’
‘Done, then – if you’ll throw in your cat.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I want this lovely little cat. If you let me have her, we’ve struck a bargain.’
‘Do as she says, Althalus’, Emmy’s thought cut through his startled dismay.
‘I most certainly will not!’ he shot back.
‘You don’t really think she can keep me here, do you? Make her throw in the Knife, though.’
‘How am I going to manage that?’
‘I don’t care. Think something up. That’s what I’m paying you for, remember? Oh, one other thing. When you get the Knife from her, just tuck it under your belt and don’t look at it.’
‘Why not?’
‘Can’t you ever do as you’re told without asking all these questions? I don’t want you to look at the Knife until after we’re out of here. Just do it and don’t argue.’
He gave up. ‘Yes, dear,’ he said silently.
‘What’s the problem, Master Althalus?’ Andine asked, gently stroking the purring cat in her lap.
‘You took me by surprise, Your Highness,’ he replied. ‘I’m really very fond of my cat.’ He scratched his chin. ‘This puts the whole transaction on a different footing. The slaves are just merchandise; including Emmy changes things. I think I’ll need something in addition to the slaves before I’d be willing to part with her.’
‘Such as?’
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ He pretended to think about it. ‘It really ought to be some personal possession of yours. I’m much too fond of my cat to include her in some crass commercial transaction. I’d have trouble living with myself if I just sold her outright.’
‘You’re a strange man, Master Althalus.’ Arya Andine looked at him with her luminous eyes. ‘What sort of possession of mine would satisfy your delicate sensibilities?’
‘It doesn’t have to be anything of great value, Your Highness. I didn’t pay anything for Emmy. I just picked her up along the side of the road a few years ago. She’s very good at worming her way into someone’s affections.’
‘Yes, I noticed that.’ Andine impulsively lifted Emmy up to hold her against her own face, ‘I just love this cat,’ she said in that throbbing voice of hers. ‘Choose, Master Althalus. Name your price.’
Althalus laughed. ‘You really shouldn’t say things like that, Your Highness,’ he advised her. ‘If I weren’t an honest businessman, I could take advantage of your sudden attachment to my cat.’
‘Name your price. I must have her.’
‘Oh, I don’t know – anything, I suppose. How about that Knife you’ve been toying with? You seem to have a certain attachment to it. That’s all that matters, really.’
‘Choose something else.’ Andine’s eyes grew troubled.
‘Ah – no, Your Highness, I don’t think so. My cat for your Knife. You won’t value her if you haven’t given up something that you cherish for her.’
‘You bargain very hard, Master Althalus,’ she accused.
Emmy reached out one soft paw and gently stroked the Arya’s alabaster cheek.
‘Oh, dear,’ Andine said, pressing Emmy against her face. ‘Take the Knife, Master Althalus. Take it. I don’t care. Take anything you want. I must have her.’ She seized up the laurel-leaf dagger and tossed it to the marble floor in front of the dais.
‘If it please Your Highness, I’ll see to the details,’ the silvery-haired Dhakan said smoothly. Quite obviously, Dhakan was the one who really ran things here in Osthos.
‘Thank you, Lord Dhakan,’ Andine said, rising to her feet with Emmy cradled possessively in her arms.
‘You be a good cat now, Em,’ Althalus said, bending to pick up the Knife. ‘Remember – no biting.’
‘Does she bite?’ Andine asked.
‘Sometimes,’ Althalus replied, tucking the Knife under his belt. ‘Not very hard, though. Usually it’s when she gets carried away while we’re playing. Snap her on the nose with your fingernail and she’ll quit. Oh, I should probably warn Your Highness: don’t be too surprised if she decides to give your face a bath. Her tongue’s a bit rough, but you get used to it after a while.’
‘What’s her favorite food?’
‘Fish, of course.’ Althalus bowed. ‘It’s been a pleasure doing business with Your Highness,’ he said.
The clinking of the long chain started to irritate Althalus before he and the ten young Arums even reached the main gate of Osthos. It was a continual reminder that he wasn’t alone any more, and he didn’t really like that.
Once they were outside the city, Althalus sent a searching thought back toward the palace. This was the farthest he’d been from Emmy in the last twenty-five centuries, and he didn’t like that either.
‘I’m busy right now, Althalus,’ her thought came back to him. ‘Don’t bother me. Go to that place where we made the coins and wait for me there.’
‘Do you have any idea of how long you’ll be?’
‘Sometime tonight. Keep Eliar, and turn the others loose.’
‘I just paid a lot of money for them, Em.’
‘Easy come, easy go. Point them toward Arum and send them home. Get them out from underfoot.’
The walls of Osthos were still in sight when Althalus turned his horse aside and rode across an open field to the small grove of oak trees where