Lord Pavek kicked the stone links coiled at his feet and jammed his toe. "All right," he snarled, grinding his teeth against a fool's pain. "Whatever you say, Ruari: I've got a convenient conscience. I'm not a good man; never pretended that I was. I've never known a thoroughly good man, woman, or child and, yes, that includes you, Kashi, and Telhami. I don't have good answers. Slavery's a mistake, a terrible mistake, but I can't fix a mistake by setting it free and tossing it out to the streets. Once a mistake's made, it stays made and someone's got to be responsible for it."
"There's got to be a better way."
That was Ruari's way of ending their arguments and making peace, but Pavek's toe still throbbed and
the half-elf had scratched too many scars for a truce.
"If you're so sure, go out and find it. We'll both become better men. But until you do have something better to offer, get out of my sight."
"I only said—"
"Get!"
Pavek threw a wild punch in the half-elf's direction. It fell short by several handspans, but Ruari got the idea and ran for cover.
Twilight had become an evening that was not as dark as in Quraite. Pavek could see the wall where the gardener lined up his tools: shovel, rake, hoe, and a rock-headed maul. Testing its heft and balance as if it were a weapon, Pavek gave the maul a few practice swings. The knotted muscles in his shoulders crackled. He wasn't the sort of man who handled tension well; he'd rather work himself to exhaustion than think his way out of a puzzle.
One end of the stone-link chain remained where the gardener had dropped it. The other end was fastened to a ring at the center of the garden. Pavek coiled all the links around the ring and started hammering. The links slid against each other; Pavek never hit the same place twice. Stone against shifting stone was as futile labor as Urik had to offer, but Pavek found his rhythm and once he'd broken a sweat, his conscience was clearer—emptier—than it had been in days.
Swinging and striking, he lost track of time and place, or almost lost track. He'd no notion how much time had passed when he became aware that he wasn't alone. Ruari, he thought. Ruari had returned for the final word. He swung the maul with extra vigor, missed the links altogether, but raised sparks from the ring. The gasp he heard next didn't come from a half-elf or a human boy.
"Mahtra?"
He saw her in the doorway, a study in moonlit pallor and seamless shadows. Their eyes met and she receded into the dark. A child, Pavek reminded himself; he'd frightened her with his hammering. He set the maul aside.
She shook her head. The shawl slid down her neck. With the mask dividing her head, it was like looking at two incomplete faces—which was probably not an inaccurate way to describe her.
"Does this place make you uneasy? Do you want to talk to me about it?" He'd already failed miserably with Ruari, but the night was young and filled with opportunity.
"No, I like it here. I remember Akashia, but my own memories are different."
"You used to come to this garden?"
"No, never. No one came here, except Agan. He was always here. Agan and Initri, they were special."
Their conversation was assuming its familiar pattern: Pavek asking what he assumed were simple questions and Mahtra replying with answers he didn't quite understand. "How?" he asked, dreading her answer.
"Sometimes Lord Elabon, he called Agan 'my thrice-damned-father'."
The maul handle stood beside Pavek, in easy reach. He could swing it and imagine the link it struck was Elabon Escrissar's skull. He'd been wise to dread anything Mahtra could tell him about his inherited home. How had Escrissar—even Escrissar—enslaved his own parents? What was he, Just-Plain Pavek, supposed to do to correct that mistake? What could he do?
"It might not mean anything," Mahtra continued. "Father wasn't my father. I don't have a father or mother; I was made, not born. I just called Father that because it felt good. Maybe Lord Escrissar did the same."
Pavek said, "I hope not," and Mahtra receded into the shadows again. He called her back saying, "It's all right for you feel good about calling someone Father—" Mahtra had a clear sense of justice and honor; he assumed she'd gotten it from the man she called Father who had, therefore, been worthy of a child's respect. She certainly hadn't gotten anything honorable from Elabon Escrissar. "But it wouldn't be right if you'd put scars on his face and a chain around his neck, and then you felt good about calling him Father."
"It would feel good to call you Father. You truly wouldn't set your mistakes free, would you?"
She'd been eavesdropping on his argument with Ruari, if it could be called eavesdropping when they'd been screaming at each other.
"I wouldn't—not deliberately, but Mahtra, you can't call me Father. I'm Pavek, Just-Plain Pavek. Leave it at that."
She blinked, and pulled her arms tight around her slender torso as if Pavek had struck her, which only made him feel worse. But he couldn't have her calling him Father; that was a responsibility he couldn't take.
"Mahtra—"
"I need someone to talk to and I don't think I should talk to Lord Hamanu. I think he'd listen, but I don't think I should. I think he's made, too, or born so long ago he's forgotten."
"You can talk to me," Pavek assured her quickly, determined to put an end to any thought of confiding in the Lion-King. "You can't call me Father, but you can talk to me about anything." He felt like a man walking open-eyed off a cliff.