Cinnabar Shadows (Dark Sun: Chronicles of Athas 4)

"Lord Pavek, your larder holds dried beans, a cask of flour, and some sausage a jozhal wouldn't steal," she said in a slave's habitual monotone. "Does that please my lord for his supper?"

Pavek twisted the collar until the hinge broke. He would have hurled it at the wall, but it would have struck the vines and loosened a few leaves, which seemed a poor way to acknowledge the gardener's extraordinary devotion to his plants. So, he let the pieces fall atop the stone links and raked his stiff, filthy hair. He wanted a steam bath, and a hot supper, and could have gotten both, if he'd gone to a city inn instead of coming here, instead of coming home.

Pavek's own gut growled, reminding him that he, too, was hungry and that on occasion he could eat more than his two younger friends combined.

Except for a quinth or two before he left Urik, throughout Pavek's life, whether in the orphanage, the barracks, or Quraite, he hadn't had to worry about his next hot meal. That had all changed. Whatever else he'd done, Elabon Escrissar had at least kept his larder filled with beans, flour, and vile sausage. The larder was Pavek's responsibility now, along with who-knew-what-else, except that it would all require gold and silver coins in greater quantities than he possessed.

"A treasury?" he inquired. "Is there a treasury in the house?"

Initri shook her head. "Gone, Lord Pavek. Gone before the administrators came. Gone while Lord Elabon still lived. Will beans serve, my lord?"

The deaf gardener picked up the metal pieces Pavek had dropped and slowly carried them out of his domain, as if they were no more significant than wind-fallen branches, as if he'd been able to leave whenever he chose. Pavek watched until the man and his shadow had disappeared through a side archway.

"Lord Pavek—will beans serve for your supper?"

Pavek's hand went to the familiar medallion hanging from his neck. He needed money. Not the pittance of ceramic bits and silver that had sufficed in his regulator's past, nor the plump belt-pouch he'd worn out of Quraite; he needed gold, by the handful.

Leaping through the bureau ranks as he had, he'd missed all the intervening opportunities to enrich himself. He needed a prebend, that regular gift from Lord Hamanu himself that kept high templars loyal to the throne. A gift Pavek imagined the Lion-King would grant him in an instant, once he made the request. Why else had he been brought back to Urik? But he'd give up any claim to freedom once he accepted it. Once he asked Lord Hamanu for money, he might as well pick up the gardener's chain and fasten it around his own neck.

That slave's fate, however, was tomorrow's worry. Tonight's worry was beans, and they would not serve.

"Zvain, unload our baggage and take our food to the kitchen. Initri, follow him—no, wait for him in the kitchen. See what you can make up for all of us."

"Yes, Lord Pavek," she said, as passionless as before. She obediently started for the door, where Zvain stood between Mahtra and Ruari, who had crept out of the shadows. The half-elf wouldn't meet his eyes, a sure sign of anger waiting to erupt.

"Mahtra you go with Zvain. Help him unload the baggage. Wait in the kitchen."

Two of them went. Ruari sulked silently for about two heartbeats, then the eruption began.

"Initri, make my dinner. Unpack my baggage! Go to the kitchen! Wind and fire! You should have freed them, Lord Pavek. Or doesn't owning your parents' parents bother you?"

Pavek should have known not merely that Ruari was angry, but why. There weren't any slaves in Quraite, certainly no half-elven ones. He should have had an explanation sitting on his tongue, but he didn't. At that moment, with Ruari glaring at him, Pavek didn't know himself why he hadn't freed the old couple immediately, and he expressed shame or embarrassment with no better grace than Ruari expressed his anger or confusion.

"They aren't my kin or yours," Pavek replied, adopting Ruari's outraged sarcasm for himself. "They're just two people who've lived here a long time."

"Slaved here, you mean. Lord Pavek, your templar blood is showing. You should have set them free. Those were the words that should have come out of your mouth, not orders to cook your supper!"

"Set them free and then what? Turned them out of this house? Where would they go? Would you send them across the wastes to Quraite? Would you send every slave in Urik to Quraite? How many would die on the Fist? How many could Quraite feed before everyone was starving?"

Ruari pulled his head back. His chin jutted defiantly, but Pavek knew those questions struck the half-elf solidly. "I didn't say that," Ru insisted. "I didn't say send them across the Fist to Quraite. They could stay here in Urik. There're free folk in Urik. Zvain's free. Mahtra is. You—when we met you."

"He could work for someone else, tending their garden."

"No one hires gardeners, Ru. They buy them. Besides— this is his garden. Didn't you understand that? He was chained here, but he didn't have to make this place bloom. He's a veritable druid. Should I banish him from his grove?"

"Free him, then hire him yourself."

"Make him a slave to coins instead of men? Is that such an improvement? What if he gets sick? He's old, it could happen. If he's a slave, I'm obligated to take care of him, whether he can garden or not, but if I'm paying him to tend my garden, what's to stop me from simply hiring another man. Why should I care? He doesn't belong to me anymore."

"Slavery's wrong, Pavek. It's just plain wrong."

"I didn't say it was right."

"You didn't free them!"

"Because that wouldn't be right, either!" Pavek's voice rose to a shout. "Life's not simple, not my life, anyway. I wouldn't want to be a slave—I think I'd kill myself first. Hamanu's infinitesimal mercy, I swear I'll never buy a slave, but by the wheels of fate's chariot, that is a small mercy. There's not enough gold in all Urik for both freedom and food."

"You'll keep slaves, but you won't buy them," Ruari shouted back. "What a convenient conscience you have, Lord Pavek."