The Pharoah Contract

He patted her knee with one frail hand. “I’m sorry it’s come to this, Nisa, but what choice have I? No one objected to your taking lovers from the underpeople; a woman of your station is entitled to her pets. But one mustn’t give those pets the means to power. You knew better. What evil impulse drove you to teach them to read?”

Her throat was almost too dry for her voice to come out. “I’m not sure. It seemed harmless… I thought they might enjoy reading the fables themselves; they loved to hear me tell the old stories.”

The Paramount Priest shook his head sadly. “First the fables. Then the lore books, then the slaves learn how to break the cisterns and we all dry to death. Surely you were instructed in this progression, Nisa.”

“Yes… but they were more than slaves. They were friends.” Her voice broke, and suddenly she could look away from the Paramount Priest. She looked at the garden, with its deep greens and softly colored flowers, its cool sweet damp, and the tiny lovely sounds of the birds that hopped and flitted through the shadows. She felt a sharp tearing pain in her heart. All gone now. Not mine any longer. How could I have been so foolish, so arrogant? she thought.

“Now I must order your ‘friends’ given to the desert. A pointless waste of expensive stock. And I must give you to Expiation, which grieves me, and will break your father’s heart. But I must.” The Paramount Priest looked genuinely mournful, and Nisa was moved to pat his hand and smile.

“I understand,” she said. But she did not.

* * *

Criminals generally awaited Expiation locked in the iron boxes that stood in the Place of Artful Anguish; this torture was part of their punishment. They died in Expiations of standardized form. One whose crime or station was especially notable would be housed in the Temple, under the care of the priests, until a suitably instructive Expiation could be arranged. Nisa’s crime and station were both great, and so she was locked up in the Paramount Priest’s personal dungeon.

Her cell was austere, but not uncomfortable. Twice a day, she was given a plain meal, and twice a week she was allowed to bathe, using a basin and a rag. The jailers were courteous but silent. Loneliness displaced some of her fear. She received no visitors.

Occasionally her rest was disturbed by the screams of other prisoners being questioned in the room at the end of the corridor. As she had freely admitted her guilt, no such attentions were considered necessary in her case, and so she had much time to reflect upon her follies. She quickly developed a great contempt for the person she had been. Had she acted out of a desire to improve the lot of her bondsfolk? No, she thought bitterly. She was teaching them to read not from some noble purpose, but out of the same idle urge to amusement that might cause her to teach a pet dustlizard to stand on its hind legs and beg for sweetmeats.

A month passed, and then another.

At some point she began to hope, to believe that her father would never let her die a hideous death. She was, after all, Nisa.

But he never came. And one day the Paramount Priest arrived, ancient face stiff with resolve, to convey her to the conjurors who would perform her Expiation.

Chapter 7

The Denklar Lodge was a low rambling building, well kept and newly whitewashed, with many muslin-screened windows. The League agent who ran it apparently took some pride in his ostensible occupation.

Ruiz entered the common room, which at that early hour was occupied only by three idlers, who sat together in a dark corner, nursing small tankards of barberry ale.

The proprietor stood behind the low bar, wiping mugs with a dank cloth. At first glance he appeared to be a plump Pharaohan of middle age, bearing the tattoos of the publican’s guild. Ruiz’s second glance detected subtly wrong details; an un-Pharaohan directness of glance, an indefinably urban stance, a gloss of health.

The man — who would certainly prove to be Vilam Denklar, Agent Second Class — fixed a disapproving look on his face. “Can you pay for what you consume, wanderer? We have little charity to spare in Stegatum.”

Ruiz bowed and smiled cheerfully. “As elsewhere. Yes, I can pay, if rates are reasonable.”

“Hmph. Well, the rates are posted.” Denklar indicated a slate board on which was chalked a schedule of prices. “Can you read?”

“A little,” Ruiz said, squinting ostentatiously at the board.

After a bit, he ordered a barberry ale, which he paid for and took to the side. He sat quietly on a bench and relaxed, sipping occasionally from the mug of ale. After his night and day of exertion, he foresaw little danger of insomnia that night.