Kushiel's Mercy

you which merchants are reputable, and which beat or starve their wares.”
    An edge had crept into his voice. I sensed Maharbal was testing me, waiting to see if I would protest out of delicate D’Angeline sensibilities. “Excellent!” I gave him a bright smile. “Let’s go at once.”
    Maharbal bowed. “Of course.”
    We proceeded to the slave-market in the inn’s double palanquin. In my opinion, it was a singularly stupid and inefficient manner of travel. I’d sooner ride astride or in a carriage, or even go on foot, which would be just as swift and considerably less jarring. But it was clear, travelling the streets of Carthage, that no one of quality walked. The only folk I saw on horseback appeared to be couriers, and many of the streets were too narrow to admit a carriage.
    So, palanquins.
    The slave-market was in a forum lined with voluminous silk tents. Maharbal gave his bearers leave to rest in the shade at one end of the forum, while we strolled and perused the wares.
    “Will you be wanting a girl?” he asked. Without waiting for an answer, he pointed at a tawny lovely with a defiant gaze. “Amazigh. They’re desert folk. Stay away from them.
    The women are as like to stab you as kiss you.”
    “No girl.” I shook my head.
    “Ah.” Maharbal raised his brows. “A boy?”
    “No,” I said firmly. “My friend, it’s been over ten years since I’ve set foot on Terre d’Ange, but there is one part of my heritage I retain. I’ll not take anyone, man or woman, as an unwilling bed partner.”
    “A man of scruples,” he said with amusement. “I see.”
    “Oh, one or two,” I replied easily.
    Maharbal laughed. “Somehow, I suspect that getting willing bed partners is no obstacle for you, my lord. Come, let’s have a look at the brute muscle. Strytanus keeps a healthy stable.”
    We strolled over to a blue tent where the slave-merchant Strytanus did indeed keep a healthy stable.
    I’d been to slave-markets before, but only in her ladyship’s company, and only knowing that any slave purchased on Cythera would serve no more than seven years’ time, which really wasn’t much worse than the custom of indentured service in Terre d’Ange. And, of course, any slaves purchased by her ladyship were given their freedom and the opportunity to enter her service, which served the dual purpose of assuaging her ladyship’s deep-seated remorse for her son’s suffering, as well as building her loyal network.
    This was different.
    Carthage had no such laws. Most of the slaves sold here would live and die as slaves, unless by some chance they were clever or useful enough to rise very, very high in their master’s estimation. And anyone being sold for brute muscle was unlikely to stand such a chance.
    “Where are you from?” I asked an older hulking fellow with a squashed nose.
    “Hellas,” he said briefly. “I was a wrestler.”
    “What happened?” I asked.
    He eyed me warily. “Lost too many matches and fell into penury. Why do you care?”
    “Hey!” The slaver Strytanus struck him across the broad shoulders with a narrow rod.
    “Mind your tongue.”
    The wrestler didn’t flinch, but his gaze slid away from mine.
    I talked to a few others, a process the slaves, slave-merchant, and Maharbal found quite bizarre. In the end, I settled on the wrestler, a pair of lean, hungry-looking Carthaginian brothers who’d known a lifetime of deprivation, and a fierce Amazigh with a branded cheek who refused to talk.
    “You’re mad,” Maharbal said affably. “The Hellene’s too old, the Carthaginians are malnourished—through no fault of Strytanus’, I’ll hasten to add—and the Amazigh’s like to slide a dagger between your ribs.”
    I smiled at him. “We’ll see.”
    Strytanus had grown distracted by a new customer, a Carthaginian lady seeking a pretty boy to decorate her household. She was contemplating a slender lad of some ten or eleven years, with curly black hair and fear-stricken eyes.
    “Is he biddable?” she fretted.
    The slave-merchant spread his hands. “My lady, I make no claims. He is Aragonian, one of the first fruits of the spoils of war. You asked for pretty and he is that. If he is wise, he will be grateful for your gentle mercy.”
    “Yes, yes.” The woman waved one hand. “Does he at least speak Hellene?”
    “I fear he does not,” Strytanus said in an apologetic tone.
    She tilted her head, considering the boy. He stared back at her, wide brown eyes filled with