The Forlorn(44)

The same thoughts had obviously occurred to Cap. He laughed, not quite without humor. "I'm not going to gut you, and read your bloody entrails, girl. I'm just going to prick your finger, that's all."

"I'm scared of the sight of blood. Especially my own," she said in a small voice.

Cap raised his eyebrows. "And you, boy? Also chicken?"

Keilin fancied that knife's needlelike point not at all, but he couldn't see any way of backing out either. Not without appearing a coward and a fool in front of all of them. Gingerly he held out his hand.

Cap clicked his tongue as he took the boy's hand. "Look at the city." Keilin didn't even feel a prick. But there was bright blood welling from the ball of his thumb. Cap pressed the thumb to the core section he took from his pocket.

For a brief instant he was back in the desert, almost as if it was establishing context. Then the feeling of vastness again, and a feeling of recognition, questioning, drawing information, a feeling of the rightness of shaved scalp, of fear, of loneliness . . . of an erect penis? Suddenly it dawned on him. This was S'kith as he saw himself: The pendant was linking him with S'kith! Then his mind's eye saw the red wall towering upward. A double onion dome above. An expensive shop, with rare carpets and the scent of sweet cinnamony incense. It all faded into the terrible memory of betrayal again.

He was back among them. They were all staring at him, but his eyes quested for S'kith's. Was the normally expressionless man looking worried and . . . jealous? Keilin shook himself, and S'kith's face slipped back to its impassive mask. Keilin sat down, weak-kneed. After a few minutes he described the shop as best he could. But the rest of the experience he left unmentioned. Was there just a trace of relief in S'kith's face?

The next day they would go in search of the place, posing as ordinary merchants. Keilin's main worry was where to hide the ring in his ankle pouch. Beywulf had been to Amphir before and had told them of the procedures they would have to pass through to get in. They'd be searched. Weapons confiscated and held until they left. All possessions, especially jewellery, would be itemized. On their way out they would be checked again. They would have to provide receipts for any changes. The city jewellers each did duty for a day a week on the gate, and since the system's inception, the problem of gem substitution had vanished.

Then Cap announced that Beywulf would be remaining in the caravanserai outside the walls. Plainly he wasn't keen on putting core sections—or possibly other things—under the scrutiny of Amphir's officers. Keilin had already prepared a small slit in his saddle, but after a whispered consultation with Kim he had to enlarge it, to take her bracelet as well.

The next morning they were taken shopping in the vast bazaar that lined the toll passage. Here you could buy and sell everything but jewellery: for that you had to go into the city itself.

Keilin admired his new garb in the mirror. They were finer clothes than he'd ever owned, even if they were second-hand. Huh! The fuss Kim had made about that. You'd think she hadn't been wearing raggedy old boy's clothes since he'd met her by the way she went on about it.

He stepped out of the dressing cubicle, and caught his breath at seeing her. Well! She certainly was a lot prettier in her new dress than in her oversized trews and shirt. Keilin had rather forgotten she was female in the glare of Leyla's sexuality. He rapidly reevaluated his position with her.

* * *

How could he! Shael was still fuming. First to take her to some tawdry second-hand clothier, and then when she'd finally found something nice he'd sent her back to find something more dowdy. And now here she was trailing along behind them, pretending to be some kind of servant. So they'd given her the parcels to carry . . . It had been fun watching the boy's eyes nearly pop out when he saw her. She walked a little straighter, and a smile played across her lips. Coldly, Leyla told her to stop looking so cheerful and to slump her shoulders. "This is Amphir. A woman's place here is three paces in the rear, pretending that she worships the ground that those fatuous male pricks walk on." The voice was bitter.

"You sound like you know all about it," said the Princess sarcastically.

"I should. I was born here. I'm not happy to be back." The very matter-of-fact way it was said failed to conceal the loathing.

Shael was taken aback. It was the first time she'd considered Leyla as anything but a mattress. She could begin to understand how living in such conditions would affect someone as bounteous and outspoken as the woman by her side. They walked on in silence for a while. The outer walls curved on for miles, lined with elegant residences and expensive shops. "All of this was built by women working in dark little rooms until their eyes went. Men assess jewels, and do bugger-all else. Women work the jewels . . . actually they do all the work, but their fathers, and then their husbands get the money. An Amphir woman never owns anything, not even the clothes she wears." Shael noticed that there were no unattended women in the street. Dowdily dressed and veiled women trailed listlessly behind the menfolk. The men would stop and talk. The women waited, eyes downcast, three or four paces behind their keepers.