Opening Acts

Flesh and Fire

  by Laura Anne Gilman

  In the hills of southern Iaja, thunder had rolled through the night before, but no rain accompanied it, and the slaves were at work in the vineyards soon after sunrise. The sun had progressed to the third-quarter mark when a lean figure came to stand at the edge of the yard. A freshly picked clutch of fruit rested in his work-roughened hand, and he was studying the flesh of the fruit, letting the magic deep within it speak to him and murmur of potential and promise.

  A soft cough sounded, overriding the gentle morning hum of insects in the grass and attracting his attention, as intended. "Master?"

  Vineart Sionio didn't turn, but out of the corner of his eye he saw the slave, diffident but urgent, his hands fisting in the rough tunic that hung over his wiry body.

  "Yes?" While he waited for a response, the Vineart placed a young green grape on his tongue and closed his mouth around it, crushing it and letting the juice coat his tongue. The taste was both delicate and sour, and it rose into his nasal passages. Not anywhere near ripe, still waiting for the heat of high summer and the cooler nights of Harvest, but showing distinct promise. His vineyards were still young, giving only limited yield. This Harvest might finally change that.

  "Master," the slave said again, "there is a . . ." The slave looked down at his feet, falling silent.

  Sionio was a young man, barely thirty and still building his reputation; although granted a Master's rank, he had not yet earned the right to name his House, his vines still known by the name of the nearest village. He was ambitious, though, and worked as hard as any slave when hands were needed in the yard. His slaves respected him and his magic to the point of caution, as was only proper, but he did not abuse them. There was no reason for them to fear speaking if there was something to be said.

  "A what?" He turned then, and looked directly at the slave. "Speak. Stop wasting my time."

  The slave flinched. He was bald, and had either lost or forgotten to wear his hat that morning. Sionio made note to speak to the overseer about that. He could not afford a single slave to fall ill, not now. "I do not know what it is, Master. But it is in the fields. And it is wrong."

  Very few slaves could sense the magic that grew within spellgrapes' flesh. But they worked the vineyards every day of the year, season after season, and it spoke to them in its own fashion. They knew what should be there . . . and what should not.

  Sionio did not hesitate. "Show me."

  The soil was soft underfoot as they walked, the smell of the young fruit warm in the afternoon sun. If the weather held for another month, if no rot or infestation threatened, and Harvest went well. . .

  Sionio halted his thoughts there. Weather was something even a Vineart could not always control, and so it could easily become obsession. Sionio was a more practical man; he worried over what he could affect, and left the rest to the silent gods and Nature's whim. Skill and craft were what made spellwine, and he did not doubt his strength in either.

  They came to the vines the slave had been weeding and stopped. "Here, Master."

  A quick mental calculation placed them in seventh square, second grouping. Sionio knew every square of the enclosure, its planting, history, and expectations. The vines here were only four years old, but they had a noble heritage, the rootstock coming from his own master's enclosures, and in another few years their fruit would contribute to a noble, powerful spellwine that would carry Sionio's name across the known lands.

  "Where is this wrongness?"

  "There, Master." The slave pointed, his sun-browned finger shaking slightly. Six other slaves stood by, looking up and down the yard nervously, three males, two females, and one so old its gender was uncertain. Sionio frowned at them. They should be weeding and pruning, not fiddling with their thumbs like useless citizens.

  "In the soil." The slave who had brought him word pointed again, down at the base of a vine, but made no move to get closer.

  Sionio looked at the other slaves again, more closely this time. Two of them had taken off their own straw-brimmed hats and were crunching them between restless fingers. They could not meet his gaze, not even the oldster who should have known better.

  These slaves had been bought cheaply, all past puberty; the overlooked second string was all Sionio could afford at the time. Still, life here was better than on the slaver's caravan. They were not afraid of him, but of what they felt. Or, more accurately, they were more afraid of whatever was there than him.

  Sionio pushed passed the slaves and knelt by the vine in question. A grape vine needed support to grow on, the woody stem not strong enough to support itself and the weight of its fruit. During the bare winter season, the slaves wove tendrils around waxed fibers strung between wooden posts, giving the vines something to cling to as they grew. Now, in the warmth of early summer, the small green leaves were clustered thickly around those ropes, protecting the grapes underneath from too much sun, rain, or animal predation.

  Sionio's trousers, durable canvas styled after those worn by Iajan sailors, were quickly stained by the dirt as the Vineart dug his fingers into the soil. He reached toward the roots buried deep in the mineral-poor ground, until the soil reached the dark red mage-stain on the back of his hand. The senses that made him a Vineart, the ability that allowed him to craft the spellwines, rang an alarm. It was not magic that warned him, but some deep atavistic sense, an animal's warning of a predator, of something not right lurking nearby.

  The civilized maiar, or princeling, in his city or fine country house might scoff, but Sionio knew better. Instinct did not lie.

  The slave was right. Something was wrong. Something deep, something new. Something that should not be there.

  "Go fetch a firestone, and a smudge pot," he told the nearest slave, the one who had fetched him originally. "And a vial of sweetwater."

  The slave took off at a run, and the others backed up a few steps more, not willing to leave but not wanting to be close to anything that called for sweetwater, also known for good reason as grape-purge.

  "Now, what ails you, little ones?" he asked, returning his attention to the grapevines in front of him. To the uneducated eye they seemed perfectly healthy, the leaves shiny and unfurled, each bunch thick and heavy, the grapes small and deep green.

  Whatever rot lurked in the soil, it did not seem to have affected the crop yet. With luck, they had caught it soon enough, and Sionio would reward the slave who had alerted him.

  Then a tremor under his knee made him look down in time to see tiny red bugs skittering under his hand, digging their way out of the soil. They scrambled over his fingers, trying to climb the rough cloth of his clothing.

  Bud mites were normal pests. They usually came out only in the early morning, feeding on the occasional grape that burst in the night. They should not be swarming like this, not now, not in such numbers.

  Sionio unhooked a palm-sized wineskin from his leather belt with his free hand, uncorked it easily with two fingers, and tilted it so that a few drops fell onto his tongue. Unlike the grapes he had tasted earlier, the spellwine was rich and fruity, sweetly pungent: the instantly familiar taste of vine-heal. It faded into his mouth, the vapor rising into his sinuses, and as he breathed, the spell was released, allowing him to feel the soil, feel the movements under his hands and knees.

  "Sin Washer!" he swore, jerking back even as the ground under him rumbled, the dirt and bugs flying upward as the force of his query summoned something, a something that erupted from the soil like a volcano, and threw him onto his backside.

  The wrinkled, blind head of a grub rose a full length into the air, the shape of it familiar to anyone who had ever worked a vineyard, if a thousand times larger than such a thing should be. The slaves, shrieking, scattered and ran as though the grub would devour them. In the distance, from the kennel by the sleep house, dogs barked a now-useless alarm.

  Sionio got to his feet, his gaze never leaving the giant grub's form even as his mind identified the known facts. He mi
ght be young but he was not green. Faced with a threat to his vines, a Vineart did not react; a Vineart acted.

  The leaves near where the grub reared its dark gray form had already faded to an ugly yellow, dying by sheer proximity to the thing, as though its very presence were a poison. Sionio suspected that, were he to lift the leaves, the young grapes would be withered and dying as well. This thing had to be stopped, now, before the blight spread.

  He didn't need a vial of spellwine to deal with the threat: the grub might be huge but it was still a grub. Disgusting, and the size of the thing made it a creature of nightmares, yes, but any Vineart worthy of his vines knew how to deal with such a thing.

  It would be easier with his tools, of course.

  Even as the thought passed through his mind, there was a sound behind him. The grub turned as though it, too, had heard the sound, and a thin shriek rose into the air from its open maw. The slave had returned. Despite its obvious fear, the slave forced himself forward enough to push an object into his master's waiting hands.

  A firestone, warm and ready. And a small clay pot marked with the sigil for sweetwater.

  The smudge pot would have been useful as well, but these were the two things that he needed most of all.

  Clutching the firestone in his right hand, he felt the crystalline globe react to his own body heat, doubling and trebling the fire trapped inside glass until the colors swirled and danced, impatient to be let out. The clay pot he crushed with his other hand, feeling the thick, oily liquid drip over his fingers and down his palm, tingling slightly.

  To work magic, most needed properly prepared spellwines. But here, in the middle of his own vineyard, all a Vineart needed was already in place. Let princes and lords buy spellwines; a Vineart had a more subtle magic at his command.

  Sionio spit into his left palm and then clasped his hands together, letting the juice from his mouth mix with the sweetwater and coat the firestone. The spit carried the magic within him, tangled with the lingering traces of mustus and fermentation. Mage-blood was not as potent as spellwine, but it was always present and ready.

  "Scour, scour! Root and leaf, be clean! Go!"

  A basic decantation, useful to prevent infestations of bugs and rot. The heated sweetwater mixture turned it into a flaming torch, exploding from his hands at the grub.

  Magic that would have cleansed a midsized field of the most tenacious rot washed over the grub, making it scream like a horse in agony. The full body of the thing pulled out of the soil until it reached a man's height, almost as thick around and thrice as ugly as the most deformed freak.

  And still it screamed, the ugly, bulbous head reaching through the flames to snap at the Vineart, the source of its agony. Blind, it still came dangerously close, aiming not for the Vineart's head but his hands, where the flames came from.

  "Scour!" he cried again. "Root and leaf, be clean. Go!"

  The decantation was a basic one, but he was no apprentice to miscast it or underestimate the power needed. It should have been a matter of moments before this was finished. Still, the grub attacked, despite the spell, and Sionio found himself pushed back one step and then another, until his back was up against the row of vines behind him, and he could retreat no farther.

  What was this thing, he wondered, even as he grasped for another burst of magic, suddenly unable to concentrate through his fear. The thought occurred: grubs, even bastard monster grubs, did not appear alone. Was this nightmare beast an aberration? Or were there more, lurking below the fields, waiting to consume his entire crop? If he faltered now, might he lose it all?

  The firestone flared again, driven by his own fear and protective anger. The vineyard was more than the source of his power; it was his livelihood, his life. It was everything he had worked for, from the beginning of his training until now. The idea that something as ugly, as horrible, and as ordinarily defeatable as a grub might put that at risk drove him forward again, his hands flaming bright enough to match the sun overhead. His normally calm features twisted with anger and determination as he reached out with those burning hands, reaching through his disgust and natural aversion to touch the grub.

  The moment he made contact, he wanted to recoil, to let go, to wipe his hands clean of the taint. The skin of the grub was hot and slimy and wrong. This was no garden mutant, no horror of nature. This thing was magic, although how or why Sionio could not fathom. Such magic was not possible, could not be possible. . ..

  Even as Sionio thought those things, he was chanting a new decantation. Not an apprentice's cantrip, but something far deeper, far stronger, and far more dangerous.

  "Wither and die," he ordered the grub. "Lack of moisture, lack of rain. Overheat, wither, and die. Go."

  It was less a spell than a curse, the sort that should never even be whispered in any vineyard, much less his own. Sionio poured everything he had into it, and poured that in turn into the body of the beast grub. The remaining rosewater on his hands slicked onto the grub's skin like pig oil; mixed with his spit, it had the same effect as setting a torch to dry grain.

  A huge, high shriek nearly shattered the Vineart's eardrums at such close range, and the grub wavered, quivered under his grasp, and then collapsed, taking down an entire span of the vine-row with its fall.

  Sionio fell back, the monster's death throes knocking him away, and he landed again on his back. He watched as the grub thrashed and writhed, and, finally, fell still.

  An eerie silence fell over the vineyard. Birds did not sing overhead, slaves did not chatter, and even the wind seemed hushed. Distantly, as though through water, he could hear the faint sounds of something rustling, and recognized it, barely, as the sound of human bodies. His slaves, who had run . . . but not so far away. If he called to them, they would come back.

  No. Not until he was sure the thing was dead. Slaves were not cheap, and good slaves, loyal slaves, were even more difficult to replace.

  He got up and walked with steady grace to the monster's corpse. The sweetwater was gone, burned off his hands, and he could feel the depletion of the magic within his marrow. Sweetwater was dangerous to the user as well as the target. But this was still his vineyard, his lands, and so long as his feet walked the soil, there was strength here for him to take. Enough to ensure this thing was dead, and the immediate threat, gone.

  The corpse was still and cooling. Dead. Even as he bent to check, the wrinkled gray form began to shimmer and shake. Before he could even jump back, sure it was some sort of trick, it imploded, leaving behind only a choking gray cloud of foul-tasting dust.

  He had not caused that. Magic-born, and magic-sent, and magic-destroyed. Whoever had sent this monster against him wanted no trace left to be discovered. Who could do such a thing? Touching the grub, feeling its life-spark pulsing against his skin, enhanced by the sweetwater, had filled him with such dread, such disgust. . .magic should not cause him to shudder like that. Something lay beneath it, something dank and sour on the tongue.

  He could ask no one. A Vineart would have no cause to attack him; they could not benefit from his vines, nor take over his lands. That was not their way; deviation from Sin Washer's Command to abjure power was unthinkable, unforgivable. And yet, it was a magical attack, so clearly another Vineart was involved. But who? Who could have created such an abomination of a spell? More to the point, who had bought it, used it against him?

  Shaken, Sionio stood, and with a twitch of his hand summoned the slaves to him. Four came, four of the six who had worked this cluster originally. If the two who fled were not dead already, he would remedy that by nightfall. He rewarded betrayal as well as loyalty.

  "Speak to no one of this," he warned the remaining four. "Speak of it, and die." No matter that he had defeated the beast, that his magic had been the greater force. The fact was that someone had attacked him- had sent this thing into his vineyard. Any whisper, any gossip that his grapes were tainted by the attack, and his reputation could be ruined forever.

  The slaves
dropped to the ground and, foreheads on the soil, swore their obedience. When he released them, they got to their feet and went back to work, joining the others farther away. They all nervously avoided the blasted cluster as though still expecting something else to emerge without warning.

  Sionio walked to the end of the square and looked out over his lands. The ground around where the grub had fallen was seared, the vines dead where they had grown. But there was no further sense of wrongness: there had been only the one massive grub, burrowing in from below.

  "Is it me?" he asked the now-still air. "Is someone spelling for me specifically? Or are others under attack as well?" If so, he had no way of knowing; the demands of the vines made Vinearts into solitary creatures, not prone to mingling with their peers, and their training made it difficult to trust others. There was not a soul he could turn to, not a soul he could ask for advice, now that his master was gone. That was the way things were.

  Sionio stared out across the tops of the vines, a wave of green sloping down to a high stone wall. Odds were that this was a onetime event, a freak spell gone awry and out of control, the caster silent out of embarrassment or fear. Still, he needed to be certain.

  A second wineskin was hooked to his belt, barely large enough to hold one swallow. It never left his person, too valuable to ever let out of his sight. Unlike most spellwines, this one did not fade as it aged, but grew stronger, and all he needed was that one sip.

  Still, he hesitated. This was a spellwine of his own making, and difficult to craft. There would be no replacing it, not for years. But if he did not use it now, there might not be years left him if he were attacked again unawares.

  Decided, he removed the skin and let the liquid within hit his tongue. It was thick and heavy, bitter and sweet like overripe berries left too long in the sun. But that sensation was overwhelmed almost immediately by the sweep of magic distilled into that potent liquid. This was different than any other spellwine: a simple command triggered its magic.

  "Show me my enemy."

  The spellwine complied and, in that instant of connection-and discovery-his enemy struck once more. Fatally.

  HOUSE OF MALECH: HARVEST

  The boy focused on what he was doing, but not so much that he failed to sense someone pause behind him, too close for comfort. He managed not to flinch as the older slave bent down to whisper. "Nice job you pulled, Fox-fur. Who'd you sweetmouth for it?"

  The boy grunted, not wanting to talk, even to defend himself. Talk got you noticed. Notice was bad. Keep your face down, your hands busy, and your mouth shut, and survive. Those were the unspoken rules everyone knew.

  After a minute the other slave shrugged and moved on with his own assignment. Left alone, the boy looked up into the sky, his eyes squinting as he searched the pale blue distance. He hadn't sweetmouthed anyone. Luck of the pick, was all. He wasn't going to question it. He didn't question anything; he just did as he was told.

  The brightness of the open sky made his eyes water. There was a bird-a tarn, from the banding-flying overhead in search of a careless or greedy rabbit. Every year they cut back the brush to the ancient grove of trees that marked the end of the vineyard, trying to keep the rabbits and foxes from the vines. They had built stone fences and decanted spells to keep humans away, but animals were harder to convince.

  This field, and the rest of it, was part of the Valle of Ivy. The valley was cut into a chessboard of fields, half green with crops, the others brown and fallow, interspersed with the occasional gnarled fruit tree, and dotted with low stone buildings. In the distance a river cut through the fields-the Ivy. The chessboard and the buildings belonged to the House of Malech, one of four Vinearts established within The Berengia, and the only one currently ranked Master. His master. The slave knew nothing of the other Vinearts or The Berengia, or what lay beyond her borders. To imagine anything beyond the vineyard and the sleep house was as impossible as flying with the tarn overhead.

  At the far edge of the fields where the boy was stationed, a pair of trees-not quite so ancient, but still wider around than a man could reach-created a shelter for two low structures built of pale gray stone: the slaves' sleep house and vineyard's storehouse, where the plows and tools were kept. Those, and the open form of the vintnery behind him, made of the same stone as the enclosure's walls, were the boundaries of his world. The other buildings behind the vintnery, across a wide cobbled road, might as well have been on the other side of the Ivy, for all he knew of them.

  The boy looked away from the sky and downward. Every slave in the House of Malech was working today. Summer had been warm and rainy, but those days had given way to cooler, drier mornings, and the grapes had ripened on schedule, green leaves turning a dark red at the edges, the grapes darker red yet, their skin tight over plump, juicy flesh. He could practically feel the ripeness in the air, waiting. He had learned the hard way not to mention that to anyone, the way the ripening grapes made a noise in his head, inside his bones. The one time he had asked another slave about it, he'd got beaten until his skull had bled, and the overseer had kept him out of the yards for the day.

  The tarn had disappeared while he'd looked away. Now not even a cloud marred the expanse of blue, the sun already high overhead and surprisingly strong for the season. A faint breeze came down off the ridge, carrying a salty hint that cooled the sweat on his skin just enough to make it noticeable. The boy shifted, making himself as comfortable as he could, glad at least to be out of the direct sunlight, out of the fields. In the distance, past the vintner's shed, beyond the dark gray bulk of the sleep house, two score of slaves, stripped down to their loose-woven pants, worked their way up and down the groupings of waist-high vines, carefully stripping the ripe bunches from each plant one handful at a time, bending and rising in tune to some unheard rhythm.

  He had done that, for three Harvests before this one, once he was old enough to be trusted. Your hands cramped after a while, and every finger cracked and bled, but not a single fruit was damaged if you could help it; each straw basket on their backs, once filled, was worth more than the slave carrying it. That was the first thing learned the very first day a slave was brought into the vineyard. You learned, and you survived, and, if your master was kind, you might even make it out of the yards, out of the sun and the rain, and away from walking stooped all your waking hours until you slept that way, too.

  His master was not kind, but neither was he particularly cruel, and the boy had made it out of the yard. Barely.

  Barely was enough. He could sit, and his back did not hurt, and his skin was not blistered by the sun. The Washer who traveled their road would say it was because he let the world move him rather than trying to move it. He didn't see how he could do otherwise. But there was much the Washers preached that he didn't understand.

  A harvest-hire guard stood on the top of a slight rise at the edge of the field, watching the activity. A stiffened lash in his left hand tapped an irregular rhythm against his thigh as his gaze skimmed over the area being harvested. He was there more for tradition than need. It was death to steal a clutch of grapes. Death to taste one. Death to waste one. Nobles could afford spellwine, and free men might drink of vin ordinaire: slaves could not even dream of either.

  The boy shifted, feeling warning prickles in his bare feet that told him he had been still too long. He looked away from the guard, letting his gaze rest on nothing in particular, waiting. That was best, to simply wait, and not draw attention.

  When a basket was filled to near overflowing with fruit, the slave carrying it would place it to one side of the trellis-lane. A younger slave, not yet trusted with the picking, would come down to fetch it, leaving an empty basket in its place to be filled in turn. That slave would bring the full basket down, away from the vineyard itself to the crusher, a great wooden monster construct twice as high as a grown man and four times the length.

  That was where the boy waited. His responsibility was to monitor the fill level of the wooden crusher, making s
ure that the right amount of fruit was added, no more and no less.

  The other slave had been right; it was a good job. It was also an important job, a sign that the overseer was not displeased with him, and he felt the responsibility keenly. But the truth was that it was boring, and his legs kept falling asleep.

  An old slave, his wizened limbs useless for anything else, watched from the other side, sitting in a raised wooden chair to make sure that every fruit was placed into the great wooden monster and that no slave sneaked even one fruit into his mouth. He was also there to ensure that no fingers or clothes were trapped in the process. Every year at least one slave was maimed or killed that way, the weights and beams catching the unwary or the careless. The boy had worked six Harvests since the Master bought him and seen the results: slaves missing fingers and, in one case, an entire arm, crushed to uselessness and cut off before it could turn black and stink.

  Two baskets were emptied into the maw of the monster, then a third. The old slave nodded at the boy, licking his cracked, dry lips in a way that reminded the boy of the lizards that sunned themselves on the low stone walls between the vineyards. The boy looked away again, focusing all of his attention on the crusher, as though that would make the old man go away. Harvest stories weren't the only ones told in the sleep house. The younger slaves knew to stay away from that one's hands in the darkness, or when they used the shit pits at night.

  The slavers had men like that, too. He had been younger then, too young, and not as careful. But the slavers were past, done with him now that he belonged to another.

  The other slaves might fumble under blankets or up against shadowed walls, willingly or not. Here the boy learned how to say no without saying anything at all, to evade reaching hands without giving offense, and even as those his own age began to look around with an interested eye, he felt no desire at all, not even to use his own hand, as the others did. Fortunately, hard work and a sudden growth over the winter had finally turned his rounded limbs into harder muscle, so a slave grabbed at him at his own risk now, and the overseer had shown no interest in flesh, save that it did the work assigned to it.

  That thought in mind, when the fourth basket was emptied into the belly of the crusher, he darted forward and looked inside. A dark line, the stain of years of pressings, marked the three-quarter point. The boy waved his hand in a circular motion, and one more basket was dumped in, then the heavy door was slid shut. The boy stepped back, out of harm's way, as the crusher was turned upside down with a creaking, moaning noise, like a giant moaning in his sleep. Pressure in the form of giant bladders was applied, another slave working the bellows to fill the bladders until given the command to stop, and then deflating it again. Once, he had been told, slaves did this work with their feet. Too many grapes were lost that way, the process too slow. He wondered about the feel of grapes under the soles of his feet and between his toes, tread upon like dirt, and could not imagine it.

  "A good harvest, this year."

  The boy tensed, his shoulders hunching up around his ears even more than usual. He had been so preoccupied with his boredom and his prickling legs, he hadn't noticed the overseer leaving his usual post and coming to stand behind him.

  Stupid, stupid, he thought, trying to become invisible. The overseer had never hurt him, but you never knew what might catch his attention, and unlike the other slaves, you could not ignore him, or make him go away. The overseer was all-powerful. Even the season-hire guards were scared of the overseer.

  "We shall see."

  The other voice was deeper, dryer, unfamiliar but instantly recognizable by the power it carried. Even the wind stilled, and all activity halted for half a breath, then started again even more quickly than before, as though hoping to make up for that lapse. Even the insects creaking in the hedge called faster, louder.

  The boy's heart squeezed dry in his chest, and his earlier fear was nothing compared to the shaking of his knees. The Master was there. "Idiot," he whispered fiercely to himself. Of course the Master was there. The Master was everywhere. Every inch of the vineyard was his, and he was in every span of soil, every clutch of fruit.

  He owned everything, controlled everything. Decided everything.

  It was safer in the fields, no matter that your knees and shoulders ached, to only face the overseer and his whip, and not the Vineart. Like a rabbit sensing the tarn overhead, he froze, and prayed to remain unseen.

  The grapes, sun warmed and ripe near to bursting, didn't care who was watching them. Under the gentle pressure of the inflating bladders, the blood-red skins broke, and the crushed pulp and bits of skin dropped through the grate at the bottom, while the remnant of stem or leaf remained within the belly of the crusher. Another set of slaves carried the bottom pan to a large wooden vat off to the side, and carefully poured the contents into a great wooden barrel. The pulp would-like the other crushings of the day-be taken into the shade of the vintnery itself, where, the boy knew vaguely, it would be run through one of the two presses, even larger than the crusher, to create the liquid mustus and, from there, somehow, magically, spellwine.

  Working the press was the most dangerous job of Harvest. Even to breathe too deeply of the smell was not allowed to a slave. And yet, the desire he felt, to draw it into your lungs, to maybe feel the touch of the magic, was almost irresistible.

  You resisted. Or you died.

  The boy stepped forward again; no matter how wobbly his legs or anxious his breathing, no matter how much he wanted to remain still, it was his responsibility now to ensure that all of the pulp had been emptied out, that no stems or leaves were left, and the presser was ready for another load of fruit.

  The process would be repeated over and over again, until all the grapes had been stripped from the vines, or the first frost settled on the fruit, whichever occurred first. If the slaves valued their skins, they would win over the weather.

  The aroma of crushed grape-flesh tickled his nose as he checked the inside of the crusher. Even as he coughed, he felt something was wrong. It was a pressure like a storm overhead, only stirring in his guts: as when something bad went into the stew and everyone had to use the pits all night.

  "Nothing, nothing, you felt nothing" he whispered, barely audible even to his own ears, and stepped back into place. He could feel the presence of the overseer and the Master at his back, although he dared not look to see what they were doing. If the grapes were precious, the steps between harvesting and mustus were even more so. That was the second thing every slave learned at their very first Harvest. The mustus was where the value of the grapes were determined. A good Harvest meant the Master was pleased and the winter would be a good one, with enough rest, and food, and perhaps even a midwinter festive with music, if gleemen traveled through the area. A bad Harvest. . .

  There hadn't been a bad Harvest in years. The boy would have made a sign to avert even the thought, except it might have attracted attention.

  A downward push of his hand to the aged slave indicated that the barrel was clear, ready for another load, and the cycle started again.

  "All the signs are positive," the overseer said, as the slaves went about their work. The two men took no more notice of them than one might of oxen drawing a plow, and the boy began to breathe a little easier. "The fruit has run clear in the first crushings, and there has been no sign of rot in any of the fruit."

  The boy risked a glance sideways, to gauge how close to danger he stood. The overseer was a short, square-shouldered man, head shaved and arms tattooed; a former oarsman who had come to the estate by way of a broken and badly set leg and a debt he could not pay off. He was brutal and unflinching, and he was feared more than anything in the vineyard save the Master himself. And the boy was still far, far too close to both of them, and had no way to move without drawing unwanted notice.

  The dryness in his chest moved up into his throat, and there wasn't enough spit in his entire body to keep his tongue from swelling from fear. His bowels were shivering, and his
skin felt cold despite the sun's harvest warmth.

  "Leave me to do the judging," the Master said, and although it was spoken mildly, the overseer bowed his shaved head to accept the rebuke. The Master was not cruel; in fact, he rarely entered the slaves' world at all, save when he walked the fields to inspect the crop, but he was the spell caster, the winemaker, the master of his fields, and not even a Berengian prince might challenge him without risk. He was the one who bought them from the slavers and they lived-and died-as his fortunes rose or fell. The overseer made sure they knew that-once bought, the price for slacking off was death, because the Master would not keep a lazy slave, and no Vineart wanted a slave trained by another.

  "Wait," the Master said suddenly, holding up his hand, and every breathing soul froze. "Let me see a sampling from that crush."

  "You, boy!" the overseer called, and the boy started before realizing the call was directed to another. The overseer never called them by name, although he knew them all by sight. "Bring the Master a sampling!"

  The slave who had been waiting, crouched off to the side, for just such an order was a tiny thing barely a decade old, and without enough brains to be afraid. It bent a bare knee in obedience, and then ran to fetch the spoon off the wall of the vintnery. The spoon was crafted of purest silver, flat at the bottom with deep sides, and a long handle, and only the Vineart was allowed to touch it to his lips. The slave child wiped its pale hand on its smock, lifted the spoon off the hook with reverence, and then climbed up on a makeshift ladder of two planks set on bricks in order to be able to reach into the vat.

  The boy held his breath, watching out of the corner of his eye. The vat, a great wooden barrel, was twice as high and four times as wide as the child, and dipping required perching on the rim and hanging on with one hand. The slave was tiny; there was no reason for the sight of it leaning against the side to fill the boy with a worse fear than even the Master's presence. And yet, a sense of dread filled him as he watched. Moving carefully, the slave child leaned forward and dipped the tasting spoon into the vat of flesh and juice, scooping out a bare mouthful into the silver depression. The dipper wobbled, and the slave child grabbed at the side.

  "Sin Washer save us!" a voice cried out, quietly terrified.

  The ground underneath was not even, or perhaps the slaves had not cleared the platform properly when the vat was wheeled into place for this harvest, or it might have been merest chance, or the silent gods' ill-wishing that caused the weight of the slave child to tip over the huge wooden cask; it teetered slowly before crashing down with a terrifying, sloshing noise.

  "Right it! Right it, damn you!" The overseer strode forward, his short, thick crop slashing out at bodies he deemed not moving quickly enough. "You, and you! Move faster!" The slaves were throwing themselves under the side of the vat, using their bodies in vain to move it back into an upright position. Several others had grabbed containers and were trying to scoop the crushed pulp up off the ground before the valuable liquid soaked into the dry-packed dirt and disappeared.

  In the chaos, only two forms stood still. One was the Vineart, his lean form aloof and above the fuss, even as the precious liquid was lost.

  The other was the boy, feeling a light spray of moisture mist against his face and neck.

  He licked his lips and spat instinctively, terrified that someone might have seen him possibly drink, however unintentionally. Yet he did not race to help save the spilled crush, even as a tingle of it sat on his lips, coated his tongue. He stood off to the side, his damp mouth open as though to speak, his body completely still, his dark gaze riveted on the scene, and did not move.

  He couldn't move, not to save his own worthless life. His lungs could barely take in air, and the prickling in his legs was forgotten under the onslaught of sensations in his nose and throat. He should be panicking, but his thoughts were oddly calm, focusing on one single fact: there was something missing here, something that should be happening, and wasn't. It made no sense, and yet it was. He knew it, as well as he knew the feel of his own skin. Where others were panicking, he felt the desire to laugh.

  The overseer noted him standing there like a wooden dolt, and jolted forward, his thickly muscled arm reaching out to grab him, shove him into useful work. The boy felt those fingers start to close on his upper arm, but the Master snapped his fingers and, as though yanked by a chain, the overseer backed off, glaring at the useless slave, but restrained.

  The Vineart studied the boy, his eyes hooded and his expression thoughtful, then turned back to watch the attempted cleanup.

  The boy barely noticed any of this, other than relief when the overseer backed off. He was too caught up in the attack on his senses, and the odd feel of something missing, to worry about his own safety.

  Finally, the vat was righted, and the salvaged mustus returned to the container. It had been no more than a span of moments, but more than half of the liquid was lost forever, soaked into the dirt, the pulp and skins ruined beyond reclamation. The smell hung, tempting and damning, in the afternoon air.

  Filled with a terrible rage that colored his face near-blue, the overseer grabbed the offending slave child by the ear and threw it down on its knees before the Master.

  "Lord Malech, this worthless piece of shit awaits your judgment."

  All of the slaves stopped once again, and watched.

  The Vineart stared down at the slave, his long, tapered fingers stroking the fabric of his trousers thoughtfully. The boy, still frozen, staring at the now-righted vat, found his attention drawn away by that small movement. In style, the Master's clothing was not so much different from those of the slaves he owned; pants and a sleeveless tunic. Unlike their cheap, mud-colored garments, however, his were made of fine-woven cloth in a richly dyed crimson, the color of a sunrise, setting off his olive-toned skin. A heavy leather belt was wrapped twice around his hips, buckled with a metal clasp, with two leather bags and a smaller, short-handled version of the silver spoon hanging from it. He wore sturdy low-heeled leather boots on his feet, unlike even the overseer's bare and dirty toes.

  "Kill it," the Master said.

  No voice protested, not even the slave child; its fate had been sealed the moment the barrel was overturned. To waste, or cause waste. . .The crime was clear, and the punishment well established. The overseer nodded and drew back his whip, bringing it down on the back of the slave's neck with enough force to break it instantly.

  The sound of the crack carried into the air, and-unlike the smell of the crushed grapes-dissipated there. The body collapsed, crumpled into something no longer human. Just meat.

  Someone let out a long, shuddering sigh, and a sob was quickly muffled.

  "Enough!" The overseer turned and glared at the remaining slaves "You, toss it into the pit, bury it with the rest of the refuse. The rest of you, back to work! The harvest will not happen on its own!"

  There was a rustle of movement as all the slaves rushed to obey his orders, and then Vineart Malech raised a hand once again, a single ring glinting silver on his index finger. Every figure stopped cold, including the overseer. "That one."

  All eyes turned to follow the Master's hand.

  The boy's heart shriveled and dropped all the way down between his legs when he realized that finger was pointing at him.

  "Bring it here," the Vineart continued.

  The boy closed his eyes in resignation. He was dead. The Master was never wrong, and the Master never took note but to order death. He clasped his hands together and bent his upper body down, his gaze now on the ground as was appropriate for a slave in disgrace, but otherwise the boy showed no fear. How could one already dead, fear?

  The overseer wrapped a hand around the boy's forearm, but he didn't need to drag the slave; he went calmly, almost willingly. There was no purpose to resisting. When he reached the Master's feet, he bent farther into the dirt, placing his forehead on the ground in full surrender.

  In his abject pose, he could not see what happened around
him. Vineart Malech looked down at him, then flicked his fingers at the overseer, indicating that the rest of the slaves were to be sent on their way. He could hear most of them scurry off, trying to become invisible so that whatever was about to happen would pass them by. A few tried to linger, but a crack of the overseer's stick made them rethink their curiosity.

  "You."

  "Master." The boy's voice had just broken a few weeks before, and he was embarrassed at the way it wavered on the first syllable, and then steadied in a firm tenor. "Yours is the hand and the will." The ritual words came to him, as the slavers had taught him the first night, reinforcing the lesson with beatings. Once his voice was back under control, the words were flat, neither terrified nor toadying, but merely expressing a response to a query. He had perfected that tone in the years since the slavers had sold him to the House of Malech, but until now he had used it only in response to the overseer, so he did not know if he had it right.

  The Vineart apparently found nothing objectionable in the tone or the words, only his action-or lack thereof. "You did nothing to aid the spill."

  "No, Master." He saw no reason to lie; the Master had seen him do nothing. He could hear the overseer lifting his stick again, prepared to beat him for his answer, but the Master stayed the blow.

  "Why?"

  The boy was silent, his body stiffening as though preparing for the inevitable blows to fall. Where a certain death had not shaken him, the question did. What could he answer? How did you speak excuses when you were dead?

  "Why, boy?"

  The boy bowed his head even lower, but had no answer.

  The first blow that landed hit his backside, hard enough to shake his slender body, but still he did not speak.

  The second blow moved up to the ribs, hitting under the thin top, and the stick came away bloody. He felt the blood dripping, but did not believe it. Could you still bleed when you were dead? The urge to laugh bubbled up again, and he wondered if he had gone mad.

  "Boy?" The Vineart's voice had changed, from cool to curious, as though the slave's resistance had truly piqued his interest. "Why?"

  "Master. I do not know why."

  The third blow was directly between his shoulder blades and sent the slave sprawling flat on the ground. His body shook, but he did not move from the position, not even to lift his face out of the dirt.

  They posed there, the three of them, in a motionless tableau, even as the slaves worked around them, casting frightened yet curious glances over their shoulders. He could practically hear their thoughts: The slave should have been dead by now, and yet wasn't. The Master was not one to hesitate to punish any infraction, any insolence or challenge. Why was the boy slave yet breathing?

  Any change in routine was terrifying, even if it involved less violence rather than more. They wanted him dead, to make things right again. He understood. He felt the same.

  "You do not know why," the Master said. It was a statement of fact, and so the boy did not respond.

  "Do you have a name, boy?"

  The question made no sense. Slaves did not have names, not ones the Master would know. Even the overseer was known only by his position, not the name he had arrived with. Nicknames, like Singer, Old Tree, or Fishtail, those were common. A name implied value. A name indicated worth.

  It was a question, one asked of him directly. He had to answer it, somehow. The boy lifted his head from the dirt, expecting at any moment to feel another blow, this time on his neck, breaking it.

  "Boy?" The Master's patience was clearly wearing thin.

  The words seemed to come as though not from his own mouth but from a long distance away, lost and unexpectedly reclaimed. There had been a name once, back when he had a mother and father, and a home that did not smell of sea breeze and grapes, but horse and cold, snow and fire smoke.

  "Jerzy, Master." He swallowed, having to force the name out after years of disuse and silence. "My name is Jerzy."

  The Vineart nodded, as though this confirmed something he had expected. "What did you feel, Jerzy? When the crush spilled?"

  What did he feel? The question again made no sense. "Nothing, Master."

  "Nothing."

  "Nothing, Master." He dropped back down to the ground, awaiting his punishment. What answer had the Master wanted?

  "Ah. No tingle? No desire? No need to run your fingers through the liquid, to feel it touch your skin?" The words were like hooks, trying to pull something out of him.

  "I. . .Master, I. . .there is something wrong with it, Master." The words spilled out of him before he even knew what he was going to say. Idiot, he thought again, and braced himself for the next blow, expecting it, at last, to be the deadly stroke.

  The Vineart's expression didn't change, but he nodded once again, as though finally satisfied.

  "Come with me. Now, Jerzy."

  The Vineart turned and walked away, toward the taller stone building behind the vintnery that housed the Master's living quarters. The House of Malech. Forbidden territory to even approach, for a slave. The overseer aimed a kick at the slave in order to get him moving, but the boy rolled and was on his feet, nimbly avoiding the blow. The paralysis that had held him earlier was gone, and his entire body felt alive again. He was alive. He wanted, very much, to remain that way.

  His face still averted, his shoulders hunched from years of habit, the slave followed his master away from the harvest and everything that had, until then, been his life.

  The overseer's whipstick cracked in the air behind them, and his low growl sounded over it: the boy flinched, even though it was not aimed at him. "Back to work, you worthless bits of flesh! The sun's still up and there's fruit to be taken in! Stop wasting the Master's time!"

  The boy, following blindly, almost mindlessly, felt the dry soil under his feet give way to sun-warmed paving stones, and then to the rougher cobble of the wide pathway separating vintnery from the Master's own building. He paused, risking one last glimpse over his shoulder. Already the vintnery seemed impossibly far away, the vineyard and sleep house farther yet. He felt no regret, no sense of loss to be leaving it behind. And yet, something made him stop.

  Before the sleep house and the fields, there had been only the slavers' caravan. Weeks filled with endless hours of walking, of traveling from one market to another, praying to be chosen, to be overlooked, to die, to survive.

  "Are you coming?" the Master asked, still in that same dry, incurious voice. "Or do you wish to stay in the fields?"

  The vintnery was safe, in its own way. For the past however many years he could remember, it had been his home. But no, he didn't want to stay there.

  Head bowed, the boy followed his master across the pathway, under the green arches of the entrance proper, and into the House of Malech.