It was flat-out fabrication—the marsh dwellers had no such reputation in Yhelteth, in fact most untraveled imperials would have no knowledge that they existed at all as a discrete group. As far as the Empire was concerned, the whole of the Trelayne territory was filled with backward, marsh-grubbing peasants. Only the very well informed knew enough to make distinctions. But no matter—it would play well enough. You could hear the same basic whisper of abandoned sexuality about women from any brutalized or excluded race under the band. Ringil had sat and listened to soldiers repeat it around campfires in every disputed piece of territory he’d fought in after the war with the Scaled Folk was done. It was a basic justification for rape.
He sometimes thought they would have said it about the lizard females as well, if the Scaled Folk had not been so unremittingly alien.
She was talking about her own command.
“Marsh dwellers, eh?” Terip Hale rolled out a slow smile. “Well, I’ve not heard that one before, exactly. But of course, if that’s your preference. Janesh.”
The doorman took a step forward. “My lord.”
“We’ll be paying a visit to the joyous longshank girls. Go down ahead of us and see that everything’s opened up. So to speak.”
The doorman’s face split in a fierce grin. “Yes, sir.”
Hale watched him go with a sober expression at odds with the joke. He seemed to be working through something in his head.
“We don’t deal that much in full-blood dwellers,” he said reflectively. “Though if what you tell me is true, perhaps we should. But it’s problematic, you see. Their families are mostly very tightly knit, and as a people they’re a stubborn, unthinking lot. I’ve seen cases where a man on the marsh would rather starve than sell his children. I mean, what can you do with people like that?”
Ringil hid his face in his goblet.
“Fortunately, though, marsh dweller blood isn’t quite as uncommon among our ordinary citizens”—Hale permitted himself a thin smile—“as those same citizens would have you believe. It’s been known to leak into even the noblest of Trelayne families. Don’t worry yourself, Laraninthal of Shenshenath, I’m quite sure we’ll be able to find you a girl with suitable blood.”
They made small talk after that, while Ringil finished his wine, played the diffident imperial fop, and kept his feelings masked. Inwardly, a cautious optimism was rising through him. He didn’t really expect to find Sherin here—even if she had passed through Hale’s stable, and not one of the others that specialized in concubinage, that was a month ago. Despite the slave trader’s comments about the difficulties of training spirited girls, Ringil didn’t think it would require that long to break a young woman who probably already considered herself worthless for her lack of childbearing ability; who had already been shunned by her whole family and then, finally, betrayed by the man who’d taken her away from them.
But if she had been here, there’d be traces. Memories among the other girls, among servants and handlers. There’d be documents of sale, somewhere. It was a legal trade now, all above board. Part of the brave new world they’d all been fighting for. If this was the place, the door was halfway levered open, and Ringil could do the rest in easy stages—even if that meant taking Terip Hale somewhere secluded and getting what he needed out of him with hot coals and iron.
If this was not the place, well, he had the other names on Milacar’s list. He could start all over again.
“Shall we go down?” Hale asked him.
He smiled and nodded in eager, foppish assent.
IT SEEMED THE JOYOUS LONGSHANK GIRLS WERE KEPT ON THE OTHER side of the building. Ringil followed Hale down to ground level and out to the courtyard. Eril and Girsh brought up the rear, along with Hale’s flail-equipped muscle. Everybody watched everybody else with hardened calm. The night had turned clear and cold while they were inside—they crossed the courtyard in silence under sharp stars and the long cool arc of the band. Ringil saw his breath puff ice white in the air.
