I lifted my chin, forced myself to move faster. I didn’t want to draw attention, and it was not like me to creep. I needed to move more briskly about my business. I passed a few other slaves without any acknowledgment, and they deferentially dropped their eyes.

The serviceways, narrow and only partially covered, lay between the walls of various apartments and ran throughout the palace in an endless warren, their sand floors silencing the footsteps of slaves and servants who carried out the work of the palace out of sight of its privileged inhabitants. This was where the slop jars were carried, where the laundry went on its way from the beautiful apartments to the washhouses and back again. It was an easy place to get lost, with as many twists and turns as there were dead ends, but I had known this labyrinth since I was a child newly brought to the palace by my master. I was only an apprentice to his secretary then and had had plenty of time to learn every path through it.

I passed into darkness where the passage was roofed over and then back into the sun as I turned this way and that, choosing the narrowest, darkest, and least-used route that would carry me toward one of the work gates where the wagons came in and out, carrying all that was needed for the inhabitants of the city inside a city that was the emperor’s palace. There were several such gates, but I wanted the one nearest the stables and the emperor’s zoo, with its cages of lions and wild dogs and other animals. I’d visited it often over the years, feeling sorry for the sad-eyed gazelles tapping nervously about, so near to their predators. There was a giraffe and several zebras, as well as lions and cheetahs. There had been a white bear once, a gift from the Braelings in the north, but it had died in the heat. My mind was wandering again, and I forced it back to the present.

The narrow passages grew wider and became alleys between separate buildings. Where there had been apartments and gardens on the other side of the high walls around me, there were now storage sheds and dormitories. I came to open ground near the enclosure where a placid giraffe stood chewing as he gazed off into space. Between the animals in the zoo and the working animals in the stables, wagon after wagon of dung had to be hauled out every day, usually at about noon when the morning cleanout was completed. I didn’t use this gate often, but I would be allowed to pass through without question and probably without any notice so long as there had been no news of my master’s death yet, no call for my arrest.

Taking a deep breath, I stepped out toward the open gate.

“Kamet,” one of the guards called like a curse out of a clear blue sky.

Even before I recognized him, I smiled politely. Well trained, I would have smiled so at my executioner.

“On your way out again already?” he asked. He’d been at the main east gate earlier that morning and we’d said hello to each other as I’d left to see the tailor. I brought up the story I’d prepared, just in case.

“More orders for the feast my master plans for the emperor’s birthday,” I said.

“Is it going to be as big as the one he sponsored before you went abroad?”

“Bigger,” I said.

“Will you get me onto the guard duty for it? We ate like kings at the last one.”

I promised that I would, the lie easy on my lips, and waved a good-bye to him as I passed through the gate.

I crossed the wide boulevard that surrounded the palace and headed directly into the narrow streets on the other side. In a few steps I knew I was out of his sight. I still hurried around several corners and deeper into side streets before I breathed a sigh of relief. Then I made my way to the tailor’s.

CHAPTER TWO

“Gessiret,” I explained apologetically, “my master says that one set of robes is insufficient. He will want two.”

Gessiret looked at me suspiciously, but I was used to that and so was he. Tradesmen have few means to force their powerful clients to pay their debts, and no one was more mistreated financially than the tailors. They are so dependent on their trade with the wealthy they can’t afford to offend even the most delinquent clients.

“Two?” Gessiret asked.

“Indeed, he will give you twice the sum we agreed upon.”

“Very well,” said Gessiret. “He is good to bring us his business.” He was still waiting for the bad news.

“It is a large sum, and my master will pay for the robes when they are completed.”

Gessiret nodded fatalistically. “And he would like returned the money that you paid me this morning?”

I nodded back at him, trying to look sympathetic. Gessiret knew I was lying but assumed it was on my master’s behalf. He thought my master had decided to put his cash to better use. Gessiret could refuse to return the coins, but he would offend Nahuseresh—and Nahuseresh was the rare client who paid his bills more often than not. Two robes was a substantial commission. Sighing, he reached into his cashbox. Together we nodded our heads and rolled our eyes at the ways of our betters—me knowing exactly how he felt, him thinking he knew how I did.

I agreed upon a meaningless date for the robes to be completed and left. I had crossed the city to get to Gessiret’s little shop, focused on nothing but retrieving the money I’d paid him earlier that morning. Now that I had it, I had no reason not to face the truth I had been hiding from: I had nowhere to go.

I needed to leave the city, but I could think of no way out.

The imperial city of Ianna-Ir sits on the flat plain of the wide, slow-moving river Ianna. The city itself is surrounded by its famous copper-topped walls, many times the height of a man and wide enough at the top to allow two chariots to pass in opposite directions. Except for the riverfront and a smaller, unfortified area on the opposite bank, outside the walls of Ianna-Ir, there are only open fields, irrigated by the river to provide food. There is nothing else for miles.

As a slave, I could hardly ask a farmer with a cart for a ride out to the wilderness or downriver to the Ianna’s delta to board a ship. I was entrusted by my master with the freedom to move around the city, but not to leave it. The guards at the walls of the palace were used to seeing me come and go, but the guards at the gates of the city were not. I might cover the chain at my neck, but in my straight shift, with my legs bare, I was obviously a slave, allowed to pass through those outer walls only in the company of my master. If I approached the gate alone, I would be stopped and then returned to the palace to be tortured.

I thought again about where I might hide inside the city walls. I had very little time and no one to turn to. I had done business with many of the merchants of Ianna-Ir, but no honest man would break the emperor’s law to hide me. I knew dishonest men as well, quite a few, in fact, but they wouldn’t risk the emperor’s wrath except for sums of money I didn’t have. The money from the tailor wasn’t enough to buy me any safety. It probably wasn’t good for anything except a last meal if I bought it quickly.

My mind began to fill with visions of the rack and spikes, of instruments heated until they were red hot, of the barbed lash. These were the thoughts I’d tried to bury with memories of the Braelings’ white bear, and imaginary plans for a feast, and concern for my master’s other slaves, but all my other thoughts were retreating in the face of this remorseless horror. The sweat on my skin stung—I tried to breathe and heard myself gasping instead. I had to get out. I told myself I was too well dressed, much too respectable to be taken for an escaping slave—I had an embroidered shift and a gold chain on my neck, after all. I decided to go to the Iannis-Sa gate and try to brazen my way through. I would attach myself to the party of a wealthy man and hope to pass unquestioned. I started toward the south side of the city.