3

HER MOTHER had been a Northerner slave; her father, a native freeman, a wheelwright. When she was five years old they had died in a plague. She had been transferred to the Pens and raised by her aunt. When she was fifteen her beauty had attracted the Duke and he had installed her in the palace. There she gave birth to his two sons, now ten and eleven, who would soon be taken away from her and raised in the Duke's household as free and petted servants.

The Duke had married the present Duchess several years after his liaison with Amra began and her jealousy had forced him to get rid of Amra. Back to the Pens she had gone; perhaps the Duke had not been too sad to see her go, for living with her was like living with a hurricane, and he liked peace and quiet too well.

Then, in accordance with the custom, she had been recommended by the Duke to a visiting prince; the prince had overstayed his leave from his native country because he hated to part with her, and the Duke had wanted to give her as a present. But here he'd overstepped his legal authority. Slaves had certain rights. A woman who had borne a citizen a child could not be shipped away or sold unless she gave her permission. Amra didn't choose to go, so the sorrowing prince had gone home, though not without leaving a memento of his visit behind him.

The captain of a ship had purchased her, but here again the law came to her rescue. He could not take her out of the country, and she again refused to leave. By now she had purchased several businesses-slaves were allowed to hold property and even have slaves of their own-and she knew that her two boys by the Duke would be valuable later on, when they'd go to live with him.

The temple sculptor had used her as his model for his great marble statue of the goddess of Fertility. Well he might, for she was a magnificent creature, a tall woman with long, richly auburn hair, a flawless skin, large russet brown eyes, a mouth as red and ripe as a plum, breasts with which neither child nor lover could find fault, a waist amazingly slender considering the rest of her curved body and her fruitfulness. Her long legs would have looked good on an Earthwoman and were even more outstanding among a population of club-ankled females.

There was more to her than beauty. She radiated a something that struck every male at first sight; to Green she sometimes seemed to be a violent physical event, perhaps even a principle of Nature herself.

There were times when Green felt proud because she had picked him as her mate, chosen him when he was a newly imported slave who could say only a few words in the highly irregular agglutinative tongue. But there were times when he felt that she was too much for him, and those times had been getting too frequent lately. Besides, he felt a pang whenever he saw their child, because he loved it and dreaded the moment when he would have to leave it. As for deserting Amra, he wasn't sure how that would make him feel. Undeniably, she did affect him, but then so did a blow in the teeth or wine in the blood.

He got down out of the rickshaw, told the boy to wait, said, «Hello, honey,» and kissed her. He was glad she was a slave, because she didn't wear a nose-ring. When he kissed the Duchess he was always annoyed by hers. She refused to take it off when with him because that would put her on his level, and he mustn't ever forget he was a slave. It was perfectly moral for her to take a bondsman as a lover but not a freeman, and she was nothing if not moral.

Amra's return kiss was passionate, part of which was the vigor of asperity. «You're not fooling me,» she said. «You meant to ride right by. Kiss the children! What's the matter, are you getting tired of me? You told me you only accepted the Duchess's offer because it meant advancement, and you were afraid that if you turned her down she'd find an excuse to kill you. Well, I believed you-half-believed you, anyway. But I won't if you try sneaking by without seeing me. What's the matter? Are you a man or not? Are you afraid to face a woman? Don't shake your head. You're a liar! Don't forget to kiss Grizquetr; you know he's an affectionate boy and worships you, and it's absurd to say that in your country grown men don't kiss boys that old. You're not in your country-what a strange, frigid, loveless race must live there-and even if you were you might overlook their customs to show some tenderness to the boy. Come on back to our house and I'll bring up some of that wonderful Chalousma wine that came in the other day out of the cellar-»

«What was a ship doing in your cellar?» he said, and he whooped with laughter, «By all the gods, Amra, I know it's been two days since I've seen you, but don't try to crowd forty-eight hours' conversation into ten minutes, especially your kind of conversation. And quit scolding me in front of the children. You know it's bad for them. They might pick up your attitude of contempt for the head of the house.»

«I? Contempt? Why, I worship the ground you walk on! I tell them continually what a fine man you are, though it's rather hard to convince them when you do show up and they see the truth. Still…»

There was only one way to handle her; that was to outtalk, outshout, outact her. It was hard going, especially when he felt so tired, and when she would not cooperate with him but would fight for precedence. The trouble was, she didn't feel any respect for the man she could shut up, so it was absolutely necessary to dominate her.

This he accomplished by giving her a big squeeze, causing the baby to cry because she was pushed in too tightly between the two of them. Then while Amra was trying to soothe the baby he began telling her what had happened at the palace.

She was silent, except for a sharply pointed question interjected now and then, and she insisted upon hearing the details of everything that had taken place-everything. He told her things that he would not have mentioned before children-two years ago. But the extremely frank and uninhibited society of the slaves had freed him of any such restraints.

They went inside Amra's house, through her offices, where six of her clerks and secretaries worked, through the living rooms proper, and on into the kitchen.

She rang a bell and told Inzax, a pretty little blonde, to go into the cellar and bring up a quart of Chalousma. One of the clerks popped his head in the kitchen door and told her that a Mr. Sheshyarvrenti, purser of an Andoonanarga vessel, wanted to see her about the disposition of some rare birds that she had ordered seven months before. He would deal with no one but her.

«Let him cool his heels for a while,» she said. The clerk gulped and his head disappeared.

Green took Paxi, his daughter, and played with her while Amra poured their wine.

«This can go on only so long,» she said. «I love you, and I'm not getting the attention I'm accustomed to. You should find some pretense to break off with the Duchess. I'm a vigorous woman who needs a lot of love. I want you here.»

Green had nothing to lose by agreeing with her, since he planned to be leaving in a very short time. «You're right,» he said. «I'll tell her as soon as I think up a good excuse.» He fingered his neck at the place where a headsman's ax would come down. «It had better be a good one, though.»

Amra seemed to glow all over with happiness. She held her glass up and said, «Here's to the Duchess. May demons carry her off.»

«You'd better be careful, saying that before the children. You know that if they innocently repeated that to someone and it got back to the Duchess you'd be burned in the next witchhunt.»

«Not my children!» she scoffed. «They're too clever. They take after their mother. They know when to keep their mouths shut.»

Green gulped his wine and stood up. «I must go.»