“It’s a demon, husband,” said the younger one. “Look at those blue eyes! Just like cornflowers. Bad luck! Why do you bring a demon into our clan?”

“For Girish.”

“Grandmother won’t like it,” said the brother.

The master snorted.

The older woman said, irritably, “Grandmother has been letting Girish do as he pleases. I’ve already been put to the expense of purchasing and training new slaves. She’s blind to his habits—”

The master’s expression darkened. “Do not speak of my honorable mother in such a tone, Wife!”

She flinched. “Pardon, Husband. Pardon.”

The younger woman broke in, “What if it is diseased? It could infect everyone—”

The slave tugged off her dirty undertunic. She stood naked before them. The master’s hand strayed low, but with a deliberate shift he reached up and scratched his jaw instead. The brother had no such control. Her pale skin and pale hair and blue eyes never ceased to excite and horrify. That was what demons were: an evil lure to tempt people into the wastelands where they would be devoured down to the bone.

The older woman’s horror receded as her gaze narrowed with calculation. “No other man in Kartu can claim to own a demon. It might content Girish, now that he’s clamoring for a wife.”

“An allowance, and the demon,” said the brother. “That might shut him up.”

“Pardon, Husband,” said the younger woman to the master, “pardon me that I speak out so boldly, but if you perhaps might be willing to tell Girish also that you will take the demon away from him if he molests the slaves.” She hesitated, dipping her head submissively.

“I am not unaware of the trouble Girish has caused you, or of his disordered and repulsive habits,” said the master with a stern frown that squelched conversation. “Let us see if this contents him.”

27

“It’s so ugly,” said Girish with his habitual giggle as he hauled her into the smoky interior of the narrow house and shoved her toward a stained couch hidden behind a screen. “I don’t know what you see in it, Ramda.” His hands were shaking with excitement as his voice rose in a petulant whine. “What do you have for me today? You promised me something new.”

Ramda was a thin, nervous man who never looked directly at her. He flicked a hand toward the curtained entrance to the back rooms, not watching as Girish pushed past the curtain and vanished.

“Here.” Ramda handed her a lit smoke.

She brought it to her lips and sucked. Warmth spread from tingling lips down into her throat. She sighed, taking another suck as the warmth spread throughout her body. When Ramda limped over and dropped his trousers, she took another suck and let him press her back onto the couch with its lumps and damp spots. After a while he finished. Other customers came and went in the main room, and sometimes after coin changed hands a man might step behind the screen and lie down on top of her, breath hot against her face. The ceiling of the hall was half obscured by threads of smoke that traced patterns along the wood. She followed their slow dance with her eyes, the way smoke crawled up the slope of the eaves or pooled beside brackets and beams. Coin jingled. Men laughed. Dice rolled. A child’s thin scream penetrated the smoke, and for a moment all fell quiet.