“Yes?” he asked, not coming after her. “That is your answer? Yes?”

Looking back over her shoulder at him with just, she hoped, the right amount of promise, she pushed through the curtained entrance and promptly tripped over the handle of a broom. She sprawled, hitting her chin on the plank floor. Sitting up, she saw Sheyshi lazily pulling the broom straight.

“You bitch! You did that on purpose!”

The other girl stared at her with dull, angry, stupid cow eyes. A heap of swept dirt was piled by her dainty feet.

Avisha grabbed for the broom. “I’ll show you!”

Sheyshi yanked the broom away and backed behind the ranks of rolled-up bedding.

“Merciful God, gift me patience!” Priya walked into the room. Under her quelling gaze, the two girls looked away from each other. “What happened here?”

“Nothing, verea,” said Avisha as she got to her feet. Although Priya was a slave and therefore not actually deserving of the respectful form of address, Avisha saw perfectly well how the mistress trusted her. “I just tripped. The water buckets went to the kitchen. I can get more.”

Priya examined first her, then Sheyshi. “Sheyshi, finish sweeping, then fold the mattresses properly and hang out the bedding. I’ll have no bugs. Avisha, come with me.”

Rubbing her throbbing chin, Avisha followed Priya into the inner chambers, each one ornamented with painted scrolls hanging on the walls and a few well-chosen pieces of polished black-lacquer furniture that had, as it happened, belonged to the previous owners. They had been rich enough to own five chairs, and the mistress sat in a padded chair now as she regarded a pair of merchants seated in visitor’s chairs. Mai received favored business associates in the chamber known as six-seasons-of-the-crane because of the six-paneled screen set against one wall.

Avisha waited beside the entrance as the mistress completed her business. She never got tired of studying the beautifully painted screen, with cranes dancing in a field of early-blooming pink-heart on one panel, or a bachelor flock staging for their journey to the drowsy swamps of Mar beneath white-petaled wish-vines symbolic of hopes of finding a good mate on another.

“Meanwhile, ver,” Mai was saying, “it has come to my attention that your factor has changed the unit of measurement from a unit by log to one of standing timber.”

The man she addressed was considerably older, plump, with a primly pursed mouth. He glanced toward Chief Tuvi, who stood behind Mai’s chair. “It’s the usual standard of sale, verea.”

Mai had a pleasing, cheerful voice, quite innocent of malice. “Yet the original contract was made by unit of log. I can’t help but wonder if standing timber may produce less log depending on defects within the trees themselves, which may not be detected until they are split and sawed for building. Really, ver, you have given us such fine quality and quantity of wood, that I would hate to have to ask my factor to begin negotiations with another house.” She smiled. Like the masterly painting of cranes on the screen, you could not help but admire beauty.