The Warded Man

Through the gate, Arlen entered the Maze, a wide inner yard before the wall of the city proper, filled with walls, trenches, and pits. Each night, their families locked safe behind the inner walls, the dal’Sharum engaged in alagai’sharak, Holy War against demonkind. They lured corelings into the Maze, ambushing and harrying them into warded pits to await the sun. Casualties were high, but Krasians believed that dying in alagai’sharak assured them a place at the side of Everam, the Creator, and went gladly into the killing zone.

Soon, Arlen thought, it will be only corelings that die here.

Just inside the main gate was the Great Bazaar, where merchants hawked over hundreds of laden carts, the air thick with hot Krasian spices, incense, and exotic perfumes. Rugs, bolts of fine cloth, and beautiful painted pottery sat beside mounds of fruit and bleating livestock. It was a noisy and crowded place, filled with shouted haggling.

Every other marketplace Arlen had ever seen teemed with men, but the Great Bazaar of Krasia was filled almost entirely with women, covered head to toe in thick black cloth. They bustled about, selling and buying, shouting at each other vigorously and handing over their worn golden coins only grudgingly.

Jewelry and bright cloth were sold in abundance in the bazaar, but Arlen had never seen it worn. Men had told him the women wore the adornments under their black, but only their husbands knew for sure.

Krasian men above the age of sixteen were almost all warriors. A small few were dama, the Holy Men who were also Krasia’s secular leaders. No other vocation was considered honorable. Those who took a craft were called khaffit, and considered contemptible, barely above women in Krasian society. The women did all the day-to-day work in the city, from farming and cooking to child care. They dug clay and made pottery, built and repaired homes, trained and slaughtered animals, and haggled in the markets. In short, they did everything but fight.

Yet despite their unending labor, they were utterly subservient to the men. A man’s wives and unmarried daughters were his property, and he could do with them as he pleased, even kill them. A man could take many wives, but if a woman so much as let a man who was not her husband look at her unveiled, she could—and often would—be put to death. Krasian women were considered expendable. Men were not.

Without their women, Arlen knew, the Krasian men would be lost, but the women treated men in general with reverence, and their husbands with near-worship. They came each morning to find the dead from the night’s alagai’sharak, and wailed over the bodies of their men, collecting their precious tears in tiny vials. Water was coin in Krasia, and a warrior’s status in life could be measured by the number of tear bottles filled upon his death.

If a man was killed, it was expected that his brothers or friends would take his wives, so they would always have a man to serve. Once, in the Maze, Arlen had held a dying warrior who offered him his three wives. “They are beautiful, Par’chin,” he had assured, “and fertile. They will give you many sons. Promise you will take them!”

Arlen promised they would be cared for, and then found another willing to take them on. He was curious about what lay under the Krasian women’s robes, but not enough to trade his portable circle for a clay building, his freedom for a family.

Following behind almost every woman were several tan-clad children; the girls’ hair wrapped, the boys in rag caps. As early as eleven, the girls would begin to marry and take on the black clothes of women, while the boys were taken to the training grounds even younger. Most would take on the black robes of dal’Sharum. Some few would come to wear the white of dama, and devote their lives to serving Everam. Those who failed at both professions would be khaffit, and wear tan in shame until they died.

The women caught sight of Arlen as he rode through the market, and began whispering to one another excitedly. He watched them, amused, for none would look him in the eye, or approach him. They hungered for the goods in his saddlebags—fine Rizonan wool, Milnese jewels, Angierian paper, and other treasures of the North—but he was a man, and worse, a chin, and they dared not approach. The eyes of the dama were everywhere.

“Par’chin!” a familiar voice called, and Arlen turned to see his friend Abban approach, the fat merchant limping and leaning heavily on his crutch.

Lame since childhood, Abban was khaffit, unable to stand among the warriors and unworthy to be a Holy Man. He had done well for himself, though, doing trade with Messengers from the North. He was clean-shaven, and wore the tan cap and shirt of khaffit, but over that he wore a rich headcloth, vest, and pantaloons of bright silk, stitched in many colors. He claimed his wives were as beautiful as those of any dal’Sharum.

“By Everam, it is good to see you, son of Jeph!” Abban called in flawless Thesan, slapping Arlen on the shoulder. “The sun always shines brighter when you grace our city!”

Arlen wished he had never told the merchant his father’s name. In Krasia, the name of a man’s father was more important than one’s own. He wondered what they would think if they knew his father was a coward.

But he clapped Abban on the shoulder in return, his smile genuine. “And you, my friend,” he said. He would never have mastered the Krasian tongue, or learned to navigate its strange and often dangerous culture, without the lame merchant’s aid.

“Come, come!” Abban said. “Rest your feet in my shade and wash the dust from your throat with my water!” He led Arlen to a bright and colorful tent pitched behind his carts in the bazaar. He clapped his hands, and his wives and daughters—Arlen could never tell the difference—scurried to open the flaps and tend to Dawn Runner. Arlen had to force himself not to help as they took the heavily laden saddlebags and carried them into the tent, knowing that the Krasians found the sight of a man laboring unseemly. One of the women reached for the warded spear, wrapped in cloth and slung from his saddle horn, but Arlen snatched it away before she could touch it. She bowed deeply, afraid she had given some insult.

The inside of the tent was filled with colorful silk pillows and intricately woven carpets. Arlen left his dusty boots by the flap and breathed deeply of the cool, scented air. He eased down onto the pillows on the floor as Abban’s women knelt before him with water and fruit.

When he was refreshed, Abban clapped his hands, and the women brought them tea and honeyed pastries. “Your trip through the desert passed well?” Abban asked.

“Oh, yes.” Arlen smiled. “Very well indeed.”

They made small talk for some time afterward. Abban never failed in this formality, but his eyes kept flicking to Arlen’s saddlebags, and he rubbed his hands together absently.

“To business then?” Arlen asked as soon as he judged it polite.

“Of course, the Par’chin is a busy man,” Abban agreed, snapping his fingers. The women quickly brought out an array of spices, perfume, silks, jewelry, rugs, and other Krasian craft.

Abban examined the goods from Arlen’s clients in the North while Arlen perused the items proposed for trade. Abban found fault with everything, scowling. “You crossed the desert just to trade this lot?” he asked in disgust when he was done. “It hardly seems worth the trip.”

Arlen hid his grin as they sat and were served fresh tea. Bidding always started this way.

“Nonsense,” he replied. “A blind man could see I have brought some of the finest treasures Thesa has to offer. Better by far than the sorry goods your women have brought before me. I hope you have more hidden away, because”—he fingered one carpet, a masterwork of weaving—“I’ve seen better carpets rotting in ruins.”