Amber stiffened, her own hand cupping protectively over the baby’s hot, wrinkled back, but that was all she did. She didn’t try to shrug off Zhuqa’s touch. And it was Zhuqa. She only had to look as far as the lizardladies bending their necks or Dkorm standing at attention next to Xzem to know who was behind her now.
The hand gave her a pat, then took itself away. Zhuqa stepped out from behind her and walked around the table, moving toward Xzem, whose breath quickened but who did not quite dare to cover her baby in the huddle of her own body. She crouched, rigid and in anguish, as Zhuqa peeled back Rosek’s wrap and watched her nurse.
The silence was a hammer on Amber’s ears. She could hear every wet sound as the baby sucked at her finger, every happy grumble and purr as it nestled close.
“Am I making you nervous?” Zhuqa asked mildly, still gazing at Xzem’s baby.
“Isn’t that what you’re going for?” Amber countered.
“Not you, Eshiqi.” Zhuqa’s eyes shifted, shining lazily back at Dkorm. “Am I making you nervous, Dkorm?”
“No, sir.”
“No?”
Dkorm fidgeted, checked himself, tried to stand taller. “I don’t expect to see you in the workpit, is all.”
“Ah.” Zhuqa returned his easy stare to Rosek. “I thought you might be nervous.”
“No, sir.”
“It would not be an unreasonable feeling.”
“Sir?”
“Particularly since the task of caring for whichever little sprat is not biting at Xzem’s ample teat is supposed to be yours.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yes?” Zhuqa allowed himself the posture of very mild surprise. “Then this was understood?”
“Yes, sir. Very well.”
“Very well,” Zhuqa mused. “So then. I confess to some confusion.”
“Eshiqi wanted to hold it.”
“Ah.” Zhuqa reached down to stroke the nursing baby’s cheek, and while he did this, Xzem did not breathe at all. “As it happens, I like to see Eshiqi hold it, but I believe my last word on the matter was that Eshiqi could see the baby, Dkorm.” He straightened up and turned around. “See it. Not hold it.”
Dkorm was frowning, flustered. “My apologies, sir.”
“Well, yes.” Zhuqa indulged himself in a small chuckle. “Apologies would certainly appear to be in order. You are passing my first-born around, Dkorm.”
“I am very sorry, sir.”
“To a slave, actually.” Zhuqa began to walk back around the table.
Dkorm did not back away, but was quick to say, “Sir, I wouldn’t have done it if it were not Eshiqi.”
Zhuqa glanced back to rest his eyes on Amber and the baby in her arms. His spines were forward, relaxed. The scales at his throat remained black. “She does seem rather fond of it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I confess to being fond of it myself,” said Zhuqa. “Have I made any secret of that?”
“No, sir.”
“No. I do not consider myself a sentimental man, but that is, as far as I know, my only living child. Do you have children, Dkorm?”
“I…I don’t know, sir.”
“Truth?”
“Sir.”
“That is a howling shame. A man’s legacy is in his loins. Once the soul is pissed out and the body goes to rot, there is nothing left in this life that endures, not the coin of his hoarding or the good word of his friends or any damned thing at all, save the name he has left to his children.”
“I…Yes, sir.”
“Look there—” Zhuqa dropped his arm around Dkorm’s shoulders and gestured at the sleeping infant in Amber’s arms. “—and you look upon my eternity.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Nestled in the arms of an unbroken slave.”
Dkorm hesitated, but there was no safe answer and not a lot of give to the truth. “Yes, sir.”
“Did you ever stop to think such a slave could, in a moment of defiance—” His fingers drummed once on Dkorm’s shoulders. “—dash its helpless little brains out just to strike a scar on me?”
Amber’s arms tightened on the baby.
Zhuqa waited, then looked down at Dkorm. “Did you?” he prompted.
“No, sir.”
“Not even once?”
“No, sir.”
“You disappoint me, Dkorm.” Zhuqa studied the man standing rigid under his relaxed arm, then gave him another pat and stepped away. “I accept your apology. Let Eshiqi hold the baby if it makes her happy.”
“Yes, sir,” said Dkorm, only a little shakily.
Zhuqa came to the table and hunkered comfortably before Amber. He cocked his head, listening to the breathy rumble of its sleeping purrs. At length, he raised a hand to stroke at the side of its blunt snout, which caused it to curl up at once, mewing indignantly and turning into the swell of Amber’s breast. Zhuqa grunted, his spines fanned all the way forward. He looked at Amber. “You could hurt me very easily if you chose to kill it,” he said quietly. “But not so deeply or so well, I think, as I could hurt you by doing the very same thing.”
He glanced back down to watch her arms tighten into a protective shell around the baby, then grunted, pleased, and rose to his feet. “Xzem, take it.”
Xzem bent her head, then placed her squirming, complaining child in Dkorm’s hands, then came to take the infant from Amber’s equally reluctant grip. The baby’s mews, ignored, became howls. It fought the teat Xzem offered, twisting its head violently side to side and straining with all its fragile might to find its way back to Amber.
“Now, Dkorm, let me make my next order very clear to you: Nobody touches Rosek except you and Xzem…and Eshiqi, I suppose. If she wants to. Nobody else.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Xzem is to hold my child every moment that her own is not sucking at her.”
“Yes, sir.”
“During those times, Eshiqi can hold it. If she doesn’t want it, you hold it. If anyone else touches either child—look at me, Dkorm—if God Himself lays on His benevolent hands in blessing, I will devote the next six days to killing you.”
“Yes, sir,” said Dkorm. His posture was exemplary. His hands on Xzem’s wailing baby did not shake.
“Do you believe I can make it last six days?” Zhuqa inquired, chucking at Rosek’s chin. She did not stop crying, but did give him a wet-eyed incredulous look.
“Yes, sir.”
Zhuqa rubbed Rosek’s small snout and smiled up at Dkorm. “I should have a certain reputation for honesty in this camp. I’ve worked hard to cultivate it.”
“Yes, sir,” said Dkorm after a puzzled moment, since Zhuqa seemed to be waiting.
“So I know that I am understood when I tell you that sitting in the workpit with slaves may not be how you want to pass your days, but it is a sign of my trust and my high regard. It is, in fact, an honor and I want to know that it is appreciated.”
“It is, sir.”
“Good. That eases my mind.” Zhuqa headed for the door, then paused and turned back. “As an honest man,” he said evenly, “I say if I have to tell you to play with this fucking thing one more time, I will make her a rattle-stick out of your own teeth.”
Dkorm shrugged the baby up onto his shoulder and started rapidly patting her.
Zhuqa grunted and left, closing the door quietly behind him without another glance for Amber.
Dkorm immediately turned on Xzem, saying, “If there’s a trick to shutting this thing up, you tell me right now or I’ll muzzle it.”
Xzem surged forward only to cringe back, her wide eyes filled with panic and pain in equal measure. The infant squirming at her teat renewed the full force of its waning screams immediately.
“Shut one of them up at least,” snapped Dkorm, jostling the baby harder. And suddenly his spines smacked flat against his scales and he thrust Rosek out at arm’s length, not quite fast enough to avoid the stream that came spraying out between her kicking legs.
Dkorm closed his eyes. He took a short breath between tightly-clenched jaws and sighed it out. His head bent. “I hate sprats,” he muttered.
Amber eased warily onto her feet.
“Sit down!” Dkorm snapped, slapping at his leg. “Oh fuck Gann, it’s in my boot! I’m going to be walking in your little poke’s piss the whole rest of the day! Xzem!”
