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swallowing sunlight. Successive generations of landlords had added additional floors, each new storey overhanging the previous one, so that to look upward was to view a narrow slice of the green Kelewanese sky, brilliant against the oppressive dimness. Mara’s soldiers strained tosee in the sudden gloom, always watchful for threats to their mistress; this warren provided ample opportunity for ambush.
    The river breeze could not penetrate this tight-woven maze of tenements. The air hung motionless and humid, fetid with garbage, waste, and the pungency of decaying timbers. Many foundations were eaten away with dry rot, causing walls to crack and roof beams to sag. Despite the repellent surroundings, the streets teemed with humanity. The inhabitants hurried clear of Mara’s retinue, commoners ducking into doorless hovels at the sight of an officer’s plume. Warriors of great Lords would instantly beat any wretch slow to clear their path. Only throngs of shouting and filthy urchins tempted such misfortune, pointing at the Lady’s rich litter and darting clear of the soldiers who jabbed spear butts to clear them away.
    The Midkemians had ceased their chattering, much to Lujan’s relief. At present his warriors had enough to occupy them without that added irritation. No matter how often the barbarians were ordered to silence, as befitted slaves, they tended to disobey. Now, as the Acoma retinue passed between the overcrowded tenements, the spicy, smoke-scented air that issued from the dens of the drug-flower sellers became prevalent. The eaters of the kamota blossom resin lived in dreams and hallucinations, and madness came upon them in fits. The warriors carried their spears in readiness, prepared for unexpected attack, and Mara sat behind closed curtains, her scented fan pressed close to her nostrils.
    The litter slowed before a corner, its occupant jostled as the bearers shifted grip and jockeyed their load past the posts of a sagging doorway. One of the poles caught upon the dirty curtain that hung across the entrance, pulling it askew. Within huddled several families, crowded one upon another. Their clothes were filthy and their skins wretchedwith sores. A pot of noisome thyza was being shared out among them, while another, similar pot collected the day’s soil in one corner. The stench was choking, and on a tattered blanket a mother suckled a limp infant, three more toddlers lying across her knees and ankles. They all showed signs of vermin, ill health, and starvation. Inculcated since birth to know that poverty or wealth was bestowed as the gods willed – in reward for deeds in past lives – Mara gave their wretchedness no consideration.
    The bearers cleared the litter from the doorway. As they regrouped, Mara caught a glimpse of the new slaves who followed behind. The tall redhead muttered something to another slave, a balding, powerfully built man who listened with the respect of one deferring to a leader. Outrage, or maybe shock, showed in both men’s expressions, though what might inspire such depths of emotion within a public place, before individuals almost as honourless as the slaves themselves, seemed a mystery to the Lady.
    The poor quarter of Sulan-Qu was not large; still, passage through the jammed streets was painfully tedious. Finally the tenements fell behind as the road crooked with the bend in the river Gagajin. Here the gloom lessened, but only slightly. In place of the mildewed tenements were warehouses, craft sheds, and factories. Dye shops and tanneries, butchers’ stalls and slaughterhouses crowded the way, and the blended stinks of offal, dye vats, and steam from the tallow Tenderer’s left a reeking miasma in the air. Smoke from the resin makers’ fires coiled in clouds from the chimneys, and at the riverside, docked to weathered pilings, lay commerce barges and other floating house-shacks. Vendors vied for any cranny that remained, each crowded, tiny stall serving its wares to clusters of