Free Servant of the Empire by Raymond E. Feist, Janny Wurts Page B

outside chose to scratch on the screen to the Lady’s private study.
    Since no Tsurani would signal his mistress for attention with anything but a polite knock, Mara did not immediately respond. Whoever waited without seemed entirely unfazed by this fact. The wooden frame slid on its oiled track, and the bald-headed slave who had abetted the clothing scam at the slave auction poked his face inside. ‘Kevin?’ he said quietly, oblivious to the fact that he trespassed upon nobility without spoken leave or invitation. ‘You all right, old son?’
    Mara gaped, as the redhead returned a reassuring grin. The bald-headed man smiled at Mara, then withdrew without further ado. Mara sat speechless for a long moment. In all the memory of her ancestors, she had never known a slave with the effrontery to admit himself to his ruling master’s chambers without any summons, to hold a personal conversation with another slave, then withdraw without leave, making only the most perfunctory attempt at acknowledging his rightful mistress. Mara curbed her first impulse to call for punishment, now being totally convinced of the need to understand more of these barbarians.
    She sent her runner to find another overseer to manage thebarbarians and set them to cutting akasi, as they should have been doing all along. Then Mara returned her attention to Kevin.
    ‘Tell me how servants treat their mistresses in the lands where you were born,’ she demanded.
    The barbarian returned a provocative smile. His eyes wandered boldly over Mara’s body, which was covered only by an almost transparent silk robe. ‘To begin with,’ he said brightly, ‘any lady who wore what you do in front of her servants would be begging to get herself …’ He struggled for a word, then said, ‘In my language it’s not a polite term. I don’t know how you folks feel about it, but given you’re showing me all you’ve got without a thought, you obviously don’t consider such things.’
    ‘What are you talking about?’ Mara snapped, at the edge of her patience.
    ‘Why …’ He touched himself upon his dirty loincloth, then made an upward gesture with his extended forefinger. ‘What men and woman do, to make babies.’ He pointed in the general direction of her groin.
    Mara’s eyes widened. She might be having difficulty thinking of this barbarian as a slave, but obviously he had no difficulty thinking of her as a woman. Softly, in tones that could only be called dangerous, she said, ‘To suggest such a thing, even indirectly, could mean a slow and painful death, slave! The most shameful execution is hanging, but if we wish the condemned to suffer, we hang them by the feet. Some men have been known to last two days that way. With a pile of hot coals just below your head, it can be a most unpleasant way to die.’
    Aware of Mara’s anger, Kevin hastily amended, ‘Of course, Zun has a much cooler climate than you are accustomed to.’ His phrases became broken as he searched for unfamiliar words, or substituted ones in his own tongue when his knowledge was incomplete. ‘We have winters, and
snow
, and cold rains during other seasons. The ladies from my lands must wear heavy skirts and animal skins for warmth. Tends to make the uncovered female body something … something we don’t see a lot.’
    Mara’s eyes flashed as she listened to the slave. ‘
Snow?
’ She sounded the barbarian’s word awkwardly. ‘Cold rains?’ Then what he meant registered and she said, ‘Animal skins? Do you mean furs? Leather with the hair not scraped off?’ as her anger lessened.
    ‘Something like that,’ Kevin said.
    ‘How strange.’ Mara considered this like a child presented with wonders. ‘Such clothing must be uncomfortably heavy, not to mention being difficult for slaves to wash.’
    Kevin laughed. ‘You don’t wash furs if you don’t want them ruined. You beat the dust from them and set them in the sun to air.’ Since her features again clouded over at his