Free The Godspeaker Trilogy by Karen Miller

Obid beat slaves who sinned like that. But food in the dirt belonged to whoever picked it up fastest.
    The slave who’d lost its food was on its hands and knees, it was trying to cover its bits of bread and cheese so the other slaves’ sneaking fingers couldn’t snatch them. Its face was wet, it was wasting water.
    “No! Mine! You’ve eaten your food, this is mine!”
    She leaned against the pen’s railings and watched. The slaves were so busy growling and snatching and pinching they didn’t care or try to run away.
    Very soon there was no bread or cheese or corn kernels left to steal. The hungry slave sat in the dirt with its empty bowl, its face muddy because its eye-water had mixed with the pen’s dust.
    Surprised, she realized she knew this one. This one was the fat boy from the lizard-roofed village Todorok where the woman Bisla had called her beautiful. But it wasn’t fat anymore. It had used up its fat running on the road behind Abajai and Yagji’s white camels.
    Beneath the fat, this slave was beautiful.
    He said, “You could have helped me.”
    She chose a piece of sticky white cheese and pushed it between her teeth. “Why?”
    The slave was maybe five seasons older than she was. He looked at her, his beautiful eyes dull with hunger and hurt, then dragged his fingers through the dust, searching for any corn kernels the others had missed.
    “Slaves should help each other.”
    She spat out cheese-rind. “ Tcha ! Slave? Hekat is not slave. I have name. I wear clothes. I ride with Abajai.”
    “I have a name too,” the slave said. His voice was low, and unhappy. “My name is Vortka.”
    She nodded at the chafed places on his wrists and ankles. “You wear chains, not clothes. You run on the road behind the white camels. Your name far behind you.”
    The slave’s scabby fist struck his chest. “Not in here! In here I am Vortka. I was sold because my father died and the god gave my mother to another man. He had his own sons. He did not want my mother’s son. He wanted gold. He got gold and I got chains. Why do you have clothes? Why do you ride with Abajai?”
    She shrugged. “I am beautiful.”
    “You are not so beautiful,” the slave muttered.
    “The god not see you!” she said, scorched with rage. “The god not see you, stupid slave!”
    “The god already not see me,” he said, sounding sad again. “The god not see me when it blew out my father’s godspark.” He squeezed water from his eyes with a dirty finger, then smiled at her. “I lied. You are beautiful. What are you called?”
    There was one piece of bread in the bottom of her bowl, and one piece of cheese. All the corn was eaten. She picked out the bread and threw it at the slave’s feet.
    “I am called Hekat.”
    The slave Vortka snatched up the bread and crammed it into his mouth. “The god see you, Hekat,” he said, his lips smeared with dirt.
    She turned her back and walked away. She did not know why her fingers had picked out the bread and thrown it at that slave. Give her food to a slave? Talk to a slave? Had a scorpion stung her, to do such a thing?
    She swallowed the last lump of cheese, threw her empty bowl to the ground, then sat down, far from the merchandise, to wait for Abajai’s return.

CHAPTER FIVE
    H e came at last, with Yagji and a godspeaker and two other men. Behind them panted a young male slave harnessed to an empty cart. The slave unstrapped itself from the cart’s leather traces, then went away.
    The men with Abajai wore plain dark robes and Trader charms around their necks. They were maybe a little younger than Abajai, their eyes were sharp. They didn’t seem like men who were easily fooled, or foolish.
    The godspeaker was young and her robe was the finest Hekat had ever seen, sewn all over with gold amulets and bronze charms and singing silver godbells. Stitched into the robe’s hem were lumps of the blue stone her snake-eye amulet was carved from, that Abajai had told her was lapis lazuli. The