Transformation (Rai Kirah) by Carol Berg Read Free Book Online Page A

and quite specific. What concept could you have of the graceful presentation of delicacies? How could you know of hand-washing rites or how to pour—”
    “Zeroun, I have served in four noble Derzhi houses, most recently that of an excessively traditional baron of the most traditional of the noble houses, the House of Gorusch. I know how to lay the meat on top of the loaf. I know how to kneel just behind the cushions, yet serve without touching the guest. I know how to pour the nazrheel on top of the lemon, rather than drop the lemon in the tea. I know never, ever, to offer meat, cheese, or eggs if the guest’s knife is laid crosswise. Just tell me how the Prince’s table differs. If I do something wrong, we will both suffer the consequences.”
    That seemed to stifle his objections, though he took special care not to touch me and to point out to every other slave that passed by us that I was the lowest of the low and could not be trusted. I supposed that would make no difference if I was to be kept forever in the slave-house dungeon rather than join the other men who slept chained to the walls above my head every night. Trust among slaves was a fragile thing; once lost it was hard to recover, and one could find oneself a pariah among pariahs. I didn’t blame them. Trust had been bled from me long years in the past. But Zeroun was a good teacher. By the time the female slaves had laid the richly patterned cloths and gold plates on the low tables, set out the carafes of wine, and spread the freshly aired cushions alongside, he had crammed my head with every nuance of the Prince’s preferences.
    I had no thoughts to spare for Aleksander’s scheming. When the hour struck, the hour the Prince had set for his plot to unfold, I was trying not to drop a tray of twenty-one small basins of warmed, scented water between the kitchen and the Prince’s table. There were three tables set up in one of the small dining rooms. The Prince’s table, set for twenty-one, was elevated above the other two tables on a low dais. It looked like sixty or seventy people would be at the lower tables to witness whatever the Prince had in mind. A cold draft made the candle flames waver, and a servant stoked the great hearth in the corner of the room behind the dais. Whoever sat at the Prince’s far left would bake; whoever sat at his far right would freeze.
    About fifteen minutes past the striking of the hour, finely dressed, bejeweled Derzhi men and women began crowding into the dining room, jockeying for places at the lower tables. The Baron did not entertain, nor did the master before that, a less than prosperous merchant who could not afford to do so, so it had been on the order of five years since I had been in the midst of so many hostile people at once. It made me uneasy, but I distracted myself by listening for any snippet of conversation that might reveal what had transpired with the House of Mezzrah. Surely there were rumors of the execution or the summoning of the Mezzrahn lords. But I heard nothing beyond curiosity as to who would sit at the high table, what lady did the Prince fancy this month, and when was he ever going to get down to the business of the Dar Heged, the winter joining of northern Derzhi families, the business that had brought Aleksander to Capharna in the first place.
    I wondered if Aleksander planned to kill the eighteen nobles. Surely he was not that big a fool, though his own father had done something similar on more than one occasion. Hostages were another favorite Derzhi tactic, but it seemed too obvious. The nobles would not be naive enough to lay down their arms when entering the palace, and if Aleksander threatened them, they would fight. Unless ... I glanced at the elegantly laid head table with its twenty-one seats. The Derzhi had very strict guesting customs, drawn from their origins in the desert. When water was life to all, deprivation of water was seen as a crime unworthy of a true warrior. The bitterest