Page 7 of The Winner's Curse
Kestrel frowned, unsettled by the idea of inspecting any person, let alone this person. But before she could form a response, the auctioneer had left.
“How much?” Harman demanded. “How much, total, did this cost?”
She told him.
He drew in a long breath. “Your father—”
“I will tell my father.”
“Well, what am I supposed to do with him?”
Kestrel looked at the slave. He hadn’t moved, but remained standing on the same black tile as if still on the auction block. He had ignored the entire conversation, tuning out the Valorian he probably didn’t fully understand. His eyes were raised, resting on a painted nightingale that graced a far wall. “This is Smith,” Kestrel told the steward.
Harman’s anxiety eased somewhat. “A blacksmith?” Slaves were sometimes named by masters for their work. “We could use that. I’ll send him to the forge.”
“Wait. I’m not sure that’s where I want him.” She spoke to Smith in Herrani: “Do you sing?”
He looked at her then, and Kestrel saw the same expression she had seen earlier in the waiting room. His gray eyes were icy. “No.”
Smith had answered in her language, and his accent was light.
He turned away. Dark hair fell forward. It curtained his profile.
Kestrel’s nails bit into her palms. “See to it that he has a bath,” she told Harman in a voice she hoped was brisk rather than frustrated. “Give him appropriate clothes.”
She started to walk down the hallway, then stopped. The words flashed out of her mouth: “And cut his hair.”
Kestrel felt the chill of Smith’s gaze on her back as she retreated. It was easy, now, to name that expression in his eyes.
Contempt.
3
Kestrel didn’t know what to say.
Her father, fresh from a bath after a hot day of training soldiers, watered his wine. The third course was served: small hens stuffed with spiced raisins and crushed almonds. It tasted dry to her.
“Did you practice?” he asked.
“No.”
His large hands paused in their movements.
“I will,” she said. “Later.” She drank from her cup, then ran a thumb over its surface. The glass was smoky green and finely blown. It had come with the house. “How are the new recruits?”
“Wet behind the ears, but not a bad lot.” He shrugged. “We need them.”
Kestrel nodded. The Valorians had always faced barbarian invasions on the fringes of their territories, and as the empire had grown in the past five years, attacks became more frequent. They didn’t threaten the Herran peninsula, but General Trajan often trained battalions that would be sent to the empire’s outer reaches.
He prodded a glazed carrot with his fork. Kestrel looked at the silver utensil, its tines shining sharply in the candlelight. It was a Herrani invention, one that had been absorbed into her culture so long ago it was easy to forget Valorians had ever eaten with their fingers.
“I thought you were going to the market this afternoon with Jess,” he said. “Why didn’t she join us for dinner?”
“She didn’t accompany me home.”
He set down his fork. “Then who did?”
“Father, I spent fifty keystones today.”
