2 – Jawaad’s Tea

 

The Callianis was speeding like the wind.

Damas had held the wheel of many ships up to this point, both before and after becoming Jawaad’s friend and employee. When it came to seamanship, he could claim that it was difficult to find anyone who knew more about it than he did. He had commanded the crew of several galleons, a few schooners, and baghlahs. He had even served on an Apostate behemoth; although in the case of the latter, he did not boast about it. No one would ever have believed him, and if anyone had by chance given credence to his words, Damas would have drawn particularly spicy trouble upon himself.

In all his long career, however, he had never yet seen a vessel of this kind maneuvered. After all, it was technically the first clipper-type sailboat to navigate the Seas of Separation. And though he was not a believer by a long shot, Damas would almost have caught himself thanking the gods for allowing men to invent such a marvel.

The ship was running full wind, and after checking three times, so surprised was he by the figures given to him by the anemometer and the log he had cast into the water, he was forced to certify that the Callianis was cutting through the waves at nearly seventeen knots. A insane speed; it was well beyond the fastest ships he had ever known.

He quickly gave the order, however, to douse the jibs and the foresail, to relieve the ship’s structure of the strain imposed upon it by the wind. He preferred to err on the side of caution, and the Callianis did not need to attempt to break a speed record on her first crossing between Armanth and Mélisaren.

His precaution drew a smile from Jawaad, who, on the aft deck, was observing the maneuver.

“She will break it.”

Damas, joining his friend, bare-chested like him despite the fine rain mixed with sea spray that had been lashing them since early morning, was surprised by the remark:

“What?…”

“The record for the crossing between Armanth and Mélisaren…”

“Don’t tell me breaking records is something that appeals to you, Jawaad?”

“Why not? It will only inflate Theobos’s pride a little more.”

Damas burst out laughing, and Jawaad pulled a smile in response, his dark eyes even lighting up with what seemed, a rare occurrence, genuine joy. Damas retorted:

“If it inflates any further, he’s going to burst out of his apron! I think he would have paid dearly to be on the first crossing.”

“No doubt. But he has another shipyard waiting for him. In less than a year, the Callianis will have two sisters…”

Damas leaned against the railing, watching the crew furl the sails. The sailboat rapidly lost speed, though to the naked eye she must still have been exceeding twelve knots. Relief could be read on the men’s faces; with less speed, there was less tension and strain required, whereas since dawn they had all been struggling to manage the ship in her reckless course. And Damas suspected that for many of these sailors, though all were loyal and long-standing companions of Jawaad, the vessel’s performance held something fantastical, and thus slightly unsettling.

He turned back to his boss:

“You’re launching an entire fleet?”

Jawaad nodded, leaning against the wheel. The navigator, two steps away, was lounging above the stairs of the aft deck. With such weather, the reduced speed, and the course set, he no longer really had to worry about remaining vigilant at his post, and was thus listening to his boss’s discussion with Damas.

“These ships are the future,” the Master Merchant resumed. “Even small and lightly armed, they are so fast that the most formidable galleons cannot catch them. But we had to start with the first…”

“I see… to test her qualities and weaknesses, and thus improve the next ones.”

Jawaad pulled a smile, stepping back from his support to reach out his arm and grasp the wheel. His fingers ran over the wood like a caress, as he stared at the close horizon, blocked by large swirls of blue-gray clouds. Damas had always been quick and intelligent. Above all, he was a highly cultured man, far beyond the Armanthian average. Although his erudition was in a way merely pragmatic, focusing only on subjects that seemed useful and of interest to him, the Jemmaï, with talents both of a hitman and a bosun, displayed a rich and curious intellect.

Damas saw the smile and understood it right away:

“And you’re counting on me to discover those qualities and weaknesses, huh?”

Jawaad did not answer… he merely let slip another of his brief smiles beneath his unreadable gaze. But, of course, the Jemmaï was not mistaken.

 

***

 

Jawaad’s cabin, located beneath the aft deck, was spacious and bright. Compared to his spartan quarters on his Alba Rupes estate, it was even luxuriously appointed. A feeling of cozy comfort, heightened by the quantity and variety of items stored there among the hangings, cushions, rugs, and pleasant woodwork. But the presence or utility of certain articles aboard a sailboat would have left many a captain thoroughly perplexed.

Lisa had nevertheless recognized with surprise things that were rather familiar to her: a real gramophone equipped with parts and ornamentation whose purpose she could not grasp, and a terrestrial, or more accurately, Lossyan, globe, traced with latitudes and longitudes, but whose major part was merely sketched, bearing here and there the inscription in large letters “unknown lands.” She had also recognized a small forced-air coal stove, equipped with thermal insulation to retain heat, surprising in an ingenuity that seemed quite modern for this civilization, which in her eyes was backward and barbaric. There were still other, more discreet instruments placed on the desk: compasses, a magnifying glass, a slide rule, a mechanical pencil, and what looked like real white paper, or even an astrolabe. And, of course, there was a bedside lamp with a filament bulb and Loss-metal dynamo. In most cases, she would have been incapable of using all these objects, the most modern of which were, at the very least, a century behind her own world. It had even been necessary for Azur to show her how to light and extinguish the alcohol lanterns that illuminated the cabin when night fell.

Jawaad’s favorite displayed infinite patience with the young Earthwoman. She had tended to her hand and had changed the bandage again that very morning, disinfecting the deep wound on her palm. Lisa had not complained once, but her shudders and grimaces of pain spoke for her. She had not commented either, even if in her opinion and from her slender medical knowledge, stitches should have been required. But that did not seem to worry Azur overly much.

The two slaves — the only ones on the ship — were returning from the galley, where the psyké had prepared her master’s meal, aided by Lisa, even if her efforts had been reduced to bringing her sister-slave whatever the latter pointed out and watching her work. Slop for the sailors was the cook’s affair, including for Damas, who, despite holding the rank of bosun, ate with his men during the day. Crossing the deck, a thing so natural for Azur, had been an ordeal for Lisa, both on the way there and back. She had to endure a fear bordering on panic beside the sailors and their expressions of obvious concupiscence as the frail, yet oh-so-delicious little redheaded slave passed by. She noted, despite herself, that from those three months of mistreatment, followed by training in Batsu’s cages and Priscius’s gardens, she had inherited what clearly resembled a visceral fear of men, as well as an obvious agoraphobia. Azur, who also made the observation while watching her newest sister-slave, whom she had already adopted, was not worried by it.

In the ten years she had been Jawaad’s slave, the Psyké had only twice been offered to the lust of a few crew members following serious offenses, including an attempted escape; punishments whose painful mark she had nevertheless long retained in her mind as well as her body. But apart from those two events, which she preferred to keep buried, she knew she was safe: no man on board would have dared make an overly inappropriate gesture toward her, at the risk of drawing Jawaad’s wrath. At worst, some would run a hand over her shoulder or beneath her lower back, and her only response was a smile in return, without lingering. Of course, some sailors tried it with the new girl, out of playfulness, and often without the slightest malice. But things went less well: they triggered reactions of panic and true revulsion in Lisa. Had they held glowing embers in their palms, she would not have flinched differently. Of course, Lisa did not dare do anything to stop the men from groping her, but it froze her with fear, and at her reactions they stopped immediately, some grumbling, others genuinely asking what the problem was. Azur contented herself, still smiling and confident, with pulling her sister-slave along a little faster behind her with a few polite words for the sailors, just to make them understand with gentleness that Jawaad’s new girl was not yet accustomed to that sort of familiarity. Behind their backs, quite a few men wondered where, by the abysses, Jawaad had gone to fetch that one.

When the two young women rejoined the cabin, Lisa was panting with panic and her eyes were drowned in tears. Overcome by mixed feelings of horror and deep anguish, the harsh impression of having dirty skin that was truly burning where hands had lingered too long, she took a long moment to calm down. She took refuge in a corner of the cabin, on the thick, comfortable mats adorned with cushions where she and Azur slept, while the psyké set the table for the meal, which she kept warm under a earthenware cloche.

With a few glances at her sister-slave, Azur knew what Lisa was experiencing and managed to decipher the fearful, chaotic thread of her thoughts. But she had to make the strange observation again, which she had noticed since the previous day, that she found it difficult to read deeply into the barbarian’s psyche. A bit as though the immense cultural gulf separating them rendered the details of her thoughts hermetic. Where she could, with a single glance and an ease terrifying to anyone exposed by the psyké, understand everything about the people she crossed paths with, even her master, who appeared so unfathomable, she had to make a special, sustained effort to read deeply into the young Earthwoman. Without ever, to her great surprise, being entirely sure of her reading, as if she were reading a book written in an archaic, obsolete variant of her own language. Or too modern, since, if Azur knew nothing of Earth, it was sometimes whispered on the subject that it was a world ages ahead in knowledge compared to Loss. Though she hardly believed it.

Azur sighed. It was not easy for her to look after a girl so traumatized, so prone to panic, without, on top of that, being able to truly use her talents as a psyké to anticipate her emotions. And then, she did not necessarily understand very well the fundamental reasons for such despondency. There again, she knew she was handicapped by an entire cultural gulf she had no chance of imagining.

She tried to distract her:

“Have you ever seen a music box?”

She simplified her words so that Lisa, whose Athémaïs she knew was limited, could understand. Joining action to words, Azur placed the horn’s needle onto the playback cylinder, and turned a small crank before starting the mechanism. The music arose, crackling a little. The sound was nasal, the melody a bit strange to Lisa’s ears.

Lisa made a surprised face. And immediately fascinated, her eyes wide open, still tearful, she nodded: of course she had seen that before, it was a primitive record player, she who came from a world where one could listen to hours of songs on a device held in the palm of one’s hand. But the melody—violins, xylophone, rhythms, and something that reminded her of a harp—resembled chamber music with Middle Eastern accents. She felt a powerful surge of nostalgia from it, and murmured, moved:

“That exists where I come from…. It’s… it’s beautiful.”

And she began to hum along with the melody, as though hypnotized by the somewhat scratched, muffled notes the gramophone reeled off.

It was Azur’s turn to be surprised, and to smile. Lisa had a magnificent, crystalline voice, and even humming awkwardly to this air that was unknown to her, her pure voice touched her directly in the soul, a pleasure that the psyké immediately likened to a brief deliverance. It had the salutary advantage of freeing the young barbarian a little from her terror and prostration. Azur forgot her surroundings to let herself be carried away by the music and Lisa’s voice. Neither of them therefore saw Jawaad arrive.

Cylinders for this type of gramophone did not allow for playing more than three to four minutes of music. It was already a luxury to be able to record in this way and afford this kind of rare, expensive device. The moment of abandon hardly lasted, but long enough for Azur to watch Lisa hum, moved and relieved to have found something that could distract the little Earthwoman, while herself forgetting a little the vigilance she would otherwise have displayed. Which had been enough for Jawaad to settle his back against the woodwork of his cabin’s entrance and listen, as silent as a wild beast, arms crossed, to the music accompanied by his slave’s spellbinding singing, which he was discovering, of course, just like Azur. He had closed his eyes and was enjoying the improvisation, despite its awkward side.

Playful, he did not break the silence when the music stopped, reopening his eyes to observe the two women in complete immobility.

“You sing very well,” Azur resumed at the end of the piece. “You should sing for our master; I’m sure he would like it.”

At the same time, she had the reflex to look toward the door and came face to face with Jawaad. She froze, for once, before letting out a joyous laugh:

“My Master! You heard, then?”

Jawaad answered with a vague nod, staring at Lisa, who gasped with fear and lowered her gaze immediately, almost trembling. He straightened up and, in passing, affectionately ruffled the young barbarian’s mop of hair:

“I’m hungry.”

Azur offered a smile and hurried over to the desk to lift the cloche hiding her master’s meal, pulling out the chair for him to sit, remaining right beside him. She was about to make a sign to call over her sister-slave, who was still standing fearfully near the gramophone, but held back and looked at Jawaad as he settled before his plate. He barked briefly toward Lisa:

“Approach!”

Encouraged by Azur’s welcoming, reassuring smile, the young redhead stopped fearfully, standing near her master’s chair. What was she supposed to do? The psyké on the other side, who knew, waited. A clear, confident look from her tried to reassure Lisa. Azur would have been the first to say that one had to tame the Master Merchant a little to no longer fear him and be unnerved by his cold tone and his rough, dry manners. And that it was necessary to focus on the meaning of his gestures and attentions, rather than on his attitude, to understand the man and realize that it was ultimately very pleasant to love him and belong to him. But while she fully intended to show all of this to Lisa, she considered that the most effective way would be for the young woman to grasp it on her own.

Jawaad snapped his fingers and indicated the ground with his gaze. Lisa, who was still trembling like a leaf, obeyed by instinct: nothing surprising after weeks of conditioning to those orders at Priscius’s. Head lowered, back arched, hands crossed behind her back, there again, she did not need to think about the posture she held: the training had imprinted these reflexes down to her smallest muscles without her brain having to think about it.

For Azur, this moment was just as natural, but entirely devoid of her sister-slave’s anxieties, and she too settled on her knees, but more nonchalantly, more languidly as well. She knew that Jawaad shared his meal with his slaves, and when he was there, she invariably ate what was served to the Master Merchant, directly from his hand. It had become an intimate, pleasant moment for her, one she cherished; all the more so since in his absence, she was most often restricted, like all the slaves of the household, to a strict and bland diet, something quite common almost everywhere, but which implied that little care was taken to make the slaves’ food pleasing to their taste.

Jawaad did not need to concern himself with Azur to know what his slave was thinking: he knew her by heart. It was thus his new acquisition he was observing, as impenetrably as ever. And he began his meal according to a well-established ritual. He served himself with his fingers, biting into slices of bread or vegetable matchsticks and sliced meat. Each time, he left a piece of the food into which he had bitten. The first portion was for Azur, who came to take the piece offered by the Master Merchant with her lips. That was the ritual; the plate was very bountiful and would suffice to feed three people. As much as possible, Jawaad regularly fed his slaves from his hand. It was not, moreover, a mere whim. In this manner, he imbued them with the bond tying them to him, in an intimate, repeated way, reminding them thereby without effort that he was the nourishing hand, the one holding sway over them. The hand of the master, of power and authority.

The second portion was thus for Lisa, who hesitated briefly. And found herself with a half-chewed piece of meat under her nose, which Jawaad ended up shaking insistently. Being fed in this manner hardly thrilled her. She thought briefly that it was not very hygienic, but above all that it frankly resembled the degrading way one would give food to a pet dog. But she was too afraid to cross the Master Merchant by refusing. And she had to eat; her stomach found, moreover, the moment highly opportune to rumble in protest. She made up her mind and came to catch the piece of meat with the tips of her lips. Jawaad was still observing her, and repeated the ritual. He kept silent, handing portion after portion to each of his two slaves, the plate gradually emptying. He finally spoke at the end of his meal, addressing his favorite:

“Has she asked questions, Azur?”

The psyké raised her head to look openly, smiling and devoted, at her master:

“A few, at the estate; but not since we’ve been on the ship, my master. She doesn’t speak much, to tell the truth.”

Jawaad nodded thoughtfully, as impassive as ever. He turned to Lisa and caught her chin to force her to look at him. He observed her evasive gaze for a moment, before growling briefly:

“Look at me!”

Lisa raised her eyes immediately. Her huge pupils, of such deep jade green, were still throbbing with fear. The Master Merchant did not seem moved in the slightest by it, settling his dark, unfathomable gaze upon her:

“Speak.”

Azur said nothing, studying the Earthwoman. She was curious to hear what the first words would be that the still-terrified young woman would dare utter. Lisa stammered, awkwardly, even more intimidated by the dark gaze weighing heavily upon her, feeling her stomach knot and the meal, though still somewhat meager after weeks of deprivation, wanting to follow the path by which it had arrived, in reverse:

“I… I don’t dare, my… my master. The tutor… forbade us to… to speak without being asked.”

“Now, I’m asking you to speak.”

“About… about what, my master?”

Jawaad moved his head closer to the frightened young woman, who went pale as a sheet before his eyes, bringing out the freckles dusting her face. The Master Merchant’s gaze weighed a little heavier:

“Ask your questions!”

Azur drew herself up a little, to attract her frightened sister-slave’s gaze for a brief instant and reassure her, with a nod and once again a confident smile. She saw her panicking at top speed, but there was no reason to be afraid, and she knew it. Although she easily understood that in the immediate moment, the young Earthwoman could not realize it. It was simply necessary to encourage her and help her out of her panic.

Jawaad, who kept his gaze riveted to Lisa’s frightened, almost nauseous expression, was not fooled that his favorite must be making some facial expression behind his back to encourage and reassure his new slave. He would have been disappointed had it been otherwise. The latter finally stammered:

“Ho… how did the… the ship float in the air, my master?”

It was the first question that came to Lisa’s mind, but also the least compromising. She did not dare ask what tormented her most: what her fate would be, why he had chosen her, what would become of her sister, nor what she was supposed to know about her new owner and her new forced role. Since departing the previous day, facing the spectacle of the Callianis tearing herself several meters above the waves as if ready to take flight like a bird, she had tried to understand, in vain, by what miracle this ship had been able to levitate, and what was the cause and utility of it. Jawaad narrowed his eyes and pulled a barely visible smile, which moreover escaped the Earthwoman, who was staring only at that gaze, so dark and terrifying. He appreciated the question, even if he had easily guessed that it was also an evasion.

“I will show you how. Clear the table!”

 

A moment later, Jawaad was leading his two slaves to the engine deck. Azur knew the way and followed, smiling. The Master Merchant had caught Lisa’s wrist and was guiding her by pulling her without real consideration. Located beneath the lower deck, which served as quarters for the men on board, at the level of the holds, there were two engine rooms housing the four levitation engines, at the stern and bow of the Callianis. Jawaad descended into the forward room, stopping before the two enormous mechanisms controlling the Loss-metal poles and the direction of their repulsive force. The machines occupied practically all the space, leaving only cramped access ways, and Lisa and Azur had to press close to Jawaad, who stepped between the two huge apparatuses, releasing the young Earthwoman’s wrist. He settled a look where one might have guessed pride upon the two imposing, complex structures, made of copper and iron gears, pivots and wooden beams, intertwined ropes and cables, and what Lisa would later learn was resin cement, resembling a sort of smooth plastic with amber reflections. Jawaad detailed the young Earthwoman, who was seeing these machines for the first time, before hailing his favorite:

“Azur.”

The psyké understood right away, smiling, and showed Lisa the mechanism located at the top and base of each device. The latter recognized, though without certainty, kinds of electromechanical engines, dominated by moving copper parts, and cables insulated with thick fabric mesh.

“Those are Loss-metal dynamos. For the ship to levitate, you have to bring the opposing Loss poles closer together—they naturally want to repel each other. The dynamos serve to do that. The closer the poles are forced together, the stronger their repulsion becomes; and at a certain point, they end up floating. But since the engines are lashed to the ship, they lift it along with them, making it levitate. As if it weighed nothing!”

Jawaad nodded briefly and continued himself, before the fascinated and somewhat lost face of Lisa, who was vainly bringing into play all her slender knowledge of physics to explain the phenomenon, and must have found no help in it:

“The ship is not weightless. The repulsive force effect applies in one direction, and can thus be used to push the Callianis and make her levitate above the ground. All the gears of the structure’s mechanism allow for directing this repulsion and channeling it, while resisting the formidable pressure exerted on her structure.”

Lisa babbled:

“But…. what… what is Loss-metal, my master?”

“A metal, rare, which does not exist where you come from, but here, which serves us to produce energy and float our vessels.”

Jawaad looked at Azur and nodded to let her continue the explanation.

“You see, the dynamos also function with Loss-metal. That produces electricity. To make the machines turn, and force the engines’ poles closer together. But the dynamos burn their fuel doing so; then you have to change it, and the reserves get used up. Since Loss-metal is rare, you can’t necessarily fly a ship for too long, or it would cost quite a lot, you understand?”

Lisa understood very well. She even realized, with astonishment, that they were explaining to her, nothing less that on this world she readily treated as barbaric, cruel, and backward, men had likely invented anti-gravity engines. Although she did not grasp at all how it could work, for it was obvious that it could not be explained by her meager Earthling knowledge of physics, nor what they were capable of doing with it, she realized, after the electric goad, the bedside lamp, and the gramophone, the extent of their technical and scientific knowledge, which she could never have suspected. She remained open-mouthed. And was even more dumbfounded by Jawaad’s reflection at that moment:

“In your world, machines fly and can cover thousands of miles at hundreds of meters in altitude. We do not have that. But we have other sciences just as formidable, which you will learn to know.”

The young woman stared at the quiet machines, as if at rest, looking as fascinated as ever, realizing that Jawaad too knew more about Earth than she could obviously guess. She wondered how. Before her, the machines seemed to belong more to wooden mechanisms and ironwork straight out of a Renaissance engineer’s workshop than to modern industrial apparatuses. They seemed as fragile as they were massive.

Jawaad’s dry tone brought her immediately back to her fearful reality:

“Now, when you don’t know, you ask! Understood?”

Lisa nodded, intimidated. She received another smack without brutality on the back of her head:

“Understood?”

She stammered immediately:

“Ye… yes, my master.”

Just behind the young Earthwoman, Azur was smiling peacefully. Everything would be fine, she knew it, and slowly, her new sister-slave would get used to the Master Merchant and gain confidence.

 

***

 

“I’m going to teach you how to make tea!”

The voice was joyful and enthusiastic. Azur was staring with a playful, tender, and mischievous look at her sister-slave, lost in the ship’s galley. But tea was a very serious matter. A slave of Jawaad was better off knowing how to prepare his favorite drink to perfection, even before knowing how to cook or serve. Besides, Azur herself was forced to admit that in ten years, she had never perfectly satisfied her master’s demands in this area; Jawaad often prepared his tea himself.

Lisa thus watched Azur work, bustling before her. She remained nervous and tense, dreading every raised voice and shout on the ship — and there was no shortage of them — which was still speeding along. On such a vessel, one could never be alone, and there were always clamors, calls, or songs. Sailors came and went incessantly, including in the galley, which plunged Lisa back into her anxieties, which she could not manage to control. Azur paused in her preparations, and snapped her fingers under the young redhead’s nose to attract her attention:

“That will pass. But now, watch carefully, for every step is important.”

The young woman flinched a little, and in a nervous, strangled sigh, concentrated to stare at the cook. Azur had brought out a ceramic teapot and a large cup, and put a small cauldron filled with already quite hot water over the fire. The galley had a large insulated flask: a boiler of firebricks that heated water and preserved its temperature. Without Lisa having a real idea of the device’s detailed design, she had been astonished by this technical comfort. Lossyans often seemed to have innovated far more than she could have imagined in recent weeks. Even the hearths of the cast-iron stove were notoriously complex and of ingenious technology, their insulation and ventilation designed to ensure maximum heat over time using a minimum of coal, safely, what’s more. A caution justified on a structure made entirely of wood.

Azur used the boiling water to douse the teapot and the cup. She set both still-steaming utensils on a clean cloth, and slid into the empty, scalding teapot a small tulle bag containing the dose of tea she had carefully taken from an ornate box. Pouring the boiling water back into the reserve — on a ship, whatever can be recycled is as much as possible — she set water to heat again, roughly equivalent to the contents of the teapot itself.

“In Armanth,” she commented, “there are three or four ways to prepare and serve tea. In some houses, it’s truly an art. That’s the case with our master. He can pay a fortune for the best teas, but he likes the purest preparation. Did you watch carefully what I did?”

Lisa nodded, still nervous, but she had not missed a single one of her sister-slave’s smallest gestures. The psyké had not yet realized that the young Earthwoman possessed a prodigiously sharp memory. Azur let out a joyous laugh:

“You know, saying yes isn’t going to bite you! Good, so you respect the steps I just did. For the dosage, it’s always about five pinches for a teapot. You have to scald the service before using it. And you let the tea rest in the teapot; that way, in the heat, it begins to open up and give birth to its fragrance.”

Lisa answered a weak yes, before looking at the water heating, then at her sister-slave, approaching a little closer:

“Are… are you going to boil the water again?”

“Oh no, especially not! It has to be at an ideal temperature; it should only simmer. Here, look. You see, at the bottom, small round bubbles are going to appear, like so many little eyes. That’s when the water will be perfectly hot. Neither before nor after…. There… right now!”

Azur caught the saucepan to pour its contents into the teapot with care.

“And you don’t pour the water onto the tea. That would burn it, and its taste would be ruined. You shouldn’t stir either, so you pour slowly and let it infuse.”

“And how… how long do you let it infuse?”

The psyké offered a broad smile at the young woman’s question. That she took this timid initiative to ask and learn more was a small step in the right direction, and Azur encouraged her with warm, confident looks:

“That depends on the tea; each type requires a different infusion. If you hesitate, you can go get the hourglass that’s placed on our master’s desk. It counts down three minutes, and it’s graduated. Me, I’ve gotten into the habit of counting in my head. In fact, I use songs whose duration I roughly know. There are many varieties of tea, and you will have to recognize them all. This one is a blended green tea; it contains about half black tea leaves and yellow tea. Since it’s a bit strong, you have to let it infuse just a little over four minutes. But that changes for every tea.”

Azur took the time to explain all the other teas, and the art of preparing them. And there were many. Yellow, white, and black teas, smoked teas, teas with crushed and broken leaves, autumn and spring harvests that were not infused in the same way, flavored teas that each required specific treatment. She was, after ten years in her master’s service, a true encyclopedia of this art, a masterful mania cultivated by Jawaad. She explained, moreover, this stream of complex information with obvious passion, the fruit of her devotion to the taciturn Master Merchant, whom she loved with all her soul. Of course, she did not really expect Lisa to retain everything on the first try. She would be surprised to realize, later, that she had forgotten strictly nothing.

The tea had had more than enough time to infuse, while she was still not done with her explanation, but she carefully withdrew the tulle bag from the teapot to fill the cup destined for Jawaad, while continuing her joyful, passionate discourse:

“Our master likes to drink his tea prepared cup by cup. But while he knows how to do it, I can’t manage it; I never succeed that way. So I prefer to use the teapot.” Azur fixed her eyes on her sister-slave, and resumed: “Have you learned how to serve?”

Azur did not use the name Priscius had given to Lisa. Even if in an emergency she would not have hesitated, Jawaad had taken it from her and had not yet chosen another. Azur fearfully respected that kind of rule on the Master Merchant’s part.

“Um… I…” Lisa hesitated, and realized she was not even sure what her senior was talking about. “No… I think that…. No, I don’t know…”

The psyké was not very surprised; she had had time to understand that Jawaad had obtained the young Earthwoman long before her education was complete; she likely had only the basics or not much more. She had not yet guessed that Lisa was a Languiren, and she would have admitted herself that it would have been difficult for her to understand it. Languirens were rare, and most often locked away in the Slave Gardens of the wealthiest men. She had never met one closely enough or long enough to know how to recognize them, despite her supernatural ability to decipher and read the faces of her interlocutors.

“Don’t worry, it’s simple, and you’ve learned what you need. When you serve a master, if you can, you kneel and present the dish, or the cup, with respect, lowering your gaze or your head. You say something to him, for example: Your dish, master, please. With our master, it’s almost the same. But if you want to please him, don’t lower your head, just your eyes, just long enough to serve. He likes his slaves not to be afraid to look at him. And when you serve him a drink, especially tea, you don’t present the cup to him, but nestle it against your breasts. And you wait for him to come take it. All right?”

Lisa suppressed a fearful, almost bitter grimace; but she nodded, silent, swallowing hard. Azur immediately deciphered what the young woman was hiding at that moment. The fear, but also the shame and humiliation at her sister-slave’s explanation, even if the latter knew that she had understood and would execute it perfectly. Azur set down the hot cup and came to gather Lisa in her arms to hold her gently, after a respectful nod toward one of the men on board who had just crossed the galley, casting a casual glance at the two slaves. The young redheaded woman shivered instinctively, docile and tender, as if the reaction, almost sensual, had been immediate, which the psyké noted right away, seeing her suddenly calm down. Smiling, she whispered into Lisa’s ear:

“I know what you’re feeling; I know it because I’ve been through it. What I cannot know is what you see when you look at our world, its codes, its manners, and its injustices. I know that to you, it is strange—stranger than anything I could imagine. It must seem awful, barbaric, and cruel to you. It is, yes, and it has been with you, I know well. It surely will be still, and it will seem unjust to you for a long time. But you are safe, now. You simply have to accept your fate and learn to serve, and above all to serve our master. In exchange, you will be pampered, protected, and even appreciated, if not loved. Yes, there are heaps of unjust and difficult things you will have to do, that you will have to accept, and that will make you ashamed and hurt you, at first. You have already accepted and done plenty, and you will have to do it again. Yes, if you make a mistake or displease our master, you will be punished; he will be able to make you suffer, and you will take it badly. But our master never strikes his slaves, and he does not like using corporal punishment. But understand well: you belong to him, and he has all power over you. I know you were taught all this by force; I am repeating things you must have heard so much already… That is how practically all slaves are educated. But you know, if training is so harsh and pitiless in the Slave Gardens, it is so that once sold to a master, a girl has only one desire: to do everything to please her owner, and realize she can have a gentle life if she serves him with all her heart, blindly. That isn’t always the case, you know? It’s a sort of lie, another conditioning to create hope—it’s yet another training. It’s cruel, but that is how it is. But with our master, you will have a gentle life! You already know intimately that he possesses you; your body knows it and almost screams it; as soon as he is there, your eyes say it without being able to lie, and that, I see better than anyone. So accept your fate, now. When you have done so, you will be happy.”

A long, soft moment passed. Azur thought briefly that the tea would cool down a bit, and that Jawaad would not hesitate to point it out. Fortunately, Lisa must have thought of it too, and decided to answer, her voice knotted, snuggled in the psyké’s protective arms:

“I… I have endured so much shame…. so much humiliation, so much pain that… that I don’t even know how anyone could do even worse to me. He… he frightens me, you know? All men frighten me, now. But… I… I promise you I’ll try… I promise you.”

“Then give me a smile, all right? For once that you’re speaking a little and not crying…”

The young woman nodded and raised her head. The effort was difficult, and uncertain. But she managed, and offered Azur the first sincere smile she was able to draw upon her lips—the very first of this new life that she had no choice but to accept.