If I Pay Thee Not In Gold

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Xylina ignored the hum of whispered conversation that followed her as she wound her way through the crowded bodies in the bazaar. She kept her head high, pretending there was nothing more on her mind than the perfectly ordinary purchase of food. But her muscles were knotted with tension and she really would rather have been back in her home.

This task was ordinary for her, anyway, though odd or eccentric for any other woman. She sometimes wondered if she was the only Mazonite in the city who did not have at least one male slave to tend to the domestic chores. The bazaar thronged with male slaves, sent on the same errand she was performing herself. They were draped in the loose, soft, pastel tunics of household servants. The few freedmen who had permission to be in the marketplace at this hour were in black, and barefoot so that in theory they could not run very fast if they committed some crime.

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