Mother and Daughter, Together

Rome, Ciampino Airport.

Once we landed I rented a vehicle. With work to do in the city, I went with a high-end van again, took the wheel myself, and slipped out toward the southeastern outskirts. Aphago had already given me the rough location. We'd kept talking on the plane until we settled on something suitable, and what we found was a villa with a working farm, south of Lanuvio on Rome's southeastern fringe, which I rented outright.

The owner grew grapes. When Italian wine fell out of fashion he put the whole farm up for sale, but several acres of vineyard don't move easily, and until a buyer appeared his stopgap was to run the place through Airbnb. So I took the lot — some thirteen thousand square meters of farm and grounds, and the two-story villa sitting in the middle of it.

It was a thirty-minute drive out of central Rome. For me, the scarcity of people coming and going was a merit, not a drawback. I booked the house for a month to start. If it proved a usable point for crossing to and from Gaia, I meant to look at a long lease, or at buying it outright.

We arrived, and I walked ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the interior. I switched on the inspection gear I'd bought in Istanbul through a lawyer and checked for any CCTV or listening devices I might have missed. When the sweep was done I went out to the living room, opened a magic pouch, and drew out what was inside.

"All of the Biological Containment Bags. Out."

Glossy black leather sacks spread across the floor. I took one, pulled it open left and right, and the people packed inside came spilling out — Maximus and the other slaves, and the jeonse-fraud family and the real estate broker I'd brought all the way from Korea.

A magic pouch is built, by design, so it cannot hold a living thing. Try to make one that can, and the difficulty of crafting it jumps by tens of times over. They're hard to produce in the first place, and the cost climbs just as sharply. The Biological Containment Bag was made to get around that flaw — that limitation. It exploits a gap in the magical formula that drives a storage pouch. A living creature sealed inside one is cut off completely from the outside, and so the magic pouch never recognizes it as alive. Thanks to that, you can put a person in a bag and carry them. Weighing that advantage, I'd paid fifteen gold apiece and bought ten more. Not cheap. Still, it was the bags that let me move slaves and cargo to Rome.

The slaves I'd pulled free dragged the merchandise down into the basement and locked it away. I made one more circuit of the house, then went looking for a place to cross into Gaia. Out on the farm I walked slowly, talking with Aphago.

"A little farther north, if you would. Yes. Let's go another fifty meters. A bit more to the right. No — farther than that. Around here, I expect, will do."

"And the coordinates on ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the other side?"

"Somewhere in the mountains of southern Geronia, I should think."

"We'll know once we cross."

I had Aphago open the gate. Silver light split the air. I sent IS-2 through, and a moment later he came back.

"The middle of a forest, Master. Nothing nearby that would get in the way."

"Then we cross. Maximus, take the lead."

"Yes, Master."

With Maximus in front, I brought them all through — the merchandise seized since America, and the Korean slave-candidates staring at the silver dimensional gate with their mouths hanging open, souls half gone — and stepped once more into the world of Gaia.

We came through the gate and checked the surroundings. The crossing itself looked sound enough. This world took magic as a matter of course anyway. Even if a mage popped into the air by spatial transfer, no one was going to call the police.

I stored the point in Aphago, brought out the Humvee, and drove in toward the city of Gerona.

Geronia, the maritime kingdom on the Adria Sea. Its capital, Gerona, had grown rich on sea trade and swelled into a metropolis of a million souls. In sheer size it couldn't match Harpeon, capital of the Zahed Empire to the east. In wealth, in splendor, and in the polish that wealth had raised, though, declining Harpeon was no comparison at all.

We passed the walls into the city and made for the place arranged beforehand. Marco's caravan was already there.

"You've arrived, Guildmaster."

"Yeah. Good work, Marco. How was the voyage?"

"We made it without any serious trouble. Chartering the ship outright spared us a lot of inconvenience, and though a few of the goods suffered seasickness and diarrhea, they arrived without real damage."

"Good. And the preparations?"

"Yes. Since we got in early, I've finished registering with the merchants' guild. The stalls should be up by this afternoon, so we'll be ready to open for business tomorrow."

"Then see that tomorrow's goods are properly looked after, finish today's work quickly, and get a solid night's rest. Meat and slaves both sell better fresh."

"Quite right, Guildmaster."

I talked with Marco while I checked the state of the stalls. The counters for ordinary goods, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the stage in the center for the high-end slave auction, were nearly finished going up. Once I'd confirmed the setup, I headed for the camp they'd prepared outside the city.

As usual, the camp was laid out in a circle: my private quarter, the area where the slaves rested, and the shared spaces — the mess and the like — in the middle. New intermediate ground had been added at both ends, between the slave quarter and the guildmaster's. One side housed the caravan staff, Marco and Argon; the other, the men and women bought at a steep price, and the demi-human slaves. Maximus, whom I'd named slave overseer, quartered with the caravan people.

The slaves who'd finished preparing for tomorrow's trade came back in. I fed them a solid dinner ahead of the business. We boiled a stew packed with the vegetables, potatoes, and meat I'd bought in Istanbul, filled them with hot meat broth, then heated a great load of coarse gravel by magic and spread it over the ground for warmth. The slaves to be sold tomorrow were sent to bed early. Business class and decent lodgings or not, a journey that long leaves its fatigue. I meant to sleep early myself, against tomorrow. I washed in hot water and stepped into the sleeping tent.

And inside it — though I had given no such order — Enne was waiting to receive me, together with her daughter Yuriya.

Seeing me, Enne flicked her eyes toward the girl. Yuriya caught the look, knelt before me, and folded forward until she was face down on the ground.

"What's this?"

Until now Enne had begged me not to touch her daughters, and had tended my nights with everything she had.

"Master. Yuriya, you see, once had a fiancé."

A fiancé. I'd heard as much. The second son of a comital house of some renown in the Drail Kingdom. But when House Malik, the viscount's line, was made to bear the blame for the defeat at Albredo and the third prince's disappearance, the viscounty was stripped away, the family was sold into slavery, and the engagement was broken as a matter of course.

"The match was made when this child was still small. Because of it, Yuriya has kept herself untouched to this day."

Ah. A virgin.

Before I knew it, my eyes were traveling over the body prostrated in front of me. Something precious had been sitting under my nose, and I hadn't known. Yuriya was slated to go up as premium goods in tomorrow's high-end auction. The thought of selling a virgin made me click my tongue at the waste of it. And yet why, on this of all nights, was her mother suddenly boasting of the girl's maidenhead?

"What?"

I hadn't expected those words from Enne, who until now had given body and heart alike to keeping her daughters safe.

In truth, on the voyage over, she had gathered both girls and schooled them.

Worse, while the master was away, a caravan man named Marco had gone so far as to say he would put Yuriya up tomorrow as top-tier goods. Enne and Yuriya, in their haste, had no room left to pick and choose. And so, on the day their master returned, Enne took her daughter's hand and brought her to the sleeping tent herself.

I saw what she was after. She wanted to remain here, in my service.

Close to a hundred gold had already gone into the two of them. A sizable investment, by my own measure. I ran the numbers in my head. Marco had said that selling them would bring three hundred gold at the least, three hundred and fifty. Too much money to simply throw away. And it wasn't only the money. What grated was loading a private appetite onto an investment. If I started keeping the pieces I'd sunk serious coin into, one after another, instead of selling them, the caravan's operations would suffer for it in the end. That was the one ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠thing I had to avoid in running a business. If I meant to succeed as a slave trader, and to make good on the dream of holding a respectable domain in my own name, I needed a cold head for business.

I had settled on that, and was about to say so, when Enne spoke.

Wait. Hold on. The both of them?

In that instant the curiosity and the crooked lust that had been set hard inside me began to boil. A forbidden imagining threw the breaker on my cold reason. Before I knew it, my eyes were moving from one of them to the other.

Enne came close, set a hand on my shoulder, and kissed me. Past her head, tilted to one side, Yuriya rose into view from where she had been bowed. Slowly, she began to take off the clothes she wore.

Resolve matters. I know an iron rule isn't meant to be broken. Damn it. I wasn't saving a country. I was doing all of this to enjoy myself.

So I savored the kiss with Enne, and as Yuriya drew near I caught her by the waist and pulled her in.