One

Kronos Heraclius dufiarchen dindrienfiardu - alfiov drichen dinenfiar drifiar - nualkyulka (Year of Heraclius Six hundred and thirty-nine - day three hundred and fifty-seven - morning)

The interior of the room was dimly lit by just two lanterns fuelled by oil from the gut of a silth. Outside, the larger of the two moons of Heraklion rose majestically into the night sky. Inside, three men playing a game with pegs and a board drilled with holes drank warmed sulce.

Nothing was said.

In a corner of the room the landlord sat, his head cradled in his arms across the table before him. On the floor, cross-legged, sat a young dancing girl, her routine over, her duty now to wait at table, to serve the customers, and when they had left, normally at around the third hour after midnight, to clear up after them, to wash the dishes, to return any uneaten food to the cold room below ground, and finally, when that was done, to sleep for just three hours before getting up to prepare food for the morning custom.

Occasionally, though not so often during the winter months, her duties extended to entertaining customers in one of the upstairs rooms, luxuriously appointed for the purpose. Though she derived no pleasure from such additional duties, she nevertheless looked forward to those evenings and nights when she would lead a customer or sometimes more than one up the narrow flight of stairs. For those apartments represented an opulence, a richness, an air of grace and good living that she could never hope to attain in her own small box of a room, with a canvas couch supported across two wooden blocks, no window, no door, no privacy, nowhere to be alone with her thoughts.

Tonight it looked as though her duties would terminate with washing up and retiring to her couch. The three men playing their pegboard game, called 'kamacha', were not interested in her, or in any of the other girls who served in the tavern. They were old men, old and feeble, still able to appreciate her dancing, but too old to raise anything other than their beakers.

She glanced up at her master, and, seeing that he was fast asleep, and confirming it to herself as the noise of his snoring reached her ears, got up and began to collect up the beakers in readiness for washing up. On one table there was evidence that younger men had been there earlier in the evening, but they had drunk too much, all of them, and had left prematurely. Garikssen did not tolerate drunks. He kept male slaves for the purpose of evicting them when it became clear that they were going to be troublesome.

On another table there were two glasses half-full of sulce, and a platter of bread and cheese. Karenza glanced back to her master, satisfying herself that he was asleep, and took a large, knobbly piece of the fresh bread and tore at it with her strong, even white teeth. It was several hours since he had permitted her to eat. Further, the sulce, a clear, golden liquid, of which there must be at the very least a half gill left in the two beakers, was even more inviting. She stole another glance at her master, and was sure that he had not moved.

She lifted the first beaker and poured its contents into the other, so that now there was but the one beaker containing the alcoholic beverage. Now she lifted that beaker and drank long and lovingly from it, knowing that it would aid her sleep, and knowing too that she would still have to rise with the sun still far below the eastern horizon, and perform her duties with a head full of emptiness and a stomach full of nausea. It had happened before. Too much sulce before couch, too little food, and the damage was done. The trouble was, as she saw it, that she was slight, not heavily built, and could not hold her liquor. Not that the opportunity for holding liquor occurred with any great frequency.

But tonight she was determined, and tilted the beaker back to allow the flow of the juice to pass into her gullet. In ten seconds, she had swallowed the contents of the beaker and continued on her way from table to table, picking up platters and beakers until she could carry no more.

Finally, she arrived at the table where the three old men were playing kamacha.

'We are closing now.'

'We are nearly finished,' one of the old men said, patting her affectionately on the rump.

She smiled and disappeared through the bead curtains and into the kitchen, where she deposited all of the crockery she had collected into a huge washing tub, already filled to the brim with hot, soapy water.

'Karenzinyara!' one of them called, and she pulled back the curtain. In Herakian, 'Karenzinyara' means 'Karenza, my little daughter'.

'What is it?'

'More sulce, another carafe of sulce, girl, and be quick about it.'

'I told you, we are closing.'

'Bring me more sulce!' the old man said. Karenza glanced across at Garikssen, son of Gariks, the landlord. He stirred from his slumber, and turned his bleary eyes towards the girl standing in the kitchen doorway.

'Give them what they want. They can pay. God knows I need the money!'

'You told me to close up.....'

Garikssen waved his hand imperiously towards one of the tables, the table which had previously had on it the two half beakers of sulce.

'Give them what's left over there. Don't open another carafe, they're not worth it, they don't spend enough money.'

Karenza's eyes went nervously to the beaker she had just dumped in the earthenware sink behind her, and to the empty table. She walked quickly to the table where the three old men sat, trying to quieten them.

'I will bring you more sulce, only don't shout, let him sleep, you will put him in a bad humour, and I will be the one to suffer!'

One of the old men put his hand on her arm, running it up and down to her naked shoulder, feeling inside the sleeveless tunic she wore for the curved ball of flesh at her shoulder.

'Drank it, did you? Well, bring another carafe, and we will say nothing.'