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As I begin to wash aron’s threat to sell me to the mines Father once told us that prisoners and indentured servants sent to the erous jobs

But I don’t want to think about Father or anything he ever toldall traces of him out of my flesh and my heart After I’ve washed I rinse down my hair and blot out as th of h to wrap around me so I sit and drape it across hts scurry hoaron evicted Mother and my sisters? With their clothes burned, ill they wear? Can I run away and find them?

So abruptly I am not prepared for it, the curtain sweeps aside and three men enter Two are Commoners and one is a Patron Their skin is sheeny with sweat and gritty with sand and scrapes They don’t see ear The Patron is talking all the while

"And then he said, ‘I’ll wager ten bars that the brown girl beats him,’ and Nar said, ‘Ten bars? I wouldn’t take that bet if it was for a sip of beer because it’s obvious she’s going to beat hih

Startled, they peer into the shadowed corner where I huddle

The Patron waves as at a fly "Girl! You can’t be in here It’s men’s bath time now Get out"

"I have no clothes"

As the words slide out ofbut this scrap of cloth conceals rab a second towel and hold it over my breasts

"Good Goat," says the elder Commoner, a man with a shaved head who appears a bit older than "

The Patron has an oddly fahs "How like Tana to forget about her Is the old ain?"

They yank their clothes back on and tromp out

Sooner than I expect Tana reappears, oat-footed smoke-heads and their disrespect She tosses a bundle of clothes at s, a Fives tunic, and a belt; she has a good eye for size Last, she offers me several pairs of five-toed leather slippers, and I find the best fit

"We eat at et water"

Beside the kitchen a pipe empties in a trickle into a brass basin surrounded by a decorative brass tree frole

I reach for a cup but she slaps et your own cup if you pass ain Each cup is etched with a different lance around to ulps untilaround I spot a spectators’ terrace, a raised set of stepped benches under an awning Tana cli there They are the ones who interrupted e of the shade so it doesn’t see Yet they pay no attention to me Evidently I will remain invisible unless I passseems distant and unreal, like my shadow has come half unmoored from my body I can’t even recall when I was last happy until I re to cli a trial The h my head as I look over the practice court I’m so dazed that patterns seem to unfold across the course to the rhyth

Canvas walls block out a round as if they are pinned there waiting to leap out and s unsuspecting adversaries, as it says in the song: Shadows fall where pillars stand

Traps is a series of balance and e with basic traps, but when I blink, rains of sand swirling along the dark lines of rope and beah the body Posts of various heights and with aat the pinnacle is like displaying your reputation of honor and glory to all people, your naht that everyone knows you

I rubto focus, and when I open theain

Rivers is a shallow pooltwenty by twenty strides; painted wooden roundels just big enough to stand on are being drawn back and forth by ropes as a pair of lads no older thantheir feet wet The boys are fledglings Once I ht us that scoffing at people who aren’t as skilled or as established is a sign of weakness As the shorter boy splashes into ankle-deep water, the spectators laugh I cautiously look more closely at Tana and the men