Chapter four
Magdag“I have persuaded Holly,” said Genal, looking up with a squint from where he slapped and shaped a mud brick, “to bring us an extra portion of cheese when the suns are overhead.”
“You’ll ask that poor girl to do too much one day, Genal,” I told him with a severity that was only half a mockery. “Then the guards will find out, and—”
“She is clever, is Holly,” said Genal, slapping his brick with a hard and competent hand. The sounds of bricks being slapped and patted and the splash of water, the hard breathing of hundreds of work people making bricks, floated up into the stifling air.
“Too clever — and too beautiful — for the likes of you, Genal, you hollow-bricker, you.”
He laughed.
Oh, yes. The work people here in the city of Magdag could laugh. We were not slaves; n
