"It's like tableware," Kaddar said at last.
"What!" Kalasin had asked a rather simple question: why were the slaves in the guest quarters uniformly young and beautiful while those of the Imperial Household were of the variety of ages and appearances common to the free retainers of any great Northern house? "These are people, not objects, O husband mine."
"No, no," continued Kaddar, "let me finish. Even you Northern barbarians surely didn't eat off of gold plate every day, did you?"
"No," Kalasin conceded, rather afraid of where this might be going.
"Ordinary plates," said Kaddar, "are much hardier, practical, and economical. They do not impart a metallic taste to one's food, nor are they damaged if your knife is too sharp. In short, the only advantage they do not have over the golden variety is their appearance and ability to display wealth. Is this not so?"
Kalasin was forced to admit that it was.
"In such a way," the emperor declaimed, "as we put the gold plate out when we have guests, but when we are alone we eat off of some more ordinary kind, even thus are the slaves commonly considered most valuable sent to serve guests whereas familial slaves, who are greatly more familiar, competent, and loyal, we reserve for ourselves."
"Like tableware," Kalasin repeated, her tone half a giggle.
"Truly," Kaddar said, dropping his orator's pose. "I would not trade my servants for the comeliest dancing girl. Nor my common glass plates," he added.
"You had better not," Kalasin threatened, and as she and her husband bantered and laughed, she wondered whether she had not started to absorb the worst qualities of Carthak after all.
I never thought that I would write Kalasin/Kaddar. But the simile popped into my head one day and, well…
