She looked at me, angrily.
“I will tell,” wept the second girl.
“Do not!” cried the second girl. She was quite a good actress. Yes.
“I must,” wept the second. The second was not bad either.
“Speak,” I said.
The second girl, while the first feigned fury, put her head down. “The camp of
Verna,” she said, “lies ten pasangs upriver from Lydius, and fifty pasangs
north, inland from the Laurius.”
“You, too, are lying,” I informed her.
The two girls regarded me, furiously. They struggled in their bonds.
“You are a man!” hissed the first. “We are panther girls! Do you think we would
tell you anything?”
“Release their hands,” I said to a seaman, “and feed them.”
The girls looked at one another, wonderingly. The seaman unbound their wrists
from behind their backs, and filled two trenchers, steaming now with bosk and
vulo, which he thrust in their hands.
I watched them while, with fingers and teeth, they devoured the food.
When they had finished, I regarded them. “What are your names?” I asked.
They looked at one another. “Tana,” said the first. “Ela,” said the second.
“I wish to learn,” I said, “the location of the camp and dancing circle of the
outlaw girl, Verna.”
Tana sucked her fingers. She laughed. “We will never tell you,” she said.
“No,” said Ela, finishing the last bit of roast bosk, her eyes closed.
Tana looked at me angrily. “We don not fear the whip,” she said. “We don not
fear the iron. You will not make us speak. We are panther girls.”
“Bring candies,” said I to a seaman.
He did so.
I tossed one to each of the girls. They took the candies. They were sitting now,
on the deck, but not cross-legged. They knew that posture would not be permitted
them. Their chains dangled to the rings.
When they had finished, I merely regarded them.
“You are a man,” said the first. “We will not speak. It does not matter what you
do to us. We do not fear the whip. We do not fear the iron. We will not speak.
We are panther girls.”
I threw each of them another candy. Then, not speaking further, I rose to my
feet, and left them.
On the fore quarter I spoke to Rim and Thurnock. “Tomorrow,” I told them,
“briefly, we will put into land.”
“Yes, Captain,” they said.
“Take the chains from their necks,” I told a seaman.
The girls looked up at me.
It was not the next night, that following my first interrogation of the panther
girls, the evening of the day following that of my acquisition of the two male
slaves.
We would make landfall in Lydius in the morning, an important river port at the
mouth of the Laurius.
The chains were removed from the necks of the girls. They had been well treated
today. They had been fed well, and sufficiently watered. After their meals,
candies had been given them. They had been permitted to wash themselves, with a
bucket of warm water, and to comb one another’s hair.
“Tie their ankles tightly,” I said, “and their wrists, too, behind their backs.”
We had put into land briefly this afternoon. And Thurnock, and Rim, with snares,
had gone into the forest. Other men had accompanies them, with water kegs. The
girls, chained on the sanded deck of the stern quarter, fastened by their yard
of chain, blocked by the kitchen area, and behind crates and lashed boxes, could
not see what transpired.
Had they been able to see, they would have seen men returning to the Tesephone,
with water kegs, and Thurnock and Rim returning too, Thurnock carrying an object
on his back, bulky but apparently not particularly heavy. The object had been
covered with a canvas.
The girls were thrown forward on their belly on the sanded deck.
Each felt her ankles lashed together, tightly. Each then felt her wrists jerked
behind her back, and similarly lashed.
They lay before me.
“Take them to the lower hold,” I said.
The lower hold is the tiny crawl space, of some eighteen inches, between the
deck of the first hold and the curved hull of the ship, divided by its keel. It
is unlit, and cold and damp. It contains much sand, used as ballast for the
galley. It also contains the sump, or bilge. It is a briny, foul place.
The girls were carried from the deck. They were handed down the hatch to the
first hold, and then, by others, handed down the hatch to the lower hold, which
lies near the fore quarter of the ship. I gave the orders that they be placed on
the sand well within the lower hold, which lies near the stern quarter, far from
the hatch. They were so placed. The heavy grated hatch was then replaced over
the opening to the lower hold. Bolts were shoved in place. Then the grating was
itself covered, with two sheets of opaque tarpaulin, fastened down at the edges.
The lower hold would now be in pitch darkness.
In the forests, this afternoon, Thurnock and Rim, who were familiar with such
matters, the first as a peasant, and catch, returned to the Tesephone, in a
cage, covered with canvas, carried on the back of Thurnock, had been six, rather
large forest urts, about the size of tiny dogs. This evening, after the evening
meal, we had opened the cage into the lower hold. They had scurried from the
cage, dropping down to the sand, scampering off into the darkness.
I, with Thurnock and Rim, went back to the kitchen area. There was again fried
vulo, and there was some left. I did not think it would take long for the girls
to discover that they were not alone in the lower hold.
I nibbled at the fried vulo.
There was suddenly, from below decks, muffled, as thought far off, a terrified
scream.
Had they heard movements in the darkness? Had they seen the gleam of tiny eyes?
Burning at them from the blackness? Had one of them heard the breathing of tiny
lungs near her face in the darkness? Had another felt fur brush against her
calf, or tiny feet scampering unexpectedly over her bound body?
Both girls were now screaming.
I could imagine them, nude, bound, thrashing in the sand, terrified,
hysterically jerking at the binding fiber which would continue to hold them.
The screams were now piteous. They had been proud panther women. They were now
hysterical, terrified girls.
I continued to nibble on the vulo leg.
A seaman approached. “Captain, said he, “the wenches in the lower hold crave
audience.”
I smiled. “Very well,” I said.
In a few moments, both girls, covered with wet sand, on their bodies, and in
their eye lashes and hair, were placed, kneeling, before me. They were still
perfectly secured. I sat, as before, on my stool behind the kitchen area. They
knelt, as before, near the rings to which they had been chained. Only now both
of them thrust their heads to the deck at my feet. They were shuddering
uncontrollably, spasmodically.
“The camp and dancing circle, of Verna,” said the first girl, Tana, “lies north
and east of Laura. Then, where the forest begins, look for a Tur tree, blazed
travel generally north, seeking similarly blazed trees, a quarter of a pasang
apart. There are fifty such trees. At the fiftieth there is a double blaze. Go
then north by northeast. Again the trees are blazed, but now, at the foot of the
truck, by the mark of a sleen knife. Go twenty such trees. Then look for a Tur
tree, torn by lightning. A pasang north by northeast from that tree, again look
for blazed tree, but now the blazing is, as before, high on the trunk, and made
by a girl’s spear. Again go twenty such trees. You will then be in the vicinity
of Verna’s dancing circle. Her camp, on the north bank of a tiny stream, well
concealed, is two pasangs to the north.”
Both girls lifted their head. Would I return them to the lower hold? Their eyes
were terrified.
“What is your name?” I asked the first girl.
“Tana,” she whispered.
“What is your name?” I asked the second girl.
“Ela,” she said.
“You have no names,” I told them, “for you are slaves.”
They put down their heads.
“Chain them again by the necks,” I said to a seaman. It was done.
“Unbind them,” I said.
The girls’ bonds were removed.
They looked up at me, kneeling, terrified. They were chained by the neck.
I looked into their eyes.
They looked up at me, piteous, the slaves.
“In the morning,” I said, “sell them in Lydius.”
They put down their heads, sobbing.
3 I Buy a Thief
A girl bumped into me, black haired, briefly skirted in brown, bare armed,
barefoot, tanned, a small, sensuous wench, free.
We were jostling through crowds near the docks of Lydius.
Rim was with me, and Thurnock.
I looked after the girl, disappearing in the crowd. She had been free. She was
safe from enslavement in her own city. She had perhaps grown up along the docks,
and in the alleys behind the paga taverns.
I had noticed something about her, the side of her head, beneath her hair, as
she had slipped swiftly past, but, at the moment, I could not place it.
Some free girls, with family, I knew, kept themselves, as best they could, in
certain port cities.
I glanced about myself, in the crowds, as we worked out way through them.
I say a blond giant from Torvaldsland, with braided hair, in shaggy jacket; a
merchant from Tyros, hurrying, perfumed and sleek; seamen from Cos, and Port
Kar, mortal enemies, yet passing one another without thought in the streets of
Lydius; a black woman, veiled in yellow, borne in a palanquin by eight black
warriors, perhaps from as far south as Anango or Ianda; two hunters, perhaps
from Ar, cowled in the heads of forest panthers; a wood cutter from one of the
villages north of Lydius, his sticks bound on his back; a peasant, from south of
Laurius, with a basket of suls; an intent, preoccupied scribe lean and clad in
the scribe’s blue, with a scroll, perhaps come north for high fees to tutor the
sons of rich men; a brown-clad, hearty fellow from Laura, some two hundred
pasangs upriver; a slaver, with the medallion of Ar over his robes; two blond
slave girls, clad in brief white, bells on their left ankles, walking together
and laughing, speaking in the accents of Thentis; I saw even a warrior of the
Tuchuks, from the distant, treeless plains of the south, thought I did not know
him; it was not by the epicanthic fold that I recognized him; it was by the
courage scars, high on his angular cheekbones.
I overheard an argument, between a seller of vegetables and two low-caste women,
in simple robes of concealment.
Elsewhere I heard a vendor of pastries crying his wares. From within a nearby
paga tavern I heard the sounds of musicians.
A physician, in his green robes, hurried past.
And I could smell the sea, Thassa, and the intermingling of the Laurius, with
its fresh water, feeding into gleaming Thassa. I could smell tharlarion, and
fish.
We had taken the Tesephone to mooring at a public dock. I wished to spend some
days in Lydius, to lay in adequate supplies for the hunt.
I knew I was some days behind Marlenus of Ar, who now, I supposed, might be in
Laura, upriver.
He sought Verna, for vengeance, because his honor had been challenged.
I sought Talena, who had once been my free companion, now said to be slave of
the outlaw girl, Verna.
I recalled Telima, who, prior to my departure for the north, had returned to her
beloved marshes. I was angry.
I must seek Talena!
Thurnock, at my command, had this morning sold the two panther girls, Tana and
Ela, at the slave market. It is quite near the wharves in Lydius.
I did not think it would be easy to find Talena, but I was confident that I
could do so.
A leather worker passed me.
I did not, on nearing Lydius, fly the flag of Bosk, that bearing the head of a
bosk, black, across a field of vertical green bars, the famous flag of Bosk,
from the Marshes.
I did not wish to be recognized. I, and Rim and Thurnock, wore the simple tunics
of seamen.
I would call myself Bosk, of Tabor. Tabor is an exchange island in Thassa, south
of Teletus. It is named for the drum, which, rearing out of the sea, it
resembles. My business was to go to Laura, and there bargain for a hold of sleen
fur, which might be taken south for much profit. Some eight to ten bales of
sleen fur, highly prized, is a plausible cargo for a light galley. That the
Tesephone, a ram-ship, was engaging in commerce was unusual, but not
particularly so, especially considering the cargo we were putatively interested
in carrying. Most commercial voyages, needless to say, are carried out in
deeper-keeled, broader-beamed ships, the famed round ships of Thassa.
The representative of the Merchants, to whom I reported my business, and to whom
I paid wharfage, asked no questions. He did not even demand the proof of
registration of the Tesephone of Tabor. The Merchants, who control Lydius, under
merchant law, for it is a free port, like Helmutsport, and Schendi and Bazi, are
more interested in having their port heavily trafficked than strictly policed.
Indeed, at the wharves I had even seen two green ships. Green is the color
common to pirates. I supposed, did they pay their wharfage and declare some sort
of business, the captains of those ships were as little interrogated as i. The
governance of Lydius, under the merchants, incidentally, is identical to that of
the exchange islands, or free islands, in Thassa. Three with which I was
familiar, from various voyages, were Tabor, Teletus and, to the north, offshore
from Torvaldsland, Scagnar. Of these, to be honest, and to give the merchants
their due, I will admit that Tabor and Teletus are rather strictly controlled.
It is said, however, by some of the merchants there, that this manner of caution
and restriction, has to some extent diminished their position in the spheres of
trade. Be that as it may, Lydius, though not what you would call an open port,
was indulgent, and permissive. Most ports and isla
nds on Thassa, of course, are
not managed by the Merchants, but, commonly, by magistrates appointed by the
city councils. In Port Kar, my city, the utilization of the facilities of the
port is regulated by a board of four magistrates, the Port Consortium, which
reports directly to the Council of Captains, which, since the downfall of the
warring Ubars, is sovereign in the city. I suppose the magistrate, who, with his
papers, met us at the dock, did not believe my story.
He was smiling, when he wrote down my putative business. He had looked at my
men. They did not appear to be merchant rowers. They looked much like what they
were, men of Port Kar.
We tied up next to a medium-class ram-ship of Tyros. Its heavy beams were
painted yellow.
The mate of the ship leaned over the rail. He wore a brimless yellow cap, over
one ear. “I hear you are of Tabor,” he said.
“Yes,” said I.
“We,” he said, “are of Turia.”
I smiled. Turia is a city of the far south, below the equator. It lies in the
lands of the Wagon Peoples. There is little water closer to it than a thousand
pasangs. He might as well have used Tor, which is an oasis city in the deserts
far below Ar, and to its east.
He laughed.
I lifted my hand to him, and turned about my business.
Rim, Thurnock and I continued to make our ways through the crowds at the
waterfront.
We passed great piles of rough goods, which, later, would be loaded on barges,
for transport upriver to Laura, tools, metals, woolens. We passed, too, through
goods which had been brought downriver from Laura, and would pass through
Lydius, bales of sleen fur, and bundles of panther hides and tabuk pelts. There
would be better prices on sleen fur, of course, in Laura itself. Too, from
Laura, much in evidence, were great barrels of salt, stacks of lumber, and sleds
of stones, on wooden runners, from the quarries to her east. We also saw cages
filled with the blond village girls, taken on raids to the north, they too, in
their cages brought on the barges downriver from Laura. They would not be sold
in Lydius, but, the cages emptied, would be taken by sea, chained in the holds
of slave ships, to southern markets. We also passed a chain of male slaves,
brought downriver from Laura, shaven-headed wretches, taken somewhere in the
forests by fierce panther girls. They had probably been sold near Laura, or
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