"Gods, you are something else," she said, face screwed up in rage. "I save your lives, and all you can think of is recapturing me. I would never treat anyone that way."
They said nothing, easing in closer.
She couldn't possibly take them all on. Or escape. Or make it to Samulla unscathed if she did. She had thought... hoped...they would release her now. It would have been the honorable thing to do.
"Gods! Take your stupid blade," she cried, hurling it at their feet.
Raf spun her around and quickly bound her wrists. More indignities?
"What's the meaning of this?" She pulled helplessly at the tight leather binding.
"Your mount is dead," he said, pushing her roughly toward one of the captured Taag horses Jost was holding steady. "We can't trust you on anything better than that old mare, so..."
"Honorless dogs," she growled low.
After tying Danica into the saddle, they quickly rounded up all the uninjured mounts, both Jordani and Taag. The wounded animals were put out of their misery. They didn't even take the time to collect their trade goods, just grabbing the food and water. In no time she was being led away by Raf.
Danica continued to mutter sullenly about Clan Jordani's complete lack of honor, but just loud enough for only her captors to hear. She gave them some of her best put-downs and insults, but they ignored her, intent on keeping up their watch for more Taag.
* * * * *
Topping the rise, they stopped to look at the city before them. It lay atop and around the highest hill in the valley. From a distance, it looked like the buildings steadily grew taller towards its center. It was the two young warriors' first time to a real city. Both Dett and Danica had been to Samulla several times in their lives.
From their perspective, Samulla was a great whitewashed mass of stone and mud brick buildings, soaring temples with multicolored domes and spires, and glittering palaces and government buildings. Everywhere tall towers and spires stabbed the sky high above the city. The gold, silver, and whitewashed onion domes sprinkled around the city were dazzling in the desert sun, but paled in comparison to the brilliantly tiled domes of the temples in every color of the rainbow. The Sultan's palace crowned the highest point in the city. It was a sprawling pink stone structure, said to be the most luxurious palace of all the Qakara Desert. The forbidding walls surrounding the city were thirty feet high with massive round towers. It was all breathtakingly beautiful, even for someone used to cities. To the nomads, it was awe-inspiring. A symbol of raw power.
They could see the sun glittering brightly off the polished steel helmets and spearheads of the soldiers guarding the walls and gates. And then they spotted the other soldiers camped around the city. Samulla was at war.
"Are they under siege?" Raf asked, shading his eyes with one hand.
"Hardly." Danica snorted and turned away from his sharp look knowing it would only go to stoke the warrior's anger and frustration with her.
Since they had started keeping her bound day and night, she took every opportunity to belittle them. At one point they had gagged her. She had promised to keep quiet so the gag could be removed, but it didn't matter now, as she would be sold shortly.
Eyeing her narrowly, Dett said, "The gates are open. That has to be the Samullan Army, back from some campaign against the Hau."
Danica said, eyes glinting evilly, "And maybe flooding the market with armies of newly captured slaves." Seeing their consternation, she laughed with delight. It didn't improve their attitude towards her in the least. "My curse poisons you still."
"I have my doubts about any curse," Raf said. "I say we find someone and let him have her for an hour or two. If nothing happens, then we can pass her around for a while before selling her."
Danica was startled. That possibility hadn't occurred to her. Of course, the Jordani never realized that Raf had taken her that first night, and hadn't suffered from any curse. She, of course, hadn't brought it up, either.
Gods, no! Not now. Not after all I've gone through.
She already had a plan worked out on how to trick them into selling her to a seedy brothel or tavern with little resources for security. Her freedom was all but assured.
"Look at her fear," Raf said, gloating. "She knows nothing will happen to anyone using her."
"Is that true? You're not cursed?" Dett said, menace in every word. "Speak!"
"If you only knew," she said bitterly.
"What does that mean?" he asked.
Taking a deep breath first, "I am indeed cursed. A curse too terrible for you to even comprehend."
"Name it," he said.
"I can't," she lied, trying to act nonchalant. "That's part of the curse. But I assure you, if you knew what it was, then you'd never dream of bedding me. Would never have even kept me these last two months."
"I think she's lying," Raf said. "With a city full of soldiers we shouldn't have any trouble getting her well bedded. Then we'll know the truth."
Danica shrugged, "Won't matter. The curse doesn't act that fast. Remember that other clan's curse? Did it act right away? Elven Magic is extremely subtle."
That wiped the grins off their faces. They really didn't know for sure. Though it would have to be assumed that they didn't notice anything amiss at first. And they knew next to nothing about Elves, magic or otherwise. She had put that seed of doubt in their minds. She prayed it was enough.
"Elven Magic?" Jost said. "I thought you said earlier that a sorceress cursed you?"
Danica knew a moment of panic. Had she finally made a mistake? She couldn't remember exactly what she had told them. It had been so long ago, and her mind and emotions had been almost as jumbled as they were now.
"Elves have sorceresses too, master," she said, praying her fear wasn't evident.
The three Jordani men stared at her an overlong time with calculating eyes. Dett and Jost were unreadable, but every emotion known seemed to be vying for control of Raf's face.
Finally, "Bah! We're wasting time," Dett said, spurring his horse forward. "We'll sell the slave and get us some real women for the night."
Chapter 10
The tavern was pleasantly dark and cool. Spirited and exotic drum and flute music filled the incense scented air. Up against one wall, there was a single well-lit stage for the dancers Currently, a dark-haired young woman, dripping in cheap shiny jewelry and nothing else but a crimson silk veil, dancing seductively for some forty-odd disinterested men. Some fifteen women were working the floor, clad in nothing but thin silk veils and gaudy jewelry. All were desert folk by their dark coloration. Their job was to entice men to either buy them drinks or take them upstairs for more intimate pleasures.
Few of the men wore their veils. Inside such establishments, they removed their veils so they could eat and drink unhindered. The male staff members of taverns rarely wore veils, since they didn't want their patrons feeling uncomfortable. Oddly enough, they still expected their women to remain veiled when any man other than close family was present.
"Present yourself, slave," Dett said.
Danica was pushed forward. Fists clenched, head held high and eyes flashing angrily, she gave the tavern owner her most menacing look. Her masters had pulled her hair back in a ponytail, to showcase her ears. They suspected city folks would pay more for an elf. Danica suspected they were correct.
He noted her demeanor, and the implied threat, with a frown, but sight of her Elven features and pointed ears piqued his interest.
He looked her over slowly, gnawing at the inside of his lip as he considered. Danica began to fear the old, bald Samullan would actually buy her. Of all the men she had been offered to that day, he was the most repugnant. He reeked of cheap perfume over unwashed flesh. What little hair he had left was long, thin, and greasy, as was his thin mustaches and beard. The expensive maroon and orange silks he wore couldn't hide his heavy, drooping belly and rail thin legs. His every finger was encircled with gaudy rings, most looking like rhinestones set in silver-case
d iron.
"I'm not interested," he said, waving them away.
"But she is a rare beauty," Dett persisted, lifting a lock of her luxuriant waist-length golden hair, and then indicated her Elven ears. The first place the Jordani warriors had taken her was a public bath, where she was washed and prepared for sale. He indicated to the room of dark-haired, dark-eyed women. "Surely a golden-haired elfmaid would stand out in this crowd."
Danica was forced to hold her arms high and turn slowly. Her clothes had been removed several hours earlier, before her first inspection by a potential buyer. All she wore now was the wide silver slave bracelet and some nomad jewelry. Most of the jewelry was made of simple blue glass beads and red-dyed feathers. She donned a feather and bead brace on both forearms, and a wide choker of the same blue beads and bright red-dyed feathers. Her earrings were also red feathers and blue beads, hanging low to tickle her bare shoulders. The slave ankle bracelet would likely remain around her leg until she was sold or managed to free herself. If her buyer refused to pay for the slave bracelet, the Jordani would remove it. The silver in it was worth more than she was.
"She'll bring in a lot of money for you," Raf said.
The tavern owner snorted in disgust. "Even all these girls don't bring in enough. The market's flooded with beauties."
"Not blonde Elves!"
"Elves are bad luck, and she feels worse than most. Go away," he said and turned his back on them.
Growling, Dett grabbed Danica by the upper arm and dragged her back out into the crowded street. She tried to suppress a smile of satisfaction. Besides the fact that the Samullan had been repugnant, his tavern maintained very obvious and tight security. Not the kind of place she needed to be sold to. Fortunately the nomads weren't aware that she was giving everyone threatening looks. That, and the glut in the local market, was throwing everything in her favor. The fact that the desert folk were even more superstitious than the Jordani didn't hurt either.
"Tarhun strike them all down!" Dett cried as they stepped back out into the loud, hot, dusty street. The God of Storms didn't respond. "We should've taken her south, to Elfhaven. Jarlanders and Tyrians aren't afraid of Elves."
"Now what?" Raf asked.
While the three nomads discussed what to do with her, Danica stood by quietly and tried to act disinterested. She studied the street scene, with its thick crowds of swaggering soldiers, playing children, merchants hawking their wares, and women hidden behind heavy robes and veils quietly following their men. Most of the men wore the white turbans and caftans of the common citizen, more often than not with veils hanging off the turbans and hiding their mouths. The desert folk had strange fetishes about covering the mouth that Danica could never understand. Most would rather run naked through the streets, with only a veil covering their mouth, than vice-versa. A few wore the dark blue turbans of the City Guard wound around and under conical steel helmets. Even fewer wore the bright red of the nobility.
The wealthier Samullan citizens could be distinguished from desert nomads by their love of colorful clothes. The caftan was basically a garment of the poor. Most noble and wealthy men wore either a white or light brown djellaha, but every color of the rainbow could be seen peeping out from underneath the loose outer garment. The citizens of cities also commonly wore the turban instead of the nomads' favored headdress, the large folded cotton cloth called a kaffiyeh. Samullan women wore bright silks and satins underneath their concealing robes and veils when out in public, though they shed the robes within their own homes, but usually not their veils.
The narrow, paved street was hot and dusty, with haphazard and barely level flagstones. The larger streets were cobbled and better maintained, the smaller ones generally just packed dirt. To Danica's left the street gently dropped as it curled its way down though the whitewashed buildings to the great Lion Gate. A short ways to her right the street divided, with the right-hand branch rising more steeply in wide steps, and the left going up a gentler slope.
Very little wind made it down into the maze of erratically twisting and turning streets and alleys. What little wind that did barely ruffled the clothes drying on lines stretched between the buildings above their heads. Looking up, Danica could see only patches of cloudless blue sky through all the clothes hanging from the lines. The surrounding buildings seemed to be leaning across the street towards each other, leaving the street mostly in shadows even at midday.
Two City Guards rode by on horseback, pushing the pedestrians aside with superior weight. No one, not even one of the arrogant soldiers or red-turbaned nobles, was stupid enough to question their actions. Riding side by side, reeking of arrogance, they took up the better part of the street. She watched them as they urged their mounts up the steep stair-like street to her right.
Samulla was a city stacked on top of itself. Half the lower streets were like tunnels, covered by structures and bridges built over them. The streets twisted up and down just as much as back and forth. It reminded Danica of a child's discarded pile of building blocks, with spires and towers thrown in for a more dramatic effect. Legends had it that secret tunnels and tombs honeycombed the hill beneath the city, filled with ancient lost treasures, and horrors unspeakable guarding them.
"...you understand, slave?" Dett was saying.
"Master? I didn't hear," she said, startled to realize that they had apparently made a decision concerning her and she didn't know what it was.
He clenched his jaw a second, then, "We're going to give one more place a try."
Not sure she really wanted to know, "And if I'm not bought?"
"Then you're going to start working for us," he said.
"Working?"
Chuckling, Raf said, "Selling that little sun-bronzed rump by the hour, slave."
Looking down, with her bile rising, she nodded understanding. It hadn't occurred to her that they might try that, but she wasn't surprised. All she was to them was a means to bring the clan a little extra coin. Whether that came from her outright sale, or from her prostituting herself, didn't matter.
I'm a knight. I can endure anything, she told herself forcefully. Doubt nibbled at her waning confidence, whispering that she couldn't handle the humiliation. I've endured slavery before, and torture! Th...This won't even involve pain. At least not much.
Dett took her by the upper arm and started up the street, his grip tighter than necessary. She bristled at the manhandling, suppressing an urge to jerk free and punch him. After two months of such rough treatment, she was surprised she was still affected by it. That knowledge alone helped to shore up her confidence, knowing she hadn't completely surrendered to fate.
They climbed up the steeper stair-like street veering to the right. Each step was very deep, the slope's grade not being too terribly steep, but Danica found it even more difficult to walk up in some ways than standard stairs. Somehow the three to five strides then a step up broke up her rhythm and aggravated her to no end.
"There's one," Jost said, pointing to a dark doorway to their right. A tin placard above the door swung on a rusty iron bar, emblazoned with a faded red wine jug. Strings of brightly colored glass beads hung thickly from the lintel. "A tavern."
Danica was pushed inside, with the Jordani following. It was a dark place, with a low ceiling and a crowd of tough looking patrons. She estimated there were some thirty-odd men sitting at the small round tables. She was surprised to see only four other women inside, all veiled and wearing bright dancing silks. It was the first place they had found where the men so dramatically outnumbered the women. Most of the men were Samullan soldiers, with a few nomads, both steppe and desert, and a sprinkling of Jarland and Tyrian warriors. A bar took up the back wall, with a dark stairwell to the right and a door leading to the kitchen to the left.
The patrons all turned to watch as they made their way to the small bar. The tall, thin, swarthy man behind it looked them over as they approached. He wore only a light cotton caftan, a stained apron, and a white turban. His beard was black a
nd thin, but well-kept and clean looking. He didn't have the look of evil arrogance that Danica thought so many of his desert brethren did.
"How may I serve you?" he said. "Ale? Beer? Wine?"
"Do you own this tavern?" Dett said, eyeing the slim young man with doubt.
"I do," he said, eyebrow rising with suspicion. "Why?"
Smiling, he pushed Danica forward again. "We have a slave to sell. An elfmaid and a rare beauty for these parts."
Danica quickly assessed the man before her and his tavern, and made her decision. There was a gentleness about him that she could possibly exploit later. There were no sulking guard near the doors to stop an escape attempt, either. She smiled warmly at him, trying to hold her body in a way she hoped he found enticing.
"That she is," he admitted, eyeing her with interest. "But I don't own slaves. And I don't care to start now."
"But how do you manage?" Dett said, surprised. He looked the four young women over closely. They met his gaze defiantly. "Bond servants?"
The women let out tiny cries of outrage, but kept quiet otherwise. Their reaction told Danica that they were tavern girls, and quite free to come and go as they pleased.
"I manage. This tavern has been in my family for generations, and we have always run it as a family. No slaves to eat up the profits," he said, obviously proud of the fact. "And a bond servant is just another type of slave. And another mouth to feed."
"They're not slaves?" Jost asked, indicating the four women in skimpy clothes and gaudy jewelry sitting with the patrons. The women, one and all, gave him sharp looks.
"Tavern girls," he said, shrugging. "They generate a little coin for the tavern and don't require any maintenance on my part."
The Jordani War Chief had to explain what a tavern girl was to his two young warriors. Until then, they thought all prostitutes were slaves. They didn't even know what a bond servant was. And the idea of free women willingly prostituting themselves was beyond their understanding.
Like the Jordani, Danica was surprised to find a tavern without either slaves or bond servants. Though she had been in taverns and brothels that didn't use slaves before, it was unusual. Slaves had no real motivation to work hard, except the threat of severe beatings or the withholding of food and rest. However, bond servants were working off debts to their bondholder, usually the tavern or brothel owner. Bond servants could be expected to work very hard to escape their hellish life. Unfortunately, the bondholder was legally permitted to add the costs of room and board, any clothes needed, and even interest to the bond. Many bond servants, especially pretty women, spent years paying off their bond. A bond price that might have only been a night's food and lodging.
The Elfmaid's Curse (The Elfmaid Trilogy Book 1) Page 16
