by Robin Hobb
Somewhere, a distant male amusement, but one that approved. You have warm nature, Malta. Very warm. Even if your ideas of courtship hark back to that most ancient custom of abduction. It was all fading now, whirling away from her, leaving only that tickle of sensation on her mouth. I think we shall dance well together, you and I.
27
PRISONERS
WINTROW WAS IN A LARGE SHED. It was open on one side and nothing impeded the flow of winter cold into it. The roof was sound, but the walls were little more than rough slab wood cobbled over a beam framework. The stall he was in opened onto a walkway. It faced a long row of identical stalls. The slat sides of it gave him only nominal privacy. There was a scattering of straw on the floor for him to curl up on and a filthy bucket in one corner to contain his wastes. The only thing that prevented him from simply walking away were the leg-irons on his ankles that were chained to a heavy metal staple driven deeply into an iron-hard beam. He had worn most of the skin off his ankles determining that human strength was not going to budge the staple. It was his fourth day here.
In one more day, if no one came to redeem him, then he could be sold as a slave.
This had been carefully explained to him twice by a jovial keeper, on his first and second day of confinement. The man came once a day with a basket of rolls. He was followed by his half-wit son, who pulled a cart with a tub of water on it, and ladled out a cupful of it to every prisoner. The first time he explained it, Wintrow had begged him to carry word of his plight to the priests in Sa’s temple. Surely they would come to claim him. But the keeper had declined to waste his time. The priests, he had explained, did not meddle in civil affairs any more. The Satrap’s prisoners were a civil affair, nothing at all to do with Sa or his worship. The Satrap’s prisoners, if not redeemed, became the Satrap’s slaves, to be sold off to benefit the royal treasury. That would be a sad end to such a short life. Had not the boy some family the keepet might contact? The keeper’s wheedling tone clearly conveyed that he would be happy to convey any message, so long as there was a good chance of a bribe or reward. Surely his mother must be worried about him by now? Had he no brothers who would pay his fine and get him released?
Each time Wintrow had bitten his tongue. He had time, he told himself, to work out his own solution to this problem. Having the man send word to his father would only land him back in his original captivity. That was no solution at all. Surely something else would occur to him if he simply thought hard enough.
And his situation was certainly conducive to thought. There was little else to do. He could sit, stand, lie or squat in the straw. Sleep held no rest. The noises of the stalls invaded his dreams, populating them with dragons and serpents that argued and pleaded with human tongues. Awake, there was no one to talk to. One side of his enclosure was the outer wall of the shed. In the stalls to either side of him, a succession of prisoners had come and gone: a disorderly drunk rescued by his weeping wife, a prostitute who had stabbed her customer and been branded in retribution, a horse-thief taken away to hang. Justice, or at least punishment, was swift in the Satrap’s cells.
A straw-littered aisle fronted his cage. Another row of similar stalls were on the opposite side of it. Slaves were held in those ones. Unruly and undesirable slaves, map-faces with scarred backs came and went from the leg-irons. They were sold cheaply and used hard, from what Wintrow could see. They did not talk much, even to each other. Wintrow judged they had little left to talk about. Take all self-determination from a man’s life, and all that is left for him to do is complain. This they did do, but in a dispirited way that indicated they expected no changes. They reminded Wintrow of chained and barking dogs. The sullen map-faces across the way would be good for heavy labour and crude work in fields and orchards, but little more than that. This he had surmised from listening in on their talk. Most of the men and women stabled across from him had been slaves for years, and fully expected to end their lives as slaves. Despite Wintrow’s disgust with the concept of slavery, it was hard to feel sorry for some of them. Some had obviously become little more than beasts of labour, decrying their hard lot but no longer having the will to struggle against it. After watching them for a few days, he could understand why some worshippers of Sa could look at such slaves and believe they were so by Sa’s will. It was truly hard to imagine them as free men and women with mates and children and homes and livelihoods. He did not think they had been born without souls, predestined to be slaves. But never before had he seen people so bereft of humanity’s spiritual spark. Whenever he watched them, a cold slug of fear crawled slowly through his guts. How long would it take for him to become just like them? He had one day left in which to think of something. Tomorrow, in the morning, they would come and take him to the tattooing block. They’d chain his wrists and ankles to the heavy staples there, and force his head down into the leather-wrapped vice. There they would put the small mark that designated him as the Satrap’s slave. If the Satrap chose to keep him that would be the only tattoo he ever wore. But the Satrap would not choose to keep him. He had no special skills. He would be put up for immediate sale. And when he was sold, a new mark, the sigil of some new owner, would be needled into his face.
He had teetered back and forth for several hours. If he called for the keeper, and the man sent a runner down to the harbour, his father would come and get him. Or send someone to fetch him. Then he would go back to the ship, and become once more a prisoner there. But at least his face would be unscarred. If he did not call for his father’s aid, he would be tattooed, and sold, and tattooed again. Unless he either escaped or worked free of slavery, he would for ever remain someone else’s property, at least legally. In either case, he would never become a priest of Sa. As he was determined to fulfil his vocation to be a priest, determined to return home to his monastery, the whole question came down to which situation offered him the better chance of escape.
And on that fine conclusion, his thoughts halted and teetered. He simply didn’t know.
So he sat in the corner of his pen and idly watched the buyers who came to peruse the cheap and undesirable slaves across from him. He was hungry and cold and uncomfortable. But the worst sensation of all was his indecision. That was what kept him from curling up in a morose ball and sleeping.
He did not recognize Torg walking slowly along the fronts of the slave-stalls for several minutes. Then, when he did, he was shocked when his heart gave a leap of near joy. What it was, he realized, was relief. Torg would see him and tell his father. He would not have to make what he had always suspected was a cowardly decision. Torg would do it for him. And when his father came for him, he could not mock him that he had cried out for help from him.
Much insight into himself could have been gained from a contemplation of these things, but Wintrow reined his mind away from it. Perhaps he did not want to know himself quite that well. Instead he abruptly stood up. He moved to the corner of his pen to lounge defiantly against the wall. He crossed his arms on his chest and waited.
It was surprisingly difficult to stand still and silent and wait for Torg to notice him. Torg was making his way slowly down the opposite row, examining every slave, dickering with the keeper, and then either nodding or shaking his head. The keeper had a tally-block he was marking as they came. After a time, it puzzled Wintrow. Torg seemed to be buying a substantial number of slaves, but these were not the artisans and educated slaves that his father had spoken of acquiring.
He watched Torg swagger along, obviously impressed with his own importance as a buyer of human flesh. He strutted for the keeper as if he were a man worth impressing, inspecting the slaves with fine disregard for their dignity or comfort. The longer Wintrow watched him, the more he despised the man. Here, then, was the counterpoint to the slaves’ loss of spirit and spark; a man whose self-importance fed on the humiliation and degradation of others.
And yet there was a horrible kernel of fear in Wintrow’s waiting, too. What if Torg did not turn and notice him? What th
en? Would Wintrow abase himself by calling out to the man? Or let him pass by, and face a future full of dealing with other Torgs? Just as Wintrow thought he would cry out, just as he bit down on his own tongue to keep it from betraying him, Torg glanced at him. And away, and then back, as if he could not believe what his eyes had shown him. His eyes widened, and then a grin split his face. He immediately left his task to stride over to Wintrow.
‘Well, well,’ he exclaimed in vast satisfaction. ‘I do believe I’ve earned myself quite a bonus here. Quite a bonus.’ His eyes roved up and down Wintrow, taking in the straw clinging to his worn robe, to the shackles around his chafed ankles and his face white with cold. ‘Well, well,’ he repeated. ‘Doesn’t look as if your freedom lasted long, holy boy.’
‘Do you know this prisoner?’ the keeper demanded as he came to stand beside Torg.
‘Indeed I do. His father is… my business partner. He has been wondering where his son disappeared to.’
‘Ah. Then it is fortunate for you that you have found him today. Tomorrow, his freedom would have been forfeit for his fine. He would have been tattooed the Satrap’s slave, and sold.’
‘The Satrap’s slave.’ The grin came back to Torg’s face. His pale eyebrows danced over his grey eyes. ‘Now there’s an amusing idea.’ Wintrow could almost see the slow workings of Torg’s brain. ‘How much is the boy’s fine?’ he demanded suddenly of the keeper.
The old man consulted a tally-cord at his waist. ‘Twelve bits of silver. He killed one of the Satrap’s other slaves, you know.’
‘He what?’ For a moment Torg looked incredulous. Then he burst out laughing. ‘Well, I doubt that, but I imagine there’s quite a tale attached to it. So. If I come back with twelve silver bits tonight, I buy him free. What if I don’t?’ He narrowed both his eyes and grin as he asked, more of Wintrow than the keeper, ‘What would he sell for tomorrow?’
The keeper shrugged. ‘Whatever he would bring. New slaves are generally auctioned. Sometimes they have friends or family who are willing to buy them free. Or enemies eager to have them as slaves. The auction bidding can be quite fierce. And sometimes amusing as well.’ The keeper had seen who had the power and was playing to him. ‘You could wait it out, and buy him back. Perhaps you’d save a coin or two. Perhaps you’d have to pay more. But he would be marked by then, marked with the Satrap’s sigil. You or his father could grant him his freedom after that, of course. But he’d have to have some tattoo from you, and some sort of paper or ring to say he was free.’
‘Couldn’t we just burn the tattoo off?’ Torg asked callously. His eyes devoured Wintrow’s face, looking for some kind of fear. Wintrow refused to show any. Torg would never dare to let it go so far. This was but the same kind of mockery and taunting the man always indulged in. If Wintrow gave any sign of being upset by it, Torg would only indulge in more of it. He let his eyes wander past Torg as if he were no longer interested in him or his words.
‘Burning off a slave-tattoo is illegal,’ the keeper pronounced ponderously. ‘A person with a burn scar to the left of his nose is assumed to be an escaped and dangerous slave. He’d be brought right back here, if he were caught. And tattooed again with the Satrap’s sign.’
Torg shook his head woefully, but his grin was evil. ‘Such a shame, to mark such a sweet little face as that, eh? Well,’ he turned abruptly aside from him. With a jerk of his head, he indicated the slaves he had not yet inspected. ‘Shall we continue?’
The keeper frowned. ‘Do you want me to send for a runner? To take word of this boy to his father?’
‘No, no, don’t trouble yourself. I’ll see his father hears of his whereabouts. He’s not going to be pleased with the boy. Now what about this woman? Has she any special skill or training?’ His voice caressed the last two words, making it a cruel joke on the elderly hag who crouched before them.
Wintrow stood trembling in his pen. The anger he felt inside him threatened to burst him wide open. Torg would leave him here, in cold and filth, for as long as he could. But he’d tell his father, and then come down here with him to witness their confrontation. With a sudden cold sinking of his heart, Wintrow considered how vast his father’s anger would be. He’d feel humiliated as well. Kyle Haven did not like to be humiliated. He’d find ways of expressing that to his son. Wintrow leaned against the wall of his pen miserably. He should have just waited and endured. It was less than a year now to his fifteenth birthday. When it came, he would declare himself a man independent of his father’s will, and just step off the ship wherever it was. This foolish attempt at running away was only going to make the months stretch longer. Why hadn’t he waited? Slowly he sank down to sit in the straw in the corner of his pen. He closed his eyes to sleep. Sleeping was far better than considering his father’s anger to come.
‘Get out,’ Kennit repeated in a low growl. Etta stood where she was, her face pale, her mouth firm. One hand held a basin of water, the other was draped in bandaging.
‘I thought a fresh bandage might be more comfortable,’ she dared to say. ‘That one is stiff with dry blood and—’
‘Get out!’ he roared. She whirled, sloshing water over the rim of the basin and fled. The door of his cabin thudded shut behind her.
He had been awake and clear-headed since early morning, but those were the first words he had spoken to anyone. He had spent most of that time staring at the wall, unable to grasp that his luck had forsaken him. How could this have happened to him? How was it possible for Captain Kennit to suffer this? Well. It was time. Time to see what the bitch had done to him, time to take command again. Time. He braced his fists deep in his bedding and hauled himself upright to a sitting position. When his injured leg dragged against the bedding, the pain was such that he felt ill. A new sweat broke out on him, plastering his stinking nightshirt to his back once more. Time. He grabbed the bed clothes and tore them aside. He looked down at the leg she had ruined.
It was gone.
His nightshirt had been carefully folded and pinned back from it. There were his legs, swarthy and hairy as ever. But one stopped short, snubbed off in a dirty brownish wad of bandaging just below his knee. It couldn’t be. He reached toward it, but could not touch it. Instead, stupidly, he put his hand on the empty linen where the rest of his leg should have been. As if the fault might have been with his eyes.
He keened, then drew a breath and held it. He would not make another sound. Not one sound. He tried to remember how it had come to this. Why had he ever brought the crazy bitch aboard, why had they been attacking slaveships in the first place? Merchant-ships, that was where the money was. And they didn’t have a herd of serpents trailing after them, ready to grab a man’s leg. This was their fault, Sorcor’s and Etta’s. But for them, he’d still be a whole man.
Calm. Calm. He had to be calm, he had to think this through. He was trapped here, in this cabin, unable to walk or fight. And Etta and Sorcor were both against him. What he had to figure out now was if they were in league with one another. And why had they done this to him? Why? Did they hope to take the ship from him? He took another breath, tried to organize his thoughts. ‘Why did she do this to me?’ A second thought occurred to him. ‘Why didn’t she just kill me then? Was she afraid my crew would turn on her?’ If so, then perhaps she and Sorcor were not in league…
‘She did it to save your life.’ The tiny voice from his wrist was incredulous. ‘How can you be this way? Don’t you remember it at all? A serpent had you by the leg, he was trying to pick you up and flip you into the air so he could gulp you down. Etta had to cut your leg off. It was the only way to keep him from getting all of you.’
‘I find that very difficult to believe,’ he sneered at the charm.
‘Why?’
‘Because I know her. That’s why.’
‘As do I. Which is why that answer doesn’t make sense either,’ the face observed cheerily.
‘Shut up.’
Kennit forced himself to look at the wrapped stump. ‘How bad is
it?’ he asked the charm in a low voice.
‘Well, for starters, it’s gone,’ the charm informed him heartlessly. ‘Etta’s hatchet chop was the only clean part of the severing. The part the serpent did was half chewed and half sort of melted away. The flesh reminded me of melted tallow. Most of that brown stuff isn’t blood, it’s oozing pus.’
‘Shut up,’ Kennit said faintly. He stared at the clotted, smeary bandaging and wondered what was beneath it. They had put a folded cloth beneath it, but there was still a smear of ochre stuff across his fine, clean linen. It was disgusting.
The little demon grinned up at him. ‘Well, you asked.’
Kennit took a deep breath and bellowed, ‘Sorcor!’
The door flew open almost immediately, but it was Etta who stood there, teary and distraught. She hastened into the room. ‘Oh, Kennit, are you in pain?’
‘I want Sorcor!’ he declared, and even to himself it sounded like the demand of a petulant child. Then the brawny first mate filled the doorway. To Kennit’s dismay, he looked as solicitous as Etta as he asked, ‘Is there naught I can do for you, Captain?’ Sorcor’s unruly hair stood up as if he had been pulling at it, and his face was sallow beneath its scars and weathering.
He tried to remember why he had called for Sorcor. He looked down at the disgusting mess in his bed. ‘I want this cleaned up.’ He managed to sound firmly in command, as if he were speaking of a sloppy deck. ‘Have a hand heat some water for a bath for me. And lay out a clean shirt.’ He looked up at Sorcor’s incredulous stare and realized he was treating him more like a valet than his second-in-command. ‘You understand that how I appear when I interrogate the prisoners is important. They must not see me as a crippled wreck in a wad of dirty bedding.’
‘Prisoners?’ Sorcor asked stupidly.
