“You will be,” Lara told him, amazed as the words came from her mouth. Yet she knew them to be the truth. What was happening to her?
“I will tell him, young Lara. I will also tell him he has a daughter to be proud of,” Jonah said. “You are a brave girl, I think.”
“Will you give me a faerie blessing?” Tania asked anxiously.
“I will give you two.” Lara smiled. “You have been more than kind to me.”
“I put the pearwood brush in your pack,” Tania whispered.
“Thank you, and blessings on you, Tania. And you, Jonah.” How odd, Lara thought, at the sight of their suddenly smiling faces. She knew little of her heritage or its customs, but faerie blessings were obviously highly prized. It was a piece of knowledge she would retain.
They reached the Place of the Traders, where Rolf Fairplay’s great caravan was even now preparing to get under way. Jonah jumped down from the cart and sought out his master’s cousin, bringing him back to where Lara and Tania waited. The trader lifted Lara down from the traveling cart and unfastened the veil.
“They are right,” he said softly. “You are beautiful.” Then he refastened the veil. “Keep your face covered when in public, Lara,” he warned her. “I don’t want you stolen away when you can bring my cousin and me such a fine profit.” He turned to Jonah. “I will take her from here,” he said. “Return to your master and say you have delivered the merchandise.”
“Here is her pack, sir,” Tania said, holding it out for him.
“Take your possessions, Lara, and follow me,” Rolf Fairplay said.
“Goodbye,” Lara told Tania and Jonah, and then she hurried after the trader.
He led her to a large covered cart. “You will have several female companions for some of your journey,” he explained as he helped her into the conveyance. Then he was gone.
Lara looked about at the half-dozen sleepy girls. They were silent, and so she remained silent, too. Outside of the cart the sounds of the caravan getting under way could be heard. A flap had been drawn down, but she could see through the crack along the sides of the canvas. Their cart began to move. Lara watched as they exited through the Traders Gate, as was the law for all caravans. She watched for some time as the walls of the City grew smaller and smaller and finally faded from sight. One of the girls began to weep.
“Why are you crying?” Lara asked her gently.
“I have never been a slave before,” the girl sobbed.
“Neither have I,” Lara told her. “Tell me your name. I am Lara.”
“I am Noss.” The girl hiccupped.
“I know who you are!” one of the other females said. “You are the daughter of John Swiftsword. Your father sold you so he might enter the tourney. You are a faerie child,” she said, drawing her cloak around her with a sneer. “I thought you were to be a Pleasure Woman in one of the great Pleasure Houses, and yet here you are in a wagon of common slave women trekking off to who knows where. Why?”
“Like you,” Lara said softly, “I am a slave. Slaves are not given reasons why.”
“Humphh!” the woman replied, but she grew silent.
Lara smiled to herself. The woman was looking for trouble. She could just imagine what she would have said to the explanation that Lara was considered too beautiful to enter a Pleasure House.
“Are you really a faerie child?” Noss whispered. Her soft brown eyes were wide.
“My mother was faerie, but she deserted my father and me when I was only three months of age. While her blood runs in my veins, I know nothing about the faerie kingdom from whence she came. I was raised to be human just like you, Noss.”
“My father was a mercenary, too, but when he was badly injured he could no longer find employment. I was sold so they might live,” she told Lara. “Our hovel was taken from us, and we were homeless. We last lived in a tunnel beneath the City walls, but my mother was violated by some soldiers who found her there. She heard them coming, and hid me. I saw it all, Lara. Afterward she swore me to secrecy, and told my father that she had fallen while he was out begging so we might buy bread.” Noss sighed. “They hoped by selling me they might escape the City, and buy a bit of land to work in the Midlands. I hope they can,” she finished sadly.
“The life of a mercenary is difficult,” Lara agreed. “I hope your parents find a new and better life. My father and stepmother did, and I am glad. My baby brother, Mikhail, will never know what it is like to be a mercenary’s child.”
“What do you think will happen to us?” Noss asked.
“We’re going to be sold to the highest bidder, you stupid little bitch,” the woman who had earlier attempted to quarrel with Lara said. “All of us are a special consignment for the Forest Lords. They have quite an appetite for female flesh, given how many women are sold into the Forest province nowadays. I guess their own women don’t satisfy them,” she said and laughed out loud. “I won’t mind one of those big brutes foraging between my legs, girls. I have heard they are the lustiest men on Hetar.”
“You talk too much, Truda,” another woman remarked. “I have heard the Forest Lords only mate with those of pure Forest blood. If we’re going to be sold to them, it will be as servants who cook, and clean, and sew, and slop the pigs.”
“Don’t tell me any man is true to his wife all the time, Belda,” Truda snapped back sharply. “Men are like dogs, always sniffing at a new tail, and I intend wagging my tail prettily in my new master’s direction. But I don’t suppose Lara is meant for the Forest,” she sneered.
“My master, Gaius Prospero, suggested I be sold in the Coastal Province, but Rolf Fairplay said he thought one of the Shadow Princes might like me,” Lara murmured.
“I’ll wager a Forest Lord would enjoy your favors greatly,” Truda said meanly. “Being a hall whore is quite like being a fancy Pleasure Woman except for the niceties involved,” she said with a chuckle.
“Don’t pay any attention to her,” Belda said. “Truda is angry because her last master’s wife caught her fucking one of the house’s sons, and insisted she be sold. She was a servant in the Garden District.”
“And what about you?” Truda demanded angrily.
“I am no better than I ought to be,” Belda laughed. “My husband sold me to pay his debts. Debts he ran up with another woman. But then, I was in bed with his brother when we were caught, and I was condemned to slavery by the courts.”
“Was your husband not condemned too for his lechery?” Lara asked.
“Nay, the law considers it a man’s right to have any woman he desires,” Belda said. “Do you not know this?”
“I lived in the Quarter my entire life,” Lara answered. “I suppose I was sheltered. My grandmother raised me, and after she died and Da remarried, my stepmother, Susanna did. We were friends, but we never spoke on things such as these.”
“It is a hard world in which we live, Lara, daughter of Swiftsword,” Belda said.
They were silent again for the rest of the morning. When the sun had reached its zenith the caravan stopped briefly. They were herded from their wagon, fed bread and water, sent into the bushes to relieve themselves and then returned to the wagon. Their trek began again. Finally at dusk they stopped once more. Mercenary guards were posted about the encampment. A fire was built and food cooked. The women were each given half a trencher filled with a rabbit stew, and a wineskin was handed them to share, but Truda drank the most of it, growing more belligerent by the minute. When she attempted to attack her companions physically, Rolf Fairplay had her strung up naked between two trees. Then he strapped the woman’s bottom until it was red and welted while the entire camp looked on as Truda shrieked more with outrage than pain.
“I’ll not have my merchandise damaged, woman,” he growled in her face as she hung there between the trees. “Do you understand me?” Then cutting her down, he shoved her toward a group of mercenaries. “She’s yours for the night. I want no bruises on her in the morning. She’s one of the Forest consignmen
t.” He walked away.
“What will they do to her?” Noss whispered fearfully.
“Fuck the ears off of her,” Belda laughed. “Serves her right, the bitch. That’ll sober her up quick enough. Come along now, girls. It’s time for us to get our beauty rest.” And she cackled once again as they walked back to the wagon. Inside there were thin mattresses that were rolled up. “Rolf Fairplay told me earlier that Lara and Noss are to sleep in the wagon. The rest of us will spread our mattresses beneath it for protection from any rain in the night.”
“I am happy to sleep out of doors,” Lara said, not wanting to appear as if she were privileged. She smiled at the other women with them. They were Adda, Wilda and Jael.
“Nay,” Belda said quietly. “You are to be in the wagon, for we all know you are the most valuable among us by far. And Noss is the youngest, and still frightened. Without Truda complaining and causing dissension we will have a good night.”
The mattresses were spread out, and Lara climbed into the wagon with young Noss to spread theirs. “How old are you?” she asked Noss.
“Twelve,” Noss replied. “How old are you?”
“I am just fifteen,” Lara told her. “My mother mated with my father one Midsummer’s Eve, and I was born with the next spring.” She smiled, laying down next to the girl, and drawing up the coverlet they had been given over the both of them.
“I am so afraid,” Noss whispered to Lara.
“Then I must give you a faerie blessing to take away your fears, Noss. Go to sleep. I am by your side, and come the morning you will no longer be afraid.”
“Really?” Noss quavered.
“Truly,” Lara said, putting a comforting arm about the younger girl, and soon Noss was sleeping peacefully. Lara, however, lay awake for some time considering how quickly everything had changed in her life. Three nights ago she slept in her father’s new home in the Garden District. Two nights ago she stood displayed for sale to the powerful of the City. Last night she waited to learn her golden fate. And tonight she lay on a thin mattress, in the bottom of a wooden wagon, with absolutely no idea of what was to happen next. She sighed, and picked up the pendant between her two fingers. What is happening? she asked silently.
Everything, the voice replied as silently.
But where am I going? Lara demanded.
Straight ahead, the voice answered, and then the flame flickered bright for a moment, and died back.
Lara closed her eyes and slept. There was nothing else to do.
Chapter 5
THE CARAVAN’S ROUTE led through the Midland province, which was the largest of the four civilized precincts on Hetar. It was from here that those men and women no longer needed on the farms emigrated into the City. The region was made up of a large flat wide valley sandwiched between two long ridges of gently rolling hills, some with vineyards of growing grapes. The farms were comfortable places growing all manner of edibles, some with orchards as well. The cart rumbled past green meadows and fields of hay being baled. The houses they saw were all sturdy and substantial. Lara, having never before been out of the City, had never seen their like. She watched thoughtfully, young Noss pressing against her side as if for protection.
Truda had rejoined the women the second morning, but her harsh punishment had done nothing to sweeten her disposition. The others did their best to ignore her, taking silent pleasure in the fact that sitting was obviously painful for Truda after her beating last night. She had brought whatever she got on herself, Belda insisted. A slave kept her mouth shut unless it was required she speak. Truda knew better. Fairplay was known to be good to the slaves he transported. The wine that she had so freely swilled had been a generous treat meant for them all, and her greed had spoiled it. It was unlikely they would see wine again.
The day passed without incident, and the next morning they turned off the main track into the hills. The women learned from one of the mercenaries that their first stop was to be in the Forest province at the Great Hall of the Head Forester. The six women traveling with Lara were a prepaid consignment for the Forest Lords. They would be delivered, and the caravan would move on toward the next destination-the Desert kingdom of the Shadow Princes.
“The Forest Lords are not easy masters, I’ve been told,” Belda said.
“Are they kind?” Noss quavered, her eyes wide.
“To those who work hard, aye, I’m sure they would be kind,” Belda responded. Poor little Noss was afraid of her own shadow. She would have to toughen up, or it was unlikely she would survive.
“They’re lusty as buck deer in all seasons I’ve been told,” Truda said with a smirk. “They will just love mounting a fresh little virgin like you, Noss.” And she laughed.
“Be quiet!” Belda snapped. “Do not frighten the child with your gossip, which is more than likely wrong. If you do not shut your mouth, Truda, I will tell Rolf Fairplay. Perhaps you would like another beating with his strap? You are still having difficulty sitting, and it has been several days since you felt his wrath.”
Truda glared darkly at Belda, but she said no more.
The road wandered through hillsides of lowing cattle, and fat woolly sheep. Lara was enchanted with the beauty of it all. She had never imagined that such a world existed outside of the City. Ahead she could see trees, and with each step the donkeys took their cart closer and closer. Two mornings later they stopped at the border post between the Midlands and the Forest Kingdom. Officials from each province were there to inspect Rolf Fairplay’s papers. His cargo was thoroughly checked to ascertain that he carried no contraband, and that the number of slaves listed was exactly the number in the caravan.
The border official from the Midlands province knew that all of Rolf’s papers would be in order, for the trader’s reputation was sterling. But the official from the Forest Kingdom carefully inspected everything on the roster, checking each item off as he came upon it. Foresters were very tradition-bound peoples. When finally both sides of the border were satisfied that everything was in order, the caravan was waved through into the Forest.
Lara had never seen a Forest, let alone been in one. There were so many trees, and in some places they were so thick that the sun had difficulty getting through. Even the City was lighter, she thought. But it was also very beautiful, yet still but for the birds singing in the trees, and the rippling of water from the streams and brooks. The green, she thought, was a very soothing color. Now and again the road led through a flower-filled meadow. Sometimes browsing deer, startled by their passage, would leap away into the safety of the tall trees.
They stopped at midday to rest and water the pack animals. Rolf Fairplay came to the wagon, where the women were now milling about. Taking Lara aside he said, “You will remain in the wagon when we reach the hall of the Head Forester, my girl. You are not for these rough crude men, but for a Coastal King. Foresters, however, are lusty and greedy. If they see you they will want you, and I shall have great difficulty convincing them otherwise. It is better if you remain hidden. I will see to your comfort while we are here, but you must remain out of sight. Do you understand?”
“Yes, my lord,” Lara said. Then, “Would it be possible for Noss to remain with me? She is very frightened, and so young.”
Rolf Fairplay patted Lara’s hand. It was a gesture that reminded her of Gaius Prospero. “You have a good heart, Lara, but the girl has already been bought and paid for. She belongs to the Forest Lords. I will suggest to the Head Forester that she be put with a kind mistress. It is the best we can do.”
“Yes, my lord,” Lara replied.
They were fed, and took their relief, and then the caravan moved from the meadow back onto the dark Forest track. Because it was summer, the day was a very long one, and they reached the hall of the Head Forester before dusk. As the caravan stopped, Lara peeked out, but she saw nothing but trees.
“Where are we?” she asked Belda, who seemed to be relatively knowledgeable.
“Look up,” Belda whispered back.
“Their halls are in the trees themselves. See the staircases winding about the great trunks? It is impossible for an enemy to break into their halls because of it. The stairs are steep and narrow.”
Lara looked up amazed. She could see the lights from a great hall twinkling amid the leaves and branches. And smoke! There was obviously a fireplace in this odd building as well. She could never have imagined such a thing, and realized now that beyond the City a great and varied world existed. She could not wait to see more. She bid her companions farewell, advising Noss not to cry and appear a weakling lest she be victimized by others. She thanked Belda and the others for their kindness and company. Then she watched as they were led up into the hall in the trees, praying that they would have kind masters. Instinctively her hand went to her star pendant for comfort, and she smiled at herself for her own foolishness.
A mercenary brought her a slab of bread, meat and cheese. He poured some wine from his own skin into a little cup for her. “Thank you,” Lara said softly.
He nodded, saying in a gruff voice, “You are one of our own, Lara, daughter of John Swiftsword. We will guard you on your journey, never fear.” Then he moved quickly away.
Lara ate her cold meal, and then curling up on her mattress she drew up her coverlet, and settled down to sleep. She wondered what was happening in the great hall in the trees above her, and peeped a final time through the canvas flap. She could hear singing coming from the trees. Or was it the sound of voices raised in protest? She shivered and dropped the flap, settling back on her mattress.
Far above her, the Head Forester was arguing with Rolf Fairplay, though Lara could not hear the rough voice who shouted, “I was promised six women slaves!”
“I have delivered you six,” Rolf said.
“You have brought me five, and a whining, frightened girl. I paid for six women,” Durga, the Head Forester snarled.
“I have brought the six females consigned to me by the trader with whom you placed your order. Take the matter up with him, my lord. I only agreed to deliver these women as a favor to my guild. I am receiving naught for my trouble, I might add.”
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