Esam didn’t answer.
“I must be a slave, and most slaves do not have kind masters,” Sara said.
Esam’s brow creased as he kept pace beside her. “But what if your master beats you?”
“Then I will have bruises,” Sara said absently. Two legionnaires blocked her line of sight. She’d lost the Republican.
Esam grasped her arm, halting her in the middle of the street. “Beautiful slaves, women slaves, often suffer a different fate,” he warned.
Did he think she did not know that? “Then I will be raped again.”
Esam winced, but didn’t release Sara. A Republican matron glared as she was forced to detour around them. She didn’t look kind. And the sanguelle following her with a basket walked with head and shoulders bowed as if trying to make herself smaller.
Esam shook her. “What if you’re beaten so hard you lose the baby? Or if you are given some potion to make you miscarry? Many slave-owners don’t want the expense of raising a baby, especially one that will be born free.”
Sara hadn’t considered that. “That won’t work.”
“You need a contract,” Esam insisted, fingers tightening, “a contract written by a Qiph scribe. You need me.”
Slowly, Sara nodded.
* * *
“Useless,” Fitch raged, scowling at the groups of new recruits sparring tentatively between the tree trunks. A light drizzle fell, moistening the air and enriching the green moss. “They’re useless mouths the lot of them.” He put his hands on his hips and glared at Lance. “You know damn well I gave you permission to bring the laggards only because I thought you’d fail.”
“They’re untrained, that’s all.” Lance tried to hold on to his patience in the face of his growing animosity toward the Gotian war chief. The man was shortsighted, prejudiced, and far too quick to blame others for his troubles. Lance reminded himself, again, that Kandrith needed this rebellion to succeed and therefore needed Fitch.
Of course, Lance’s bad mood had started with Sara’s absence. Worries about her and the babe preyed on his mind. If something went wrong, he wouldn’t find out until five days from now when it would be safe for him to slip into Tolium again. He wanted to be at her side; instead he was forced to waste his time talking to the likes of Fitch.
“It takes years to train swordsmen,” Fitch objected. “I received my first sword when I was four.”
Since one of the freed slaves had reduced his wooden sword to splinters by hitting it against a tree, and another man cowered and flinched on the ground to avoid being hit, Lance could hardly argue. He spoke through clenched teeth. “Then train them with the bow or the quarterstaff.”
Fitch sneered again, but couldn’t find fault with the suggestion. “That will still leave close to fifty useless mouths—women, children, old men and cripples.”
Behind Fitch, Edvard flinched.
Lance carefully avoided looking at the boy, not wanting to add to his humiliation, but he felt his temper flare. “The old men, as you call them, had the same training you did as a boy and are picking up the skills faster than the next generation. Relena has been a great help organizing the women to fletch arrows—”
“Bah. Women are not warriors.” Fitch waved a hand.
“Winter Grass fights.”
“Only because she’s kissed Mek.”
Lance frowned, distracted by the unfamiliar term. “She’s a priestess?”
“No, no. A widow with no children or a woman set aside by her husband for barrenness may travel to war, since she is considered half-dead.”
Lance’s mouth fell open. Half-dead? Just because they couldn’t conceive?
“Few choose to do so,” Fitch added. “Women can’t fight as well as men.”
“Say that to Rhiain and she’ll bite your head off. She’s female.”
Fitch dismissed this point. “Female, perhaps, but not a woman.”
“No, because she sacrificed her body to become a shandy. The Goddess of Mercy doesn’t care whether the body is male or female. Three of the Red Saints were women.”
Fitch stilled, an arrested expression on his face. Had Lance finally gotten through?
He slapped Lance on the back. “Thanks, my good man. I must speak to Rhiain.” Fitch strode off, all but chortling.
Lance stared after him, a sinking feeling in his stomach.
* * *
“She’s no Qiph. What are you doing with an Elysinian slave girl?” the slaver asked Esam.
Sara paused in her slow stroll up and down the Qiph platform in the slave market. She was Temborian not Elysinian, but Esam had instructed her to leave the negotiating to him, so she held her tongue.
The slaver was a handsome man with pale gray eyes and a wealth of dark hair on both his head and chest. He wore a maroon toga banded with yellow; Sara didn’t recognize the House colours.
“That’s none of your business, Blorius,” Esam said, body stiff.
“Well, let’s have a look at the contract.” Blorius plucked up the rolled sheaf of papers from Esam’s hand and scanned them. Rings weighted down his fingers; they were barbed iron things that looked more like weapons than jewelry. Designed to hit and leave a mark on skin.
“You don’t ask much, do you?” The slaver’s thick lips twisted. “You’ll never find a customer willing to pay with this many restrictions. ‘Term of slavery to end with her pregnancy’? What nonsense! Who will buy a slave who will only be good for five months?”
“Or sooner if she miscarries,” Esam pointed out. “Go away, Blorius. I seek a very specialized buyer for her and you are not him.”
Blorius arched an eyebrow. “She’s been here five days and no one’s made an offer yet. You can’t afford to run me off.”
Esam glowered at him, but it was true. Sara had been on display for five days now, and she was losing patience. She’d told Esam this morning he had two more days before she took matters into her own hands.
‘“Highly educated, especially in mathematics,’” Blorius read. “You’re trying to sell a woman as a tutor? Esam, Esam, you have much to learn.”
Esam ground his teeth.
“Still, her price is low, and she is pretty.”
“Beautiful,” Esam snapped.
“Perhaps, but who can tell in that rag you have her wearing? Ugh. It’s like a tent. Still, I might be willing to take her off your hands, if you cross out some of these ridiculous restrictions...”
“Out of the question.” Esam folded his arms. “You know Qiph contracts are nonnegotiaable. What’s going on, Blorius?”
The slaver heaved a theatrical sigh. “As it so happens I have an important buyer coming tonight. He has a standing order for brunettes—beautiful, blue-eyed brunettes. He almost never buys them, but if I don’t offer any he’ll be offended and I’ll lose the rest of his business. All I have right now are blondes and a delightfully voluptuous redhead. There are very few Elysinians in stock because most have earned out their slavechains.”
Esam glanced at Sara.
She nodded.
“Her contract stays as written and will be registered with the Temple of Justice.”
A long haggling session followed. At its end, Sara’s contract was transferred temporarily to Blorius, but Esam retained a “share” and would get her back if Blorius’s buyer declined her.
Unsmiling, Esam gripped her hand hard and bid her farewell.
Without a backward look, Sara followed Blorius and his t
wo attending sanguons down eight streets to his house.
The spacious villa’s white pillars and maroon-tiled roof wouldn’t have looked out of place in Temborium. The only sign that Blorius was a slaver were the dogs patrolling the walled outer courtyard and the half-dozen hardened ex-legionnaires standing around.
Once inside Blorius clapped his hands, calling for his servant. A fat woman with a painted face hurried in and bowed.
“I’ve found our brunette,” he told her. “But as you can see, we have much work to do before tonight.” He curled his lip and stabbed a finger at Sara’s sturdy Kandrithan-style dress with its split skirts and modest neckline. “Starting with that. Take it off and burn it.”
* * *
Rhiain nervously flexed her claws in the damp forest floor. At first she’d been disappointed when Fitch hadn’t stayed after introducing her, but now she was glad. She feared she was making a hash of things.
A score of men and women watched her in silence. All of them stood a prudent distance away, backed up against the massive fallen tree whose other side served the horse pen. Except for Edvard, Goddess bless him. He sat almost at her feet, listening attentively to her story. “—and the first opportunity I got, I became a shandy,” she finished. “You can do it, too.”
Her audience glanced uncertainly from one to another, then stared back at her, doubt written on their faces.
“That’s all?” a grandfatherly man with a drooping mustache asked. “We just ask Loma to make us into cats?”
“You don’t have to choose cat-forrrm. Therrre arrre wolf shandies, and other kinds, too. But rrrachas are betterrr fighterrrs,” Rhiain said, squirming a little at the half lie. Rachas were better warriors, but wolves were better hunters.
Not that any of this crowd of what Fitch had dubbed “useless mouths” looked like an attractive mate, but...
“Well, I suppose, it wouldn’t be so bad to be a talking beast for a few hours,” the grandfather said. “Why don’t you change back into a girl and show us how to do it?”
Dismay dampened Rhiain’s confidence like cold rain. She hadn’t explained properly. “I can’t.”
The men and women stared at her. All those eyes...
“I can’t turrrn back into a girrrl. I’ll be a cat forrreverrr. That’s my sacrrrifice.”
They began to shake their heads, the scent of fear rising off them.
“You mean, you’re trapped in that form?” a young woman asked, horror widening her eyes. “That’s terrible.”
“I’d much ratherrr be a shandy, than a girrrl.” Rhiain bared her teeth. “See, how strrrong I am? Nothing can hurrrt me.” Well, crossbow bolts, but...
The girl sidled away. Even the grandfather shook his head. “I want to fight, but no. That’s too much to ask.”
“I’ll do it. I’ll make the sacrifice,” Edvard said loudly. He scrambled awkwardly to his feet, but stood tall, his arms wide, head tipped back, addressing the treetops or maybe the heavens. “Goddess of Mercy accept my sacrifice!”
Rhiain remembered little of her own change, just heat and fury and the blood of the slaver as she clawed and bit him. She cocked her head in curiosity, ears flattened, as Edvard’s ringing declaration transmuted into a roar of triumph.
His white-gold hair sprouted into a mane around his neck. His skin furred over, brown and tawny gold like hers, but patterned in stripes not spots, and his nose reshaped itself into a muzzle. He dropped onto his hands and knees. The seams of his clothes burst as his body swelled with muscle, massing twice as big as a man.
Half their audience broke and ran back around the fallen tree trunk to the main rebel camp.
Rhiain raced forward to sniff at him, delighted. By the time she reached him his transformation was complete. A racha stood before her shoulder to shoulder, shaking his mane proudly, tawny eyes bright as gold coins.
Joy blazed in her heart like a sun. “You did it!” She had a companion finally, someone her age to race and wrestle with. And since Edvard had chosen to be a cat then it became that much more likely that if Fitch were to turn shandy, he would pick the same form.
“I did it!” Edvard roared, his words distorted by his new mouthful of sharp teeth.
For some reason this struck Rhiain as funny. She coughed a laugh.
Two more people sidled away.
“How do you feel?” Rhiain asked.
“Strrrong. Powerrrful.” His eyes shone.
“As powerrrful as me?” she mock-growled.
His rump wiggled. “Morrre.”
“Let’s see about that!” She pounced. Her teeth fastened in his scruff, not hard enough to hurt, and she kept her claws sheathed. They wrestled, rolling over and over, then springing apart.
Edvard leaped forward—
And then his hindleg collapsed under him. “No!” Edvard roared in fury. Self-loathing twisted his muzzle, pain filled his amber eyes. “Why didn’t it worrrk? I’m supposed to be healed. I can’t still be crrrippled! I can’t!”
Rhiain’s ears popped. The other cat shandy vanished, and suddenly Edvard’s human body huddled naked on the hill. He cried out, and she first smelled, then saw, rich red blood trickling down his back.
He’d nulled his sacrifice, which meant he’d never been a shandy. His frail human body had taken the full force of her tackle. Her teeth hadn’t punctured the cat shandy’s tough hide, but human skin was much thinner.
How badly was he hurt? “Edvarrrd?” Anxiously, she nudged him with her nose, but he just screamed and curled up into a ball.
“Get on my back. I’ll take you to Lance,” she urged. Lance had planned to attend her talk, but a fierce headache had laid him low.
Edvard ignored her, shudders racking his thin body.
Rhiain mewled helplessly. Where had everyone gone? Why wasn’t anyone here to help? For the first time she regretted her lack of hands. She couldn’t lift him without hurting him further.
She licked his cheek.
“Go away!” he screamed. “I hate you!”
Rhiain’s neck fur ruffled; she took a step back in confusion. Was he not dying, after all? Why was he angry?
But then she knew how she would have felt if the same things had happened to her. Guilt shredded her innards.
This is my fault. I should have warned him, explained it better. I should’ve known sacrificing a crippled body wouldn’t be equal to having a healthy shandy body.
She ran for Lance, unable to bear the accusation in Edvard’s eyes. Lance could heal his body, at least, even if he could do nothing for the wounds of the soul.
* * *
Ten hours later, bathed, oiled, painted and perfumed, Sara waited silently on the other side of the curtain while Blorius conferred with the fat woman. Though only a servant, her dyed-black hair was elaborately arranged and cosmetics enhanced her full lips and green eyes. Her lush body had fallen to fat, but Sara judged that she had once been beautiful.
“Well, will she do?” Blorius demanded.
“See for yourself.” The head servant swept back the curtain, revealing Sara. As coached, Sara lay half-reclined on the couch with her back arched and her chest thrust out.
Her brown hair had been freshly washed and curled. The long strands draped over her back like a cloak. Her gown was made of thin blue silk. It had a high waist and a plunging neckline. The two triangles of cloth encasing
her breasts tied together at her nape, and laid bare the rest of her back.
“Bas, God of Miracles,” Blorius breathed. “She’ll strike him blind. We may actually have found a match. You know how long he’s been looking for someone like her? He’ll shower us in money.”
“Don’t count your coins yet,” the fat woman warned. “There’s one part that doesn’t match the description.”
“What? The gown? It’s supposed to be ‘Remillus blue,’” Blorius fretted. “Should it be a darker hue?”
Sara glanced down at her gown. If anything the shade was a touch dark for Remillus blue, but it was close.
“The gown’s fine,” the fat woman said. “It’s her age. The description says a maid of sixteen. She’s twenty if she’s a day, and no maid.”
“Vez’s Malice!” Blorius kicked a ewer over. He glowered at Sara. “It sounds like you’ll be going back to Esam, after all.”
Sara wasn’t so sure. “This description. When was it first circulated?”
“You dare speak without permission!” Blorius raised his hand to hit her.
Sara waited calmly.
He frowned and lowered his fist. “You’re an odd one. I think the description’s been out five or six years.” He looked to the fat woman. She nodded confirmation.
A beautiful maid of sixteen with blue eyes and brunette hair, dressed in Remillus blue.
Five years ago, Sara had been sixteen.
She concluded there was a strong likelihood that the description was based on her: Lady Sarathena Remillus.
How odd.
* * *
Edvard eased himself down onto the grass beside Rhiain. She tensed. Had he come to yell at her, too?
Fitch had been angry that none of the ex-slaves had chosen to become shandies and fight. He’d saved most of his cursing for them, calling them cowards, but every word had felt like a lash on her skin. She’d failed him. And Fitch didn’t even know the worst, that his brother had almost died. No one had been brave enough to tell him. Certainly not she.
Was Edvard planning to tell his brother?
Soul of Kandrith (The Kandrith Series) Page 27
