by Джеффри Лорд
Blade used every technique he’d ever learned to keep his mind and body in condition. He succeeded. He also succeeded in convincing his fellow prisoners that he was quite mad, and making them avoid him even more carefully than before.
At last a day came, when a guard cracked a whip at Blade and shouted, «You! The big desert man! Up and out of here!» The iron-weighted tip of the whip snapped just over Blade’s head as he scrambled up the wall of the pit. For the moment he didn’t care where he was going or what awaited him there. He only cared that he was getting out of the damned prison!
The guards scrubbed Blade with soap whose smell alone would have killed any germs or vermin. They shaved off every bit of his hair except his eyebrows, and oiled him from head to foot until he looked and felt more like a greased pig than a human being. Finally they gave him a meal-bread, porridge, boiled salt meat, beer-all be could eat and drink. One meal couldn’t put back on Blade’s bones the twenty pounds he’d lost in prison, but it gave him strength and peace of mind.
He slept well that night, alone in an almost-clean cell, and in the morning they led him out onto the auction block.
Blade had been a slave in a good many different Dimensions, but this was the first time he’d actually been put up on the open market. He couldn’t help wondering what his market price would be. Doubtless that would depend on what he was being sold for. That was more than interesting-it could make the difference between life and death.
One of the guards prodded him in the back with a truncheon. Blade noticed that the young woman who’d been sitting on the bench beside him was gone. «On your feet, big boy!» grunted the man. «You’re next.»
Blade rose awkwardly to his feet and shuffled to the foot of brick stairs that led up on to the block. His wrists and ankles were chained. At the top of the stairs was a square doorway that showed a patch of eye-searing blue sky. From beyond the doorway Blade could hear the brisk patter of the auctioneer, voices raised to bid, an occasional clink of chain as the girl moved, and a background murmur from the crowd. It seemed to take a lot of talking for the auctioneer to get each bid-apparently it was a slow day. Blade heard the bidding on the girl creep up to fifty mahari, make a single jump to sixty, then stay there. Finally the auctioneer’s voice barked:
«Sold to [a barely pronounceable name whose spelling Blade couldn’t imagine] for sixty mahari.»
The guard prodded Blade with the spike of his truncheon. One of these days, Blade decided, he was going to take one of those truncheons away from a guard and give it back as painfully as possible. Then he rose to his feet and climbed the stairs to the block.
The first blaze of sunlight dazzled him for a moment. When his eyes adjusted, he found himself standing on a wooden platform, at one end of a large square paved with filthy brown flagstones. Brick walls rose on either side of the square, trapping the heat of the day, seeming to bounce all of it toward the auction block. Blade felt sweat breaking out at once, and the auctioneer looked as if he’d been fished out of a river. His long robe was almost black with filth and sweat.
Scattered across the square were at least two hundred people, some standing, some sitting on cushions or rugs, a few lucky ones sitting on donkeys or under canopies held over them by household slaves. Blade smelled beer, fruit, and smoke from carved ivory pipes, and read weariness, heat, and boredom on all the faces.
The auctioneer waved his ivory baton at Blade. «Honored sirs, I offer this man-strong, fit, in the prime of life, suitable for any task.» He prodded Blade’s shoulder muscles and biceps. «Taken by the Riders under the Forbidden Desert Edict of our noble Baran, he is unwounded, well-fed, ready to train. Imagine this matchless physical specimen bearing your chairs, shifting the burdens of your household, standing guard over your valuables. Consider-«
«Consider how long we’ve been sitting out here!» shouted someone. «Get to the point! How much?»
«Honored sirs, I beg you to consider the many uses to which, a man of such size and strength may be put. I beg you to-«
«How much, you pissing jackass?» roared another voice, louder and angrier than the first one.
The auctioneer’s face turned noticeably paler. «A hundred and ten mahari,» he gasped.
Several people growled angrily, and others turned away and began to drift toward the gate. «In the name of Junah, have mercy, honored sirs,» cried the auctioneer. «It is not my judgment of this man’s worth that has set the price where it is. Nor is it my place to question the judgment of the Baran’s officers.» The growls died away into silence, but the drift toward the gate continued.
The auctioneer’s face turned still paler, and he looked as if he was about to get down on his knees and beg the crowd to put in a bid. «Honored sirs, I am at a loss-«
«Oh, send him back down and bring on another girl,» someone snapped. «A hundred and ten mahari for that wild bull? And him not even trimmed? You think anyone’d want something like that in his house, or within a mile of his women?» There was a growl of agreement.
Blade realized that the size and physical condition he’d expected to be an asset were turning out to be almost a liability. His best chance now was being sold for manual labor, but anyone who had a hundred and ten mahari to spend on workers coud buy three of them for that price. It looked as if he might be going back to prison, or else facing the trimming knives of the surgeons.
«Ho, auctioneer!» One of the mounted men slipped down from the back of his donkey and pushed forward, a servant striding behind him. «I bid a hundred mahari, for the desert man.»
«Kubin, you-!» the auctioneer began, then bit off his words. He even managed to stop his hands from shaking before the approaching man reached the block.
Blade stared down at the man, and their eyes met. The man called Kubin was nearly as broad as Blade, though a head shorter. He wasn’t fat, either. His bare arms and the chest revealed by his silk tunic were layered and ridged with muscle. In his sash Kubin carried a scimitar nearly large enough for one of the Hashomi, and his servant carried another. Blade noticed that the men nearest to Kubin were inching away or trying to look elsewhere.
The auctioneer tore his eyes away from Kubin and shouted, «Is there another bid? Another, honored sirs? Another bid than that of Kubin Ben Sarif? Another? What, no other? I call once.
«I call twice.
«I call three times-and the desert man is sold to Kubin Ben Sarif, for one hundred mahari!»
There was a collective sigh of relief from the crowd, almost loud enough to drown out the sigh of relief from the auctioneer. He bowed deeply to Kubin. «Is it your wish that the man be trimmed? For thirty mahari extra, the surgeons of the house will do it for you, and keep him until he recovers.»
«Or dies,» said Kubin. He looked Blade up and down, seeming to examine each muscle and tendon, each limb, each scar. Blade did his best to remain impassive under the man’s inspection. Kubin Ben Sarif was not precisely the master he would have chosen. There was something about the man to make others fear him. Still, he was better than a return to prison, perhaps as an unsaleable slave destined for trimming or the living death of the salt flats.
Kubin’s examination of Blade went on so long that the auctioneer began to fidget again. «Honored Kubin, it becomes difficult to spend any more time upon this man. There are other slaves to sell this day. Will you have him trimmed or not?»
Without moving a muscle, Blade got ready for action. If Kubin said yes, there was going to be blood all over this auction block in the next minute, and not all of it would be Blade’s. There were enough soldiers in sight to make sure he wouldn’t be getting out of here alive, but that wouldn’t save the auctioneer, or Kubin.
Kubin’s eyes rose again, and this time they met and held Blade’s. Slave and free man stared hard at each other, then both looked away in the same moment. Slowly Kubin shook his head.
«No, I’ll take him as he is.»
Chapter 13
The auctioneer’s desire to get both Blade and hi
s new master on their way helped speed the paperwork. In less than half an hour Blade was chained securely in the back of a hired cart driven by Kubin’s servant. They rattled out of the slave market with Kubin riding behind on his donkey.
The cart picked up speed as they reached the main street. Blade noticed that many people seemed to recognize Kubin, and some of those who found themselves in his path made a visible effort to get clear. Few greeted the man, and practically no one smiled at him.
Blade wondered what kind of a man he had to deal with-a secret police officer, or Dahaura’s equivalent of a Mafia chief, or what? It was hard to believe that someone engaged in criminal business would ride around as Kubin did, in broad daylight, undisguised, and with only a single servant, unless he was brave to the point of madness.
The cart kept to the main streets until it rumbled out one of the gates and on another mile beyond the wall. Then it turned down a lane between two high stone walls and finally stopped at a gate. Unlike the gates, of the other villas along the road, this one was not ornamental ironwork. It was massive timber, with a heavy iron bolt rammed home. The tower on one side of the gate was plain, without plasterwork or mosaics. All four sides were loopholed, and Blade saw the glint of spears and helmets on top.
The gate opened smoothly, on well-oiled hinges. The cart rolled in, onto a path of hard gravel between rose trees twenty feet high. Among the trees stood marble benches decorated with geometrical figures and statues in bronze and marble. The rose petals, red and yellow and gold, lay scattered on the gravel, and the scent was almost overpowering.
All the rest of Kubin Ben Sarif’s villa that Blade saw was like this-an endless alternation of grim military efficiency and opulent beauty that hinted at the wealth the efficiency was defending. However Kubin Ben Sarif had gained his fortune, he certainly had one.
There was nothing luxurious about the basement room where Blade and Kubin first faced each other in private. Walls and ceiling were whitewashed stone, while the floor was plain blue tile. The only furniture was a long table of polished wood, and a stool padded with a green cushion on which Kubin sat. An iron ring nearly a yard in diameter was set into one wall, and Blade’s chains were fastened to the ring. He could turn freely, but not move more than a couple of feet in any direction.
Kubin straddled the stool and placed both hands on his knees. «So, desert man. You are now in the service of Kubin Ben Sarif. What do you say to that?»
Blade smiled. «That depends on whether I have permission to speak.»
«You do. In fact, you are ordered to speak when I ask you a question.»
Blade nodded. «I understand. As for what I say to being in your service-I do not know who you are, what you are, or the duties of a slave in your service.»
«You know nothing about me?» Kubin’s face was unreadable, but his voice could not entirely conceal his surprise. «How long have you been in Dahaura?» This time his tone held not only surprise, but a slight note of wounded vanity.
Blade did not risk smiling. Instead he shrugged and said evenly, «I crossed the border of Dahaura three days before I was taken by the Desert Riders. Since that time I have had little chance to observe the men of Dahaura and who is important among them. I know that you are a wealthy man-this villa says so. I also know that you are respected and even feared by many in Dahaura-the eyes of the men in the slave market said that. More than this I do not know. That is ignorance, I admit, but it is not my fault.»
Kubin laughed. «You are right about my being respected, feared, and wealthy, and I like it that you have seen all these things. Now I shall end your ignorance.
«I am Kubin Ben Sarif, and I am first among the dealers in women in all Dahaura. In my houses are more than three hundred women, with beauty and skill such that no man who walks the earth cannot find one among them to please him. My business is these women, and all else that is necessary for the prosperity and good order of the houses where they may be found. Much else is necessary beside the flesh of the women. Perhaps you did not realize this.»
«I have heard that this is so,» said Blade. «When one has as many women in one’s service as there are soldiers in a company of the Baran’s army, one must take much the same care of them.»
Kubin laughed. «Well spoken. Indeed, that is a comparison I have used myself, for I was once a soldier of the Baran. Not he who rules Dahaura now, but his father. I have often asked myself-had I remained in the Baran’s service, might I not be a noble and a general now?»
Kubin launched into a long tale, of a promising young soldier who’d hidden certain jewels he’d found on the body of a bandit. With some of the jewels he bought his discharge from the army, with the rest he bought a small house and four lovely women. The house prospered from the work of the women, and so did Kubin Ben Sarif.
He had continued to prosper, with minor interruptions, for twenty-five years.
It took Kubin more than an hour to tell the tale of those years. At first Blade wondered why he was being told so much. Then he realized that Kubin was skipping lightly and discreetly over a good many episodes-such as how so many of his rivals had come to die at times so convenient for him. What Blade was getting was merely the «official» biography.
Still, what Blade was learning was valuable. He’d been close in his guess that Kubin was the local equivalent of a Mafia chief. Certainly it would be wise to treat him as that sort of man-one who would show solid loyalty to faithful servants, and total ruthlessness toward unfaithful ones.
Eventually Kubin ran out of tales to tell and called for beer. The servant brought two cups and two jugs, and on Kubin’s signal put one of them within easy reach of Blade.
«Go on,» said Kubin. «No one is watching us to demand that you not drink in the presence of a free man of Dahaura.» He raised his own cup and intoned solemnly, «In the hope of Junah’s blessing of a long life without sin and a quick death without pain, I drink.»
Blade filled his own cup, repeated the prayer, and also drank. It was not very good beer, weak and flat, but it was cool and wet. At the moment it seemed one of the most refreshing drinks he’d ever tasted.
Kubin emptied a second cup, then crossed his arms on his chest and looked at Blade. «Doubtless you wonder-what will you be in my service, that you need to know all that I have told you?»
«I can’t deny that.»
Kubin laughed. «Very good. It is simple. It was clear to me that you were a man who’d spent most of his life as a free warrior. Am I right?»
«Yes.»
«Good. Many of the others thought the same. They were fools. They saw only how dangerous you might be, and not how useful. I have places for such men as you in my service. There is much that must be done in my houses and elsewhere in my affairs that is best done by a man with a sword in his hands. A strong man, who knows what to do with that sword.»
«Such men are indeed useful, in a business such as yours,» said Blade. «I am pleased that you consider me fit to be one.» That was partly true. Admittedly, Blade would not have freely chosen a job as a combined Mafia bodyguard, hitman, and whorehouse bouncer. But since the job had chosen him, he could live with it better than some. He would have a sword in his hand and a certain amount of freedom of movement. He would not be trapped and defenseless.
«You will not be so pleased if I find that I’ve made a mistake about you,» said Kubin.
«That is one reason I did not have you trimmed. The trimming knife is something to hold over your head-or over your balls.» He laughed harshly. «Also, most men trimmed at your age do not survive it. I was not going to pay another thirty mahari to have you butchered and lose everything.»
«Then-in my work I will have nothing to do with the women?» said Blade.
Again Kubin laughed. «In your work, no. As for what you do when you are not working-that is your affair. You do not strike me as a lover of boys, and few of my women are lovers of other women. So I do not imagine that you will stay apart from all of them all of the time.
> «Just remember, though. If you do anything to make one of the women unfit for her work, you will have me to reckon with. And if you do anything to one that her sisters call an injury, you will have them to deal with.
«If you have a choice, you’d do better to deal with me. The women of my houses are Women Beyond the Law, and they’ve lived as long as they have by taking no nonsense from any man. Frankly, I’d rather face a trimming knife or even the Baran’s executioners than half a dozen of my own women when they’re feeling a grievance.»
«I thank you for the warning,» said Blade.
«Thank me by doing everything I think you can do,» said Kubin, rising from the stool. «If you do, I can promise you freedom within three years. If not-«He shrugged. «Junah sends to some men wisdom and to some folly. Who is to know what he shall receive?»
He rang the bell to summon the guards, turned, and strode with massive dignity out of the room.
Chapter 14
Blade’s first post in the service of Kubin Ben Sarif was as a guard in the House of the Night’s Tale in the Street of the Ox-Drovers. He was on duty all night, twelve solid hours, with a club in his hand and a sword at his belt. He kept the customers moving in and out, quietly if possible, forcibly if necessary. He kept track of the comings and goings of the other servants, with their trays of food, their jugs of beer and wine, their flasks of perfume and their hot towels. The House of the Night’s Tale offered every luxury that its customers might ask for, along with the women. It charged accordingly. For a full night with one of the four leading ladies of the house, the charge was thirty mahari-more than the purchase price of some of the serving girls.
The job was not boring, but it was tiring, hard on the temper, and sometimes dangerous. There was usually at least one difficult customer each night, and as a slave Blade had to tread a very fine line in his dealings with them. If he was too gentle, the man could wreck the house and cost Blade his job. Too rough, and the man might draw his sword at Blade. Then there would also be a mess, perhaps bloodshed, certainly the loss of Blade’s job, and perhaps a sentence to the salt flats. A slave had certain rights against a free man in defense of his master’s property, but the courts could not always be persuaded to support them.
