by Joseph Lallo
“You were about to throw away an opportunity. That’s something I hate to see,” he replied, adding with a shrug, “So to speak.”
“Mmm. Well, listen closely, because there are a few things you need to learn about me. I’m not so hard-headed that I’ll ignore a good idea simply because of who suggested it, but I absolutely will not tolerate disrespect. You crossed the line with your remarks. As I said, I don’t see how beating you will do any good, but those three stripes on your arm afford you very little, and until I feel like you’ve atoned for your mistake, you will get even less, because every morsel I feed that malthrope comes out of your share, and every problem the beast causes, you solve. Understood?”
“Yes, master.”
“Good. Now go clean up that brand of yours,” Jarrad said, making his way to the door and unbolting it. His servants were waiting on the other side. “Take him to get cleaned up, then take him to the bunk house.”
Chapter 5
That first week on the plantation—brand week, as Jarrad had called it—was a revealing one. Even to the newcomers, it was clear that the plantation had just undergone a massive change. The land was arranged into three long, narrow fields, but a novice could see that only the first of them had ever been worked. The other two were a match for the surrounding countryside; rolling, wild grassland with the occasional tree or bush. A newly built fence, new enough that the wood was still green in places, loosely separated each field from the next, and a more imposing one ran the perimeter of the plantation.
Like the fences, the slave quarters were brand new, to the point that three of them hadn’t yet been completed. Each was little more than a shack; three solid walls made from rough planks were topped with a roof that sloped upward to a fourth wall featuring a door and a window, each covered with a woven-grass mat. Inside, there was enough room for a bed and a table with two chairs, with a bit of floor space to spare.
At least, such was the case for the single-stripe slaves. Double-stripe slaves packed two beds into the same space, and until they proved otherwise, all of the new slaves were given this treatment. As for triple-stripe slaves, it turned out that Ben was the first of them to work on the plantation long enough to require lodging, so it was decided it was fitting to quarter him in one of the unfinished shacks until a more appropriate dwelling could be prepared. As expected, seeing the better treatment a hard day's labor could buy them and the punishment that awaited them for laziness was a remarkably effective motivator.
As the week wore on, the slaves slowly allowed the lines between their factions erode. The Nattal and Wendo tribesman were the first to give up their rivalry after each realized that they could not remember the precise reason their tribes were fighting. The elves and the dwarf agreed that they ought to ally themselves together, since they were the non-humans of the group, and the alliance lasted until the dwarf remembered how smug the pair of fair-folk were and decided he preferred the humans after all. He alternately joined the Tanoans and the tribesmen in their various tasks, mostly because he had a hard time telling them apart, and eventually the elves caved and pitched in with the rest.
Briefly, the newcomers attempted to draw a line in the sand between themselves and Jarrad's original slaves, but by the final day of brand week, everyone had come to the conclusion that formalizing their prejudices was more trouble than it was worth. Life was hard enough without having to remember whether you were supposed to hate the man working beside you.
Each day that week was spent plowing, tilling, dividing, and marking the new stretches of land. Each night, a fire was built to dispose of the weeds, shrubs, and other waste that had been pulled free during the day. The slaves would gather around the flames, eat their evening meal, and recover from their day. As they did, they spoke to one another. It was in this way that the newcomers learned that Jarrad had managed to squeeze from the land an exceptional crop the previous year, and had used the profit to buy the two plots of land beside his own, with the remaining money going to the purchase the slaves to work the land. Thus, a single-plot farm with half a dozen slaves was now triple the size, with eighteen men to work it. It explained why there was so much hard work to be done, and promised a back-breaking season ahead, because their new owner had sunk every last coin he had into this gamble.
That meant he would squeeze every drop of effort out of the slaves to make sure it would pay off.
#
On the last night of brand week, as the sun set and the fire smoldered, the inevitable subject arose. It was a topic that eventually made the rounds in every prison or labor camp, regardless of location or culture. How did you get here?
As the stories began to flow, a sad fact once again came to light. For those unfortunate enough to have been a part of more than one such discussion, it became clear that there were only a handful of ways one became a slave. Most were taken by raiding parties, groups of ruthless men and women who made their living snatching up fresh workers. Some were taken because they had no means to defend themselves from the usually heavily-armed and heavily-armored raiders.
This was the case for the Nattal tribesman. The Nattal were a loose group of desert nomads who traveled together from oasis to oasis. The unlucky pair now sitting around the fire had been separated from their caravan. Before two days had passed, slavers snatched them up like cows too slow to stay with the herd. Others were in the wrong place at the wrong time, caught trespassing on Tresson land or in Tresson waters . . . or at least near enough to Tresson land or waters for the raiders to claim they were trespassing. The Tanoans and the Wendo tribesman had been captured in that way. The Tanoans grudgingly admitted they were fishing in Tresson waters. The Wendos had attempted to squat a piece of land that they thought a local lord had abandoned. The lord felt differently, of course.
“So, what about you, Blondie? How did you end up here?” asked Gurruk the dwarf as he shoveled thin stew into his mouth. The comment was directed at one of the two elves.
“My name is Borohnirr, not Blondie! I already told you!” the elf replied. “I was the first one you asked.”
“Well, how am I supposed to tell you elves apart? You can't even grow a decent beard! And I can’t remember what you said, anyway. Means you’re a bad storyteller.”
“Or you’re a bad listener,” Borohnirr groaned. “For the last time. I was aboard a ship. It was a diplomatic mission. I was attacked, quite unprovoked, off the east coast. I fought valiantly, but I was subdued, and ended up working in a saltern. Imagine me, a prince, raking salt on the shore of this blasted continent.”
“Oh, right. A prince. What about you, Goldie? A prince as well?” Gurruk asked, pointing a grimy finger at the other elf.
“Not Goldie, Glinilos! And if you must know, I was a . . . well, you wouldn’t understand my native term, but I was what you would call a duke,” replied the other fair-haired fellow. “I was planning on buying a tannery, and the blasted raiders decided to put me to work there instead.”
“Uh-huh.” Gurruk nodded. “Thought so. You know something? In my life I’ve met an awful lot of elves, and I’ve never met one that didn’t claim to be one kind of royalty or another. Either South Crescent is absolutely lousy with nobles, or you folk can’t be bothered to come up with an original lie.”
“Believe what you choose,” remarked Blondie. “I suppose you’ve got a better story, Gurruk?”
“Me? Well, I’d been drinking a bit too much—” he began.
“Why do I get the idea most of your stories are going to start that way?” Goldie jabbed.
“Because I’m not a hoity-toity elf who needs to make up grand tales. Anyway. I got drunk, and I woke up on the wrong side of a border. Simple as that.”
“Ha! Simple as that, eh?” snapped one of the Tanoans.
He was the youngest and scrawniest of the Tanoan trio, a boy still in his teens that the others called Nac. He was the only one of the newcomers who seemed to be in danger of falling short of single-stripe status when the time came to apply
the brands. It was partially due to the fact that he simply didn’t have the strength to work as hard as the others. Mostly, though, it was due to a spark of spirit that hadn’t yet been extinguished.
“Something wrong, Nac?” asked Gurruk.
“Something wrong?” he raved, glancing about before lowering his voice to an insistent whisper. “We are slaves. We are being held against our will. How can you all just sit around the fire, chatting as though there is nothing wrong?”
“What’s the alternative?” said one of his fellow Tanoans wearily. “We knew that this was a risk when we set foot on that ship. The rest of the crew had enough money, or rich enough relatives, to buy back their freedom. We didn’t. Take your fate like a man.”
“A man doesn’t just accept a yoke around his neck like a wild horse that’s been tamed.”
“Have you ever seen a wild horse tamed, Nac?” asked Blondie. “There are a handful of outcomes. Sometimes they give up quickly. Sometimes they fight valiantly and must be worn down. Sometimes they fight so hard they break a leg and are no good to anyone.”
Nac scowled, his voice growing a bit louder. “I guarantee you I could be over that wall and half a day away before anyone even knew I was gone.”
“I can give you five good reasons why you’re wrong, son,” came a voice from the other side of the fire. It was a man named Menri, the unofficial leader of Jarrad’s original six slaves. He was older than the rest, but was as well muscled and able-bodied as any of the group. On his face was a crudely trimmed beard and mustache, and the march of time had left his head nearly bare. The right sleeve of his slave tunic was raised, displaying his brand and stripe with the same pride a soldier might show his rank. Despite his advancing years, he’d yet to be given his second stripe.
“Oh, yeah? And just what are they?”
“One, you see these scars?” he asked, pulling up his trouser leg to show a knot of skin that looked to have been the result of a pitchfork attack. “Old Jarrad wasn’t joking about those hounds of his. These are from his old ones, but the new ones are just as mean, believe me. Two, let’s pretend you get away from those demons. All the farmers in this area know each other, and they know a slave tunic when they see one. Even if you can get to the next farm without a horse, one look at that outfit and you’ll be knocked down, tied up, and dragged back.
“Three, let’s pretend you stole yourself a set of clothes and made it to a town. You’ve still got that brand on your arm. Think back to every time you’ve crossed a Tresson border or used a port. They ever forget to check your arm? Knocked down, tied up, dragged back. Four, let’s say you manage to find a smuggler to get you over the border. Half of those guys will just sell you back to the raiders, and then it’s knocked down, tied up, dragged back again. Mainly though, there’s five.”
“What’s five?”
“Whisperin’ only makes ‘em listen harder.”
Nac’s eyes shot open, and he turned just in time to receive a punishing backhand across the face from one of Jarrad’s men. While he was still reeling, he was snatched up and dragged away. The others watched as he was pulled aside and the punishment was administered for the cardinal sin of the plantation: plotting escape. No words were exchanged between those remaining around the fire, but the same thoughts churned in each of their heads. It was a well-known fact that once you’d been captured by the Tressons for one of the right reasons and had been held long enough to be sold, there wasn’t much hope for you.
Slavery was like a rare disease with an even rarer cure. You never imagined you’d catch it, but once you did, there was little sense in fighting. The real question that burned at the minds of this freshest group of slaves, though, was the more troubling realization: the fact that they had probably breathed their final breaths as free men, or the fact that they had accepted the fate so quickly. A small piece of them wished they’d still had the fire in their heart to feel as Nac had.
As the first lashes of his punishment began to pierce the air, that voice within them was quickly silenced.
#
With the weight of their thoughts dragging their spirits down, each of the slaves tried to find some manner of distraction. A flicker of motion and a gleam of eyes at the edge of the fire’s light provided it. Menri saw it first, and for an instant he felt the flutter of fear in his stomach as memories of his encounter with Jarrad’s dogs flashed. A moment’s thought brushed the feelings away, and dark grin came to his face.
“Ho, blind man! Your shadow is back!” he said with a grin, pointing.
The other slaves squinted in the indicated direction. First they saw Blind Ben, then the yellow gleam of beastly eyes—the malthrope. Ben had been sitting a bit farther from the fire than the others, quietly eating his meal until Menri’s comment. Now his spoon was still and his head was cocked. If he’d still had his sight, he would be looking around. Instead, he was listening. When the little creature took another step closer, crunching a tuft of grass as he did, the old man sneered.
“I don’t know how that blasted thing keeps getting out!” he grumbled.
While the slaves had found their niches with relative ease—and, in any case, had jobs to do, the malthrope was another matter entirely. It was all well and good to imagine the pile of silver his tail would fetch when it was long enough, but until the day it could be sold, Jarrad had made Ben responsible for dealing with the body it was attached to. It was far more complicated than anyone had imagined. The first plan had been to lock it up with Jarrad’s dogs, but that idea turned out to be problematic in a number of ways. Initially the hounds backed the little creature into the corner, barking and growling to the point that there was concern they would tear the little investment to bits. After the cowering beast dropped to the ground, exposed its belly, and generally bowed to their dominance though, the dogs backed off. Later that day they somehow got loose, then twice more the next day. Finally, it was revealed that the malthrope had learned how to work the latch, reaching his cunning little hand through to open the gate to the pen. Over the course of the two days that followed he was placed in the equipment shed, the seed shack, and any other building that had sturdy door, but the little escape artist always managed to slip out.
“Where were they keeping it this time?” asked Gurruk.
“The master had us build a pen next to the dog pen for it. A little one with a roof. We got the slats so close together you can’t hardly fit a whisker, though,” Menri said, leaning aside slowly to scoop up a stone to pitch at the creature. The gleaming eyes darted aside, easily dodging the projectile.
“First we put a latch, but he got it open. Then we tied it shut, but he managed to gnaw through it. This time it was barred from the outside and the blighter still got out,” Ben muttered.
“Why do you suppose it doesn’t simply run away?” asked Goldie.
That was the most curious part of the little beast’s repeated escapes. Without fail, every time he defeated the latest attempt at captivity he was discovered lingering somewhere near the workers or Jarrad’s residence. As far as anyone could tell, he had never once tried to escape the plantation, or even find a secluded place to hide. This was doubly confounding considering the excellent motivation the slaves and servants had given him to stay out of sight.
Remembering the “game” from the carriage ride, he had first made it a point to pester the servants. Though it did seem to get the same level of encouragement from the slaves as the bowl game had, a moment of distraction had earned a strap to the face that convinced him to leave the servants alone. If he tried to approach the slaves, on the other hand, a swinging rake or a thrown stone inevitably sent him scurrying. Slowly, the realization dawned that there was one slave who never took a swing at him: Blind Ben. Once this discovery was made, the creature began following the blind man around, staying as close as he dared. It didn’t take long for the other slaves to start joking that Ben had acquired himself a little red shadow.
“It is a mally. There’s no ‘why’ t
o the things it does. It just does them. Like a rock rolling down a hill,” Menri stated.
“Maybe when they are little, but I hear they’re pretty devious when they grow up. My granny used to tell me about a malthrope in the Great Forest who would turn signposts and hide paths until people got good and lost, then he’d get them to trade him their first-born in exchange for leading them out,” remarked Gurruk.
“That’s nothing. There is a malthrope back in Qualia, on the South Crescent, who sneaks into bedrooms and whispers into the ears of sleeping women to make them unfaithful,” Blondie countered. “And any child born of the infidelity is born as a malthrope.”
A few of the others nodded appreciatively. The story was a rare new addition to their already extensive knowledge of malthrope lore.
“Maybe that's what they do in your parts, but where I come from all they do is steal anything that doesn't move and kill and eat anything that does,” Menri said with a shrug, snatching up another stone and narrowly missing the creature. “Look at it. The stupid beast doesn't even know enough to stay clear when folks are throwing stones at it.”
The malthrope trembled slightly, anxiously anticipating another attack. One or two more halfhearted attempts to strike him were made before the workers lost interest as they always did.
Their attention elsewhere, he crept just a bit closer, locked his eyes on Ben, and opened his senses. He listened to their words, smelled their scent. After his first escape, whether the slaves realized it or not, the little creature had tried to run. He'd scrambled over the fence and through a fair amount of countryside without being noticed, but when the panicked urge for freedom began to subside, he realized that he was out in the open. There were foreign smells, strange new sights . . .
When he'd been behind the bars of the carriage the new sensations were exciting and fascinating. Now he remembered how dutifully his mother had avoided lingering in the open fields, how carefully she'd kept to the shadows. He felt exposed, small, and frightened. He felt alone, and when he was alone there was nothing to keep the feeling of loss from creeping up again. Painful images took root in his mind, and the tears began to flow. The others didn't like him, but when they were near, it kept him from feeling the emptiness. They might not be his family and it might not be his home, but he had no one else and nowhere else to go. And so he went back. Anything was better than being alone.
