[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
anyway.
The marshals approached ready to sort out what this little contretemps might be, and the men in black
hefted their instruments with a sharp and pungent professional interest.
The world is made up of people like Lop-eared Nath oh, not in his profession or appearance or
interests or way of speech but in his inherent inwardness. Or so it is comforting to believe. He saw it.
He saw the whole picture, and his part in it. I thought, for a stupid instant, that he would leap on me.
A drop of sweat dripped off the end of his nose. He squinted up in the streaming mingled radiance of
Zim and Genodras, and I knew he was partaking of the sunshine for the last time.
Yeh, I slit the old fool s throat, and took his money and I spent it, too. So I suppose it all adds up in
the end... And I m glad for Liana. Use to call her the Sprite, afore her man ran off.
Suddenly, Lop-eared Nath lifted up his arms and laughed.
Ended up here, most like. But I m glad for her, and the baby now, stranger tell them to get on
with it.
So it was done, and Lop-eared Nath paid his dues, and I called Hyrkaida and whites conceded and it
was over.
Slaves ran out with rakes and buckets of fresh sand, blue and yellow, to cover the bloodstains. The next
game would start after an interval for refreshments.
We condemned marched back into the cells.
Liana the Sprite, holding her baby carefully, contrived to walk at my side.
So we went back into the place of imprisonment, leaving the place of horror. I was under the impression
that we would be called out again; but Liana said, No, Jak. We won thanks to Havandua the Green
Wonder. We will be spared. We will not be driven out to another Execution Jikaida. Her thin face
turned to me, and she looked relaxed and at ease, the terror gone.
Oh, no, they are harsh but just. We will not be killed. They will sell us as slaves.
Chapter Eight
Hunch, Nodgen and I Are Auctioned Off
Hunch, the Tryfant slave who with Nodgen the Brokelsh and me cared for our master s animals, was a
very devil for roast chicken. Now he came flying back over the prostrate forms of the exhausted slaves in
the retinue, stepping on outflung arms and legs, thumping on narrow stomachs, almost tripping, yet
miraculously keeping his balance, the roast chicken clasped fiercely in his fist.
Come back here! By Llunyush the Juice! I ll have you!
Fat Ringo, the master s chief cook, pursued Hunch with a carving knife in one hand and a meat cleaver
in the other. Fat Ringo was uttering the most blood-curdling threats as he ran, fat and purple and
perspiring.
The first moon of the night, She of the Veils, was just lifting over the flat grazing land to the east, and
lighting in gold and rose the faces of the mountains ahead. The night blazed with the stars of Kregen.
Nodgen pulled his tattered rags out of the way of the hunt. His chains clanked. I rolled over and sat up
and, seeing what was toward, gave a groan and started to jostle a calsany or two in the way.
Everybody on Kregen knows what calsanys do when they are upset or frightened. Hunch saw that
swaying movement. He darted for the herd, shoving the animals this way and that, hurtling past with a
quickly whispered, My thanks, Jak!
The calsanys started up.
Everywhere on the ground the slaves rolled over and sat up and a chorus of protestations and curses
began then the slaves were hauling their tattered rags around themselves and moving off as fast as they
could.
I ll fritter your tripes and season with garlic and serve em up, you hulu! shrieked Fat Ringo.
He danced around, purple, gasping, shaking the knife and the cleaver. But he made no attempt to push
in among the calsanys.
With another groan for I had been beaten mercilessly twice the day before I lifted my aching
bones and shuffled off out of the way.
The iron chains festooning my emaciated body hampered my movements. I dragged along like a
half-crushed beetle. But no one was going to sleep near a bunch of calsanys in that condition.
This whole ludicrous scene was hilarious in a kind of skull and crossbones way. Once Hunch was off by
himself he d wolf the chicken down and scatter the bones, and then no one could say, for sure, that a
chicken had ever existed. Fat Ringo knew that. He backed off from the calsanys, shaking his kitchen
implements and foaming.
I ll have you so help me Llunyush the Juice! I ll have you!
Hunch was too sly to answer. He was beyond the calsanys and no doubt was well started on the first
leg. He wouldn t save any for me, and I did not fault him for that. The evidence had to be annihilated
utterly as Hunch would say.
The slaves were rolling up again and cursing rasts who disturbed their sleep. Sleep, to a slave, is the
most precious of balms. Fat Ringo shook his cleaver, and breathed deeply, and started back to his fire.
He was an apim almost all superior cooks are apim and when he saw me he aimed a kick at my
backside as he lumbered past.
I know who it was! he brayed.
I rolled away and found a comfortable depression in the ground and hauled my rags about me. Yeah?
Well, try to prove it then. And I closed my eyes and sought sleep.
On the morrow the caravan would start off again early and march most of the day, with a suitable pause
for refreshment. In our case that would be a heel of bread and an onion, if we were lucky. In the evening
we would each receive our bowl of porridge and four palines three if Fat Ringo was in a bad mood.
Our lord and master would sit grandly in his tent, with all the appurtenances of gracious living brought
with him on the expedition folding table and chairs, folding washstand, chests and storage jars filled
with the goodies that made his rich life the richer. Fat Ringo s choicest delicacies would be brought on
golden platters to the great man.
Strom Phrutius was his name, a damned strom from one of the mingled kingdoms of the Dawn Lands,
immensely wealthy and yet only a strom, which is equivalent to an Earthly count, and covetously desirous
of making himself a kov or, at the least, a vad. I guessed the old buzzard would make himself a king if
he had half a chance.
So that was why he was on the expedition.
He d bought me and a gaggle of slaves to make his journey comfortable, and so here I was. Four
separate attempts at escape I d made, and four separate times I d been caught and dragged back by the
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]