скачать книгу бесплатно
‘One less cook’s boy.’ Mother Scaer’s face was pale as milk and smooth as marble and her eyes were blue as the winter sky and had no pity in them. ‘One more slave.’
II (#ulink_e2a902ee-02d8-5ca3-bab6-5f3c46cdafca)
CHEAPEST OFFERINGS (#ulink_c2716d0e-b953-56be-b045-d95cee37e7c2)
Yarvi squatted in the stinking darkness, fingering the raw burns on his neck and the fresh scabs on his rough-shaved scalp, sweating by day and shivering by night, listening to the groans and whimpers and unanswered prayers in a dozen languages. From the broken throats of the human refuse around him. From his own loudest of all.
Upstairs the best wares were kept clean and well fed, lined up on the street in polished thrall-collars where they might draw in the business. In the back of the shop the less strong or skilled or beautiful were chained to rails and beaten until they smiled for a buyer. Down here in the darkness and the filth were kept the old, sick, simple and crippled, left to squabble over scraps like pigs.
Here in the sprawling slave-market of Vulsgard, capital of Vansterland, everyone had their price, and money was not wasted on those who would fetch no money. A simple sum of costs and profits, shorn of sentiment. Here you could learn what you were truly worth, and Yarvi learned what he had long suspected.
He was close to worthless.
At first his mind spilled over with plans and stratagems and fantasies for his revenge. He was plagued by a million things he could have done differently. But not by one he could do now. If he screamed out that he was the rightful King of Gettland, who would believe it? He had scarcely believed it himself. And if he found a way to make them believe? Their business was to sell people. They would ransom him, of course. Would King Odem smile to have his missing nephew back under his tender care? No doubt. A smile calm and even as fresh-fallen snow.
So Yarvi squatted in that unbearable squalor, and found it was amazing what a man could get used to.
By the second day he scarcely noticed the stink.
By the third he huddled up gratefully to the warmth of his gods-forsaken companions in the chill of the night.
By the fourth he was rooting through the filth as eagerly as any of them when they were tossed the slops at feeding time.
By the fifth he could hardly remember the faces of those he knew best. His mother and Mother Gundring became confused, his treacherous uncle and his dead father melted together, Hurik no longer could be told from Keimdal, Isriun faded to ghost.
Strange, how quickly a king could become an animal. Or half a king half an animal. Perhaps even those we raise highest never get that far above the mud.
It was not long after sunrise on his seventh day in that man-made hell, the calls of the merchant in dead men’s armour next door just starting to challenge the squawking of the sea-birds, that Yarvi heard the voice outside.
‘We’re looking for men as can pull an oar,’ it said, deep and steady. The voice of a man used to straight talk and blunt dealing.
‘Nine pairs of hands.’ A softer, subtler voice followed the first. ‘The trembles has left some gaps on our benches.’
‘Of course, my friends!’ The voice of the shop’s owner – Yarvi’s owner, now – slick and sticky as warm honey. ‘Behold Namev the Shend, a champion of his people taken in battle! See how tall he stands? Observe those shoulders. He could pull your ship alone. You will find no higher quality—’
A hog snort from the first customer. ‘If we was after quality we’d be at the other end of the street.’
‘You don’t grease an axle with the best oil,’ came the second voice.
Footsteps from above, and dust sifting down, and shadows shifting in the chinks of light between the boards over Yarvi’s head. The slaves around him stiffened, quieting their breathing so they could listen. The shop-owner’s voice filtered muffled to their ears, a little less honey on it now.
‘Here are six healthy Inglings. They speak little of the Tongue but understand the whip well enough. Fine choices for hard labour and at an excellent price—’
‘You don’t grease an axle with good dripping either,’ said the second voice.
‘Show us to the pitch and pig fat, flesh-dealer,’ growled the first.
The damp hinges grated as the door at the top of the steps was opened, the slaves all cringing on instinct into a feeble huddle at the light, Yarvi along with them. He might have been new to slavery, but at cringing he had long experience. With many curses and blows of his stick the flesh-dealer dragged them into a wobbling, wheezing line, chains rattling out a miserable music.
‘Keep that hand out of sight,’ he hissed, and Yarvi twisted it up into the rags of his sleeve. All his ambition then was to be bought, and owned, and taken from this stinking hell into the sight of Mother Sun.
The two customers picked their way down the steps. The first was balding and burly, with a whip coiled at his studded belt and a way of glaring from under knotted brows that proclaimed him a bad man to fool with. The second was much younger, long, lean and handsome with a sparse growth of beard and a bitter twist to his thin lips. Yarvi caught the gleam of a collar at his throat. A slave himself, then, though judging by his clothes a favoured one.
The flesh-dealer bowed, and gestured with his stick towards the line. ‘My cheapest offerings.’ He did not bother to add a flourish. Fine words in that place would have been absurd.
‘These are some wretched leavings,’ said the slave, nose wrinkled against the stench.
His thick-set companion was not deterred. He drew the slave into a huddle with one muscled arm, speaking softly to him in Haleen. ‘We want rowers, not kings.’ It was a language used in Sagenmark and among the islands, but Yarvi had trained as a minister, and knew most tongues spoken around the Shattered Sea.
‘The captain’s no fool, Trigg,’ the handsome slave was saying, fussing nervously with his collar. ‘What if she realizes we’ve duped her?’
‘We’ll say this was the best on offer.’ Trigg’s flat eyes scanned the dismal gathering. ‘Then you’ll give her a new bottle and she’ll forget all about it. Or don’t you need the silver, Ankran?’
‘You know I do.’ Ankran shrugged off Trigg’s arm, mouth further twisted with distaste. Scarcely bothering to look them over, he dragged slaves from the line. ‘This … this … this …’ His hand hovered near Yarvi, began to drift on—
‘I can row, sir.’ It was as big a lie as Yarvi had told in all his life. ‘I was a fisher’s apprentice.’
In the end Ankran picked out nine. Among them were a blind Throvenlander who had been sold by his father instead of their cow, an old Islander with a crooked back, and a lame Vansterman who could barely restrain his coughing for long enough to be paid for.
Oh, and Yarvi, rightful King of Gettland.
The argument over price was poisonous, but in the end Trigg and Ankran reached an understanding with the flesh-dealer. A trickle of shining hacksilver went into the merchant’s hands, and a little back into the purse, and the greater share was split between the pockets of the buyers and, as far as Yarvi could tell, thereby stolen from their captain.
By his calculation he was sold for less than the cost of a good sheep.
He made no complaint at the price.
ONE FAMILY (#ulink_d0d97fda-76b8-5695-b37c-6446f7d70564)
The South Wind listed in its dock, looking like anything but a warm breeze.
Compared to the swift, slender ships of Gettland it was a wallowing monster, low to the water and fat at the waist, green weed and barnacle coating its ill-tended timbers, with two stubby masts and two dozen great oars on a side, slit-windowed castles hunched at blunt prow and stern.
‘Welcome home,’ said Trigg, shoving Yarvi between a pair of frowning guards and towards the gangplank.
A dark-skinned young woman sat on the roof of the aftcastle, one leg swinging as she watched the new slaves shuffle across. ‘This the best you could do?’ she asked with scarcely the hint of an accent, and sprang easily down. She had a thrall-collar of her own, but made from twisted wire, and her chain was loose and light, part coiled about her arm as though it was an ornament she had chosen to wear. A slave even more favoured than Ankran, then.
She checked in the mouth of the coughing Vansterman and clicked her tongue, poked at the Shend’s crooked back and blew out her cheeks in disgust. ‘The captain won’t think much of these slops.’
‘And where is our illustrious leader?’ Ankran had the air of already knowing the answer.
‘Asleep.’
‘Asleep drunk?’
She considered that, mouth moving faintly as though she was working at a sum. ‘Not sober.’
‘You worry about the course, Sumael,’ grunted Trigg, shoving Yarvi’s companions on again. ‘The rowers are my business.’
Sumael narrowed her dark eyes at Yarvi as he shuffled past. She had a scar and a notch in her top lip where a little triangle of white tooth showed, and he found himself wondering what southern land she was born in and how she had come here, whether she was older or younger than him, hard to tell with her hair chopped short—
She darted out a quick arm and caught his wrist, twisting it up so his hand came free of his torn sleeve.
‘This one has a crippled hand.’ No mockery, merely a statement of fact, as though she had found a lame cow in a herd. ‘There’s only one finger on it.’ Yarvi tried to pull free but she was stronger than she looked. ‘And that seems a poor one.’
‘That damn flesh-dealer!’ Ankran elbowed past to grab Yarvi’s wrist and twist it about to look. ‘You said you could row!’
Yarvi could only shrug and mutter, ‘I didn’t say well.’
‘It’s almost as if you can’t trust anyone,’ said Sumael, one black eyebrow high. ‘How will he row with one hand?’
‘He’ll have to find a way,’ said Trigg, stepping up to her. ‘We’ve got nine spaces and nine slaves.’ He loomed over Sumael and spoke with his blunt nose no more than a finger’s width from her pointed one. ‘Unless you fancy a turn on the benches?’
She licked at that notch in her lip, and eased carefully backward. ‘I’ll worry about the course, shall I?’
‘Good idea. Chain the cripple on Jaud’s oar.’
They dragged Yarvi along a raised gangway down the middle of the deck, past benches on either side, three men to each huge oar, all shaven-headed, all lean, all collared, watching him with their own mixtures of pity, self-pity, boredom and contempt.
A man was hunched on hands and knees, scrubbing at the deck-boards, face hidden by a shag of matted hair and colourless beard, so beggarly he made the most wretched of the oarsmen look like princes. One of the guards aimed the sort of careless kick at him you might at a stray dog and sent him crawling away, dragging a great weight of heavy chain after him. The ship did not seem well supplied in general but of chain there was no shortage.
They flung Yarvi down with unnecessary violence between two other slaves, by no means an encouraging pair. At the end of the oar was a hulking southerner with a thick fold of muscle where his neck should have been, head tipped back so he could watch the sea-birds circling. Closest to the rowlock was a dour old man, short and stocky, his sinewy forearms thick with grey hair, his cheeks full of broken veins from a life in the weather, picking at the calluses on his broad palms.
‘Gods damn it,’ grunted this older one, shaking his head as the guards chained Yarvi to the bench beside him, ‘we’ve a cripple at our oar.’
‘You prayed for help, didn’t you?’ said the southerner, without looking around. ‘Here is help.’
‘I prayed for help with two hands.’
‘Be thankful for half of what you prayed for,’ said Yarvi. ‘Believe me, I prayed for none of this.’
The big man’s mouth curled up a little as he looked at Yarvi sidelong. ‘When you have a load to lift, you’re better lifting than weeping. I am Jaud. Your sour oarmate is Rulf.’
‘My name’s Yorv,’ said Yarvi, having turned his story over in advance. Keep your lies as carefully as your winter grain, Mother Gundring would have said. ‘I was a cook’s boy—’
With a practised roll of the tongue and twitch of the head the old man spat over the ship’s side. ‘You’re nothing now, and that’s all. Forget everything but the next stroke. That makes it a little easier.’
Jaud heaved up a sigh. ‘Don’t let Rulf grind the laughter out of you. He’s sour as lemons, but a good man to have at your back.’ He puffed out his cheeks. ‘Though, one must admit, since he’s chained to your side, that will never happen.’
Yarvi gave a sorry little chuckle, maybe his first since he was made a slave. Maybe his first since he was made a king. But he didn’t laugh long.
The door of the aftcastle banged wide and a woman swaggered into the light, raised both arms with a flourish and shrieked, ‘I am awake!’
She was very tall, sharp-featured as a hawk with a pale scar across one dark cheek and her hair pinned up in a tangle. Her clothes were a gaudy patchwork of a dozen cultures’ most impractical attire – a silken shirt with frayed embroidery flapping at the sleeves, a silvery fur coat ruffled by the breeze, a fingerless glove on one hand and the other crusted with rings, a crystal-studded belt the gilt end of which flapped about the grip of a curved sword slung absurdly low.
She kicked aside the nearest oarsman so she could prop one sharp-toed boot on his bench and grinned down the ship, gold glinting among her teeth.
Right away the slaves, the guards, the sailors began to clap. The only ones who did not join them were Sumael, her tongue wedged in her cheek on the roof of the aftcastle, the beggar whose scrubbing block was still scrape-scraping on the gangway, and Yarvi, ex-King of Gettland.
‘Damn this bitch,’ Rulf forced through a fixed grin while he applauded.
‘You’d better clap,’ murmured Jaud.
Yarvi held up his hands. ‘I’m worse equipped for that than rowing.’
‘Little ones, little ones!’ called the woman, ring-covered fist pressed to her chest with emotion, ‘you do me too much honour! Don’t let that stop you trying, though. To those who have recently joined us, I am Ebdel Aric Shadikshirram, your captain and care-giver. You may well have heard of me, for my name is famous throughout the Shattered Sea and far beyond, yea unto the very walls of the First of Cities and so on.’
Her fame had not reached Yarvi, but Mother Gundring always used to say the wise speaker learns first when to stay silent.
‘I could regale you with rousing tales of my colourful past,’ she went on, toying with an earring of gold and feathers that dangled down well past her shoulder. ‘How I commanded the victorious fleet of the empress at the Battle of Fulku, was for some time a favoured lover of Duke Mikedas himself but refused to become his wife, scattered the blockade at Inchim, sailed through the greatest tempest since the Breaking of God, landed a whale, and blah blah blah, but why?’ She affectionately patted the cheek of the nearest slave, hard enough for the slapping to be clearly heard. ‘Let us simply say this ship is now the world to you, and on this ship I am great and you are lowly.’
‘We’re great,’ echoed Trigg, sweeping the benches with his frown, ‘you’re lowly.’
‘Fine profits today, in spite of the sad need to replace a few of your brethren.’ The many buckles on the captain’s boots jingled as she swaggered between the benches. ‘You will all have a mouthful of bread and wine tonight.’ Scattered cheers at this spectacular show of generosity. ‘Though you belong to me—’
Trigg noisily cleared his throat.
‘—and the other shareholders in our brave vessel—’
Trigg nodded cautious approval.
‘—still I like to think of us all as one family!’ The captain gathered the whole ship in her outstretched arms, huge sleeves streaming in the breeze as though she were some rare and enormous sea-bird taking flight. ‘I, the indulgent grandparent, Trigg and his guards the kindly uncles, you the troublesome brood. United against merciless Mother Sea, ever the sailor’s most bitter enemy! You are lucky little children, for mercy, charity and kindness have always been my great weaknesses.’ Rulf hawked up phlegm in disgust at that. ‘Most of you will see the good sense in being obedient offspring, but … perhaps …’ and Shadikshirram’s smile collapsed to leave her dark face a caricature of hurt, ‘there is some malcontent among you thinking of going their own way.’
Trigg gave a disapproving growl.
‘Of turning his back upon his loving family. Of abandoning his brothers and sisters. Of leaving our loyal fellowship at some harbour or other.’ The captain traced the fine scar down her cheek with one fingertip and bared her teeth. ‘Perhaps even of raising a treacherous hand against his doting carers.’
Trigg gave a horrified hiss.
‘Should some devil send such thoughts your way …’ The captain leaned down towards the deck. ‘Think on the last man to try it.’ She came up with the heavy chain and gave it a savage tug, jerking the filthy deck-scrubber from his feet and squawking over in a tangle of limbs, rags, hair. ‘Never let this ungrateful creature near a blade!’ She stepped onto him where he lay. ‘Not an eating knife, not a nail-trimmer, not a fish-hook!’ She walked over him, tall heels grinding into his back, losing not the slightest poise in spite of the challenging terrain. ‘He is nothing, do you hear me?’
‘Damn this bitch,’ murmured Rulf again as she hopped lightly from the back of the beggar’s head.
Yarvi was watching the wretched scrubber as he clambered up, wiped blood from his mouth, retrieved his block, and without a sound crawled stiffly back to his work. Only his eyes showed through his matted hair for an instant as he looked towards the captain’s back, bright as stars.
‘Now!’ shouted Shadikshirram, swarming effortlessly up the ladder onto the roof of the aftcastle and pausing to twirl her ring-crusted fingers. ‘South to Thorlby, my little ones! Profits await! And Ankran?’
‘My captain,’ said Ankran, bowing so low he nearly grazed the deck.
‘Bring me some wine, all this blather has given me a thirst.’
‘You heard your grandma!’ roared Trigg, uncoiling his whip.
There were clatters and calls, the hissing of rope and the creaking of timbers as the few free sailors cast off and prepared the South Wind to leave Vulsgard’s harbour.
‘What now?’ muttered Yarvi.
Rulf gave a bitter hiss at such ignorance.
