that did nothing to soothe my stomach.
It was so strange, so unlike what I’d known in Viland, and every minute the sun beat down with increasing fierceness. I crept as close to the walls of the cart as I could, trying to escape both the sun and the strangeness. Opposite me, my father huddled miserably about his sack of tools.
“We’ll be there soon,” Hadone said, and I closed my eyes and hid my face in my arms, almost undone by the kindness in his voice.
Within minutes we’d turned into a shaded side alley, and then into a cool courtyard. I heard Hadone jump down from the cart, and I sat up, looking about. The spacious courtyard was bounded on two sides by what looked like Hadone’s residence, and on the other two sides by stables, store houses and a slavery large enough for several dozen inmates. The buildings were all clean and in good repair, and the courtyard itself was paved and swept clean of any dung or dust.
Hadone’s man – I never knew his name – helped us down from the cart, then Hadone handed us over to a man and a woman who escorted myself and my father to the separate men’s and women’s slave quarters.
I watched my father being led away with some nervousness, for I was loath to be parted from him, but I let the woman, Omarni, guide me to a cool room. There she bathed me, tended the festering sores about my ankles, and persuaded me to eat some fruits and drink some milk.
Despite my fears, I slept better that night than I had in weeks, and my sleep was dreamless.
For eight days we were left in peace while our sores closed over, our ankles thickened with scar tissue, and our faces plumped out from their gauntness. But on the evening of the ninth day Hadone sent for me.
His man escorted me to Hadone’s residence, where he stood looking me up and down, and fingering my now clean and shining hair. “In a week or so I will take you and your father to market,” he said, “and for the remaining nights you will spend an hour or two in my quarters. You will be sold for your talents at glass making, not for your virginity.”
And so he proceeded to divest me of it.
He was vigorous and painful but not intentionally unkind and, to be frank, I had known that sooner or later rape would be an inevitability of my enslavement. Well, I should not have dropped that vase. For all pain, there comes pain repaid.
When it was done he sent me back to the slavery, and Omarni gave me a cup of a steaming thick herbal to drink.
“It will save your belly from swelling with child,” she said practically, and I realised she must have served this brew to a score of slaves before me.
It was bitter, and it made my stomach churn, but I drank it gratefully. The last thing I wanted was to walk into a lifetime of servitude encumbered with the squalling brat of a slaver.
A week later we were taken to market – I with a little more experience and a few more skills than I’d had when I landed amid the pile of stinking whale meat on the wharf.
Who would buy us? Would he be a kind man, or a harsh taskmaster? And, I wondered further, would he be a satisfied husband, or a man seeking diversion amid the trapped delights of his slavery?
Neither, as it turned out.
The market was crowded with vendors selling fruits, cloths, plate and lives. One corner was devoted exclusively to the trade in human flesh, and there Hadone directed us and three other men he intended to sell this day. We were guarded, but only lightly. None of us had anywhere to run.
The guards took the three men directly to the open slave lines, where prospective buyers could prod the merchandise and inspect their teeth, but Hadone took my father and me to a stall at the back of the lines.
There a tall and painfully thin man, as dark as Hadone, unravelled himself from a stool and bowed slightly. His eyes were as sharp as his face was thin, and I decided instantly that I did not like him.
Hadone returned the bow with far greater obeisance than he had been afforded. When he spoke, he kept his hands clasped over his heart and his eyes fixed on the dirt. “Kamish. May your sons