The Dragon Revenant - Katharine Kerr [50]
By the morrow morning, the rain and the clouds were gone when Jill and Salamander went down to the harbor, a semicircular bite out of cliffs that dropped straight down to a narrow stretch of white beach. Along the cliff-tops, radiating out from an enormous wooden longhouse with statues at either end, was a crowded scatter of booths and stalls.
“Is that a temple?” Jill pointed at the longhouse.
“It is, to Dalae-oh-contremo, god of the sea. Actually, he’s the god of all sorts of other things, too, including for some odd reason unjustly treated slaves.”
“There’s some provision in the laws for that, then?”
“Of course. Don’t Deverry bondsmen have rights that their lord can’t cross?”
“Well, but bondsmen aren’t slaves.”
“Oh come now!” Salamander snorted profoundly. “They can’t be sold away from their land or their families, true, but free? You jest, my turtledove. Of course, there aren’t many bondsmen left in Deverry anymore, so no doubt you’ve never thought much about them.”
“Well, I haven’t, truly. Here, were there once a lot of them?”
“On every lord’s manor, or so I’ve been told. Now it’s pretty much only the King who holds bound-land. I don’t know why things changed, but I’m blasted glad they did. Do you know why slavery is such a bad thing, my turtledove?”
“Well, it’s cursed unfair.”
“More than that. It makes men grow used to being cruel and to justifying their reasons for being cruel. That way lie the paths of evil.”
He spoke so quietly, with none of his usual jests or affectations, that Jill was forced to remember the real power underlying his jokes and foppery.
Since the departures and arrivals of all ships were publicly posted outside the harbormaster’s office, they found out easily enough that a ship called the Gray Kestrel, owned by a certain Galaetrano, had just returned from a run over to Ronaton on Surtinna. After some searching they found Galaetrano himself, an enormous bronze man with a shock of straight black hair, sitting with some of his crew in a wine shop at the edge of the marketplace. He was returning to Ronaton on the morrow, with plenty of room for two more passengers and a couple of horses, especially if the passengers wanted to pay for a first-class passage. Salamander bought wine all round, told a couple of his less-than-delicate stories, and got everyone talking at great length about life in general and the shipping trade in particular. Almost at random, or so it seemed, the captain himself began telling them about someone named Pommaeo, a regular passenger who had made his last trip over with a rare barbarian slave.
“He paid twice what the man was worth, too, he told me, just to get him for a courting gift. As far as I can tell, this woman he’s after inherited a fortune.”
“Oh, so that’s why he’d go all that way just to find a wife,” Salamander said, carelessly. “She must live right down in Ronaton, huh?”
“Well, no.” The captain suddenly laughed. “You know something? He never did tell us where she lives. Just realized that myself. A sly dog, that one. If you know a rich widow, you keep her to yourself.”
“I don’t blame him, no, but it’s too bad.” Salamander glanced ever so casually at Jill. “We could use a Deverry man in the show. It would look good on stage, especially if he were another blonde.”
“Oh, this slave had black hair,” Galaetrano said. “But I see your point about the effect. You know, it’s odd. You’re the second man who’s asked me about barbarian slaves lately.”
“Indeed?”
“It was before my last trip to Ronaton, but this other fellow was from the islands. Let’s see, I don’t think he ever did mention his name, actually, kind of odd, now that I think of it. But anyway, he was only interested in buying for resale. He came from Tondio, I think he said.