The Kingless Land - Ed Greenwood [113]
When the rage left Hawkril, even the burly armaragor had wrapped Craer in a fierce embrace and whispered his thanks. "I almost killed her," he quavered in the procurer's ear. "Thank the Three you got back here in time."
The warrior had pulled back then, and stared at Craer with real fear in his eyes, before asking roughly, "If I'd killed her, what would we have done then?"
The procurer had shrugged, not knowing what to answer.
"What would you have told us to do?" Hawkril persisted, still looking stricken.
Craer opened his mouth, shut it again without saying anything, looked around at the night mists drifting through the trees, and shook his head.
"The mists don't answer," he'd told the armaragor bitterly. "They never have."
Surprisingly, both Embra and Sarasper had nodded at his words, as if they understood.
Craer stared at the moon now, feeling the old dark nightmare rise within him, until it spilled over, and he was back on the reeking docks, on the day his youth was swept away forever…
"Aye, he gave us a few fists," Jack-a-Blade grunted, nudging the senseless, naked man with his boot. "But he went down for all that-and not much damaged, neither. When he wakes, you'll find he still has a jaw and his wits. A fair tally scribe, too."
"Reads and writes-or just counts and marks?"
"Reads and writes. His woman does, too."
"What? What did they do, again?"
"Ran a warehouse for the Star Sails," Jack-a-Blade said, and the young boy crouched in the rafters could hear the chuckle in his voice.
"Ah." The slaver was not a slow man. "One that recently and mysteriously burned, eh?"
"Now that you mention it," Jack-a-Blade said slowly, in a broad impersonation of a surprised man, "I do believe that the couple who betrayed the Sails and burned their warehouse after emptying it of several wagonloads of valuables might just be this same Phorthas and Shierindra Delnbone."
"I can't sell or use openly what a large merchant house searches for," the bald-headed slaver said flatly. "That drives the price down."
"Read and write," Jack-a-Blade murmured. "Who'd want to let them go?"
"Letters aren't as rare a skill as you think," the slaver said, crossing forearms that were thicker and hairier than Jack-a-Blade's thighs. "And they're not all that big, or young, or fair to look upon."
He waved a hand at the woman, lying still in her chains. If he'd purchased her, he'd have used his boot, but there were rules. Both men knew by the way she tensed and caught her breath that she was awake, but neither would say a word if she didn't scream or try to wriggle away. And both men judged this Shierindra Delnbone too sensible for that, even if her bared body didn't stir the loins at first glance.
Like her husband on the rough wooden floor beside her, she lay on her back, with the backs of her wrists chained together at her throat, under the slave hood, and her ankles manacled well apart to the drag bar. The drag pad under her shoulders wasn't yet laced down her back to that bar, but it would be before she was moved. Both men standing over the scrawny, flat-breasted woman knew that she was going to be bought and sold, and soon; the slaver had made no move for the door, and Jack-a-Blade hadn't suggested one.
"Granted," the port pirate agreed, "so I'll only ask ten drethar. Each."
The slaver snorted. "Six drethar for the pair would be a little less outrageous," he said, not quite keeping a snarl out of his voice. Crossbowmen behind sliding panels in every wall of a room earn a man a little respect-but not that much.
Jack-a-Blade's fingers, of the hand that was behind his back, crooked in a certain sign, and those panels slid open. Noisily. The boy in the rafters, crouched above the bright flickering of the candle-lamp, shivered soundlessly.
The slaver didn't bother to stiffen or turn his head. "Perhaps my judgment was hasty. Say, five drethar for the pair."
The port pirate acquired the very faintest of smiles, and said, "Eight drethar. Each, of course."
The slaver smiled more broadly and took a casual