Half an hour ago, we had been flagged by another vessel, I was sure of it. We had dropped anchor, and someone had come aboard, someone who spoke our language.
But I couldn’t make out the words themselves, only the familiar tone and inflection. And the longer I listened to the conversation above, the more I was convinced that there was no interpreter. This man had to be from the Queen, and he knew the language of these pirates.
Finally Beauty sat up. She stretched herself like a kitten, and, staring down at the small triangle of metal between her legs, appeared to recall everything. Her eyes were clouded, her gestures uncommonly slow as she moved her long flaxen hair back, blinking at the single lantern that hung from the low ceiling above. Then she saw me.
“Tristan,” she whispered. She sat forward, clinging to the bars of the cage.
“Shhhh!” I pointed to the ceiling. And in a hurried whisper told her about the ship coming alongside and the man boarding us.
“I was sure we were sailing far across the sea,” she said.
In the cage beneath her, Prince Laurent, the poor runaway, slept on, and Prince Dmitri, a castle slave sent down to the village with us, slept above her.
“But who has come on board?” she whispered.
“Be quiet, Beauty!” I cautioned again. But it was no use. I couldn’t make out what was taking place, except that it was continuing vigorously.
Beauty had the most innocent expression on her face, the gold-tinted oil enhancing every detail of her form enticingly. She looked smaller, rounder, more nearly perfected; and crouching in the cage, she appeared some bizarre creature imported from a strange land, to be set in a pleasure garden. We must have all appeared that way.
“We might still be rescued!” she said anxiously.
“I don’t know,” I answered. Why were there no soldiers? Why was there only that single voice? I couldn’t frighten her by telling her we were true captives now, not valuable Tributes under the protection of her Majesty.
Finally Laurent was coming to himself, rising slowly on account of the welts that covered his body, and with the rubbing of gold oil he looked as splendid as Beauty. It was an odd spectacle, in fact, all the welts and stripes so deeply colored with the gold so that they became almost purely ornamental. Maybe all our welts and stripes had always been purely ornamental. His hair, so neglected when he had been on the Punishment Cross, was dressed now and trained into magnificent dark brown curls. He blinked as he looked up at me, clearing the drugged sleep from his eyes rapidly.
Hurriedly I told him what had happened and pointed to the ceiling. We were all listening to the voice, though I don’t think either of them heard it any more clearly than I did.
Laurent shook his head and rested back. “What an adventure!” he said slowly, with an almost sleepy indifference.
Beauty smiled in spite of herself at the word and glanced shyly at me. I was too angry to speak. I felt too helpless.
“Wait,” I said, kneeling forward and taking hold of the bars. “Someone’s coming.” I could hear throughout the hold a dull vibration.
The door opened and into the room stepped a pair of the silken dressed boys who had been caring for us. They carried little boat-shaped brass oil lamps. And between them stood a tall elderly gray-haired Lord clothed in familiar doublet and leggings, his sword at his side, his dagger in his thick leather belt, his eyes sweeping the room almost angrily.
The tallest of the two boys gave forth a stream of soft foreign chatter to the Lord, and the man nodded and motioned with an angry expression.
“Tristan, and Beauty,” he said, advancing into the room, “and Laurent.”
At this, the olive-skinned boys at once seemed disconcerted. They averted their eyes and left the Lord alone with the slaves, closing the door behind them.
“I was afraid of this,” he said. “And Elena and Ros-alynd and Dmitri. The finest castle slaves. These thieves have such excellent eyes. They freed the others down the coast as soon as they had ferreted out the prizes.”
“But what’s to happen to us, my Lord?” I demanded. His attitude was too clearly one of exasperation.
“That, my dear Tristan,” said the Lord, “is in the hands of your Master, the Sultan.”
Beauty gasped.
I felt my face harden, the rage welling up in me, silencing me for the moment as I stared at him. “My Lord,” I said, my voice shuddering with anger, “will you not even try to save us?” I saw in my mind’s eyes the figure of my Master, Nicolas, thrown down on the stones of the square, as the horse carried me away, my struggles useless. But that was not the half of my anguish. What lay ahead of us?
“What I have done is the best I can do,” said the Lord, approaching me. “I have exacted an enormous indemnity for each of you. The Sultan will pay almost anything for plump, soft-skinned, well-trained slaves of the Queen, but he likes his gold as much as the next man. And in two years,
he will return you well-fed, in good health with no blemishes, or he will not see his gold again. Believe me, Prince, it has been done a hundred times over. Had I failed to intercept his craft, his emissaries and our emissaries would have met together. He wants no real quarrel with her Majesty. You have never been in any real danger.
“No danger!” I protested. “We are going to a foreign land where . . .”
“Quiet, Tristan,” he said sharply. “It is the Sultan who inspired our Queen to her passion for pleasure victims. He sent the Queen her first slaves and explained to her the care with which slaves must be treated. No real harm shall come to you. Though of course ... of course ...”
“Of course what!” I demanded.
“You will be more abject,” said the Lord, with a little anxious shrug, as if he couldn’t fully explain it. “In the Sultan’s palace, you will occupy a much more lowly position. Of course, you will be the playthings of your Masters and Mistresses, very valuable playthings. But you will no longer be treated as beings with high reason. On the contrary, you will be trained as valuable animals are trained, and you must never, heaven help you, try to speak or to evince anything more than the simplest understanding—”
“My Lord,” I interrupted.
“As you see,” the Lord continued, “the attendants will not even remain in the room here if you are spoken to as if you have wits. They find it too incongruous and unseemly. They retire at the distasteful sight of a slave treated as. . .”
“. . . as human,” Beauty whispered. Her lower lip was quivering as she tightened her little fists on the bars, but she was not crying.
“Yes, exactly, Princess.”
“My Lord.” I was furious now. “You must ransom us, we are under her Majesty’s protection! This violates all agreements!”
“Out of the question, dear Prince. In the complex exchanges between great powers, some things must be sacrificed. And it violates no agreements. You were sent to serve, and serve you shall, in the Palace of the Sultan. And have no doubt, you will be treasured by your new Masters. Though the Sultan has many slaves from his own land, you captive Princes and Princesses are a special delicacy of sorts, and a great curiosity.”
I was too angry and defeated to speak further. It was hopeless. Nothing I said made any difference. I was imprisoned like a creature of the wild, and my mind lapsed into miserable silence.
“I did what I could,” said the Lord, his eyes including the others now as he stepped back.
Dmitri was awake and leaning on his elbow as he listened.
“I was ordered to obtain an apology for the raid,” the Lord went on, “and a stiff indemnity. I got more gold than I expected.” He was going to the door. His hand was on the latch. “Two years,
Prince, that’s not so long,” he said to me. “And when you return, your knowledge and experience will prove of inestimable value at the castle.”
“My Master!” I said suddenly. “Nicolas, the Chronicler. Tell me at least, was he harmed in the raid?”