Deep inside him something stirred. Revenge against the gods themselves. A strength surged through him, a will to exist and yes, a will to wreak that revenge, all of it. He lifted his head and bared his teeth and glared at the Taiytakei in front of him.
‘Because I'm not ready to die.’
The Taiytakei exchanged more words. One called a candle bearer closer and pointed at Berren's thigh, at the scarring on his leg. The other looked him up and down. ‘You know ships?’
He nodded. Two years as a skag; but they must have known, because knowing his way around a ship was what had landed him down here in the first place. Normal disobedience was met with floggings or simply being thrown overboard to drown. It took a special crime for a Taiytakei slave captain to put one of his precious cargo to death so slowly; but then it took a special understanding of sails and ropes and how they worked together to fray the right few so they'd snap when they should hold and sails that should be reefed would stay aloft untouched until the wind in them snapped the masts that held them high. If he'd thought of a way to send the ship to the bottom of the sea, he'd have done it.
‘Sail, fight, gold,’ said the Taiytakei. To him it seemed to mean something.
They left him chained in the dark for another two days but at least he got food and water now. The dead man beside him was taken out and thrown into the sea. When they let him out, up onto the decks, Berren screwed up his eyes and stretched and cast his arms to the sky, feeling the sunlight and the fresh air and the wind on his skin for the first time in. . days? Weeks? He didn't know. When they prodded him into a boat along with a dozen more slaves, he did as he was asked, meek and docile while the fire inside smouldered on. A time and a place. One day. .
Revenge on the gods themselves. The thought haunted him yet gave him its strength. Inside him, now and then, he still felt the remnant of the warlock whose body he'd taken, crushed and squashed, forced away into some deep dark corner, jumbled and slowly fading to nothing, a husk to be devoured by alien thoughts and foreign memories, drenched with despair, although these days even the despair was a dull thing, muted and driven away.
He'd not let that happen. Not to him. Not to the Bloody Judge.
The boat pulled alongside a galley, a fast shallow-draughted coastal corsair, the sort of ship the Bloody Judge might once have used for fast sharp raids along the Tethis coast. Its decks were busy, filled with bright-coloured Taiytakei and unchained white-shirted slaves. Some of the slaves even carried short cutting knives. The Taiytakei carried them too, but they carried something else: golden glass sticks that glowed with their own light. He was herded with the other newcomers to the back. Several Taiytakei pointed their glowing sticks at him. White light held in glass. He thought he'd seen something like that once before. Trapped fire that Prince Talon, the Prince of Swords, had once used.
He stopped. He suddenly didn't know who it was they'd fought that day. The king he'd killed for the Prince of Swords. How he'd earned his other name: Crowntaker. A moment ago he'd known who it was but now the name was gone like the snap of a man's fingers.
He stood with the other new slaves, cowed and pressed together, surrounded by armed men while the two ships finished their business. The galley raised a sail and began to move. A slave with a knife on his belt and two Taiytakei soldiers came forward. The slave wore the same white as the others, but around his wrist hung half a dozen strings of brightly coloured stones. He looked at Berren and the others, laughed and spat at their feet.
‘If you speak the Sun King's tongue, nod your head.’ The words were loud and slow as though he was talking to idiots. He looked them over one more time and then walked in among them, cuffing them into answering. ‘We are all slaves. Slaves. Do you know what that means?’ He tore one of the strings off his wrist and threw it into the sea. ‘I didn't like that one any more. That's what happens to things I don't like.’ He waved his fist. ‘I care more about every one of these stones than I care about any of you. This lot.’ He nodded at the guards. ‘As far as they're concerned, they like the bilge rats better than us.’ He went from one to another, unlocking their chains then held them up. ‘You think these make you slaves? You're wrong. It's the colour of your skin. Look at yourselves. Look at the colour of your skin. Look at the colour of my skin. Slaves is what we are, chains or no chains. Or do you wish to be free?’ He gestured over the side of the ship. The coastline was maybe a mile away, maybe less. The air was warm, the sea calm. Berren stared at it. Couldn't help it. A strong man could. .
The slave with the bracelets stood in front of Berren and snapped his fingers. ‘You. Scrawny one with the scar on your leg.’ Bracelets glared down at him. ‘A strong man could swim. That's what you're thinking.’ He turned away, addressed them once again. ‘And he's right. A strong man could swim to the shore from here, if he could swim at all. But you're slaves and slaves are weak.’ He laughed. ‘Prove me wrong. Go and jump. Run! I won't stop you.’
No one ran. Bracelets glared at them. He raised his left arm to show the lightning brand that ran from his elbow halfway to his fist. ‘I'm a slave like you. One brand makes you worth something to these bastards. You have no brands. That makes you worth nothing.’ He came forward again, nose to nose with the biggest slave from Berren's ship. ‘I have a name but you're not worth it yet, so you can call me master, or bastard, or anything you like as long as you do what I say when I say it. What's your name, slave?’
The big man murmured something. Bracelets slapped him. ‘Wrong! Your name is slave. Big man like you, why aren't you swimming?’ Again the big man murmured and again Bracelets slapped him and shouted in his face, ‘Because you're a slave and because you're weak.’ One by one he went among them. Whatever they said, he slapped them. If they gave a name, he screamed at them that they were slaves. If they said they were slaves, he screamed at them that they were weak.
Now he was standing in front of Berren. ‘And you, Scarred Leg, I know you were thinking of taking a jump. Saw your eyes look at the sea. I know what you were thinking. Freedom, eh? Land. So close. So tempting. Yet here you are. Still here. What's your name, slave? Are you a sheep or a wolf?’
Berren lowered his head and didn't reply. Bracelets slapped him. ‘Are you deaf then? Are you mute? Stupid? Are you all three?’ Berren said nothing. Bracelets slapped him again. ‘Slave! You're a slave. Say it! Say I am a slave!’ Another slap. ‘Say-’
A tide of fury washed though Berren. He caught Bracelets’ wrist, twisted, had one arm locked around the man's neck in a flash. The other hand whipped the knife out of Bracelets’ belt.
‘My name is slave,’ Berren hissed. ‘But my other name is Berren. Berren Crowntaker, Berren the Bloody Judge of Tethis.’ The Taiytakei soldiers were pointing their wands at him. The light inside them blazed bright. And he didn't care. Not one bit.
Bracelets snarled and waved them back. ‘You stay here, you're just slave to me,’ he said. ‘You want a name? You earn it.’
Berren forced Bracelets’ head up. ‘I see the archers there. You might not kill me but they will.’ He felt a dizziness coming over him. Weakness. Weeks of being starved.
‘You earn it!’ Bracelets grabbed Berren's wrist and pulled the knife away from his throat. He twisted Berren's arm until the knife fell to the deck and then kicked him down and roared at the other cowering slaves, ‘By fighting! This is a fighting ship. You man the oars. If you live a year, you man the ropes and the sails. If you live another year, you fight. You'll be slaves, you'll always be slaves, but you can be proud slaves.’ He held up his hand and waved his strings of stones. ‘Every year you live, you get one of these. If you live long enough to fight, you can leave if you want but you won't. You'll have a taste for it by then. Either that or you'll be dead.’