“The smaller group sits, the larger group stands,” said the man.
“Discipline,” said Ortog.
“Excellent,” said the man.
“The larger group,” said the man, “seemed reluctant to go to all fours, and eat their slave gruel from pans, not using their hands.”
“We did not, by design, command it,” said Ortog.
“I see,” said the man.
“When they are sufficiently hungry,” said Ortog, “they will not merely do so, but beg to be permitted to do so.”
“Excellent,” said the man. “What disposition have you in mind for the smaller lot?”
“They are lovely sluts, are they not?” asked Ortog.
“Very much so,” said the man.
Cornhair rejoiced to hear this assessment. As a free woman she had been beautiful and, now, she hoped to be even more beautiful, beautiful as a slave is beautiful.
“I shall rent a boat,” said Ortog, “one capable of plying the river west.”
“A keel boat,” said the man.
“And then I hope to sell them in Telnar,” said Ortog.
“You should have no difficulty,” said the man.
Cornhair was pleased to hear this.
“Good,” said Ortog.
“But I place you as a barbarian,” said the man.
“Perhaps,” said Ortog.
“So beware of Telnar,” said the man. “There are few river men and few barbarians in Telnar.”
“Perhaps, eventually,” said Ortog, “there will be more.”
“I have a friend, Orik,” said the man, “who has recently disembarked cargo, loaded more, and would welcome additional coin for an upstream voyage.”
“He would not object to carrying twenty-two slaves?”
“Not at all,” said the man. “They might take two or three days off the length of the voyage.”
“How so?” asked Ortog.
“They will do very nicely as tow beasts.”
“These are not draft slaves,” had said Ortog.
“But they are slaves,” had said the man.
“True,” had said Ortog. “Please be gracious enough to conduct me to your friend, Orik.”
“This way,” had said the man.
Cornhair, with the others, in the line, on the narrow trail, her feet sometimes slipping in the mud and gravel, pressed her body again against the hempen harness.
If only there had been a wind from the east, she thought, swelling the wide, matted sail!
“Rest!” called Orik, captain of the keel boat, from its deck, behind its blunt prow.
He had his right hand raised, shading his eyes, looking to the side, over the trees. There would be perhaps two more hours of daylight.
“Rest!” called the Harness Master.
Two men from the keel boat lowered themselves over the side and waded to shore, the water to their thighs, and tethered lines to two half-submerged, adjacent trees. The vessel pulled against these lines, turning slightly. The keel boat is seldom beached. This is less a matter of practicality and convenience, given its structure, weight, and size, than one of judicious precaution. The beached vessel is immobile and requires time to be thrust back into the water. It takes but a moment to cut mooring lines and free the vessel to the current. Similarly, it is seldom tethered snugly to shore. In this way a sudden rush of men would have difficulty in effecting a boarding, having to wade to the hull and then clamber over the gunwales, a most unpleasant prospect if men above them, behind the gunwales, should be moved to deny them entry.
Cornhair, with the others, still harnessed, crept to the side, and lay down in the shaded grass.
She lay on her belly, and dug her fingers into the grass.
She was covered with sweat, her legs were filthy. Her body ached, her feet and shoulders were sore.
She clutched at the grass.
She, as the others, in the lines, was naked. That was natural, and practical, given the heat, and misery and torment, of the work. Too, they were slaves. Too, nudity is, in a way, like the slave tunic, a bond. Not all slaves are naked, but one who is naked in public is likely to be a slave.
She was not chained.
That was commonly done at night, on the deck of the keel boat, or in one of the shore camps.
In the business at hand, chaining would have impaired the efficiency of the operation.
Chains keep women together. One whip, its leather admonitions poised, can master an entire chain. Many think of chains as being utilized to prevent escape. That is certainly true, of course, for they prevent escape with perfection; a chained slave knows herself helpless; but, too, there is another reason for chaining which is less commonly recognized, and that is to prevent theft. It is as difficult to steal a slave chained to a ring as it is, say, to steal any other property so secured. Similarly, where one might steal one shackled woman, carrying her away, gagged and struggling, into the night, it is not easy, at all, to steal a string of fifteen or twenty women shackled together. Surely that is a much greater challenge. Too, might that not call for several men, and bloodshed? Too, of course, it is easier to track a chain of twenty shackled properties than to pursue and recover one such property, just as it is easier to track a string of twenty horses or a herd of twenty pigs than a single horse or pig.
There are, of course, many aspects of chains which transcend simple matters of management, for example, matters mnemonic, aesthetic, stimulatory, psychological, and so on. Chains, as cords, ropes, straps, thongs, and such, have their effects on the female slave.
In any event, the slaves were not chained.
Cornhair was aware that she might slip the rope harness, but she, no more than the others, would not do so.
It was not, interestingly, simply that there was no escape for them, given their lack of garmenture, their marks, their collars, the enclosing society, the lack of anywhere to escape to, and such, but that they now, or at least Cornhair, understood themselves as quite other than free women. They now understood themselves as something radically, fundamentally different, as properties which might be bought and sold, as slaves.
Cornhair closed her eyes, put her head down, and felt the grass against her cheek.
She and the others, obviously, were not draft slaves. One would be a fool to buy such as they for haulage. Clearly such as they would be purchased for other purposes.
Yet, they, the twenty-two of them, had been put to haulage.
Did this not seem madness? How had Gundlicht, lieutenant to Ortog, with several others, delegated to dispose of the slaves in Telnar markets, permitted this? Would he bring fresh, rested slaves, hoping to be well purchased, to the shelves and blocks, or exhausted, strained, worn, sore, and weary slaves, pathetic beasts unlikely to be sought after otherwise than as bargains, purchased with an eye to the future?
What Cornhair, in her misery, did not realize was the attention and solicitude with which she and the others were being handled and treated. The Masters realized full well they were dealing with prize stock and had no intention of diminishing its value. They had not been driven and hastened as hauling slaves are often driven and hastened. They were well fed and frequently watered. The rope harness was cushioned at the shoulder. Their towing time was less than six hours per day. Rest periods were frequent. Men assisted at the poles. The whip had scarcely touched them. In Telnar, with a day or two’s rest, they would be put up for sale in a condition calculated to display them to their vender’s best advantage.
Cornhair opened her eyes, and looked back to the keel boat, a few feet from shore, on its mooring lines, and looked back, aft, to the deck cabin.
Who, she wondered, were the strangers who remained so much in that cabin.
Certainly they were not the two fellows who had had unpleasant, if not altogether untypical, experiences in the delta village, not the one who had returned bloody from a brawl, a handful of tavern cup dice in his grasp, nor the fellow severally slashed in some dispute about the charms of a slave. Men speculated that the luck of the first fellow might now change. Orik had advised him not to gamble with his crew mates. The second fellow had, at least, on foot, made it back to the keel boat. His antagonist, it was said, was likely to recover, as the blade had missed the heart.