It had been a difficult night for Cornhair, and her collar sisters. There had been the raid, and the fighting. They might have been carried off, or herded away, as the sort of stock, or cattle, they were, one form of loot amongst others. But the raid had been beaten off, and things were now muchly returned to normal. There was little to be concerned with now other than the prices they might bring off the shelves or blocks, and the new Masters before whom they must kneel.
To be sure, Cornhair’s apprehension had exceeded that of her collar sisters in certain ways.
There had been no mistaking, in the light of the torches, the three strangers near the shore. She had seen the three before, on Tangara, in an imperial camp, on a dark cold night, a cloudy winter night, long ago, a remote camp set in the snow, ringed with its defensive wire, a camp at the edge of a deep forest into which few would intrude, in which it was said that Otungs roamed.
She had failed in her attempt to kill the giant, whom she had been commissioned to assassinate with a poisoned knife.
He was Otto, the king of a Vandal tribe, the Otungs, or, perhaps better, Ottonius, a captain of auxiliaries. The other two, who had hurried to the camp to warn the giant of his danger, had arrived at the camp shortly after her failed attempt to complete her projected work. One was Julian, of the Aureliani, of high family, cousin even to the emperor, an officer in the imperial navy, he whom she knew was feared by Iaachus as a possible pretender to the throne, and the other was an agent and colleague of the scion of the Aureliani, a Tuvo Ausonius.
34
“Aside! Aside!” cried the driver.
Cornhair, chained under the canvas, hand and foot, on the shallow, flat-topped wagon, with four others, jolted and bruised, wept.
She could smell smoke. She heard shouting. She had the sense men were running about. She could see nothing.
The horses squealed, and the whip cracked.
The large wooden wheels of the wagon trundled over the stones. The wagon dipped. The flatbed lurched.
The slaves cried out, frightened.
Something cut at the canvas, a long slash, as the wagon sped on its way.
“Aside!” cried the driver.
The whip cracked again, and there was a cry of pain, of rage.
“Aside, I said!” the driver shouted. And then he addressed the horses. “On! On!” he cried, the whip cracking. “On! On!”
This was not a common wagon, or dray wagon, with mountable sides, to enclose a wagon bed, not even a rustic slave wagon, with its rings for girl chains.
Surely it was a far cry from the treaded carrier with the linked steel mesh in which Cornhair and others were first transported through the streets of Telnar, to be delivered to a slave house, and thence, soon, to a street market, a woman’s shelf market. She had heard no hoverers, or motorized vehicles, since she had been disembarked from the keel boat two days ago. The wharves had been little frequented.
“It is uneasy in Telnar,” Gundlicht had been told, shortly after the wharfing of the keel boat. “The city is unruly. Lawlessness reigns in the streets.”
“Many have left the city,” said another fellow.
“Those who could,” said another.
Whatever Gundlicht and his fellows had been told, it had apparently convinced them to return quickly to the delta, to rejoin their lord, the barbarian, Ortog.
“These are fine slaves,” Gundlicht had told the wharf dealers, those few whose houses were not yet barred shut, their stock removed from the city.
“Acceptable merchandise,” he was told, “but fit for better times. Take them east. Return in six months.”
“Coin now,” had said Gundlicht.
“I make you out a barbarian, friend,” had said a dealer. “Your life, and that of your companions, would be worth little in Telnar at any time, and now, I fear, even less. Surely you know of the blockade. A landing is feared. A beard, a strange accent, a garment of hide, a trim of fur, could loose the arrows of guardsmen, the clubs and knives of the beasts who now prowl the streets.”
“Coin now,” said Gundlicht.
“Two hundred for the lot,” said the dealer.
“That is less than ten per slave, is it not?” said Gundlicht.
“As it happens,” said the dealer.
“That is not enough,” said Gundlicht.
“It is my offer,” said the dealer.
“I will sell you the lot,” said Gundlicht, “for five hundred darins.”
“That is an excellent wholesale price,” said a man, a bystander.
“Two hundred,” said the dealer.
“Most houses seem closed,” said Gundlicht.
“They hope for better times,” said the dealer.
“Your house is open,” said Gundlicht.
“And I risk much by keeping it so,” said the dealer.
“Why have you not fled, as many others?” asked Gundlicht.
“There is still a market for slaves,” said the dealer. “There is always a market for slaves.”
“Five hundred darins,” said Gundlicht.
“Times are hard,” said the dealer.
“Five hundred darins,” said Gundlicht.
“Times are hard,” said the dealer. “Two hundred.”
“No,” said Gundlicht.
“Times are unsettled,” said the dealer. “Prices are depressed. Pirates range westward.”
“Five hundred,” said Gundlicht.
“One hundred and fifty,” said the dealer.
“The wharves are muchly deserted,” said Gundlicht. “Few guardsmen are about.”
“They have been called to the city, to contain a confused, stirring populace,” said the dealer.
“Thus, they are not here,” said Gundlicht.
“So?” said the dealer, uneasily.
“Five hundred,” said Gundlicht, “and I will throw in your business.”
“I do not understand,” said the dealer.
“Light torches,” had said Gundlicht, to his fellows.
“Hold,” had said the dealer. “I will give you five hundred.”
“Six hundred,” had said Gundlicht.
“Very well,” had said the dealer, “six hundred.”
“That is not a bad price,” had said a bystander.
Cornhair cried out in misery as the wagon jolted.
The wagon, a common flatbed, was not designed for the transportation of slaves. It was designed for the convenient loading and unloading of heavy materials, such as lumber, sewerage piping, and blocks of stone. Certainly more suitable conveyances were in short supply in the vicinity of the wharves, but exigency was not the explanation for the selection of this particular vehicle.
“Deliver these to the House of Worlds, on Varl,” the driver had been ordered. The House of Worlds was a major, well-known company, with outlets on several worlds.
“Today?” had asked the driver.
“Have this receipt signed,” said the dealer.
Much business in Telnar, incidentally, as in many economies, was conducted in terms of notes of various sorts, exchanged amongst parties. Such notes were not generally negotiable. Few would prove of interest, or value, to a common thief. Considerable sums, as one would expect, might be transferred amongst businesses, and even amongst worlds, without a physical darin being moved.