“I suppose that sounds immoral to you? Well, here is the problem. You are between jungle and desert, of course, but the west end of the borderlands is now cut off by the Andes and the Great River. That’s an impossible barrier for traders. We can guide people and their livestock across the canyon, but not wagons. Or chariots. And the barrier is moving east, obviously.”
Jat had long since vanished from my life, but I could recall his geography lessons. “You mean we must head north, across the desert?”
Black nodded, sparkling all the jewel drops on his hair. “We have arranged a truce. And we provide escorts,” he added, before I could say whatever he expected me to say.
“How urgent is this?” I asked, worried about my inability to defend my beloved Misi and her daughter, recalling vague yarns about the fierce red-haired men of the desert.
“Not very,” the angel confessed. “You have time for a trip or two back to the mountains. Before you bounce grandchildren on your knee, though, you must cross the desert to the north borderlands. You may stay there or come south again across the grasslands as you wish—just don’t say you weren’t warned! And don’t wait too long or there will be no one left to trade with. We hear there is a spinster at work.”
My spine tingled. Black had thrown in that unrelated remark in the hopes of eliciting a reaction. Obviously I was supposed to know what a spinster was, but I didn’t. Was it dangerous? In all her lessons, Misi had not thought to mention spinsters, so they must be rare. I could not ask her for help, for she was playing moron again. But Misi was no moron. She had steered the team into a stand of small trees, heavier growth than she would normally have chosen. They slowed us, of course, but the noise of crunching was much louder than usual, making conversation difficult. Moreover, Black was being squeezed between the side of the cab and the sides of the cut we were making, and he had to constantly step over stumps and fragments of trunk. This made it harder for him to keep his eyes on me. The slash also made the cab bounce and lurch repeatedly, jarring hot irons through my knees.
But if hard work gains rewards, then I ought to pass scrutiny. Misi and Pula had made me a leather jacket and breeches in trader style. They had tried to use an old set of Jat’s, but I was much too large for those. My coat was unfastened to display the fine floral shirt that Jat had coveted—actually it was only the front, for Misi had taken it to pieces to fit my wider chest. The cuffs showed, although the top of the sleeves did not reach my shoulders. I sported the appropriate curved-brim hat; my hair and beard and eyebrows had been dyed, my face and hands darkened also. We had not been able to do anything about my eyes.
I looked like a trader—unusually large for a male, but a trader nonetheless.
Spinster? “Where?” I asked, playing for time.
Black’s expression grew even more lugubrious. “If we knew that we wouldn’t be here, now would we?”
“I suppose not.”
The conversation lagged for a while. The hippos continued to browse their noisy way through the trees, and Black continued to study me. I stared back down at him with all the confidence I could feign. I had promised Misi I would get her safely past the angels, and I was going to do everything in my power to keep my promise.
“You have seen no slaving, then?” Black asked suddenly.
I shook my head, attempting to display disapproval.
“Wetlanders in particular, of course.” He watched my reaction very carefully.
“No blonds here, sir. Nor in the other trains.”
“You will not mind opening your wagon for me, though, trader?”
Misi had warned me that he would ask, and we had agreed that this was the tricky part, for I could still barely walk.
“I would not mind, sir”—I waved at the trees crowding in around us—“but we can’t open the doors in this.”
“There is a clearing.” Black pointed ahead and to the left.
I frowned, as if not wanting to divert from my road, but in truth we should have to veer very little to reach the clearing and to refuse would only prolong the ordeal. I shrugged and turned to Misi, yelling at her and pointing. She played stupid for a while, but the clearing was a large one, and we could not keep up the pretense for long enough to slip by it. Eventually she nodded and began turning the team toward the gap.
Black was still sauntering beside me. His manner reeked of suspicion.
“Tell me, sir,” I inquired jocularly, “whatever will you do if you open my wagon and a wetlander jumps out at you?”
He frowned. I had to wait awhile for his answer, but he could not hold a silence as long as Misi could. “Save him, of course.”
I wanted to ask what would happen if the wetlander did not want to be saved, but I dared not reveal more ignorance. Then we were out of the trees and the wagon doors could be opened.
“Pula!” I shouted. “Show the angel what we carry.”
Black’s eyebrows rose. “You will not do me the courtesy of taking me yourself, Nob Bil?”
“My regrets, angel. My knee… Walking is painful for me.”
Evidently he was suspicious of my knee story, but Pula jumped from a side window and led him back to look at the stock Had I been able to accompany him, he might well have asked questions about Misi’s trade goods that I should have been unable to answer. Pula was at least genuine and would know about them, if he could get a response from her. The goods were becoming depleted. We had been living off them for some time.
Then Black returned. We were almost across the clearing, heading toward more timber.
“Well, I found no slaves, trader.”
“I hardly expected you to, sir.”
He indulged himself in more staring. I became even tenser. Obviously he could tell that something was wrong. Would he let us go?
“You will forgive this inconvenience, though?” he said. “As an honest trader, you must be revolted by the inhuman practice of slaving.”
“Absolutely. I deplore it.” I was being truthful there.
“And slaving itself is nothing compared to the barbarous obscenities of a spinster.”
I shrugged noncommitally. “If one believes all the tales.”
“Oh, they are true! It would be disgusting enough to treat even a dumb animal as a spinster treats her victims. To use human beings so is beyond all understanding.”
I remembered Hrarrh’s dark hints and shivered. But I had promised Misi that I would save her from the angels. She had professed a great fear of what the angels might do if they discovered I was a wetlander. Even though I was no longer a slave, she had said, and even if I were to tell them so myself, they would guess that I had been one originally. Then they would be hard on her, perhaps even burning her goods and wagons. I loved Misi. I trusted her, and here was my chance to show her she could trust me. Given a chance for rescue, I was staying with her by choice. I was proving that I loved her.
“Oh, I agree,” I said.
The angel nodded reluctantly. “Then good fortune, trader.”
“And good hunting, angel.”
We had made it! As soon as the angel was out of sight, I threw my arms around Misi and kissed her.
Wary of treachery, I intended to retain my trader disguise until we were well past the angel roadblock, but as soon as I felt we were reasonably safe, I turned to Misi with determination.
“Now you know you can trust me!” I said. “So I want to know why! Why do traders buy wetlanders?”
She had three techniques she used to avoid answering my questions. Sometimes she played the moron again, although that was hardly credible now. Sometimes she wept, and that always reduced me to tears myself, for I was tortured by the memories of having manhandled her in my drugged frenzy and I could not bear the thought of making her surfer any more. Her third evasion, always the most effective, was merely to join me on the bed. That never failed.