Had my throat permitted, then, I am sure I should have screamed. As it was, I made a terrible scene, blubbering and pleading in a frantic whisper that changed nothing. My weeping continued even after Shisisannis and most of the other men had departed on their mission of death and pillage.
Returning from her farewells at the door, Ayasseshas scowled at me in disgust. “Um-oao?” she said. “Othisosish said he should rest. Take him over to the pens and tether him. He is of no use here.”
“And seed him, Majesty?”
“Why not? Yes! He is pale enough to get started. And hurry back, big bull. I am much in need of loving.”
—10—
RED-YELLOW-GREEN
A CIRCLE OF HUTS, A HALF-COMPLETED STOCKADE, a forest beyond—these denned the compound. As Um-oao jogged across the mud with my limp form draped over his shoulder, I realized that there were no pens in sight, only huts and more huts. The noises I had thought to be made by livestock were coming from the huts to which I was being taken—and now I knew what made those noises. A human throat can scream only so long before it stops sounding human.
The journey was so short that Um-oao had not bothered to cover me again, and the sun was warm on my bare skin. He reached his objective, pulled aside a drape, and ducked through into hot darkness. Then he expertly flipped me onto my back. I yelled, expecting to crash onto the ground, but I landed instead on a tightly stretched sheet of black silk. I bounced and came to rest, whimpering about my knees.
Um-oao grabbed my right ankle and began to tie it. I sat up and he cuffed me back like a child. In moments he had skillfully trussed me, spread-eagled and quite helpless. Ignoring my questions, he vanished out the door, returning to his mistress. Gloom became darkness as the curtain fell over the opening, and I was alone with the pounding of my heart.
My wrists and ankles had been bound with twine leading to the corners of the frame, but loosely enough that I could raise my head and peer around. There seemed to be four of these beds or stalls or sties or whatever I wished to call them. I could see, and smell, the stinking bucket under each, and I could feel the hole in the silk below my buttocks. Then I sensed that I was not alone.
“Who’s that?”
“Ing-aa,” said a voice from my left, a deep voice.
I tried to see him, but a naked black man on black silk was not very conspicuous in near darkness. And another—I could hear something on the bed across from me. Each breath was a bubbling whimper.
“Who’s that?”
“Don’t know his name.” Ing-aa’s tone showed little interest. “They call him Old Faithful. He’s been here a long time. Longer than any, I think.”
“He can’t talk?”
“No one can talk after being here a long time, wetlander. We endure until we can endure no more. Then we go mad, and then we die. Old Faithful just hasn’t died, that’s all. She takes crop after crop off him, and he just won’t die.”
I shuddered. The heat and stench were making my stomach heave again.
“You must have displeased my lady?” Like Shisisannis, Ing-aa seemed quite willing to be friendly, although either of them would joyfully have eaten me raw, had Ayasseshas suggested it.
“I have used that love potion before, so it did not work on me this time.”
“You are to be pitied. It is the memory of that glorious loving that makes all this worthwhile.”
“Worthwhile? Have you been…seeded?”
“Yes.”
“Does it hurt?”
“They haven’t hatched yet. They only tickle at first anyway—so I’m told.”
My bonds cut into me if I pulled at them. They were silk, I supposed; thin but strong. “You’ve got muscles, swampman. Can’t you break loose?”
“I’m not tied.”
“What! Then…you’re just lying there, with…with whatever those things are…crawling on you?”
“I told you—they haven’t hatched yet. I have to lie flat until they’re big enough to hang on.”
Then light flared bright again, painfully bright, as an elderly man pulled open the drape. White hair gleamed above me as he inspected my bonds.
“I’ve brought a present for you, wetlander.” He wheezed a sort of chuckle and spread a large leaf on my chest. It felt cool and damp, but its coolness was not the cause of the shiver that convulsed me then. I looked over at Ing-aa. In the light from the doorway, I could see that there was a leaf lying on him also.
“Eggs?”
“Silkworm eggs,” the old man agreed. “Thirty of them. Try to rear as many as you can and please the lady. The more you carry to the end, the longer you get to heal afterward.”
I think I would have cursed him and Ayasseshas most roundly then, but another shadow blocked the light for a moment. It dropped its garment, and I recognized Quetti. His pale skin was scrolled with dark lines of raw flesh, as if his slender frame was wrapped in a giant fishnet. He moved to the one vacant bed.
“Help me, please?” His young voice quavered more noticeably than it had earlier. Assisted by the old man, Quetti managed to stretch out on the silk without damage to any of the vile parasites clinging to him.
He raised his head to look across at me. “Us wetlanders have to stick together, Knobil.” If that was humor, there was no joy in it; it might have been an appeal for comfort. He was holding three fingers over one eye. The silkworm slug had almost reached it. An oozing red stripe on his neck and cheek showed where it had grazed his skin on the way there. Another was progressing along his forearm, and there were two in his armpit. I retched and looked away without speaking. I had no sympathy to spare for Quetti.
He lay back with a sigh. “Othisosish? You’ll come and tie me soon, when it’s gone by?”
“That I will, lad,” the old man replied gently. The drape fell back behind him.
For a moment there was dark silence, broken by the mindless whimpers from the thing on the bed across from me and the animal-like wailing from the other huts nearby.
“How can you do that?” I yelled at Quetti. “Just lie there and be eaten alive?”
“They only take the top layer. It grows back. Hardly a scar. Except for things like nipples, of course.”
“But it hurts?”
“Oh yes, it hurts. Indeed it hurts. Especially when they get big like this…but they’ll start spinning soon, and then it’ll be all over.”
“Until the next time?”
“Until my lady asks me to pasture another crop,” he agreed.
I was drenched with sweat from the heat in that foul place, and yet my insides felt cold as death.
“The big ones are the worst?” Ing-aa asked in his deep voice.
There was no reply for a moment, while Quetti battled agony. Then he released one of the gasping sighs I had heard before and said, “No. The little ones. They burrow.”
“Burrow?” I wailed.
“Ears…and things. I couldn’t save this eye if this was a little one. It would get under my fingers. I’ve been lucky. I haven’t lost anything important yet.”
“But how can you just lie there and be eaten?”
There was a longer silence then, until he said sadly, “You still don’t understand? I love Ayasseshas. We all do.”
“But…”
“Who is this fat woman that Shisisannis has gone to fetch?”
“Her name is Misi.”
“So when Misi gets here, Ayasseshas will untie you. It’s best to be untied and walking around…healthier. Force-feeding is a lot of work, and dangerous. The mad ones usually die from choking while they’re being fed. They often manage to rub the babies off against the silk, too. It’s better to be up and free…and willing. Except for sleep. That’s why I asked Othisosish to come back and tie me. I might pull them off in my sleep.”