The Sable Moon (10 page)

Trevyn moved, crawling forward, and hands guided him to a stony wall. There he huddled. The night was filled with voices and noises; he did not heed them. Dimly he sensed bodies pressed close beside him, as naked as his own. They stank, as did everything in this den, but he did not recoil. The night air was chill, and his companions, whoever they might be, were warm. Trevyn settled himself on dank earth and slept.

He awoke the next day to shouts and scramblings. Chunks of bread were falling through the high, barred trapdoor. Below it, the slaves sprang and shoved for a share. Trevyn blinked, but before he could stir his stiffened limbs the bread was all taken. He sat up slowly to watch the others eat. An old man approached him, picking his way carefully over the uneven floor. He stood before Trevyn and spoke with dignity. “I am old and have small need of this. Eat.” Trevyn took the bread and broke off a mouthful. The rest he gave back. He chewed his morsel very slowly; it was heavy stuff and sank in lumps to his stomach. When he had finished, the old man still stood before him, offering the bread. “Eat.”

Trevyn shook his head, but the old man did not move. A few paces away, a big slave stirred dangerously. “If ye'll not eat it yerself, graybeard,” he growled, “then give it to one who will.” Yet the old man scarcely glanced at him. Turning his back contemptuously on the other, he squatted beside Trevyn and poised the bread under his nose.

“Eat!”

Trevyn ate. Bit by slow bit, the bread disappeared. The other slaves watched in silence, but no one made a move to hinder. When the bread was gone, Trevyn sank back and lay very still, afraid he might retch. But he kept it down, and toward evening he felt strength coming of it. He sat up and looked around.

“Whence d'ye come?” a slave asked him, but he only smiled and shook his head. There were about a dozen men in the pit, of all ages and sizes. Some had black hair, some brown or russet, but none were as blond as he. They stared at him curiously. “Were ye shipwrecked?” another ventured, but again Trevyn gave no spoken reply. Almost insensibly he had resolved to be a mute in this land, so that he would not betray himself. And also in silent, inward rebellion.… Throughout the long day on the beaches he had uttered no sound. That had been his father's stubbornness in him; they could enslave him, but, by blood, they could not make him cry out. Now Trevyn realized that his bravado might stand him in good stead. Better even to be a mute slave than a dishonored prince held for ransom, or dead, or worse.

The slavers kept Trevyn in the pit with the others for a week. The food was only bread in the morning, raw turnips or carrots at night, and dirty water that seeped down the walls into shallow stone cups. But even on this diet Trevyn gained strength, for he was allowed to rest. Indeed, he paced the stony floor with boredom and restless rage. Every once in a while some wretch was hurled down from above as he had been. Many had been slaves all their lives and picked themselves up almost as if they were used to it. Others looked as miserable as he had been. But none, Trevyn noticed, had been beaten as cruelly as he.

The morning of Trevyn's eighth day in the pit, a narrow ladder dropped through the trapdoor and a slave merchant shouted at the slaves to come up. They went docilely, almost numbly, took their places, and were roped into a line as if they were indeed nothing more than trade goods. Hatred and pride would not let Trevyn go so tamely. Let them come get him, he grimly thought. Heart pounding, he waited.

“That towheaded lout must be deaf as well as mute,” he heard one slaver say.

“If he has eyes, he knows well enough what he's to do,” another snapped. “If he weren't so good-looking, I'd kill him now and save someone else the trouble.”

Three of them came down after him. He crouched, hands at the ready; by any god, they had better beware of him now that he had the use of his hands! They came at him from three sides. He lunged at one … and then they pinned him more deftly than he would have believed possible, tied his wrists with cutting force. One of them glared angrily, a bruise forming on his swarthy face.

“Give me that whip,” he said, reaching for it.

“We're already late starting,” the other replied testily. He turned on Trevyn. “Get up the ladder, you, or we'll leave you here to starve!”

He wanted to make them hoist him up by main force. But he sensed that the threat was not idle; the slavers seemed to have reached the last stages of exasperation. Reluctantly, slowly enough to make them lash at him from behind, he went up and took his place in line. He had never felt less willing to yield; his helplessness would not let him yield, his lost self cried out for recognition like an infant screaming in the night. But the body wished to survive.

The slavers placed him just behind the old man in the string, and Trevyn was glad of it. Even to the unspeaking, the old man provided more decent company than most. They all set out toward the distant market. The four slave traders rode shaggy ponies and led pack animals. With their whips they kept their human merchandise to a shambling trot over wild, rocky terrain. Most of the slaves went along readily enough on thickly callused feet, but Trevyn's feet, long accustomed to boots of soft leather, had not had a chance to toughen. Before the first day's journey was half over they had started to bleed. Trevyn's pace slowed, and the slavers had run out of patience with him. They kept him going with the lash.

At dusk they stopped at last, and the slaves dropped where they stood while the slavers pitched camp and built fires for themselves. After a while one moved down the line of slaves tossing each a chunk of bread and, for a wonder, a bit of cheese. But when the slave trader came to Trevyn, he only paused with a hard smile. “None for ye, bully,” he said. “By the goddess, ye're too full of sauce to bear feeding. Bow when ye face me, sirrah!”

He passed on, laughing aloud, while Trevyn stared. When his back was well down the line, the old man halved his portion and passed Trevyn a share. “Pride makes a thin porridge, lad,” he remarked. Trevyn was thankful that his muteness saved him the necessity of replying.

The slaves huddled their naked bodies together through the night while their masters dozed blanket-wrapped by the fire, taking guard by turns. The next morning Trevyn's feet were oozing pus. The slaver who brought bread noticed it and came back with a bucket of brine. He grasped at his slave, but Trevyn stepped in with high head and a level look, though the pain took his breath. The man scowled and went away, bringing no bandaging for the feet.

That day was a nightmare for Trevyn. He could not keep the pace, stumbling and limping despite himself, and the slavers flogged him until his back was as raw as his feet. Pain and hunger made him reel lightheadedly. More than once he would have fallen if the old man had not caught him with the rope. Nearly hallucinating, he imagined that none of this was happening to him, that he was not himself at all, but Hal, facing the torturers in Nemeton's dark and hellish Tower.… Had Hal cried out? But he was Trevyn, after all. He would not cry out.

“If ye'd only yelp once in a while, or even lower yer head a bit,” the old man whispered to him in honest concern, “I believe they'd treat ye less cruelly.”

Trevyn answered him only with a wry smile, wishing in a way that he could take the advice, knowing that, being what he was, he could not.

Chapter Two

In a small chamber of the royal palace at Kantukal sat the king of Tokar, Rheged by name, and his counselor Wael. Rheged was a lean, long-armed man of middle age. Sparse, flabby flesh draped his loose frame; his look was hungry. He hungered insatiably, though not for food, and he could be as dangerous as a starving wolf. Wael, his advisor, was a shrunken wizard of incalculable years, a scholar of intrigue and the arts of influence as well as a sorcerer. The two men found little to like in each other and less to trust, but their mutual greed for power bound them almost as securely as love, for the time. They hunched in council over a figurehead in form of a leaping, gilded wooden wolf.

“It seemed faultless,” Wael breathed in his soft old voice, hypnotic as the hissing of a serpent. “A young prince must perforce fancy a fairy boat of gold, and once he was on it, all was easy. I drew him here more surely than if I held him by a rope in my hand. Who would have thought it would shipwreck? Never has such a storm been seen in the spring of the year. In autumn, perhaps—”

“Ay, ay,” Rheged interrupted impatiently, “no one can fault your scheme, laugh though they might that we took armed men to the harbor to await a swimming wolf! They do not smile to my face, not unless they wish to die quite slowly, but I cannot stop the snickers behind my back. But that is past; the question now is, what to do about Isle? It is small use to us that the heir is dead, if his body cannot be found.”

“Perhaps he is not yet dead,” Wael mused. “If he got ashore, he could be anywhere by now; it has been almost two weeks. But we should hear news of him, for he would cut a strange figure in these parts. Perhaps he has been enslaved. It would be wise to check the markets.”

Rheged nodded sardonically and made a note.

“If I could only have something that belonged to him, a piece of clothing or a knife or even a coin,” Wael went on intensely, “I could draw him to me, dead or alive, as surely as if—”

“As if you held him by a rope in your hand,” Rheged finished sourly. “What of it? Am I to send to Isle, now, for an article of his apparel?”

“Nay, nay, Majesty, send men to search the beaches! Offer rewards enough to render them honest. And send spies throughout the realm to find news of him. Offer rewards for that, also.”

“You make plentifully free with my gold,” muttered Rheged. “Even so, it shall be done. It will be worth much gold if I can hold that prince my hostage.”

“Or even,” whispered Wael, “your sacrifice at the altar of the Wolf.”

“As you will,” Rheged growled. “But how is that to help my invasion of Isle?”

“That upstart little country, Isle!” Wael laughed softly, a wheezing, murky sound. “King, I could have given you that victory a dozen times by now. But it is the game itself that brings more joy, and the game has just begun, do you see? Just begun!” Wael lurched forward in his intensity. “And you know wolves belong to the winter. We will strike then.”

“If you say so, wizard,” the monarch wearily assented. “As you say.”

The slave market was nothing more than a large cobbled clearing set amid the houses and shops of a place called Jabul. Here the traders came with their wares at the dawn of the market day, and even before the arrival of the buyers the place was crowded. Thousands of human beings filled it—an eerie gathering, Trevyn thought, for the slaves hardly moved or spoke. The silence of despair hung over them all. About half of the slaves were women, bound in their own strings apart from the men, many with babes at their breasts. Trevyn stared, gaped indeed, for they were as naked as himself. The sight did not thrill him so much as dismay him; they were as beaten, as filthy, and as bereft of dignity as he. Suddenly he thought of Meg, imagining her in such company, and his face turned hard as stone. He stood like rage immobilized while the buyers arrived and looked him over, feeling his limbs for soundness as if he were a draft animal.

“Here is a man looking for a mute!” one of the traders cried to another, leading a buyer through the lines of slaves.

“Then here is his mute!” shouted the other, striding to Trevyn and jerking him forward. “Right here, sir, a fine, strong fellow!”

“Are you quite sure he is unable to speak?” the buyer asked, addressing the slave trader with distaste he made no effort to conceal. He was a slender young man, a bit shorter than Trevyn, with a high, pale forehead over eloquent eyes. The noisy slave merchant did not seem to mind his evident distrust.

“Why, he's not made a sound these two weeks past,” the slaver blustered, “not even in pain. Here, let me show ye.” He grabbed Trevyn's finger and wrenched it back, but the young man gasped and struck his hand away.

“That will not be necessary,” he said imperiously. “I take it, then, that he has not lost his tongue?”

“Nay,” answered the slaver, crestfallen. Then he brightened. “But if ye want him, sir, I'll take the tongue out of him for ye, right enough—”

“Great goddess, nay!” The man was emphatic, and Trevyn allowed himself a sigh of relief. “Mischance enough if it was born in him.” The young man turned to Trevyn, studying him, not poking at him as the others had done, but looking into his eyes. Trevyn met his gaze steadily, and the man nodded, satisfied. “How much?” he asked.

“Softly, sir, he's a handsome piece; if I put him on the block he'll bring me a pretty price.”

“I cannot wait for the bidding; I have business at home. Name your price.”

The slave trader named a price. It was high, but the young man doled out the gold without demur. The slaver undid Trevyn from the string, leaving his hands tied.

“He is mine now,” the young man said.

“Ay.”

“To do with as I like.”

“Ay, to be sure!” The slave merchant laughed and cracked his whip.

“Good.” The young man brought out a slender knife, such as scholars use to sharpen their pens with, and began carefully to cut Trevyn's bonds.

The slaver shouted, and his face went white. “Nay, young master! He's a wild 'un—he'll go to kill me!” But the thongs were cut, and the young man stepped back without comment. Trevyn rubbed his chafed wrists and studied the shaking slaver, who was backing cautiously away. No courage in the man without his fellows, it seemed! He would gladly have settled his score with this tormenter, and it was no cold caution that restrained him. He could not say why he stayed his hand, unless it was somehow because of the young man who stood quietly beside him. He could have leveled him with a single blow, by the looks of him, but the fellow had freed him fearlessly.… Trevyn turned and nodded farewell to the old man who had befriended him. Then he looked to his new master.