in the cold and snow, lose their toes. Such a loss, as trivial as it might seem, would considerably reduce their value.
To one side dogs fought over a body.
Hunlaki was himself well aware that things were not as usual with him.
He had for two nights chewed on the fermented curds, and in the morning had had to tie himself in the saddle.
He had, several times, at night, when the column had stopped, and the fires were lit, made use of captive women, chained under certain of the wagons, put aside for the purpose. To be sure, as a rider, he could have his picks marked, a disk with his mark on it, tied about her neck, under the rope, reserved for him in the evening. The foot would make do with what was provided for them, not that some excellent women were not picked out for them. Sometimes Hunlaki used the women under the wagons as Herul women, but often, because they were women of an enemy, he put them in the pig position, even some very attractive women whom he had picked out earlier,
whom he had put his disk on, reserving them for the evening, that they might understand that they belonged to the Heruls, and what was in store for them, the long days of tending flocks and, in the evenings, the contenting of masters in the furs. To be sure, some of these women might be sold in Venitzia, some to the soldiers there, others to be put on the ships, to be sent far away, to distant markets. The soldiers at Venitzia had flame spears, which could burn a rider from a thousand yards. The Heruls did not attempt to penetrate the strange fences about the towns. They had seen animals lying dead across the wires.
Hunlaki recalled the riders he had fought against in the spring and early summer. That had been war. The folk they had just raided, those in the vicinity of the Lothar, mostly west of it, near the forests, were said to be related to them. Hunlaki supposed it was possible. But the two peoples seemed very different.
Hunlaki looked up.
The birds were about.
They had been about, too, on the plains of war, far to the east, even beyond the heights of Barrionuevo, and then in the north, on the plains of Barrionuevo, when those of the tents of the Heruls had met the riders, those related to the folk near the Lothar, in the spring, in the early summer.
Too, here and there, the birds were on the ground, sometimes almost at the edges of the column, feeding.
Hunlaki did not care for the birds.
Hunlaki turned his mount suddenly to the right, uttered an angry cry, kicked back into the flanks of the beast, and charged at a heap of birds, clambering about food. They squawked, and fluttered wildly to the left and right, and Hunlaki, angrily, wheeled his mount back, to the left, to rejoin the column. When he looked back he saw that one or two of the bolder birds had already returned to their feeding.
Hunlaki, like most warriors, hated the birds, the patient ones.
The dogs had been at it first.
The column was now in the vicinity of the heights of Barrionuevo.
Hunlaki saw a woman to his right, several yards from the column. It would have to be a woman of the people near the Lothar, for no Herul women were with the raiders. One would take the women, the children, in the wagons, when one made the long journeys. But one would not take them on raids. Sometimes one had had to fight, on the long journeys, even before they had found the sweet, grass-fresh plains of Barrionuevo. One tried to keep between the enemy and the wagons. Before battles, and at night, one put the wagons together, forming closures, sometimes rings of defense, the cattle, the animals, the women, the wealth, inside. No, of course, it was not a Herul woman. Hunlaki moved his horse toward her, circling her rather, that he might have her
between himself and the column. In a moment or two, the horse moving slowly, he saw that she had, indeed, wrapped several times about her neck, a rope. She had been gathering hineen, presumably for the cooking pots of the wagon driver, that behind which she would normally be marched prisoner. Hineen is somewhat rare but there were patches of it in this area. It is a pretty plant, coming in several colors. It is a spore bearer and blossoms, or, perhaps better, colors, in the cold. It sustains certain ungulates throughout the winter, which paw for it when the snow is heavy. Some of these animals come from dozens of miles away to find it. The spores of the hineen are carried about, partly by the hoofs of the ungulates. Heruls and the folk of the Lothar could also eat it. She was holding up the front of her skirt, which she had used as a basket, into which she had placed the hineen. It was very pretty, all the colors in the skirt. It seemed to be full now. Why was she dallying? And she was too far from the column. Did she think to run? Her calves were not without interest. She turned white, seeing Hunlaki approaching her. He had already freed his knout from the saddle ring.
Swiftly she knelt in the cold grass.
She put her head down and unlooped the free end of the rope, which she had wound about her neck, the end tucked in, that by means of which she would normally be tied to the back of a wagon. She then, her head kept down, lifted the free end of the rope toward Hunlaki, the other end remaining, of course, knotted about her neck. It was a placatory gesture, offering him, in effect, her leash. Hunlaki, from the saddle, looked down upon her. The wind moved her hair a little. The hineen had been spilled before her, before her knees, the skirt emptied.
“Look up,” said Hunlaki.
She looked up. She was trembling. She did not lower the leash.
“You are far from the column,” said Hunlaki. She was perhaps some fifty yards from it.
“I was gathering hineen,” she said.
Hunlaki’s hand tightened on the knout, held across the saddle.
“You are far from the column,” Hunlaki repeated.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“Do you wish to be brought back on your rope?” he asked.
“No, Master,” she said.
“You have learned already to call Heruls ‘Master,’ “Hunlaki said.
“All free men, Master,” she said.
“You may lower your hand,” said Hunlaki.
She did so.
“Rewind the rope about your neck, as it was,” said Hunlaki.
She complied.
“Gather up, again, the hineen,” he said.
She bent to the task and, in moments, had replaced the spilled hineen within the basket of her skirt. She still knelt. One could now see her knees.
“Rise up,” said Hunlaki. “Return to the wagon.”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
She turned away from Hunlaki, and began to proceed toward the column. Hunlaki followed her. He was a little behind her, on her left. Doubtless she was much aware of him there.
“You were thinking of escape,” said Hunlaki.
“Forgive me, Master,” she said.
“There is no escape,” said Hunlaki.
“I do not want to be marked,” she said. “I do not want to wear a device.”
“In the lands of the Heruls,” said Hunlaki, “such things are not necessary. Do you think we do not know who is slave, and who is not?”
She sobbed.
“There is no escape for you,” said Hunlaki, “no more than for the branded, collared girls of the civilized worlds.”
She was then near the column, and she stopped. She looked back at Hunlaki.
“There would have been no escape,” said Hunlaki. “The dogs would have come for you.”
“I am afraid!” she said.
“That is fully appropriate, as you are a slave,” said Hunlaki.
She looked up at him.
“Do you know what you must fear most?” asked Hunlaki.
“No, Master,” she said.
