They proceeded at the same easy pace when they were finished, arriving at a village shortly before dusk, where they paid for lodgings in a private house. Bush and Blair slept on a narrow bed; Jebel, on the floor without even a rug.
The following morning the traders finished off their food, purchased bread and meat, then resumed their path, taking a slight western turn. They paused by a stream at midday for lunch. Jebel’s stomach was growling, and he watched with an angry, hungry grimace as they tossed away crusts and fatty pieces of meat.
When the traders were done, Bush glanced at Jebel and frowned. He made a hand signal to Blair, who studied the boy and nodded. Bush reached behind Jebel and untied the knots of his gag. He unwound the cloth, then pried the ball out of Jebel’s mouth carefully, in case Jebel tried to bite.
Jebel coughed fitfully and gulped in air. His lips were cracked and bleeding, and his mouth felt as if it was full of blood. Bush handed the boy a flask of water. Jebel took a huge swig, rolled the water around in his mouth, then spat it out. He took another gulp and let some trickle down his throat. It was painful, but after a while he was able to drink normally.
“You can finish off the scraps of food,” Blair said, nudging the crusts and offcuts with a mud-encrusted boot. Any other time, Jebel would have refused such an insulting offer, but he was too hungry to turn up his nose. Staggering across on his knees, he bent over the bits of bread and meat and chewed at them like a pig.
Bush and Blair watched Jebel eat, and both smiled thinly. They hadn’t wanted to feed him until he was desperate, so that he learned to depend on them and accept even the smallest shred of mercy with the gratitude of the truly needy. They knew from past experience that this was only the first lesson of many. They couldn’t expect the boy to master obedience instantly. But it was a promising start.
When Jebel was full, he glared at the traders. He hated himself for acting so cravenly, and silently vowed never to behave this way again, although secretly he knew he’d do the same thing the next time they starved him.
“Why are you doing this?” Jebel groaned. “We were your friends.”
“No, my poor, deluded boy,” chuckled Blair. “You were victims waiting to be taken advantage of.”
“Did you really think it was luck that we turned up in Jedir at the same time as you?” Bush asked. “Jedir’s not on the way to Disi. If that’s where we were headed, we’d have sailed farther up the as-Sudat.”
“We’d been waiting for you,” said Blair. “Watching the mouth of the siq to see if you made it through.”
“But why?” Jebel gaped.
“We hoped you’d bring lots of gems and swagah,” Bush said. “Failing that, we knew we could sell the slave and keep you to serve. It was a no-lose situation.”
“But you’re wealthy traders,” Jebel said. “You deal in fortunes. Why pick on a pair of simple travelers like us?”
Blair raised an eyebrow. “Who told you we were wealthy?”
“You did.”
“And you believed us?” Bush chortled. “More fool you! No, young Rum, we’re a pair of lying rogues. We’ve spent our lives searching for fortunes and have come close a few times but never quite made it. We’d have retired long ago if we had. Life on the road is entertaining, but it can be an awful drag too.”
“It was all lies?” Jebel asked, feeling sick.
“Not entirely,” said Blair. “We have traveled a lot, although not as widely as we led you to believe. And we do hope to go beyond the al-Meata one day and mine for riches. But we need funds to get started, and at the moment we’re sorely lacking in that department.”
“We make a nice bit of swagah most months,” Bush added. “But we like to live the high life when we hit a city. We crave luxuries and fritter away our earnings on good food and wine and bad women. We scatter our swagah across a variety of inns and bordellos and leave with fond memories but empty pockets.”
“So what do you want with me?” Jebel asked, steeling himself. “Why hold on to me when you let Tel Hesani go?”
“Ah,” Bush smiled, tapping the side of his nose. “That, my young servant, is something you’ll find out in the not-too-distant future. For the moment it must remain a mystery. Now, if you give us your word not to scream every time we pass somebody, we can leave your gag out. Otherwise…” He produced the leather ball and tossed it up into the air.
“I promise,” said Jebel quickly.
“A wise choice,” Bush said, pocketing the ball. “They’d take no notice of you anyway. Nobody leaps to a slave’s rescue in this wretched country.”
“What about my hands?” Jebel asked. “Will you free those too?”
Bush pursed his lips and checked with his partner.
“Not yet,” Blair said. “Let’s give it a few weeks and see how you get on.”
To Jebel, the word sounded like a life sentence.
The first snowfall of the year came a couple of days later. Jebel had never seen real snow, and he was amazed by the thickness and beauty of it when he woke to find the world transformed into white. For a few moments he forgot his sorrows and stared in awe at the land around him. It looked as if it had been painted by the gods. Patches of trees and bushes were still visible, but much of the landscape had disappeared during the night.
“The fabled Abu Saga snow,” Bush said from within the comfort of a thickly lined fur rug. “Don’t you hate it, Master Blair?”
“With a passion,” said Blair, shivering even though he was similarly protected from the morning chill. “I still think we should have wintered in Abu Aineh.”
“But think of the riches we’d miss out on,” Bush tutted. “We must put business first. There will be long spring and summer nights at the end of this snowy tunnel, when we can enjoy the fruits of our earnings in style.”
“I know,” Blair sighed. “Still…” He sneezed. “I hate it, Master Bush, and no amount of rationalizing can alter that fact.”
“Then let’s not rationalize,” said Bush, unwrapping himself and emerging like a furry butterfly. “Let’s get to work and teach young Rum some useful lessons.”
It would be another few days before Jebel discovered what
Apart from an extra pair of socks and a cap, Bush and Blair gave Jebel no new clothing. They freed his arms sooner than they’d threatened, and he had to clap his hands together constantly while walking, and rub them up and down his sides to stop himself freezing. His teeth chattered, and he shivered so badly that he found it hard to hold a flask steady when he was drinking. At night when they lit a fire, he’d huddle as close to it as he could and fall asleep sitting up, extracting every last flicker of heat from the dying embers.
Finally, after a week of aimless wandering, they came to a town. Like Jedir, it was fortified. When Bush and Blair saw it, they consulted one of their many maps and discussed their plan in whispers, then skirted the town and made camp at the base of a hill. Not lighting a fire, they sat wrapped in furs, waiting for dark, while Jebel jumped up and down and slapped his sides, trying to keep warm.
They broke camp when night fell. The moon was almost full, so it was easy to find their way. Jebel expected the pair to head for town, but instead they circled around to the north to a graveyard surrounded by a fence topped with thorns, nails, and wicked-looking spikes.
Bush and Blair stopped by the rear gate once they had completed a circuit of the graveyard. The larger Abu Saga graveyards were guarded, but this one wasn’t — the people of the town must have had insufficient funds to stretch to a full-time guard of their dead and instead relied on the fence to keep out intruders. Jebel heard Blair mutter, “Do you think it’s worth our while?”
Bush replied, “We might as well try it while we’re here. Besides, it will be an easy start for the boy.”
The gate was locked with four lengths of chain, but Bush produced a bunch of long needles and went to work on the locks, snapping them open one after the other. When the last had been dealt with, he pushed the gate open and entered. Blair shoved Jebel in, hurried after him, then swung the gate closed behind them.
The graveyard was a dark, eerie place. Trees blocked out most of the moonlight, and the snow didn’t lie as thick here as it did outside. There were no headstones, only mausoleums.
