spirit. She had woken and was wandering here and there, picking up bright leaves and coloured pebbles that took her fancy. When she brought these back to Radu he made a kind of collar of leaves, in the manner of a daisy-chain, and hung it round her neck. Kelderek, sitting beside them, was trying to make friends with the little girl – for she seemed half-afraid of him – when suddenly, looking up, he saw Genshed approaching, with Shouter and Bled behind him. The slave-dealer was carrying some kind of implement wrapped in a handful of rags. The three passed behind Kelderek and he had already turned back to Shara when he felt himself seized by the shoulders and thrown backwards to the ground. His arms were pulled out on either side of his body and he cried out as Genshed and Bled knelt on the muscles. Bending over him, the slave-dealer said, 'Open your mouth or I'll knock your teeth out'

Kelderek obeyed, gasping, and as he did so caught a glimpse of Shouter, clutching his ankles and grinning up at Genshed. The slave-dealer forced his handful of rags into Kelderek's mouth and pulled off the bandage tied round his head. 'Right, get on with it,' he said to Bled. 'Turn his head this way.'

Bled twisted Kelderek's head to the left and immediately he felt the lobe of his right ear sharply pinched, then crushed and pierced. A spurt of excruciating pain shot down his neck and along his shoulder. His whole body convulsed, almost throwing off the two boys. When he came to himself, all three had released him and were walking away.

Kelderek pulled the rags out of his mouth and put his hand to his ear. His fingers came away bloody and blood was dripping over his shoulder. The lobe was pierced through. He bent his head, breathing deeply as the worst of the pain began to subside. Looking up, he saw Radu beside him. The boy thrust aside his long, matted hair and showed him his own pierced ear.

'I didn't warn you,' said Radu. 'You're not a child and I wasn't sure whether he'd do it to you or not.' Kelderek, biting on his hand, recovered himself sufficiently to speak. ' What is it – a slave-mark?'

'It's for si – for si – for sleeping,' muttered a white-faced, blinking boy near by. 'Yer, yer, ycr – for sleeping.' He laughed vacantly, closed his eyes and laid his head on his folded hands in a foolish pantomime.

'Goin' home s-soon,' he said suddenly, opening his eyes again and turning to Radu.

'All the way,' replied Radu, in the tone of one who takes up a catch-phrase.

'Underground,' concluded the boy. 'You hungry?' Radu nodded and the boy returned to his listless silence.

'At night they pass a chain through everyone's ears,' said Radu. 'Shouter told me once that every child who's ever been through Genshed's hands has a pierced ear.'

He got up and went to look for Shara, who had run to hide in the bushes at the slave-trader's approach.

Soon after, Shouter and Bled distributed to each child a handful of dried meat and one of dried fruit. Some of the children went as far as the river for water, but most merely drank from the dirty holes and reed patches round about. As Kelderek and Radu, together with Shara, were making their way towards the river, Shouter came up to them, stick in hand.

' 'Got to keep an eye on you,' he said to Kelderek with a kind of malicious amiability. 'Making yourself at home, are you? Enjoying yourself? That's right.'

Kelderek had already noticed that while all the children went in terror of Bled, who was obviously deranged and almost a maniac, several seemed to be on some kind of uncertain terms with Shouter, who from time to time – whether or not he was actually engaged in cruelty – assumed a certain bluffness of manner not uncommon among bullies and tyrants.

'Can you tell me why I'm here?' he asked. 'What use am I to Genshed?'

Shouter sniggered. 'You're here to be mucking sold, mate,' he said. 'Without your balls, I dare say.'

'What happened to the overseer you replaced?' asked Kelderek. 'I suppose you knew him?' 'Knew him? I killed him,' answered Shouter. 'Oh, did you?'

'He was all in when we got back to Terekenalt, wasn't he?' said Shouter. 'He'd gone to pieces. One day a girl from Dari scratched his mucking face to bits. He couldn't stop her. That night, when Genshed was drunk, he said if anyone could fight him and kill him he could have the job. I killed him all right – strangled him in the middle of Genshed's yard, with about fifty kids watching. Old Genshed was tickled to death. That's how I kept my balls, mate, see?'

They reached the river bank and Kelderek, wading in to the knees, drank and washed. Yet his body remained full of pain. As he thought of his own situation and that of Melathys and the Tuginda, despair overcame him and during their return he could find no spirit for any further attempt at talk with Shouter. The boy himself also seemed to have grown pensive, for he said no more, except to order Radu to pick up Shara and carry her.

In the half-light and rising mist Genshed stood snapping his fingers to summon one boy and another. As each approached and stood in front of him the slave-dealer examined eyes, ears, hands, feet and shackles, as well as any wounds and injuries that he came upon. Although many of the children were lacerated and two or three seemed on the point of collapse, none received any treatment and Kelderek concluded that Genshed was merely looking over his stock and assessing their capacity to go further. The children stood motionless, heads bent and hands at their sides, anxious only to be gone as soon as possible. One boy, who trembled continually, flinching at each movement of Genshed, was left to stand where he was while the dealer looked at others immediately behind his back. Another, who could not keep quiet, but kept muttering and picking at the sores on his face and shoulders, was silenced by means of the fly-trap until Genshed had done with him.

Shouter and Bled, receiving the boys as they left the slave-dealer, fastened them together in threes or fours by thin chains drawn through the lobes of their ears. Each chain was secured at one end to a short metal bar, the other being hooked to the belt or wrist of an overseer. When these preparations were complete, all lay down to sleep where they were on the marshy ground.

Kelderek, chained like the rest, had been separated from Radu and lay between two much younger boys, expecting every moment that a movement by one or the other would pull the chain-links through his wounded lobe like the teeth of a saw. Soon, however, he realized that his companions, more practised than he in making misery bearable, were less likely to trouble him than he them. They stirred seldom and had learned the trick of moving their heads without tightening the chain. After a little he found that both had moved close to him, one on either side.

'Not used to this yet, are you?' whispered one of the children in a broad Paltcsh argot that he could barely understand.* 'Buy you today, did he?' 'He didn't buy me. He found me in the forest – yes, it was today.'

' 'Thought as much. You smell of fresh meat – new ones often do, 'doesn't last long.' He broke off, coughing; spat on the ground between them and then said, 1 'Trick's to lie close together. It's warmer, and it keeps the chain slack, see, then anybody moves it don't pull.'

Both children were verminous and scratched continually at the sodden, filthy rags covering their thin bodies. Soon, however, Kelderek was no longer aware of their smell, but only of the mud in which he was lying and the throbbing of his wounded finger. To distract his thoughts he whispered to the boy, 'How long have you been with this man?' 1 'Reckon nearly two month now. 'Bought me in Darl' 'Bought you? Who from?'

'My stepfather. Father was killed with General Gel-Ethlin when I was very small. Mother took up with this man last winter and he didn't like me, only Fm dirty, see? Soon as the dealers come he sold me.' 'Didn't your mother try to stop it?' 'No,' answered the boy indifferently.' 'Suppose you had food, had you, only he took it away?' 'Yes.'

'Shouter said almost no bloody mucking food left,' whispered the little boy.' 'Said they'd reckoned to buy some before this, only there's no mucking place to buy it here.'

'Why did Genshed come into this forest, do you know?' asked Kelderek. 'Soldiers, Shouter said.' 'What soldiers?1

'Don't know. Only he don't like soldiers. That's why he put the rope across the river; get away from the soldiers. You hungry, are you?' 'Yes.'

He tried to sleep, but there was no quiet The children whimpered, talked in their sleep, cried out in nightmare. The chains rattled, something moved among the trees, Bled leapt suddenly to his feet, chattering like an ape and wrenching every chain fastened to him. Raising his head, Kelderek could see the hunched figure of the slave-dealer a little distance off, his arms clasped about his knees. He did not look like a man seeking sleep. Was he – like Kelderek himself – conscious of the danger of wild animals, or was it, perhaps, possible that he had no need of sleep – that he never slept?

At length he fell into a doze, and when he woke – after how long he could not tell – realized that the child beside him was weeping, almost without noise. He put out his hand and touched him. The weeping stopped at

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