Chapter Four
A few quick questions established just what was going on here on the island of Faol. Slaves were taken from the cell and, now that I understood, I was not surprised to see the willingness with which they went. They tried to hide that eagerness, they tried to dissimulate, but for all that they fairly skipped out of the cell. They were not happy merely because they were being let out of a cell. Their joy ran in deeper channels.
The man Tulema had called a guide went with them, and I could see him trying to hush his companions, and for a space they would slouch along like dejected slaves, only to go pushing on toward the slave barracks at the far end of the clearing. Guards surrounded them, harsh, vicious men in the leaf-green tunics, with whips and swords and spears.
The notables who had done their shopping had gone.
They were not here on Faol buying slaves.
They were on holiday.
They might even — and I hoped Zair might have mercy on them for so abusing a great word — they might say they were on a Jikai.
For these slaves would be hunted.
They were quarry.
On the morrow, given clothes and a knife apiece, they would be let loose in the jungles of Faol, and then the nobles and their ladies, dressed up in fancy hunting clothes, would take after them. Oh, it would be great sport. They’d hunt the slaves right across the island, making great sport of it all, shouting “Hai, Jikai!” like as not.
I felt sick.
That human men and women could so debase themselves frightened me. No wonder the men of Aphrasoe so passionately wished to cleanse the planet Kregen, to give it honor and dignity, to remove forever the stain of slavery.
One tiny spark of hope there was, one ray of hope in all this morass of horror and ugliness. That hope made the slaves walk out so eagerly on what would be a dreadful chase through the jungles, hunted and slain for sport.
For the guards had no way of knowing that the young men the slaves called guides would lead the hunted creatures to safety.
Tulema told me.
“The guides are very brave men, Dray! They can find their way through the jungles, and they can lead the people out to safety! And then, they come back here, through the tunnels in the rock, at the back of the caves, they return to lead out more slaves to freedom!”
“They are brave, Tulema,” I said.
“Oh, yes! They take who they can, but they are promised rewards for their help, and I cannot reward anyone, for my parents are dead and I was a dancer in a dopa den, and I am afraid. .”
A thought occurred to me.
“Why does not everyone escape out through the tunnels in the caves?”
She shook her head. “The ways are terrible and fraught with danger. The shafts are steep. The stone crumbles. Men can slide down, no one can climb up.”
Well, I could be sure that slaves had tried to get out that way, and had failed. Slaves do many things to escape. The fear of death will not stop them, only failure of a scheme will hold them back from escape. An old crone wandered across the cell, sweeping with a rustly broom of twigs, cleaning up. Everyone moved out of her way. She was not a human being, and here I saw for the first time a member of the race of Miglish, the Miglas, who inhabit a large and important island off Havilfar.
“Get out of the way, you onker!” said one of the slaves, pushing the crone. She spat back at him and waved her broom, her long tangled hair about her face.
“May Migshaanu the All-Glorious turn your bones to jelly and your teeth black in your mouth and may she strike you with the pestilence and your eyes dribble down your cheeks, you cowardly nulsh!”
The Miglish crone waved her broom, whose stiff twigs were no more wildly tangled than her dark hair. The slave fell back, but still he mocked, and, indeed, the Migla looked a strange and unwholesome sight. She wore a gray slave breech-clout and a gray sacking garment. Her words tumbled out in a torrent. Tulema pulled me back, saying, “She is an evil old witch, Dray!”
The Migla swiped her broom at the dusty floor and tottered across to the lenk-wood bars where a guard in the leaf-green opened the narrow, barred door for her. She went out, still complaining, her thin bent back hard and angular beneath the sackcloth. She was evidently a tame slave and employed to clean up. Truth to tell, cleaning up was always necessary in these slave pens of Faol. The slave who had pushed her spat on the floor.
He was a fine upstanding young man, with a Umber body on which the muscles showed long and supple, clear evidence that he could fight his way to the choicest parts of vosk, the fattest and juiciest onions, the best knuckle of bread. Tulema glanced at him, and away. He stared boldly at her, and walked over, moving with an arrogant lilt to him, a cock of the chin.
“I have not seen you before, shishi,” he said, and he smiled with the wide meaning smile of a young man who imagines he knows all there is to know of the world and its wicked ways. Shishi is a word I do not much care for. It carries certain connotations when spoken in that way by a man to a girl, and is far from respectful. It had been used by various men to Delia when we were in captivity and most of the men who had so spoken to her were dead. I started to say something, in my usual intemperate way, but Tulema put a quick hand on my arm and spoke loudly over my words.
“There are many slaves here, dom. It is no wonder you have not seen me.” And then, with meaning, she added: “Why have you not gone with a guide to freedom? You are a strong man-”
“Yes, I am strong.”
And, there and then, to my amazement, he started in on a series of callisthenic exercises, bulging his muscles, striking poses, making his body an exhibition of muscular strength. I did not laugh, for, as you know, I do not laugh often. Although, looking back, I see I seemed to do nothing else but laugh during that wonderful time in Vondium when Delia and I were first married.
“This man is a Khamorro of the land of Herrell,” Tulema whispered to me, her eyes wide and fearful.
“They know a very terrible means of breaking men’s bones. Do not, Dray, I beg you, even think of fighting him.”
“Do not be frightened of him,” I said.
“You do not understand! I do not know what kham he may have reached, but if you touch him he will kill you.”
About to make some noncommittally brave and no doubt foolish reply, I stopped my wagging tongue. A girl had walked into our cell and approached the bars, and stood staring out in hopeless longing upon the mingled opaline rays of the twin suns. There can be no shame about nakedness among slaves, for between us we did not own so much as a pocket kerchief to cover ourselves, but this girl’s stance, the way her arm reached up to clasp a lenken bar, the long line of her body, moved me. Her hair waved in a bright and genuine golden color about her shoulders, and her face, pallid and clear, revealed a beauty that seemed to light up the dank dark cave-cell.
I fancied I remembered the glorious golden hair shining as she ran from the cell on my arrival, when I had thrown the whip-wielding slave-master.
The Khamorro, after taking my measure, as he must have supposed, and seeing that hesitation on my part, thereafter ignored me and fell into conversation with Tulema. I looked at them both and, for the sake of an honor that has often been a sore trial to me, as you know, vowed that if he troubled her I would break his neck for him, despite his secret knowledge.
If I simply walked up to the golden-haired girl and began to talk to her, she might think my intentions were the same as the Khamorro’s toward Tulema. I was saved a solution to that dilemma by the entry of another girl,
