will kill, and throw their bodies to the water, so that the Great Eel may feast one last time.’
Zesi burst out laughing.
True looked at her as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Shade thought he knew how he felt. True said, ‘You will take us far from here – what then?’
‘You will cut stone. And then you will carry the stone, or drag it, to another place even further away.’
True looked bewildered. His face was very expressive for a big man, Shade thought absently. ‘Stone? Like flint?’
‘No. Sandstone. And not for tools. Big blocks of it.’
‘The other thing you might do for us is fight,’ Zesi said.
‘Fight who?’
Shade said, ‘We don’t know yet. Others, like you. You will fight, so that others may be taken. And they in turn will cut stone, or fight. Some of the men who attacked you today were once as you are, captured. This is how we proceed. How we grow.’
True shook his head. ‘You are mad. What is all this for?’
‘That does not concern you.’
‘How long must we do this, this cutting of the stone and fighting?’
Zesi sighed. ‘There was me thinking you were clever. You’ll do this for ever. Or until you die, at any rate.’
‘My children.’ He glanced over his shoulder. ‘If they survive in the reeds-’
Shade said, again not unkindly, ‘They are probably dead. And even if not, you will never see them again. But you’re young. You may have more children.’
‘And what will become of them?’
‘They will cut stone.’
True looked still more bewildered, more shocked than fearful or angry. Shade had seen this reaction before. He simply didn’t understand what he was hearing.
Zesi leaned forward. ‘Let me teach you a new word. Slave. This is what you are. You are a slave. You will die a slave. And in future your children will be born slaves, and will die slaves.’
His eyes were wide. ‘Are you even human, woman?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Zesi said. ‘But you aren’t. Not any more. Nor are your children, who don’t even exist yet. You are as dogs to us, that we control, and we do what we like with.’
True considered this. ‘I would rather die than cut your stone.’ And he spat on the ground, bringing up a mouthful of bloody phlegm.
‘Let me see if I can persuade you.’ Shade nodded to Bark.
Bark grinned, and went over to the other captives, hefting his spear. At random he shoved the blunt end into the face of a man, who howled and went down. Shade carefully watched True’s reaction. Bark struck a woman next, then another man, then aimed for another woman-
True flinched, tugging at his bonds.
‘That’s the one,’ Shade called. ‘Bring her over.’ As Bark separated the woman from the group, Shade asked Zesi, ‘So who is she, do you think? A lover, a sister? Well, it doesn’t matter.’
Bark got a couple of the men to help. Holding the girl’s limbs, they briskly cut her clothes from her and got her on the ground, laughing and coarsely fumbling at her as they did so. About the same age as True, she wasn’t very pretty, Shade thought, but she had good full breasts, and a slight swelling at her belly that might be a pregnancy.
Bark laid out long hide tethers on the ground. He carefully soaked them with water from a leather pitcher, and then tied them around the woman’s wrists and ankles. With the help of the hunters he pulled the tethers away so the woman was stretched out on the ground, arms and legs spread wide. The men fixed the tethers to house posts and fish racks, dragging them tight until the girl screamed, and Shade heard a joint crack.
Bark stood back and inspected what had been done. ‘This is a lot easier in a forest with lots of handy trees standing around, I can tell you. But it will do, I think.’
Shade switched to the traders’ tongue. ‘All right, True. Let me explain what will happen now. You’re going to stay there on your knees. Your lady will lie there on the ground. And in time those hide tethers will dry out. They will shrink, and cut tighter, down into the skin and the fat and the flesh, through to the bone. Very slowly. And meanwhile the long lengths that are holding her will contract too. You can imagine what will happen.’ He tried to project a kind of glee. It was important to make True believe he would go through with this. ‘Her body will give way where it is weakest, at the knees and the elbows. She will be jointed. Her limbs will come off, one by one.’
‘No.’ True raged, hauling at his ropes. ‘Must I cut your stone to make you stop this?’
‘Oh, no,’ Zesi said. ‘To save the girl…’ She leaned close to True, who was sweating now, shuddering. ‘Choose another.’
‘What?’
‘Choose another of your family, your friends to take her place.’
‘I will not.’
‘It is the only way you can save her. Do it, and you’ll have her back. Otherwise you will spend a day and a night and a day watching her-’
‘Gentle.’
Shade snapped, ‘What?’
‘Take Gentle.’ He turned. ‘The one with the beard. Take him.’
Shade looked at the man, who looked harmless enough, but he was growing alarmed. ‘Why him? No, don’t answer. I don’t care. Bark, free the girl and get this Gentle.’
Gentle was already screaming, cursing, struggling, for he knew what was to come. True was crying openly now, in shame and bitterness, his spirit broken, as intended. Bark cut the girl loose, and Shade saw the huge relief on her face as she folded over on herself, realising she was not going to die today.
Suddenly he was sickened.
70
The Sixteenth Year After the Great Sea: Autumn Equinox. Dolphin was standing on the dyke across the mouth of the bay when she heard Kirike’s call.
She could see him down there on the Bay Land, near a stand of willows, mature trees growing out of what had once been sea-bottom mud. He waved, his broad smile revealing a flash of white teeth.
The people around Dolphin, labouring on the dyke, looked up, distracted. They were all snailheads, most of them children, doing small jobs under the supervision of the adults. One girl grinned when she saw it was Kirike calling. You couldn’t keep secrets, and everybody knew about Dolphin and Kirike.
A flood of complicated, contradictory feelings welled up in Dolphin. She’d missed him every day he’d been away on his late-summer hunting jaunt with the other boys to the southern forests. Now he had returned, but she had to share some seriously bad news with him. Besides, she felt grimy, ragged, her clothes and skin covered in dust from the Pretani sandstone she had been handling all day. It was late afternoon, and she was tired. Why couldn’t he have come home in the morning, when she was clean and fresh?
He called again, his voice as distant as a gull’s cry. She pointed north, beyond Flint Island; they had a favourite spot on the shore. He nodded, and began to jog that way.
She jabbered her apologies to the snailheads. They shrugged, dirty, sweating, bored; few of them would work much longer today anyhow.
Then she walked across the dyke to its abutment at its northern end, on the island, and clambered down to the sandy beach. Her afternoon shadow stretched before her, long, oddly elegant – more elegant than she felt herself. As she walked she kicked off her boots and let the damp sand soothe her feet, which were aching after a day of cutting and hauling stone. It was almost the autumn equinox and the water was sharply cold.
At the headland she glanced back once at the dyke. The wall stood proud, defying the sea, though it wasn’t nearly as spectacular as when viewed from the Bay Land side, where its whole face was exposed. It was a patchwork, with around a quarter of the original core of mud bricks and plaster now faced by sandstone slabs.
