Marwan's man laughed. "Pay no heed to what foolish folk say. Sometimes we take slaves out to my master's country estates while it is still dark, so they can start work as soon as the sun comes up. The ignorant and lazy do not see them go, and so they think something bad has happened to them. In the name of God, it is a lie."
That sounded fair enough. All the same, Jacques would have scratched his head if his hands weren't tied behind his back. What the hidden man had said was so strange, he didn't know what to make of it. If someone had warned him that he'd be beaten or that he wouldn't get enough to eat, those threats would have made sense. But talk about demons? He supposed Madrid had its share of crazy people, like any other place.
Marwan al-Baghdadi's house was larger than most of the others on its block. Its outer wall was freshly whitewashed. The tiles on the roof were new and bright red—sun and rain hadn't faded them yet. All those things were signs of wealth, but didn't prove it. Coming back to the house with a new troop of slaves—that proved it.
Once the last slave went inside, Marwan's men closed the door and barred it. They undid the ropes that tied one slave's leg to another's, and also the bonds on their hands. Jacques chafed at his wrists where the rope had rubbed them raw. He looked around the courtyard in which the slaves stood. It held a fountain, a garden of flowers and herbs, and an old-looking statue of a lion.
"If you work well for me, I will treat you well," Marwan said. "You will have plenty to eat. You will have plenty to do, too, but not too much. If I work you to death, I lose the money I paid for you. But if you try to run away, you will be very, very sorry. I promise you that. You have no idea how sorry you will be. And you will not escape. I promise you that, too."
As usual, he sounded like a man who knew what he was talking about. Jacques didn't intend to try to disappear right away. He wanted to wait till he had a better notion of the lie of the land and what things were like here. If he saw a chance then . . . That would be a different story.
The stew Marwan's cooks served was full of mutton and barley and onions. You could have seconds if you wanted. Jacques did. His new owner seemed to be telling the truth about the food, anyway. And the beds in the men's hall were real cots with wood frames and mattresses on leather lashings, not just pallets on the floor. He hadn't slept so soft since he left Paris. It wasn't what he wanted, but it could have been worse.
It could have been worse. Everyone around Annette said so. She supposed the locals knew what they were talking about. Marwan al-Baghdadi did seem to give his slaves enough to eat. He worked them only till they got very tired, not till they fell over dead. No law told him he had to be so generous. No custom did, either. Everybody seemed to know stories about masters who made him look like a saint by comparison. But if he was such a saint, why did he own slaves?
Like the others, Annette had to get up at sunrise. After breakfast, she went to Marwan's kitchens. They were always full of women, and the women always had plenty to do. In low-tech kitchens, there always seemed to be more work than people to do it.
Something as simple as the heat under a pot wasn't simple. You couldn't just turn a valve or a switch to control it. You had to keep a real live fire going, feeding it sticks every so often so it didn't get too big or too small. If it did, whatever was in the pot either burned or didn't cook at all. And you got in trouble.
Annette had had practice back in Marseille. She needed all of that not to give herself away a dozen times a day. She didn't lose her breakfast when she had to gut freshly beheaded ducks or chickens or pigeons. She just thanked heaven she didn't have to use the hatchet herself.
Washing dishes was as bad as getting food ready for cooking. There was no hot water. There was no dishwashing soap—even people-washing soap was an expensive luxury. Plates and cups mostly weren't glazed. Things stuck to them and soaked into them. There were no scouring pads, either. There was sand and there was elbow grease and there was time, lots and lots of time.
People talked. People sang. People scrubbed in rhythm. People chopped vegetables in rhythm. Every so often, people wandered out into the courtyard for a break. If you didn't do it too often or stay out there too long, nobody yelled at you. Annette was cautious. She didn't want to get in trouble. Some of the other women stayed out more. They did get yelled at. Nobody pulled out a cat-o'-nine-tails and whipped them, though.
Every so often, Annette and Jacques took a break at the same time. Then, not quite by accident, it was more than every so often. Some of the older women in the kitchens smiled behind their hands. But Annette wasn't the only one with a friend. Nobody made any big fuss about it.
Jacques said, "It could be worse," too. He was pleased with the way he'd helped repair a wagon.
"You should be working for yourself," Annette said.
He shrugged. "I suppose so. I hope I will again one of these days. But for now . . ." He shrugged again. Slavery was part of his world. He didn't like it at all, but it didn't sicken his spirit the way it did Annette's.
"We have to get away," she said. She wouldn't have said that to anyone else. Trusting anyone from an alternate didn't come easy for somebody from the home timeline. But you couldn't stay all alone, either. The poet who said nobody was an island knew what he was talking about.
Jacques looked around to make sure nobody could overhear. "Wait till they relax about us," he said in a low voice. "Wait till they think we're all right. Then . . ." Annette nodded.
But they left sooner than that, though not in the way they'd intended. A woman shook Annette awake in the middle of the night, saying, "Come with me. We are going to take you to another of the master's properties."
She yawned and got out of bed. Several more slaves were already up. The woman woke a couple of others. Then she led them all out of the female slaves' barracks. Annette thought they would go out on the road, but they didn't. Instead, the woman who'd wakened them led them to a doorway that looked like all the rest. When she opened it, it showed nothing but a stairway leading down.
One of the slaves laughed nervously. "Does this take us to the underworld?" she asked.
"No, no, no. Don't be foolish." The leader sounded as businesslike as if she came from the home timeline. "Just go down. Others will be waiting for you."
Down they went, farther than Annette had expected. The chamber at the bottom of the stairway was bigger than she'd thought it would be. Torches on the walls cast a dim, yellow, flickering light. As the woman had said, other slaves—men— already stood there. After a moment, Annette spotted Jacques. He saw her, too, and waved.
"Stay back near the edges of the chamber, everyone." Mar-wan al-Baghdadi's big voice raised echoes from the ceiling. "Do not go out near the center. It is not safe. By God, no harm will come to you as long as you do what I tell you to do."
Annette yawned again. What was he talking about? You'd almost think . . .
One instant, the middle of the underground chamber was empty. Then, silently and without any fuss, a huge, shiny metal box appeared out of nowhere. Slaves screamed and shrank back against the walls. Annette screamed with them. Her amazement was mixed with delight, not fear. That was—could only be—a Crosstime Traffic transposition chamber.
Six
Jacques blinked several times. The great metal box stayed there, right before his eyes. He wasn't drunk. These Muslims didn't even give their slaves beer or wine. All he'd had with supper was a tart, orange juice from some kind of fruit that didn't grow in the Kingdom of Versailles.
A door in the box slid open. Bright light spilled out, light far brighter than that from the torches. It might almost have been daytime inside the box. Jacques sketched the sign of the wheel. Beside him, Musa ibn Ibrahim murmured, "Truly there is no God but God, and Muhammad is the Prophet of God."