"Why did you not protect me?" Boabissia asked Hurtha.
"Sid you see how he looked at her?" Hurtha said to me.
"Certainly," I said.
"Why did you not protect me from his insolence, Hurtha?" she demanded. "Does Boabissia need protection?" asked Hurtha.
"Of course not!" she said.
"What are our finances?" asked Hurtha.
"We have very little," I said.
"What are we to do?" asked Hurtha, concerned.
"I am sure I do not know," I said.
"We can strip Boabissia and sell her," said Hurtha.
"Hurtha!" cried Boabissia. It was indeed an idea, I thought. "You saw the interest of the captain," he said.
"Yes," I said.
"She is not worth so much as the slaves," said Hurtha, "but doubtless she would bring something."
"We cannot sell her," I said, upon reflection. "She is a free woman." "But if we sell her," said Hurtha, "she would no longer be a free woman." "That is true," I granted him.
"But still you have reservations?" he asked.
"She is a free woman now," I said. "Perhaps that is worth some consideration." "Not at all," said Hurtha.
"Oh?" I asked, interested.
"Come now," said Hurtha. "Be realistic. Free women are often sold. No one expects you to give them away."
"That is true," I said.
"Where do slaves come from?" asked Hurtha. "Surely only a small percentage of them are bred."
"That is true," I granted him.
"If it were not for the bringing of free females into the toils of bondage, capturing them, getting them properly marked, seeing to the legal details, putting them up for sale, and so forth, there would be few slaves."
"True," I said.
"I shall not listen to such things!" said Boabissia. "Oh!" Hurtha's hand was on her ankle.
"What are you doing?" she demanded.
"I am tying your ankles together," he said.
"Untie me!" she said.
"Do not touch the cords," he said.
I observed her ankles. They looked well, lashed tightly together.
"Why have you done this?" she asked.
"I do not want you running away, while we are thinking about such things," he said.
"I am an Alar woman!" she said.
"No," he said. "You are only a woman who has been with the Alar wagons." She cried out in rage, her fists clenched.
"But she might not bring much," said Hurtha, disconsolately. "She is only a free female, and is not trained."
"True," I said.
"I gather," said Hurtha, "that you do not wish for me to accept spontaneous gifts from total strangers, or apply to them for loans."
I recalled the portly little fellow from Tabor. "I think I would prefer that you do not do so," I said. That time we had narrowly missed tangling with guardsmen. "How then can we make some money?" asked Hurtha.
"I suppose we could do some work" I said.
"Work?" asked Hurtha, in horror. He was an Alar warrior. To be sure, manual labor was not exactly prescribed by my own caste codes either.
"It is a possibility," I said. After all, desperate men will resort to desperate measures.
"Rule it out," said Hurtha.
"How then do you propose, within the limits of legality, that we obtain our supper?" I asked.
"You may sup with me," said Mincon.
"Thank you," I said. "But imposing on your hospitality could be at best a temporary expedient."
"I, personally, on the other hand," said Hurtha, "would not consider one or two meals thrust as a wedge between myself and starvation to be beneath contempt." "Besides, in the morning," I said, "I expect you will be returning to Brundisium."
"Yes," admitted Mincon.
"That would clear supper and breakfast," said Hurtha.
"I have a few coins left," I informed Hurtha.
"I thought you were merely being noble," said Hurtha.
"I am," I said. "It is always easier to be noble when one has the price of supper."
"That is almost poetic," said Hurtha, impressed.
"Thank you," I said. I had forgotten that Hurtha was a poet. This came then, I conjectured, as high praise. To be sure, he had hedged his declaration with the modification, "almost'. Still, when all was said and done, what could that matter?
"Aha!" said Hurtha.
"What is it?" I asked.
"I have an idea!" said Hurtha.
My blood turned momentarily cold.
"Selling Boabissia?" asked Mincon. Boabissia's ankles squirmed in the thongs. She could probably not stand upright as she had been bound. We would probably have to help her down from the wagon box, and carry her to where we decided to put her.
"No," said Hurtha. "It is a different idea."
"I am glad to hear that," said Boabissia.
"But it may be every bit as good, or better, than that one," said Hurtha. "I am eager to hear it, I assure you," said Boabissia.
"Would you like to hear it?" asked Hurtha of me.
"Certainly," I said, uncertainly. I felt a pang of anxiety.
"Surely you would have no objection to our selling a few things," said Hurtha. "What?" asked Boabissia. "Me?"
"Not yet, at least," said Hurtha.
"What could you sell?" I asked. "You do not have much clothing with you, or many possessions, it seems."
"True," he said, his eyes shining with excitement.
"Would you sell your ax?" I asked. It was an excellent one.
"Of course not," he said.
"What then?" I asked.
"Trust me," he said.
"Must I?" I asked.
"All I wish from you," he said, "as you are more experienced in the strange ways of civilization than I, is that you would have no objection to my selling a few things to raise money."
"No one could have any possible objection to that," I said. "Wonderful," he said, warmly. "I will then see you at the wagon yards!" He then turned about and disappeared.
"He is a good fellow," I said.
"Yes," said Mincon. "I wonder what it is that he intends to sell." "I do not know," I said.
"As far as I could tell," said Mincon, "he did not take anything with him," "That is true," I said. Hurtha's bag was still in the wagon.
"Maybe he will sell the ax," said Mincon. "He took that."
"I doubt that he would sell that," I said.
"What then?" asked Mincon.
"Perhaps he has precious stones, rare gems, sewn in his clothing, for an emergency," I said.
"That must be it," said Mincon.
"Yes," I said.
"At any rate," said Mincon. "Hurtha is a clever, splendid fellow. Doubtless he knows exactly what he is doing."
"Doubtless," I said.
"I have great confidence in him," said Mincon.
"So do I," I said.
"Untie me," said Boabissia.
"Not yet," I said.
"Ho!" called Mincon to his tharlarion. "Ho! Move!" We then drew again into the street and began to follow the rough signs painted on the sides of buildings to the wagon yards.
10 We Proceed to the Wagon Yards
"It is not necessary to look at those things," I said to Boabissia.
She had already put her head down.
Judging from the condition of the bodies, the effects of the predations of birds, some still about, jards primarily, and the tattering of the winds and rains, they had been there for several weeks. The ropes on the necks had been tarred to protect them from the weather, and indication that it had been intended they should remain in place for some time. These inert, suspended, desiccated weights, now little more than skulls and the bones of men, with some bits of cloth, fluttering in the air's stirrings, and threads and patches of dried flesh clinging about them, had been arranged in a line along the Avenue of Adminius, the main thoroughfare of Torcadino, near the Semnium, the hall of the high council, doubtless as some sort of mnemonic and admonitory display. They swung creaking, a few feet off the ground, some turning slowly, backward and forward, at the rope's terminations. A child reached up and struck the feet of one, to set it into motion.