"Any man would be proud of such a daughter," he said. Then he took a deep breath, as if steeling himself for a difficult task: "And… any man would be proud of such a woman."
Her one gray eye sought his. The medicine against pain is giving me dreams, as they warned me it might.
"My lord?" she whispered. Then with a flash of anger her hand rose and lifted the gauze. "You saw me when I was fair-saw all of me, at the place of hot springs. Now look at me! I am a thing of horror-and princess no more."
"I have seen your face," he said. He leaned closer. "At least it isn't the face of a coward, like mine." She was struck wordless, and saw him force himself to go on. "Who wouldn't speak, because he was afraid… of politics, complications, of himself."
"Oh," she said. "This is a matter of honor."
"No, it's a matter of belated good sense," he said harshly, and squeezed her hand. "I faced the prospect of a life without you in it, Raupasha, and as for your kingdom, that was never more than a hindrance to me."
Now she did weep, as he bent forward to softly touch his lips to hers. "There it is, for what it's worth. If you spit in my face, I'll understand." A hint of his boyish grin. "Although I'd be very disappointed."
"Never," she said, her free hand going up to touch her lips and then his. The IV rattled as she moved. "Never in all the world."
"We're meeting him here!" Arnstein said incredulously.
"Yes," Odikweos replied, with that slight secret smile of his.
Walkeropolis had recovered with surprising speed from the Emancipator's raid; the firefighting service seemed to be efficient, and they were already in the middle of so many construction projects that repairing damage just meant slowing the schedule on new buildings. He got a few glares as they rode downtown in Odikweos's chariot, and winced a bit at one long row of bodies laid out by the sidewalk to wait the corpse-wagon. Some were very small…
The slave market where they stopped was bustling, a huge complex of linked two-story buildings and courtyards, with doors and corridors color-coded for convenience. Ian worked his shoulders against the prickling feeling that went over them as they entered through polished oak doors and merchants bustled over to greet them.
"No, we will look ourselves. Do not trouble me more," Odikweos said, with an imperious gesture.
This place gives me the creeps, Ian thought.
Not least because it all seemed so ordinary. Sales were made in bulk and coffles marched off; men spat on their palms and slapped them together to mark a deal, as they might have for mules or sheep. Others looked at teeth or felt muscles, and some of the buyers had collars on their own necks, household stewards or workshop managers. Posters advertised skilled labor; stonemasons, bricklayers, seamstresses. Others offered to train raw slaves, and listed fees. There wasn't even much of a smell; Walker's hygiene regulations were in full force; otherwise, this crowded series of iron-barred pens would be a natural breeding ground for half a dozen different diseases. Fear and hopeless misery still sweated out of the dry whitewashed walls in a miasmic cloud he could taste.
It isn't as if Walker invented slavery here, he told himself.
That was true-every Achaean who could afford it had owned at least one to help around farm and house. In an economy without machinery, money, or a market for paid labor, it was the only alternative to doing everything yourself. And the palaces of the wannaxakes had imported hundreds of women from Asia Minor to make the fine cloth and perfumed oils that had been exported to pay for metals and grain. It wasn't any excuse for this, though.
The Achaeans hadn't based their whole economy on this sort of robotized forced labor. Slavery was a common institution, but societies based on slavery were rare. You had to develop elaborate control mechanisms to hold so many adult males in bondage; it just didn't pay, usually, except to mobilize labor for new uses or new lands.
A pair of green-uniformed guards went by, shotguns over their backs and billy clubs tapping against their boots; ex-slaves themselves. Walker had made it possible-not easy, but possible-for the ambitious to get manumission; that provided a safety valve and skimmed off natural leaders.
So he's a smart sociopathic scumbag.
He certainly hadn't expected John Martins to be here; all the reports agreed that he and his wife had been kidnapped by Walker back when he hijacked the Yare. They found the blacksmith telling two collarless men to lead away half a dozen with the iron rings around their necks.
"Hey, Professor," Martins said, holding out his hand. "Good to see you, man-I mean, like, it's a bummer you got to be here, but it's, like, maximum coolness for me."
Arnstein ignored the outstretched hand. Martins was in his late fifties and also tall and lanky, and balding on top. That was about the only point of resemblance; the other man's tie-dyed T-shirt and jeans and sandals, the tiny granny glasses on the end of his nose and the ponytail behind… they'd followed very different career paths in the sixties. His to San Diego and ancient history, Martins up into the hills of northern California. The hard ropy muscle that moved under his skin showed Martins kept up the trade he'd learned there.
"I didn't expect to find you buying slaves, John," he said quietly.
Martins's hand clenched, and the sad russet-brown eyes blinked. "You ain't been here in Mordor for ten years, man," he said, his voice equally soft. "I buy these guys so I can teach 'em and set 'em free, dude. And Barbs teaches the chicks. We've got a good hundred people between us might have been in the mines or the fucking arena without us, man!"
Arnstein felt a rush of shame. "Sorry," he said, holding out his own hand. Martins's closed on it with careful strength. "People change, you know."
"Yeah, man, I do," Martins said. He looked at Odikweos. The Achaean nodded.
"These guards speak nothing but Achaean," he said. "They are my men, also."
He turned and walked away.
Oh, yeah, Arnstein thought Yup, I've got plenty of chances to escape-with six professional soldiers guarding me, and hundreds of miles of enemy territory between me and our forces, and Mittler's goons longing to start pulling my toenails out-or hold my head underwater, if they don't want marks. And me a sixty-something desk jockey. Yup.
"C'mon, man," Martins said.
They walked out into the cool sunlight The men Martins had bought and an equal number of young women sat in a buckboard hitched to two mules; some of them looked stunned, some sullen, some wistfully hopeful. The wagon took them out of Walkeropolis to the northwest, up toward the harsh slopes of Taygelos, then into a steepish narrow valley.
"Rivendell," Marlins said proudly.
Rivendell, California, Arnstein thought. There are places like this up in the hills, or there were.
He fought back the disorienting onset of post-Event-Syndrome once again; There were a half dozen low bungalow-style adobe buildings with wood-pillared porches, a barn, footpaths, a wooden water race turning a couple of small watermills, corrals and truck gardens… including one that looked very much like a patch of genuine weed. A smell of baking bread, hot iron, oil, and burning charcoal drifted down to them.
"Walker only let me out from under a little while ago," Martins said. "Till then I was, you know, working for the Man mostly. But I've been building this up for a while. Gotta have your own space here, man, or your head can get completely fucked up."
He pushed the small glasses back up his nose, a gesture that Arnstein copied without thinking of it, like a reflex yawn.