Joe nodded and left the stables. Mia joined him. “Let’s get you your whatever it is,” he told her.
“Hafiid, Master.”
“Yeah, hafiid. Best to pick up what we need now.”
The general store wasn’t exactly overflowing with hafiids. “Not much call for ’em down here, at least ’til fall,” the proprietor told him. “Still, got one or two.”
The hafiid turned out to be a loose-fitting, pleated robelike garment of beige-colored wool that was essentially of a single piece, with a neat knitted hole in it and two sleeves. It was essentially a one-size-fits-all kind of thing that came down to her ankles. The loose, robelike sleeves were much too long, but could be trimmed to fit. The other part was a burnoose thing the same color, made out of stretch wool, and had a six-inch flap that hung down the back. Optional was any pair of boots, midcalf or lower, that were some shade of brown or tan. She tried out a few, clearly uncomfortable with any kind of footwear, but settled on a midcalf model that wasn’t that easy to get into or out of but, she said, provided the most support.
“She will also need a neck collar,” the proprietor said. “Another of the new regulations, I’m afraid. The next thing you know, they’ll require them to have leashes. It really has gotten that odd.”
She picked a bronze collar that pretty well matched the bracelets, anklets, and earrings she already had, but with evenly spaced oversized rivets that came to broad points spaced around it. In place of one rivet was a loop through which something, perhaps a chain, could be attached. Maybe the proprietor wasn’t far from the truth. The proprietor fitted it carefully, then put a protective leather patch in between it and the back of her neck and pulled a series of tiny seals. There was a hissing and some smoke rose from the collar, making her flinch, but none got through and he soon removed the patch. The collar was fused, as if welded.
With the complete outfit on, Joe thought she looked like a slightly punk, tan-colored nun.
“Used to be we saw no slaves down here, and the ones we saw were all Marquewood, and there was never any problem,” the storekeeper told him apologetically. “Now, though, you can be declared a slave for spitting on the boardwalk. It hasn’t happened yet, but the rumors are all these new slave regulations are in preparation for making just about all the lower classes slaves. The government denies it, but you can’t trust them these days to tell you much. Even many of the fairy races are being rounded up and forced into work gangs. It’s not like it used to be.”
“I can see that,” Joe responded. He could see Sugasto’s grand social vision clearly and it made him sick. The masses would be enslaved to the state, fed, cheaply clothed, and housed en masse, forced to do all the menial labor at the end of a lash until they dropped. Otherwise, there would be soldiers, a trading class to supply the necessities and maintain trade and commerce, but a rather small one, and, of course, the top one percent who would control everything. It was an ugly picture, but it explained all the harsh slave measures.
Only a small percentage of people could be truly of the slave class anywhere; he knew that. The Rules mandated it, and the ways you reached that status, and what sorts of labor were under it. If Sugasto and his cronies turned their domain into nothing more than a slave state, they wouldn’t really be within the Rules but rather outside of them. Since the masses wouldn’t be true slaves, bound by the Rules of slaves like Mia, they would always be a potential danger. You couldn’t really turn your back on them. Hence, the collars, the chainings, all the rest. The hairless rule was equally obvious; if any of those ersatz slaves had the opportunity, they might escape. Dressed in uniforms or some such or foreign clothing, they might well cause a lot of harm. If you were hairless, though, you kind of stood out in the crowd. Back in the earliest Colonial days in the US, he knew, blacks had often been treated the same as indentured servants. They became permanent slaves because their skin made it easy to spot them anywhere. The false justifications came later.
This place felt on the verge of being the victim of a grandiose and evil experiment. Indeed, this might be regional, only one of many such, to test out what worked and what didn’t and sort of get the bugs out. The one that had the highest gain and least losses and problems would be the eventual fate of all Husaquahr.
Mia took charge of helping outfit him, suggesting a buckskin sort of outfit with dark brown fur trim and a droopy, broad-brimmed leather hat. Her eye was perfect; she unerringly seemed to choose only the things that fit him.
Almost on impulse, he added a forked leather bullwhip. He used to be fair with one, but hadn’t bothered with it much. Somehow, though, it fit the image.
They left for the hotel, Mia carrying her boots and, in fact, her slave outfit. She would wear them when she had to.
“I want a room, directions to a decent meal, and arrangements for a bath,” he told the clerk.
“Just the one night? Heading south, then?”
“No. North.”
The clerk stiffened. “Then you will be with us longer than that.”
“Why? Problems?”
“You don’t know! The zombie masters are gathering on the plains just north of here for the next three days and nights. I wouldn’t go a hundred yards north of this town for at least one day longer!”
“Zombies, huh? Sounds like something’s up.”
The clerk shrugged. “These days, sir—who knows?”
He signed in and had Mia square things away in the room, then went over to the cafe. They were short on food, shorter on cuisine, but they remembered the days when wealthy Marquewood merchants would pass through on the way to the dwarf lords, there to negotiate for the exquisite craftsmanship only dwarf magic could create. They often brought their personal slaves along. There was no objection at all to Mia serving her master, and then eating anything he left on his plate. Of course, there war a slight hitch.
“I’m sorry, sir, but everything’s rationed these days,” the waitress apologized. She was one of the typical cafe-types, short, fat, and brash. “We’ll soon be out of business if they don’t let us get some regular deliveries back. All the ranch produce has been pretty much taken by the army, and nobody makes deliveries from Marquewood no more.”
He was sympathetic, and managed, with serrated hunting knife, to cut what was supposed to be a steak and get it down. They were doing the best they could. At least the strictly vegetarian Mia could have her fill; local gardens were deemed too minor for the authorities, and so the locals at least had some vegetables for now, even pastries of beet sugar and bran, although they weren’t sure what would happen when winter came.
If the steak was representative of the future, though, he might well go vegetarian himself, he thought, a sour taste in his throat.
Marge was waiting for them when they got back.
“It did look pretty hairy out there,” she admitted. “I’m really tempted to try and see what’s going on up there.”
“You watch it!” he cautioned. “You don’t know what’s around here, including things that might fly and eat Kauris for dinner.”
“I’ve always been able to take care of myself,” she replied confidently. “You worry about yourself. Still, I noticed this evening that this might not be a bad time for a few days’ break.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“I’d say the moon will be completely full sometime tomorrow evening.”
The curse! He’d been so preoccupied that, even though he was usually very good about it, he hadn’t given it much thought.