As soon as the boat was out in the middle of the river, the peddler lifted Isaho and carried her to the stern, then dropped her at the feet of his son who was tending the tiller. “The anya gives trouble, strangle the little bitch.”
He went into the shack and came out with black iron chains draped over one arm, a bundle of rags and a battered tin box in his other hand. He dropped the chains beside Thann, squatted beside xe. “You heard?”
Xe nodded.
“Good.” He set the box on his knee, pried the lid up and took out a half-used tube of salve. “So you don’t move when I cut the ropes off.” He went to work and had xe’s feet free, squeezed out a dollop of salve and spread it where xe’d cut into skin and muscle trying to kick free. When he had it well worked in, he tore a strip from one of the rags and wound it round xe’s ankle, his fingers surprisingly deft, almost gentle. As soon as he was finished with the second ankle, he clamped iron cuffs over the bandages, locked them in place. They were joined by a chain about the length of xe’s arm.
He dealt with the wrist wounds in the same way, locked cuffs around xe’s wrists. These fit so tightly he could barely close them over the bandages. The chain that joined them was shorter, but xe felt an inexpressible relief when xe saw that xe would be able to sign.
He wiped his hands on a rag, sat on his heels, his eyes moving over xe. “Anya in egg,” he said after a while. “So you won’t be trying to go overboard. Femlit’s your daughter?”
Thann hesitated, signed, +Yes.+ Xe’s hands shook with the weight of chains.
“Up to you to see she behaves. She gives too much trouble, we knock her on the head and drop her overside. Understand?”
+Yes.+ As he started to get up, xe signed rapidly, +Why? Why are you doing this?+
He laughed as he stood up. “You ask a peddler why? Coin, anya, coin. There’s a hungry market ‘long the coast for anyas in good health. Femlits still bring in something, too, but there’s getting to be a glut in them, so not near so much as an anya. What that means is what I said. Too much trouble, we get rid of her.”
Thann sat with xe’s back against the bale of rags, Isaho crouched beside xe with her head in xe’s lap. Xe stroked xe’s daughter’s shining black hair with small careful gestures that didn’t make the chains clank and watched with despair as the wind and current carried them swiftly back along the ground that had cost them so much time and strength.
Xe made Isaho eat the biscuit and stew the peddler fed them. +If you don’t eat, you’ll get sick, and we’ll never get to Linojin. As long as we have our strength, Shashi, there’s always a chance. If you get sick and die, there’s none.+ Over and over, the same things, over and over till the glaze faded from Isaho’s eyes and she forced the food down.
As the sun rose on the second day, Thann heard again the boom of the mountain guns.
On the third day they were gliding past the ruined towers of Khokuhl; they spent the night tied up at a half-drowned wharf at the far end of a waterfront that used to be the busiest on the east coast of Impixol. The only things there now were rats and rot.
On the fourth day the boat crept along the south shore of the Bay of Khokuhl, standing out only far enough to escape the jagged stone teeth at the foot of the cliffs. Around noon it reached a high-walled inlet like a bite out of the stone.
The peddler dropped sail and hove to at the mouth of the inlet, lifted Thann off xe’s feet and carried xe into the cabin, leaving xe in the stinking darkness. Xe heard the hasp clank shut, the scrabbling as he pushed the padlock through the staple and clicked it shut. Protecting his assets, xe thought. Please, oh, God, watch over Isaho, don’t let them hurt her. Please…
As xe kept up xe’s desperate prayer, xe felt the boat shift, then settle to a steady dip and surge. Xe licked xe’s lips and put all the force xe could manage into the whistle code xe and Isaho had worked out as they walked. Xe broke off, kneeling taut with fear, waiting for an answer.
Isaho’s voice came to xe, sweet and true, stronger than it had been, almost a fern’s voice though she was still too young for the Change. “Thanny,” she sang, “Anya meami, they have taken the chains off, I am well.” Then she whistled the code that meant she was truly all right.
A lie, but a brave one. God watch over you, my baby. Thann sighed and settled to wait for whatever came next.
The boat shifted direction. Xe could tell by the sound of the wind and the tilt. The next few minutes as it negotiated the crosschop at the mouth of the inlet, xe was thrown off xe’s feet, rolled about, slammed against one wall then another. By the time the worst of the motion stopped, xe was bruised and dizzy and xe’s throat burned from the bile xe’s first stomach cast up.
After another fifteen or so minutes, there was a thump, a shudder, and the movement gentled further to a slow rocking. Mixed in with the raucous cries of shorebirds, xe heard scratching and rasping as the fenders rubbed against something, probably one of the wharves. The peddler’s voice came muffled through the weathered wood of the door. “Yal, you listen now. Anyone tries to come on deck, take out their knees. Don’t kill ‘urn, I don’t want that kinda trouble. And you don’t listen to no yammer, y’ just keep deck clear till I get back.”
“Ya, Baba.”
“Hoy! Anya! Got a choke lead on your femlit here. You whistle her she should be a good chal, you hear?”
For a moment Thann’s lips trembled so badly, xe couldn’t make a sound, then xe whistled the warning note and hoped Isaho would mind it.
Xe felt the dip and the outward thrust that told xe that the peddler was stepping off the boat.
It hadn’t been real somehow before this. We’re going to be sold, xe thought. Maybe to different buyers… That pierced xe like a knife. Xe hugged xe’s arms across xe’s chest and rocked forward and back in a storm of grief/ fear/rage. God, oh, God, where are you, how can you let this happen? lsa Isa Shashi my baby…
Xe rocked and wept, prayed and lashed at xeself for not thinking. If xe’d put xe’s mind to it, surely there must have been at least a moment or two when xe could have tried to get xe and Isaho away. No, xe’d let fear make xe helpless, and now it was too late…
The spasm passed and xe crouched exhausted for a time, then xe began to move about the shack, hands splayed out, fingers groping, eyes straining in the faint light that crept through cracks between the planks, cracks around the shutter blocking the single window in the wall across from the door.
It was a filthy place, a pallet by the shuttered window that xe avoided touching as long as xe could, the blankets greasy, smelling of stale sweat and other bodily fluids, probably crawling with vermin. There was a chest at one end of the pallet, battered and heavy with iron bands around it, iron hasp and padlock. At the other end of the pallet, there was, a sawed down box that served as a bed table, two inches of each side left and partitions set into it to keep a water crock and some unwashed dishes from sliding about too much. Among the crockery xe saw a glint of metal; xe lifted a plate and found a spoon and a three-tined fork. Xe took up the spoon and tried to bend it; the metal gave only a little and sprang back when xe loosed it. Good steel. Stifling xe’s distaste, xe took the edge of a quilt and wiped as much of the food away as xe could, then put the spoon and fork in xe’s trouser pocket.