My satisfaction was short-lived as Mellitha’s bid was rapidly countered by a stout matron with a vicious nose and at least two hundred Crowns to spend, and then by a fat man in blue velvet whose hand rested on the shoulder of a painted youth in rose silks.
A bid of three hundred Crowns came from the back of the crowd and a chill hand gripped my stones as I saw a black-clad arm raised above a corn-colored head. I looked frantically at Mellitha, not daring to signal to her, not wanting to risk identifying her to the Elietimm. Squinting at the Ice Islander, I saw it was not one of the liveried troop but an older man dressed in a plain Caladhrian style. Gold at his neck showed he wore the gorget of a magic-wielder, however, and I found my breath coming faster and faster as the pace of the bidding increased, soon passing five hundred Crowns. That meant all my savings would have to be offered to Messire when I returned home, if only for honor’s sake.
The goodwife was clearly keen to have me, for reasons I couldn’t imagine, but dropped out first at six hundred, yielding to the sack-arse whose interest in me was only too easy to imagine. I glared in his direction, trying to look as unappealing as possible and, to my intense relief, he dropped out at six hundred and fifty, relief unmistakable in his companion’s face as he draped himself over the older man’s shoulder. The sword-master was still pushing up the price with an air of unconcern and I looked anxiously at Mellitha as the numbers climbed steadily. It was hard to judge her expression at this distance, but her voice remained steady as she countered each offer. A thin man bent down to whisper in her ear and she nodded, raising her bids from ten to twenty-five Crown increments, which rapidly drove the sword-master to retreat at eight hundred, shaking his head with disgust. My heart began thudding in my chest as I realized the man with Mellitha was Shiv, his black hair oiled and curled, a clerk’s tunic flapping around his knees.
The Elietimm was still in the game, topping each offer Mellitha made. I clenched my hand in impotent anguish as the auctioneer kept taking bids from each of them. A sudden stir at the back of the crowd abruptly interrupted the to and fro and I swore under my breath as a flurry of activity hid the Elietimm from me and I lost Mellitha in a surge of bodies.
Shiv moved rapidly across the square and vanished from sight.
“Two thousand Crowns.”
A harshly accented voice bellowed across the market place and silenced every voice there. Half the faces turned to see who had made such an outrageously extravagant bid and the rest looked to see what the auctioneer would do.
Before anyone could react, the bastard slammed his hammer down. “Sold.”
The market erupted in a frenzy of speculation and astonishment, Mellitha was nowhere to be seen in the sudden bustle and I struggled against the pull of the guards, desperate to try and find her neat figure in the throng.
“Move.” A smack across the back of my legs sent me sprawling down the steps and I struggled to find my feet as I was hauled around to the far side of the sales block.
“No, listen—” I shoved the guard in the chest with my manacled hands, fury welling up inside me.
A lash came curling around from behind me, wrapping a coil of fire around my chest, tying my arms to my sides. As I gasped and bent involuntarily, two thick-set men grabbed me by the upper arms and hauled me off.
“Here he is, bought and paid for.”
I looked up to see a bored Relshazri stamping a closely written parchment. He reached over and tore the label from my neck, the cord leaving a stinging weal under my ragged collar. I ignored the pain, staring open-mouthed at the woman clutching my bill of sale.
She was slightly built, with coppery skin and thick black hair with a curious blue tint coiled high on her head. A gauzy mantle of gossamer silk was draped over her shoulders, open at the front to reveal a low-cut dress of emerald silk, closely tailored to outline full breasts and slim hips, all accentuated further with gem studded chains of gold and silver. She looked as if she might be the same age as Livak but it was hard to tell, given the bright paints that decorated her pointed face, which was alight with mischief.
A burly man of about the same age as my father stood next to her, studying me thoughtfully down a hooked nose, eyes keen under thick black brows. He wore a flowing silk tunic of vivid green, belted with a black sash over loose black trousers tied at the ankle. His skin was considerably darker than the woman’s and his long, graying hair and beard were slicked back with aromatic oil; an Emperor’s ransom in jewels glittered in his earrings and around fingers and wrists. A thin-faced man in fine chainmail waited behind the pair, his hands tucked into a jewelled belt bearing two swords and a multitude of daggers. He looked at me with an expression of profound boredom.
Beyond realizing there was absolutely no point in anymore resistance, I couldn’t summon a rational thought. I’d been bought by an Aldabreshi Warlord. Viltred’s piss-poor magic hadn’t shown any of us that, had it?
The man in the mail-shirt gestured toward me and I fell in beside him numbly as the three Aldabreshi walked happily away from the slave sales, the woman hanging on the Warlord’s arm, evidently thanking him, laughing with a delight that started to make me seriously worried. My only consolation was that all the passers-by were so busy staring at the wealth dripping off the exotic couple that they had no time to spare for the mundane sight of a slave in chains stumbling along behind as we walked briskly through the city.
Pausing at a footbridge, I tried to look around for Mellitha or Shiv but that earned me a growl from the man with the swords. I glared back at him but, when he put a hand to a dagger hilt, I dropped my eyes. If he wanted to be cock of the dunghill, I wasn’t about to challenge him, not just yet, anyway, not until I had a blade in my hand. Once I had a sword, we could find out if the reputation of Aldabreshi swordsmen was all it claimed.
We turned between two lofty warehouses and I found myself on a dock facing the open gulf. This was a far cry from the grimy wharves that took in the trade from Caladhria and Lescar; here the quays were swept clean by urchins standing ready with their brooms, pale stone bright in the sunlight. Tall buildings with private apartments above the storerooms looked down on a bustle of activity, laden hand-carts and porters carrying bolts of silk, bales of linen cloth, barrels of wines, small iron-bound caskets closely guarded and larger chests treated with lesser concern.
Massive breakwaters reached far out into the deep waters of the Gulf here, tides or storms no more than a passing inconvenience as the sweeping arms of the great harbor offered sanctuary from the open seas. Immense galleys bobbed gently, tethered to the jetties, their vast holds ready to receive every luxury that Relshaz could offer in return for Aldabreshi gem-stones. Men in flowing silks and stern expressions stood in intense conversation, jewels at waist and wrist catching fire in the sunlight, women with painted faces and seductive dresses chatted and laughed, tall men in shining mail expressionless beside them, each with enough weapons to outfit half a troop of mercenaries. Voices chattered harshly all around me and I realized with a sudden shock that I couldn’t understand a word anyone was saying.
I found myself buffeted and shoved but the throng opened itself instantly before my new owner and his lady, anxious faces bowing low in reverence, hands spread wide. The Warlord passed by, aloof, but the woman turned this way and that with a brilliant smile and a negligent scatter of silver from a pouch at her waist. We reached a high-sided ship, one of the few with three banks of oars and a bright green pennant at the masthead bearing an abstract, angular design in broad black strokes. The Warlord paused, spoke rapidly to the swordsman and then escorted the woman up one of the two gangplanks.