“Better tomorrow, next week,” said the driver.
“You will proceed easily, and in safety,” said the dealer. “No one will know your cargo. We are not chaining them to the back of the wagon, where they must follow on neck chains. They will be covered with a canvas. From the nature of this wagon, none will suspect the nature of your delivery.”
“Tomorrow,” said the driver.
“Days have passed,” said the dealer. “Why should tomorrow, or the next day, be better? I am going to close the house. I depart from the city. There may be a landing in Telnar.”
“Surely not,” said the driver. “Surface batteries would incinerate any intruder within range.”
“Keep the receipt,” said the dealer. “Bring it to my villa.”
Cornhair and her four collar sisters were the last of the twenty-two slaves recently purchased from Gundlicht. Each was in a market collar, identifying them as having been sold to the House of Worlds. The market collars had been affixed by an agent of the House of Worlds after the sale had been arranged. Each was naked and ankle-shackled. The hands of each were chained behind their back.
Cornhair was not much pleased that she was in the last group of girls disposed of by the dealer, before he would leave the city.
Surely she and the other four were not poor stuff.
Cornhair knew little of what was transpiring in the city, but she had gathered, from a hundred things said and not said, from a hundred hesitations, and glances, that something, as Tuvo Ausonius had said earlier, near the shore of the river, was now different in Telnar.
Were she a free woman, perhaps she would have fled the city. But she, as horses and dogs, would remain, or depart, as Masters wished.
“Oh,” she said, as she was lifted, the fourth of the five, by the driver onto the boards of the wagon.
“Lie on your bellies,” said the driver, “and keep silent. I have a whip, and it may be used on you as easily as on the horses.”
The whip then lightly touched each on the back.
“Yes, Master,” said each, as she felt, in turn, the touch of the whip.
The canvas was then drawn over them.
“May good fortune attend you,” said the dealer.
“And you,” said the driver.
And then the reins were shaken, the whip cracked, and the wagon lurched forward.
“Hold!” demanded a voice.
Cornhair was thrown forward on the boards. She heard the protesting squeals of the horses.
“Stand aside!” said the driver.
“We allow no wagons here!” said a voice.
“A pity,” said the driver. “Rioters must then carry their loot on their backs. Remove the bar!”
“The road is raw,” said the voice.
“How so?” said the driver.
“The road has been trenched, to withstand guardsmen, to impede transports,” said the man. “Stones have been pulled free, for hurling, for building barricades.”
“This district was pacified,” said the driver.
“Two days ago,” said the voice. “Not now.”
“You are no guardsman,” said the driver. “Move aside the bar. Stand aside!”
“I am guardsman enough,” said the fellow. “This is our orchard now.”
“Where you pick gold,” said the driver.
“What have you there, beneath that canvas?” said the voice.
“Rock,” said the driver, “for street work, for fillage on Varl.”
“Varl is quiet,” said the man.
“Good,” said the driver.
“Lion Ships prowl the sky,” said the voice. “Mobs unbridled roam streets. Guardsmen are few. Districts burn.”
“Civilitas is fragile, and easily cast aside,” said the driver.
“And you, in these times, are carrying stone, for street work?” said the voice.
“Stand aside,” said the driver.
“We shall see,” said the voice.
“Ho!” cried the driver. “On!” The whip cracked, the horses plunged forward, there was a breakage of wood, a cry of anger, and the wagon, half tipping, rumbled forward.
Cornhair heard men shouting.
“Stop! Stop!” she heard.
Someone must have clutched at the canvas, and lost his grip, for it jerked on the bodies of the slaves, but was not much disarranged.
The wagon rolled on for several minutes, lurching, the whip cracking, the clawed paws of the horses scratching at the stones of the street.
Then the wagon, lifting half off two wheels on the left, turned a corner, and sped forward, even more swiftly.
“Hold!” Cornhair heard cry, more than once. There was a sharp sound of steel interacting with wood, as some implement struck at the passing wagon. A bit later, from the sound, a blow and cry, one of the horses must have buffeted aside someone on foot.
Suddenly Cornhair cried out with fear for an arrow, perhaps fired from a high window or rooftop, piercing the canvas, was in the planking at her shoulder.
“Steeds, on, steeds, on!” cried the driver.
“Stop!” she heard, again. “Stop! Stop!”
There must have been men about, for cries came from all sides.
Men must have fled from the path of the rushing, hurtling vehicle, as it sped amongst them.
A short time later, the wagon slowed, and then stopped.
The canvas was drawn aside.
“Off, off,” said the driver.
The five slaves were put on their feet, in a line. Cornhair was placed third in line, as the two girls before her were taller than she, the tallest girl first, and the two behind her were shorter than she, the shortest last. It is common to arrange slaves aesthetically.
Cornhair looked wildly about herself.
“We are safe,” said the driver. “We have reached the barricade.”
“Master?” said one of the girls.
“Men have sealed off this district from the looters,” said the driver. “Any who try to cross this border are killed.”
On this side of the barricade, which was several feet high, and formed of a miscellany of objects, as carts and wagons, boards, timber, cratage, bags of sand and dirt, furniture, and blocks of paving stone, there were, as is common in Telnar, several street level shops. These were empty and dark, abandoned. The boards of their wooden closing screens were missing or strewn on the street; the rods and chains which would have held them in place, when they had been fitted into their receiving slots, in floor and ceiling, lay about. Some bolt rings had been pried from the wall. Here and there, broken, massive padlocks dangled. Some of these shops were black from the residue of burning. The smell of smoke lingered, infecting the air, clinging to surfaces. In none of these shops, even those free of fire, could Cornhair see aught but vacancy and ruin, tables with broken legs, chairs fallen, and awry, debris scattered on floors, empty shelves, some broken from the sides of the shop.
“Bring your goods through here,” said a man, high on the barricade.
He indicated a narrow opening below him and to his right, where two other men had swung back a makeshift gate of planks, with projecting spikes.
“Move,” said the driver.
The slaves, in line, proceeded.
“They are nicely shackled, close shackled,” said a man.
“They will not rush quickly away, so impeded,” said a fellow.
“I think they will stay muchly where we want them,” said another.
Within the barricade Cornhair saw there were several more men, variously armed, most with clubs.
“The ankles of women look well in shackles,” said a fellow.
“Consider their hands, chained behind their backs,” said another, approvingly.
“Excellent,” said another.
“Women look well, stripped and in chains,” said a man.
“Would that we had our free women so,” said a man.
Slaves may be discussed so, for they are not free women.
The fellow at the height of the barricade, who seemed to be first amongst these men, called out, apparently to some fellows beyond the barricade, in the vicinity of the looted shops.
“Stay away!” he called out. “If you come here we will club out your brains, if you have any!”