When I was awakened by a female slave, I discovered that it was still early afternoon. The poor cringing little slave apologized for waking me, but she’d been sent by Aesnil to say that the Chama wanted me. I couldn’t have been asleep more than a few hours, but I felt rested in both body and mind, enough so that I could face Aesnil again without flinching. I stretched into the pillows until I had yawned away the last of the sleep, then followed the slave out.
Aesnil was waiting for me in the corridor outside of the audience room, but we didn’t go in. We turned, instead, in another direction I’d never walked in, and I was curious as to where we were going. Aesnil was smugly happy, and still filled with warm approval of me.
“You seem pleased to have me here,” I said to her as we walked down the corridor escorted by our guards. “Do we go to tend to further matters where my power will be required?”
“Your power will not this time be required.” She laughed, enormously pleased with the secret she had. “And yet, should you wish to use it, you may feel free to do so. I have promised you gifts for your service to me, and the first of them now awaits you. It is sure to please you as much as your service has pleased me, perhaps even more so.”
Her cryptic comments made me even more curious—and wary—but I couldn’t get another thing out of her but wait and see. She was anxious to give me the gift and really believed I’d like it, so I gave up prying and just followed along. We went down the corridor only halfway, then left the palace by what was obviously not a main entrance. We descended the steps to a wide, well-worn path, and followed the path about three hundred yards to a structure of very high stone walls that stretched away to either side of a heavy wooden gate fully as high as the walls. There was a beautiful day all around us, but the high stone walls seemed to echo with the stronger, more violent emotions, pushing at me harder the closer we got. I narrowed my sensing down to the dead, unechoing wood of the gate, and that way was able to continue on as if nothing bothered me.
We had to wait for the gate to be unbarred from the inside, and then we were able to enter. There seemed to be an awful lot of guards around, all dressed in the baggy pants, loose shirts and heavy sandals of the guards we’d brought with us. The inside guards were armed in the same way our escort was, but they also carried heavy whips, either in their left hands or coiled over their sword hilts. Aesnil’s pleasure was very great as we were greeted by a man who seemed to be the head guard of the structure, causing her to smile warmly when the man bowed.
“Has everything been prepared according to my instructions?” she asked, looking around at the bustle. “They have not yet been returned to their cells?”
“They await your inspection, Chama,” the man answered, and then he grinned. “The one sent us this morning is a wild beast, requiring many chains and men to subdue him. He will make an excellent vendra, surely surviving as long as that other new one. Perhaps on the next feast day they may be made to face one another to the death. It will be a spectacle long remembered by the people.”
“An excellent suggestion,” Aesnil laughed. “I will consider it carefully. You may now show us to where they are being held.”
“At once, Chama.” The man bowed in acknowledgment, then led us away from the wide-spaced entrance area to a narrower alleyway between the high outer wall and an inner wall that was almost as high. It was warm with the sun shining down on us and all the men with us were sweating in their long, bulky clothes, but none of them mentioned their discomfort to the Chama. I hadn’t understood why the guards wore more than haddinn and swordbelts, but Aesnil undoubtedly had had something to do with it. She seemed to, equate clothing with freedom; the less clothing, the less freedom. I wondered if the attitude was personal, or had something to do with tradition.
The alleyway continued on for at least fifty feet, then abruptly opened on another wide area. This area, unlike the first, had no outer gate that could be opened and closed. It was all high stone wall with one or two doorways in the inner wall, both stretches of stone brooding down even in the bright sunshine, penning in even further the chained men it contained. There must have been twenty or thirty of them, all very large and well-muscled, all heavily chained to strong wooden stakes, all of them naked. Every one of them in sight was covered with sweat, many of them also covered with welts from the whips carried by the guards, and they stirred when we appeared.
“The newest one is here, Chama,” our guide said, directing us to the first post on the right. “He is much quieter now, having learned the kiss of the whip. Would you have him able to speak to you?”
“No,” Aesnil smiled, staring up at the broad face of Cinnan, the l’lenda I’d helped her capture that morning. He was heavily gagged with cloth and leather, but his eyes spoke volumes on the fury he was filled with. Aesnil’s eyes moved down to inspect his body, seeing the many welts he was covered with—as well as other things—and his mind surged higher with the frustration and shame of helplessness. He struggled in the chains, his muscles straining with the effort, and Aesnil’s tinkling laugh rang out.
“You are beautifully made, Cinnan,” she jibed, posing as though inspecting him in great detail. “Should you win what matches you are given, you will undoubtedly give great pleasure to the slaves sent for your use. And yet it seems unfitting that one slave should be used by another, no matter that the second has earned the privilege. Perhaps I shall direct that you be denied slave-flesh for your lusts, and be made to suffer while the others pleasure themselves. It may teach you to speak more carefully to your Chama when next you stand before her. I shall decide when I see how well you fight.”
She turned her back on his anger with another laugh, stood for a minute looking around at the other vendraa, then slowly began moving down the right-hand row of posts, inspecting each man chained in place as she passed him. The fourth one in line made me pause briefly because of how familiar he looked, and then I saw the connection. Although the face in front of me was fractionally older, it was undoubtedly Daldrin’s face I looked at, or at least that of his brother. His body was scarred here and there and marked with welts, but other than that he seemed to be all right. His eyes looked at me without interest and his mind was bored, but he had still survived as a warrior in chains.
I moved down the line again after Aesnil, wondering who she was standing and inspecting now. She stood looking up at the man, her face composed but her mind filled with glee, her glance in my direction showing she was waiting for me. I increased my pace just a little, reaching her in a matter of seconds—then stopped dead in shock when I saw who was chained to the post.
“You did not suspect, and my surprise is a success!” Aesnil crowed, clapping her hands in delight over what must have been a stunned expression on my face. Standing there chained to the post, anger and confusion all through him, was no one other than Tammad. How he had gotten there I had no idea, but Aesnil was anxious to give me what details she had.
“He appears quite tame now,” she laughed, “yet his great body was filled with insolence when he came before me two days ago. He spoke of his woman having been taken to my palace, and cheekily demanded that I give you to him immediately. I naturally had him subdued by my guards—he and his two companions—yet only he proved worthy of a place as vendra. He has fought twice and won twice, and provided my people with great sport. I intend fighting him again with the new sun, when I will be able to witness the spectacle, and invite you now to join me. Are you not delighted to see him done so, without covering and in chains?”