The road was empty.
In the morning, I must consider breaking camp, making my way southward, toward Holmesk.
I would again assume the guise of a merchant.
It was long since I had a woman.
I had hoped to find a woman in Teslit. But the women, and the livestock, including the two-legged form of livestock that is the female slave, had been removed. I would have settled even for a peasant's slave, usually large, coarse girls, in rope collars, but the gates to their pens hung open. The underground kennels and sunken cages, too, were empty. Even such women, of course, may be utilized. They, too, in many ways, serve men. Not only are they useful in the fields, drawing plows, hoeing, carrying water, and such, but they, too, as they can, are expected to serve the pleasures of their masters, just as would be slighter, more beautiful damsels. Peasants, incidentally, are famous for being strict with their slaves. The threat to sell a girl to a peasant is usually more than sufficient to encourage her to double, and then redouble, her efforts to please. Better to be a perfumed love slave, licking and kissing, than a girl sweating and stinking in the dusty fields, under a lash, pulling against plow straps. To be sure, what many of the urban slaves do not understand is that the peasants who buy in the rural markets are seldom looking for their sort of woman, the normal type of beautiful slave commonly sold in the urban markets, but rather for a different sort of woman, one who appeals more to their own tastes, and also, of course, will be useful in such things as carrying water and plowing. There was much point, of course, in removing the women and livestock from the village, in the current situation. If the armies did approach one another, advance scouts, foragers, and such, might seize what they could, both women and livestock, of all varieties, two-legged and otherwise. The slave, incidentally, understandably enough, is usually much safer in certain sorts of dangerous situations than the free person, who may simply be killed. The slave is a domestic animal, and has her value. She is no more likely to be slain, even in a killing frenzy, than kaiila or verr. Sometimes a free woman, seeking to save her life, even at the expense of a slave, will remove the slave's collar and put it on her own throat, thinking thereby to pass for a slave. The slave, of course, is likely to bare her brand to any who threaten her. She may then, her fair wrists incarcerated in slave bracelets, and leashed, be commanded to point out the woman who now wears her collar. She must do so. What the woman in her collar seldom understands is that she, herself, is now also, genuinely, a female slave. She, by her own action, in locking the collar on her own neck, as much as if she had spoken a formula of enslavement, is now also a slave. Perhaps they will make a pretty brace of slaves, drawn about on their leashes. She who belonged to the former free woman will now, undoubtedly, be made first girl over her, the new slave. Also, she will probably administer her first whipping to the new slave. It will undoubtedly be an excellent one.
I glanced down again, toward the road.
It was empty.
I thought of Ephialtes, the sutler, at the Crooked Tarn, and seen later at the camp of Cos outside Ar's Station. I supposed him to be traveling with the expeditionary force. He, rather like Temione, had been much abused by Borton, the courier. Indeed, Borton, wanting his space at the Crooked Tarn, a rather good space, a corner space, had simply thrown Ephialtes out of it, and taken it. It had been fairly neatly done. Ephialtes had later assisted me in discomfiting the courier. We had arranged that the courier, thinking himself at fault, would wish a bath in the morning, a circumstance which I turned to my advantage, making away with the fellow's uniform, belongings, tarn and dispatch case. Too, Ephialtes had acted as my agent in certain respects. He was a good fellow. Even now, I supposed, he was keeping four women for me, a slave, Liadne, serving as first girl, and three free women, Amina, of Venna, and Rimice and Phoebe, both of Cos. Amina and small, curvaceous Rimice were debtor sluts. I had picked them up at the Crooked Tarn. I had also picked up slim, white-skinned, dark-haired Phoebe there, who had muchly stripped herself before me, acceding to her pleas that I accept her, if only as a servant. She needed the collar desperately. As yet I had denied it to her.
In the morning I would break camp. I would trek south, toward Holmesk.
Suddenly I leaned forward. It was a very tiny thing, in the distance. I was not sure I saw it. I then waited, intent. Then, after a few Ehn, I was sure of it. On that road, that dirt road, that narrow road, almost a path, long and dusty, the dried grass on each side, a figure was approaching.
I waited.
I waited for several Ehn, for almost a quarter of an Ann. Gradually I became more sure.
I laughed softly to myself.
Then, after a time, I took a small rock and, when the figure had passed, hurled it over and behind the figure, so that it alit across from it, to the east of the road. As there was no cover on the east the figure did as I expected. It spun about, immediately, moving laterally, crouching, every sense alert, its pack discarded. It faced the opposite direction from whence had come the sound. The danger in a situation such as this, given the sound of the rock, surely an anomaly coming from the figure's left, most clearly threatened from the hill and brush, not from the grass. The late afternoon sun flashed from the steel of the bared blade. He was already yards from his pack. In moments he would move to the cover of the brush.
I stood up, and lifted my right hand, free of weapons, in greeting.
His blade reentered its sheath.
"I see they still train warriors well in Ar!" I called to him. "At Ar's Station!" he called to me, laughing. He recovered his pack and scrambled up the hill.
In a moment we clasped hands.
"I feared you had been taken," he cried, in relief.
"I have been waiting for you, here," I said. "What kept you?"
He reddened, suddenly. "I was delayed at the Vosk," he said. "I could come no sooner."
"Business?" I asked.
"Of course," he said, evasively.
I laughed.
"You were waiting to hear news of me, if I had been taken," I said.
"No!" he said, rather too quickly.
"You should have come south immediately," I said, "to the vicinity of Teslit, and from thence, after a suitable interval, expeditiously, toward Holmesk."
"Perhaps," he said.
"But you did not do so," I observed.
He blushed.
"That was our plan, was it not?" I asked him, with an innocence that might have done credit to a Boots Tarsk Bit. It was not for nothing that I had traveled with a group of strolling players. To be sure, I had been used mostly to help assemble the stage and free the wheels of mired wagons.
"It doesn't matter, now," he said, somewhat peevishly.
"But surely one must stick to a plan," I said. "For example, one must be willing to sacrifice the comrade, the friend."
"Of course," he said, irritably. "Of course!"
"It is well that there are fellows like you, to instruct sluggards and less responsible fellows, like me, in their duty."
"Thank you," he said.
"But yet it seems in this instance you did not do so." He shrugged.
"Thank you, my friend," I said.
Again we clasped hands.
"Hist!" said he, suddenly. "Below!"
"Hola there, fellows!" called a man from the road, cheerfully. There were two others with him, tall, half-shaven, ragged, angular-looking fellows. All seemed dangerous, all were armed.
The hand of Marcus went to the hilt of his weapon.
"Hold," I whispered to him. I lifted my hand to the men on the road. "Tal," I called to them.
"We are travelers," called the man. "We seek directions to Teslit."
"It lies on this road, to the south," I said.
"They are not travelers," said Marcus to me.
"No," I said.
"Far?" called the fellow.
"A pasang," I said.
"They have come from the south," said Marcus to me.
"I know," I said. I had been watching the road. Had they been following Marcus, on the road, in the open, I would have seen them. More importantly, from this height, with the sun on the road, one could see the tracks in the dust.
"They carry no packs," said Marcus.