Page 65 of The Thrice-Bound Fool

You are served, not loved.

Your touch is the manacle

on the ankle’s tender bone,

and if you must have a song,

let it be short and nasty,

a hiss of chains on stone.

We came to the Slavegarden on a cool morning. The season was gloaming, that which in Manreach sits between fall and winter, and is known for short nights and first snows. In Tinthrax, however, it felt like late spring. Perhaps it always does, I don’t know, I wasn’t in that border town long. In Erydon, the capital, it would always seem early summer. I don’t understand the weather of this place or how it stays so constant. I will say that the wind seems always to blow from the south, running along the Thralls, which lie distant but visible for those lucky enough to see them from the walls, or better, from outside those walls. It is also possible that a warmth rises from the ground here to make nonsense of the seasons, for the land is volcanic and quick to anger.

I’ll not bother you with the details of our arrival, our bathing, our delousing, our rough handling. By this time, Bazl and the rest of the Free Traders had gotten their money and gone, whether directly back to the steppes or to haunt such taverns in Tinthrax that served free kynd. They had told me that recruiting here was their habit, and that more Wostrans cross the Thralls than those of any other nation. Why? Maybe because Wostrans don’t mind cold so much. Maybe because they hate being neighbors with Molrova badly enough to march across that shyte country and put the Thralls between themselves and it. Or it could just be that they hate being told what to do, and everyone says not to try to cross those mountains. Whatever the reason, the Free Company of the Fig and Dagger could sometimes find countrymen with which to restore its numbers after mischance. Between Galva and the bigguns, this had been an unlucky week for them.

Unlucky for us, as well.

On this, our second day in the hands of the half-giants, Galva and I were stripped bare and led to the Slavegarden along with the giant boy and a dozen others brought by other mancatchers; many were they who gleaned the foothills of the Thralls for the unwanted of Manreach, and such captives as us trickled in all the time. The first thing I remember about the market is its trees. The Slavegarden was lined with tall, handsome sourwood trees, an unthirsty western geezer that hosts a thorned vine called sour ivy to protect it from the reaching lips of leaf-eaters. The ivy’s leaves go red when kynd, giant, or animal come near. Besides the inch-long thorns on the vine, the leaves of this ivy have a sour taste that causes vomiting, hence the name. The sight of the leaves changing from green to red as our chained line of chattel walked through the sourwood trees was a strangely pleasant thing to see. Calming, like. It put one in mind of waves on the water or cloud shadows on wheat. There was still wonder to be had in the world, even with an iron collar on the neck.

Or so I thought until our handler, a fat eight-foot-tall dolt named Urkus, gave my chain a jerkus to stop me dawdling. Right, I wasn’t here to look at the pretty trees. I dared only glance at the statue of the God Under the Mountain as we passed him. I would later learn his name was Thumos, though I cannot now recall exactly when I first heard it spoken. He stood handsome and strong-shouldered, twenty feet tall, carved from black marble, pouring lava (in rusty red stone) from his amphora of fire to pool around his feet, and then down and at the viewer. It was the whites of his eyes, another stone, that leapt out at you. The eyes were open so wide that the lids never touched the pupil. They were mad cunt eyes. They said he was enjoying pouring liquid fire on whatever poor karks had earned his ever-ready wrath. They said, “You probably would have liked a just god, or a love goddess, or maybe someone who brought fat harvests; too bad, fuckers, you got me. I’m not nice, but I’m the real thing, and we’re stuck with each other. So get those chisels banging and lard up your towns with my beardy face and wicked eyes before I fart ash all over your roses.”

We were pushed and prodded through a crowd of half-giants, quarter-giants, and free kynd to a pen behind the slave-stones—flat blocks of granite with iron loops for holding chains. The giant boy, whose name was Birch, was shaking like a wet dog. I put my hand on his lower back, for that was as high as I could reach, and patted him hard a couple of times, as you might pat an ox so it feels you through its thick skin and muscle. He smiled down at me and touched my head, gently, as you might pat a child so not to hurt him.

I winked at him.

Now the ground seemed to shake, but with a rhythm like steps. I realized it was steps that shook the square, and I soon saw what was making them. It came from behind the statue of Thumos, but taller yet. He, I should say, for the one making the ground shake so was something like a man, if sized more like a thing. I still remember his shag of wild hair stirred by the breeze, his fine neckpiece of bronze, ivory, and turquoise catching early sunlight, the earrings made from the ends of elephant tusks hanging almost to his shoulders. This was my first geigon, the biggest kynd-shaped thing ever to walk between sky and ground. I don’t think there were thirty of them left, and thank the gods for that, for we were cats at their feet.

This one, named Azdra-Kopt, or Star-Taker, was like the symbol of Tinthrax; mascot, weapon, and wonder all at once. He stood twenty-two feet tall if an inch, barrelish like the true giants, with a great square beard on him all matted near the mouth from the grainy purplish slop he drank six times a day to fuel those massive limbs. On his back he wore a sort of dais, and on that, standing like a well-dressed monkey just to the left of Azdra’s head, holding tightly to a bronze rail so he didn’t fall and bust his pretty noggin, was Mirpis Slave-Maker, wearer of gold, governor of this town.

At two claps from him, Azdra squatted so low that Mirpis was easily able to dismount, and he stepped onto a speaking-stone much higher than the slave-stones. The geigon shifted from a squat to a stooped cross-legged sit, so his head was below that of Mirpis. With the governor closer now and not dwarfed by his mount, I could see that Mirpis was a nine-footer or more. He’d looked like kynd or something even less on the shoulders of that monster.

The slave-maker knew how to make an entrance, I’ll give him that.

He spoke importantly about I know not what, gestured grandly here and there, and the crowd inclined their heads and flapped their palms on their crossed upper arms. They don’t clap in the kingdom of Erydon, or at least not the way we do. There, to clap palm to palm is to command or threaten. Fast, quiet fingers-to-palm claps mean fucking, the way we do with the finger of one hand through the curled thumb and finger of the other. No, this arm-clapping is a way to show approval. The more you bow your head and raise your arms while clapping so, the more you show deference. And these karks were dipping their fine heads chin to chest.

Now Mirpis said a thing and gave a shallow nod to Urkus, who brought the first three slaves to their blocks. All kynd. Two dams and an unlovely lad whose pale flesh had suffered so much in the sun I wondered if he might be a Galt. When they were made to open their mouths, raise their arms, and turn in a circle, I saw his tongue was pink so, no, not one of mine. But like me, so, so far from home.

During the bidding, though I didn’t yet speak the language of the half-giants, and never properly would, I was able to make out more or less what was happening. A shabbily dressed halfie with scuffed, dusty leathers bid first for the lad, and, coming from Platha Glurris as I do, I know the look of a miner well enough, even on a half-giant. A rich halfie woman in a sort of scaled green enamel armor that looked more decorative than functional matched him for a round, as did a fellow with the look of a farmer. These soon dropped out, however; the oversized miner won the bid, and the poor Sath-kissed lad would soon find shelter enough from the sun wrestling salt, silver, tin, or blackglass from the hold of the jealous earth.

Panic tried to rise up in me—had I escaped the silver mines of home just to die down a tunnel in the far and foreign west?—but I fought the fear by watching Galva. She just breathed and took it all in. I could do the like, couldn’t I?

Now the two dams were offered. I got the idea they might be sisters, though one was more prettyish, the other built for labor. Urkus said some words about each of them, especially the fairer one, then bids were invited. The stronger-looking dam was tried for by the miner, the farmer, and by the giantess in armor, we’ll call her Scales for now. Two fancy-men, we’ll call them Bib and Bob, and a woman in scarlet and wee pearls all bid against each other on the smaller lass. I had the idea these were whoremasters. I also had the notion we were far from the sea here, and that pearls were dear—I would be proven right about that. Pearly won the bid. That one of the fancy-men rolled his eyes at the other, getting a subtle laugh off him, told me that getting outmoneyed by her was no rare event. The farmer got the strong girleen, who cried and reached out toward the other, who was already being led away. Despite her tears, I thought she would have it better than the lad going down a mine, but who knew? Maybe it would be her job to cut nuts off bulls or milk mother bears.

I knew absolutely nothing.

And could do nothing about it if I did.

There’s a strange kind of freedom in that, so it was with a sort of ease that I went up when our turn came and we were prodded out of our pen.

Galva, myself, and the giant lad were stripped, posed for sale, and chained to our stones, massive Birch having to hold his feet close to fit them on it. His clothes and crown of flowered branches were arranged before him. Galva’s clothes, armor, and pouches were piled before hers, with her sword and wondrous shield displayed to good effect—the crowd gasped to see that shield. Nobody was impressed at my bow, daggers, and gear, but I was glad and quite surprised to see them. Did slaves have property rights of some sort here? I had much to learn.

Now we were directed to do the open-mouth, arms-up, turn-in-a-circle thing.

I didn’t love having sunlight on my bits for the world to wonder at, but I supposed that was the least of my problems. My black tongue did draw a gasp or two, and one karker laughed. Or at least I hope he was laughing at my tongue. Galva, as with many soldiers who’d had their privacy stripped from them young, along with so much else, was little bothered by her nudity; but it was clear that being ordered about galled her. I dearly hoped she’d keep hold of her temper. Urkus had already shown little hesitation to use his nasty, flat baton, usually across the backs of our thighs. Now, however, he spoke at some length about her, swiping with his whacker as though it were a cutter, laying it across his arm and then his leg. I understood that he was describing the murder and injury Galva had visited on the Egalitarians despite their numbers. He pointed now at the Storm’s Mouth. “And whoever takes this brave warrior will also have her shield, a wonder of the east,” I could nearly translate. Must have been a hell of an oration, for at the end of it they gave him a fair round of arm-claps.

Now the bids came in, heavy and fierce.

The miner tried—and why not, for a strong lass?—but only once. Galva would never do so much with a shovel as with a sword and shield, and that was plain to see. Neither was she for leading oxen or milking mother bears, so the farmer never raised a finger. But Pearly, Bib, and Bob all came on, as well as some others of their likely trade and sort who had not bid on the other lass. For, to Galva’s misfortune here, her fitness lent her a hard beauty—she was an oddity, too. Despite the corvid tattoos on her lean, mammetless chest, it was clear she was a woman, though a damn strong one.