Many Roads Home (13 page)

It annoyed him a little that Paole’s return near to sunset made him so happy, like he really was some damn slave waiting for his master to come home and pet him. But it did make him happy, and his smile brought an answering grin from the man. “You’ve been cooking. I can smell it.”

“All afternoon. If you’d come home earlier, you’d be complaining about the stink from the leathers.”

“Well, I didn’t, so no harm. Brought you something.” Paole set down the packs he carried and drew out a parcel wrapped in cheap sacking. “There was a second-hand clothing wagon in the town, so I picked out two shirts and some trousers. Those you’re wearing won’t last you. Had to guess the size.”

“A skill a slaveowner needs.”

Paole’s smile dropped.

“I’m only joking,” Yveni hastily added. “Can I see?”

The clothes were old and patched, but the cloth was stout and the stitching sound. Yveni stripped to his loincloth to try on the trousers, not thinking about modesty at all—not after the wreck and the beach and travelling with Raina’s clan. But when he looked up to tell Paole that the pants seemed to fit well enough, he found the man had turned quite red. “Oh, should I have waited?”

“No.” Paole coughed. “They look fine, boy. Just tighten your belt a little, keep them up. I’ll go and—”

He stopped and looked past Yveni’s shoulder. Yveni turned and found a youth standing by the edge of the camp.

“Master Paole,” the boy said quietly, “you said it was—”

“Yes. Um, Gaelin, I…won’t be sleeping in the tent tonight. You should be fine on your own. It’s safe, hereabouts.”

Yveni looked from the pretty, wide-eyed youth to Paole. “Of course, master. What about supper?”

“Wrap up some bread for me, boy.” He turned to the youth. “Be with you soon.”

He went around the back of the wagon and into it. Yveni smiled at the visitor. “I’m Gaelin.”

“Kurt. Why are you wearing a chain?”

“Uh…I don’t want to talk about it.”

Kurt flushed. “Sorry.”

“It’s all right. Do you know Master Paole well?”

He shook his head. “Not really. He treated my father for his haemorrhoids. We’re not rich. Master Paole lets us pay in kind. It’s a great help.”

The boy held nothing in his hands. So what was he bartering? A sick, cold feeling began to curdle in Yveni’s stomach. “Is that why you’re here?”

“Yes.” The boy wrinkled his forehead in confusion. “I heard from…my friend. We all know about Master Paole, from when he was here last year.”

“Did he let your friend pay in kind too?”

“Oh yes. Some of the healers are too proud for that.”

Yveni gritted his teeth. “Not surprised.”

Paole emerged from the wagon with blankets in his hands. “Have you got the bread, Gaelin?”

“Yes, master.”

Paole shot him a glance for his cold tone. Yveni didn’t care. He might throw up. To think he had been planning to make
gloves
for this bastard.

He shoved the bread, still in its tin, at Paole. “Don’t need the whole thing, boy.”

“Do what you want with it,
master
. I’m not hungry.”

Paole’s eyes narrowed in anger, but he clearly didn’t want to chastise Yveni in front of Kurt. “As you like.” He gestured to Kurt. “Come on, boy.”

Yveni wanted to yell at Kurt that he didn’t need to go along with such an illegal and immoral bargain, but the two disappeared from sight in seconds, and the opportunity was lost.

He leaned against the wagon and cursed quietly. What a fool he’d been to believe Paole’s claims of such high ideals. Kurt barely looked Yveni’s age, was likely younger. Paole had no business exploiting children to sate his lust. Kurt hadn’t looked worried, but then he said he didn’t know Paole. Perhaps knew nothing of what would be done to him.

Yveni
knew little either, but he had some theoretical knowledge, and Raina had made some jokes from time to time that he’d worked out eventually. It wasn’t unnatural or forbidden by the gods, but for Paole to let a boy like that sell himself to pay for treatment of his father’s
piles
? No priest would look away from that. The gods gave children as a gift, not to be abused.

Maybe Paole’s time as a slave had twisted him, made him lose all sense of decency. Yveni didn’t know and right now, didn’t care. Whatever the reasons, his
master
was a damn hypocrite.

Chapter Sixteen

Kurt was a virgin, Paole discovered. But eager and sweet and grateful to be taught something of the way between men with a bit of gentleness. Paole wished he could persuade the boy to leave with him, but his family needed all their offspring to work with them. “You’re beautiful,” he murmured, kissing the boy’s hair in the predawn light.

“So are you. Piet said you were wonderful. He was right.”

Paole smiled. “He’s kind. I didn’t see him in town this time.”

“They’ve gone reed cutting. He’ll be sorry he missed you.”

“Next time, I hope. And you, maybe?”

“Oh yes.” Kurt gave him a brilliant smile. “Master Paole, why don’t you have a lover? Is Gaelin?”

“No, he’s…working for me.”

“Why is he wearing a chain?”

“Uh…well, it’s punishment. He, uh, keeps running off to do what he likes.”

“Sounds more trouble than he’s worth.” Kurt sat up, jumbled curls falling around his lovely face. Paole would have tugged him down for more cuddles and sex, but both of them had to be going. “You should have a lover. Or a wife.”

“More trouble than they’re worth.”

Kurt laughed. “Maybe.” He bent down and kissed Paole with little of the virginal shyness he’d shown the night before. “I want to see you again.”

“You will. But you’d better be off.”

“Yes. Thank you, Master Paole. I wanted someone special to be my first. You were.”

Paole scoffed, but still smiled. Silver-tongued like his friend, this one was. He lay on his side and watched Kurt pull on his boots, admiring the play of the tight, youthful buttocks under his breeches as he stood.

“Fair travelling, Master Paole.”

“Good harvest, Master Kurt. Until next time.”

Another flash of good teeth and the boy was off. Paole rolled onto his back and stared up at the lightening sky. A lover… More than he dared to hope for. A wife? Hah, not for an ex-slave, and besides, he’d never had a woman. Wouldn’t know where to start.

His eyes rested on the half-empty bread tin. And what had all that been about, then? Gaelin had looked at him with hate in his eyes, and yet minutes before, had been so pleased at the new clothes.

He didn’t know how to deal with this, except to punish him, and that didn’t work all that well with a boy who wasn’t really a slave and was a lot smarter and better educated than Paole. He could ask him but didn’t know if he’d receive an answer he could use.

He sighed and stood. He shook out the blankets and rolled them, then broke off some of the bread to eat as he walked down to the stream, still naked except for his boots. The stream was cold but bearable, and over the years, Paole had endured many cold baths. He splashed himself clean and promised himself a proper wash in a bath-house when they reached Haente.

Shaking himself dry, he pulled on his trousers, needing a clean shirt before he called on patients today. Gaelin was up, but hadn’t remade the fire. His mouth tightened unhappily as Paole approached, and he looked away.

Paole came right up to the lad, so there could be no pretence of ignoring him. “Sleep well?”

“Yes, master.”

“Something wrong?”

“No, master.”

“Thought you’d be wearing the new clothes. Those are getting a bit grubby.”

“Yes, master.”

Paole wanted to shake the brat. “Don’t like your tone, boy.”

“No, master.” The tone was unchanged. He still hadn’t looked at Paole.

“Are you looking to be punished, Gaelin?”

The boy’s head swivelled towards him. “Whatever you want,
master
.”

Paole clenched his fists. He should deal with this, but he had things to do. “Repair your manners, boy, by the time I get back, or life’ll become a lot more unpleasant.”

“Yes, master.”

Paole growled in anger and stomped off. What the
hell
was wrong with the boy? Maybe it was his noble, Tueler blood coming out. Paole
was
only an ex-slave after all. But he was an ex-slave with the key to Gaelin’s chain so the boy had better mend his attitude.

Then he remembered other boys with bad attitudes and masters who’d tried to beat humility into them. Beat it into Paole when Paole had only ever tried to do what his master wanted, even when the master contradicted himself. He didn’t
want
to beat anything into anyone, even a bad-tempered Tueler lordling.

The little shit was trying to force him into doing something he didn’t want to. Well, he wouldn’t. Paole had his morals and his standards and even if he’d ended up owning a damn slave against all his own principles and desires, he wouldn’t become what he’d always hated.

Ignoring a master’s anger had always enraged them more. He’d see if this Yveni reacted the same way. Paole had survived twenty-four years of slavery. A bit of temper from a privileged child was nothing.

Yveni had braced himself for Paole’s return, fully expecting to be punished, even beaten for not adopting a submissive manner. But Paole made no comment at all—not on the fact Yveni hadn’t changed his smelly clothes or done any of the chores except the cooking, nor on Yveni’s deliberately rude responses. The man simply ate his meal, cleaned up his own dishes, and sat down to do the drug measurements Yveni hadn’t started, all without saying a word. Clearly his behaviour with Kurt caused him no shame, but that didn’t surprise Yveni. It did surprise him that he’d taken no action over the wilfulness.

Still, it suited him to have no interaction with the bastard. All his energies would now be turned to escaping, though that might take more time than he hoped, since the chain had proved utterly resistant to his attacks with knife and axe, and the stout locks unbreakable. He had no skill in lock picking—wouldn’t know where to begin. Chopping the tree down to which he’d been tethered might be possible, but could yield unpredictable results.

The best hope would be that Paole would tire of his insolence and be rid of him. In the meantime Yveni would keep his eyes open for any opportunities to slip the leash.

Paole’s sole recognition of his change of heart was to shorten the chain and leave him with only food and water while he went to town. No books or tasks. It meant Yveni had nothing to do all day but brood, but it wouldn’t kill him. If Paole wanted to keep paying for food for a slave who did nothing, that was his problem.

The silence between them stretched all the way until the next town on Paole’s route. This time two young men came, separately, in the evenings to pay their families’ debts. Yveni couldn’t even eat those nights, he was so sick at what was happening. And what of the families too, so desperate that they would whore their sons out in this way? How long had this revolting business been going on?

As he lay in the tent on his own, the cries of a raped boy came over the night air to him. He put his hands over his ears, not wanting to be party to the crime. If he ever became duc, he’d make it his business to ensure no family was reduced to this to pay for medical care, even that provided by a bastard like Paole.

After that town, the route headed into less populated country. It was more than a week before Paole stopped again, and only to spend a day in the little village before moving on. The nobles and their large estates dominated Karvis, and as far as Yveni could see, this area was favourite for hunting lodges and summer castles, where the cool winds swept away the muggy heat that collected in the valleys, blowing through dense forests and high passes. At night, a hint of snow hung in the air, though they had not, so far as he could calculate, even reached high summer yet.

Were it not for his imprisonment and his odious captor—and the fact he was exiled from his beloved home—he’d have enjoyed this chance to see a land he’d only read about. He’d had little to do with the Karvi before and had seen very few of their kind since he’d been brought unwillingly to the country. The peasants he’d seen hadn’t looked so well dressed as those around his father’s castle, and there were far fewer signs of technological advances, but this part of the country was far from the capital and the bulk of the population. Perhaps it was different in the south.

They passed through a town set near a large walled castle high up on a cliff. Here the townsfolk were all neatly dressed, and the fronts of buildings all tidily painted. Street cleaners kept the market unusually clean and the gutters empty, and the town even had electric street lighting. Clearly a prosperous town that valued healthy living, but Paole only stopped two hours and that only to buy supplies. Yveni burned with curiosity to know why this place wasn’t suitable to ply his trade, but he’d die rather than ask. On the far side of the town, down in a valley, nestled farms. There, Paole stopped at several farmhouses, staying an hour or so in each. Yveni remained chained to the wagon, with only enough play in the chain to climb down and piss against the wheels if he needed to relieve himself. It was more tiresome than being tethered to a tree in camp, but he refused to complain. Yveni would
never
give Paole the satisfaction.

The open landscape of the farms gave way to forest, at first sparse and clearly exploited for timber, to denser, wilder woods. Darker too, enough that Paole lit the wagon’s lamps—something he rarely did as they’d almost always reached a campsite long before dark. It was hours before sunset, but nearly dark as midnight. Yveni was used to deep forests, but it was one thing to be in one with an experienced huntmaster and twenty soldiers a mere ten kilometres from the castle, and entirely another to be alone with a hostile foreigner, when he had no idea where they were or if any of the isolated farmhouses would offer help if needed. He shivered and tried not to think about bandits.

The lamps lit the road well enough, though he really hoped Paole was near to where he wanted to be. Yveni peered into the darkness beyond, hoping to see fires or lights, any sign they were reaching a settled area again. But then he saw…

“Stop! Paole, stop, I saw someone.” The bundle had been well off the road, and it had taken Yveni precious time to resolve the image and to realise that it wasn’t just discarded clothes, but someone wearing them.

Paole reined Peni in. “Where? I saw nothing.”

“On the left, a woman…damn it, take this chain off…she was lying on the side of the road, back there!”

“Stay.”

Yveni gritted his teeth in frustration as Paole climbed slowly down and walked back along the road. “Do you see her? Is she all right?” He tugged futilely at the chain, then remembered he could get down to the road level.

Paole had taken the small lamp from the hook on the back of the wagon with him. All Yveni could see was the pool of light as he crouched at the side of the road about forty metres back. “Who is it?”

Paole ignored him. Yveni strained but saw nothing but the man’s vague shape and the bright light.

But then Paole stood and walked back, stopping a good ten metres short. “Yveni, catch.”

It wasn’t easy to see, but the sound was unmistakeable as the keys hit the ground near his feet. “Undo your chain, and go.”

Yveni squinted at him in confusion. “Go? Go where? And who is it?”

“A woman and child. Very ill. Take what you want from the wagon and go. There’s a farm three kilometres from here, a town another six further on. You can walk it easily before night. But whatever you do, don’t come near me. No, I said, don’t!”

The raw panic in Paole’s voice shocked Yveni. “Why?”

“It’s kirten fever. I’m already contaminated. Save yourself, and go. Go, I said!” He bellowed so furiously that Yveni took an instinctive step back. “Unlock your chains. Do it, boy. I need to tend to her.”

Yveni obeyed, and Paole, satisfied, turned and went back to the woman.

Yveni piled the chains in the back of the wagon. He should do as Paole ordered. After all, this was the chance he’d hoped for. More than he’d hoped for, because he could take Paole’s money and food and equipment, even the wagon and horse. Leave Paole to his well-deserved fate.

No, he couldn’t.

He sighed and started down the road towards Paole and the woman. He was but five metres from them when Paole realised he was standing there. “I said, leave, boy! Are you insane?” He held the woman in his arms, and in
her
arms lay a tiny bundle. The baby couldn’t be very old. The woman’s clothes were ragged and dirty.

“I’m immune. I was inoculated against kirten fever when I was five. My father instituted a programme in the duchy. I won’t catch it.”