Many Roads Home (9 page)

“But how do we get to Grekil?”

“By the time you need to go there, you’ll know. I don’t know where your clans are right now, but that doesn’t matter. Go to Grekil. It’s in the north.”

It wasn’t much, but old man Kafoe had told him all those weeks before that children stolen by the slavers almost never came home. He thought the children couldn’t find their clans again. If nothing else, Yveni could help them in that. That the children might not have come home because they hadn’t survived, he didn’t want to think about.

The sun grew stronger. Yveni was able to brush some of the mud from his clothes, though he was still filthy and now had welts on his face and back from the slaver’s fist and whip. Still the slavers did nothing for the comfort of their captives beyond offering a cup of water. When one of the children needed to pee, he had to go right there. No privacy, no dignity, no care. Yveni raged constantly. If he’d had a sword in his hand, he would not have scrupled to kill all these bastards.

He hoped Raina had not been seriously hurt, but he knew no help would come from her clan. Jako would be grateful none of his children had been taken, and carry on his way. He might not even mention the incident to anyone at Grekil.

Two hours or so after Yveni’s capture, the slavers made all the children stand and go over to the cart. Yveni only just squeezed in alongside the others, so that confirmed to him that the slavers were on their return journey. He was most likely a lucky find for them, someone they hadn’t planned to capture. Just their good luck and his bad fortune.

He had to get free before they reached the Karvin border. But he would not leave if he couldn’t take the children with him.

Chapter Ten

He was a little out in his calculations, because they reached the Karvin border in just four days. The guards only cursorily examined the forged sale documents purporting to be from the parents of the captive children and waved them through. If Yveni had been anyone else but the vicont of Sardelsa, he’d have risked yelling the truth at them, but since he saw coins changing hands along with the documents, he suspected the guards already knew what went on and simply didn’t care.

Three hours past the border, they arrived at a rundown farmhouse by a small river. The men evicted the children from the cart and herded them down to the river. Their chains were removed and they were told to strip. The three girls were offered no modesty, though Yveni turned his back and gave them what he could. Once the children’s shoes and belts were put to one side and their clothes in a pile, the men forced the children into the river to bathe. Three thin-faced women came out of the house and dumped bars of yellow soap on the bank, then scooped up the clothes and scurried off with them.

The younger children cried with the cold and could only shiver, so it was up to Yveni and the older children to help them wash with the harsh-smelling soap and clean their hair. The slavers stood on the bank and did nothing to help, their arms folded and whips held ready to use. They’d found they could more easily control Yveni by threatening or actually beating a child like Tilin as punishment for Yveni’s misdemeanours than by punishing Yveni himself. He’d given up all thoughts of an escape attempt after he’d held a sobbing Tilin all night, trying to comfort him after the child had been whipped in his place for a minor offence. He couldn’t risk the children suffering for something he did.

Once the children were clean, the men ordered them out of the water. Still dripping, they were told to put their shoes on and walk up to a barn near the farmhouse. There they found thin towels and a stove waiting for them. The barn was clearly used to house captives, since bunks were already set up and the doors had strong locks, quite out of place on a farm. Still, the barn was better than the cart, and sitting by the stove with the towels about their shoulders wasn’t too bad. The floor was clean and laid with fresh straw, much more pleasant than mud to walk on. Yveni was under no illusion that this comfort would last.

The women returned and gave them shapeless linen shifts to dress in, and bowls of hot stew that brought a little colour back into tired, pale cheeks. The women brought buckets too—water for drinking, empty ones for toilet use.

The doors were locked and one of the slavers sat on a chair to guard them. But for the first time since their capture—much longer than Yveni had been with them—the children could move about freely and rest on a bed, not the ground. They were all too tired and worried to play, but food and warmth made a difference to their mood. Unlike Yveni, they had no idea what might be ahead of them. Yveni wished he could be so ignorant.

If there was any likelihood of escape, now would be the time, but after assessing the barn, the locks and the guard, not to mention their lack of proper clothes and supplies, he realised the situation was as hopeless as before. If there had been another youth in the group, someone of his size, they might have been able to overpower a single guard, maybe even break the lock somehow. But on his own, he couldn’t hope to, and if he failed, he would make things so much worse for the children.

His impotence depressed him, but he wanted to spare the children his foul mood. He crawled into a bunk and brooded in private. Just once in his life, he thought, he’d like to be in control of his future. Just
once
. But here he was, so close to adulthood, and still everything he did was based on decisions made by others—his father, his sister’s betrothed, Gerd, Jako and now these bastards. Even if he could get free of the slavers, the children restrained his actions. He had less freedom of choice than a kardip on its way to slaughter.

“Gaelin?”

He rolled over. Tilin, rubbing his eyes. Yveni held his arms out. “What’s up?”

“’m tired. Can I sleep with you?”

“Of course.”

He pulled the thin blanket over them and held Tilin tight against him. “Are we going to be here forever, Gaelin?”

“Don’t think so. Don’t think about it. Want me to tell you a story?”

“Uh-huh.”

“How about the one about the little prince who had a big, beautiful horse called Ande?”

“Mmmm, yes, please. I like that one.”

At least his privileged upbringing had been good for
something
. What would happen to Tilin in a society that let children be used as slaves? If he ever came to the throne, Yveni vowed he’d do all in his power to end this cruelty. But the prospects of becoming duc looked even more distant. Surviving the next week was as much as he could hope for, right now.

They stayed in the barn for two days. On the third, the women, whom Yveni guessed were the slavers’ wives, brought the children their laundered clothes, combed their hair and washed their faces and hands. Did these women have children of their own? How they could stand by and watch other children be carted off to market like livestock? These weren’t questions he could risk asking.

It was a two-hour cart ride to their final destination. Kivnic, Yveni worked out from the street and shop signs. A city then, more than a town. An important marketplace and the closest large settlement to the border, he recalled from his studies. He hadn’t known slaves were sold here, but he knew surprisingly little about this dark trade, something he regretted now. It wouldn’t change anything, but it might have taken some of his fear of the unknown away. Or it might have made it worse.

The large stone-paved square at the centre of Kivnic was given over entirely to a massive market. After spending so long in tiny villages and with small groups of people, the noise and smells and bustle overwhelmed even Yveni, who’d seen this all before. To the children, it was terrifying, and he and Jair had to do their best to calm and comfort, though he didn’t feel calm and Jair’s eyes were full of tears. She was old enough to work out what might be happening, though he’d done his best not to fuel her anxiety. Her clan had told her stories of the slavers, and now those had become her reality.

The slavers drove the cart to an area where a lot of people stood around with pieces of paper in their hands. Yveni had no idea why or who they were. They all looked as miserable as the children, yet none were chained, so presumably they weren’t slaves or prisoners. He felt like shouting Gerd’s favourite line about “it could be worse” at them, but he didn’t.

He and the children were unloaded from the cart and made to stand in a line while one of the slavers examined them, tidying hair and straightening tunics. When he reached Yveni, he gripped his chin.

“Now listen to me, boy.” He spoke in Tetu, his voice low and harsh. “You keep your mouth shut unless a customer asks you a direct question, and that answer of yours better be the right one, or else…” He twisted Yveni’s head and made him look at a building near to them with rather luxurious curtains at the windows. “That’s the town brothel. They’re always looking for pretty little boys, like that Tilin you’re so fond of. You speak out of turn and the brat goes straight there. Got me?”

“Yes.”

“Good. You can read and write, you’re Uemirien, and you’re fifteen. Say anything else and I’ll do what I threatened.”

Yveni put all the hate he felt for this bastard into his glare. The man only sneered and walked to the other end of the line.

If only the loathsome creature appreciated the irony. Yveni would have had to lie anyway, now he was on Karvin soil. Until he could escape this country, he couldn’t reveal who he was or where he came from. All the slaver had done was give him fresh reason to worry about the fate of the children. How could people like that sleep at night?

Chapter Eleven

The labour market turned out to be as hopeless as Paole feared. No one under the age of twenty was available at all, and even if he could have persuaded someone older to try the trade, almost none could read and write. Those who could, didn’t appeal for other reasons.

Desperation threatened to overwhelm him. He could
not
live alone any more. He couldn’t. The only other choice was to give up the cabin and move permanently to a village—not to Dadel, not with Sheriff Rolf. But there would be Sheriff Rolfs everywhere he went, and those who’d known Mathias would not be there to support him.

Dispirited, he decided to leave the town, move on to the next sooner than he’d planned. But the cry of a small child caught his attention and he turned, looking past the labourers for hire. A cart had pulled up while he’d been at the bank, and in front of it…

Oh no
.

Only twice in the years since Mathias had owned him had they been in Kivnic when the slaves were on sale. Both times, Mathias had sent Paole on an errand away from the square to spare his feelings.

Now the only one who could spare those was himself. Yet his feet didn’t turn away from the pitiful little group waiting their turn after the labour market ended. He walked towards them, his heart racing. Could he…maybe buy them all? There weren’t so many this time.

A big, broken-toothed Karvi blocked his approach. “Do you have business with us?”

“The…the children. You’re selling them?”

“That’s right. All legal, as you know.” He looked Paole up and down as if he could work out his history just by his appearance.

“H-how much? For all of them?”

“You can’t afford them.”

“I asked, how much?”

“And
I
said, you can’t afford them. I got buyers lined up, regular customers. Only one on free offer is the boy at the end. He’s a bit old for my regulars. He’s fifteen, not new to slavery. Can read and write. Has a bit of an attitude, but I’m sure a gentleman like yourself could sort that out.”

“How much?”

The man smiled but there was little friendliness in it. “Well, depends on what I get offered, doesn’t it? That’s what an auction’s all about.”

“I’ll offer you…two. Two hundred.”

“Gold or silver?”

“Gold.”

The man’s eyes turned speculative. Paole had offered too much, but he didn’t care. “Want to take a look at him?”

Paole nodded, his heart in his throat. Even if he could save
one
…

The boy was well formed, dark-haired and dark-eyed, in good physical condition, but angry. He glared back at Paole with none of the broken spirit of a slave.

“I’m told you can read and write,” Paole asked in his stumbling Uemi.

“That’s right.” The tone was of someone speaking to a person well below his notice.

“How old were you when you were first enslaved?”

The boy glanced at the slaver. “I don’t remember.”

“How old are you now?”

“Fifteen.” The boy’s nostrils flared defiantly.

“Your name?”

“Gaelin.”

“Clan?”

“I don’t remember.”

Taken young then, like the others. Paole turned to the slaver and spoke in Tetu. “You’re right, he does have an attitude. One hundred.”

“You said two!”

“I changed my mind. Boy looks older than fifteen to me, and he’s poorly mannered. I don’t think you want that to come back on you from a regular, do you?” He could have sworn the boy smirked. Maybe he spoke Tetu.

“One twenty. I’ll get that much in auction, even with that mouth.”

Paole doubted it but he wanted to be gone from here. “Done. Bring the notary now, I have other business I need to attend to.”

The man walked off and spoke to one of his companions. Even at the reduced price, they seemed pleased. Paole didn’t care—he’d have paid more, but he saw no reason to throw money away.

“I’ll be your new owner, Gaelin.” The boy stared straight ahead. “I know you speak this tongue, so you can knock off the act.”

The boy looked at him, briefly startled, but his lips thinned. “Can I say goodbye to the others?”

Paole agreed, and the boy knelt down to the child nearest him, giving him a hug. The child burst into tears, which set the others off. The slaver watching came over, cracking his whip and cursing. He raised the whip to Gaelin, but Paole caught his hand in a crushing grip. The man stared up at him.

“My property. Don’t touch him.”

“Keep him away from mine, then.”

“Unchain him and I’ll do so willingly.”

Gaelin hadn’t moved, but at Paole’s words, he gave the child a last hug and turned to the others. “Remember what I said.” The children nodded solemnly, then he stepped back.

He’s not afraid,
Paole thought, jealous and proud at the same time. Of course, Paole had only been four when he’d come to this place the first time. This one had somehow kept his spirit. He might even go home, given help.

Which would leave Paole exactly where he was before he made this impetuous deal, but so be it.

The slaver unlocked the chain linking Gaelin to the child and handed it to Paole. “Lose him and you still pay.”

“I’m aware how it works.” He almost grinned at Gaelin’s little smirk.

The first slaver returned then with a clerk to witness the transfer of ownership.

“Let’s take it to my bank so I can withdraw the money. You don’t think I walk around with coin of that amount, do you?” Paole wanted to draw their attention to that, since he didn’t like the idea of this lot ambushing him when he left the city borders, retrieving the slave and taking another little payment.

The slaver grumbled but agreed. Paole wrapped Gaelin’s chain around his hand. “Please behave yourself,” he said in a low voice. “I want us to leave without trouble.”

“I will,” Gaelin whispered back.

Pleased at the boy’s intelligence, Paole walked tall among these dishonest creatures. Gaelin imitated him, which amused him. Definitely not a broken slave there.

The business at the bank took longer than he wanted, but Gaelin sat quietly the entire time, not fidgeting or giving any appearance of being bored. One of his masters had trained him well.

But finally they were done, and the notary asked which slave mark he wanted placed on Gaelin’s arm. Paole was about to say he didn’t, but the slaver interrupted. “Already marked. Look.”

Of course he’d be marked. Paole had forgotten that. “Show us, Gaelin.”

The boy seemed genuinely confused. “On your arm, you fool,” the slaver snapped.

Gaelin frowned as he rolled up his sleeve. “But that’s…” Then he caught the slaver’s eye. “Here.”

He walked over and thrust out his arm. Paole wanted to know what he’d been about to say, but not in front of this thug. The tattoo on the forearm was a long snaking swirl with three dots. Much more elaborate than most slave marks. Paole’s was two simple crosses.

The notary recorded the symbol, then Paole signed to say he’d seen it and agreed that it belonged to the slave, Gaelin. At last they were done. The slaver stomped off, clearly glad to see the back of them.

As soon as he left the bank, Gaelin turned to Paole. “Please, you have to help the children.”

“I can’t. He wouldn’t sell them to me, he said so.”

“But he sells to the brothel, he told me!”

“He won’t, I promise you. No brothel would touch a child slave—they turn a blind eye to many things in this country, but not that.” Paole decided not to upset the boy by telling him the children could end up in a worse place than a brothel, because it might never happen. “Come, we can talk in private when I leave this place.”

“There’s nothing you can do?”

“Not now, boy, however much I want to. Come.”

He steered Gaelin away from the market square and towards the stables where he’d left the wagon. He could have spent a profitable day here, several days, but all he wanted was to leave so he didn’t have to share air with the slavers, or risk seeing those who’d buy children in that way.

As Paole flicked Peni’s reins, Gaelin asked, “Where are we going?” He continued to speak in Tetu. Perhaps he’d noted Paole was far from fluent in Uemi.

“To have a bite to eat and some tea. If that’s all right with your lordship.”

Gaelin flushed. “Sorry. It’s been a hard week or so.”

Paole patted his leg. “I’m sure. You’re safe now. Sorry about the others. If it’s any comfort, most who buy slaves pay too much to mistreat them too badly.”

“They shouldn’t buy them at all.”

“Aye, but we’re not in Uemire here. The Karvin king doesn’t give a damn about us.”

Gaelin jerked, but said nothing. Paole let him settle down as he drove out of town on the main road, and then turned off after a mile to a place he knew well, and which would not be seen by any curious or greedy slavers with ill intent.

He’d handed Gaelin the chain leash, but hadn’t taken it off completely to avoid arousing suspicion. He’d have to figure a way of doing that if Gaelin stayed with him, but of course he didn’t know that he would be. Later. They’d talk of it later.

For now, a fire and tea was what he needed and the boy would too. Once he set the fire he beckoned to Gaelin to come sit. “So, tell me the truth about you, not what the slavers told you to say. How old are you really?”

“Um, seventeen. Eighteen in two months.”

Paole lifted his eyebrows in surprise. Much older than he suspected. The boy was small for his age. “You really can read and write? In Tetu and Uemi? Where did you learn such excellent Tetu? From your previous owners?”

Gaelin’s eyes became shifty. “Um…I’ve never been a slave before. I’m not Uemirien. I’m from Tuelwetin. The duchy of Sardelsa in Tuelwetin. I was shipwrecked on the Uemire coast nearly three months ago, and was making my way to Horches when those bastards stole me from the group I was travelling with.”

“
Not
Uemirien? And you’re
not
a child?” Paole hissed in a breath in anger. He’d been taken, and taken like a damn fool. “And you went along with their lies? Why?”

“They threatened the children!”

“But you could have told me this in the bank, in front of the notary. Told him what the slavers said. Are they brothers of yours? Accomplices?”

“No! I told you, they threatened—”

“And I’m supposed to believe you, a Tueler citizen, gives a damn about those children, and would allow yourself to be enslaved to save them? When you could have been freed at the border? Called to any soldier in that town and asked for release? Liar.”

“I’m not!”

He made to jump up, but Paole grabbed the end of his leash and yanked him down. “Oh no, my pretty lad. I bought you thinking I’d set a Uemirien child free, and instead I’ve got you for all that coin. I’m thinking you owe me a great deal of money, Gaelin or whatever the hell your name is, and you can damn well work it off before you’re freed.”

“I’m not a slave.”

“Oh yes you are, and I have the papers to prove it. The only other option you’ve got is to send a message to your friends in Sardelsa or Horches, and arrange for my money to be paid back. Do that, and we’ll be quits.”

“I can’t do that,” Gaelin mumbled.

“Why not? Are they poor?”

“Yes.”

“Liar. Tell me the truth. Why can’t you send for the money?”

“I can’t.”

“Because you have no friends in either place, and you’re in league with the slavers.”

“No!”

Paole sneered. He was so angry he could barely see straight. “Then you pay me back in labour. One hundred and twenty gold coins is thirty years’ wages for a healer’s assistant.”

“Thirty years!”

“Yes. So you either find the money or get used to being a slave. I’d have set you free if you’d been of my kind, but I have no love for Tuelers or Karvi. You’re all the same.”