Prince of the Blood (20 page)

Then another guard brought around the waterskin and cups and the clamor for water began. Each slave who could still speak announced his thirst, as if to remain silent was to chance being ignored.

Borric could barely move, and each motion brought waves of bright yellow-and-white light and red flashes behind his eyes. Yet, almost blindly, he pushed out his hand to take the metal cup. The water was warm and bitter, yet sweeter than the finest Natalese wine to Borric’s parched lips. He sipped the wine, forcing himself to hold it in his mouth as his father had taught him, letting the dark purple fluid course around his tongue, registering the subtle and complex components of the wine’s flavor. A hint of bitterness, perhaps from the stems and a few leaves left in the vat of must, while the wine maker attempted to bring his wine to just the proper peak of fermentation before barreling the wine. Or perhaps it was a flaw. Borric didn’t recognize the wine; it lacked noticeable body and structure, and was deficient in acid to balance the fruit. It was not a very good wine. He would have to see if Papa was testing him and Erland by putting a poor local wine on the table, to see if they were paying attention.

Borric blinked and through eyes gummy from heat and dryness, he couldn’t see where the tip was. How was he to spit the wine if there was no tip bucket to spit into? He mustn’t drink it, or he would be very drunk, as he was only a small boy. Perhaps if he turned his head and spit behind the table, no one would notice.

“Hey!” shouted a voice. “That slave is spitting out his water!”

Hands ripped the cup from Borric’s hands and he fell over backward. He lay on the floor of his father’s dining hall and wondered why the stones were so warm. They should be cool. They always were. How did they get so warm?

Then a pair of hands lifted him ungently from his sitting position, and another helped to hold him up. “What’s this? Trying to kill yourself by not drinking?” Borric
opened his eyes slightly and saw the vague outline of a face before his.

Weakly, he said, “I can’t name the wine, Father.”

“He’s delirious,” said the voice. Hands lifted him and carried him and then he was in a darker place. Water was daubed over his face and poured over his neck, wrists, and arms. A distant voice said, “I swear by the gods and demons, Salaya, you haven’t the brains of a three-days-dead cat. If I hadn’t ridden out to meet you, you’d have let this one die, too, wouldn’t you?”

Borric felt water course into his mouth and he drank. Instead of the bitter half cup, this was a veritable stream of almost fresh water. He drank.

Salaya’s voice answered: “The weak ones fetch us nothing. It saves us money to let them die on the road and not feed them.”

“You idiot!” shouted the other. “This is a prime slave! Look at him. He’s young, not more than twenty years, if I know my business, and not bad looking under the sunburn, healthy—or at least he was a few days ago.” There was a sound of disgust. “These fair-skinned northerners can’t take the heat like those of us born to the Jal-Pur. A little more water, and some covering, and he’d have been fit for next week’s block. Now, I’ll have to keep him an extra two weeks for the burns to heal and his strength to return.”

“Master—”

“Enough. Keep him here under the wagon while I inspect the others. There may be more who will survive if I find them in time. I do not know what fate befell Kasim, but it was a sorry day for the Guild when you were left in charge.”

Borric found this exchange very odd. And what had happened to the wine? He let his mind wander as he lay in the relative cool, under the wagon, while a few feet away, a Master of the Guild of Durbin Slavers inspected
the others who in a day’s time would be delivered to the slave pens.

“Durbin!” said Salman. His face of dark knots split in a wide grin. He drove the last wagon in the train, the one in which Borric rode. The two days since Borric was carried into the shade of the wagon had returned him from the edge of death. He now rode in the last wagon with three other slaves who were recovering from heatstroke. Water was there for the taking, and their burned skins were dressed with a soft oil-and-herb poultice, which reduced the fiery pain to a dull itch.

Borric rose to his knees, then stood upon shaky legs as the wagon lurched across the stones in the road. He saw little remarkable about the city, save the surrounding lands were now green rather than sandy. They had been passing small farms for about a half day. He remembered what he had been taught about the infamous pirate stronghold as a boy.

Durbin commanded the only arable farmland between the Vale of Dreams and the foothills of the Trollhome Mountains, as well as the one safe harbor to be found from Land’s End to Ranom. Along the south coast of the Bitter Sea the treacherous reefs waited for ships and boats unfortunate enough to be caught in the unexpected northern winds that sprang up routinely. For centuries, Durbin had been home to pirates, wreckers and scavengers, and slavers.

Borric nodded to Salman. The happy little bandit had proven to be both friendly and garrulous. “I’ve lived there all my life,” said the bandit, widening his grin. “My father was born there, too.”

When the desert men of the Jal-Pur had conquered Durbin hundreds of years before, they had found their gateway to the trade of the Bitter Sea, and when the
Empire had conquered the desert men, Durbin was the capital city of the desert men. Now it was the home of an Imperial governor, but nothing had changed. It was still Durbin.

“Tell me,” asked Borric, “do the Three Guilds still control the city?”

Salman laughed. “You’re a very educated fellow! Few outside Durbin know of this thing. The Guild of Slavers, the Wreckers Guild, and the Captains of the Coast. Yes, the Three still rule in Durbin. It is they, not the Imperial Governor, who decide who is to live and die, who is to work, who is to eat.” He shrugged. “It is as it has always been. Before the Empire. Before the desert men. Always.”

Thinking of the power of the Mockers, the Guild of Thieves, in Krondor, he asked, “What of the beggars and thieves? Are they not a power?”

“Ha!” answered Salman. “Durbin is the most honest city in the world, my educated friend. We who live there lie at night with doors unlocked and may walk the streets in safety. For he who steals in Durbin is a fool, and either dead or a slave within days. So the Three have decreed, and who is foolish enough to question their wisdom? Certainly not I. And so it must be, for Durbin has no friends beyond the reefs and sands.”

Borric lightly patted Salman on the shoulder and sat down in the back of the wagon. Of the four sick slaves, he was the quickest to recover, as he was the youngest and fittest. The other three were older farmers, and none had shown any inclination to quick recovery. Despair robs you of strength faster than sickness, Borric thought.

He drank a little water and marveled at the first hint of ocean breeze that came into the wagon as they headed down the road toward the city gate. One of his father’s advisors, and the man who had taught Borric and Erland how to sail, Amos Trask, had been a pirate in his youth, raiding the Free Cities, Queg, and the Kingdom under
the name Captain Trenchard, the Dagger of the Sea. He had been a renowned member of the Captains of the Coast. But while he had told many tales of the high seas, he had said almost nothing of the politics of the Captains. Still, someone might remember Captain Trenchard and that might stand Borric in good stead.

Borric had decided to keep his identity hidden a while longer. While he had no doubt the slavers would send ransom demands to his father, he thought he might avoid the sort of international difficulties that would arise should it come to pass. Instead, he might bide his time in the slave pens a few days, regain his strength, then flee. While the desert was a formidable barrier, any small boat in the harbor would be his passage to freedom. It was nearly five hundred miles of sailing against prevailing winds to reach Land’s End, Baron Locklear’s father’s city, but it could be done. Borric considered all this with a confidence of one who, at the age of nineteen, did not know the meaning of defeat. His captivity was merely a setback, nothing more.

The slave pens were sheltered by shingle roofs rested upon tall beams, protecting the slaves from the noon heat or unexpected storms off the Bitter Sea. But the sides were open slats and crossbeams, so the guards could watch the captives. A healthy man could easily climb over the ten-foot fence, but by the time he reached the top and crawled through the space between the fence and the crossbeams supporting the roof three feet above, guards would be waiting for him.

Borric considered his plight. Once he was sold, his new master might be lax in his security, or he might be even more stringent. Logic dictated he attempt to escape while confined close to the sea. His new owner could be a Quegan merchant, a traveler from the Free Cities, or even a Kingdom noble. What would be worse, he could be carried deep into the Empire. He was not sanguine about letting fate make the choice.

He had a plan. The only difficulty lay in getting cooperation from the other prisoners. If a long enough diversion could be arranged for, then he could be over the fence and out into the city. Borric shook his head. He realized as plans go, it wasn’t much.

“Pssst!”

Borric turned to see from where the odd sound came. Seeing nothing, he turned back into himself as he considered improvements on his plan.

“Pssst! This way, young noble.” Borric looked again through the bars of the pen, but this time down, and in the scant shadows he saw a slight figure.

A boy, no more than eleven or twelve years old, grinned up at him from the meager shelter of a large roof support. If he moved more than inches in any direction, he would certainly be spotted by the guard.

Borric glanced around, seeing the two guards at the corner speaking to one another. “What?” he whispered.

“Should you but divert the guards’ attention for an instant, noble sir, I will be indebted to you for ages,” came the answering whisper.

Borric said, “Why?”

“I need but a moment’s distraction, sir.”

Counting no harm from it, save perhaps a blow for insolence, Borric nodded. Moving to where the guards stood, he said, “Hey! When do we eat?”

Both guards blinked in confusion, then one snarled. He jammed the butt of his spear through the staves of the fence, and Borric had to dodge not to be struck. “Sorry I asked,” he said.

Chuckling to himself, he moved his shoulders under the rough shirt they had given him, fighting the impulse to scratch. The sunburn was healing after being dressed for the last three days, but the peeling skin and the itching were making him doubly cross. The next slave auction
was over a week away, and he knew he would be on the block. He was regaining his strength quickly.

A tug at his sleeve caused him to turn and there beside him was the boy. “What are you doing here?”

The boy gave him a questioning look. “What do you mean, sir?”

“I thought you were trying to escape the pens,” said Borric in a harsh whisper.

The boy laughed. “No, noble youth. I needed the distraction you so magnanimously provided so I might enter the pen.”

Borric looked heavenward. “Two hundred prisoners all dreaming continuously of a way out of here, and I have to meet the one madman in the world who wishes to break in! Why me?”

The boy looked up to where Borric’s gaze went, and said, “To which deity does my lord speak?”

“All of them. Look, what is this all about?”

The boy took Borric’s elbow and steered him to the center of the pen, where they would be the least conspicuous to the guards. “It is a matter of some complexity, my lord.”

“And why do you address me as ‘my lord’?”

The boy’s face split with a grin, and Borric took a good look at him. Round cheeks burned red by the sun dominated a brown face. What he could see of the boy’s eyes, made narrow slits by merry amusement, suggested they were dark to the point of being black. Under a hood several sizes too large, ill-cropped coarse black hair shot out at differing lengths.

The boy made a slight bow. “All men are superior to one as low as I, my lord, and deserve respect. Even those pigs of guards.”

Borric couldn’t help but smile at this imp. “Well, then, tell me why you, alone among sane men everywhere, would wish to break into this miserable company?”

The boy sat upon the ground and motioned Borric to do likewise. “I am called Suli Abul, young sir. I am a beggar by trade. I am also, I am ashamed to admit, under threat of punishment from the Three. You know of the Three?” Borric nodded. “Then you know their wrath is great and their reach long. I saw an old merchant who had paused to sleep in the midday sun. From his torn purse, some coins had fallen. Had I waited until he had awoke, and chanced he would not miss his coins, then I would have but found them upon the ground, and none would think the worse of me. But not trusting the gods to keep the man from noticing his loss, I sought to pick them up while he dozed. As the Lady of Luck decreed, he did awake at the worst moment, and cried ‘thief!’ to all who were nearby. One who recognized me added my name to the shout, and I was pursued. Now I am being sought after by the Three for punishment. Where better to hide than among those already condemned to slavery?”