“He does?” Clo was surprised. “Maybe he was once an officer?” She gave the slave a speculative glance. “Pretty young to be an officer, though.”
“I asked him that. He said he hadn’t been.” Talis took up a charred stick and poked the fire. “Clo … did you like soldiering? You had rank, didn’t you?”
The woman nodded proudly. “Aye, I was a sergeant when I retired. I loved soldiering. I wished I didn’t have to leave it, but m’joints got too stiff from sleepin’ on the ground.”
“It was a good life?”
Clo smiled. “It is. As long as you stay in shape and stay quick on your feet, you do fine. And when you get too old to do that … well, things usually take care of themselves. You don’t find too many soldiers droolin’ by the fire, eh?”
“I suppose not. Is it hard to be a woman soldier? Aren’t the men … horrible?”
Clo shrugged. “Well, they might be if’n you let ’em, so you have to prove yourself. You have to show them that you’re as tough as they are, or tougher. They have to learn that if they lay a hand on you and you don’t like it, blood will spill—theirs.”
“Seems to me they’re all pigs,” Talis said, not looking up as she tucked in a corner of the bandage on her forearm. “Or mostly.”
“They’re human, Talis, just like you and me, ’cept they’re more likely to let their crotches rule their heads sometimes than women are.” Clo laughed reminiscently. “But most of ’em are decent lads who’ll guard your back. I’ll tell you, I’d a sight rather march all day and then sleep in the rain with m’comrades than chase after a brood of brats, cooking and cleaning for some husband who treats me like dog turds.”
“What made you decide to become a mercenary?”
Clo began picking her teeth, and it was a moment before she answered. “When I was just a young girl, not much more than ten, I saw the King’s Army march by, with the drums a-beatin’ and the pipers piping away. I knew then I wanted to be a soldier. They told me girls couldn’t be soldiers, but as I grew, I kept my eyes open, and I saw that the mercenary outfits were smarter than the regular military. So I talked some of ’em into showing me how to fight.” She spat into the fire.
“Turned out I had a real knack for it.”
“I think I’ve got a knack for it, too,” Talis said after a moment. “My folks would never understand. All they want me to do is get married.”
Clo’s weather-beaten features were sympathetic in the flickering light of the fire. “I know exactly what you mean, Talis. Mine were the same.”
Talis held up the book she’d been reading. “Do you understand tactics?”
Clo made a derisive sound. “Tactics? Bless you, Talis, tactics are for officers. I just stayed with my unit, and we did the best we could to follow the orders our lieutenant gave us. I suppose there are tactics involved, but when you’re in the thick of battle, you don’t see the words on the pages, or those little drawings with all those X’s and dotted lines. You see your mates, fighting, and you see the man in front of you that you’ve got to kill before he can shove his pike up your arse or get his musket reloaded in time to blow your face off.”
Talis flinched at the blunt words. Clo noticed her expression. “Ah, missy, that’s the way of battle. It’s glamorous perhaps when you’re marchin’ along and the crowds are cheerin’
you, but when you’re digging trenches so you can lie in ’em in the mud rather than bein’ blown to bits, that’s the way of it.”
Talis thought about that for a while. Clo began gathering up the dishes, then beckoned to Eregard, who was looking at them expectantly. “Hey, you! Time for cleanup!”
Quickly, the slave hopped off the tailgate and began tidying the campsite.
Talis thought about what Clo had said that night as she lay in her bedroll. Clo was taking the first watch.
A breeze stirred the topmost branches of the trees, a wind that carried a hint of rain. Talis hoped that it would hold off until morning. Chained as he was, Eregard could not get out of the rain, and if he got soaked, he might take a chill and become ill. And nobody would buy an obviously sick slave.
Would Clo take me to her old unit when this journey is done?
she wondered. The thought of never seeing Woodhaven again brought pain to her heart.
What will my mother do without me?
But her loyalty lay with Rufen Castio and his movement to bring freedom to Kata. Perhaps now would be a good time to join the Cause full-time.
I’ll talk to Rufen, see what he
says. Just let me take care of Dad’s business this one more
time, then it will be time for me to do what I want, for a
change. If Eregard fetches a good price …
She found herself thinking about Trevenio, and was suddenly, fiercely, glad that he was dead.
If only I could get Uncle Jasti,
she thought.
Talis fell asleep with a smile on her lips, fantasizing about ways to kill her uncle.
They made their way north, bypassing most of the towns. Clo cautioned against drawing attention to themselves. In these days, where Kata was used as a dumping ground for the royal prisons, there were far too many brigands roaming the land—desperate men and even women who would steal their horses and the clothes off their backs, with no more thought than most Katans would give to swatting a blood-sucking insect.
They developed a routine as they traveled, similar to the one they had followed that first night. They camped in remote areas, far from any towns, homes, or farms. Clo and Talis alternated guard duty. Lost hours of sleep were made up the next day, napping in the bed of the wagon as it creaked along. As soon as the horses were unhitched, rubbed down, and hobbled to graze, Talis took out her books, and Eregard joined her. He proved to be a good teacher, though he had to squint to read. “I lost my spectacles when I was captured,” he said quietly.
“Captured?”
He gave her a glance that was hard to fathom. Was there a glint of anger? Talis couldn’t be sure. Slaves learned to control their expressions in the presence of their masters. “Yes.
The ship I was traveling on was taken by pirates. I told you I wasn’t born a slave.”
Talis smiled ruefully. “Yes, I remember. No native born slave can read, you’re right. And the way you talk … like someone who has had some education.”
A slight, answering smile touched his mouth for an instant.
“Some education … yes, I suppose you could put it that way.”
Talis looked over at Clo, whose turn it was to cook that night. “Clo,” she said, “have you ever been in a battle where Beldani’s Pincers was used?”
Clo shook her cropped head. “If I have, I don’t know about it. I leave the readin’ and all those fancy movements to the officers, and just go where I’m told and do what I’m told to do once I get there.”
“You can’t read?” Talis was taken aback.
“Not much. Just enough to write m’name and to puzzle out a map.” She gave Talis a quick, shrewd glance. “Readin’s for officers,” she repeated.
That evening, after she and Eregard finished their “lesson,” Talis went down to the banks of the Bar River to bathe.
When she returned, feeling considerably fresher, she found Eregard reading some of the pamphlets Castio had given her.
She stopped in her tracks, then forced herself to relax. Even if Eregard were to tell what he’d read, no slave could bear witness against a free person. Talis pulled a towel from her bag in the wagon bed and began drying her long black hair.
“What do you think?” she asked when Eregard looked up.
Something flashed in his eyes, and his tone, when he finally answered, was cool to the point of impudence. “Honestly? I think there’s a monstrous inconsistency inherent in people who talk about fighting for freedom also owning other human beings, just as they’d own swine, or cattle.”
Talis was taken aback. “How dare—” she began, then broke off as Eregard stepped away from her, his shoulders hunched in expectation of a blow.
“I’m sorry, mistress,” he said quickly.
Talis took a deep breath. “Stop cringing,” she ordered crossly. “I’m not going to hit you. I’m just not used to slaves that were born to freedom.”
“Goddess willing, I won’t die a slave,” Eregard said softly.
Talis thought about the brave words in Castio’s pamphlets.
She’d had slaves all her life. Everyone she knew owned them. Could it be true that freedom should be for everyone, slave and freeman alike? They said that there were no slaves on Pela, that Agivir’s great-grandsire had freed them.
Eregard was watching her, his eyes intent. “Ah,” he said, softly. “Mistress Talis is thinking a new thought. I can tell by her expression.”
Talis felt herself blush, and that angered her. “You’re being impertinent. If I were any other owner—”
“If you’d been on that ship instead of me, our positions might be reversed,” Eregard said, not troubling to hide his anger. “Ever think of that? Can you imagine what it’s like to be free one minute, then find yourself a slave the next?”
Talis had never thought of that before, either. She’d been speaking to slaves all her life, but this was the first time she’d had an actual
conversation
with one. Giving orders, yes.
Handing out extra rations for the holy days, yes. Visiting the sick, admiring a new baby, yes and yes … all those things she had done, but it wasn’t the same as actually talking to a slave like a … like another person. Especially a male slave.
She stared at Eregard.
I own this man,
she thought.
If I ordered it, he would be hanged—whether or not he’d committed any crime or offense. Can it be right for one person to
have that power over another?
“That
is
a frightening thought,” she said slowly.
“Of course it is,” Eregard said. “Because it makes you think of me as a man, not as something you
own
. You don’t want to think of me as a
man
. I get the impression you don’t like men.”
“I hate them,” Talis said, surprised into telling the truth.
As soon as the words left her mouth, she regretted her can-dor. Who did this slave think he was?
He nodded, smiling faintly, not at all surprised by her
words. Talis fought the urge to hit him. “Watch your tongue!
If it weren’t for me, you’d have been hung. I was the one convinced my father to give you to me, so I could sell you. That way you may not be free, but at least you’ll be alive!”
He laughed, and the sound was ugly and full of pain and frustration. “Ah … so my children’s children’s children will be free?”
Talis stared at him, hearing the hurt in his voice, and her anger ebbed.
He sounds like me when I talk to Dad.
She knew what it was like to yearn to be free. She’d just never realized that slaves felt the same way. For the first time, she looked at this man that she owned and saw him as though he were a person. Not a male, not a slave, just someone who knew what it was to be hurt, and to long for freedom.
“What do you mean?” she asked quietly.
He looked back down at the page, and she knew he was regretting those words as much as she’d regretted her revela-tion a moment ago. “Nothing. Just a quote from a song.
Nothing for you to concern yourself with, Mistress Talis.”
“A song?” Talis sat down beside him. “Slaves have songs, I’ve heard them singing. Is this a slave song?”
“One of the ones we never let the masters hear,” Eregard said. “We never sing the real words except when we are together, and no freeman is near.”
Talis was intrigued. “Sing it to me.”
He shook his head. “No.”
“I saved your life,” she pointed out.
He tugged at the iron collar around his neck, gestured at his clothes, his bare feet, and then turned out his pockets to make the point there was nothing in them. “You call
this
living?”
She was surprised into a laugh. “You are a clever one.”
She remembered her father once saying,
Beware of clever
slaves. They can be dangerous.
“Court jester, in retirement, at your service, my lady,” he said, and gave a mocking bow.
Talis stood up. “Let’s walk together.” She headed for a deer trail leading down to the creek.
Eregard followed her down to the stream bed, where they began picking their way along the water’s edge. They walked for several minutes. The forest was dense here, the trees so old that there was little growth beneath them. This far north, spring was not as far along as it had been in North Amis. The trees still bore new leaves, some still partially curled, of a green so vivid it nearly hurt the eyes.
“All right,” Talis said when they had walked for some distance. She sat down on a fallen tree trunk that spanned the stream and looked up at the slave expectantly. “Sing me the song. I swear on my mother’s life no ill will come to you for singing it—not to you, nor to any other slave.”
Eregard regarded her for a long moment, then shrugged.
“Very well.”
His speaking voice was soft, rather hesitant, so Talis was surprised that his singing voice was a strong, resonant baritone.
“Take my water, take my sky
Take my air and watch me die
Work me till I work no more, till death gives me relief
Take my children, take my wife
Take my body, take my life
It doesn’t mean that I’m a slave, it means that you’re a thief.
Break my back and break my head
Make blood and tears to shed
I still choose within my mind if still a slave I be
Break my heart and burn my bed
We’re all slave to something, but a slave can still live free
And you’ll never touch the free part of me
You’ll never touch the free part of me.
Kill my choice of wrong or right
Kill me if I stand and fight
Each slave holds a piece of freedom that the masters never see
It all comes from having might
It all ends one coming night
When the pieces come together, and we’ll see that we are free
And you’ll never touch the free part of me
You’ll never touch the free part of me.”
Eregard drew a long breath and sang the last line, and there was a ringing note in his trained voice that made Talis’s heart leap.