The Thin Executioner. Даррен Шэн

I am your guide and guardian. Our path is lined with danger, but not all of the dangers are obvious. It is my duty to protect you from every possible threat. I have gone in search of gossip among the servants of each house where we have sought shelter. When I’ve had to, I’ve bribed them with swagah taken from my master’s pouch — I trust you will not hold that against me?”

      Jebel shook his head numbly. He didn’t know what to say. He felt like he should thank Tel Hesani, but that was ridiculous. Jebel had been taught to believe that slaves should obey their master’s every request without expectation of a reward. As a young boy, he had once thanked a slave at his school for cleaning his wound when he fell and cut his knee. A teacher heard, whipped Jebel and sent him home in disgrace. Jebel’s father whipped him too. The boy never thanked a slave again after that.

      “I’ll keep my door barred tonight,” Jebel muttered.

      “That would be wise, my lord,” Tel Hesani said smoothly. “It would be even wiser, if I may be so bold, to avoid towns like this for a while. We have fallen behind schedule. We should press on and pick up our pace.”

      Jebel nodded, feeling very small and childish. “We’ll rise at dawn and push ahead as fast as we can, no more stopping to chat with these accursed um Surout.”

      “One last thing, sire,” Tel Hesani said as Jebel passed. “Is there any particular style of tunic you wish me to wear tomorrow?”

      Jebel grimaced. “You can keep wearing your damn trousers.”

      “You are most generous, young master,” Tel Hesani said and bowed respectfully as a sullen Jebel trudged back to the veranda to scowl at the green-eyed temptress who had almost seduced him to his doom.

      NINE

      Shihat was a godsforsaken eyesore. The northernmost town of Abu Aineh, it was at the meeting point of three nations, so it should have been a vibrant, exciting city, where the best of different cultures mixed and merged. But the eastern lands of Abu Nekhele were swampy and fetid. The wealthier Um Nekhele lived further west, and the majority of trade went via the as-Sudat. As for Abu Safafaha, that was a country of savages, and the hardened traders crossing the border to sell skins and rare creatures or birds brought nothing of cultural value to the town.

      Shihat was an ugly maze of barracks, trade centres and markets. Soldiers patrolled the streets, checking papers, searching for border rats. Any trader entering Abu Aineh by the as-Surout had to stop in Shihat to pay a tithe. Without signed, stamped papers to prove payment, they couldn’t leave the city.

      It should have been a simple procedure, but corruption was rife. It wasn’t enough to present your wares and pay a tithe. You needed to bribe a string of officials and soldiers. Traders rarely made it out of Shihat in less than three days.

      The streets were always full. Taverns and bordellos did a roaring business. Fights often broke out among frustrated travellers. Traders were mugged or killed. Mounds of rubbish were left to rot and wild dogs lapped from pools of blood.

      After half an hour there, Jebel wanted to burn the place to the ground. It was even worse than Fruth, which he would have thought impossible just thirty minutes earlier.

      “They live like animals,” he stormed to Tel Hesani, watching naked children chase a chicken down the middle of a street overflowing with sewage. When they caught the chicken, they ripped its head off and squirted each other with blood.

      “Worse than animals,” Tel Hesani agreed.

      “I can’t understand how they don’t all die from disease,” Jebel said.

      “Many do,” Tel Hesani said. “Dozens die each week and are tossed into large pits on the outskirts of the town. If rumours are to be believed, local butchers raid those pits and feed cuts of the dead to their customers.”

      Jebel almost vomited. “Did we bring food of our own?” he asked.

      “We have strips of dried meat and canteens of fresh water,” said Tel Hesani. “We’ll find an inn and eat in our room.”

      “Can’t we push on immediately?” Jebel asked.

      “It will be night soon,” Tel Hesani said. “The border rats from Abu Nekhele and Abu Safafaha – traders who do not wish to pay a tithe, or who are transporting illegal goods – try to sneak around Shihat in the darkness. Soldiers hunt for them — it passes for sport up here. We would probably wind up with our throats cut and our bodies dumped in a marsh. Or worse.”

      Jebel shuddered at the thought of ending up on a butcher’s hook. “So be it. But try to find a clean inn.”

      “I will do my best, master, but it might be easier said than done.”

      The pair spent the next hour trudging the grimy streets of Shihat, going from one rundown inn to another. All were overflowing with rowdy traders and ugly, leering women. Alcohol flowed more freely than water — in some inns they didn’t even bother with water, except to mop up the blood and mess.

      “Let’s just take a room here,” Jebel said eventually as they were about to pass another filthy hovel. He had seen men staring at them and figured it was only a matter of time before someone stabbed him and laid claim to his slave.

      Tel Hesani opened the door for Jebel and bowed as the boy entered. Then he hurried in after him. Tel Hesani had travelled widely, but he’d never been in a place as foul as Shihat and he felt almost as edgy as Jebel did.

      They found themselves in a large, squalid room. There was a bar at one end, where a group of men and women stood, chattering loudly and drinking from grimy mugs. Tables were set in rows in the middle of the room. A dead pig lay across one of them. Its stomach had been sliced open a day or two ago and three bloodstained, cackling children were rooting around inside its carcass, searching for any juicy tidbits which had been overlooked.

      Closer to the door, people lay on mats and tried to sleep. It was difficult, what with drunks stumbling over them and cockroaches scurrying everywhere. There were cleaner mats by the walls, set on benches, but these were more expensive and only a few were occupied. One person on a mat was dead — an old woman, with skeletal limbs. Her body would be moved when the mat was needed and not before.

      “Maybe we should take our chances with the border rats,” Jebel muttered.

      “I’m tempted to agree with you, my lord,” Tel Hesani said. “But as disgusting as this hovel is, our chances of surviving the night are better inside than out.”

      Jebel sighed. “Very well. Let’s get mats by the wall and make the best of things.”

      “If I might make a suggestion, sire,” Tel Hesani murmured, “I think we should ask for a mat on the floor. We don’t want people to know that we’re wealthy.”

      Jebel didn’t like the thought of sleeping on the floor, where cockroaches and other foul insects would have an easy time finding him, but he knew that it was sound advice. Nodding glumly, he fell in behind the slave and followed him as he headed for the bar to haggle for a mat.

      As they were picking their way past the tables, a large man with a half-shaven head and two stumps where his little fingers should be put a hand on Tel Hesani’s chest and stopped him. The man was an Um Safafaha — every male in that country of savages had his little fingers amputated when he came of age. Looking up slowly from the card game he was involved in, the man sneered, “We don’t let slaves sleep here.”

      Tel Hesani said nothing, only looked at his feet. There was nothing he could do in this position. Slaves had no rights in Abu Aineh. If the savage decided to kill him, only his master could fight or argue on his behalf.

      “Please,” said Jebel quietly. “We don’t want trouble. We just want a mat.”

      The Um Safafaha glared at Jebel, then looked around. Seeing no one else with the pair, he smiled viciously. “Are you travelling alone, boy?”

      Jebel gulped. Like any honourable Um