Half a King. Джо Аберкромби

II

       CHEAPEST OFFERINGS

      Yarvi squatted in the stinking darkness, fingering the raw burns on his neck and the fresh scabs on his rough-shaved scalp, sweating by day and shivering by night, listening to the groans and whimpers and unanswered prayers in a dozen languages. From the broken throats of the human refuse around him. From his own loudest of all.

      Upstairs the best wares were kept clean and well fed, lined up on the street in polished thrall-collars where they might draw in the business. In the back of the shop the less strong or skilled or beautiful were chained to rails and beaten until they smiled for a buyer. Down here in the darkness and the filth were kept the old, sick, simple and crippled, left to squabble over scraps like pigs.

      Here in the sprawling slave-market of Vulsgard, capital of Vansterland, everyone had their price, and money was not wasted on those who would fetch no money. A simple sum of costs and profits, shorn of sentiment. Here you could learn what you were truly worth, and Yarvi learned what he had long suspected.

      He was close to worthless.

      At first his mind spilled over with plans and stratagems and fantasies for his revenge. He was plagued by a million things he could have done differently. But not by one he could do now. If he screamed out that he was the rightful King of Gettland, who would believe it? He had scarcely believed it himself. And if he found a way to make them believe? Their business was to sell people. They would ransom him, of course. Would King Odem smile to have his missing nephew back under his tender care? No doubt. A smile calm and even as fresh-fallen snow.

      So Yarvi squatted in that unbearable squalor, and found it was amazing what a man could get used to.

      By the second day he scarcely noticed the stink.

      By the third he huddled up gratefully to the warmth of his gods-forsaken companions in the chill of the night.

      By the fourth he was rooting through the filth as eagerly as any of them when they were tossed the slops at feeding time.

      By the fifth he could hardly remember the faces of those he knew best. His mother and Mother Gundring became confused, his treacherous uncle and his dead father melted together, Hurik no longer could be told from Keimdal, Isriun faded to ghost.

      Strange, how quickly a king could become an animal. Or half a king half an animal. Perhaps even those we raise highest never get that far above the mud.

      It was not long after sunrise on his seventh day in that man-made hell, the calls of the merchant in dead men’s armour next door just starting to challenge the squawking of the sea-birds, that Yarvi heard the voice outside.

      ‘We’re looking for men as can pull an oar,’ it said, deep and steady. The voice of a man used to straight talk and blunt dealing.

      ‘Nine pairs of hands.’ A softer, subtler voice followed the first. ‘The trembles has left some gaps on our benches.’

      ‘Of course, my friends!’ The voice of the shop’s owner – Yarvi’s owner, now – slick and sticky as warm honey. ‘Behold Namev the Shend, a champion of his people taken in battle! See how tall he stands? Observe those shoulders. He could pull your ship alone. You will find no higher quality—’

      A hog snort from the first customer. ‘If we was after quality we’d be at the other end of the street.’

      ‘You don’t grease an axle with the best oil,’ came the second voice.

      Footsteps from above, and dust sifting down, and shadows shifting in the chinks of light between the boards over Yarvi’s head. The slaves around him stiffened, quieting their breathing so they could listen. The shop-owner’s voice filtered muffled to their ears, a little less honey on it now.

      ‘Here are six healthy Inglings. They speak little of the Tongue but understand the whip well enough. Fine choices for hard labour and at an excellent price—’

      ‘You don’t grease an axle with good dripping either,’ said the second voice.

      ‘Show us to the pitch and pig fat, flesh-dealer,’ growled the first.

      The damp hinges grated as the door at the top of the steps was opened, the slaves all cringing on instinct into a feeble huddle at the light, Yarvi along with them. He might have been new to slavery, but at cringing he had long experience. With many curses and blows of his stick the flesh-dealer dragged them into a wobbling, wheezing line, chains rattling out a miserable music.

      ‘Keep that hand out of sight,’ he hissed, and Yarvi twisted it up into the rags of his sleeve. All his ambition then was to be bought, and owned, and taken from this stinking hell into the sight of Mother Sun.

      The two customers picked their way down the steps. The first was balding and burly, with a whip coiled at his studded belt and a way of glaring from under knotted brows that proclaimed him a bad man to fool with. The second was much younger, long, lean and handsome with a sparse growth of beard and a bitter twist to his thin lips. Yarvi caught the gleam of a collar at his throat. A slave himself, then, though judging by his clothes a favoured one.

      The flesh-dealer bowed, and gestured with his stick towards the line. ‘My cheapest offerings.’ He did not bother to add a flourish. Fine words in that place would have been absurd.

      ‘These are some wretched leavings,’ said the slave, nose wrinkled against the stench.

      His thick-set companion was not deterred. He drew the slave into a huddle with one muscled arm, speaking softly to him in Haleen. ‘We want rowers, not kings.’ It was a language used in Sagenmark and among the islands, but Yarvi had trained as a minister, and knew most tongues spoken around the Shattered Sea.

      ‘The captain’s no fool, Trigg,’ the handsome slave was saying, fussing nervously with his collar. ‘What if she realizes we’ve duped her?’

      ‘We’ll say this was the best on offer.’ Trigg’s flat eyes scanned the dismal gathering. ‘Then you’ll give her a new bottle and she’ll forget all about it. Or don’t you need the silver, Ankran?’

      ‘You know I do.’ Ankran shrugged off Trigg’s arm, mouth further twisted with distaste. Scarcely bothering to look them over, he dragged slaves from the line. ‘This … this … this …’ His hand hovered near Yarvi, began to drift on—

      ‘I can row, sir.’ It was as big a lie as Yarvi had told in all his life. ‘I was a fisher’s apprentice.’

      In the end Ankran picked out nine. Among them were a blind Throvenlander who had been sold by his father instead of their cow, an old Islander with a crooked back, and a lame Vansterman who could barely restrain his coughing for long enough to be paid for.

      Oh, and Yarvi, rightful King of Gettland.

      The argument over price was poisonous, but in the end Trigg and Ankran reached an understanding with the flesh-dealer. A trickle of shining hacksilver went into the merchant’s hands, and a little back into the purse, and the greater share was split between the pockets of the buyers and, as far as Yarvi could tell, thereby stolen from their captain.

      By his calculation he was sold for less than the cost of a good sheep.

      He made no complaint at the price.

       ONE FAMILY

      The South Wind listed in its dock, looking like anything but a warm breeze.

      Compared to the swift, slender ships of Gettland it was a wallowing monster, low to the water and fat at the waist, green weed and barnacle coating its ill-tended timbers, with two stubby masts and two dozen great oars on a side, slit-windowed castles hunched at blunt prow and stern.

      ‘Welcome