When Si'Wren opened her eyes, she realized that it was night time. She
lay on a low wooden sleeping rack, and before her was the cobblestone
fire pit, the yellow flames of which warmed and illuminated the slave
quarters, a long low bungalow of rough-hewn cypress beams.
Deliriously, she half-raised her aching head and took in her
surroundings. She realized, looking unsteadily around in the
semi-darkness, that she was alone, and she could hear the distant
sounds of celebration emanating from the Master's House.
Her head was swimming and there was a terrible pain in it.
The lilting sing-song sounds of the musicians drifted across the
compound and teased at her ears, lulling her somnambulantly to the
accompaniment of the rhythmic chi-chi-ching-ching of finger cymbals,
and the reedy reeee-eeeee-eeeee-ree-ree-rooo-rooo-roo-ooooooooooooo of
the wood pipes.
Shame filled her soul as she remembered the death of Nelatha, and the
terrible danger that had befallen her later after dark, when she had
narrowly escaped after wandering foolishly out into the wilds all alone
when Habrunt had come suddenly and unexpectedly to rescue her from the
evil ministrations of the two evil men he had slain.
But for Habrunt she would surely have suffered a terrible fate at their
hands.
Now, only now, did Si'Wren fully and truly understand what Habrunt had
risked to slay the sons of the noblemen in favor of one so lowly as
she. Should Master Rababull ever find out the truth, his vengeance upon
both herself and Habrunt would be fearsome and terrible.
At thought of this, Si'Wren's remorse was compounded ten-fold by the
bitter memories of the many fond smiles and cheery looks which Master
Rababull had so often bestowed upon her from earliest memory.
Habrunt had shown his concern for her safety this night, but the memory
of earlier, when she had seen his terrible face and felt of his iron
grip in her hair, doing his utmost to convince Master Rababull that he
had not the slightest concern for Si'Wren's life, would not leave her
now, and tears streaked her cheeks as she shut her eyes in silent
anguish.
Downwind from the House, she could smell the wonderful scents of the
Master's best ceremonial incense mingled with the pungence of tobacco,
the tang of wine, and the huge feast with it's jasmine tea, roasted
melons stuffed with baked vegetables and breadstuffs, sweet seed cakes,
sugar-spices, candies, and honeyed foods.
Her head was woozy from the beating. Her bruised face seemed numb to
the touch, wherever she chanced to touch be it ever so delicately.
Raising her fingertips to her puffed lips, she felt a dried crust of
blood all around her nose and mouth and down the side of her upper lip,
chin, and throat. The inside of her mouth felt scummy. She had an
uncontrollable thirst, but found nothing to drink.
Then, a noise and a dark silhouette at the entrance to the bungalow
caused her to look up in unconscious renewed terror. She felt her eyes
widen, and then she saw Habrunt standing there, his downcast
countenance and the gleam of his bulging muscles appearing in the
flickering uncertain firelight like an apparition as the curtain was
drawn back by his large hand. In his other hand was a fire-hardened
clay cup.
She sensed his eyes upon her, and looked up with the same open-faced
showing of subservience and unthinking trust with which she had always
looked to him before. Then her eyes fell, and she became as a downcast
wretch, a hag before her time, weeping uncontrollably on the dirty cot
before his compassionately kneeling figure.
Tears of shame fell from her closed eyelids, but she felt surprise as
she felt Habrunt's strong hand placed gently upon her shoulder, and
with his other hand, he held up the clay cup.
From the odor of it, she dimly perceived that it was simple herbal tea,
and not a powerful potion such as she had delivered to the Physician
earlier.
He placed it gently to her lips. From the feel of it's even warmth, she
sensed that he had warmed it a little, though not enough to be too much
for her. She let it's tasteless liquid slip through her feverish lips,
and could not discern it, either as warmth nor coolness. It was neither
sweet nor sour, and faintly but not unpleasantly bitter.
When she'd had a little, he removed the cup from her lips and set it
down on the earthen floor, already forgotten in the dark shadows
beneath the cot.
He remained frozen for a moment in the stillness of the deserted
bungalow. She thought he must be angry at her, and deservedly so, but
she saw no wrath in the quiet look of compassion with which he studied
her. His eyes were steady and calm.
"Fear not, little one," said Habrunt, his voice a deep, soft
reassurance to her. "No one shall pluck thee from my hand."
At this, her eyes lifted up to his in surprise, and she saw his
forefinger raised vertically against his pursed lips, beneath
cautiously furrowed masculine eyebrows, the universal gesture for
silence and secret comradeliness.
He leaned forward towards her, and bent down, and kissed her gently on
the forehead.
Eyelids shutting reflexively, she tingled all over, from her aching
head to her tiny feet, at the soft touch of his lips. She quivered all
inside at the furriness of his thick beard, and the brush of his long
wavy locks where they fell from beneath his leather headband against
her numbed face.
He took out a clean cloth and formed it into a cup-shape in one hand,
and poured out a little tea onto it, letting it soak in. Then, he
carefully began ever so gently wiping away the congealed saliva and
dried blood from her face, her lips, her chin, and her throat. After
that, he untied a small clay bottle from his belt, refolded the
dampened cloth to a clean side, and unstopped the little bottle to tilt
it's mouth over the cloth, and applied some of it's contents thereon.
Again, he wiped her entire face and forehead, her throat, up around her
ears, and across the back of her neck. His touch was gentle all over
her head and neck, as he anointed the semi-conscious girl with a thin,
soothing layer of purest olive oil.
He surveyed her face again, noting once more, with the same inner, grim
satisfaction as before, that she had suffered no apparent lasting
injury despite much swelling and bruises. He felt small solace in this,
but as it was yet within his power, he would surely command whatever he
might in her behalf.
Suddenly, footsteps could be heard approaching the entrance from
outside, and she sensed him rise in the flickering shadows and step to
one side of the door. There he stood tall and motionless before her,
waiting for the footsteps to carry past. The approaching footsteps were
accompanied by an admixture of slurred male and female voices, perhaps
four people in all.
Their unseen progress could be followed by the changing aspects of the
snatches and sudden outbursts of laughter to which they resorted in
their senseless and continuous amusement at everything around them,
including themselves.
The golden gleam of Habrunt's bronze sword flashed before Si'Wren's
eyes, making her catch her breath in fear.
Some of their words could be indistinctly made out, and Habrunt
realized that the men were from the nearby city, talking with pent-up
anticipation of having a good time with a couple of lush young girls
from the caravan, whom they were taking to a nearby garden gazebo, a
flimsy trellis of bamboo, stone, and clinging green vines.
Habrunt scowled. Still more of Rababull's 'party favors', no doubt.
Four had already died this night, besides Nelatha, and another savagely
beaten. What would be the tally by dawn's light?
As their noisome prittle-prattle faded into the distance, Habrunt felt
the danger pass. He turned away from Si'Wren, and stepped out into the
night without another word, gone with such stealth that he slipped away
as silently as he had come.
She shivered, beginning to tremble feverishly all over.
The music from the House rose to a faster and louder tempo as riotous
laughter and the excited shrieks of women was accompanied by the
generally raucous bellowing of many foolishly happy male voices. Then
the voices died down a bit, and the music picked up a thumping tempo of
heavy drum beats. The scent of the incense, exotic and strange, came to
Si'Wren again, wafted through the drifting mists in the chill night air.
Chills racked her. The cold of night was at her back, and it's embrace
was beginning to seize her with shivers and cramps. But the flickering
fire was before her still, accompanied by the emotional warmth of the
memory of Habrunt's kiss upon her forehead.
She lifted herself up until she was propped on one elbow, and tried to
ignore her chills as she basked in the velvety, mesmerizing warmth and
stared long into the glowing fire pit. She had a fever, and was too
full of wonder at the behavior of Habrunt to go back to sleep. In the
background, the rhythmical chi-chi-ching and reedy reeee-reeeee-reeeee
of the music lulled her senses, as her eyes became half-lidded.
Suddenly, as she watched the flickering flames, they began to change
shape before her delirious eyes, and became--fiery dancing girls.
Eerily tall, the tireless shapes of the dancing girls pranced and
danced and jumped and leaped to the distant music from Master
Rababull's House. They shifted and changed positions with each other
again and again and yet again, as around and around them jumped up the
black shadows of demons, chasing the breathlessly fast fiery dancing
girls.
The demons were fast, but the thin, leaping, fiery dancing girls were
swifter than lightning, impossibly fast and elusive, so much so that
the persistent demons could not catch even one of the fire girls, who
kept disappearing miraculously out of their clutches and slipping
through their clutching black claws as easily as a collection of
brilliant feminine fire wraiths.
The yellow firelight flashed in brilliance from the eerily thin leaping
flame figures, and suddenly, Si'Wren became one of them.
As they danced, she danced, and as they leaped, she leaped with them,
in an entrancingly intricate pattern of leaps and prances, as the light
of the Invisible God shined from within herself to light the way for
her tiny dancing feet.
All around her the demons whirled and chased, ever seeking to carry her
away from the others, and away from the holy light of the Invisible
God, but she, like the fiery dancing girls, could not be caught by them
for all of their efforts, for that Perfect Light was like a living fire
within Si'Wren.
The smell of the fire's smoke reached her once, and she realized that
the demons were tormented by the fiery light of the eerily beautiful
dancing girls, for she smelled the smoke of their torment, and as she
lay staring unblinkingly at the fire, she danced endlessly into the
darkness of the night.
* * *
When she awoke again, it was to the morning sounds of the sleeping and
hung-over alike, sighing and snoring all around her in the cypress
bungalow, and to renewed thirst, chills, and constant tormented
shivering from the pronounced effects of the fever.
There was an aching in her beaten head and face, and a curious,
inexplicable emotional void in her soul where once her long-fervent
love of her Master Rababull had long flourished eternal.
Soon the bungalow's occupants had all risen. Tired and hung over from
all their ravelings of the night before, they ignored her. It was
Master Rababull's custom to get the slaves as drunk as they could
possibly manage and exclusively on red wine, but not in the House with
his honored guests, so that by their hangovers they might not desire
the fancies of a freeman with quite the same vigor in times to come.
Their lusts were gone from them now, and they all went through their
daily preparations for a day's work in the Master's fields in a curious
pinch-faced, silent expression of unaccustomed suffering, their heads
aching miserably as they shuffled out without so much as a single
solitary civil word from the lot of them.
None dared speak to Si'Wren, in spite of her worse suffering than
theirs. What she had done was taboo. Selling idols was an important
means to gaining much gold. What she had done was tantamount to the
symbolic ruination of the very economy and foundation of the entire
House of Rababull, and moreover, an overt rejection of the very gods
themselves.
The unknown few that might have dared befriend her were no doubt too
afraid of the others, and especially of Master Rababull himself. Had
they even desired to do so, which she suspected none did, not a one
dared show sympathy even by so much as the merest wink of an eye.
Si'Wren felt her heart and soul wrenched by the realization that
because of what she stood guilty of she was henceforth to be counted by
all others as an utter and complete outcast, a living abomination even
amongst her own kind--lowly slaves all.
Many hated her, but dared not show that either, lest Slavemaster
Habrunt should learn of it somehow and make his displeasure known to
them instead. For that, Si'Wren was doubly-taboo. Besides all of this,
she would not have dared to give the slightest verbal reply to any of
them anyway.
She spent the day in a lethargic state of abject misery, feeling as if
her head would split open from aching, an agony which she would have
readily traded places with the slaves for their pains instead, as they
went out suffering visibly and openly from being so obviously hung-over.
The old slave-woman, L'acoci, a toothless, gray-haired scarecrow of a
crone, too old and decrepit to do much useful work out-of-doors
anymore, had been instructed by Habrunt to make use of herself and be a
nursemaid to Si'Wren. With a lifetime of experience to draw upon,
L'acoci gave Si'Wren a tea poultice to sooth her bruises, and some rich
broth skimmed from the vegetable stew to strengthen her.
Throughout the afternoon, Si'Wren continued to suffer from her beating
and the fever. L'acoci was kept busy at the simmering stew pot for the
sake of the other slaves. They were due to come in from the fields just
as dusk dimmed into night, and the old crone did not appear to take
especial notice of Si'Wren's physical distress.
But when Si'Wren finally began to moan in pain, at long last L'acoci
deigned to hear her cries as the old hag came over to her and took her
firmly by the shoulders, whispering urgently to her to be silent and
lie still.
She could not. The rejection by Master Rababull, the slaying of
Nelatha, the humiliation, and the beating all seemed increasingly
overwhelming to her. Such torment and emotional anguish as she had
never known filled her being, so real and so indomitable. She could not
will it away. She could not face up to it. She could not escape it nor
answer it.
Then, suddenly, Habrunt was there, momentarily putting aside his many
responsibilities, kneeling beside her with a clay cup of herb tea in
his large hand as his other hand gently supported her head.
He spoke to her soft words of comfort, and somehow the unwavering look
in his eyes and the warmth of the beverage offered by his very own hand
filled her with such a sense of reassurance that it seemed to suffuse
her very soul with an awareness that without Habrunt, she should surely
have known damnation.
After that, he came daily, sometimes in the morning and again in the
late afternoon. That Habrunt grieved for her suffering was no secret,
although what he ever thought of anything was purely his own affair.
Moreover, he came boldly, openly, letting all see that he was Habrunt
the Slavemaster, and the servant of but one man.
If the Master of the House was aware of any of this, yet did Habrunt
brave the danger willingly enough, apparently heedless if Master
Rababull should experience displeasure.
But Master Rababull, although fully aware of Habrunt's behavior because
of the many tattletales he listened to, found it expedient to consider
the matter settled, and his Slavemaster too useful to chastise for so
light an infringement. Instead, Master Rababull pretended that it was
so unimportant as to be beneath either his notice or his dignity. Had
he not graciously spared Si'Wren's very life? Was she not then worthy
to be restored meekly to a useful, if lower, status in the House, her
social ostracism as a total outcast notwithstanding?
Master Rababull's only publicly announced edict, an iron one, was that
Si'Wren must never again work in the spice tent. It was an honor she no
longer deserved. Habrunt never openly showed the slightest affection to
Si'Wren, but ministered to her with stoic mein. Whenever he came, he
commanded the ever-present runner boys to wait outside. Then he would
enter in and give her tea and broth at his own hand. When Si'Wren tried
to whisper secretly to him once, his eyes widened in alarm and he
immediately put his hand firmly over her mouth and shook his head and
frowned in an urgent but barely perceptible negative.
Then after each visit, he would depart again after speaking scarcely a
word, and that only to L'acoci.
In the face of such scandalous activity, none dared bring rebuke
against Si'Wren before Master Rababull, lest they incur in turn the
thinly veiled wrath of Habrunt in his official capacity as Slavemaster
of the House. Habrunt was careful in all of this to make certain, with
every opportunity, that all saw his total devotion and unfailing
allegiance to Master Rababull.
Thus, mercifully, there were no complaints against Si'Wren, and she did
not suffer nearly as much as she might otherwise have done.
* * *
Si'Wren chewed her food, as she pretended not to notice the other
slaves filing out of doors to their day's labor in the fields. They in
turn shunned her company, for she was the despised idol-breaker, in
spite of the well-known fact that it had been Nelatha who had taken the
actual blame for this.
For, unlike the one-eyed boy who had bullied his one-eyed victim,
Si'Wren had committed no mere worldly crime. No, not she. Si'Wren had
done much worse than that.
She had broken faith.
She had shown her belief in the Invisible God, the only forbidden deity
in a world of visible and valuable idols. She was forever an outcast,
the lowest of the low. She was different, evil, taboo.
Each of the two one-eyed boys was still permitted to speak and converse
naturally with others. Not she. No, she was somehow subhuman to them
now, and it was only fitting that she should never speak again, but be
as some dumb animal instead.
Seeing this, she had abandoned the idea of ever trying, knowing it was
useless.
* * *
Harvest time had come.
Slavemaster Habrunt was compelled to attend to his duties first and
foremost, and so could not visit Si'Wren as frequently as he had done
at the first. He had commanded L'acoci to care for Si'Wren with all
diligence. No longer dared he come so often, lest the Master take
notice and be moved to great displeasure, and perhaps in the end decree
some worse punishment for Si'Wren to be rid of her once and for all.
L'acoci was under instructions to bring Habrunt word again when Si'Wren
was feeling better, that he might come and personally escort her to her
newly appointed place of labor. L'acoci had informed her that she would
be working in the Master's fields; why else, adaged an observant
L'acoci, would Si'Wren have been bedded down to recover from her
injuries in the bungalow of the field laborers?
Until then, Habrunt had no further, legitimate excuse to come and seek
after Si'Wren's welfare. How she longed to see his face again!
L'acoci was treating Si'Wren with borage and red clover blossom tea,
together with dandelion, which was quite agreeable and most healing to
her. Yesterday morning, L'acoci had smiled at her and announced that
today Si'Wren might leave her sickbed at long last. Together with
L'acoci, Si'Wren had gone to the stream where the women all gathered to
wash clothes, to bathe and wash herself under L'acoci's fiercely
protective guardianship, lest any of the other women or their children
molest the wretched, defenseless outcast of a girl, so none dared.
Then, after she had first fed the other field slaves in the cypress
bungalow their dinner, L'acoci had gone to tell Habrunt that night of
the progress Si'Wren had been making in her recovery. L'acoci then
returned and, with a twinkle in her eyes, informed Si'Wren of what she
had done. Knowledge of this event had filled Si'Wren with such a
perplexity as to what would become of her that she could hardly go to
sleep that night. All she could think of was Habrunt and what he would
say when he came for her in the morning.
Sure enough, as soon as Habrunt had a chance to make his morning rounds
to see that the affairs of the Master's Household were all in order for
the day and that the slaves were all well and truly at their duties, or
that the inevitable one or two dropouts had given him sufficient excuse
and been temporarily reassigned one way or another to easier work, he
came personally for Si'Wren.
"Well, little one, are you ready?" Habrunt spoke to her in his deep,
gentle voice, as he stood in the doorway with a stern look on his
formidable features, and secretly gave her a quick wink. He folded his
muscular, corded forearms across his hairy chest and presented an
exceeding handsome figure with his long wavy locks held back by the
plain leather headband, and his unadorned but carefully trimmed beard.
He looked rugged and formidable, despite his beaming countenance.
Inwardly pleased at the way he had winked at her with no one else the
wiser, Si'Wren bowed low, then rose to her full, diminutive stature and
nodded to him in mute obedience.
"What good are words anyway, eh?" he said, in a not-unkindly fashion.
"Come, then, little one."
Habrunt's eyes sparkled as he regarded her, for when she had bowed, her
dark hair, which hung nearly to the waist in back, had fallen
gloriously across her shoulders in dark shining splendor.
He stepped outside, and held the tent flap considerately for her as he
waited for her to follow.
Habrunt's countenance was like lightening, as his eyes which seemed
ever to smile upon Si'Wren, somehow managed to appear so fierce unto
all others as to strike terror into their hearts, be they of a spiteful
mein or no, and all of this with but one and the same expression of his
stony features.
When she was ready, he started out at a deliberately slow pace to
enable her to keep up easily and follow dutifully close behind him. As
they neared the fields, he could tell from glancing back at her once
that, weakened from her long illness, she was already badly winded
merely from the walk.
He brought her to Geth, the short, stout old Fieldmaster, Geth of
balding head, all white of hair and long-fringed beard, with a wrinkled
old face that had seen more summers in the fields than the rocks
themselves, for all Si'Wren knew.
Across the windswept waves of undulating grain, interspersed with a few
weeds and brush, the harvesters worked steadily, too far to clearly
discern their bowed and sweaty faces.
Clasping hands, Habrunt greeted Geth with a man's greeting, and
accepted the offer of a drink from the water skin. Si'Wren respectfully
declined to do likewise.
After an habitual inquiry as to the progress of the harvest, Habrunt
said to the old Fieldmaster, "This is Si'Wren, of the spice tent. She
had the misfortune to be held accountable for the very stones that come
from the ground as well as the herbs she was so skilled at grinding,
and found wanting by the Master. She is sworn to a vow of silence, and
now she is to become a field worker."
Geth, as aware of events as anybody, nodded his shrewd understanding,
frowning with a face like old leather.
"Always use more help during the harvest," he said, characteristically
sparse of words. One's very breath, so Si'Wren seemed to gather, was
the better to be employed in more productive pursuits.
"Good," said Habrunt. "See thou to it, and to her health as well.
Methinks she was attacked by a madman during the last full moon and has
been some time in the recovery. Now that she is nearly well again, the
good Master would see some recompense at her own hand. She is still of
tender years, and as yet infirm from her days of recovery. The House of
Rababull would be greatly displeased, if she should be worked too hard,
and fall ill again before full repayment has been made to the Master
for her foolishness."
Habrunt leaned forward significantly at this point, his menacing manner
quite obvious.
"Do you get my meaning, Geth?"
Geth nodded, squinting to show that he was fully aware of Habrunt's
true wishes and was of no mind to make bones to dry in the sun about it.
"Aye," said Geth. He turned to Si'Wren with a wry look, appraising her
carefully and noting her slack posture. "So she is ready for the
harvest, is she? From the look of her, your pretty new field hand has
many good years in her yet, but just between the two of us,
Slavemaster, quite frankly; she looks tired out already."
At this, Habrunt reached down and clenched his right hand around a
fistful of grain stalks, and uprooted the clump up by the roots. Then
he looked at old Geth pointedly.
"This little one is not half as tired as you shall become, if you do
not plant your words as carefully as your crops. If I say she is ready,
she is. Give her tools, water, and provender, and spare your heavy hand
when your eye would mark her shortcomings. Put her over by herself, and
keep a proper shepherd's watch on her. Any good shepherd boy knows his
sheep by name. Behold, I have brought you Si'Wren! If she so much as
lifts a finger to her work, tally the ledger for a full day's output
and see that the others make it up to you, until she can carry her own.
See also that there is peace kept in your fields, lest another mightier
than thou shouldst come and replace you, the better to set all in
proper order again."
Habrunt stood immobile, a handful of grain still clenched tightly in
his fist as he confronted old Geth with a hard look as the other
quickly nodded.
Properly abashed, the Fieldmaster bowed low as he intoned, as
ceremoniously as to the finest idol, "Thy words are gracious and
learned, Slavemaster. All shall be as you have spoken."
Habrunt kept his eyes hard upon Geth for a moment, and finally nodded,
apparently satisfied.
"Good!" he said loudly and pointedly to Geth.
Then he raised his fistful of grain and regarded it with equal levity,
before turning to Si'Wren. He held out the grain to her. Regarding it
dumbly for a moment, Si'Wren saw him nod encouragement to her, and she
took the clump of grain together with the clinging dirt and roots from
his hand.
"Go with him, little one," he said, in a soft and kindly voice. Then,
turning suddenly on Geth, he tilted his head back and declared, "Geth,
does she not come to you with grain already to hand? Take it, and be
satisfied. Behold, I, Habrunt, Slavemaster of the House of Rababull,
have spoken."
This was intended purely and solely for Geth's wise old ears, and had
been formally pronounced to show that Habrunt was in dire earnest, and
would be greatly displeased if further contradicted.
Then he turned brusquely on his heel and strode off to go and make his
rounds.
As Habrunt departed steadily through the gently waving fields, Geth
hefted a large, ungainly scythe in one hand, and turned almost timidly
to Si'Wren.
"Come," he said.
Si'Wren looked up with fearful eyes at his weathered old countenance.
Geth regarded her queerly, as if he had never seen her before, and then
repeated more quietly to her, "Come girl," this time with a more
reassuring nod.
He crinkled his face in an unaccustomed smile, and tilted his head as
he nodded unpracticed encouragement to her. For as Fieldmaster, he was
accustomed to giving orders and having them obeyed without question,
and greatly unused was he to meting out such pampering as he had been
gravely challenged by Habrunt to bestow so freely upon this shy one.
Meekly, she followed him in total silence.
"You must not be afraid," Geth said, leading the way. She followed him
over a low hillock to where a clump of trees grew at the edge of a
nearby field. Beyond the knoll, a peaceful stream meandered through.
The low mound of the hill blocked from sight a direct view of the other
field hands, and their view of the stream was also obstructed, neither
could they see the place in the field where Geth had decided that
Si'Wren might work alone and unmolested. That place being closer to the
compound than the area where the other laborers were gathered, Si'Wren
hoped that this would make her safer from attack by any of the
countless roaming, rogue men of the land.
"Fear not. Am I not sworn to defend you?" reassured old Geth, with an
unaccustomed grimace of a smile. "You will be perfectly safe here."
Si'Wren stood silent, looking up at him as she awaited his instructions.
Geth had not brought her to this particular place by sheer
happenstance. If he was to successfully accomplish what Habrunt had so
gravely commanded, it would be easier if the other slaves did not have
the opportunity to judge for themselves whether Si'Wren had produced a
proper day's work in the fields or not. For Geth to permit them to see
her harvest so little, regardless of her weakened physical state, would
produce much griping in their ranks. This way, what they did not know
would not matter to them.
Holding out to Si'Wren the large, heavy scythe, he bade her grasp it.
She took hold of it, and could not help it when the heavy blade tilted
down and banged on the ground after he let go. Then he stepped behind
her and reached around from both sides, took her tiny hands in his
gnarled old ones, and showed her the precise motion of how to swing it
in a rhythmical motion that seemed to roll as naturally as the tips of
the waving grain stalks, over and over again. Geth took her through it
very slowly at first, then at a more normal pace with a smooth,
repetitious motion that was very easy to follow once she got the proper
swing of it.
Although his breath was close upon her from behind, Si'Wren felt no
danger from such close contact with Geth, as he made no attempt
whatsoever to corrupt his handling of her, but only wanted to show her
how to reap. Geth's kindly old soul was visibly harmless, although his
heart was evidently as tough as his gnarled fingers, easily hard enough
to meet the world head-to-head on it's own terms. But the memory of
Habrunt's stern warnings left his behavior so impeccably holy as to
rival the sanctity of the dumb idols themselves.
He was an expert reaper, and when he finally thought that she must have
caught on properly to the idea, he released her. She wobbled,
staggered, and tumbled down in a heap in the tall stalks of grain. Geth
stood looking down at her in consternation for a moment, and then
without so much as a by-your-leave, he bent down and scooped her up in
his arms, and carried her to the shade of a nearby tree where he gently
set her down.
She lay gasping for breath with an extremely drawn, exhausted look on
her face.
"Well," Geth said, a smile transforming his harsh features, "ye have
heard what Slavemaster Habrunt commanded. A full day's work have I just
had of you, and I shall tally the ledger so."
Then, in a much lower voice, with a quick look around of his shifty
eyes, he said to her further, "Sit. Eat; drink! Stay and rest under the
shade of this blessed tree, while I go and get the proper measure due
to your account from the unwilling labors of those slackers over
yonder. Behold I, Geth, Fieldmaster of the House of Rababull, have also
spoken."
So saying, with a crinkle of his eyes at the wry wittiness of his own
mock-pomposity, he held out to her a large coarse-woven drawstring
pouch of food, which was his own portion and a full man's share at
that, and when she had accepted it from him he smiled at her again and
departed. She watched him cross the field with long sure strides which
soon took him away across the low hillock until he was out of sight, as
he went off to supervise the others.
She was so exhausted already! Must she swing this impossibly heavy
scythe day-in and day-out for the rest of her life, as reward for her
worship of the true Invisible God? The thought was a daunting one.
Careful not to spill any of the provender which Geth had given her, she
unfolded and regarded it contemplatively. All must have food, and now
he had none. Evidently, he knew where to get more for himself. Was he
going to get his food by taking it from someone else, perhaps from the
worst 'slackers' among them, and enjoy their additional grumbling at
such added insult all the more while they unknowingly made up for her
lack of production? If so, she could do nothing about it.
Suddenly, she started as his coarse voice called out unexpectedly
across the field to her, "Si'Wren!"
Si'Wren looked up anxiously, as she saw his head and shoulders reappear
over the top of the small hill, peering narrowly across the crest at
her. Too weak to stand, she dipped her head once quickly to show her
compliance, and regarded Geth attentively to see what he wanted.
"Have I not charged the young men that they shall not touch thee? One
thing more is needful, and then I shall leave you be for awhile. If you
see any wild animal," said Geth, "scream very loudly, and I will come
with my field hands and their sharp sickles, and cut it in pieces."
Eyes widening in sudden alarm, Si'Wren nodded quickly, and bowed low in
acknowledgment. Suppose they did not come in time? Better to endure
the insults of the others than that. And how should she dare to scream,
seeing she had taken a vow of silence, lest she dishonor her Invisible
God, and die for it too? Oh, would that he had not gone off and left
her so all alone like this out in the open!
She made as if to wave him back, but Geth had already turned away
again, and shyly she sat watching with deepest regret as the back of
the friendly old Fieldmaster's bald white-fringed head slowly
disappeared over the crest of the low hill.
Si'Wren sat under the shade tree in the midst of what little fallen
grain Geth had harvested in showing her how to reap with the scythe,
her eyes round with fear as she thought of all the great and truly
savage beasts that were known to stalk this wild land. She stood and
looked around fearfully, but all seemed quiet and peaceful enough.
Several birds flitted across the field, and a pair of jet black ravens
could be seen gliding in the distance.
Moving with slow, unsteady progress, she walked up the gentle slope to
the top of the low hill. There, she craned her neck as she shifted her
position several steps over, and found a slightly elevated place to
stand, peering over the tops of the gently undulating field of grain at
the others. Should she even dare to scream, would they arrive in time
if a wild beast should suddenly try to savage her?
She turned her head, taking in the land on all sides, and decided that
if she remained alert enough, perhaps she would have just enough time
to flee and so thereby possibly safeguard her life, should anything try
to come and get her.
Thinking better of it again, she found renewed appreciation for her
compulsory separation from the others, the better to escape their
sullen, silent persecutions. To be amidst them, and not work, would be
to invoke their supreme contempt and irritation, and leave her feeling
so low as to wish she were already dead, and that on top of her status
as the lowest of the low for her reputation as an idol-breaker.
Si'Wren considered all, and felt renewed remorse at what terrible fate
had befallen her. As long as she could remember, Si'Wren had always
been a hard worker, and a willing one too. Just like Nelatha, whose
comforting, characteristic voice she missed so desperately.
But now she was to be in constant fear for her life, alone in the
world, and alone among men. All by herself now, she peered
expressionlessly across the wild landscape, as the wind blew strands of
dark hair across her eyes, and began weeping for fear and loneliness.
Her eyes, blurred by tears, swept the nearby foliage, seeking anything
that moved. Was not a swift hunting beast's charge always a surprise to
the victim? Who could resist such an advance? Or how could such a one
as she manage to resist even so loathsome and demeaning a danger as the
attack of a mere pack of scavenger dogs, with their many snapping jaws?
What of the giant dire wolves, or the huge roaming bears, and fierce
prowling wild cats, and other even more unspeakable monsters such as
she might not even dream of? She remembered the trophies of the
hunters, and such were the stuff of nightmares, and she found that her
harvest field had become a place of terror.
She wiped at her tears, and looked down at the place where the sickle
had fallen. She walked down the slope and stood over the ungainly
reaper's scythe, fighting back the demons of the unknown. Finally,
quelling her terrors somehow, she knitted her brow as she stooped to
kneel down beside the scythe. Then, with exceeding care, she touched
her finger lightly to the feather's edge of the blade in all of it's
wicked keenness. Sniffling and wiping ineffectually at her face with
the back of her forearm, she examined the sharp scythe, and considered
how pitiful and inept a fighter she must portray to any animal.
Was she not but a girl, scarcely one-forth the size of a good fighting
man and as nothing to one of the human giants? Could she make as ready
use of whatever came to hand, or of her own muscles if necessary, to
settle an argument as brave Habrunt might do? Thinking unhappily on all
of this, she felt disconsolate to such a degree as never before in her
short life. Turning from the heavy scythe, she decided to go and seek
relief in the shade of the trees overhanging the dank and shadowy banks
of the wide, peaceful stream.
The gurgling of the water over heavy stones partially blocking a
narrows downstream was a pleasant sound to her ears. The backup of
water from a beaver dam had created a wide pond in front of her.
As Si'Wren watched, a huge dragonfly, easily as large as both of her
outstretched hands together, flitted fast and low over the glassy
surface of the water. Out in the middle of the tranquil water was a
beaver almost as large as herself, which could be glimpsed moving
smoothly across the surface and leaving a thin wake of vee lines from
the tip of it's button nose.
She sat down on the grass, legs curled beneath her skirts, and stared
unseeingly down at the surface of the pond where scooter bugs jinked
across the placid water by rowing with their two long oars of legs.
Green plant scum floated in the nearby bulrushes, where pussy willows,
cattails, saw grass, and tall hollow reeds could be seen swaying as
they rustled gently in the wind.
What she thought to have been a submerged rock came to life suddenly,
startling her as a giant catfish half the size of the beaver moved
sluggishly to deeper water in a swirl of disturbed sediment.
She did not realize at first that she had visitors. Not, that is, until
a long double line of armed men became progressively visible as their
leader emerged from a far clump of trees and led them on a forced march
that took them steadily and silently through the field beyond the far
banks.
As they began passing through the field of waving grain on the opposite
side of the pond, she cowered instinctively and ducked down low behind
a clump of bushes to watch anxiously as they came into view, marching
briskly two-by-two, every one of them in perfect lock-step, moving
silently as one with only the distant sound of their tromping sandals
to mark their passage.
They carried swords or spears in their right hands, and on their left
arms they had great heavy shields, and helmets on their heads. So many
fierce-looking beards. She could tell that they were not soldiers of
the Emperor of this land, or they would have had standard bearers, and
other elaborate devices, including uniform hammer-beaten metal shields,
all alike with the Emperor's great seal of the sun god embossed thereon.
Nevertheless, it was a formidable force, at least a hundred and fifty
men-at-arms.
She remained in hiding, peering narrowly through the grass at the side
of a gray boulder. The rock of the boulder was actually minutely white
and black flecked with her eyes so close to it. Totally obscured from
view, she watched them march past her position, as silent as the wind,
and breathed a pent-up sigh of relief as their steadily marching ranks
slowly disappeared from view across the far field, moving in an
upstream direction.
When they had gone, she looked anxiously in the direction whence they
had come, watching to see if more might be forthcoming. When none was,
she finally returned to where the food pouch had been left with the
scythe, and realized how hungry she was.
None of those in Geth's charge, nor Geth himself, could have seen the
men, for a series of other low hills blocked their direct view of the
low-lying stream and what lay beyond. But it was no concern of
Si'Wren's. She knew nothing of such matters, and was afraid to draw
attention to herself anyways. How could she even tell them, seeing she
had sworn an oath of silence?
So she merely tried to put it out of mind, although she continued to
deliver many an anxious look both in the direction which the unknown
warriors had come, and that in which they had gone.
She opened the burr-lap pouch which Geth had given her and found fresh
coarse dark bread, and a musty smelling, whitish, oily goat cheese,
with some dark shriveled sun-dried fruits, and an ample provision of
hard unshelled nuts. Realizing how famished she was, she ate some the
provender, cracking the nuts with a small rock on a large flat boulder,
and did not stop until it was all gone. Then she went to the beaver
pond for a drink of water.
Everything took more energy than she was normally accustomed, and she
had to stop and rest frequently. It had been a long time since she had
eaten and exercised properly, and she grew faint too easily for her own
liking but could do little for now except take what rest she could.
At the pond, she knelt down by the water's edge and brushed the thin
skim-surface of dust and swirled parallel lines of bright green algae
apart in order to cup her hands and bring some of the clear underlying
liquid to her parched lips.
There she remained, and regarded the distant shore of the pond whence
the soldiers had marched past, taking up more water in her cupped hands
as needed.
Finally she arose and turned her head to take in her surroundings anew.
But suddenly she froze at the totally unexpected sight of tall Sorpiala
and her female slave servants, dressed in all their finery and waving
irritably at the flies as they all approached along the stony path.
Si'Wren grimaced wryly to herself, although she would never have dared
to do so openly where she could be seen, at the perceived justice of
their plight under the persecutions of the flies and mosquitoes they
openly swatted at. If one ate too many sweets and pastries, as they
always did, one's sweat stank, as theirs did. Thus; no matter how
frequent the bathing, hence cometh flies. Moreover, one's teeth soon
rotted, after which one became fit to eat nothing but that which all
babies ate, prechewed gruel, and no mother to do the chewing.
At first as they approached, she could see only the tops of their heads
from over a slight ridge of the grassy hill's broad hummock. They were
scanning variously about themselves with sharply turned heads and
frowning faces.
As they worked their way closer, she was able to see more clearly their
shoulders and upper arms, then their torsos and elbows, and finally
their wrists, hands, and waists. Eventually, she could also see the
uppermost parts of their legs sometimes, as they waded through the
tall, coarse grasses of the uneven and unworkable parts of the hill.
One stumbled and fell, to arise quickly afterward cursing with the most
filthy and vile language, and none of the others so much as noticed the
flood of curses or deigned to help their unfortunate companion to her
feet.
As Si'Wren watched, slowly, like the dawning of a new day, she also
began to remember. Suddenly, it all became clear to her, and suddenly
it came over her all at once that she who now approached Si'Wren was
none other than dear Sorpiala the once-trusted elder slave-sister, the
very one whose privily-entreated words in the ears of Master Rababull
were what had brought Nelatha to her death and Si'Wren to such a new
and low estate.
Swept by dire apprehensions, Si'Wren sought about fearfully where to
conceal herself, and was about to resort to ducking down in the tall
grass, when suddenly one of Sorpiala's cohorts cried out oddly like
some wild bird as she victoriously pointed out Si'Wren's location.
Sorpiala and the others looked also, and immediately altered their
course to intercept Si'Wren.
Caught flat-footed, Si'Wren quailed within herself as she stood stock
still and waited hopelessly for them to draw near. Si'Wren felt
overwhelmed by a dizzy, empty feeling of utter helplessness. She felt
her heart pounding rapidly within her as she tried to calm herself, but
in spite of this her breathing became even more tortuous and labored.
The women strolled over to her through the tall wild grasses commingled
with the waving stalks of grain, chatting animatedly to one-another as
they all stared boldly at her. This was their hour of victory, and they
reveled openly in it, flattering themselves with a pretense of
false-charity towards Si'Wren while beneath the surface, as with the
pond earlier, could be seen, symbolically, the lurking, half-seen
catfish of their muck-racking innermost thoughts.
"You know, I had heard that Si'Wren's face was all scarred up," said
one young woman.
"Curious," said another, "she seems perfectly normal. You know, it must
be like her personality. What's really wrong is invisible."
"Aye, like her invisible god!" volunteered a third, gaining a laugh
from all sides.
"Now girls," admonished Sorpiala lightly, "if you can't say anything
nice, just don't--say anything! Right, Si'Wren?"
Clearly to Si'Wren now, Sorpiala had harbored a secret and unreasonably
jealous attitude toward her, since seeing all of the attention which
Habrunt had so openly bestowed upon a recently convalescing Si'Wren.
Sorpiala never cared a whit for Habrunt, but it vexed her no end that
anyone should enjoy themselves so much. But now, behold, here was
Si'Wren, defenseless!
Sorpiala stepped boldly in front of Si'Wren and said, "I'm sorry about
before, Si'Wren. I must also apologize for the inconsiderate manner of
my friends here. They do not mean to be so rude. Surely you of all
people must understand. I mean, it's just that nobody has quite gotten
over the shock of learning that your personal beliefs were
so--different--from everyone else's."
Si'Wren stood silent, surrounded by them all, and unable to reply.
"Well?" said Sorpiala. She stared full-face at Si'Wren. "You could at
least nod or something when I speak."
"Yeah, what's the matter?" said another, delivering Si'Wren a rude push
from behind. "Are you deliberately trying to be insulting, or have you
had all of your senses beaten out of you?"
Several girls giggled at this.
Someone else pushed her again, and she staggered and almost fell down.
Screeches of laughter ensued.
As Si'Wren turned her head to see who had pushed her, she was suddenly
flung to the ground by a sharp push from Sorpiala herself.
"Look at me when I speak to you!" said Sorpiala angrily.
Lying helplessly at Sorpiala's feet, Si'Wren put one hand back
unseeingly for support as she looked up at her, and felt her fingers
touch the toes of the one who had first pushed her from behind.
"Ahh! Sorpiala, this--this idol-breaker has tried to trip me!"
Sorpiala confronted Si'Wren with an indignant, self-righteous stare. It
was a hard, cold look of the most imperious hauteur.
"You don't say?!"
Glaring down at Si'Wren, Sorpiala said to the other woman, "It seems
that Si'Wren has not gleaned enough trouble yet. Not content to break
idols, she seeks to trip us and break our heads as well!"
Si'Wren lay in the grass, shaking her head in mute, pleading denial as
she looked beseechingly up at them.
"The guilty are ever speechless, in the face of their accusers," said
another, with a self-righteous, knowing air.
"Come, girls!" said Sorpiala. She regarded Si'Wren contemptuously. "It
is our proper duty to see that justice is speedily executed! Let us go
and report this new outrage at once!"
"Aye," and "At once!" agreed several others almost in unison.
As one, the group of women turned and hiked up the slope, away from
edge of the pond where a trembling Si'Wren sat watching helplessly with
tears in her eyes.
"You know, she never could talk clearly, even before," said one
indistinctly, as their figures disappeared over the rise.
The last thing Si'Wren heard from them was a sudden chorus of more of
that awful, catty, girlish laughter. Then they were gone, leaving her
in her torment and abject sense of total abandonment, in the very
thrall of terror over what to expect next.
Eyes stung by salt tears, she averted her head abruptly from their
departing voices, and found herself staring at the peaceful stream
through blurred vision. Rising to her feet, she approached the water
unsteadily.
She cleared the water again with a sweep of her hand, and dipped up
some of it to wash her face.
Kneeling there, she beheld herself in the water's reflection.
There, like a stranger, she beheld the oval face of a timid-looking
girl of twelve years framed in long straight dark hair, an orphan who
had never known her parents, whose beauty, unperceived to her own
as-yet childish understanding, was as the beauty of the fruitful land
itself, even as the stars at night, or the radiant moonglow at it's
softest.
Staring down into the water's surface, she remembered Nelatha's
admonition that Another's likeness could also be seen by reflection in
water. That was to say, by inner reflection; only thus might one
supposedly 'see' the unseeable One, the Invisible God.
She was already kneeling.
She bowed her head over the water, knowing now that it was but mere
water, yet realizing that here was a vision to marvel at. Timorously,
as her tears ran down her cheeks to fall and ripple it's surface, she
prayed over the mirror-image of the heavenly realm to the Invisible God.
She did not know how long she remained there, praying incessant
confused petitions to a long-forgotten Deity in a world hopelessly lost
to every kind of evil, before she finally fell asleep by the water's
edge.
The next thing she knew, Habrunt was kneeling over her and touching her
shoulder. Startled, she gasped as she looked up into his eyes. Eyes
that were uncharacteristically fierce and angry now--and fearful for
some reason, too.
"You have been accused by Sorpiala and many witnesses," Habrunt
declared to her, "of attempting to harm one of their number!" Then he
rose to his feet and cast about curiously, before raising his voice and
shouting at her, "Si'Wren, can you not stay out of trouble just this
once, your first day in the fields?!"
Si'Wren shook her head in mute denial, her look of hopelessness as of
one who is utterly doomed to destruction, an enemy to be permanently
removed from all civilized human society, as one hated and despised by
all.
Habrunt reached down and took hold of her by the upper arm and pulled
her bodily to her feet, although he did not jerk so roughly as to hurt
her in the slightest.
"Come!" he commanded.
He marched her up the slope, his calloused hands holding tightly onto
her as he marched Si'Wren up the grassy slope to the top of the rise.
Si'Wren felt so weakened by fear that only his strong grip kept her
from stumbling and falling.
The wind partially obscured her vision by casting her dark hair across
her face, as she occasionally glimpsed the other field slaves pausing
to gawk at the sight of their Slavemaster and his diminutive miscreant
making their way to the top of the low hill.
Habrunt faced her and made certain that what must happen next would
take place in the sight of all field workers, and declared loudly and
formally, "Sorpiala has charged thee before the Master, and behold,
thou hast been judged and found wanting. Now you shall learn what
happens to those scoffers who dare to offend the House of Rababull!"
Habrunt let go of her suddenly, causing her to fall backwards into the
heavy standing grain in such a way that she tumbled harmlessly into the
tall stalks which made a gentle whispering sound as they cushioned her
fall. Weeping, she lay looking up at him through tear-flooded eyes and
the wisps of her own hair, from a bed of bent and broken stalks,
entirely obscured from the view of those watching in the nearby fields.
Habrunt was already uncoiling a heavy bull whip, and there was a
strange look of ferocity and despair on Habrunt's troubled features.
Shaking her head slowly in hopeless denial, Si'Wren raised her arms
defenselessly and remained mute as he took hold of the whip by it's
heavy pommel and shook it out behind him on the grassy knoll, snaking
the long sinuous coils into a long scythe-like arc as he prepared to
deliver the first stroke.
"Ten lashes!" he declared.
He tensed the bulging muscles of his right arm as he raised the braided
leather pommel to shoulder height and brought it around once to round
it out properly, and then hooked it in at the proper moment with all of
his strength in a viciously aimed shot.
CRACK!! The whip banged like a thunderclap, the sonic boom echoing
across the fields as a scream was ripped from Si'Wren's throat and a
distant flock of surprised birds took suddenly to flight, darkening the
sky with their panicked multitudes of beating wings.
Men and women who thought they too, had hated Si'Wren, felt sudden
horror at the astonishing impact of the whip's bang upon their eardrums.
He brought back the whip behind him for the next stroke and rotated it
around forward again, his bulging muscles gleaming with sweat.
CRACK!! The sound echoed across the land, sending gophers, rabbits, and
other animals scurrying for their dens and holes in the ground.
CRACK!! Slave women in the fields began weeping.
Habrunt was visible to all as his tall figure towered above the waving
grass on the hilltop.
Several of the men looked away, already feeling sick to their stomachs,
while others watched with clenched jaws, remembering the way Master
Rababull himself had put out the eye of the boy who had once been a
bully, because Master Rababull's word was law.
CRACK!! An eye for an eye.
CRACK!! Back in the Master's compound, Sorpiala went on humming softly
and pleasantly to herself as she heard the distant knell of doom, and
full of gloating, she pretended to be oblivious to it's meaning in the
presence of her totally silent, fearfully listening cohorts.