Below, the overseer and the assistant with the slate began laboriously to count the slaves. The two by the palisade joined the line late, and by dint of a staged trip and some, scuffling as the off-balance man crashed into the row, the tally keeper lost track of his count. He started over, looking down to chalk a mark for each slave as he passed, while the factor cursed and sweated at the delay.
Each time the tally keeper consulted his slate, the unruly barbarians shifted position. The man with the whip lashed a few backs in an attempt to establish order. One slave shouted something in his native tongue that sounded suspiciously like an obscenity as he jumped away from the punishment, and others laughed. The lash fell to silence the ones nearest the overseer, which caused the line of standing slaves to break and shuffle and re-form behind the man’s back. The tally keeper looked up in despair. Once again, the numbers were hopelessly confused.
The factor shouted in a shameful show of impatience, ‘We’ll all be dead and ashes by the time you finish with that!’ He clapped his hands at someone on the sidelines, and a moment later, a servant scuttled into the compound with a basket of rough-woven trousers and shirts. These he began to dispense among the slaves.
At this point the red-haired barbarian began to scream insults at the overseer. His Tsurani might be broken and heavily mispronounced, but at some point along his line of march since his capture some nameless beggar child had taught him thoroughly and well. The overseer’s mouth opened in incredulity as he considered the biological implications of what the outworlder had just said about his mother. Then he reddened and swung his lash, which the barbarian adroitly avoided. A chase developed between the large Midkemian and the smaller, fatter Tsurani.
Lujan laughed, it’s a shame the barbarian needs to be broken; this is a comedy worthy of any travelling troupe of performers I’ve ever seen. He certainly seems to be enjoying himself.’ Movement caught Lujan’s eye in the far corner of the pen. ‘Ah!’ he exclaimed. ‘And to clear purpose, it would seem.’
Mara, too, had noticed that one of the slaves had resumed his crouch by the palisade. A moment later he appeared to be stuffing something through. ‘Lashima’s wisdom,’ she said, startled into a smile of amazement. ‘They are pilfering the shirts!’
The gallery afforded a view of the operation. The redheaded giant raced around the compound. Despite his height, he moved with the grace of a sarcat – the quick and silent six-legged hunter of the grasslands — at first avoiding every attempt of the overseer to catch him. Then, strangely, he began to plod like a pregnant needra cow. The overseer came close, and as the barbarian dodged the near miss of the lash, he shuffled, slid, dragged his heels and toes, and kicked up an excessive amount of dust. He also crashed often into those of his comrades who had received their allotment of trousers and shirt. These suddenly clumsy men fell and rolled, and under cover of dust and movement, cloth miraculously disappeared. Some was bundled and passed to other slaves; occasionally a shirt would unfurl and land, to be picked up by another man. In this manner the clothing passed at last to the man by the palisade. At opportune moments he stuffed the fabric through a gap and caught the shell counters that served as coin within the Empire that someone slipped through from without. These the Midkemian wiped on his hairy chest. Then he placed them in his mouth and swallowed them.
‘There must be beggar boys on the other side.’ Lujan shook his head. ‘Or perhaps some bargeman’s child. Though why a slave should think he has use for coin is a mystery.’
‘They certainly show great ingenuity . . . and nerve,’ Mara observed, and Lujan regarded her keenly. That she had mistakenly conceded honourable attributes to men who by the inflexible laws of society were accorded less stature than the lowest scabby beggars in the gutters made the Strike Leader pause. Desperation had taught Mara to reappraise the traditions of her people with sometimes ingenious results. Yet although Lujan himself had sworn to her service through just such an unorthodox twist, even he could not guess what she might see in a lot of barbarian slaves. Trying to fathom her fascination, the warrior regarded the ongoing conflict down below.