Chapter 27 #3
I remembered when Leda had looked at my mother just like that, like a creature, not a human. I stared at the gathered crowds as they pointed and murmured. Was this what my mother had been forced to endure? Having her humanity stripped from her as she was paraded before strangers?
My fury was so loud I could feel it thumping in my head. I wanted to cry, to scream, to claw the slaver’s soulless eyes out…
But then a hand slipped into mine, cool and firm. Penelope’s.
She was staring at me, eyes filled with a silent question: Are you all right?
Nodding, I curled my fingers around hers and felt a surprising burst of reassurance from her touch.
I can do this. I have to.
Letting go of Penelope’s hand, I strode forward.
“Can I help you?” the slaver asked.
I stared at the man, my hatred so visceral I could taste it pooling on my tongue.
“How much can I get for this?”
I handed over the two pouches of silver and watched him theatrically weigh each in his hands.
“Depends. Each slave ’as their own price. But you should know, I don’t sell cheap. Mine is good-quality stock.”
“Quality stock? What about that one?” I heard the other potential buyer snort, pointing toward the older woman. “She’s ancient.”
“I call it ‘experienced,’” the slaver said.
“An old hag like that? She would just be a liability,” the man countered. “You would’ve done yourself a favor dumping her on the journey here.”
Laughter rippled through the crowd, but the older woman kept her face blank, lifting her chin a little higher. With her bound hands, she tried to adjust her filthy tunic, holding on to whatever scrap of dignity she had left.
“The mines always take the leftovers.” The slaver shrugged before hawking up a glob of spit onto the ground.
“The mines?” I turned to him. “She won’t last a day in the mines.”
The slaver picked his teeth. “Not my problem.”
“I’ll take her.” The words escaped me as a gasp of air.
“You come back with that, and your master will flog you silly,” the other buyer warned me.
I ignored him as I growled at the slaver, “Do we have a deal or not?”
“O’ course, my dear, o’ course.” A smile slid across the slaver’s face, like oil across water. He then tipped out and pocketed a portion of the silver before handing a pouch back to me, its contents considerably lighter. “My pleasure doing business with you.”
I felt a dirtiness creep over my skin, sinking its way into my blood. It felt so horribly wrong, rewarding such a vile trade. But I knew there would be a far uglier stain on my soul if I turned away now and left this woman to her fate.
The slaver went into the pen to unclasp the woman’s chains. Once freed, he began binding a rope around her wrists.
“She doesn’t need that,” I snapped.
The slaver turned to me and shrugged before leading the old woman to my side. She looked stoic as she bowed, her olive skin blistered from sunburn. How long had she been made to stand out in pens like this one?
“What is your name?” I asked softly.
Her eyes, a lovely shade of pale green, shifted to mine. She seemed momentarily bemused by the question, as if no one had asked it for a long time.
“My name is Eurynome, mistress,” she said, voice raspy and thin with the hint of an accent too subtle to place.
I looked down at her bare feet, cut and bruised. “I’m afraid I walked here. Is that all right? Can you walk?”
She nodded. “I will manage, mistress.”
A scream ripped my attention back to the pen where the other buyer was cradling his hand, blood spurting from his fingers. Standing before him, the Thracian woman smiled, her teeth etched in crimson.
“What did you do?” the slaver seethed at her.
The Thracian simply smirked wider.
“You find this funny?”
The slaver struck her hard across the face, but the woman barely flinched. Instead, she simply stared at the slaver, her eyes glittering with a deadly, dark promise. The slaver had enough sense to shrink back.
Behind him, the buyer was wailing, clutching his fingers to his chest.
“That beast needs to be put down!” he screeched. “Do you see what it did to me? Do you see?”
“It was a mistake,” the slaver babbled. “You caught her by surprise, and Thracians are easily spooked, you know—”
“A beast like that is not worthy of any household,” the buyer declared.
“I will handle it,” the slaver insisted.
“I demand she be put down at once.”
“I ain’t wasting good stock. The mines will have her.”
“I’ll take her!”
The buyer and slaver both spun in unison, staring at me. “What?”
“I said I’ll take her,” I repeated, holding out my remaining silver.
“Did you see what she just did to me?” the injured man cried.
“Yes.” I smiled coldly. “And perhaps that will teach you a lesson about sticking parts of your body into people’s mouths without permission.”
A growling noise escaped the Thracian. It sounded almost like a laugh.
“What did you just say to me, slave?” The buyer took a menacing step closer, raising his uninjured hand to strike me.
I felt Penelope press in close at my back, putting a protective hand on my arm. But then came an eerie, jangling sound, and we turned to see the Thracian shaking her chains loudly, glaring at the injured man. When he turned to look at her, she bared her bloodstained teeth in warning.
Even in chains, she was formidable.
The man’s face paled as he shoved past me. “Get out of my way. I need to see a doctor.”
The Thracian grinned as she watched him flee before turning to wink at me.
“You don’t have enough for her,” the slaver said once the commotion had settled.
“She just bit a man’s finger off in front of an audience.” I motioned to the crowd. “Do you really think you’ll sell her now?”
He shrugged. “Plenty more ports to visit, ain’t there? Ithaca is a small fish in a very big sea, love.”
“And how many more potential buyers will she attack?” I challenged, stepping closer. “I bet that man wasn’t the first, was he? And he won’t be the last.”
“So? Not my problem if those rich idiots can’t handle themselves around a Thracian.”
“No, it’s not.” I nodded. “But it is your problem if that Thracian gives you a bad reputation, and word spreads fast, especially in big cities. Tell me, how many ‘rich idiots’ will want to buy from a slaver with violent stock?”
The slaver glowered at me, then stared at the Thracian for a long moment, his jaw flexing. Finally, he grunted his defeat and moved to unshackle the woman.
“Bite me, and I’ll skin you alive,” he threatened her.
The Thracian only grinned in response, rubbing her wrists where the shackles had left open sores. The slaver then began binding her with coarse ropes.
“She doesn’t need those,” I said.
The nasty little man threw me a dark look. “Trust me, girl. This one does.”