CHAPTER 1 — Off with Her Head #2
“Who wants to save this otherlander woman? I’m sure she’ll smile nice if you treat her well. She’s wearing gemstones and Dragonkind metal, she’s got all her teeth—and some of them are capped in silver. Don’t pass on this rarity!”
“What exactly is the rarity?” a male asks at my shoulder.
From his garb, it’s obvious he’s a warrior.
Save for a set of scuffed silver pauldrons draping his shoulders (with bloodstained lames down his upper arms), his chest is bare, scarred, and burned to a deep alligator-green color care of all the time he’s no doubt spent under the blinding sun in the summers and harsh, blistering winds in the winters.
Such is a warrior’s life. A wife could bring some welcome softness to this male’s existence.
I’ll bet this prisoner doesn’t have a chance at ending up a slave. She’ll be wedded and bedded before nightfall.
The female’s eyes squeeze shut. “This can’t be happening,” I think she groans.
Blademan taps her on the shoulder, and with terror-filled eyes, she cranes her head back, back, back until she’s looking up at him as he stares down at her.
“Tell everyone what you are, female,” he orders. He doesn’t look at her unkindly, but his tone is firm, brooking no delay and heavily suggesting that he’ll tolerate no more of her weeping and carrying on.
She hunches and does as she’s told, her reply for all of us, “I’m a human! My name is Stephanie, and I’m—”
“I’ll pay five to ride that for life,” a peat cutter says a few feet away from me.
I’ve never met him, but it’s obvious what he does for a living.
You can always tell who cuts the sedge marsh hunting for peat by their smell.
He’s wearing a woven Elf-hair necklace with skulls hanging from it.
(I can’t tell what sort the skulls belong to, but the Elf-hair chaining the necklace makes me want to touch my own jewelry fondly.
My husband gave me mine as pleasure-gifts, and all of the ivory is enemy Goblin-bone.) The peat cutter’s voice is clearly intrigued—but also apprehensive.
As if he’s not quite sure he wants to take the strange female as a wife, but his curiosity can’t quite let him pass her up.
“Halderon, Beast Slayer,” he announces, naming himself as is custom after calling out a bid to save someone from the block.
The warrior beside me raises his hand, indicating he’ll pay six coppers. He names himself and his house. “Olag of the Spinebreakers.”
Surprised, I give him another swift look.
That’s a decent house. Very decent. My eyes move over him—not tempted, not when I have a husband like mine, but I do enjoy looking.
This male is wearing his hair tied in braids, letting them lay in heaps down his broad back.
A very nice back, I see, when he presses others out of his way until he’s right up against the platform.
Someone, the baker, if I recognize the voice like I think I do, calls out, “If that female can scrub floors, I’ll pay seven coppers.”
Blademan taps her on the shoulder. “Girl, can you scrub floors?”
“Yes!” she says desperately, her eyes darting from the peat cutter, who has plans to ride her for the rest of her days, to the male whose primary interest is in her ability to clean.
And then she covers her mouth with her bound hands and starts to sob, her manacles clinking as her small frame shudders.
Some of the prisoners behind her are stirring, and Blademan sends them a quelling look as he pats her on the shoulder. “You lot can get chopped, or enjoy your last moments a little longer. What’ll it be?”
They go still.
Blademan nods and steps away from the female. “You’ll be fine, girl. Calm down.” He calls, “Spleenbaker says he’ll take her for seven.” He grins. “This is turning into a bidding war. Do I hear anyone for eight? Eight? Going once at seven, going—”
“I’ll take her for eight,” says the warrior. As the crowd glances toward him, he stands taller, and I notice that his braids are scruffy, like he’s slept on them for a fortnight and hasn’t bothered to brush them out and rebraid them. “The Spinebreakers would be proud to free this prisoner.”
They would. I know of his family: good fighters.
Fair men who love justice and their women.
And a good woman would likely care for this Olag in every way he needs, even down to his fighting braids.
Provided he’s the sort to treat women well, that is.
Then again, if he is, he looks awfully long in the tusk to be wifeless.
Perhaps his first wife died too early, and in the birthing bed—which is more tragic—and he’s been so brokenhearted over her loss and the loss of his offspring that he hasn’t wed another.
Yet today he’s been moved by this pitiful prisoner’s tears, and he’ll take her and fall madly in love with her, and she’ll adore him so much she won’t want to leave him.
I shake my head at myself. Roarg would tell me my notions are romantic fancifulness, if he were here and not hard at work.
“Will anyone have her for nine? Nine coppers and you get a strange female who makes pretty tears and mops,” Blademan hawks, clearly enjoying himself.
It’s not every day he gets to turn two necks loose.
“NINE!” he shouts when someone raises their hand to that.
Their house is given, vouching for their character.
And up her price goes. Ten. Eleven. Then twelve. And there she sits, slated to go to the warrior Olag, who needs deft hands and a gentle heart.
It’s this fanciful thought that gets me into trouble.
Because, my mind reasons, we’ve been looking for a female with a gentle heart.
Although I don’t know anything about humans, let alone this one, I’m caught up in the excitement and call out, “Thirteen coppers, and she’ll join the house of Hammerfist! ”
“Now there’s a good house,” Blademan remarks, eyes lighting on me. Then he goads the other bidders. “But the Hammerfist house has women aplenty. Some of you gentlemen need your first lady in the worst way, do you not? Who’ll take her for fourteen?”
Olag the warrior looks at me, and I give him a shrug and a smile, letting him know I won’t outbid him again.
He nods in silent thanks and raises his hand. “Fourteen.”
“Fifteen! Anyone bidding fifteen?” Blademan asks his expectant crowd. My, he will be making a pretty purse today.
“I’ll pay twenty for a human so fine,” someone comments, too far deep into the throng for me to see. And that’s all they say, giving no house.
...Which is very odd. It’s a male voice, and following his claim of twenty, there are a number of indrawn breaths that could be due to such a high bid being called—but it’s not only that.
The accent is off. Sibilant. A pall falls over everyone suddenly, because this is no Orc who spoke for the prisoner.
When I clutch my flour and my fish close and stand on my toes, edging this way and that to see around Orc men far taller and broader than me, to my horror, I see a Dragonkind standing boldly in our midst.
Mishipeshu is what his people call themselves.
Part winter cat, part horned water dragon, most of his fur and scale-covered body is hidden by his rough wool and leather cloak, but he still stands out like a thumb that’s been whacked blue with a hammer.
His eyes are an unsettling mix of feline and reptilian, with that freakish slitted pupil set on orbs of flashing yellow.
He’s watching everyone’s reaction to him, an oppressive, murderous, fire-breathing wolf among tusked sheep.
“I trust I’ve broken no laws by bidding on this prisoner. My coppers should be as good as anyone else’s, I’d think.” He waits for anyone to speak, and when no one does, he adds, “As I said, I’ll pay twenty to take her.”
Olag the Orc warrior of the Spinebreakers tugs his purse from his belt and turns it upside-down over his broad hand.
One by one, he counts his coins. Blademan waits—but then the warrior reaches the end of his coins, and he meets Blademan’s eye, giving his head a dismayed shake. He sends the woman a very worried look.
Blademan looks downright unsettled. “Well, we reached fourteen, and I think this warrior here,” he indicates Olag, “had her bid fair in hand—”
“You asked if anyone would raise his bid by a copper. I’m offering to raise it by far more than that,” the Dragonkind points out.
Damn his reasonableness.
“Where is your honor, Blademan?” the Dragonkind challenges, voice deceptively soft.
Blademan reaches over his shoulder and hauls up his axe, whipping a glare in the Dragonkind’s direction. “Watch yourself! I won’t have a skorbrijking Dragonkind questioning my honor,” he growls.
“Then take my bid. Treat me the same as any Orc,” the Dragonkind insists.
Snarls erupt, and Blademan casts us a furious look as he shoves a hand through his braids, scowling.
He returns his axe to its scabbard and sends a sharp glance down at us.
“Anyone willing to raise his bid?” He pats the shivering female on the shoulder, making her body pitch.
“Look at this woman. No matter the crime that got her here, she has to be well worth twenty-one coppers to ensure she doesn’t end up with the likes of a Dragonkind. ”
The crowd murmurs uneasy agreement.
I’m biting my lip, knowing I shouldn’t—but I can’t stop my mouth from popping open and promising, “Twenty-one coppers from Hammerfist!”
“Twenty-five,” returns the Dragonkind coolly.
The warriors among us have bristled, hands going to sword hilts, tusks being bared more as they sneer at the untrustworthy outsider in our midst. But no one raises his bid.
Twenty-six coppers would be a lot to ask for a sturdy male Orc, who can plow a field or build you a stone house, or do any number of useful things to make his price worth your copper.
But this slip of a strange female would have to work magic on a man and his house for her to be worth that kind of coin.
And maybe if she weren’t looking terrified, and if snot weren’t dripping down her weeping face, she might fetch more.
Not one voice calls out to raise her bid and rescue her. It’s unlikely this Dragonkind is looking for an otherlander prisoner for a wife, so he likely wants a slave. And sadly, she won’t go free at the end of seven years. Dragonkind keep their slaves for life.
Ohhh, damnation and dragon’s fire. I can’t let this woman go to a Dragonkind.
Curse it all that no female is worth what her price is sitting at.
And the Hammerfist house doesn't really need another woman. It’s probably too soon to add another woman to our mix.
Still, I do a very quick calculation of every coin my husband sent me off with today.
Although I don’t know anything about humans, let alone this one, and although my husband is going to throttle me, my head whips up and I hear my voice ring out loudly, “THIRTY COPPERS, and she’ll be my husband’s next wife! ”