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Authors: Robert V S Redick
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and the skipper's knife, then complained and kicked him because he hadn't kept the blade sharp. When he learned where Pazel lived the man kicked him again, and beat him. Where are the women? he screamed. Two beautiful women! I want them!
When Pazel made no answer the beating grew worse. He covered his head and tried not even to think of Neda or his mother. He feigned unconsciousness, but a point came when he was no longer pretending.
He awoke, bloodied, in a crowd of boys, some of whom he knew. They were all chained to the flagpole in his schoolyard, where a week before he had displayed the kite to jealous friends and boasted of his Arquali “uncle.” On the roadside, Ormali captives passed by in horse carts, wearing heavy chains.
The days blurred to an aching trance. Once he woke to hear a voice shouting his name and looked up into the face of a man with mud in his hair and one eye bruised shut, who had somehow escaped his captors and rushed toward him. The apparition fell to his knees and touched Pazel's shoulder, wheezing as though about to expire: “Hold on, child, hold on!” The next instant two Arquali warriors fell on him with clubs. Only hours later did Pazel realize he had been looking at the headmaster.
That morning the soldiers marched them to the Slave Terrace at Ormaelport. The city had banned slavery in his grandfather's time; the Terrace had become a place where lovers watched the sea. But the old stockades where human beings were sold like sheep had never been dismantled, and the Arqualis saw their original purpose at a glance. In later years Pazel tried not to recall the horrors of that morning—the poking and haggling, the shrieks of pain and the sizzle of the branding iron, troublemakers beaten senseless or merely pushed into the harbor, chained. It was too awful; his mind tended to leap forward to the moment just before he himself was to be branded.
The boy just ahead of him was still screaming from the touch of the red-hot iron to the back of his neck, the slavemaster cursing as he pressed a shard of mountain ice to the welt to set the brand. Satisfied, he nodded to the men holding Pazel. But before they could chain him to the branding-post, an Arquali sergeant waded into the crowd and seized his arm.
“This one's already sold,” he said.
He was an aging fighter, sighing at each step. He dragged Pazel to the far end of the Slave Terrace, then turned to look at the horrified boy.
“You've sailed?” he demanded.
Pazel opened his mouth, but no sound emerged. He had not spoken in two days.
“I asked if you've sailed.”
“Sailed!” Pazel blurted. “No, sir, never. My father was Captain Gregory, but he didn't want me sailing. I'm a natural scholar, he said, and though I'm not a proud boy it's true I speak four languages, sir, and write three well enough for court, and know my complex sums, and he said I was not to be wasted on the mucking ocean when there was such a thing as school, which I rather enj—”
The sergeant slapped him with a leather-hard palm. “School's over, cub. Now listen: you sailed with your father, and you were never ill at sea. Repeat it.”
“I … I sailed with my father, and I was never ill at sea.” The sergeant nodded gravely. “You ask the old men, the sheet-anchor men, to teach you your rigging, and your knots, and your shipboard stations, your whistles and flags. You'll be learning a new language, see? The language of a ship. Learn it fast, natural scholar, or you'll feel that iron yet.”
Then he had put an envelope in Pazel's hand. It was a fine, gilt-edged envelope, sealed with wax the color of a rooster's comb and addressed in an elegant hand:
Captain Onnabik Faral
The Swan
“You'll hand this to Faral,” said the sergeant. “None other. You listening, cub?”
“Yes, sir!” But Pazel could not take his eyes from the envelope. The writing looked familiar. But who would help him? Who could, with the city ablaze?
He raised his eyes—and
When Pazel made no answer the beating grew worse. He covered his head and tried not even to think of Neda or his mother. He feigned unconsciousness, but a point came when he was no longer pretending.
He awoke, bloodied, in a crowd of boys, some of whom he knew. They were all chained to the flagpole in his schoolyard, where a week before he had displayed the kite to jealous friends and boasted of his Arquali “uncle.” On the roadside, Ormali captives passed by in horse carts, wearing heavy chains.
The days blurred to an aching trance. Once he woke to hear a voice shouting his name and looked up into the face of a man with mud in his hair and one eye bruised shut, who had somehow escaped his captors and rushed toward him. The apparition fell to his knees and touched Pazel's shoulder, wheezing as though about to expire: “Hold on, child, hold on!” The next instant two Arquali warriors fell on him with clubs. Only hours later did Pazel realize he had been looking at the headmaster.
That morning the soldiers marched them to the Slave Terrace at Ormaelport. The city had banned slavery in his grandfather's time; the Terrace had become a place where lovers watched the sea. But the old stockades where human beings were sold like sheep had never been dismantled, and the Arqualis saw their original purpose at a glance. In later years Pazel tried not to recall the horrors of that morning—the poking and haggling, the shrieks of pain and the sizzle of the branding iron, troublemakers beaten senseless or merely pushed into the harbor, chained. It was too awful; his mind tended to leap forward to the moment just before he himself was to be branded.
The boy just ahead of him was still screaming from the touch of the red-hot iron to the back of his neck, the slavemaster cursing as he pressed a shard of mountain ice to the welt to set the brand. Satisfied, he nodded to the men holding Pazel. But before they could chain him to the branding-post, an Arquali sergeant waded into the crowd and seized his arm.
“This one's already sold,” he said.
He was an aging fighter, sighing at each step. He dragged Pazel to the far end of the Slave Terrace, then turned to look at the horrified boy.
“You've sailed?” he demanded.
Pazel opened his mouth, but no sound emerged. He had not spoken in two days.
“I asked if you've sailed.”
“Sailed!” Pazel blurted. “No, sir, never. My father was Captain Gregory, but he didn't want me sailing. I'm a natural scholar, he said, and though I'm not a proud boy it's true I speak four languages, sir, and write three well enough for court, and know my complex sums, and he said I was not to be wasted on the mucking ocean when there was such a thing as school, which I rather enj—”
The sergeant slapped him with a leather-hard palm. “School's over, cub. Now listen: you sailed with your father, and you were never ill at sea. Repeat it.”
“I … I sailed with my father, and I was never ill at sea.” The sergeant nodded gravely. “You ask the old men, the sheet-anchor men, to teach you your rigging, and your knots, and your shipboard stations, your whistles and flags. You'll be learning a new language, see? The language of a ship. Learn it fast, natural scholar, or you'll feel that iron yet.”
Then he had put an envelope in Pazel's hand. It was a fine, gilt-edged envelope, sealed with wax the color of a rooster's comb and addressed in an elegant hand:
Captain Onnabik Faral
The Swan
“You'll hand this to Faral,” said the sergeant. “None other. You listening, cub?”
“Yes, sir!” But Pazel could not take his eyes from the envelope. The writing looked familiar. But who would help him? Who could, with the city ablaze?
He raised his eyes—and
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