Nineteen

Each day, the caravan stopped once or twice so that we could all relieve ourselves and drink water from a nearby pool. We were given stale, moldy bread to eat, but thanks to Agatha, Forrest and I got a little more and a little better quality. She seemed to have an understanding with one of the guards, and I watched as they disappeared around a trailer for privacy. I didn’t ask questions. She always came back with more food, and occasionally even a clean cloth diaper for Forrest. I tried to use them sparingly and clean him to the best of my abilities, but he was still developing a painful rash.

There was a bucket in our wagon for waste; we couldn’t always wait until the caravan stopped. It smelled bad, and we aimed for it when the smell induced vomit, but we didn’t always make it. The floor of the wagon was covered in strange smells and textures, and Forrest, not understanding, was growing increasingly agitated that I wouldn’t let him crawl around.

At first, we all had dignity, and three of us would stand guard around a fourth while she used the bucket. But by the end of our journey, we often just hung ourselves over the edge of the wagon, hoping that some of our dehydrated urine would splash into the hated faces of our captors.

When we finally arrived at our first destination, I glanced around and quietly, hopelessly, accepted my fate. This was a tent town, the homes made of nothing more substantial than filmy material held together with sticks. In the distance, perhaps half a mile away, we could see a poverty-ridden city filled with crumbling buildings. This was the pleasure district, and it was well placed for plenty of business; the prostitutes here would stay busy.

A guard tied our ankles together, and as we followed him through the winding inner paths of the community, the smell of sex assaulted my nose. Sounds greeted us; sounds of bodies slapping together, of women moaning in faked pleasure and of men grunting in genuine effort, and occasionally of a painful fist hitting a less-than-pleasing woman in the face or the stomach. A thin veil of dust covered everything, and the women watched us curiously. Most of them were older, weaker, their forced submission to their lifestyle written into the hard lines on their faces. One woman stared at Forrest hungrily and tried to snatch him from my arms, her greedy eyes seeing only a chance at salvation. The guard behind us alerted the guard in front, and the two made quick work of killing her. As her body fell into a heap at my feet, I wondered at her life- where had she begun? How had she ended up here, so far gone in the head and so hungry for escape that she would try to steal a baby in front of armed soldiers? I clung more tightly to Forrest, fearing for our future.

Finally, in a large tent that smelled of masculine sweat and old fish in the center of the district, we met the pimp. He was a fat man with a balding head and beady eyes, too small for his overly plump face. His eyelids seemed to be too heavy, and they drooped down over his eyes lazily. He watched us enter the tent with an appraising look, one after the other, and his expression turned to one of excitement when he caught sight of me. He quickly hid this, however- he was here to bargain, and it would do no good to admit to the sellers that he truly wanted their product.

He had three henchmen standing behind him, also watching us with fierce eyes. The four men of the compound were hungry for fresh meat; judging by the soured and aged look of the women I’d seen on the way in, it had been a long time since they had any new merchandise.

“Alright, let’s get down to it,” the fat man said. “How much per head?”

One of the soldiers wrote down a figure and slid the paper across the desk, and the fat man picked it up and studied it.

“You mistake me,” he said. “I said how much per head, not how much for the lot of them.”

The guard, whom I now recognized as Kandal- who had sentenced Mayla to her death- laughed. “This is the price per head,” he said.

The fat man sucked on his teeth and grimaced. “I hate to tell you this, boys, but business ain’t exactly boomin’ out here in the sticks. If you want prices like these, you’ll have to take these broads to the bigger cities- and I know you’re not looking to do that. I heard about what happened in the West. You had direct orders to kill almost everyone. Fact of the matter is, my house is the only house between here and your Lord and Liege, so you either sell ‘em to me and get some money to line your pockets, or you kill ‘em before you get to the gate and dragging this precious cargo the whole trip was a wasted effort.” He put his arms behind his head, pleased with himself. He was a businessman, and he obviously made it his business to know the details of each transaction before it appeared before him. How long had my family, and I unknowingly been the focus of this attack? I cringed to think of us all existing- Mayla included- in our normal functions while this army made plans and marched to us, all the while intent on ending us; while even pigs like this man knew that they were coming.

Kandal stood silently, appraising the scene before him. He was a man of few words, and he obviously enjoyed a position of slightly elevated authority among his hateful army. I wondered what decision he would make here, when he’d done something he wasn’t supposed to do. We were all supposed to be dead. He shouldn’t have taken any of us, and the fact that he had spoken volumes to the type of person he was. He had no honor.

Kandal finally nodded his head. “Very well, then,” he said, drawing his sword. He grabbed the nearest woman, a pretty blonde who’d been silent and withdrawn the entire trip, and stabbed her through the stomach. A crimson ribbon spread outward from the wound, darkening her dirty servant’s uniform, and I realized that she’d worked for me- for Chan’s household, anyway- in the laundry rooms. It was impossible to know all the servants from my home- there were too many. But she wore my livery. She’d washed stains from my gowns. She couldn’t have been more than nineteen or twenty, so perhaps she was new, but there she was, a member of my household, bleeding out before me. I gasped and tried to run forward to catch her, but the rope at my ankle jerked me back, and Kandal met my gaze, his evil eyes bearing into me. He didn’t lower himself to speak to me, but instead nodded at one of the other guards. That man pushed me roughly back into formation, and the two women on each side of me- a black woman named Hagar and the old crone Agatha- grabbed my upper arms to steady me before I brought us all down. Forrest wailed in my arms, and Agatha laid a gentle hand on his forehead. He calmed immediately, and the guards resumed their stances. I’d been in a fog since Mayla’s death; nothing had mattered to me, not really. I’d been content to just exist and watch over Forrest. But now, I sensed the genuine danger of my situation, and I felt actual fear.

The fat man stood up from his creaky chair and slammed his fists on the desk. “There was no need to do that!” he yelled, his voice like thunder in the small room. The blonde girl moaned pitifully on the ground, and Kandal slammed his blade through her once more, silencing her. The fat man’s eyes widened. “You are ruthless,” he muttered, and Kandal smiled.

“I didn’t get this far in life by being… Placid,” he said, his eyes roving over the massive girth of the fat man. “I take action when action needs taken. Now, tell me. Do we have a deal? Or shall I continue to-” he pulled Hagar forward meaningfully, and the fat man raised his hands.

“No, no, fine,” he said. “Deduct a sixth of the amount you quoted me for the dead girl and we have a deal.” His eyes rolled over to me once again, and he smiled, licking grease from his lips. I realized that we’d come during his lunchtime, and despite my disgust at everything about this place, my stomach growled audibly. I was hungry; we all were.

“You’ll pay the full price. And that one’s not included, nor the child, obviously,” he said, poking my belly with the tip of his sword.

The fat man squinted his eyes. “You are a crooked dealer,” he said. “This is no fair business trade. This is highway robbery.”

Kandal shrugged. “I’m not here to barter,” he said, kicking the dead blonde at his feet. “And I think I’ve proven that, at this point. So what’s it going to be?”

The fat man sat back down and nodded his head. I watched as one of his counterparts handed money off to Kandal, and another guard unlocked the heavy chains at our feet. Hagar’s enormous eyes stared into mine as a guard yanked her roughly away from me, and I realized she thought I could save her. She recognized me as the lady of her household, as a woman in a position of limited power, and she placed her last hope in me. There was nothing I could do for her, and as I watched them pull her away, I felt guilt and a physical ache in my chest. I had the sense of losing a potential friend. My heart broke with a sudden sadness that encompassed everything I’d experienced in the past few weeks of my life. And yet, my journey was just beginning.

Agatha was allowed to stay with me. An unspoken word passed between her and the young guard she’d been disappearing with, and she was left alone. We were chained together and led out of the main tent and in the opposite direction of the other women. I made it a point to search every direction, watching for an escape route, a way out. I had no idea what was in store for me, for Forrest, but it couldn’t be anything good.

The guards shoved us into an empty tent, no larger than a prison cell, and Agatha and I fell to our knees. One of the guards watched me, stroking his face contemplatively, but another guard drew his attentions away from me, and I was thankful. He didn’t appear gentle or kind- indeed, I doubted I would encounter much of that type at all from this point onward.

Our tent was nothing more than a thick pink tarp with a dirt floor. A strong pole supported the middle of it, and the ceiling went down from there, posted to the ground with overly large nails. It was nothing, and yet, it was my prison.

Kandal stepped through the tent flap, ducking to enter, walking to the middle so that he could stand tall over us. He contemplated me for a moment, silently, brooding. “Don’t think of leaving,” he said, finally. “You’re my property for now, but you’ll cost me more if I can’t give you over. So don’t think of leaving, or I’ll make you miserable.”

I laughed and glanced around at the empty tent. My simple night dress was filthy and torn, and my body carried the stench of weeks’ worth of unwashed travel. I’d lost everything, and I had nothing. Kandal smiled. “You think it can’t possible get worse than this?” he asked. He bent and unchained my ankle from Agatha’s. He took Forrest from me, ignoring my protests, and handed him to Agatha. I watched her greedy hands take him, and I immediately started to crawl over to them, wanting my son back in my own arms, safe from harm and safe from everyone who wanted nothing but his value.

But Kandal yanked me up off of the ground and pulled me along behind him, his grasp hard and uncaring. We ducked through the tent flap and wound our way through a seemingly endless maze of multicolored tents, dusty and filthy, the sounds of sex and exploitation endlessly hammering on our ears. Finally, we stopped, and Kandal smiled at me again, raising one finger to his lips in a shushing motion. He gently pulled back one corner of the tent flap, and when I tried to look away, he braced himself by placing one foot between my legs and putting his hands on either side of my head, forcing me to look. “Open your eyes,” he hissed. I ignored him, and he shook my head roughly. “Open them, or I’ll kill your son.” I opened my eyes and watched as, indeed, worse than this unfolded before me.

The women who’d just been taken from my caravan were all inside of the tent. Some of them were being hosed down and scrubbed by other women, hard faced and old and rough. They doubled over, trying to no avail to cover themselves. There was no question, looking at the excited faces of the fat man and his cronies, of the fate of these servants. I didn’t want to witness it.

“Please, please,” I said, tears streaming down my face. “No more. I understand. I won’t try to leave.”

Kandal shook my head. “Do you promise?”

“Yes, yes, I promise,” I choked, and finally, he let the tent flap close. He drug me back to my own pink tent, mercifully empty, and I collapsed beside Agatha, taking Forrest into my arms, and cried into his baby-soft hair.