Part 8 (1/2)

They were young, these two Spanish women, and therefore valu able. They hissed slyly to one another without end and shaded their faces with tattered shawls.

On the other side of the mules, proudly isolated, strode Djoura the black Berber, with Raphael stumbling after.

She went fast: as fast as any mule desired to walk. Hakiim watched her without moving his head.

Now there was a valuable property. Perfecto didn't understand how valuable Djoura was, being blinded by the Spaniard's distaste for black skin. But the woman was young, straight, immensely strong, and had all her teeth. And pretty, too, if one could look past her scowl.

Still, she talked like a Berber.Hakiim was not a Moor of Granada, but a Moor of Tunis, and he knew that in the far south there WERE blacks accepted as Berbers. A few.

I worry too much, he thought to himself. And immediately the eunuch bobbed into view, presenting himself to Hakiim's attention.

Djoura had been very industrious, and now the gangling creature wore not a shapeless gown but a pair of baggy women's pants. Where did she get them? His gaze darted back to the moving tent that was the black woman.

She must have been wearing them, all this time. Hakiim itched to know what Djoura WAS wearing.

He had seen her naked, of course, in Tunis. He was too downy a fellow to purchase a woman on the strength of flas.h.i.+ng black eyes and a white smile. (No. Snarl.) But he hadn't then paid attention to the dusky pile of cloth on the pavement beside her.

Hakiim itched to know Djoura in other ways, too, but his instincts told him not to scratch. The world was full of women, with most of whom one did not require a club.

That eunuch too. Had he been raised for pleasure? Filthy degeneracy. Hakiim spat sideways, causing his mule's ears-long as the leaf spears of a palm-to rotate toward him.

But that sort of thing was done, and it was none of a merchant's business to lecture the world. And the tall boy, with his pink, hairless skin and his head as yellow as a b.u.t.tercup: He might still serve for any man who cared for idiots.

a.n.a.lytically the Moor regarded the eunuch's scourged back. Not bad, really. Not as bad as it had seemed at first, all covered with dried blood and with the gown stuck to it. Pale skin showed scars least.

He would have it covered with grease tonight.

If only they had a month instead of two days to reach Granada. Then the welts would have a chance to fade. Perhaps they should farm the creature out to sell later, or cheaper, keep him in a stable until the others were sold and he was ready to leave Granada.

But as Hakiim pondered and watched, the fair slave took a tumble, tripping over nothing at all.

Without sense to grab onto his chain, he let it tighten around his neck. Djoura's wrist was whipped back by the force of Raphael's fall, and she rushed back to him, where he lay flat out on the earth, making little gagging sounds and clawing at his throat with his left hand. The right still clutched his pebble firmly.

No, whispered the Moor to himself Nothing could be worth keeping him another month. Nothing.

Perfecto pulled his steed up beside Hakiim. The serpent of women jingled to a stop. The Spaniard's yellow eye swept over the creature he had purchased, growing more glazed as they stared.

Raphael tottered again to his feet. Djoura examined his knees for bruises and brushed him off. Once more the mule train ambled forward, with the serpent shuffling beside.

”Do you think,” Hakiim casually asked his partner, ”that maybe our black lily has had children before?

She certainly knows how to mother.”

Perfecto had an odd complexion, which the sun tended to darken toward orange. He turned his yellow eye upon the Moor. ”If she had, she wouldn't be acting this way. She'd have got it out of her system.”

Dust deadened the color of what greenery grew beside the road; the berries of the juniper had lost their gloss. To the right of the road the land swept downward, and through the gaps in the stones glimpses of small, summer-blasted pools were visible. Those which were more water than mud scattered a sunflash so bright it hurt the observers eye.

Dust clogged Hakiim's nostrils and stung his cracked lips. Perfecto must be suffering worse, the Moor thought, in his Spanish singlet and s.h.i.+rt which left the back of his neck and his few square inches of forehead exposed to the sun. Hakiim regarded his partner's squat form a.n.a.lytically.

The fellow actually LOOKED the part of an ill-tempered man: rolls of fat under his neck burned the color of a village pot, little hands darkening the mule's leather reins with sweat, eyes like those of a pig.

Had Perfecto always looked like that? (Had August always been so hot?) Three years the partners had plied their trade together, buying domestics and selling them. Eight times had Hakiim made the voyage tothe markets of Africa and returned to Granada with exotics. Eight times had Perfecto disappeared into the wilds of Spain and reappeared with oddly a.s.sorted women. It was possible he crossed into Christian lands to gather his merchandise. If so, the Spaniard was ready to risk a lot for money.

More than Hakiim was, at any rate.

Eight times was enough, the Moor decided. Dealing with slaves had given him a certain sense about people, or developed a sense that all are born with. Hakiim could smell when a slave was mad, and when she was dangerous. And he could usually estimate the amount of danger involved.

So with Djoura, Hakiim felt no fear, but neither did he get too close. With the idiot eunuch (not mad, only confused) there was no danger except that of soiling one's clothes.

But Hakiim dropped his mule back behind Perfecto and he watched his partner. Eight times was enough.

Why don't you die, Perfecto silently asked his new acquisition as the eunuch followed Djoura, alternately stumbling and scampering at the end of his iron chain. After a few hours the fellow had learned to hold the links in his hands so that he was not choked every time the black caught him unawares.

If only the creature had curled up and died last night: of cold or of injuries or merely of Satan's malignity. He certainly looked ready to be carried off, with his breath panting and his blue eyes rolling and all the flies on his back. If he had died, then Perfecto would have had the perfect excuse for Satan, and he would not be sitting there now in such a sick funk of worry that his bowels were churning and his collar seemed too tight.

What sort of creature was it? One of Satan's human servants who had failed his task? (Perfecto had never YET failed, he reminded himself.) A recreant priest, perhaps? The robe he had been sold in had a clerical cut. The Spaniard shuddered, and his mule replied in sympathy.

He could be anything-even a eunuch. Perfecto had announced him a eunuch, certainly, but that had been only to smooth over the inconvenience of his arrival in the pack train. He had expected Hakiim would discover the untruth of this claim within minutes, upon which Perfecto would proclaim himself ill-used by the seller and would promise to have this mistake rectified in Granada.

But Hakiim had trusted his word. How odd. And Djoura had said nothing. He glanced mistrustfully at the black woman.

Well, maybe Perfecto had told the truth by accident. The demon had not said the man was entire, after all, and Perfecto hadn't bothered to pull off the gore-soaked dress. Why shouldn't Satan be served by eunuchs?

But what if he were neither a gelded man nor entire? It was still possible the n.o.ble fair head would blossom into a thing of horror and teeth.

Tonight Perfecto would sleep under a crucifix, if any of the women possessed such a device. If not, he would piece together a cross of some sort, even if only two sticks. Let the cursed paynim laugh!

Perfecto was sick to death of Hakiim's sneers and slurs and Moorish pretense. If he had his way...

Come to think of it, it might be figured that Satan owed him something for disposing of the blond. (If it was not a trick. If it was not a trick.) Once the lot of them were sold in Granada. Once the money was in his hands... It would not be difficult to find another partner.

Perfecto embarked on a reverie which imparted a much sweeter expression to his face. Hakiim was emboldened to speak.

”You know how I call it, Perfecto? You want to hear the order in which they will sell, for how much and to whom?”

Perfecto returned to the breathless, stifling present. ”Oh, not that again.”

”Why not?” the Moor replied. ”Am I not always correct? About both the money and the buyer? I have a knack for these things...

”First,” Hakiim continued, urging his mount up to his partner's, ”the larger of the two locals will go, because her age will make her cheap and yet she is sound. To a miller or a weaver perhaps: some small businessman who doesn't want any fight in his bondswomen.”The Saqalibah will go next, but not together. As domestics, is my guess: all of them. The little local will sell after that, for a good price and to a peasant.

”The old woman? I don't know, but I think we'll keep her longest. Depends how many households are looking for goosegirls or goatherds this summer.”

Perfecto listened to this involved prophecy without a murmur. He didn't give a d.a.m.n, himself, as long as the sale produced enough gold to take one man (one man) from Granada to some place far away. But it occurred to him that Hakiim had made a large omission.

”What about the black? Don't you think we can sell her at all?”