In High Places

by Harry Turtledove

  "If you want to show off how clever you are, you'll end up in trouble," another woman predicted.

  "If you need to show off, you aren't as clever as you think you are," Annette said. "I didn't mean that. But if you act helpless and foolish all the time, what will happen to you?"

  "You'll catch a man, and he'll take care of you." The other woman looked down her nose at Annette. "Well, you probably won't. Your tongue is too sharp."

  "I'd rather have a sharp tongue than an empty head," Annette said. The other woman squealed. For a second, Annette thought she'd end up in a fight, which she hadn't done since she was in the fourth grade. She remembered using that judo throw against one of the slavers—it was about the last thing she did remember for a while. The other woman would fly through the air with the greatest of ease, too, if she came after her.

  But she didn't. She just said, "You'll find out," and went back to her spinning.

  Most of the time, the comeback would only have annoyed Annette. The way things were, it held too much truth for comfort. One way or another, she would find out, and sooner, not later. Before long, there would be another auction, and someone would buy her. Then she would see firsthand what slavery was like. If she ever escaped, that might come in handy as research. If she didn't. . .

  Or maybe no one would buy her, and she'd have to come back to the barracks. Would that be better or worse? She had a hard time deciding. At least she wouldn't turn into property. But she would have to face the humiliating notion that nobody wanted her, even as a slave.

  A slave. Back when she was training, they'd warned her, Anything that can happen to anyone else in that alternate can happen to you. Oh, she was immunized against diseases the locals could catch. Drinking the water probably wouldn't give her the galloping trots. She had had insect repellent to keep away bedbugs and lice. Now she didn't, and she itched. But the idea that they could sell her in the market square like a kilo of corned beef seemed ridiculous.

  In the home timeline, it would have been. They took slavery for granted here. The only time the locals saw anything wrong with it was when they were being sold instead of doing the buying. To Annette, that was the wrong attitude. The thing was wrong all the time. Why couldn't they see it?

  The home timeline had slaves, too. But its slaves had plugs or batteries. In this alternate, as in so many others, they didn't have machines to do things for them. They had to use people instead. And they did, and they didn't lose a minute's sleep over how unfair and evil it was.

  It still didn't feel real to Annette, right up until the morning they took her out to the market square.

  Every so often, Jacques had had daydreams about buying a slave. Owning one would make life easier for him. It would also be a sign that he'd arrived, that he'd become somebody. He knew lots of people who had dreams like that. In fact, he hardly knew anybody who didn't.

  But who had daydreams about getting sold into slavery?

  They tied Jacques' hands together behind him. They tied his left leg to Musa ibn Ibrahim's left leg. They tied another man's left leg to Jacques'. When they had all the men who were going up for sale in a line, they marched them all out into the market square. It was a slow, awkward march. They had to get used to staying in step with one another. Nobody fell down, which would have made things even worse. Jacques stumbled once. Catching himself without flailing his arms wasn't easy, but he managed.

  Another line of luckless people was coming out of the women's barracks. Was Khadija there? Jacques smiled when he spotted her. A familiar face was nice. A familiar pretty face was nicer.

  Guards with matchlock muskets stood not far from the auctioneer's platform. Slow, small trails of smoke rose from the men's lengths of match. The matchlocks were ready to shoot. If anybody tried to get away—if anybody could try to get away—he (or she) would be sorry.

  Jacques looked out at the crowd in front of the platform. Some of the people out there would be customers. Others would just be out for a morning's entertainment. They would look over the men, ogle the women, and listen to the bidders going against one another. Then they would head off to their eateries and coffeehouses and gossip about what they'd seen and heard.

  The auctioneer stepped up onto the platform. He was a small, dapper man with spotless white robes and a neatly trimmed black beard with a few streaks of gray. Bowing to the crowd, he said, "Welcome, my masters, welcome, three times welcome." His voice was bigger and deeper than Jacques would have expected from a man his size. It easily filled the square. Bowing again, the auctioneer went on, "In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful, we have several fine lots of slaves to present to you this day."

  In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful. Where was the compassion here? Where was the mercy? Did the auctioneer even notice they were missing from what he did? Jacques didn't think so. Would he notice if he went up on the block himself instead of selling others? Jacques nodded to himself. Yes, very likely he would.

  Up went the first man out of the barracks. He was middle-aged and scrawny. "He will work hard for you," the auctioneer said, trying to make him sound as attractive as possible. "See how honest he looks?"

  Musa ibn Ibrahim laughed softly. "As if any slave is likely to be honest! Or is it different in your country, man who knows not lions?"

  "Not a bit," Jacques whispered back. Musa laughed again. Jacques didn't intend to be any more honest than he could help once he got sold. He owed himself more than he owed any master, especially one he hadn't chosen for himself.

  A few bids came in for the scrawny man. In spite of everything the auctioneer could do, he went for thirty dinars—less than half a pound of silver. That wasn't much of a price, and the auctioneer didn't look thrilled to get his silver. For that matter, the fellow who bought the scrawny man didn't look thrilled to have him.

  Up came another man. He looked as ordinary as the one who'd gone before him, but he said he was a skilled mason. A big man out in the crowd asked him a couple of questions. He answered without any trouble. "See how clever he is!" the auctioneer cried. "He will do well for you!" The second man did better for the auctioneer, bringing in almost twice what the scrawny fellow had sold for. The big man who'd questioned him sent a flunky up with the money.

  The big man bought several other slaves, including a couple of Musa's countrymen. He and an older fellow bid against each other time after time. More often than not, the big man outspent his rival. The older man looked less and less happy each time it happened. At last, he burst out, "A plague take you, Marwan! Have you all the silver in the world to call your own?"

  The big man bowed. "Not all of it, sir, but enough for my needs, for which I thank God. What man could ask for more?"

  "That is well said," declared the auctioneer, who didn't care where money came from as long as it came.

  'Ten years ago, who in Madrid had heard of Marwan al-Baghdadi?" the older man said, playing to the crowd. "Who? Anyone? And now he dares to bid against me—me, Hassan ibn Hussein! Has my family not led here for generations? Where is the justice?"

  "I have silver. I earned it honestly. I am free to spend it as I see fit," Marwan replied. "That's justice, as I see it." He had backers in the crowd, too, and they nodded and clapped their hands.

  Hassan ibn Hussein frowned. "Silver goes only so far, sir. There is also blood."

  Jacques would have agreed with that, but Marwan didn't. "Blood says your great-great-great-great-grandfather made your family's silver," he answered, politely but firmly. "It says nothing about what kind of man you are yourself. But silver you've earned on your own—well, that may say you have done well in the world."

  His followers clapped again. They weren't rich enough to buy slaves, but they probably dreamt of the days when they would be. Hassan ibn Hussein muttered under his breath. He didn't say anything more, not out loud. But when the next man came up on the block, he bid the fellow's price up and up, even though the new slave didn't look very strong and didn't seem very smart. />
  His last bid raised the price to more than three times what the man looked to be worth. He glared over at Marwan al-Baghdadi, waiting for him to bump things up still further. By the way Hassan's eyes gleamed, he thought they'd both put their prestige on the line over the slave. Maybe he thought so, but Marwan didn't. With a smile and a bow, he said, "He's all yours, my friend."

  Hassan ibn Hussein gaped. He looked like a fish just pulled from the water. Marwan had left him as high and dry as if he were a fish just pulled from the water. Now he had to lay out all that silver on a slave who wasn't worth it. That left him less money to buy slaves he really wanted at prices he could really afford to pay.

  "That is an angry man," Musa ibn Ibrahim whispered to Jacques. "I hope he doesn't buy me. He would make me pay for his own folly."

  Looking at the fearsome scowl on Hassan's face, Jacques nodded. "He tried to make this Marwan into a fool, but Marwan turned the tables on him."

  A helper undid the rope that bound Musa's leg to Jacques. The black man got up on the platform. "See what a fine figure of a man we have here!" the auctioneer exclaimed. He asked Musa, "How were you taken?"

  "In war. I was unlucky. It was the will of God," Musa answered.

  "Do you see? He speaks Arabic well, and he is a pious man," the auctioneer called to the crowd. "He will work hard for you!"

  Marwan al-Baghdadi bid on Musa. So did a couple of other men. Hassan ibn Hussein kept out of the auction. Marwan won it, and probably paid a little less than Musa might have brought.

  That helper undid the rope between Jacques and the man behind him. He gave Jacques a little push, muttering, "Go on." Jacques went. He took his place where the others for sale had stood before him.

  "See how white and fair he is!" the auctioneer said. "A Frank from the North!" Muslims called all Christians Franks, after the vanished Kingdom of France. The auctioneer eyed him. "Do you speak Arabic, fellow? Do you understand it?"

  "No, I'm sorry, your Excellency, but I don't understand even a word of Arabic," Jacques answered—in Arabic.

  The auctioneer threw back his head and laughed. "Clever as well as fair!" he said, and looked back to the crowd. "How much for this big, strong, smart slave? He will be a foreman in a few years, if God is kind."

  Hassan ibn Hussein opened the bidding. Another man raised it a couple of dinars. Then Marwan al-Baghdadi spoke up. Jacques hoped Marwan would buy him, as much because the man was a great traveler as for any other reason. He'd come here to Madrid all the way from far-off, fabled Baghdad.

  Hassan and Marwan and two other men bid Jacques' price up and up. When it got over a pound of silver, the other men dropped out, first one, then the other. At not quite a pound and a half of silver, Hassan sent Marwan a look that should have killed him. Marwan smiled back, which only made Hassan angrier. Angry or not, he threw both hands in the air instead of raising his bid again.

  "Going once! Going twice! Sold!" the auctioneer chanted, and pointed toward Marwan al-Baghdadi. "Sold to this fine gentleman here!" He shoved Jacques, not too hard. "Go to your new master. Serve him well." Jacques got down off the platform. One of Marwan's men took charge of him. The fellow tied his left leg back to that of Musa, the last slave Marwan had bought.

  "There," the man said, straightening up. "You're not going anywhere."

  "No, I suppose not." Jacques hoped that sounded like a nice, meek answer. No, he wasn't going anywhere—not unless he saw a chance.

  Annette had expected it to be ladies first, but it wasn't. They sold the men before they got around to the women. She had to stand out in the sun for two or three hours before things started happening with her. It wasn't torture or anything. The day was warm, but it wasn't hot. A man with a clay jar of water and a dipper went up and down the line. The waiting women could have a drink whenever they wanted to. The water in that jar was surprisingly cool. Had the jar been metal, the water would have been warmer. Sure enough, evaporation caused cooling, just the way they said it did in physics.

  She watched Jacques get sold. He got down off the platform and went over to his new owner. Like the others who got sold, he didn't seem especially upset. This was part of life here—not a part anybody liked, but a part everybody knew how to handle. Annette didn't—couldn't—understand it. Why weren't they all screaming their heads off? This was wrong. And so it was, to her. But not to them.

  Then the women started going up on the block. The auctioneer made his dumb jokes. He asked them questions about what they'd been before they got caught. If their answers showed they had two brain cells to rub together, he praised them to the skies. He wanted them to go for high prices, because that meant his commission went up.

  Every so often, mostly with women who said they'd had children, he would look at their teeth. Whenever he did, Annette would grind hers. He really might have been selling horses up there, not human beings at all.

  Except he was. And her own turn came closer every time someone else stepped down from the platform. And then she was stepping up onto it. "Here is a fine girl, good for all sorts of things!" the auctioneer said, and then, "Tell them your name, sweetheart."

  "I am not your sweetheart, God be praised," Annette said coldly, which only made him chuckle. She went on, "I am Khadija, daughter of the merchant Muhammad al-Marsawi. If you send to Marseille, my father will pay far more than I cost to ransom me."

  "There you go!" The auctioneer beamed at her. He beamed out at the crowd. "Hear that, my friends? Do you hear that? Spend a little money now, make more money later. How can you go wrong?" He looked back at Annette. "So you're a merchant's daughter, are you? What can you do?"

  "I read and write Arabic and French," she said, adding, "I speak French, too," in that language. Returning to Arabic, she went on, "And I can cipher. I could keep your books better than whatever cheating fool you use now."

  The auctioneer blinked. Annette wondered if she'd laid it on too thick. Women here weren't usually able to do things like that. If they could, they weren't supposed to brag about it. "Hear what a clever maid this is!" the auctioneer cried after that little startled pause. "You can put her to the test, if you like. And if she fails, by God, you can beat her as she deserves!"

  Out in the crowd, men were nodding. If a donkey balked, they would beat it to make it go. And if a slave failed, they would beat him—or her, too. Why not? A slave was just as much their property as a donkey was.

  "What am I bid, then?" the auctioneer called. "If she is as good as she says she is—and I believe her—you will get your money's worth from her even if you never see a copper of this ransom."

  It boiled down to Hassan ibn Hussein against Marwan al-Baghdadi. She thought the older man wanted her for the ransom, the younger one for what she could do. She hoped Hassan would win—that gave her a better chance of getting free. But Marwan seemed to have more silver than he knew what to do with. Every time Hassan bid, Marwan raised the price. Finally, a horrible look on his face, Hassan turned away. "Going once!" the auctioneer called. "Going twice! . . . Sold!"

  Numbly, Annette got down off the platform. Sold. She'd been sold.

  Jacques was glad Marwan had also bought Khadija. At least there would be someone else he knew in the household. He had no idea how often he would have the chance to see her, but you could often work those things out. A lot of the time, it just depended on getting in good with a steward or a butler or maybe a head cook. He would have to look around and see which way the wind blew.

  After the auction was over, Marwan paraded his new slaves through the streets of Madrid. Here as in the Kingdom of Versailles, you showed off if you were a rich man. Showing off was a big part of being rich. And the story of how he'd outbid Hassan ibn Hussein time after time would race through the city faster than wind-whipped fire. His prestige would rise. Hassan's would fall.

  Marwan himself swaggered along at the head of the procession. He was having fun, laughing and joking with passersby and throwing coins to beggars and cripples and children.

&
nbsp; "He acts like a prince, or a man who wants to be a prince," Musa ibn Ibrahim whispered.

  "He does, doesn't he?" Jacques said. "I wonder what the men who are princes in this city will say to that."

  "My very thought," Musa agreed. "I wonder what they will say after Hassan ibn Hussein whispers in their ears. And he will whisper in them, unless he shouts in them instead."

  "Nothing we can do about that," Jacques said, and Musa nodded. What could a slave do about anything? Not much. Back in Paris, Jacques could have whispered into Duke Raoul's ear. The duke might not have paid any attention to him—but then again, he might have. Here, the only people Jacques knew were Musa and Khadija, and they were both slaves, too.

  "Almost there," one of Marwan al-Baghdadi's men called.

  From up on a roof or behind a shuttered window, someone said, "More slaves for the demons to eat up!"

  "I don't like the sound of that," Jacques said. "I hope he's just a friend of Hassan ibn Hussein's."

  "I fear no demons," Musa said stoutly. "As long as I worship God, how can demons harm me?" But in spite of his bold words, the black man nervously looked this way and that. Jacques wondered what he thought demons looked like. Jacques had thought they looked like him.

  Marwan's man laughed. "Pay no heed to what foolish folk say. Sometimes we take slaves out to my master's country estates while it is still dark, so they can start work as soon as the sun comes up. The ignorant and lazy do not see them go, and so they think something bad has happened to them. In the name of God, it is a lie."

  That sounded fair enough. All the same, Jacques would have scratched his head if his hands weren't tied behind his back. What the hidden man had said was so strange, he didn't know what to make of it. If someone had warned him that he'd be beaten or that he wouldn't get enough to eat, those threats would have made sense. But talk about demons? He supposed Madrid had its share of crazy people, like any other place.