The Empire Stone

by Chris Bunch

  Peirol had never considered slavery more than a natural part of the world like sunrise and wine, since he of course would never become one. He felt sorry for the slave with a harsh master, and for the poor traveler or soldier who got caught in a slaver’s snares. Suddenly he realized being another’s property, having to do his bidding forever, would be his doom. For an instant he thought of hurling himself overside, but his good sense caught him. There was always a way out, always something a clever man could do to improve or change his lot. And certainly Peirol of the Moorlands was a clever man….

  • • •

  The slave market was a natural amphitheater in the center of Beshkirs. Stone slave pens that could hold one or a hundred bodies were behind the block, which was large enough to stage a masque. Milling around the front of the block were the traders and hangers-on, exchanging raucous jeering, insults, and lewdness. Behind them, row on row, rose seats where other, slightly more dignified spectators watched and bought.

  The pens were crowded with men and women, of a dozen shades and, it seemed, a hundred races. There were few children, and only two or three older men or women. Peirol assumed the old ones had some highly marketable skill, fairly sure what had happened to the middle-aged and ugly.

  He asked one of the guards about Zaimis, but no one knew her either by name or description. Peirol assumed either Kanen had kept the woman or, since his reputed love was more for gold than sex, had successfully ransomed her to Aulard, her intended husband. He wished her well and hoped her marriage would be happier than he feared, given what Edirne had said.

  The auctioneer, Jirl, was a fat, jovial man who carried a heavy staff and kept matters moving quickly. Someone would be pushed up the stairs by the two guards, who wore studded, weighted gloves and had clubs and daggers at their belt, and blink bewilderedly or try to fix a smile while Jirl rattled off details of the person and announced a floor bid.

  Young men, young women, pulled in the highest prices. Sometimes Jirl would allow a dealer or two onto the block, let him — and the dealers were always men — prod and pry the offering. Peirol noted when the man or woman was particularly attractive, however, none of these pit traders were allowed that indignity, no doubt to avoid soiling the merchandise.

  He saw one trader of average build, quite normal looking, who bid just on children. Peirol, wondering what they’d be used for, saw the man’s expression after his successful bid for a rather handsome boy about eight, shuddered, and looked away.

  “TWO GIRLS,” Jirl bellowed, and two young women — light-skinned, white-blonde, in their early teens — were brought up. “Cirmantian, asserted to be virgins.”

  There was a howl of disbelief from the pit.

  “Also purported to be of noble birth. Brought in by Lord Whaal, one of our most honorable dealers, who advises they have just been brought from their homelands, and neither has ever been a slave. A condition of offer is they are to be sold together. These are prime, my friends, and so I’ll start at five hundred gold coins. Each.”

  More lustful shouts, two men shouted offers, and the price rose and rose. A man, richly dressed, waved a fan.

  “This is good, this is exciting, my friends,” Jirl called. “Baron Clarmen is pleased to offer two thousand as a preemptive bid … wait, I see an offer from Lord Nonac for three, three-five, four, four-five, eight, eight is the bid, eight, eight,” and Jirl thudded the staff on the block, “and Baron Clarmen has two of the most beautiful, uh, house servants I’ve seen for many a day.”

  And so it went. Only one man struggled, and he was quickly bashed down and dragged back to his pen.

  The sailors from the Petrel were brought out in a block, and bidding from the upper tiers was brisk. They were sold to a man Jirl called Captain T’thang, and vanished from Peirol’s life.

  Then it was his turn on the block.

  “An interesting specimen, here,” Jirl called. “Like the last lot, brought to us by Lord Kanen. This man is reportedly a skilled jeweler, and would certainly make his owner wealthy. Handsome, healthy, young — I’m afraid I’ll have to start with an opening bid of … six hundred gold coins.”

  “Dwarves ain’t good luck,” someone called.

  “I don’t believe that,” Jirl said. “Bid on this man, and prove the tattle-talk wrong.”

  “If he’s a jeweler, has he been checked by the guild?” a well-dressed man said. “Has Niazbeck approved his sale? I’d hate to try to market this man’s work without approval from the Jewelers’ Guild.”

  Jirl looked worried. “Magnate Niazbeck was supposed to be here, but his appearance seems delayed.”

  “He’s off makin’ noises with his toys,” someone called.

  “On condition Magnate Niazbeck approves, do I have five hundred gold pieces?”

  “He the man who killed somebody when he was took, after th’ ship ran down its colors?”

  “I’m, uh, not aware of any such report,” Jirl said, stammering a bit.

  There was silence.

  “Four hundred. Do I have four hundred? Three hundred. Two … come now, someone, anyone, make an offer for this valuable artisan.”

  But no one spoke. Jirl smashed the staff down. “Remove him — next offering.”

  Peirol of the Moorlands was given back to Lord Kanen, and became a galley slave.

  • • •

  He was taken to the white stone barracks, given a numbered disk and a chain to hang it around his neck, told this was his mustering number and that he would be whipped if he was ever found without it. A barred door was opened, and he was led into a long cage that was a sally port into the three-storied barracks with a huge central area and open cells at each level. The room was full of men, bearded, hair untrimmed, wearing everything from rags to soiled finery. A few — and Peirol noticed these were smaller, thinner than the others — were naked.

  He sighed, knowing after what a couple of Koosh Begee’s thieves had told him about prisons what was likely to come next. The inner door was unlocked; Peirol walked into the main room, and the door clanged shut. There were shouts, catcalls about dwarves, nothing Peirol hadn’t heard from street urchins for years and years. He kept his back close to the cage, waited.

  One of the better-dressed bullies swaggered up, flanked by three others. “Pay or strip!”

  “Pardon?” Peirol asked politely.

  “The way things are,” a satellite thug explained in a not-uneducated voice. “If you have copper, or a bit of silver, Guran and we’ll make sure you’re taken care of, not hurt, get food when they serve it. If you’re skint, your clothes’ll serve for payment. I fancy that tunic — the embroiderin’ll look good on me.”

  “So give,” Guran demanded.

  “And,” another of his men said, “we’ll have a look at that wee roll you’re luggin’.”

  Peirol began to slip out of his jacket. Guran beamed, and Peirol spat in his face. Guran recoiled, and Peirol raked the side of his foot down the man’s shinbone. He screamed, bent, and Peirol head-butted him in the face. Guran stumbled, fell on his back. His assistants were frozen. Hating what he had to do, but doing it, Peirol jumped forward and stamped hard on Guran’s throat with the side of his foot. He felt cartilage, bone crunch, and the man flopped, was dead.

  A sound came, somewhere between a hunting beast’s roar over his kill and astonishment.

  “You killed him,” Guran’s former toady whispered.

  “Did, didn’t I,” Peirol agreed, forcing toughness when he wanted to vomit. Keeping his eye on the other three, but not very worried that they’d jump him, he knelt, swiftly felt through the corpse’s pockets, found a scattering of copper, one gold and four silver coins, as well as a rather handy little knife that he pocketed.

  “Lord Kanen’ll have you skinned,” a watcher said.

  “No, he won’t,” Peirol said. “Guran slipped on the steps, fell. A true pity. I could tell he had signs of real leadership. Now listen well,” he said, raising his voice. “Somebody talks to the guards,
I’ll have time to get you before they take me away. But nobody talks. Who needed Guran, anyway? These assholes who sucked around him? Nobody else. New rule. Everybody leaves everybody else alone. Or else I’ll sic my new jackals here on you.

  “Now you — ”

  “Habr,” Guran’s former aide said.

  “Habr. Show me to Guran’s cell. That’ll do for me.”

  • • •

  As Peirol had expected, none of the guards were very interested in the circumstances of the late Guran’s passing. He kept the plug-uglies around, to alert him when the guards checked the upper tier and to get food and drink. He warned that any bullying he saw would be dealt with in the same manner as he’d handled Guran. Peirol wasn’t naive enough to think the prison had become a delight of civilization, but life appeared quieter.

  After a day’s thought, peering deeply into the heart of the best diamond he had, which he’d heard gave strength, Peirol had an idea. He set out his tools, wishing he had either a pedal- or sorcery-powered lathe. He also lacked a crucible to melt and cast, so he gave one of his goons a silver coin and an iron spoon and set him to tapping the edge of the coin, turning it regularly hour after hour. Slowly the edge metal flattened, and the coin became a ring two finger-widths wide, needing only its center drilled out.

  Peirol mixed glue from his roll, fastened a diamond to a stick, improvised a tiny vise, then began spinning that diamond against another, more perfect greenish-yellow gem, slowly cutting the stone round: what was known as girdling, or, in the case of this already worked gem, perfecting the “bearded,” poorly rounded girdle it’d already had.

  That finished, he used ink to mark where he’d make cuts, then glued the stone into a little cup. His “working” stone was used to cut a groove into the first diamond along the ink cuts. With his specially made cleaving knife, he made ready to cut the diamond.

  About to strike the knife with an iron rod that’d been a cell bar, he whispered a prayer, aimed at whatever god or gods reigned in this land that he didn’t much believe in. He was sweating slightly, just as he did whenever he made the first cut on a stone.

  Peirol was very glad that he had never had to cut a great diamond, remembering the legend about the master cutter given a great stone who studied it, its lines, its grain, for a year, readied himself for the first cut, made it perfectly, and fell dead from the strain. Peirol didn’t believe the story and had a perfectly strong heart; but still, he was glad he hadn’t yet had to test it.

  He struck, and the diamond split as he wanted. Again he made a cut, and another cut, checking each facet. Then all that remained was to polish the stone with diamond dust and olive oil, detail the silver and cut its center out, and set the stone, and it would be ready as bait.

  But the next dawn there was a tumult, and the slaves were turned out. Lord Kanen was ready to put to sea, on another pre-season raid, and Peirol’s education began.

  • • •

  A wing — ten galleys — pulled away from the wharf, Peirol’s galley, the Ocean Spell, flanking Lord Kanen’s Slayer. There was chanting from magicians afloat and ashore, and bands blared, and smoke of many colors plumed up from the harbor forts, gathered together, twisted and showed a magical sign of great good luck.

  Peirol was told he was lucky not being assigned to Lord Kanen’s galley, since the lord loved battle even more than gold and insisted his ship always be in the forefront. He was not that lucky, because he was taken by Callafo, Kanen’s wizard, who was almost as battle-thirsty as his master, but who loudly said that dwarves were lucky.

  Peirol was wondering where the hells these tales about dwarves came from. He’d heard none on the moors of Cenwalk nor in Sennen, and he thought wryly that anyone who considered his current state certainly should doubt the validity of the claim.

  He learned other names to dread: the oarmaster, Barnack; the captain of the guard, Runo, and the ship captain, Penrith. The latter, he was told, seldom deigned to worry about galley slaves, “but ye’re doomed if he does.” But Callafo and Barnack were the most dreaded, Barnack because he was their immediate master and punisher; Callafo because he loved to see the lash come down, and would delight in having an oarsman whipped for any reason, or for no reason whatsoever. Callafo considered it a special delight if the slave died under the lash, and had been heard to say it would help his magic.

  There were five slaves to a bench, the bench extending somewhat over the sleek side of the galley on the wooden superstructure. Along the outboard side of this decking was a huge thole pin beside each bench. The oars were in three pieces, the blade being separate, the shaft being in two parts, lashed around the thole pin, then the inner third, which would be lighter than the other pieces, with iron cleats for the oarsmen to pull on. An argument could always be made as to what kind of wood was best for the oars, but the longest-serving slaves held for beech, for its strength and flexibility. That mattered, because a lesser wood might be snapped by a storm wave and the jagged end flail the benches like a huge, murderous club.

  Each slave was manacled at the ankle, a chain leading to a staple firmly mounted in the bench. Rowers stood, or in the case of the outer oarsmen, half-bent, pulling until they came back against the bench, leaned far back, then pushing down and coming back to their feet, bringing the oar forward for the next stroke. Slaves argued endlessly, in whispers, one eye cocked for the oarmaster and his whip, as to which was the worst rowing position.

  Farthest outboard was generally agreed to be the worst, being the wettest and hardest on the back, since anyone of a proper size was forced to row half-bent. Closest inboard was the second worst, since that was nearest to the oarmaster’s whip. In between was most crowded.

  “Crowded” was distinctly relative — the whole galley was crowded, three hundred or more slaves at the oars, with another two hundred soldiers, sailors, officers, and guards, all squirming for position like drowsy snakes when night fell afloat. That was one reason the galleys tried to beach themselves at night, although their fragility was even a greater one. A galley, Peirol heard, would be considered a credit to its builder if it lasted six seasons.

  He asked what happened in the seventh. Another slave gave him a scornful look. “You drown when the ship breaks up, stupid. Or if you’re unlucky you end up floating on the end of your bench, feeling the sharks nibble. Or if you’re even less lucky, they pull you out alive, or your tub’s scrapped, and you’re pulling from a new bench. Best of all is if you’re killed in your first campaign.” The slave had been on the galleys, Peirol found, for thirty-seven years.

  The jest was that no slave had to worry about trimming his beard — the oar was the best razor, never letting facial foliage grow beyond mid-chest.

  Peirol was further unlucky, he learned, because he was set to the third oar, starboard side, of the twenty-five on each side. In a sea, this close to the bow would be very wet, and in battle one of the most likely to be smashed by a ramming enemy. “Or, since you’re next to the great gun, to get your guts scattered if the godsdamned gunner makes a mistake and uses too much powder and blows himself up, or the swivel gunner beside him gets excited and puts your sorry ass between the muzzle and his target,” he was informed.

  Being short, Peirol was given the outboard station, able to begin his stroke standing. He thought he preferred to be half-drowned rather than lashed. He wasn’t foolish enough to say he wouldn’t stand for the whip, but he remembered his father’s beatings.

  Peirol’s world was now nothing but the oar, to be pulled until he died and went overboard without ceremony or until the gods smiled. “And guess, little man,” a guard said, grinning, “which is most likely to happen first?”

  Peirol watched his fellows; learned that when the first drumbeat thumped, the oar came down into the water and was pulled through; then, at the second beat, was lifted, feathered, and pushed forward for the next stroke. At first it wasn’t bad, then his muscles began to strain, then screamed. Peirol was, in spite of his strength, beginning to
hurt, and worried about the oarmaster’s lash.

  But then drums thundered twice. The oars were lifted and brought inboard, and sailors lashed them down. Peirol heard a great slatting, and the huge squaresails were unfurled and took the wind.

  Then there was nothing to do but talk, which the wizard Callafo didn’t mind. Peirol’s oarmates were — from inboard to his station — Baltit, a rangy ex-sailor, condemned to the oars for killing a man in a waterfront brawl (“He had a knife, I had a bar stool, wouldn’t have come to aught but he was a nobleman’s favorite and I wasn’t”); Cornovil, a soldier with no discernible talents, captured on one of Beshkirs’s interminable wars; Ostyaks, who no one knew much about, since he seldom spoke; and Quipus, who was noble and, Peirol quickly realized, quite mad, in a civil sort of way.

  Quipus turned to Peirol after they were told to rest, introduced himself, asked Peirol’s name, then said calmly, “When ‘twere done, it was done well, if not a-purpose, for surely I hold no greater fealty than to Lord Poolvash, a man of great talents, certainly in recognizing me, and granting me station above all others, and surely you, being a dwarf of discernment, would hardly believe me guilty of what I’m accused of.”

  “Which is?” Peirol asked cautiously.

  “No, no,” Quipus said, “you’re right, there’s not a chance of it being anything other than a poor casting, or perhaps that damnable gunner double-charged, or, oh yes, I have it, it must have been a miscast ball, damme for using one of the new-cast ones, instead of the reliable stone sort I’ve grown accustomed to, perhaps the greater weight of the cast ball stressed the bronze, or no, no, it must’ve been a bad casting, casting, I vow the artisan, and I hate to gift the damnable fool with that, the man at the foundry must’ve had his eyes on a whore’s skirts, or perhaps, greatest shame of all, was away from his station, futtering his heart away, leaving me with the shame, shame of it all, being thought a murderer, a plotter, the shame, the shame.”