Nature's Servant

by Duncan Pile

  She had grown up in snowy, mountainous Beran, and was apparently typical of her race - tall and fair-skinned with blond hair and blue eyes. It was a country rich in natural resources, its slopes covered in thick forests which supplied wood for their towns and cities. They kept sheep and long-horned cattle, and the land was plentiful with game. She had grown up the child of the mayor and mayoress of a small but prosperous coastal town called Lunt, and she had been betrothed to her childhood sweetheart, Keil, an apprentice to the town blacksmith.

  It took several days for her to share even these few details, and Jonn patiently listened, stopping her only to ask clarifying questions. As she shared the innocuous stories of her childhood, she gained in confidence, until one day, when she felt safe enough, she told him the whole harrowing tale of how she ended up in Helioport.

  Forty-Five

  The day Adela’s life had been destroyed had dawned much like any other. The sun was shining, the sheep were bleating, and if not for the fleet of ships sailing into the harbour, everything was exactly as it ought to be. When scores of filthy men swarmed onto the quayside like ants spilling from a disturbed anthill, and ran through the town like a tide of destruction, the well-ordered life she had once known was torn down piece by piece, until she had nothing left at all.

  The invaders were the fabled Ghannai, a nomadic race that live on the ocean, raiding ships and coastal towns. She had always known of them of course, but only as a story parents scared their children with to coerce them into behaving:

  “If you’re a bad girl the Ghannai will come and take you,” was a threat that sent small children scurrying for their bedcovers throughout the region. She had never really believed in them, but on the day her town was raided, when her parents and lover were killed before her eyes, when she was raped and captured as a slave, she’d discovered the ugly truth behind the fable. Everything had changed that day. She’d been ripped from a comfortable, privileged existence and bound in the heavy chains of slavery.

  The pirates’ interest in her was first and foremost a financial one. A girl of her beauty would sell well in the underground slave auctions of Namert, a metropolis in the far north-western regions of Antropel where slavery, though technically illegal, was tolerated by the notoriously corrupt officials of that city state. The pecuniary interest didn’t stop the pirates from taking their pleasure with her while they had her in their possession, however, and Adela’s suffering was drawn out mercilessly at the hands of cruel men.

  She was kept with other girls like herself, a collection of battered beauties that never failed to flinch when the door to their tiny cabin opened. Sometimes it was to bring food and water, but more often than not it was some drunken pirate coming to take a girl back to his bunk. The first time one of the men tried to use her, he made the mistake of leaving her hands untied and had lost an eye to her gouging fingers. She had thought she was dead then, and would have welcomed it, but the captain wouldn’t allow valuable property to be destroyed and her misery had continued. She was a popular choice among the men, and hardly a day went by without her being forced to surrender her body to some lusting invader. The worst time was when the man she had half-blinded had recovered sufficiently to revisit her. He returned wearing a blood-stained eye-patch, and after tying her hands so tightly her wrists began to bleed, he made her pay dearly for the loss of his eye.

  After a while the abuse wore away her will, and the lack of light, food and exercise took their toll, making her sick in body and in spirit, but even the developing sores and lesions spreading through the once-private spaces of her body didn’t put the most determined men off. Eventually the captain stepped in, banning the men from using her for the remainder of the voyage. It might have looked like an act of mercy, but Adela knew the real reason for her protection. A ruined sex-slave sold for much less gold than a healthy one.

  The captain, known as the Gentleman by his crew on account of his fastidious habits, began to allow her up on deck to get some air, closely guarded of course, in case she decided to jump ship and embrace oblivion. He made sure she was given fruit to eat and plenty of water to drink as well as providing her with a healing ointment to rub on her body. He even entertained her in his cabin, and to her surprise, never forced himself on her. He was a strangely sophisticated man; ugly as sin but elegantly dressed in scrupulously clean clothing. His cabin was plushly furnished and his table served with provender fit for a prince. Every evening after dinner, he took a long cigar from a polished mahogany box and lit it up, making light conversation with her as if she were an honoured guest.

  Adela struggled to understand the contradiction in the Gentleman. He was polite and well-mannered, cultured in a way that made her feel like a bumpkin, and yet he knew what was happening in the bowels of the ship, ironically named the Maiden, and did little to stop it, even if he didn’t indulge in it himself. She couldn’t respect him, or like him, and though she learned a form of pretence to get through those peculiar evenings in his cabin, she was broken inside, a woman robbed of every last scrap of self-respect by the abuses of men. It didn’t matter that the Gentleman was polite to her – it was he who held her captive and at the opportune moment he would sell her for as much gold as he could get.

  As she recovered her strength, she was gripped by a steely resolve to escape, and to make him pay for what he’d done to her. Her anger and hatred fused into a cold determination to have her revenge. When her chance came, she would be ready.

  When the ship finally reached the coastal waters of Antropel, the Gentleman avoided port authorities by sailing up the river Helia and stopping at Helioport for supplies. He was planning to take Adela on to Namert and sell her to its well-heeled rulers, and they would need provisions for the long voyage. The slave trade was flourishing in the far north-western part of the continent, and the Gentleman knew that her blond hair, blue eyes and tremendous beauty would fetch a princely sum. Owning exotic slaves was a status symbol in Namert, and in a land where people tended to be dark-haired and short in stature, what was more exotic than a tall, shapely blond woman? He’d explained to her during the long voyage that she would live a life of luxury, the concubine of a powerful man, but she knew better. A cage was a cage, whether it was made of iron or of gold, and she would be expected to give up her body on demand for the rest of her life and pretend to like it! Before her capture, the only man that had ever touched her was her beloved Keil, and he’d touched her with his heart and mind as much as with his body. The thought of spending the rest of her life deprived of that kind of affection, forced to accept a loveless pretence in its place, was enough to send her to the very brink of despair.

  It was in the city of magicians that her fate took an unexpected turn. She wasn’t allowed off the ship, and so spent the daylight hours locked in the Gentleman’s cabin, waiting while he attended to business in the city. She’d considered trying to escape but the door was locked, and even if she could get out, the crew would be ready to spring into action in a heartbeat. They were a pirate crew, and though they may have looked idle, lazily performing repairs to the ship’s worn fixtures and fittings, she knew that they were used to sudden departures, and much of that laziness was just for appearance.

  The surprise came when the Gentleman brought a guest back from the city for dinner. Adela was made to serve them, and as she poured the wine and lit their cigars, she surreptitiously took in every detail of the stranger as he talked with the Gentleman. What stood out to her most strongly was that there was nothing remarkable about the man whatsoever. He was of average height and build, his clothes were ordinary, and his mousy hair was cut in a functional style, if indeed it could be called a style at all. His chin was covered in short, greying stubble that set off his slate-grey eyes. He was neither handsome nor ugly, and she had the feeling that if she looked away she would struggle to recall his face. She didn’t allow herself to be fooled however. Among the Ghannai, a ship’s captain was a form of nobility. She was pretty sure that whoever this man w
as, the Gentleman wouldn’t invite him to dine with him and allow him to see one of his captives unless he was both powerful and a criminal.

  Filled with wariness, she listened as the Gentleman talked openly of his plans to clean up in Namert, and the stranger listened intently, laughing along at all the right spots, sharing bits and pieces of his own enterprises that she didn’t fully understand but which sounded entirely criminal. He talked of a group called “the rats” and some underhand business they were up to in the city, but she couldn’t make sense of what he was saying. At the end of the meal he looked her up and down.

  “I think I will take this one Lesair,” he said, using what she had to assume was the Gentleman’s real name.

  The Gentleman raised an eyebrow in surprise, but that was the extent of his reaction. “She is the pick of the bunch,” he said matter-of-factly. “I was going to charge ten thousand for her in Namert.”

  “Eight thousand and you can sell her today,” the stranger said, bartering casually, as if she wasn’t even there. Adela’s blood ran cold as she saw her powerlessness more clearly than she ever had before. She had no more control over her future than a head of cattle being sold at auction, and there was something about this stranger that frightened her even more than the pirates did. It was something about his anonymity, something hiding behind his averageness that she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

  “Nine thousand,” the Gentleman responded.

  There was a long pause while the stranger eyed him steadily.

  “Eight and a half,” he responded quietly, “and my flexibility is only due to our long association.” There was some unspoken threat in his words, a darkening of the mood that made the hairs on the back of Adela’s arms stand up. The Gentleman’s countenance paled.

  “Of course, of course,” he said far too quickly. “Shall we do the deal today?”

  “No, I will send Vosul tomorrow evening with the gold,” the stranger said. He stood up swiftly, making Adela jump. He studied her with his flat, grey eyes for what felt like far too long before turning his attention back to the Gentleman. “Thank you for your hospitality,” he said.

  “And for your company Belash,” the Gentleman responded, and the stranger left without a further word.

  The Gentleman regarded her then with an expression that looked very much like pity. “I regret that we are to part ways,” he said, running a slow hand through his thick black hair. “I’d like to take you on to Namert, but I must leave you with Belash. It’s not the life of silks and perfume you would have had, but if you don’t anger him, he will treat you well.”

  Adela could hear the lie in his voice, and her knees buckled under her as the weight of a life sentence landed squarely on her shoulders. Instead of helping her up, the Gentleman acted as if nothing had happened.

  “Return downstairs for tonight,” he said, “and be ready to leave tomorrow evening.”

  She stumbled from the room and ran to the rail, throwing up noisily into the water before returning to the cabin she shared with the other girls for one last, sweat-drenched night of fear on the Maiden. Despite her best efforts, she didn’t get any sleep that night, her stomach churning with anxiety at the thought of being handed over to Belash. She didn’t know exactly what it was she feared that could be worse than the indignities she’d already suffered, but something about the man had filled her with mind-numbing dread that made her hands shake and her bowels turn to water.

  She rose early after a night’s tossing and turning and passed the morning in a state of nervous anticipation. None of the girls were allowed on deck, as it’d be hard to explain the presence of a dozen beautiful women to the local authorities, so she was stuck in the tiny, filthy cabin waiting for the long hours to pass. Midday came and went and the afternoon progressed as slowly as the morning had, punctuated only by the tread of the crew’s feet on the boards above her head, and the moans of the other women sharing her fate.

  By conscious choice, she hadn’t learned anything about the other women. Every single one of them, including her, was headed for a life of misery, and she didn’t want to know about it. Her own pain was enough. And so on her final day, she felt no sense of loss at the thought of leaving them behind. She ignored their soft moans, and the occasional sound of weeping, and waited as the hours passed and afternoon turned to evening.

  The door opened as the light began to fade, and she was taken to the Gentleman’s cabin, where she was bathed and dressed in simple clothes that wouldn’t draw attention. Before she knew it there was a rough knock on the door, the gruff cry of a crew member announcing the arrival of her escorts. There were two of them; rough men without a hint of softness about them. The shorter man, who she assumed was Vosul, was clearly in charge, the larger, more heavily armed of the two deferring to him on every count. Both of them leered at her hungrily, their eyes lingering lasciviously on the curves of her body.

  With very few words, they led her, the Gentleman and two of his crew away from the ship, taking them only a few streets away to an abandoned warehouse. Within it, two dock workers were playing dice on a closed crate. Both of them looked up as they entered.

  “Open it up Jack,” Vosul said, and one of the dock workers picked up a crowbar and pried open the lid of the crate. Vosul looked at the Gentleman. “Take a look,” he said. The Gentleman stepped up to the crate, bending down to scoop out a handful of coins and let them fall through his fingers. He kept hold of one, lifting it to his mouth and biting down on it.

  “It’s good,” he said, stepping back.

  “Close it up,” Vosul ordered, and the dockworker replaced the lid, hammering extra nails in to seal it. “Take it back to the Maiden and report to me later,” he said.

  The two dockworkers picked the crate up by its stout handles and started out of the warehouse, their short, stuttering steps revealing the weight of its contents. The Gentleman started to follow them but stopped, turning back to face her.

  “Do what he says, without fail, without hesitation,” he said, and she didn’t need to ask who he was referring to. She said nothing in response, confused by what looked like an attempt to protect her. This was the man who’d ripped her from her home and family, from the man she loved. She wanted to tell him what she would do to him if she ever came across him again, but the proximity of Belash’s men kept her from opening her mouth. The Gentleman turned and left the warehouse, following the dockworkers as they struggled on towards the ship, leaving her alone with the two men. The taller man whipped out a spare cloak from under his own, and threw it at her.

  “Put it on,” he said gruffly as she caught it. She slung it round her shoulders and tied up the neck string.

  “Pull the hood up,” Vosul said, and she did so. “Now walk between us and don’t cause trouble,” he added, once her features were concealed within its shadowy depths. Its weave was coarse against her skin, and it stank of unwashed flesh and sweat. They set off through the docks, making their way through narrow streets clogged with filth. Adela took short, shallow breaths through her mouth to avoid breathing in the pervading stink of rotten fish and faeces, and after a few minutes they had left the docks behind and she could breathe more freely.

  They entered a district that was little better than the docks, the streets so narrow and overhung by poorly built houses that they would be in permanent shadow even in the daytime. The evening light faded away completely, and the occasional streetlamps hanging from rusty posts illuminated only a few short yards of ground between long stretches of darkness. After several more minutes, Vosul stopped them in front of a run down tavern called The Stag’s Bellow.

  “Let’s have a drink,” he said. “Belash is attending to other business tonight and won’t know if we stop for a bit.”

  “Sure,” the taller man said with an off-colour grin. “Maybe afterwards we can have a bit of fun,” he added, leering at her hungrily.

  Vosul looked at her too, his hard eyes glittering speculatively. “I can’t see why not,”
he said. “Belash will never know.”

  “I’ll tell him!” she said hotly, panicked by their lustful expressions.

  Vosul pulled her hood back and twisted his hand in her hair, pulling her head painfully to one side.

  “You’re less than nothing around here,” he spat, spraying her face with spittle, his face inches from her own. She blanched at the foulness of his breath. It smelt of garlic and rotten meat. “We’ll just deny it, and Belash will cut your tongue out.” He leaned back, watching with satisfaction as fear blossomed in her face. “Now be a good girl and keep your mouth shut,” he said, relinquishing his grip on her hair and pulling her hood up roughly.

  Filled with despair, she walked with them into the tavern, glancing around feverishly for any means of escape. She could pull her hood back and make an outcry, but she was in the kind of seedy district area that was unlikely to be heavily patrolled by local law enforcement. She was held captive by a crime-lord powerful enough to be able to pay over eight thousand gold for her in the blink of an eye. That kind of money meant serious power, and she didn’t think a single person in this dive of a tavern would be willing to stand up to Belash. Still, she had to try something - she’d rather die than face another rape. As they entered the tavern, Vosul made a casual sign to the innkeep, who clearly knew him and knew what the sign meant, reaching beneath the bar to fetch two dusty bottles of ale. Despite the crowd of drinkers at the bar, he brought them over immediately, and not one of the men waiting to be served complained, confirming Adela’s worst fears. Everyone knew who Vosul worked for and no-one was going to help her.