The Thin Executioner. Даррен Шэн

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СКАЧАТЬ Perhaps you are sober enough to heed my warning and be saved.”

      “What are you talking about?” Jebel growled. “How dare you presume to warn me. Forget about morning. I’ll have you whipped now, you son of a–”

      “Be careful, sire,” Tel Hesani said, lips tightening. “These people know you as a noble quester. If I was whipped, I might cry out and tell them a different story of a sorry boy who wants to reclaim his lost honour.”

      Jebel’s eyes flashed. “I won’t stand for such insolence. I’m going to have the flesh flayed from your back, you worthless piece of–”

      “The girl who has been dancing for you is no maid,” Tel Hesani interrupted. “I have been speaking with the servants. They tell me she had a boyfriend. They were very close, but he left when she pressed him to marry her. If she wants to wed a different man later, she’ll have to take a test to prove her maidenhood, but it’s a test she will fail.”

      Tel Hesani paused to make sure that had sunk in. Although Jebel’s eyes were swimming in their sockets, the slave could see that the boy was paying attention.

      “It seems to me,” he continued, “that the girl is scheming to find a way out of her predicament. I think she plans to come to you in your hut tonight, then claim that you attacked her. If her accusation is accepted, she will still be considered a maid by law. You will be executed and she’ll be free to marry.”

      Jebel croaked, “How do you know this?”

      “I made enquiries,” Tel Hesani said, “as I have everywhere we’ve stopped. Such plots are not uncommon. You wouldn’t be the first young man to lose his head to the wiles of a desperate woman.”

      “I thought you just drank and had a good time,” Jebel said.

      “No. I am your guide and guardian. Our path is lined with danger, but not all of the dangers are obvious. It is my duty to protect you from every possible threat. I have gone in search of gossip among the servants of each house where we have sought shelter. When I’ve had to, I’ve bribed them with swagah taken from my master’s pouch — I trust you will not hold that against me?”

      Jebel shook his head numbly. He didn’t know what to say. He felt like he should thank Tel Hesani, but that was ridiculous. Jebel had been taught to believe that slaves should obey their master’s every request without expectation of a reward. As a young boy, he had once thanked a slave at his school for cleaning his wound when he fell and cut his knee. A teacher heard, whipped Jebel and sent him home in disgrace. Jebel’s father whipped him too. The boy never thanked a slave again after that.

      “I’ll keep my door barred tonight,” Jebel muttered.

      “That would be wise, my lord,” Tel Hesani said smoothly. “It would be even wiser, if I may be so bold, to avoid towns like this for a while. We have fallen behind schedule. We should press on and pick up our pace.”

      Jebel nodded, feeling very small and childish. “We’ll rise at dawn and push ahead as fast as we can, no more stopping to chat with these accursed um Surout.”

      “One last thing, sire,” Tel Hesani said as Jebel passed. “Is there any particular style of tunic you wish me to wear tomorrow?”

      Jebel grimaced. “You can keep wearing your damn trousers.”

      “You are most generous, young master,” Tel Hesani said and bowed respectfully as a sullen Jebel trudged back to the veranda to scowl at the green-eyed temptress who had almost seduced him to his doom.

      NINE

      Shihat was a godsforsaken eyesore. The northernmost town of Abu Aineh, it was at the meeting point of three nations, so it should have been a vibrant, exciting city, where the best of different cultures mixed and merged. But the eastern lands of Abu Nekhele were swampy and fetid. The wealthier Um Nekhele lived further west, and the majority of trade went via the as-Sudat. As for Abu Safafaha, that was a country of savages, and the hardened traders crossing the border to sell skins and rare creatures or birds brought nothing of cultural value to the town.

      Shihat was an ugly maze of barracks, trade centres and markets. Soldiers patrolled the streets, checking papers, searching for border rats. Any trader entering Abu Aineh by the as-Surout had to stop in Shihat to pay a tithe. Without signed, stamped papers to prove payment, they couldn’t leave the city.

      It should have been a simple procedure, but corruption was rife. It wasn’t enough to present your wares and pay a tithe. You needed to bribe a string of officials and soldiers. Traders rarely made it out of Shihat in less than three days.

      The streets were always full. Taverns and bordellos did a roaring business. Fights often broke out among frustrated travellers. Traders were mugged or killed. Mounds of rubbish were left to rot and wild dogs lapped from pools of blood.

      After half an hour there, Jebel wanted to burn the place to the ground. It was even worse than Fruth, which he would have thought impossible just thirty minutes earlier.

      “They live like animals,” he stormed to Tel Hesani, watching naked children chase a chicken down the middle of a street overflowing with sewage. When they caught the chicken, they ripped its head off and squirted each other with blood.

      “Worse than animals,” Tel Hesani agreed.

      “I can’t understand how they don’t all die from disease,” Jebel said.

      “Many do,” Tel Hesani said. “Dozens die each week and are tossed into large pits on the outskirts of the town. If rumours are to be believed, local butchers raid those pits and feed cuts of the dead to their customers.”

      Jebel almost vomited. “Did we bring food of our own?” he asked.

      “We have strips of dried meat and canteens of fresh water,” said Tel Hesani. “We’ll find an inn and eat in our room.”

      “Can’t we push on immediately?” Jebel asked.

      “It will be night soon,” Tel Hesani said. “The border rats from Abu Nekhele and Abu Safafaha – traders who do not wish to pay a tithe, or who are transporting illegal goods – try to sneak around Shihat in the darkness. Soldiers hunt for them — it passes for sport up here. We would probably wind up with our throats cut and our bodies dumped in a marsh. Or worse.”

      Jebel shuddered at the thought of ending up on a butcher’s hook. “So be it. But try to find a clean inn.”

      “I will do my best, master, but it might be easier said than done.”

      The pair spent the next hour trudging the grimy streets of Shihat, going from one rundown inn to another. All were overflowing with rowdy traders and ugly, leering women. Alcohol flowed more freely than water — in some inns they didn’t even bother with water, except to mop up the blood and mess.

      “Let’s just take a room here,” Jebel said eventually as they were about to pass another filthy hovel. He had seen men staring at them and figured it was only a matter of time before someone stabbed him and laid claim to his slave.

      Tel Hesani opened the door for Jebel and bowed as the boy entered. Then he hurried in after him. Tel Hesani had travelled widely, but he’d never been in a place as foul as Shihat and he felt almost as edgy as Jebel did.

      They СКАЧАТЬ