his wrists and ankles were tied and a heavy bag was dragged over his head, letting in little air and less light. He was lifted with apparent ease and carried a short distance before being slung face down over the back of a horse.
He had no interest in what was happening to him. All he could see was his brother’s corpse, his burning home and his father’s raging rejection. The horse moved off at a canter. His light-headedness grew. What little light the hood allowed receded, and all went black.
He shivered. It was cold in his rooms, though the sun had risen high. It was always cold, now. Built to keep out the heat, the design took no account of the heat that the elderly crave once the cold starts to set into their bones. He shuffled towards the balcony, lured by the sunlight. He scanned the floor for dangers under the dust. He had had his fill of falling for a lifetime, no matter what little of that may be left to him. He watched the dust kicked up by the slippered feet poking out from under his ankle-length shift. Dry dust. Lifeless dust. He grunted. Just like his skin. But it had not always been so. Not like this. Far from this.
The heat hit him like a hammer. He had reached the balcony. It was too hot. And bright. He grunted again, the closest he could manage to humour at the irony. He forced himself to endure it, and gripped the heavy balustrade, the sun casting ornate shadows through the carved stonework onto the plain grey of his shift. Squinting against the glare, he peered beyond the gardens, past the high white walls, to the dusty flat area beyond, the sand hard-packed by generations of feet. He saw a rider, galloping in triumph, sword gleaming high as he circled the area, acknowledging the roars of the crowds. Royal crimson lined his billowing cloak, and crimson of another sort soaked into the dust beside the body slumped in the centre of the arena, a riderless horse standing disinterestedly nearby.
His eyes were wet. The sun must be particularly bright today. He blinked to clear his vision, and the scene faded. It seemed so, so long ago. It was so, so long ago. Who benefitted from memories? Would they give strength to failing muscles? Would they ease aching bones? Would they turn white hair brown?
He turned and shuffled back into the cold, taking care not to fall.
****
Brann shivered and spluttered as he was wakened by ice-cold water thrown roughly into his face. Sitting up, he tried to open his eyes but, before he could focus on anything, his stomach heaved and he vomited violently over his legs and lap.
A raucous laugh blared in his ear. ‘There we go,’ a voice as rough as his treatment sneered. ‘If I had a gold piece for every time that happened, I’d have my own boat by now.’
Another voice answered him. ‘Can’t have him going on board like that, though, Boar. Captain won’t thank us for attracting disease, and so on.’
The first voice was irritated. ‘I think I know what I’m about after the years I’ve had doing this. Better than someone like you who has never done it before. I don’t need you to tell me.’
‘Like when you released the horses we had taken as soon as we got here?’
The man gave a dismissive snort. ‘We don’t need them any more, do we? They could have been noisy and given away our position.’
The other voice was scornful. ‘If anyone was close enough to hear horses whinnying, we would be found anyway. Our position is much more likely to be given away by a couple of riderless horses roaming around. And where was your vast experience when you shot the other boy?’ he snapped. ‘All we were looking for was food and water. Others were taking what few slaves we need. Did you know what you were doing at that time?’
‘He would have seen us,’ Boar grumbled, although he seemed too wary of the other man to react with any aggression to the withering criticism. ‘I had to do it or they would both have raised the alarm.’
His companion’s tone was contemptuous. ‘That is not true, and you know it. We saw them coming and they were going too fast to notice us. If you had moved just a few yards into the heavier bushes when I told you, they would never have seen us.’ His voice dropped to a low, threatening level. ‘You know what I think? I think you enjoy it. I think you like the killing, just for the sake of it. And you saw the chance for it with the attack on the village. Just like you enjoy the misery of the slaves you take. Well, I don’t care who you sailed with before: you are with us now. And it will stop when you are with me, because the next time it happens you’ll know what it feels like to be on the receiving end, and you’ll have my sword to thank for it.’
‘You better not be threatening me,’ Boar objected hotly, but it was obvious that his tone carried more bluster than menace.
The first man was unconcerned. ‘Take it how you will. But if you know what’s good for you, you will remember it.’
‘Anyway,’ Boar objected, trying to salvage some pride, ‘you have taken as many slaves as I have on this trip, as many as any of us have.’
The first man paused, and when he spoke his voice was heavy and low. ‘That may be true, but none of the rest of us approaches it with your relish. It may be the way of the world in some parts, but not where I come from. If a man’s fate is to be a slave, so be it, but I would prefer not to be a part of fulfilling his destiny, thank you very much. All but you will be glad when we are free of this cursed contract at the end of this trip. Then, if you miss your slaving, you can go back to the pirate ships you came from. Though I’m guessing that whatever reason made you leave them and turn up when our Captain was recruiting might just still apply. What do you think?’
Boar fell silent. Whatever he thought, if anything, was kept to himself. The other man’s voice moved closer to Brann.
I should feel rage, or grief, or something… anything, Brann thought. He had just listened to a description of his brother’s death – and the futility of it. But, instead, all he felt was emptiness. The feeling seemed to grow from a lump in his stomach and spread through every part of him, leaving him light-headed and almost dreamlike. A hand grabbed his tunic between the shoulderblades and hoisted him to his feet. His vision started to clear, and he shook his head as if to try to help his eyes focus more quickly as his feet sank a fraction into rough sand.
He already knew he was beside the sea – the crash and hiss of waves breaking and soaking back into the beach and the heavy salt air in his nostrils had made that obvious from the start. He may have felt completely disinterested in his surroundings, but that did not mean that he was unaware of them.
Rough fingers gently prised at his hands. He looked down and realised he was clinging to a bundle of black cloth, his fingers clamped about it and his arms grasping it tightly against his chest.
The voice of the man was soft, soothing, almost caring. His surprise at the tone caught his attention. ‘It’s all right to let go. You’ll get it back, don’t worry. The gods know you may be glad of it. It’s not so warm out on the water.’
Brann looked at it. His father’s cloak, heavy, black and with a vertical rip near the hem at the back. His mother had urged him to look for a new one when they visited the town for the ball game, but he had resisted. For reasons he never explained, he loved it, and insisted on having it repaired instead. That must have been where he had been heading when he saw his two sons, only one of them alive. In his grief, he had dropped it. And in his grief, Brann must have picked it up. He had no idea why. He had no memory of even doing so. But he had it now. His only link to what already seemed a distant life. And he was not about to give it up.
The man eased at his fingers again. ‘You were the same last night. Nothing I could do short of breaking your fingers would let me get that from your grasp, even when you were out cold.’ Brann tensed, gripping it tighter to him. He sank back to the ground, his knees drawn up protectively in front of him. ‘I don’t want it, boy, fret not. I have my own, and so, if you’re interested, does Boar.