"Nancy Springer - Isle 03 - The Sable Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Springer Nancy)

helplessness would not let him yield, his lost self cried out for recognition like an infant screaming in the
night. But the body wished to survive.

The slavers placed him just behind the old man in the string, and Trevyn was glad of it. Even to the
unspeaking, the old man provided more decent company than most. They all set out toward the distant
market. The four slave traders rode shaggy ponies and led pack animals. With their whips they kept their
human merchandise to a shambling trot over wild, rocky terrain. Most of the slaves went along readily
enough on thickly callused feet, but Trevyn's feet, long accustomed to boots of soft leather, had not had a
chance to toughen. Before the first day's journey was half over they had started to bleed. Trevyn's pace
slowed, and the slavers had run out of patience with him. They kept him going with the lash.

At dusk they stopped at last, and the slaves dropped where they stood while the slavers pitched camp
and built fires for themselves. After a while one moved down the line of slaves tossing each a chunk of
bread and, for a wonder, a bit of cheese. But when the slave trader came to Trevyn, he only paused with
a hard smile. "None for ye, bully," he said. "By the goddess, ye're too full of sauce to bear feeding. Bow
when ye face me, sirrah!"

He passed on, laughing aloud, while Trevyn stared. When his back was well down the line, the old man
halved his portion and passed Trevyn a share. "Pride makes a thin porridge, lad," he remarked. Trevyn
was thankful that his muteness saved him the necessity of replying.

The slaves huddled their naked bodies together through the



night while their masters dozed blanket-wrapped by the fire, taking guard by turns. The next morning
Trevyn's feet were oozing pus. The slaver who brought bread noticed it and came back with a bucket of
brine. He grasped at his slave, but Trevyn stepped in with high head and a level look, though the pain
took his breath. The man scowled and went away, bringing no bandaging for the feet.

That day was a nightmare for Trevyn. He could not keep the pace, stumbling and limping despite
himself, and the slavers flogged him until his back was as raw as his feet. Pain and hunger made him reel
lightheadedly. More than once he would have fallen if the old man had not caught him with the rope.
Nearly hallucinating, he imagined that none of this was happening to him, that he was not himself at all,
but Hal, facing the torturers in Nemeton's dark and hellish Tower. . . . Had Hal cried out? But he was
Trevyn, after all. He would not cry out.

"If ye'd only yelp once in a while, or even lower yer head a bit," the old man whispered to him in honest
concern, "I believe they'd treat ye less cruelly."

Trevyn answered him only with a wry smile, wishing in a way that he could take the advice, knowing
that, being what he was, he could not.



Chapter Two

In a small chamber of the royal palace at Kantukal sat the king of Tokar, Rheged by name, and his
counselor Wael. Rheged was a lean, long-armed man of middle age. Sparse, flabby flesh draped his
loose frame; his look was hungry. He hungered insatiably, though not for food, and he could be as