Chapter 26
People dressed in tattered clothing's stand in a straight line. They shake in fear. The group of people consist of men, women and children cladded in dirty, torn clothes. Their faces are covered in dirt and their heads are bowed. Their hands are tied with ropes while their feet are chained, each chain on a person's feet connects to another person's feet. They are men and women whose feet are not chained neither are their hands bounded by ropes but instead they hold a whip. The ones who hold whips look menacingly at the crowd of chained men, women and children.
An old man coughs and immediately the cough is heard, the people holding whips turn to his direction immediately. A woman very close to him dressed in black leather takes a few steps to him, raises the whip in her hand very high and she strikes the old man on his back. Though she strikes him only once, he grunts and falls to the ground.
She kicks him in his stomach and spits out the word, "Get up slave."
The man tries his best to get up but he does so slowly. This attempt is looked upon with disgust by the woman who raises her whip high and strikes him again. He falls down again.
The woman says to the man, "I said get up."
"But he was getting up and you hit him bad, bad", a child cries out.
The woman looks up, her eyes darting like that of a snake, searching for the one who dared to speak as a snake would search for an unfortunate prey and she finds the speaker. She straightens her back and goes to the one whose eyes are meeting her's.
"You dare speaks to your task mistress in that manner. I will teach you a lesson you little fool."
She raises the whip up high about to strike the culprit but her hands are stopped immediately by a masculine hand and the owner of the hand says, "Rana remember that we have lost one slave, we cannot afford to loose another one. Roban will be here any moment, let us think about how to deal with him. If the boy is sharp mouthed, leave him to be dealt with by the one who will buy him later."
Rana's eyes are still laced with hatred as she stares at the child but nevertheless she mutters," very well"
Rana goes back to the former place which she stood. She doesn't go back to deal with the old man.
The one who held her hand says," Someone fetch this old slave some water. We don't want him looking pale for Roban."
After a few minutes, water is brought in a wooden cup and the old man drinks hungrily from it.
*****
Rehabi looks in admiration at the wand that was gifted to her. She holds the wand up and leaves it, immediately bending her middle finger and joining her two other fingers beside it together and the wand vanishes in mid air, she chuckles and she brings her thumb and the finger beside it as if to grasp something and the wand forms immediately in her hand. She smiles to herself and holds it close to her heart.
Rehabi is on her way back home. She looks up at the sky, it's mid day. She is still two days aways from home and she is using her legs.
"I'm still far away from home. How will I get there fast enough. I guess I will have to use the part of the of the black forest closest to the trade routes close to the waters", she thinks.
With this thought in mind, she resumes her journey.
*****
The task masters and mistresses stand at ease. The slaves stand with their head down. A chariot driven by two black horses rides to their midst, several other horsemen also follow suit. Most of them carry swords while some carry bows and arrows.
Roban comes out if his chariot and he is a brown skinned man with a bald head. He is dressed in black and has a black bear skin around his shoulders. He looks around scrutinizing his environment and walks to stand in front of the slaves.
He looks back and gestures to a man who is leaning lazily on a horse. The man looks at Roban and yawns. He then moves towards Roban, when he is close by Roban says to him, "count them all."
The man walks horizontally and stops at the last line, looks at Roban and says,
"Ninety nine"
"Are you sure"
"Yes, it's ninety nine"
Roban turns to look at the man who stopped Rana from whipping the little one and says to him, "Ninety nine?"
The man replies and says, "We lost one of the slaves."
"I'm listening."
"When she was abducted from her Homeland, she was pregnant but it was a young one. We found out later when we were on the ship to deliver the slaves to you. She was to weak and fragile for the journey and she ended up having the baby too early, we lost her and the child."
Roban looks at the taskmaster with the same expression on his face and says to no one in particular.
"Then you better have a replacement or I pay for nothing at all."
"Please Roban, there are Ninety nine slaves here, we..."
"You do not understand the toughness of this matter do you. This is business and there has been competition in the slave market as you know. A slave master sent me a message that he had fine slaves to sell to me at a better price than you will to me and I told him that 'the bird will show around if it finds nothing better to eat'. The slaves are for Meschan, the grand master who lived away from this land and I have six weeks to deliver the slaves by sea and I have already wasted precious time with you."
The man is silent as he listens to Roban. Roban turns to look at his men and without turning back to look at the man says,
"You have till the sun sets tomorrow to find the replacements."
"Roban?"
"Yes, for wasting my time, I'll will buy from your hands not less than a hundred and one slaves at the same price. I will not come to find you and if the sun sets tomorrow and you don't come to me, I will go to the other slave master and you can eat your slaves."
Roban goes into his chariot and his horsemen rides behind him leaving a trail of dust.