Buying Slaves 

Later that night...

Not far from the Touma family store, one of the groups of local guards came across yet another dead body in the streets of Cusca.

Upon noticing it, the four people in the group, armed with swords and dressed in simple leather armor, ran to the body in the middle of a dark street.

Two of the guards had torches in their hands, so the darkness of that street could not stop these men from doing their job.

When one of the other two knelt beside the fallen, cold, stiff body, these people soon identified the dead man of the night.

"Kat?" Two of those men exclaimed in surprise, not expecting this man to end so simply.

Kat was a renowned assassin in the Custa region, a man from the Nassar family, one of the four noble powers of this city.

This city had other powers present but did not have its headquarters there. That was the case with the Touma family that, with the store of Mero, was represented in this city. But the family of the master of Tenur was not a local noble power since it had no territories nor forces locally.

Besides the posts of noble powers from other areas of Noskain, Cusca had four noble families and one post of the royal house, which administered and kept the territory under control.

But because of Cusca's irrelevance, practically only the royal guards stayed in this city, and the local management was not much interfered with by the sovereign power.

The four local noble families had a lot of power in these areas and were the ones who actually regulated things in the area.

Even royal guards like these men had concerns about these people, and upon seeing one of the men from the Nassar family dead, these individuals became concerned.

"I wonder what happened here? Kat is a renowned warrior and does not act unless he has orders from his superiors..." One of those men said while the others watched that body or the surroundings.

"Yes, we should notify the Nassar family. Kat is not just some random guy!" Another of them said before they all agreed to do that small favor of notifying that local noble family.

...

The next morning...

The third day of operations of the Mero store under Tenur's management would start differently this morning.

Soon after sunrise, instead of opening the store as he had done the previous day, Tenur left the store closed and headed alongside Amir and Shui to the local human market.

The slaves stayed behind at their resting place, taking the opportunity to work less today.

Thus, the three individuals soon arrived at the local human market, a place similar to where Tenur had previously lived in Amri, where Mero had initially rejected him.

The three entered that place and were soon in the only corridor there, where cells with captives were on both sides of the corridor, with various options for potential buyers.

Men, women, teenagers, young adults, and even some middle-aged people were there.

It was not common to see middle-aged slaves being sold on the common market, but now and then, one would pop up.

As for the elderly, there were none of them there. Besides the fact that slaves usually didn't live that long, those who reached that stage of life were usually sold on the secondary market.

In the case of women, although it was not so common to see many of them in this condition, it happened that those unable to become prostitutes ended up as slaves.

But even so, female slaves were quite rare, and as Tenur could see, they were in the ratio in relation to male captives of 1 to 30.

Only 4 women were available at that location, while over 120 men were for sale.

"What are you looking for, Tenur?" Amir asked, knowing that this foreigner always had things in mind to achieve the best results.

Tenur then said. "We don't need physically strong people. We already have 11 such captives on our side. So I am searching for people with other kinds of skills."

"Uh? What are you talking about, slave?" Shui asked. "The other slaves in the store are doing very well with their physical abilities... Why change now?

Isn't it enough that we already have a slave who is physically unable to work?"

Tenur was not taken in by Shui's provocation and said. "Physically weaker slaves are cheaper. At the same time, I want people to work preparing bread or helping clean the store.

So we don't need to spend more on slaves with good physical conditions."

"But what about the slaves already working in the store? They are already doing that service." Amir insisted.

Tenur looked at Amir and said. "Those slaves we will use to increase the production of plaster and paint. Then we need people to take over the less heavy services."

Amir understood Tenur's logic and did not complain.

If they already had 11 strong and healthy slaves, paying more for such people for simpler services would be dumb.

"So, who do you want?" Amir asked.

"Let's go see those women," Tenur said. "Women are more detail-oriented and patient than men. So putting them in the kitchen might benefit lord Mero."

The three then looked to where the only women were, while someone from the human market was already near them to advise them.

"Seniors, how can I help?" The servant of the owner of this human market asked, figuring that everyone there was a servant of some nobleman since they were dressed more or less the same.

Tenur had not been dressing like a slave since he had left the previous ship to run Mero's store. That had not happened because he had demanded it but because his master had ordered it.

Masters didn't like to be around slaves for too long. That was for several reasons, but one was that these individuals were usually dirty, smelly, and dressed very badly.

As Tenur had gained prominence, Mero had soon authorized his slave to dress better.

Anyway, upon hearing that man, Amir soon explained their interest in these women, surprising the man.

Those women had just arrived in this human market the night before. The leader of this post had even cursed his superiors for hours, feeling that he would have a significant loss on his hands for receiving those four weights.

But to the surprise of the servant companion of the leader of this post, someone was already showing interest in these women!

"Pardon?" He asked.

Tenur then said. "We are interested in these women. How much are each of them?"

The price of a healthy, young, adult slave was around 10 to 20 gold coins. That would depend very much on the place of sale, people able to buy nearby, demand, supply, and, finally, conditions regarding the captives.

Tenur had already learned about the notion of prices in this society and wondered if he could buy more captives or have a more significant saving by buying these women.

The servant member of this human market then said. "The price for each is 8 gold coins, dear customer. But our post is willing to negotiate if you decide to take all four at once."

"Oh?"

Unlike men who could be taken to work in mines and make the human market owners recover their investments, women like those were unlikely to do so.

None of them were beautiful. All were extremely thin, full of stretch marks, signs that they had given birth enough. So their conditions for serving as prostitutes were not good either.

In this case, if they were not sold, they would become losses for this post!

Thinking about this and knowing that his superiors would try to get rid of these women by any means, this servant tried to negotiate. "How about this? If you take all four, we will give you one of them for free. That way, you only need to pay 24 gold coins."

Upon hearing this, Tenur remembered he had 25 gold coins and a few more silver coins.

'With that amount, I can take the 4 of them, pay for materials to produce 100 more loaves, and still have enough left to pay for feeding all the captives...' He did the math quickly, feeling that making the deal might be worth it.

But Tenur was not a hasty person!

He first said. "That's not a bad deal... But first, I'll have to evaluate if it's worth it. If one of these women can't do the job, the discount will be worthless."

Shui was silent, not liking how Tenur was leading everything, while Amir watched this slave negotiating.

"That... But of course. You can feel free to analyze the situation."

Tenur then approached the slave woman and promptly began talking with them to find out if they could cook and stand most of the day.

They all looked pretty weakened, so the servant attending to these three became nervous, feeling that if he didn't do something, these people would leave one of those weights behind.

"How about this? Instead of 24 gold coins, we can close the deal for the 4 for 20 gold coins if the senior accepts the offer immediately."

Tenur stopped talking to those women and looked back toward the black eyes of that servant.

...