Vol.2, Ch.1, P.6
Three full moons I’ve counted since my arrival here at the margravate of Ström.
In that time, the fatality rate amongst the fort’s soldiery had plummeted. It was done: Balasthea had at last lost its place amongst the realm’s most notorious killing fields.
Reporting to Margrave Ström of such trends and goings-on numbered amongst my many duties. Today, too, found me fulfilling that office, as I stood afore the lord at his Arbel residence.
“…Very well, then. Keep the course, Commandant,” he said, turned away to the window.
“Yes, my liege.”
I saluted him, ending what had been quite the concise report. With no further business there, I summarily left the manor.
Perhaps it bears little mention that the margrave was ever ill of mood upon our meetings. Yet it was beyond all doubt that my deeds delivered to him much avail: Balasthea stood more firmly than ever before, and with its casualties curtailed, so, too, were the margrave’s military expenses. For that reason, despite my reviled repute as an ungraced, not once did he attempt to dispose of me.
Equally doubtless, I suspected, was the indignance surrounding my assumption to Acting Commandant of Balasthea, whether harboured by the margrave or Central itself. Likely they thought the ungainly ungraced would slip up soon enough, given so prestigious a post. A shame their “expectations” were betrayed.
Yet verily I was, to them, a rather convenient pawn as commandant, one better left upon the gameboard till his moves were spent. A bitter medicine of truth for their throats, sure, but one they swallowed nonetheless. And from the look of things, it would be a daily taste upon their tongues.
Speaking of tastes, it was made apparent to me that the fort commandants of other provinces were oft treated to fetes hosted in the pleasure of their lords. Just the thought of such wining and dining was a surfeit too sour for my palate. Thus one can say I shared in the margrave’s convenience, though not so uncomfortably: our interactions were strictly business—quick and curt—and when such business was done and dealt with, I was more than happy to quit his quarrelsome company.
These thoughts I humoured as I made my way home. Well, “home” in this case was a residence officially furnished to the commandant of Balasthea. Being also within the confines of Arbel, the commute was none too terrible.
And perhaps “official residence” is a term too high-brow for what was nothing more than a rather small cot. A home fit for but one, it was ostensibly stayed in by the many commandants before me. My predecessor, taken ill as he was, had returned to his homestead elsewhere, thus was the cot allotted to me.
It was by no means a freshly founded home. But even its dusty spaces were preferable to the sweaty barracks at the 5th. Curious indeed that my standard of living improved only upon being exiled.
Today, however, was to be the beginning of many more curiosities, for I found myself stopped afore the high street leading home. Closed off, it was. The forgathered townsfolk told of a flame burning further ahead, and of the firemen barring traffic to keep passers-by away from their dangerous work.
Thus by this pure coincidence was I compelled to take a detour down an alley outside of my usual commute.
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Through the shadowy alleyways I wended. The sun had long set, and the sky above was a fading fuchsia, cut down to a soaring strip by the jumbled and jostling roofs. Hence did I brave this veritable labyrinth with a lantern in hand. Yet it was not long before I stumbled upon a middle-aged man, standing hunched, haggard of breath, his own hand gripping a knife—one adrip with blood.
The drops pitter-pattered upon neither dirt nor cobblestone, but more of its red self. For at the man’s feet was another figure, younger, yet placid and prostrate upon a pool of flowing crimson. A look at the collapsed fellow found etched about his ankle a telling tattoo.
I raised the lantern for a better look.
“…That lad there a slave?” was my guarded question.
To me the man turned, growling. “Aye. An’ a bloody crim’nal,” he drawled. “Shog’d off ’is shackleses, ’e did. An’ tried t’take me knife withal. So, I show’d ’im th’pointy end o’ it, heheh. Well, I jests, but th’blighter’s dead, an’ me profitses ’long with ’im. An’ that ain’t no joke.”
Shackles, profits—a slaver, the man was. I then found him bent over, wiping his knife clean upon the fresh corpse. Sheathing it, he turned to me again, face half-furrowed.
“…Wot? Think me th’villian ’ere, ’ey? Ye’ll be glad t’know, then, that this ’ere sinner snuff’d out two souls ’imself in ’is time. Got wot’s comin’ to ’im, I says.”
A rather defensive tone. It would seem he spied an air of condemnation upon my face, my brows having bent bitterly without my knowing.
It must be said that the laws of Londosius deem slavery a sound practice, so long as it is purposed for manual labour. But those same laws also decree that none save felons and “fruits of war” may be subject to the shackle.
The former—”criminal slaves”, they’re called—are typically those whose sins are judged to be grave, though not enough to warrant an execution. The corpse afore me was of this unsavoury sort, if the slaver was to be believed.
“I’ll not blame you for the deed. Only…” I said, pointing behind him, “…that one, too, you’d call a ‘sinner’?”
Indeed. Another slave stood upon the scene. Silent.
“Hah! Can’t ye tell, lad? A war-slave this one is. Th’worst o’ th’worst. Evil incarnate!” he smiled, but with a look at the foresaid slave, the bitter grin vanished into the dark. “Eh, I takes it back. ‘Evil’ ain’t ‘nough t’judge this devil.”
War-slaves—persons dragged from the fires of battle and into chains of iron. In other words, captive Nafílim. The one I pointed to was a clear example, and also the first of whom I’d seen beyond the bounds of a battlefield.
Only, this Nafíl was but a little girl.
I then recalled the quarrel with the margrave three months past.
Most certainly, it is the common creed of Man, shared amongst the sons of his many realms, that the Nafílim are to be spared from no cruelty, whether it be of violence or imprisonment.
Nevermind whether the Nafílim victims themselves are combatants—or otherwise.
I had made my case to the margrave then, and it stood unchanged now: this creed found no home in my heart.
The girl afore me attested to the “why” of it: none, not even a Yonaistic devout, could feign a look upon her and say with right mind that aught about her became that of a “combatant”.
No. She was just a small girl, maybe ten in her years, no more than twelve.
Behind her black, soiled, and unkempt hair were amber eyes, both of which did naught but gaze at the ground, as if bereft of any and all spark of spirit. And clothing the light tenné of her skin were nothing more than meagre, threadbare rags.
She stood there, still. Oh so very still. As if she’d given up on everything—even life itself.
“Awfully young for a slave,” I cuttingly observed.
“Aye? Wot ’bout it?” the slaver cut back. “A Nafíl it is, young or grey.”
“…Of course she is.”
I turned to her once more, lighting her lightless mien with my lantern. No response was to be found. She merely stood, soundless and downcast, her bare and shackled feet planted upon the cold cobblestones.
“Look at it,” the slave shook his head. “All glum an’ gloom-like. Can’t sell it off fer th’life o’ me. Bah! Bloody alga…”
“Alga?”
“Aye. ‘Alga’ be wot I calls it. Shiverin’ in a stove it were when the snatchers came a-snatchin’. They drag’d it out an’ found it all steep’d in soot, they did.”
Alga…
How curious a connection.
Was it the whispers of the fates I heard just now?
Or something felt from deep in my heart?
A stirring within, welling up to leave my lips.
“I’ll buy her.”
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