Lawrence Watt-Evans - Out of This World

Where could she go?

Reluctantly, she turned and followed her captor toward the house.

* * * *

When Raven was first informed of his duties he balked. The rightful lord of Stormcrack Keep, kept to play the stud for some fat old mare?

“Why else would someone pay five hundred crowns for you?” asked his new mistress’ major domo, who had bid for and bought him on the woman’s behalf.

Raven had no quick reply.

In truth, he had no reply at all; he knew too little of his new home to make any guesses.

And upon further consideration, he decided that perhaps this was for the best. A woman who could afford such luxuries must needs be powerful indeed, in the local hierarchy, and what better way to ingratiate himself than by such services as she was demanding?

Nor was there any great hurry; she had ordered that he be fed and pampered for a day or two, that he might be up to the task.

He had not as yet seen her; her agents had collected him after the auction. As he ate and drank he found himself imagining what she might look like. A wealthy woman, they told him, and as his purchase demonstrated; she was presumably not of noble birth, for these people, degenerate barbarians that they were, put no store by ancestry, but he would make allowances for that. And no great beauty, surely, else she would have no need to buy a man’s services. Still, doubtless she would have her virtues.

Doubtless.

* * * *

The food was boring, with a peculiar off taste to it, but it was nourishing. Pel found the work boring, as well, and tiring, but not particularly difficult-it called for endurance, but no great strength or skill. No one abused him; the overseer checked in maybe once an hour, billy club in hand, and then went on to inspect the other work gangs. There were no whips, no groaning wheels, no one dying of exhaustion, none of the cliches of slave- worked mines that Hollywood had taught him. The men worked hard, but were a long way from killing themselves, and as long as the broken rock came out of the shaft on schedule nobody bothered them.

In fact, the workers exchanged bitter jokes about their situation, and laughed at them.

Pel didn’t laugh with them. He was gradually coming out of his funk, but was not yet ready to laugh at anything.

There was a sort of dull comfort in the steady work, in pushing the shovel under the rock, lifting it, and dumping it into the cart. It kept his body busy, kept him moving, so that he couldn’t sink completely into apathy and despair, but it still left him free to think if he wanted to.

And it tired him, so that when he was off-shift he slept soundly.

That twelve hours on, twelve hours off was deceptive, he discovered. His gang, along with the rest of Blue Shift, was only permitted to leave their shaft when their replacements from Red Shift had arrived and actually begun working. Walking back out to the refectory and dormitory, being checked out by the clerk at the shaft mouth, finding a seat in the refectory-that took half an hour or more. The refectory crew wasn’t in any great hurry, either. And the meals were fairly leisurely; no one rushed.

On top of that, if he wanted his sweat-soaked pants laundered, he had to wash them himself, in the lavatory sinks-and most of the men did just that, because odors lingered in the unventilated shafts. Each slave had been issued one pair of pants, and one pair of wool-lined boots-no socks. Not much could be done about the smell from the boots, but washing the pants out each night was a social necessity. Lines for drying ran the length of the dormitory halls, and every night a pair of damp trousers hung over each bed; if a man was too exhausted to wash them, at the very least he hung them to air out. Aside from the smell, moisture seethed constantly in the cool night air; anything left damp with sweat and not hung out was an invitation to mildew and rot.

With the walk to and from his work area, the leisurely meals, the washing up, and the lines everywhere, Pel found he only had about nine hours to sleep, and no time left at all for any sort of diversion. Nine hours was not excessive at all, given the unaccustomed heavy labor.

He could speak to the other slaves, of course-on the job, at the table, in the lavatories and dorms. At first, though, he didn’t. They were strangers, not even from his world, and he was still too caught up in his losses.

The men around him accepted that; nobody bothered him. Occasionally someone would try to include him in a discussion, but nobody forced it, nobody pressured him.

But he gradually came out of his funk, and by the third day he was thinking again, thinking about just one thing, the one thing that any storybook hero, or any sane man, would think about.

Escape.

* * * *

As Amy and the black-haired man approached the house the front door opened, and a woman appeared. She was short and dumpy, in her forties, her dull brown hair tied back. A shapeless brown floral-print dress covered her from throat to ankle.

She looked critically at Amy.

Amy was reminded anew that she, herself, wasn’t wearing anything at all. Even an ugly brown dress would have been an improvement.

She hadn’t exactly had a choice, though, and at least the weather was reasonably warm. Walking around naked in snow would have been much worse.

“I see you got one,” the woman said.

The man didn’t bother to reply.

“What’d she cost?”

“Five hundred,” the man growled, pushing past the woman into the house.

Amy was mincing across the gravel to the stoop by then, trying to keep her feet intact. The woman watched with interest. “That’s not too bad, five hundred,” she said. “And she’s got nice hair, it looks like-hard to be sure, the mess it’s in.”

The man growled something Amy couldn’t make out as she gratefully stepped up onto the smooth concrete and found herself face to face with the woman in brown. She hesitated, looking down slightly at this person, apparently the mistress of the house.

“Go on,” the woman said, gesturing. “Get inside.”

Amy got inside.

The door opened into a large, open room; the floor was gray concrete spread with bright rag rugs, the walls papered in a wine-red pattern of stripes and blossoms on primrose. Most of the furniture used black iron frames to support upholstered seats and backs, the iron seemingly in rough imitation of early American woodwork.

The man who had bought her stood by an open door; beyond, Amy could see a cheerful bedroom. “Come here,” he ordered.

Amy glanced at the woman.

“Guess I’ll go take a walk,” the woman in brown said. She stepped out the door, closing it behind her.

“Come here, bitch, if you want those cuffs off,” the man called.

Amy hesitated.

Wasn’t it about time for the space cavalry to come charging over the hill? Hadn’t Prossie done anything ? Couldn’t the Empire find her?

The memory of Stan was far clearer than she wanted, just now. This man didn’t look anything like him, but something in his voice had the same ugly edge Stan had developed.

“Get the fuck over here, bitch!”

Reluctantly, Amy crossed the room, stumbling over the upturned edge of one of the rugs. The man stepped back into the bedroom as she approached, and to one side.

“On the bed,” he ordered. “On your knees.”

“Why?” Amy demanded, her throat dry.

“Why do you think ?” he retorted. “If I just wanted someone to do housework, I could’ve gotten someone cheaper than you-a kid or somebody’s grandmother. I couldn’t afford that black-haired one, but you’ll do.”

“You’re planning…” She swallowed, moistening her throat, and tried again. “Planning to rape me?”