curse it, those idiots will smash my peppers, mauling them about that way. You there!” she yelled to two dockhands as they slung baskets into a wagon. “Those aren’t hay bales!”
Interesting, Aly thought as she continued to load the kitchen wagon. Chenaol had almost let something important slip. Why would the Pohon folk change their minds about luarin when they met “the ladies”? What about Sarai and Dove would change minds, and why did the cook want the Pohon minds changed?
Aly felt as if she was reading a book from which every second page was missing. She needed to learn more about the raka and their politics.
The next morning masters, servants, men-at-arms, slaves, and animals set out from Dimari, bound for the Turnshe Mountains, which formed Tanair’s eastern border. On the first day they rode through lush, settled lands owned by luarin and farmed by raka. The people labored in the sun and heat, men and women alike wearing only a tied sarong tucked up to keep them out of the mud. This was one of the most fertile parts of the Isles. Everywhere that Ali looked she saw rice paddies, the plants covering the brown water in which they were planted in a green mist. They also passed coconut and bamboo plantations. Struggling to keep Elsren and Petranne from falling out of the covered, padded wagon where they would spend the rest of their trip, Aly did not envy the raka and part-raka who labored everywhere. When overseers descended on the slaves with whips raised, Aly had to look away. Without the Balitangs, she might have been one of those slaves, laboring in filth and being punished if she displeased a man with a whip.
This was the way most of the world lived, on slave labor. Tortall didn’t encourage it, any more than Tusaine, Galla, and Tyra did, but some people in those countries did own slaves. Everyone ignored the working slave populations of the great farms of Maren. Aly just wasn’t used to it. To her the slaves looked very like the convict gangs who labored on Tortall’s roads and in its quarries and mines. At least those people had committed crimes to get a sentence of hard labor.
Overseers or no, when the Balitang wagons passed the farms, the raka straightened to watch them pass. Dark-skinned full-bloods or varying, light-skinned mixed-bloods, all shaded their eyes and looked on in silence as the wagons rattled by. Free raka, not wearing slave collars, dressed in colorful sarongs and light tops, stood by the road to see them. There they remained as the caravan, encircled by Veron’s twenty men-at-arms, passed by in all its clatter. Others watched in the villages, from trees and upper-story windows of houses, on bridges and on rocks in the rivers. None of them said a word. All returned to their tasks as the last goat and man-at-arms went by.
Aly itched to question them but, trapped in the wagon with Elsren, Petranne, the duchess’s maid, Pembery, and the house’s mildly Gifted healer, Rihani, she had to accept it as an itch she couldn’t scratch. That vexed her. Grandfather Myles always said it was impossible to have too much information. Aly agreed from the bottom of her heart as she watched those stony, copper-skinned faces. She would not sleep easily until she knew what was on the raka’s minds.
They spent the night at a village inn and set out once more at dawn that day and the next. On their third day out of Dimari the road entered dense jungle. It was like being enfolded in a vast, warm, damp woolen cloak under the trees. The ground actually steamed in the early morning as the land gave up moisture under the warming sun. Here the raka appeared at the head of turnoffs that led to their villages. The deeper into the jungle they went, the fewer raka men wore sarongs or shirts in the heat. Many wore only a loincloth; they carried farm and woodland tools or hunting spears.
The men-at-arms rode closer to the wagons, but Aly saw no hostility on those raka faces. None of the onlookers so
Interesting, Aly thought as she continued to load the kitchen wagon. Chenaol had almost let something important slip. Why would the Pohon folk change their minds about luarin when they met “the ladies”? What about Sarai and Dove would change minds, and why did the cook want the Pohon minds changed?
Aly felt as if she was reading a book from which every second page was missing. She needed to learn more about the raka and their politics.
The next morning masters, servants, men-at-arms, slaves, and animals set out from Dimari, bound for the Turnshe Mountains, which formed Tanair’s eastern border. On the first day they rode through lush, settled lands owned by luarin and farmed by raka. The people labored in the sun and heat, men and women alike wearing only a tied sarong tucked up to keep them out of the mud. This was one of the most fertile parts of the Isles. Everywhere that Ali looked she saw rice paddies, the plants covering the brown water in which they were planted in a green mist. They also passed coconut and bamboo plantations. Struggling to keep Elsren and Petranne from falling out of the covered, padded wagon where they would spend the rest of their trip, Aly did not envy the raka and part-raka who labored everywhere. When overseers descended on the slaves with whips raised, Aly had to look away. Without the Balitangs, she might have been one of those slaves, laboring in filth and being punished if she displeased a man with a whip.
This was the way most of the world lived, on slave labor. Tortall didn’t encourage it, any more than Tusaine, Galla, and Tyra did, but some people in those countries did own slaves. Everyone ignored the working slave populations of the great farms of Maren. Aly just wasn’t used to it. To her the slaves looked very like the convict gangs who labored on Tortall’s roads and in its quarries and mines. At least those people had committed crimes to get a sentence of hard labor.
Overseers or no, when the Balitang wagons passed the farms, the raka straightened to watch them pass. Dark-skinned full-bloods or varying, light-skinned mixed-bloods, all shaded their eyes and looked on in silence as the wagons rattled by. Free raka, not wearing slave collars, dressed in colorful sarongs and light tops, stood by the road to see them. There they remained as the caravan, encircled by Veron’s twenty men-at-arms, passed by in all its clatter. Others watched in the villages, from trees and upper-story windows of houses, on bridges and on rocks in the rivers. None of them said a word. All returned to their tasks as the last goat and man-at-arms went by.
Aly itched to question them but, trapped in the wagon with Elsren, Petranne, the duchess’s maid, Pembery, and the house’s mildly Gifted healer, Rihani, she had to accept it as an itch she couldn’t scratch. That vexed her. Grandfather Myles always said it was impossible to have too much information. Aly agreed from the bottom of her heart as she watched those stony, copper-skinned faces. She would not sleep easily until she knew what was on the raka’s minds.
They spent the night at a village inn and set out once more at dawn that day and the next. On their third day out of Dimari the road entered dense jungle. It was like being enfolded in a vast, warm, damp woolen cloak under the trees. The ground actually steamed in the early morning as the land gave up moisture under the warming sun. Here the raka appeared at the head of turnoffs that led to their villages. The deeper into the jungle they went, the fewer raka men wore sarongs or shirts in the heat. Many wore only a loincloth; they carried farm and woodland tools or hunting spears.
The men-at-arms rode closer to the wagons, but Aly saw no hostility on those raka faces. None of the onlookers so
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