“You carry his bow and quiver.”

“They are mine.”

The young merchant laughed. “How can a woman say so?”

She did not see what was so funny, but the old merchant looked thoughtful.

“Servants cannot carry weapons. We take, or you give to the boy. Your choice.”

“No woman gives up her bow!”

“No man touch you,” said the old man.

What a strange thing to say! What man would dare to touch a woman of the tribes without her permission? None would! Once a tribe was marked by such a shameful act, they were condemned to death and every neighboring tribe would certainly do their part to make sure their name was nevermore spoken and all their goods and innocent children taken into a tribe whose people obeyed the laws of the gods.

Yet if she wanted to save Kontas, what choice did she have? She handed quiver and bow to him.

“And the knife,” said the old man.

And the knife. “Remember everything I told you, Kontas,” she said in a choked voice. “Now go. Be quick.”

He was an obedient boy. He wept, but he rode away nonetheless with the band moving tightly behind him as the angry youth turned to shout, “We will keep them safely for you. I swear it.”

The old merchant cackled, and the younger merchant smirked. The Qin soldiers trotted over. When they were up on their horses and she was standing down on the ground, she trembled. This fear had a sharp tang that ran through her entire body and into her groin and made her shudder as if with desire only it was more like having a knife at your throat.

The old man stopped laughing abruptly, patted his hands a few times as though wiping off dust, and said, “Good, good.” The young one burst into a passionate demand in demon language, and the old one stepped right up into his face and slapped him so hard it made his dark cheek red. The fat man bawled out orders, and the caravan by stages jolted into forward motion until the entire sluggish beast shambled eastward. The younger man sulked to his horse; the soldiers trotted away to oversee the rear guard.

The old man snapped his fingers, and the fat man rode away and returned with a pretty mare already saddled and caparisoned, a handsome horse fit for a head-woman’s daughter.

The old man indicated the horse, to show she should mount.

She would stay strong. She could hold on to her soul for one year. Careful to show no emotion, she took the reins and mounted.

25

“Forbidden you talk to these ones,” the old man said, taking hold of her mare’s reins and drawing her away from the herd of captive boys before she could question them about their names, their tribes, their circumstances.

He set strict rules. She must ride in the front beside the old man and his younger associate all day as they plodded through the flat lands of the old lake bed. What grass there was snapped clean, and the vegetation bristled with thorns. The soggy swales where they watered stank of mildew and sour breath. Mostly the old man did not speak to her, letting her ride in silence, which suited her bleak mood. He made cursory attempts to teach her words of demon language, although she wondered what the use of that was, since he could speak human speech.