The boy shook his head back and forth slowly, watching Valak warily, like a lion that might pounce and eat him. He looked past Valak to his Master, still squirming on the floor, then tore his eyes away and looked at Valak again. The tears in his eyes slipped down his cheeks. Valak wiped the boy’s wet cheeks with the back of his hand.

“Do what I say and I won’t hurt you,” he told the scared slaveboy. He picked up his knife and held it up in front of the boy. “Fuck with me, and I’ll cut on you just for fun. You got me?”

The slaveboy nodded enthusiastically. Valak thought if the boy shook his head any harder, it might fall right off his body.

He held out his hand and after a moment’s thought, the boy took it obediently and went out into Emyhr’s bright morning sunshine with Valak. Diogo marveled at that. He could have never gotten the boy to take his hand. He would have to take him by force.

Just before they left, Valak gave Haken a sidelong look that Diogo knew better than he wanted to – cutter’s eyes. Haken was too busy writhing on the floor, trying to catch his breath, to see his coming fate in Valak’s furious eyes.


iii.

“Jasari,” the boy had said in a kind of oh Gods, I’m fucked voice when Diogo asked his name. He sat on the floor beside Valak. Diogo sat behind his writing table in the back room of The Pit, the whorehouse both men owned. It was a grotto like room, with a low ceiling, carved out of the dark red stone behind the whorehouse. Two torches burned on the wall behind Diogo. The walls and ceiling had a fine dusting of soot from countless torches.

Besides the massive table, the only other furniture in the room was two cherry wood straight back chairs that matched the table. The dark red wood glowed with a mellow gleam that made the stark walls look more like a room and less like a stone crypt.

Valak, who didn’t hurt slaveboys for the sake of it, had bought the boy a plate of sausages, bread cakes and scrambled eggs. Jasari shoveled the food down his throat, with hardly a pause in his mouth, with almost alarming speed.

Diogo and Valak exchanged a silent glance.

“Gods boy, when’s the last time you ate?” Valak said.

The boy paused a moment, a thick bread cake wrapped around a sausage that dripped oil poised at his lips, thinking.

“Yesterday Sir. Master had meat,” the boy said. “He gave me bread and gravy.” His face brightened.