Leaves On The Wind
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This unholy wretch was short. He wore the same flowing robes she had seen on others in the crowd. His face was dark, and sun-shrivelled like his hands. Judith caught a sickly sweet smell in her nostrils and shuddered.
The man saw the movement, and his examination of her mouth completed, bared his own discoloured teeth in a snarl. “You must learn to veil your distaste, my dear…” he hissed, snaking his hand down Judith’s arm. He pinched her cruelly. “Or you will suffer.”
Judith opened her mouth to frame an angry retort, but her eyes caught those of the figure by the steps. Rannulf’s twin shook his head. She snapped her mouth shut.
“Very good,” drawled her new tormentor. He turned to the auctioneer. “I like the look of this one, my friend. Hair the colour of gold, eyes like sapphires, and it would seem she can be taught. I like her. She will do my House proud.”
The auctioneer clapped his hands. He fingered her cropped locks, indicated her eyes, made much of her unusual colouring.
Someone made an opening bid.
Judith shut her eyes.
The withered runt bettered the offer.
She tried to shut her ears.
Another bid from another quarter. That hideous wretch again. Another bid. Another.
Judith caught the word “virgin”. Her eyes sprang open. Someone laughed. She found the brown hair of the man who resembled Rannulf, and locked her gaze on him. If she had to be sold, she would rather he bought her. She could see him watching her. Why did he not bid?
Please, she willed him, make a bid for me.
He did not budge. She could hear others bidding, but he made not a move. He simply stared. Green eyes, startling against sun-kissed skin, staring out of the crowd as though it were he and not she who had been drugged.
Please, please. You bid for me, she shrieked in her mind.
He shook his dark head sharply as if to break a trance. He glanced at the auctioneer. He frowned. He reached for his purse. He weighed it in his hand.
“Oh, please, please. You buy me. Please,” Judith whispered out loud.
The wizened man glared at her. Judith bit her lip. Someone tossed in another bid.
People began to mutter.
The runt held his hand aloft. Dangling from it was a bulging leather purse.
The muttering ceased.
Judith’s nostrils flared. That smell…
Coins rattled. Another bid from the stunted midget. Judith’s stomach cramped. The crowd sighed. The stick-man grinned like a wolf.
Judith staggered backwards. “No!” she got out.
“Yes.” The auctioneer smirked. “Balduk here has offered many gold bezants for you.”
“But…but there may be another bid,” Judith protested, eyes turning instinctively towards the dark stranger at the foot of the steps. He looked pale under his tan. He shook his head and spread his hands. She read his thoughts as easily as if she could see into his mind. His purse was not as fat as the one the auctioneer was clutching. He did not have enough money. Judith groaned.
“Ah, no! No one else would pay that much for you. Only Balduk is able to give so many bezants for a girl. You’d better not disappoint him.”
“I won’t go,” Judith declared, and noticed with surprise that she sounded drunk.
Balduk leaned towards her and fixed her with unblinking, snake’s eyes. “You will come quietly or you will suffer,” he said quietly. Death lay in those serpent’s eyes.
Judith believed him.
Balduk picked up the rope trailing from her bonds and led her from the dais.
The man with the dark, tousled hair watched their departure. His green eyes were full of shadows.
Evening. It was cooler now. There was an odd singing noise outside Judith’s luxurious prison. One of her companions had roused herself sufficiently to tell her it was made by an insect called a cicada.
“What is this place?” Judith demanded. But the girl, who was lazing on a couch eating sweetmeats, smiled, and giggled, and would say no more.
Judith was not sure what she had expected when she had been led away from the market, but, whatever it was, it had not been this. She was lodged in the most beautiful room she had ever seen. The walls were a cool, clean white. Semi-circular arches allowed tantalising glimpses of flowershaded courtyards. Silver fountains played. The smooth marble floors were scattered with soft, exotic rugs of such quality and texture that they looked as though they’d come from paradise.
Judith had been bathed. Healing oils had been rubbed into the scars on her wrists and ankles. She’d been clothed, after a fashion, in floating silks that revealed more than they hid. She’d been given strange foods to eat. She’d tasted olives, and octopus and swordfish. She’d been handed sweet fruits called oranges. But all this attention had not allayed her suspicions. She was being treated like a sacrificial lamb, and any moment now the officiating priest would appear and demand she paid her dues. No, however heavenly this place appeared, it had not been designed with her in mind.
“Do you understand me?” She raised her voice. “Where are we? What is this place?”
“She finds your tongue difficult.”
Judith whirled round to see a plump woman standing behind her. The woman’s leather-soled slippers had made no sound on the tiled floor. She had glossy raven-coloured hair. Her sloe-dark eyes had been carefully painted. Her lips were tinted ruby red.
“She managed it a moment ago,” Judith said waspishly. The drug had worn off and she was both angry and afraid. “Who the Devil are you?”
“I am Zoe.” Zoe’s voice was low, Judith could hardly hear her.
“Where am I? Where is this place?” Judith demanded.
“You are in the House of Balduk.”
“I know that,” Judith snapped. “But where on God’s earth is that?”
Zoe’s dark eyes stared coolly at her. She seemed quite unaffected by Judith’s anger. “Does it matter?”
“It matters!”
Zoe shrugged. “As you wish. This is Cyprus. We are under Byzantine rule.”
The name meant nothing to Judith.
“You see,” Zoe said, sweet as honey. “It does not matter. You are no wiser for knowing the name of this island.”