«I have seldom seen a man so strong, Your Magnificence.»

«Good. Then it is our decree that this 'Prince Blade' be sent to the service of our galleys upon the Silver Sea. Let him use his strength there, and call himself a prince if he wishes. He will do us no injury by it.»

The Emperor pointed at Blade and the four eunuchs stepped forward to surround him and separate him from Duke Boros and Tulu. As they did so, the Emperor went on.

«We also wish to remind you, Boros of Kudai, that you have in some measure displeased us by speaking so boldly. We shall give only a light punishment, however. You shall within the next ten days give over to us for our service fifty fighting men and fifty serving men and women from your house. Those who have been free shall also be free in our service, and all shall return to you at the end of five years.» Blade had never in his life heard a more obvious lie. «Clearly, though, some will not return at all if you displease us further.»

At this point Blade was quite certain that there was indeed a madman in the chamber, and equally certain that it was not himself. He would have liked to express this opinion by walking over to the black marble throne and strangling the creature sitting on it very slowly with his bare hands.

It would in fact have been quite practical to dispose of the Emperor, although in a somewhat less stylish manner. The eunuch carrying the crossbow was standing just a little too close to Blade, and his weapon was cocked and loaded. Blade was quite sure he could snatch the bow and put the bolt through the Emperor's thick torso before anyone else could lift a finger, let alone a sword.

Then what? He would have earned himself certain death. He would also have earned it for Duke Boros and Tulu, and for how many others besides? With the Emperor dead, Saram would fall into chaos. Feuds, intrigues, plots for the throne, and the vengeance of the dead Emperor's men would take tens of thousands of lives. In that chaos the Steppemen would have a golden opportunity to strike. Their rule in Saram would probably be worse than even the rule of Emperor Kul-Nam.

No, he would not try to bring down the Emperor unless and until there was someone better to put in his place. He would go off to the galleys, looking like a good slave tamely submitting to his fate. He had been a slave before, in half a dozen different Dimensions. He was still alive, unlike most of the men who had themselves been his masters. He was reasonably sure he could do it all again.

So he stood where he was as the eunuchs closed in and drew out cords to bind his wrists behind him.

Chapter 10

Blade spent the night in a cell deep below one of the buildings along the outer wall of the House of Blood. He was alone in the cell with the usual amount of dampness, filth, bad smells, fleas, and rats. Morning brought a breakfast of sour, watery porridge and four more armed eunuchs with chains and shackles for his arms and legs. They fastened him up quietly and efficiently, then led him up and out into the sunlight. A score of other slaves who were being sold or transferred were already chained in a long line, under the guard of four mounted men. Blade was added to the end of the line; then they were marched out through the gate and off into the morning. Blade caught a last glimpse of Dzhai standing on the wall and watching the slaves depart, but neither man risked signaling to the other.

It was a long day's march in the heat and the dust. One of the women and two of the men could not stand the pace and collapsed. They were unchained, dragged to the side of the road, and disposed of quickly and efficiently with a sword-slash across the throat.

Blade was not surprised at the weaklings being killed. What did surprise him was that they hadn't been flayed or blinded or disemboweled before being killed. Instead, they'd been executed, with no mercy but without great suffering either. That was not something Blade had expected to find in Saram.

Perhaps indulging sadistic whims was a monopoly of the Emperor? In that case the Emperor's underlings might do their own jobs quietly and efficiently, killing only when somebody stepped out of line. If that were true, Blade realized he might enjoy a long if not exactly happy life as a slave, provided that he behaved himself.

It was certainly worth trying. In any land good slaves weren't usually mistreated on a moment's impulse. They were too valuable.

Blade set out to make himself look valuable.

At the end of the first day's march the slaves were watered, fed more porridge, and allowed to sleep in their chains in an open, grassy meadow. The next morning they started off again, with a new set of guards and four new slaves added to the chain.

So it went for ten days. The column moved steadily north, covering about twenty miles a day. That was hardly an easy day's stroll, even for Blade. Every day one or two people dropped out and had their throats cut by the roadside. But Blade had marched half again as far, on half as much food and water. He was never in any danger of dropping out.

The column avoided all except the smallest villages and towns, but they saw plenty of traffic on the road-farm carts, trains of pack animals, carriages of nobles with whole squadrons of outriders, and more columns of slaves, some of them up to three hundred strong. In spite of the threat from the Steppemen and the Emperor's taste for his subjects' blood, the affairs of Saram seemed to be in good order, even to be rather prosperous.

This too did not particularly surprise Blade. The Emperor's whims were savage, but they were probably like lightning, striking at random. For every man or woman enslaved or tortured, a hundred might go about their business quietly, living, prospering, and dying of old age.

Kul-Nam might very well be a madman and a bloodthirsty despot. Yet it was hard for Blade to believe that most of the man's subjects would gladly exchange his rule for chaos, civil war, or conquest by the Steppemen.

On the eleventh day the column of slaves, now more than sixty strong, marched through a valley in the coastal bills onto a road running north beside the sea. That night they had chunks of salt fish thrown into their porridge and were marched into the surf to bathe. Two men drowned. Blade found an enormous relief in getting nearly two weeks' filth off his body.

The next morning they reached the Imperial port of Garis. Those slaves who were to be sold on the open market were unchained and marched off in one direction. Those assigned to the galleys, a dozen of the strongest, were marched off to the naval arsenal south of the city.

The slave barracks almost entirely circled the harbor, a triple rank of brick buildings each three stories high, a hundred feet long, and obviously built to last. There was room in those barracks for the whole population of a fair-sized city.

Blade and the other new arrivals were marched up to the second floor of one of the buildings. There they were unchained, issued straw pallets, blankets, and leather buckets, and more or less left to themselves for a few days. Food and water came twice a day and the waste buckets were emptied every morning. That was all.

Blade put the time to good use. On the same floor with him were a good many men who'd been slaves for years. They despised the newcomers and would refuse to answer direct questions, or would even knock anyone down who seemed too curious. They would also talk freely among themselves, without much concern for who might be listening. Blade listened carefully and gradually built up a picture of what was facing him.

To the east of the Empire of Saram lay two large seas. The Silver Sea, on whose coast Garis lay, was about a thousand miles wide. To the north of it lay the Emerald Sea, about half as wide. The two seas were connected by a wide strait studded with islands, the Strait of Nongai.