by   David Nunes da Silva..

2435 B.C.E.    The Julian Alps.

We sometimes think the past was a time of slow, imperceptible change.  But here are a few of the things that were new in 2435.   The wheel.    Writing.   Metal.   Ships.  I could go on - a dozen changes each greater than any of our own day.  So forget the unchanging past, and imaging living in a time when, from one generation to the next, the old way of living, and thinking, was cast aside.   Imagine upheaval and violence, compared to which our own times are boring, routine, and safe.    It is in this era that I have set my tale.

This is the first story of a trilogy.     Click on yellow notes for the tunes.
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1.  "... and run between the fires on a warm midsummer night."    
   
   
2. Brothers of the Ox-Yoke  
   
   
3. The Song of Kala Khoam 
   
   

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Arkwan slowly lifted his head above the mud of the pit.   There was no one in sight.  Moving so slowly that it took heartbeats to travel a hand's width, he crawled toward the courtyard, where he could still hear a few of the nomads, drunkenly singing.    He reached the burnt remains of the house wall, and slowly lifted his head to see into the courtyard.   By the starlight, and the embers of their dying fires, he could see that most of the nomads were asleep.   The ones still carousing were drunk; no one was on watch.    If he was to escape the village, he should go now.  I will have to crawl within a spear's length of them, in full view, he thought, but there is no other way.   Tomorrow night, they might sleep somewhere else, but there is no way I can hide through the day.   They will search this house for any gold or bronze that could have survived the fire.   They will even search the pit.  And it is too cold to go back in, anyway.

Arkwan found the jar he had buried near the pit; with his clothes in it.   He rubbed the mud off his body with them, so they would be black as he crawled across the courtyard, then he put them on.   After half the night spent naked in the freezing cold, part of it in the mud of the pit, he at last began to get warm again.    It no longer seemed impossible to escape the village alive.   He looked over the wall again to plan his route; he could go part of the way behind the pile of the dead bodies of the villagers.

He could not recognize the bodies in the dim light, but he knew Sujasa was one of them.   He had heard her scream as they raped and tortured her.  But her screams had not lasted long,  and he had heard a nomad scream as well.   "Get her," the nomad shouted.  Then something about a knife.   The nomad speech was different, but some words were the same.   After that there were no more screams from Sujasa; she must have forced them to kill her.

Arkwan had left the battle early; he could see there was no hope, and he had run back to his father's house, and completed his plans.    He scooped all the mead into the cesspit in the stable, and all the beer.  He added all the ox dung, and mixed it into a soup.  He placed burning lamps near piles of dried rushes, and broke jars of tallow nearby.  Then he had put his clothes, and his bronze dagger, into a jar and buried it, and then he had climbed up to the rafters, with his bow and all of the arrows in the house.   Pulling out some thatch, he could look down on most of the village.  His father's house had one room top of the other.  It was the only house in the village with a room on top of another.  The only one on the green Earth, Arkwan thought.

Arkwan waited until sunset.   The village was crowded with nomads celebrating their victory; he began to shoot.  The nomads panicked, they pushed and tripped, and Arkwan shot very fast.  Arrow after arrow into one perfect target after another.   Only one nomad realized that the safest place was in the house from which the arrows came, but Arkwan felled him before he could reach it.  The sheep got loose, and the nomads tripped over them in their hurry, and any nomad who tripped, was easy to kill.   Finally the nomads rallied, and charged the house.  Arkwan had time to kill only one of them.   Then he dropped from the rafters to the floor of the upper room, kicked over the lamp, dropped through the hole to the ground level, kicked over the other lamp, and dived into the pit.   By the time the charging nomads broke through the barred door of the house, they found no one.  Just bellowing oxen.  The house was engulfed in flames.

There was a ditch to drain the pit, and Arkwan's father had put flat rocks across it.   The heat and smoke of the fire had been intense, but with his body under the mud, mud heaped over his head, and his face pressed to the mouth of the ditch, Arkwan had lived.  After the fire the nomads searched the blackened remains.  Once again the covered ditch had saved him; without it, his face would have been above the mud to breathe, and the nomads would have seen him.

In the cold of winter the mud in the cesspit was too cold for Arkwan to stay in for long.   So he had spent most of the night by the side of the pit, ready to slip into the mud if a nomad came back to poke through the ruins.   He spent the night listening to the screams of the villagers as the nomads raped and tortured them.  Arkwan wondered if they always did this, torturing to death valuable slaves, or if they were especially angry because of the men, women, and children Arkwan had shot.   He had been able to shoot some fat well-dressed nomads, who must have been the leaders.  And he had shot some well-dressed women and children.  Most of the nomads were just skin and bones, wearing tattered rags.   So this long night of torture of everyone Arkwan knew, was revenge for some leader Arkwan had killed, or some leader's woman or child.   Perhaps that girl in the embroidered cloak, with her little bow and arrows - Arkwan's arrow had skewered her to the ground.  Arkwan's mother had screamed the longest.   "Fuck the rikssco," Arkwan had heard a nomad command.   He supposed Fuck was the same in any speech.   Maybe rikssco meant priestess or village headwoman in the nomad tongue.  Mother's screams had lasted until moonset, then they stopped.   His father's second wife had only screamed a short time.

"Don't fuck my shit-eye, you'll kill me," his friend Patkha had pleaded; then he had howled. And then, Arkwan thought, they had killed him.  A slave who won't take rape and whipping quietly, is usually considered to be too much trouble.  "I could be a valuable slave, I'm strong," Arkwan's uncle Bohina had begged for his life.   But Bohina had been wounded in the battle; the nomads wanted slaves they could march away.  So they tortured Bohina to death.  The screams of the girls had been the worst.  The nomads raped little girls to death, or when they couldn't rape any more, burnt them alive.   The sound of whipstrokes landing on flesh had gone on all night.  One boy had sobbed; they killed him.  The others hadn't made a sound.   The boys were learning what it is to be slaves.   Only the older boys had been raped, Arkwan thought.  The nomads were killing little girls but not the less valuable little boys, so it had to be revenge for Arkwan's arrows.

Arkwan knew he had only a slim chance to escape the village without being seen, and when he was captured the nomads would guess he was the archer who had rained death from above.   Then the leader who had ordered a whole village of girls tortured to death, to revenge his little girl, would have the killer himself.  Arkwan had his dagger, he could kill himself now.   But he had always been lucky; he would risk capture and torture, and try to stay alive.   He would have to cross the courtyard, in full view of the nomads in the starlight, but he would just hope they didn't see him.

He first crossed the smaller gap, to reach the pile of villagers' corpses.  He crawled silently and slowly, but not too slowly.   Not so fast that movement would be seen out of the corner of some nomad's eye, but not too slowly either; his only hope was that no nomad happened to look in his direction while he was in full view.    Some of the girls in the pile of corpses were still alive, burnt all over.    There was nothing Arkwan could do for them.   He reached the furthest point where he was screened from the drunken, singing nomads.   The naked body of a woman provided a bit of cover, made a bit of shadow.   The body was still warm.    Now he had the large gap to cross.   He realized the body next to him was still breathing.  It was his mother.

She was facing him, but did not seem aware of him.   Arkwan had little enough chance of escaping as it was, almost none of rescuing her.   There were nomads all around, close.  They had only to look.   He would have to try.   He took out his dagger; there would be time to kill himself, if he was quick.   He touched her shoulder, but there was no response.   He pricked her arm with his dagger.   If she made a noise, they would die, but if he could not bring her to some awareness, he could not save her.   There seemed to be some flicker of recognition.   He had done what he could.    He began to crawl across the courtyard, in full view of nomads on either side of him.   He could hear her crawling after him.   She was making too much noise.   He nerved himself to drop onto his dagger, and kept crawling.  He passed between two sleeping nomads so close he could have reached out and touched them.   He kept crawling.   He reached the shadow of a house; then crawled behind it.   His mother was still behind him.   Now they had only to slip between the houses and escape the village.

There were heaps of looted clothing outside the houses, probably dropped by the nomads when he had started shooting.  There were bodies of nomads he had shot from above, and a village woman.   Arkwan heard a noise and went to look.   There might be other villagers still alive.   But the woman was cold and dead, it was the widow Karipas, Tanyata's mother, with a nomad arrow through her throat; the noise was a baby boy.   Arkwan found a cloak for his mother among the looted clothing, and handed her the baby.  They made their way out of the village.   Only when they had reached the safety of the trees did he speak for the first time.

"We can use the food we hid in the hills," he said.   "I want to go to the King, and tell him the nomads have come.   You can be safe with the King, and I want to become one of his warriors, and fight the nomads."     But his mother did not speak.

Arkwan tried to make a plan.   His mother might recover, given time, food, sleep, and warmth.   He had only his dagger and his clothes; he had not brought any flint or tinder.   He decided to go to the high sheep pasture, where there was a little hut.   There would be flint and tinder.   But first, they would go to the place his father had hidden food.   They set out through the forest, climbing the trail.  Arkwan had climbed it many times before, and often at night.   But that was in the summer, and he had Lumpkha and Niri with him.  His arrows and the two big dogs were a match for any wolves.   But now he had no bow, and Lumpkha and Niri were dead, or captured by the nomads, along with every person Arkwan had ever known, except his mother.   They followed the trail to the little hut among the sheepfolds.   There were no wolves that night.

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Arkwan lit a fire in the little hut, and his mother slept.   And the baby slept also.    Arkwan thought of all the relatives and friends he had heard scream and die.   He couldn't see them as being all dead.   His wife Sujasa couldn't be dead, dead and cold like Karipas.    He couldn't think of Sujasa as dead, especially not here, in the high pasture.    It was here, while he watched his father's sheep, that Sujasa had come to lie with him last summer.   He had begged and pleaded for so long, and then one day she was standing naked in front of him.   Without a word she removed his loincloth.  He was awkward, as it was his first time, not counting the ewes; but she seemed to know what to do, which made him a little suspicious.   Nothing can be hidden in a village, and all the children liked to spy, although they got their bottoms blistered when they were caught.  So Arkwan and Sujasa had seen men couple with women often enough.  But watching was one thing, doing another.

Afterwards, he had talked of his plans.   "When we are married, in a pair of winters, or a trio at most, I think I will be made headman," he had said.    "Father will become Elder.   Elder Kranas will die this winter, or next, and Father will be chosen Elder for certain.   People like to have the headman the son of the elder, so with your family's support, I think we have a good chance.  We may have the support of Prince Taslan, and your father is very respected in the outlying hamlets.   Won't you like to be headwoman of the village?"

"I haven't said I will marry you, Arkwan," she had said.

"Who will you marry? Sindjas?  Patkha?" Arkwan had shouted at her.  "Have you been lying with every boy in the village?"

"Sindjas is in my clan, fool.   Patkha is like a little boy.   I want a real hero for a husband.   Someone like your uncle Bohina, only younger.  Some day one of the King's warriors will come to the village, a hero.  He will take me and enter my body.  We will be married and I will go with him."

Arkwan had run away.   He didn't want her to see him crying.   But Sujasa had found him, and given him a kiss, and dried his tears.    "Of course I will marry you, Arkwan.   You will be a hero some day.   It was only that you did not ask me."

They were still naked, and Arkwan was ready to enter Sujasa's body again.   He did not feel awkward any more.   But Sujasa had said, "Wait.  I have been disobedient.  You must punish me, now I am your woman."   And she had taken Arkwan's bronze dagger and cut a switch from a tree.    "If I am your woman," Sujasa said, "you must hit me when I am disobedient."

"But I don't want to hit you," Arkwan had said.

"Don't you care?  I talked about a King's warrior entering my body.  You must punish me for saying thay, if you want me for yours alone?"

Arkwan had said: "I do care.  You shouldn't have said that."   Sujasa lay on the ground, but after two or three of his light strokes across her bottom, she jumped up, grabbed the switch, and gave him a vicious blow across the face.   She ran away toward the trees.   He had chased her, but she was quicker at dodging among the trees than he was.   She managed to hit him several more times with the switch.   But then she had run across the pasture, and he was faster in a straight chase, and had caught her.   He was stronger, too, and he took the switch from her and wrestled her into a position where he could apply the switch to her bottom, although she scratched and bit and hit him.   He applied the switch with all his strength.

After a hand of blows she stopped struggling, and Arkwan stopped hitting.   His spear had risen, and his need to enter her body again was so strong his body was not his own.  He had watched many men couple with woman, and seen their pleasure, but he had not known about this need.   But while he moved to do what his need made him do, she hit him with the switch in a very painful place.   Well, he would whip her long and hard.      But then he thought about Rohigga.  He did want to marry Sujasa, some day, but Rohigga was nice to kiss, too, and she had promised to fuck someday soon.   But he could never keep Sujasa, if he was also fucking Rohigga; he knew Sujasa too well to hope for that.   He had to choose.  "Sujasa," he said, "you are mine alone.  Lie on the ground.   I'm going to whip you for saying you would marry a king's hero.   You will marry me.    And you will be whipped if you kiss anyone else."   And she had obeyed.   He said nothing about not kissing Rohigga any more.    He didn't need to.   It would take a braver hero than he was ever going to be, to try to get away with that.    He was hers alone - he had no doubt of that, with Sujasa.   She would see to it.    And she wanted him to want her enough to keep her.

Standing above her, he could strike hard, and he whipped her all over.  Very hard too, but she laughed at the pain, as a warrior laughs at wounds in battle.  She wriggled her body and panted and moaned as he whipped her.   Arkwan could only take so much.  He took her by strength and it need all his strength, to fight her and lift her hips and thrust into her from behind, slamming his body into hers, rough and hard.   The wave of pleasure that engulfed him was staggering.  It was much stronger than the first time.  Some time later, when he had regained his wits, he wondered: is that what it is like?   Have all the men I've watched fuck women, felt that?

Arkwan was drained, worse than a day in the fields, but Sujasa tried to continue the game.  She bit his penis.  But when she could not provoke him to anger by biting and scratching him, she lay down too, and they cuddled together on the grass, in the warm sun.   Niri came and squeezed between them, and licked his penis clean, and licked his juiced from where they had spilled on both bodies, and then the dogs, without any need for orders, brought the sheep.   The lovers lay half dozing as the summer breeze licked their naked skin, and the smells of grass, and sheep, and dog, and sex swirled around them.   They slept.   Sujasa woke first, and poked Arkwan in the chest.

"Maybe I will lie with your uncle Bohina," she said   "He's a real hero.  And he's not too old."

Arkwan was irritated.  She's insatiable, he thought.   He refused to be provoked.   She hit him with the switch.  She landed hard strokes on his arms, his side, and his legs before he got the switch away from her.   "Sujasa," he said, "on your belly."

That time, for talking about Uncle Bohina, Arkwan gave her a real whipping, as hard and long as the whippings he got from his father.   Not something anyone could laugh at.  Arkwan was always cranky when he was woken up.   The whipping changed her, for a little while, from the hard warrior maiden he loved to a clinging, obedient, kissy girl, like a little sister.   But somehow the girl fit much better than the warrior into the space between his side and his arm.  He began to think of her - to feel about her - differently.    He liked it - he liked having a girl he could whip for just talking about fucking another man.   But when he entered her,  no wave of pleasure came.  After a long time of thrusting, his penis softened, and he had to stop.   The clinging girl was nice to kiss, but for fucking, he decided he liked the warrior maiden best.   He liked the biting, scratching, fighting, shouting Sujasa better for that.

Then they talked.    Arkwan had plans for the village.  His father would not listen to him.   Sujasa had never thought about such things before, but she had good ideas.  Arkwan knew he didn't have a clever tongue, not like hers.  They talked past sunset, talked as they brought the sheep into the fold for the night.   Although he often spent the night, Arkwan wanted to return to the village.   The sheep would be safe in the fold with the dogs to guard them.   But still Sujasa was not satisfied.   She hit him with the switch again, across his face, and danced away in the moonlight, not even running.   Arkwan did not want to whip her any more.

"Sujasa," he shouted after her.   "I am your man.   If you want a whipping before we couple, here I am."

He took off his cloak and his loincloth.  "On my belly, Sujasa," he shouted into the trees.   "I shouldn't have accused you of lying with Sindjas and Patkha.  If I am your man, whip me for that."

He lay on his belly for a while, and eventually Sujasa came out of the trees.    Arkwan didn't have that sick feeling he got while waiting for a whipping from his father.   This is going to hurt, he thought.  Why am I so excited?

Afterwards, when he entered her body, he felt a pleasure that seemed to last as long as he wanted.   Sujasa seemed to be feeling it as well.   The final peak was only the end.   Not so violent as before, but more satisfying.  He felt very happy and very, very tired.   It was quite late indeed when they got into the village.

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Arkwan never found out how, but by morning Sujasa's bottom had been seen by half the village.   And everyone knew he had whipped her for saying she would fuck another man.  The weals on Arkwan's own body could not be hidden either.   Patkha and a few boys came to see him - "We are going to bathe in the stream," they said, "would you like to come?"   Arkwan knew they just wanted to see him naked, to see the condition of his bottom.   He was ashamed.   He wouldn't be the only man in the village to be whipped by his woman, even Uncle Bohina was.   But he was ashamed all the same.   But he couldn't keep his bottom covered all summer.   He walked with his friends to the stream, and he took off his cloak and loincloth with a show of unconcern.   It was fun, actually, watching them gape.

When he got back to his father's house, Sujasa was there, with a tanned sheepskin and a bag of clothing, which she put next to his things in the corner of the upper room.   If they spent the night together, under the roof, they would be married.    Arkwan had no idea of their getting married so soon.   His family was important; so was hers.  Their marriage feast should have been the biggest ever seen in the village - the King and Queen would have come.    It just wasn't done to marry like this - not in important families like theirs.   Arkwan's father was so angry he was biting his lip.   The last time that had happened, Arkwan had slept on his belly for a month.   But the whip was not in his father's hand - it was still hanging on its peg on the wall.

No one could object to their marriage - it was an excellent match for both families.   But they would not have married for years.  And perhaps not to each other, if some other, more valuable, family alliance had became available in the meantime, since his family was so important that a royal alliance was not out of the question.  Of course, if they kept laying together they would have a baby.   But then Sujasa would have to stand naked outside the door and shout, "Let me in, I have in my belly a child of this house," and then she might not be the chief wife.   So Sujasa had been rather clever.   She had gotten him to claim her as his own, since he had whipped her for saying she would fuck another man, and the village knew that.  If, after that, they drove her out, she would be marked as a cast-off - claimed by a man, but then rejected.   She would find it hard to marry anyone.   And if that happened, the village would blame Arkwan for it, and he would lose honor.    Arkwan's father was too proud to allow that to happen - it would stain the honor of his doorposts.  Also, there was Sujasa's father to consider - an influential man on the council.   So Arkwan's father could not drive her out with his whip, as much his hand itched.   But there was nothing to stop him from using the whip.   On Arkwan too, of course, but Arkwan was used to it.    They would be whipped tomorrow, but the marriage would stand tonight.   Sujasa had gambled and won.

But that night, he had not entered her body.   For one thing, they had been given mead or beer at every house in the village, and were even drunker than a bride and groom usually are. For another, Arkwan's young half-brothers were spying on them.  Early in the morning, Arkwan and Sujasa slipped out of his father's house, climbed up to the high pasture, sang with Lumpkha and Niri, and thanked Sindjas.   They were alone.  But not perhaps, away from the spies.  When they were little, Arkwan and Sujasa had been the most active of spies, so they knew that a newly married couple would be a tempting target.     Arkwan set out the dogs, and kept his ears and his eyes open, while Sujasa licked his balls.   How did she know so much about pleasure?

Lumpkha caught the scent, and sang.   Arkwan and Sujasa came running, naked.  They soon caught the spies, but it was not Arkwan's young brothers as he had expected.  It was Tanyata, daughter of the widow Karipas, and the orphan boy Huwh.  Frightened, and shivering, the two children were holding hands.  Arkwan was reminded of Sujasa and himself when they went spying together, of what it felt like to be caught.   "Did you come to spy on us?" he asked them.   "We came to spy on you, Arkwan" Huwh said.   "Tanyata wanted to watch you get a whipping."

"What did you think would happen if you were caught?" Arkwan asked.  

"We'd get a whipping instead," Tanyata said.

"That's right," Arkwan said.   "Did you know that Sujasa and I used to go spying when we were your age?  We went spying together, and now we are married."

"Were you ever caught?" Huwh asked.

"A few times," Sujasa said, "and then we were whipped.  I hated that part."

"But the spying was fun," Arkwan said, "because of the danger.   So when we were caught we didn't really mind.   And it is good practice for raids."

"I don't really mind either," Huwh said, "it will not be so bad.  I am ready.  I want to take Tanyata's strokes."  

Tanyata scowled at that, but her eyes glowed with pleasure.   Arkwan wished he'd thought of taking her strokes the times he was whipped with Sujasa.   But life for the orphan Huwh would not be so easy as it had been for Arkwan, the headman's son. 

"It was fun, we liked watching you fuck," Tanyata said, "it made me tingle inside.  But you caught us.   Will it be a long whipping?"

"Long enough," Arkwan answered.

Tanyata said, "Well, I am ready.   I will take Huwh's strokes.   He can't take mine.  I'm older."

"Well then, you shall each have the other's strokes."

"But that will be the same as if we each got our own," the boy protested.

Arkwan laughed, and the boy grinned sheepishly.    Arkwan had never been this brave about a whipping.

Arkwan whipped Tanyata and Huwh, as he and Sujasa had once been whipped, side by side, with a long switch across both bottoms.   They held hands and looked into each other's faces.  Each tried to be brave for the other.  This was something Arkwan understood; taking a risk together, being whipped together, showing courage for each other. Such courage deserves to be tested, and he gave them a long hard whipping.  He liked to remember the whippings for spying he had shared with Sujasa.   So why did he feel so bad when his father whipped him?

Sujasa brought the children into the hut to recover after the whipping, and gave them some food.  They ate kneeling.

"Huwh, would you like to be our foster son?" Arkwan asked.

Huwh was confused.  "He would," Tanyata said.  "Wouldn't you, Huwh."

"Yes," Huwh said.

But he hadn't really believed it.   Not until that night, as he lay down to sleep beside his new parents in the little hut by the sheepfolds.

And so began that wonderful summer.  Honey mead and sheep cheese.  Coupling in the sunshine, on the grass.   Huwh and Tanyata playing.   Dancing all night around the fires at midsummer.   Teaching Huwh to be a shepherd boy.   Training Niri's puppies.   Dining with the King and Queen when they came to eat and drink their tribute.  Hunting with Prince Taslan.  Feeling the new life grow in Sujasa's belly.

Tanyata came every day, and joined Huwh for his training.  Arkwan taught them fighting with dagger and shield, as well as sheep-tending.  Sujasa, who was the better archer, set out targets for each of them.

"Move my target back," Tanyata demanded, "and if I miss I want a whipping, the same as the boys."

"There is no need for that," Arkwan had said.  "I am not the village arrow master."

Tanyata was furious.  "I am as good as any of the boys!   And I am NOT afraid!"

Arkwan still didn't want to, but Sujasa had said, "The boys used to pick on me, too.   They didn't like it that I was best at shooting.    And you're not as good as you should be, Husband.    Archery is not a joke."

"I will try harder, Wife."

"You will not, Husband, unless you are made to.  You never do, at anything.  I want you two to have a contest, every morning.  Tanyata needs to get better than any of the boys, because they pick on her, and you, Husband, need to shoot much better than you do.   And when you lose, Husband, I will whip you myself.   And you needn't smirk - I will whip hard enough to make you take it seriously."    Arkwan had agreed, but he moved his target back, and moved Tanyata's forward.   He thought his wife was too hard on the girl.

Every morning, when Arkwan woke, Tanyata was waiting.  She knew better than to wake him up.  "Don't bother with your loincloth," she would say, "I shall win today, and you'll only have to take it off again, when Sujasa whips you."  At first, day after day, it was Tanyata who got the whipping.  But however much she was whipped, whether for archery or any other training, she always wanted a harder challenge, a further target, a heavier spear.  And she wanted a whipping when she failed.  She was never unhappy after a whipping.  As the summer wore on, she grew in skill, and at last she won.  She danced, and she sang, "I am the best, I am the best, Arkwan's bottom will be red."   So Arkwan said: "whip me as hard as you can, Wife."   And Tanyata shrieked in triumph to see Arkwan whipped long and hard.   For a few days Arkwan lost every day, and the whippings really hurt.   But then Tanyata said, "winning is too easy.  I want to move my target back."   Then as the autumn moons waxed and waned again, she was whipped every day; she could barely hit the target - she had moved it much to far.   But she never wanted it to be easy.   Even when she had little chance of winning, she still cut a long, knobby switch every morning - claiming, of course, that it would be Arkwan who would feel it. 

When Arkwan missed, he knew the arrow would miss even before it left his bow.  His eyes felt twisted, his shoulders tight, and he felt a sort of anger - and the whipping didn't hurt enough.    He didn't think Sujasa liked to whip him so hard, but he liked it to hurt, and Tanyata surely liked to watch.   And when Tanyata missed, she would shout in frustration and fury, and come running over for her whipping.  He knew what that frustration felt like, so he liked making her bottom hurt.  "Whip hard, Arkwan" she would say "it'll be you tomorrow!"   When it was over she would say "That didn't hurt!" and she would run across the pasture, jumping in the air and rubbing her red bottom, the puppies yapping at her heels.  The dew sparkled, and the sheep baa'd in deep, echoing tones, on those bright summer mornings in the high pasture, when he and Tanyata drew their bowstrings together.   One of them would shout in triumph, and watch a bottom turn red, while the other felt the sting of defeat and the brisk clean smack of the wood.   Every day, she got a little more skilled.   Arkwan made her challenge the village boys who had bullied her, and one by one she surpassed them all.

But Arkwan hated whipping Huwh.   Sujasa told Huwh to shoot a hand of arrows every morning.    For every miss, Huwh insisted that he should be whipped, just as Tanyata was.  He was not a good archer.    He didn't cry, but after a whipping he would just sit, wrapped up in the cloak his new parents had given him, and Tanyata couldn't get him to play.   And he wasn't getting better.  Arkwan remembered the misery of his own training, remembered how he hated being punished by his father, and he told the children that Huwh would not be whipped any more.  "You must try your best without whipping," he said.

"I don't mind being whipped when I miss," Huwh said, "I just don't like it when Tanyata is whipped.  I want to take her strokes as well as my own."

"It is not fair to him," Sujasa said.  "And you are not fair to me, either.  I want to be whipped when I miss, too."

"But you never miss," Arkwan said.

"For archery, and foot races, it shall be as I have said," Arkwan decided, "Huwh will not be whipped."   "But from today," he said to the children, "as part of your training, you must spy on Sujasa and me when we couple together.   If we catch you, Huwh may take Tanyata's strokes."

"You will never catch us," Tanyata said, "we have been spying on you all along.  Yesterday, your penis got soft when you were inside, and Sujasa had to suck on it to make it hard again."

"You were above us, and the grass is short there.   Be more careful, unless you want to watch Huwh get a whipping.  He doesn't like it the way you and I do.  You should also watch that no other children come to spy."

Two moons after the marriage, a bard ruled that by offering to foster an orphan boy, Arkwan had in fact adopted him.  The orphan boy Huwh was now heir to the house of Annuas, and Sujasa's baby would not be the eldest heir.   Huwh was sorry, but he could do nothing - he could not unadopt himself, the bard said, by wishing.  Arkwan's father was too angry to eat, as well as too angry to speak, for three days.  

Since Arkwan and Sujasa now had a legally adopted son who could draw a bow, they sat on the council of wisdom, rather than the council of youth.  And of course it was the older council that made the real decisions.   In the council, Arkwan's word was often different than his father's, and a faction formed around him.   He spoke well, he was Prince Taslan's sworn friend; and some even whispered he was the next Elder, instead of his father.   He soon had more followers than his father did.   His faction supported Huwh as heir; his father's followers said the law could be ignored, and Sujasa's baby would be heir, if it was a boy.   The fights with his father in the council tore out his guts, and Arkwan became so miserable he couldn't get out of bed.  His father did not whip him for what he said in council, as he had expected - they didn't speak at all any more, except in the council.  One secret thought, a secret hope, he relied on like a center-post - one good thing that would come from all this: Huwh and Tanyata would marry. and so, since Huwh was the Annuas heir, Tanyata would come as a bride to the house of Annuas; as his daughter-in-law.  In Arkwan's eyes, he was already dancing at Tanyata's wedding.

With Arkwan sick, his faction and his father's broke into open fighting.   Huwh tried to patch the quarrel.   He swore to serve and obey Sujasa's child, boy or girl.

Tanyata stayed with Arkwan in his illness, and talked with him, and challenged him to a foot-race.   His legs felt heavy, and he felt tired.  He lost, and Tanyata whipped him.   "It is not just that I lost to you, Tanyata," he said.  "I feel like I do when I lose, but much worse; and right now I want it to hurt.  I want it to hurt and hurt and hurt."  Her stinging strokes, and her shouts of joy and triumph with every stroke, lifted the pain of his father's words from him.   He raced her again, winning easily - his feet were as light as his heart, and his tingling bottom and thighs felt no pain from hard running..  "I won't whip you," he told Tanyata, when she walked up, panting and defeated, to the goal tree.   The tears trembled on her eyelashes. "It hurts less to be whipped than to lose," she said.

But now Tanyata was dead.   Raped by some nomad till she was split open, then tossed on a bonfire.  Arkwan could still hear her screams.

.

.

In the morning, Arkwan's mother still stared vacantly, and would not speak.  The baby shrieked from hunger.  Arkwan tried to think.  They would have to reach a friendly village, although it would be hard to travel in winter.   If the weather held, they would make it.   At least they had enough food.   Arkwan filled bags with dried meat, cheese, nuts, dried fruit, and hard bread.   It was fortunate that his father believed in hiding food in the hills rather than keeping it in the village.   If only they had had more warning, the whole village could have deserted their houses to the nomads, and hidden in the forest.   But in the deep winter they had not posted look-outs.

Laden with food, with his mother carrying the baby, they started to walk through the forest, heading south.   The nearest village was to the north, but it must have been overrun by the nomads.    And that village was as far from home as Arkwan had ever been.   He knew that south, somewhere, was the King.   Arkwan mixed sheep's cheese, water, and his own blood, and smeared it on his paps to let the baby suck it off.  He had no idea they bit so when they suckled.

The weather did not hold.   Arkwan found an overhanging rock, and was able to light a fire.   They survived the storm huddled together, keeping warm with rocks heated on the fire.   After the storm walking was harder, because of the snow, but not impossible.   They walked for many days.  In places they had to scramble up or down cliffs.  There were no villages.  The food would not last much longer.  The baby was sick.  Arkwan's mother never spoke.  Arkwan had no idea what to do, and perhaps this made him careless.   He was not straining his ears for every sound, but just plodding along, when they found themselves surrounded by archers.

They were marched to a large village.   Arkwan did not understand their tongue, but he recognized it.   It was his mother's tongue, and the people were dark haired, like his mother, not red haired like the nomads and the people of his own village.   Arkwan's mother had sung him the songs of her own people, and he recognized that tongue now, soft and hissing.   When they reached the village, a few men were naked, striped with welts, and most of the villagers had whips, with bits of goat hair still on them.  So it was the day of the purging.  Arkwan, who had so many dead to remember, had let the Day of the Skulls pass by without a sacrifice to the Lord of the Dead.  Without Huwh to help him, Arkwan lacked the skill to keep calendar tally-sticks.  The villagers were gathered around a pit, where a huge tree-trunk was balanced, ready to slide in.   The baby was pulled from Arkwan's mother's arms, and tossed into the pit.   Men began to lift the back of the log, bringing it closer to the point of tipping over.

Arkwan's mother pulled herself from the men holding her, and jumped into the pit.   The log began to slide forward.  Just as it came crashing into the pit the baby was tossed out; he landed some distance away, hurt but still alive.   The villagers gasped.  The log completed its journey and came to rest, and as it bounced forward, carried forward by its own motion, men pulled quickly on the ropes tied to the top.   Others pushed with poles. Between the great log's own bounce, and the strong quick pull, and the push, the log was pulled upright.  Boys brought stones to wedge it into place, before it could fall back.   It looked like the center post of a house, but a bigger house than any on the green Earth.  The villagers began to murmur in their soft hissing tongue, "kohiyossa, kohiyossa."   A woman with the headgear of a priestess, picked up the howling baby.

The villagers had put up their huge post during the purging, so it was for the Lord of the Dead.  Now they started again.   A man stripped and ran between houses, carrying his whip.   He ran into houses, out of windows, through sheep-pens, trying to make the circle of the village, as every man and woman he passed, whipped him.  But he went only part way before he stopped, his back, bottom, and legs covered with stripes.   Another took up the run, then another, but no one made the full circle.   Then the touch of the God could be felt, and in a sudden wild frenzy, every man was naked and running.   The runners were whipped by those they passed, and they used their own whips on those who stood by the path, with their backs to the passing runners.    Woman  stripped to feel  the lashes on their bodies, singing and laughing in God-drenched frenzy.  Children stood in the runners' path, turning their backs to the whips.  Dogs ran barking with the runners, then howled and scampered away when they were whipped.  But even the dogs felt the Frenzy - they could not stay away.  They ran with the running men, yelping when they were lashed, and scampering, but then coming back, pulled by the lure of  the run.  Sheep and pigs, tethered by the path of the runners, were whipped, and the air was rent by their horrible squeals.  The men guarding Arkwan felt the excitement.   They stripped Arkwan and let him go - he ran, whipped anywhere he went, whipped on every part of his body.  He didn't feel any frenzy; the whips hurt.  But he could feel the growing excitement of his tormentors, and he expected to be killed, like a whipped dog.  He ran into a hole in the side of the hill.   The hole was deep, and Arkwan was whipped along until it was completely dark.   Then he was hit from all sides with lashes.  He tried to fight back, but he couldn't find anyone to fight with.   Eventually he sank to the ground, curled up, and just endured the whipstrokes that rained down on him.   Then he was fucked in his shit-eye, by many men, in the dark.  His life as a slave had begun.

He was dragged out, and stretched across an altar.   A priest drove a dagger into Arkwan's thigh, while at the same moment anotherdrove a spear into a dog.   The first priest reached into the dog, and smeared blood and organs on Arkwans's neck.   This was a pretend castration and sacrifice, so Arkwan played along, and pretended to be dead.   But he didn't understand - these villagers were cheating the God of the Dead - better, Arkwan thought, to sacrifice the dog in the first place, than to pretend that a human life was given, but not give it.   This village must be consumed by greed, to cheat the Gods in order to save the value of a slave.   The frenzy drained from the crowd - the pretend sacrifice of a man had been enough, and he was led away by two spearmen, to a large house in the center of the village.   Outside, there was a very large fire, with leather bags of some kind near it.    An old man showed Arkwan how to push up and down on these bags.  

And push up and down on those bags he did, day after day, as the moon swelled and died and winter slowly gave way to spring.  That was his life as a slave.

The work was easy, and he could watch the old man melt bronze and mold it into axes, chisels, and knives.  The old man hammered them after they came out of the molds, and then Arkwan had to sharpen them on whetstones.  The old man was called Wvaksa; he had a son and daughter, and an apprentice.   The son, a young man called Kafassios, did no work at all.   The daughter, Szhasthar, did some cooking and spinning, very badly.  Her housekeeping was dreadful - the house was filthy.  It stank.  One day Arkwan scoured her pots, as they were filthy and he had nothing else to do, and was rewarded with a kiss and some food that she seemed to think a delicacy, but Arkwan thought was disgusting, like all the food here.   But he was given enough to eat.     Wvaksa fucked him a few times, but usually the old man coupled with his apprentice boy, who was called Iossos.  Arkwan himself, they called Kahnikos.   He had no one to talk to.

Szhasthar cuffed him when she gave an order, as if hitting him would make him understand their speech, and Wvaksa kicked him to wake him up in the morning.  When the old man was not making bronze, Arkwan was given other tasks, but these were also easy, and he was not punished if he did them sloppily.   They seemed to expect it.   Even when he didn't do the work at all, the coiled whip was rarely taken down from its peg. Arkwan tried to keep the house clean, but he found it hard to do the work, day in and day out, when no one was making him do it.   Living with his father, if a pot was dirty, or if the floor had a speck of dust, it was: "Bend across the altar!"    Kafassios whipped him, from time to time, but not to drive him to work - Kafassios  did it for pleasure.

He wished he had work that would make his body ache - and someone to drive him to do it.   Pushing up and down on the leather bags was too easy - he had time to think, and he didn't want that.  When he had traveled through the snow, trying to get his mother and the baby to safety, he had slept well without dreams, but now his nights were full of the screams of the tortured villagers.  Night after night he watched Sujasa, a captive of the nomads, raped by many men.  One nomad was the leader, a headman of nomads, and he had a huge penis.   And then in the dream somehow it was he, Arkwan, who was that nomad, raping Sujasa, and his huge penis ripped her open.  She hit him with her fists, and then the blows were Kros's kicks, waking him up.    Another day as a slave.  The early morning was the best time; he went to the stream for water, could meet other slaves.  One day he saw a slave with red hair like the people of his own land, or like a nomad.   "I greet you, friend," Arkwan said, "can you understand my speech?"

"I go slave bronze kraeghuen zu, many years, but not drupped my tongue," the red-haired slave answered, in the speech of the nomads.  "You speak bad.   My name go Pataka, slave Tlossos zu."

"I greet you, Pataka.  My name is Arkwan, but here I am called Kahnikos.  I am the slave of a man named Wvaksa."

"You no name here, Arkwan child, and you go slave Kros bronze kraeghan.  You hear Kros zu, so might be so.  That Kahnikos that go be dog, all slave go dog here.  That Wvaksa that go be lord."

"Yes, we had heard of Lord Kros, bronze maker, in our village.  I owned a dagger said to be his work."

"Bronze dagg 'said to be his work' all they," Pataka said, "only best do Kros kraegh for fact.   You go have bronze dagg Wvaksa Kros kraegh, you be rich.  Ha, you fall far.  For now you go slave, Arkwan.   Slave zo Pataka ba, Ha.   Speak, ka you be rich, so might be so you Nute peddler go know.  Nute zu ga.   He go skin water zu fill they.   You he go know?"

The man Pataka pointed out was a short, coarse-featured old man, wearing a very fine cloak, which was however quite dirty and tattered.    Arkwan did not know him.   He'd heard the names of some rich merchants and peddlers, and perhaps Nute was one of them; he couldn't really remember.   The peddler Nute was extraordinarily clumsy, and had managed to drench himself, simply in filling his water skins at the stream.

"I greet you, Nute merchant.  I am Arkwan son of Eos."

"I greet you, Arkwan, though I am no merchant, but a humble peddler.  I know your speech - did you live in the lands of King Taslan, before you became a slave?"

"I was the man of King Kahul.  Prince Taslan is his son."

"Kahul is killed, fighting for his kingdom.  Taslan is king."

"Tell King Taslan, if you travel to his kingdom, that Arkwan of the house of Annuas greets him, and hopes the dogs Kaia and Fura have been worthy.  If he should wish more pups of their dam, tell him that may not be, for dam and sire are dead or are captured by the nomads.   Also killed or captured is Sujasa, who showed him her skill with the bow, and Huwh, and every other person of the village where Eos was headman.    Tell him that Arkwan wishes he could fight by his side, but he is at present the slave of Lord Kros bronze maker, and can send only his good wishes for the King's honor, health, and safety."

"I will not be in Taslan's kingdom this summer, nor next winter, friend Arkwan, but I may be able to send your message by another.  But the king is busy with fighting the nomads, and may not be able to buy your freedom, even if he wishes."

"If he fights well, I am content.   Be in health, honored Nute peddler.  May you fare safely until you reach your home."

"My home is nowhere, or everywhere; I am a peddler.   Be in health, Arkwan of Annuas.   Go health zu, Pataka child."   They helped him carry his water skins to his cart.   Arkwan had never seen a cart before.  He'd heard of them in stories.  When the oxen pulled, he grew dizzy, watching the strange twisting motion of the turning shields that the cart used for legs.  It was a very frightening thing.

.

.

Pataka helped Arkwanlearn the speech of the bronze makers, and as the moons of spring waxed and died Arkwan came to understand most of what was said.  He could talk to other slaves, but his masters still only talked to him as a man talks to an ox - .   It was not as dull watching Kros and Iossos work, now he could understand what they said to each other.   It made Arkwan shudder that Kros coupled with a naked boy, who had no tattoos, but it also made him lonely to listen to their loving words in the night, now that he could understand them.    And it was painful to talk with Szhasthar.  He had known already that she was a simpleton; now she talked with him, hour after hour and day after day, saying nothing.   Sometimes she thought she was the Queen.   Sometimes she thought Arkwan was her husband.    So far, she had not tried to lie with him, in his sooty corner by the fire.   Arkwan was not going to crawl under her bearskin.   But some cold nights he thought about doing it.

One summer morning, before daybreak, Arkwan was wakened by Kafassios.  "Follow me, but do not speak," Kafassios said, and they went out of the village and climbed the hills to a small grove of trees near the top of a ridge.   Here there were other young men of the village, who were naked, and some boys.  Kafassios stripped as well.    Arkwan thought that this must be something to do with the midsummer fires; perhaps tonight is midsummer night.   Except for Kafassios, all the men were beautiful and strong, such as might be chosen to lead the dancing.   Kafassios was neither beautiful nor strong, but Arkwan supposed that the son of Wvaksa Kros was too important not to be given this honor.   There were more than a hand of men, and they all had tattoos on their penises, but not on their chests.    The men began to work cutting down trees with bronze axes, and Arkwan worked too.   No one spoke.  Kafassios sat on a log and watched them.   Arkwan took off his cloak, since it was hot, but he did not go naked, since he was only a slave: there to work, not one of the chosen dancers, naked and beautiful for the God.

After a while a trio of priestesses in long gray robes and yellow hoods climbed to the grove, carrying sheep's bladders on their shoulders.   The youngest priestess stripped, and knelt before the men.  She had tattoos around her cunt.   The men, one after another, knelt and suckled from her breasts.   Looking closely, Arkwan realized that the bladder's piss-tube was still attached, and the men, as well as sucking on her teats, were sucking and swallowing from the end of the tube.   When all the men had drunk, Arkwan decided to try and drink as well.  He knelt before the priestess, and she did not pull away, so he reached with his mouth for the tube, but she turned to put her teat in his mouth instead.   Only when he had suckled on both teats, which gave no milk, did she allow him to suck milk from the tube.  Arkwan felt his penis beginning to swell.  The milk had a bitter taste, but it was drink, and the day would be hot.   Arkwan drank deeply.

They spent the morning felling trees, and stacking the logs.  After a sleep, they drank more milk from the middle priestess, who was older.  Then they carried some other logs, seasoned logs which Arkwan supposed had been cut the year before, to a pass at the top of the ridge, and made two piles, ready to be lit.   This must be where the dancing would be.   Arkwan hid his cloak under a rock.   The men embraced the boys, and kissed them, and the mens' penises swelled and they played a game, trying to handle each others' penises while keeping their own out of reach.  The game ended when the first man spilled his seed.  Arkwan turned away, as he supposed they wouldn't want a slave watching, and didn't want them to notice his bulging cloth. Then the oldest priestess, an old woman, stripped and knelt before them.   In the bladder on her shoulders, there was not milk but strong honey mead.   Arkwan's head began to feel quite light.

Men and women came from the village in a procession, dressed in their finest.   The Gods who dance on human feet were there, whom Arkwan had heard about but never seen.  These were ancient wooden heads, where the Gods dwelt.   The heads were mounted on wicker frames, carried on a man's shoulders.   Long hooded robes reached to near the ground, covering the frames, so it did indeed seem as if the Gods walked among them.   During the dance, each God would come; and the God's own face would be seen instead of the carved wood.  They would speak, and if you were very brave you could look into their eyes.    And the God would use the legs of the man, and make the man walk where the God wanted to go.

Arkwan's village had Gods, of course, but they did not dance, and their faces remained wood.  Arkwan had never seen a God's real face, and he was very frightened.  Everyone knew the stories of the God whose name was not spoken, whom people called the Young God.  The Young God enjoyed village dances, and wherever he went his followers, the Smashers, came with him.   The Smashers were men, not Gods: naked, filthy, long-haired, smeared with shit and ashes, with huge penises.   All women offered themselves to the God, but the Smashers took what they wanted; tore clothing, shattered pots, lit fires, and beat men who tried to protect their wives.   It was the Young God who had stolen all the clothing in a village, so on midsummer night all the woman as well as the men had to dance naked.   The God came and danced, and every woman, even the oldest crone, had felt the God's penis inside of her before the night was over.  Only one woman, the headwoman of the village, hid her nakedness in her house, and she was found raped to death in the morning, her body smeared with shit and ash, and everything in the house had been smashed and broken.

.

.

Two priests, wearing tall pointed hats, lit the fires, and a red bard began to play on the harp, slow and stately.    The naked men, who had worked hard all day, except Kafassios, began to dance, slowly, the sweet notes plucking on their weary calves and punished ankles.   Arkwan rested.  A procession of cows was led between the fires, followed by a few bulls, then mares, then stallions.   One of the stallions was as fine as Kapi, Prince Taslan's black mare.  King Taslan's, he meant.  The fires grew so hot that anyone who walked slowly between them would be roasted.   The woman danced in a large circle around both fires, the naked men danced inside their circle.  Now the bravest boys ran, as fast as they could, between the fires.   They came out red all over from the heat, and then they danced with the men.  Soon it was too hot for anyone to pass between the fires, even running.   The boys who had not yet passed between the fires, remained outside the woman's circle, and watched; they did not join the dance.  Arkwan had run between the fires when he was a boy - the path between the fires was always toward the setting sun; it was blinding, so boys had to run without seeing their way through.   To the boy Arkwan, it had seemed as if he came out onto a different Earth, and was a different boy.   And then he was not a boy - he had gotten his man's tattoos that midsummer night, although his father had forbidden it.  He was glad his man's tattoos had not been on his penis.  The woman sang a song of praise to the Gods   The Gods on human feet danced this way and that.

Arkwan watched the dance.  The feeling that his head was floating above his body became stronger.  The woman danced around one way.  The naked men, inside their circle, danced around the other way.  Only one woman was naked.   The women drew their circle in, and the men were pushed close to the fire.   The men turned as they danced so that first their breasts and then their backs faced the roasting heat, and with an intricate step they dodged the women pushing them inwards.   One man tried to embrace the naked woman, got out of step, and a shove from a woman's hip tripped him into the coals.  He jumped up, his hair on fire, but he beat it out and continued to dance.   The sun of the longest day set behind the distant hills.   Midsummer night had begun.  The woman started a new song, to the Queen of the Wombs.   For this midsummer night was also the night of the dark of the moon.   A priestess gelded a dog, and then slit his howling throat, and tossed him into the flames.

Arkwan felt a touch on his shoulder, but there was no one there.   Then he was pushed, again by no one.  Then he was kicked.   He was being pushed in the direction of the fires.  Then his legs began to run, although he did not want to go.    His legs took him through the circle of women, and he joined the men.      Arkwan's legs knew the dance, they twirled and jumped and dodged as he circled around.  His legs would not do what Arkwan wanted.  He was looking out of his own eyes, and feeling the pain of his roasting skin, but some one else owned his body.  He came to the passage between the fires, and began to run between them.   Flames licked at his skin.  His loincloth caught fire.  And then one pile shifted, and burning logs crashed down, and the fire fell on top of him.

Arkwan could see a chance of escape, by climbing a flaming log.   He could move his body, but slowly.  Heartbeats passed after deciding to jump onto the burning log, before his legs made the jump.  He ran up the slanting log, and it collapsed under him.  But instead of falling into the fire he was struck from behind, across the bottom, by something, and he fell forward to a clear patch of ground.   He hit hard, and rolled.  There was no longer fire all around him, he could see a passage to safety, but the fire roasted his skin.  The pain was terrible.  He wanted to stand up and run, but his body did not move.  After a bit, his body stood and moved by itself, coming out from between the fires, and joining the dance.   The men nearby were startled to see anyone come out of the fire, but when they looked at him, they sank to their knees.  Some lay on their bellies, faces pressed into the ground.  Other men looked at Arkwan's face, shielding their eyes with their hands as a man does when he looks into the sun.

Arkwan danced around the circle.   Where he came, men sank to the ground.  The song for the Lady of the Wombs, stopped.   The women began a new song, a song of praise to the Young God.   A woman stripped and lay down with her knees spread, and Arkwan dropped on top of her.   She flinched at the touch of his body, and he entered her.  She screamed.

His body was not his own, but there was some pleasure, as his penis slid in and out.  It was strange.  His penis was painfully hard.   There was no peak of pleasure, and after a while his body got up and began to dance again, his penis still stiff and sore.   Other women pulled off their clothes, shouting rather than singing the song for the Young God.   Another naked woman lay on the ground, legs apart, but he passed her by, picking and choosing only the plumpest of the many who offered their flesh to him.  Many naked women were dancing now, but most of the men lay with their faces pressed to the ground.  Some of the chosen dancers, their penises swollen to enormous size, began to follow Arkwan as he danced around the fires.

Arkwan began to feel as if he was floating above his body.   He watched from above as his body coupled with a woman as they danced.  Graceful motions as he slid in and out to the rhythm of the song.   His followers ripped the clothing off a woman who resisted them.   All around the circle, ash-streaked men were coupling with women as they danced, penises sliding in and out.   The Gods on human feet danced by, their faces still wood.   Arkwan felt raised to a great height, and he looked down on the fires and the circling dancers as if he were a bird.  The bird flew higher and higher into the sky.

.

.

Arkwan woke up.  It was morning, he was cold and naked, and a rock was pressing into his back.    He was thirsty.  A man who had been watching him gave a shout, and sank to his knees.   But then the man called out, "It is only the slave.  The God has left us."   After that, no one paid Arkwan any mind.  There was a burning pain across his bottom, but except for that, he didn't feel or see any burns.   From what he could remember of the fires, he should have burns all over.  He should be dead, really.   He remembered terrible pain.  His loincloth had caught fire; his penis should be burned off.   But it was unharmed; not a hair of his piss-beard singed.   The pain was yesterday, and today he was alive, and not in much pain.   He would try to stay alive if he could.   He wanted something to drink.  He went to look for his cloak where he had hidden it, but it was gone.

The three priestesses had baskets of good bread, and some bland cheese, and the villagers ate.   Arkwan was the only one who was naked.  The bread made him even more thirsty, and he knelt down, as a slave should, before he asked a man if there was any water.   The man did not hit him or call him a dog, but went with him, politely, to a nearby spring.

Then Arkwan went back to the house of Kros.  There was no one there.   He swept the floor, scrubbed the pots.   Kros would work today, he thought, and for many moons Arkwan would push the leather bags up and down, day after day.  He would work naked, he decided, until Kros decided to give him a new cloak and a new loincloth.  Slaves didn't ask for things.  He would be punished for losing his cloak.   Perhaps Kros might not care whether his slave was naked or not, but there were no naked slaves in the village, except children, so Arkwan thought Kros would get him a cloth of some kind.  Arkwan took a jar to the stream for water.   When he climbed back through the village he was grabbed by two priests; he dropped the jar and it shattered.   The priests held him while a boy was sent for Kros.   A few villagers gathered.

Kros came and sat on a stone.  The older priest pointed at Arkwan.  "This slave raped a woman at the dance.  He must die in the pit."

Kros asked, "Rape?  At midsummer?   Was she naked?"

"I don't know, I mean, yes she was.  This dog of a slave took her," the priest said.

Kros said: "You know the Law of midsummer:

If he and she dance naked on midsummer night, there is no rape,
and neither can she be punished or reproved for fucking with anyone."

"Many saw the rape," the priest said, "it was Frah the wife of Tlossos."

"I am Frah," a woman said.  "There was no rape.  It was the God, and not this dog, who entered my body.  I saw his face; it was not the face of this slave.  It was the God.  Many saw him."

"It cannot have been the God," the priest shouted.

"It was I who entered this woman," Arkwan said.  "I and no other."

"It was the God," the woman insisted.  "But God or not there was no rape.   I took the penis eagerly into my body, although it burned me.   No slave dog has a penis that burns like fire.   Other woman, clothed women, were raped, by men of this village, but I make no cry of rape against God nor slave."

"If it was no God who entered this woman, did no God come to our dance this year?" Kros asked the priest.

"The Gods came," the priest insisted.  "I saw them.   Many saw them."

"That is not what I hear," Kros said.  "I hear that in spite of all your chants, in spite of all the smoke you make us breathe and the Hema you make us drink, the Gods you serve are made of wood."

"Look!" the woman said, pointing to Arkwan, "the mark of the God!"

"Come here dog," Kros commanded.  "Show me your back."   Kros examined him carefully.  "This slave has a burn," Kros announced, "as many men do today.   His burn is across his bottom, in the shape of a giant hand."

The entire village had by now come to watch, and villagers began to talk among themselves.   Arkwan heard the word "kohiyossa."   He wished he knew what it meant.

"He must die in the pit!" the priest screamed.   "He raped many woman."

"Perhaps I can help," came a voice from the edge of the crowd.  It was the Nute peddler.

"I will buy this slave, for a fair price.  Then he will be gone from the village, and you will not have to kill a man for rape when no woman cries rape against him."

"What gift can you give us, Nute peddler?" Kros asked.

"All I brought I have already traded for your good bronze, so I can only return bronze that is in my cart.   Here it is."

Nute began to toss daggers, chisels, and axes to the ground behind him, not looking how they fell.   Then, without looking at the pile of bronze, he walked over and took Arkwan by the wrist.

"Stop!" Kros commanded.   "It is not enough."

Arkwan gasped.   Nute had made a pile of bronze.    How could Kros reject such a kingly gift?  

"I will give more," Nute said.   And he took a single dagger out of his cart and knelt to place it carefully on the ground.   Kros said "enough!"

Then Nute handed Arkwan the ox goad, and climbed into the cart.  Arkwan prodded the oxen and the cart began to move.  Arkwan was the slave of a new master.

A slave has no friends, makes no farewells.   Arkwan looked for Pataka as he left the village, but he saw no face he knew, except the man who had shown him the spring that morning.   This man walked beside the oxen, limping a little.  He said to Arkwan, "Tlossos bronze maker wishes you health and safety, friend, though I do not know your name.  Fare well."

"Be in health, friend Tlossos.   Arkwan slave of Nute peddler wishes you safety, and your heart's desire."

"As to that, the kohiyossa will be safe with me until you come again, Arkwan peddler," Tlossos said.   But with that he turned back to the village, and although Arkwan shouted more than a slave should, he did not turn again.

.

.

The land they entered was different from the pine-covered mountains of Arkwan's homeland.   There were rounded hills, and many great oaks.  There was much grass, but not lush mountain meadows; here there were wide valleys with deer and wild cattle.   Even the stones were different.  Arkwan had thought all parts of the green Earth were like his own mountains; this strange country was like a land of song.   You might meet a God walking along the track, or a hero from an ancient tale.

That night, Arkwan made the fire and tended the oxen and the dogs.   He had walked naked all day.

Nute said: "You will want a cloak for the night.   Here is an old one.   And here is a dagger.   Do you know how to fight?"

The "old" cloak that Nute tossed him was as fine as the one Queen Mea had worn, and even more richly embroidered.    Arkwan answered: "I killed a pair of men with a dagger, but I had my shield.   I trained with shield and spear.   But I am best of all with a bow."

"I don't have a spear, but I have many spear points.  No shield, though.   Let me see what you can do with these," Nute said, handing him a bow and a quiver.   "Can you hit that tree?"

"Toss a stone in the air," Arkwan said, "and I'll show you what I can do."

Arkwan's hands moved too quickly for Nute to see what he was doing, and for a moment he thought Arkwan had shot a single arrow and missed.   But then he saw that a nearby tree had a trio of arrows in it, in a tight cluster.   All shot before a tossed stone hit the ground.

"That must be useful in a battle," Nute said.

"Some," Arkwan said, shooting another trio of arrows into a tree behind him, without looking at it.  The fledging of the arrows touched.   "But for a battle I use a lot of arrows."

Nute said: "Tomorrow, we will travel south.  It is the only path for a cart.   There may be thieves.  In the lands to the south they make good cloth, and I will buy some with bronze if I can get a good price.   We can get more arrows there."

"We will go to a village?" Arkwan said, trying to understand.  "They will give you a feast, for you are a peddler.  And you will give bronze to the headman.   What is 'buy'?"

"Things are different in your mountain villages, Arkwan," Nute said.  "Here there will be no feast.   We may get a meal, if you can sing better than I can.   I will show a dagger, and the headwoman will throw some blankets on the ground.   They will not be the best blankets.  I will say, 'it is not enough.'   Then the headwoman will add more blankets until I say 'enough.'  Or she will not, and I will put my dagger back in my cart."

"That is what you did with me," Arkwan said.  "I did not understand it.  In our village we were proud when we could give much, in return for a peddler's gifts."

"Different lands, different customs," Nute said.

This was worse than watching the shields that the cart used as legs.   Arkwan held up the dagger Nute had given him to use.   "Would it take many blankets to buy this dagger?" he asked.

"That dagger," Nute said, "is very good.  Tlossos made it.  See the shape of the handle?  This close to the village of Kros though, it is only worth a score of ewes.   If we reach the sea before winter, I could sell it for twice as much."

Nute had used the speech of Arkwan's own village, but Arkwan had not understood a word of it.   He was still trying to understand buy, and Nute had hit him with too many words, too fast.   He felt sick.  Asking Nute for more words, was like asking to be beaten over the head.   But he had to understand.

"What is 'score'?" he asked.

"A score is four hands," Nute answered.

Arkwan had heard of four.   When he whipped Huwh a hand of strokes, Huwh would sometimes say, "That is only four.  You need to whip me one more."   Arkwan didn't see what good one more stroke would do.  When you were whipped a hand of strokes, it hurt.   And sometimes Huwh would say, "Stop, you have whipped Tanyata a stroke and a hand of strokes already."    Tanyata hadn't fussed about such things; she just wanted her bottom to hurt when she lost.   Arkwan looked at his hand.  That was a hand of fingers, of course.   And if you covered the thick finger, Huwh had told him, it was four.   He covered the thick finger.   He didn't understand.   He picked up a hand of little stones.   He looked at them.  He picked up a stone, just one stone, and put it with the others.  Then he put that stone back.   He thought hard.   This hand of stones is four.   No, that's not it.   This is not a hand of stones, it is four stones.  Pick up this stone and it is a hand of stones.   Pick up another stone.  What had Huwh said? "You have whipped Tanyata a stroke and a hand of strokes."   This is a stone and a hand of stones.  Put one down.   A hand of stones.  Four stones.  A trio of stones.  A pair of stones.  One stone.   Why did he have to be the slave of a peddler?

Arkwan cut a switch with the bronze dagger.  "Whip me," he said.

Nute laughed.   "Peddlars don't whip slaves when we buy them.   We whip them to sell, to show the customer."

Arkwan wasn't going to ask what a customer was.   He just wanted the sting to take away the pain of all this thinking.

But he had to understand.  Arkwan handed Nute a hand of stones.  "Show me score," he asked.   And he waited for another beating with words.

Nute made piles of stones, a hand of piles.  No, he made four piles.   Arkwan looked at Nute's piles and did not understand.   Arkwan thought hard.   A hand of strokes.  A hand of stones.  A hand of ewes.  Trika and Suka and Suka's lamb would be a trio of ewes.   Arkwan picked up a stone that looked a bit like Suka and found another for Trika and a little one for the lamb.  Of course she was grown now, if the nomads hadn't eaten her.   The stone for Trika had a little cleft - he remembered how Trika had liked it when he fucked her.  Then he picked up one stone for every ewe in the flock he had guarded last summer.   He looked at all his stones and at Nute's stones.   He remembered a word Huwh had tried to teach him.

"These are my father's sheep," he said, pointing to his stones, and to his penis, which he was using for Tukaba the ram.   "That is your score of ewes.   So your score of ewes is half."

"More like two-fifths," Nute said, glancing.   But when he saw Arkwan's face he said, "divide your sheep into piles, piles that are the same.   A hand of piles, and a score would be a pair of those piles."

Arkwan threw up.   He felt so dizzy he had to lie down.  He.  "I need a whipping," he begged.

But Nute said nothing, and Arkwan had to think again.   He felt very sick.

After a while he picked up the dagger.   "My father was named Eos," he said.  "When we trained for fighting, if I was not the best of all the village boys, I was whipped.   'This boy is not my son.' he would say, and he would give me a long hard whipping in front of all the children.   It made me cry, and I was ashamed.  I had to be best at running and at every kind of fighting; I had to win every race and win every fight, and he whipped me if I didn't.  He also gave me a dagger he got from a peddler.   He didn't have - he didn't buy - any bronze for his own.   The dagger he gave me had a handle just like this one.   I did not know that to buy it took half of everything he had."

Nute put his hand on Arkwan's shoulder.  "I think it is time for sleep."

That night, Arkwan was chased by his penis, which had Tukaba's horns.   A score of stone ewes blocked his path, bleating like the creaking of the cartwheels.  They circled round and round, and the birds looked down from above.

.

.

"Arkwan, wake up."   It was Nute, shaking him.  "Get up now.  You went back to sleep before."

"I'll get up."

"Arkwan, wake up.  You fell asleep again.  Before you go back to sleep, is there any way to get you up?"

"Kros used to kick me.   Before that I used to whip a girl in the mornings."

Arkwan was wakened by a stinging stroke across his side.   "You fell asleep again," Nute said.  "I don't have a girl handy.   Is one stroke enough or should I whip you more?"

"It might help," Arkwan said.   He folded the beautiful cloak Nute had given him, and lay on his belly.   Nute whipped him hard, a hand of strokes, on his back and legs but not his bottom, where the burn was.  Wagga, Nute's bitch, whimpered. There was no sweetness in this whipping, no feeling of pain being lifted.  It was too late to do any good.   If only he'd been whipped last night, he thought, he wouldn't have had such terrible dreams.

"Why do you want to be whipped?" Nute asked.

"You shoot words fast, peddler.  They hurt.   The whipping is like a stinging poultice for my wounds."

"I will shoot at someone else, then.   Tonight you will see me in battle."

"I'll put the switch in the cart.  But I do not wish to avoid your words.   They hurt, but only like a blow from a wooden spear in training."

Nute wanted to roll the cart, but it took some time for Arkwan to pull the arrows out of the trees he had shot them into.  He knew nothing of oxen or carts, so that took time too.   The day had started to get warm before the cart rolled.   Arkwan had no belt, so he put the dagger into the cart, where he could reach it quickly.  The bow and quiver he carried over his shoulder.

They rolled along.  The cartwheels creaked, the oxen plodded, on and on as the sun rose higher and they crossed wide meadows.  It was like a song.  Arkwan might not know about "score" or "four," but he had a good memory.   He could remember everything Nute had said.  "If we reach the sea before winter," Nute had said.   The sea.   Peddlers had come to Arkwan's village, and bards, and wandering priestesses, and they all told tales.   Arkwan believed them all, of course.   But there were things you could have in a song, and then there were the things in his own green world, and they weren't the same.  The sea was just something in a story.  But Nute was not like a story.   If Nute said they were walking to the sea, then they were.  Arkwan was walking to the sea.   In this green world, and not in a story, Arkwan was walking to the sea.

Nute did not pull out any food until they stopped to rest during the hottest part of the day.   "A peddler learns not to speak ill of another man's clothing," Nute said.  "But it may be somewhat awkward when you walk into the village.   Do you go naked so you can be whipped more easily?"

What did Nute want him to say?   And why couldn't he talk like other people?   Arkwan puzzled.   Finally he said, "I do not have a loincloth."

"I have many.  Don't you want one."

"A slave doesn't ask for things."

"The ones I have known, did nothing but ask, except when they were sleeping.   Different customs in different lands.   Anyway, here is a belt.   And your feet are bloody because you didn't want to ask for shoes, no doubt.   Here is a loincloth.   You may use my shoes, since I will be riding in the cart."

Arkwan took the belt, which had a baldric.  Prince Taslan's had not been so fine.  The loincloth too, was finer than any he had seen.   It was not something to wrap a slave's penis in.   He folded the cloth carefully, rolled the belt, and put them in the cart with the cloak Nute had given him.   He put on the shoes, and prodded the oxen.   As they walked along, he recited over and over again: "one stone, a pair of stones, a trio of stones, four stones, a hand of stones."

The track grew worse.   The shields the cart walked on sank into holes, and the oxen strained to pull them out.   Nute got out and walked, so Arkwan gave him back his shoes.  They hadn't stopped his feet from hurting, anyway.   At the worst holes he had to lift on the cart, while Nute prodded the oxen.   After a while Nute took off his belt, and showed Arkwan his loincloth.  It was so dusty the fine dark red color could not be seen.   Nute tossed loincloth and belt into the cart and walked along naked beside his slave.

Arkwan began his recitation again, and Nute recited too.  But when the reached  "A hand of stones," Nute didn't start over, but went on.    "One stone and a hand of stones.  A pair of stones and a hand of stones.  A trio of stones and a hand of stones.  Four stones and a hand of stones.   Ten stones."

Arkwan tried.  He could hear Nute's words in his memory, but he was nervous.  "One stone." he said.  "A pair of stones.  Four stones.  A stone and, and, a stone."

Arkwan reached into the cart for the switch and handed it to Nute.  "Just try again," Nute said.

"One stone and, and.  One stone.   I can't."

"Arkwan, what is your name?"  Nute asked.

"My name is, is, Ark, Ark, Ark", Arkwan stammered.

"Well I suppose you know best.   Here it comes."

Nute whipped hard, and the strokes across his back lifted the ache from Arkwan's shoulders and the prickling irritation from the heat, as well as untwisting his tongue.

"How many strokes was that?" Nute asked.

"Four strokes."

Nute reached down as they walked and handed Arkwan a hand of little stones.  No, it was a pair and a hand.   

"How many stones is that?"

"A pair and a hand."

"Why did you make me whip you?  How many is this?"

"Four"

"And this?"

"That, is ten stones."

"We may as well stop," Nute said.  "We will not make it to the village tonight, anyway.   And I have a strong desire to get into that lake.  I want to be in it before you can count to ten.   Bring the switch.   You count faster that way."

"We will be too far from the cart."  Arkwan said.  "I should stay to guard it."

Nute sighed.  "Perhaps there will be a better spot further along," he said.

.

.

"We have a score of arrows, a pair, and ten," Arkwan announced.   They had stopped for the night by a spring, and Arkwan, after washing Nute's loincloth and braiding himself a pair of grass sandals, was looking over their weapons.  "That is not many arrows if there is a fight.   I can make arrows, but I have seen no peelbark, and no greenarrow.   And no flint.  And we have no straightener.  Perhaps we can buy some shafts.   I can cut javelins for these bronze points."

"Bring the switch, Arkwan son of Eos.   Four strokes have made you a peddler; you can count, and you talk of buying and selling like a peddler born.   Perhaps a hand of strokes will turn me into an priest - or a bard."

Arkwan brought the switch.  "A whipping will feel good after a day in the cart," he said.   "Drop your loincloth.   You can bend over this log.  If you want to be a bard, try to sing."

"Hold, Arkwan.   It will take more than green wood to drive barding into my peddler bottom.   I don't suppose you know how to sing?"

"I am no bard."

"Sing, or get a whipping."

"A whipping then," Arkwan said.   "I don't mind."

"Never buy a slave.  Did not the bards come to your village?  Did you not sing the songs they brought?  Don't you remember any of them?"

Arkwan sang.

      He rode to the battle; he rode to the battle;
          he rode to the battle to reach his king's side.

Rhonan the horseman rode to the battle; rode in the night to reach his king's side.
     A woman was naked there by the water; willow in moonlight waiting her lover.
Will you not ride to the battle she asked him; to the king's heroes will you not ride?

         ride to the battle to reach your king's side!

Only a moment with you will I linger; only to drink of this pool of clear water.
      Only to kiss your sweet lips have I time for; only to suckle your breasts will I stay.
I must go soon to my King in his danger; standing beside him swordplay and slaughter,
     But for a moment I want to embrace you; only a moment and then ride away.

         ride to the battle ; ride to the battle ;
      ride to the battle to reach my king's side!

In an embrace I will pull out your penis; using my fingers and reaching inside.
     I'll make you be naked here by the water; oak in the moonlight your penis uncover.
Will you not push it inside me? she asked him; then on your stallion you naked can ride?

        ride to the battle to reach your king's side!

Off with my cloak and my belt and my clothing; for naked I'll go to my death or to slaughter;
     Away from your pool in the moonlight I'll take you; whipping my horse on so faster we ride.
No other warrior must get there before me; no time to couple here by the water,
    So naked on stallion I want to embrace you; and ride to the battle my penis inside.

      He rode to the battle; he rode to the battle;
         he rode to the battle his penis inside.

"You mean me sing in a village? Like a bard?  I couldn't do that."

"We'll see.   Whippings seem to loosen your tongue, even if you do keep asking for them.   Perhaps I should try one, after all."

Nute cut many thin twigs, a score of twigs perhaps, and tied them together with a bit of cord, and told Arkwan to whip his back, legs, and bottom.   The twigs were as thin as a switch for a baby's bottom.   After many strokes he told Arkwan to fetch a skin of water, and to pour it over him.  Arkwan didn't think a whipping with such small twigs would hurt, but Nute said it would help him sleep.

Nute put on his belt and fresh loincloth, and found a comfortable spot under a tree.  "Get some food, Arkwan," he said.

As Arkwan skinned and cleaned a hare he had shot, Nute asked him, "Was it Nakien, who sang that song, about Rhonan riding with his penis inside?"

"Yes, Nakien bard came to our village, before midsummer," Arkwan answered.  "King Kahul gave him a fine cloak.  At midsummer feast, he ate meat with the King, more honored than the Prince.   My wife ate with the Prince; she won at archery."

"Arkwan, did people in your village ask Nakien to judge their disputes, or the King?   Or did they want your village priest to judge?  Or do they ask your, what do you call him in the mountains, your elder?"

"Many came to the feast, but they asked for Nakien's judgment.   Disputes that were old, which they had not wanted to bring to the priest, they wanted Nakien to judge.  He did not have time to judge them all."

"So it is, always.   Bards know the law, and men wish to hear the law, when their disputes are judged.  What are the three kinds of bard, Arkwan?"

Arkwan wished Nute would ask harder questions.  He was hoping to be whipped with the thin switches tied together.   But he knew the answer: "red, white, and black."

"Right.   And Nakien is a white bard.   He knows the law well; a white bard judges more than he sings.   Although Nakien, I think, spends even more time lying with village women."

"Some women were sorry to see him leave, but all the men were glad; with Nakien every night is midsummer."

"And your priest was glad to see his back as well, I think," Nute said.

"Old Grios said we were fools to bring disputes to a walking penis," Arkwan said.  "But only after Nakien had left.   We all knew Nakien could make Grios look the fool, if they had a fight with words."

"Do you know how a priest becomes a priest or a bard becomes a bard, Arkwan?"

Arkwan thought hard.   He had heard stories about famous bards, but he hadn't really thought about them.   He thought he knew the answer but, when he tried to say what it was, he didn't know.    He handed the bound twigs to Nute.   Nute ignored them.

"Are you going to do something with that rabbit?" Nute asked.  "I am hungry."

Arkwan set the hare to roast over the fire.

"Perhaps a bard learns from his father?" Arkwan guessed.

Nute sighed.   After a bit, Arkwan groaned.    He went down on his hands and knees.   The twigs felt good on his burned bottom, which had begun to itch.   And the light sting made his cramped muscles loosen - he would sleep well tonight.    But to uncramp his foolish tongue - for that the twigs didn't sting enough.

.

.

The next morning, Arkwan was wakened by a stinging blow across his thigh.  Nute had pulled back Arkwan's cloak, and was raising the switch, the thick switch and not the twigs, looking for a spot to hit.    Arkwan turned on his belly.   Nute hit him a pair of hard strokes across the back.   Then Arkwan brought the oxen in from their grazing, put their necks in the yoke, and the cart began to roll.   The sun was just touching the tops of the trees.

"I do not know of any white bard who learned from his father." Arkwan said, once they had gotten rolling.  Nute was walking beside him, in the cool morning.

"It is not important, Arkwan."

Arkwan continued, his brow deeply furrowed with thinking : "Nakien himself learned from a hand of teachers, or maybe four.   One was the law-singer herself.  And Nakien had a student with him, a boy named Fiya.  He and my son Huwh became friends.  So it must be that when a child wishes to become a bard, he serves first one bard and then another as a student.   All this I know well.  I don't know why I said a bard learns from his father.  It was like when I miss a target I should have hit easily."

"But now you have hit it.   What do the students do in the winter?" Nute asked.

"The bard must stay in one village for the winter, so the student must stay with him."

"Anything else?" Nute asked.

"No.   Wait.   Nakien said he had spent the winter with Sugga the law-singer."

"Good.   Sugga the law singer was born blind, and now she is deaf as well, but her students still worship her.   All her former students will gather in her village this winter, and other white bards too; a gathering of teachers of the law.   It is in winter that students learn the law; singing the law songs, three score or more students together.   There will be debates; new laws will be agreed, and cast into song.   That is, if Sugga lives to the start of winter.   And they will discuss the priests.   They will say how the priests judge according to the will of the Gods, tossing a stick in the air to see how it lands.   People like to be judged according to the law, but the priests are many and the bards few, and people fear to go against the Gods.   So what you saw in your village was not just a dispute between wandering bard Nakien and village priest Grios; bards and priests struggle in many lands.  It is like a battle between two great kingdoms."

"And what of the peddlers," Arkwan asked.

"If the law is on my side, Nute likes the law; if not, then certainly a tossed stick shows the will of the Gods," Nute answered. "In your case, I seem to recall someone shouting 'he must die in the pit.'   And it wasn't a bard."

"But I loved Grios like a father," Arkwan said.  "He would dry my tears, and we would sacrifice together to the Sky-Father, after I was beaten.  I wanted to be a priest, but a priest needs to watch the skies.  I could never learn that.  My son Huwh could; I wanted him to become a priest, but Nakien said he could even be a bard.   Grios was not fighting a war against bards, although he wanted Huwh to be a priest."

A short time later, Nute said. "I hate to bring this up again, but," and then he shouted, "Put on your fucking loincloth!"    Then in his normal voice he continued, "Or I'll whip you till the switch wears out.   Or perhaps in your case I should just threaten not to whip you."

Arkwan stopped the oxen.   Nute's words were all crossed against each other, the way Nute always talked.    He couldn't tell if Nute was angry or laughing.  But anyway, he put on his belt and his loincloth, and tied the bronze dagger Nute had given him to the belt, in its beaded leather sheath.   He slung the quiver of arrows off his hip, then put on the fur-trimmed embroidered cloak, and then hung the bow from the copper hook on the baldric.    Then, dressed and weaponed more richly than King Kahul at a feast, the slave returned to his job of prodding a pair of oxen along a hot, dusty track.

.