Lord of Raven's Peak Read Free Page A

would probably be right, Merrik thought.

2
    T HRASCO , A VERY rich fur merchant of Kiev who prided himself on the quality of his miniver and his judicious use of bribes, looked down at the boy, smiled grimly, and nodded to himself. He tossed the whip to his slave, Cleve, who was also looking at the thin bloodied back, at the shuddering skinny body.
    Thrasco was too fat to come down on his haunches, so he merely leaned down a bit, breathing hard even with that mild exertion, and said, “Now, boy, you will know that any disobedience from you, any hesitation in doing whatever I bid you to do, and I will flay the flesh off your pretty back. Do you understand me, boy?”
    The boy’s head finally nodded.
    Thrasco was pleased; he was also relieved. He’d paid a goodly amount for the boy and he didn’t want to kill him, but he’d had to discipline him for the blow in the belly he’d given him at the slave market. Now he was broken. Thrasco straightened. Aye, it was good now. Once he’d fed the boy for several weeks, he would be repaid many times over for his investment. He said his plans aloud to Cleve. “This boy will be a fine present to Khagan-Rus’s sister, Old Evta. She is fond of young boys, and I know once this one is bathed and given a bit of food, he will please her. She will gain muchenjoyment from him. If he shows her a bit of spirit, why then, she will enjoy whipping it out of him.”
    â€œAye,” Thrasco’s man said, one eye on that whip. He said nothing more because he had no wish to taste the whip on his own back, and Thrasco was unpredictable.
    â€œI know what you’re thinking,” Thrasco continued, still staring down at the boy. “You’re thinking that the boy is a pathetic scrap and even clean will still look a pathetic scrap. I am a man of experience and I know that the boy has a fine-boned face. He is slight, delicate even. Just look at those hands and those feet, long and narrow. Aye, it’s good blood he carries in his skinny veins. His parents weren’t slaves. No, this one is different, and I will use his differentness to my advantage. See to him now, bathe his back and use some of that cream my mother sent me from Baghdad, ’twill prevent scarring. Leave him filthy for the moment, leave him clothed in his torn rags. He deserves to wallow in his dirt for the blow he struck me. All saw it and Valai laughed, others too. If he obeys you completely, you will bathe him on the morrow.”
    Cleve nodded. Poor little boy, he thought.
    Thrasco said as he walked to the door, “Old Evta will appreciate the little squirrel. Did I tell you that she likes to call her boys animal names? Perhaps if he comes to answer to squirrel here, she will like that and reward me even more. I will send food for him, just some broth, I don’t want him to puke up his guts. Feed him, Cleve, and keep feeding him.”
    Cleve nodded again, turning back after his master had left the small chamber to once again look at the lad. At least he wouldn’t be sodomized, and that was something. Cleve had been sodomized regularly for nearly two years until finally he’d been sold to a woman with hair so pale it seemed white, a woman who lookedlike one of the Christians’ angels, but she wasn’t. He unconsciously fingered the jagged scar on his face. After her, he was bought by a master who didn’t like boys, and that master was Thrasco, bless the gods. He was cruel but he wasn’t a pederast. He was occasionally even generous. He’d given Cleve a patched beaver fur to wear this past winter. Cleve knelt down and said quietly, “Are you awake, boy?”
    â€œAye.”
    â€œThe pain is bad, I know it. Thrasco enjoys wielding the whip, but his mother disapproves of it so he can only do it when she is visiting her family in the Caliphate. You are unlucky she is not here. Now, Thrasco ordered me not to bathe you or change you from these