The Just City Read Free Page A

right moment and the right word. I could have poked the girl in front of me, who was one of the pale ones, but saw no purpose in it.
    When the masters came we knew at once that they were something special. They were dressed like merchants, but the slavers bowed before them. The masters acted towards the slavers as if they despised them, and the slavers deferred to them. It was clear in their body language, even before I could hear them. The slavers brought the masters straight towards our group. The masters were looking at us and paying no attention to the adult slaves bound in the other parts of the market. I stared boldly back at them. One of them wore a red hat with a flat top and little dents at the sides, which I noticed at once, before I noticed his eyes, which were so surprisingly penetrating that once I had seen them I could look at nothing else. He saw me looking and smiled.
    The masters spoke to each of us in Greek, asking questions. Several of them spoke strangely, with an odd lisping accent that slurred some of the consonants. The master with the red cap came to me, perhaps because I had caught his eye. “What is your name, little one?” He spoke good Italianate Greek.
    â€œLucia the daughter of Yanni,” I replied.
    â€œThat won’t do,” he muttered. “And how old are you?”
    â€œTen years old,” I said, as the slavers had instructed us all to say.
    â€œGood. And you have good Greek. Did you speak it at home?”
    â€œYes, always.” This was nothing but the truth.
    He smiled again. “Excellent. And you look strong. Do you have brothers and sisters?”
    â€œI had three older brothers, but they are all dead.”
    â€œI am sorry.” He sounded as if he truly was. “What’s seven times seven?”
    â€œForty-nine.”
    â€œAnd seven times forty-nine?”
    â€œThree hundred and forty-three.”
    â€œVery good!” He looked pleased. “Can you read?”
    I raised my chin in the universal sign for negation, and saw at once that he did not understand. “No.”
    He frowned. “They so seldom teach girls. Are you quick to learn?”
    â€œMy mother always said so.”
    He sketched a symbol in the dust. “This is an alpha, ah. What words begin with alpha?”
    I began to list all the words I could think of that began with alpha, among them, either because he himself put it into my mind or because I had heard it from the slaver as we came in, the name of the old god Apollo. Just as I said it the slaver came up. “This is a good girl,” he said. “No trouble. Still a virgin, she is.”
    This was technically true, for virgins fetch more at the market. Yet that very man had emptied himself into my mouth the night before on the ship. My jaw was still sore from it as he spoke. The master with the red hat turned on the slaver as if he guessed that. “I should think so, at ten years of age!” he snapped. “We will take her.”
    I was unchained and taken aside. About half the group were selected, among them the extremely fair girl and the boy who had been poking at me. I was glad to see a red mark on his shin from the one good kick I had given him.
    The masters paid what the slavers asked, unquestioningly. I could see how delighted the slavers were, although of course they tried to hide it. They had made more for each of us children than they would have for a beautiful young woman or a strong man. We were roped together and led down to a ship.
    I had grown up on the shifting shore of the Delta, seeing ships only far out to sea, before the pirates had come in to attack us. Since then I had seen only their slave ship. I could tell that this ship was different, but not in what way. It had no banks of oars and no great square sail, but two masts and a series of stepped sails. I later learned that she was a schooner, and sailed by wind and tide alone. Her name was Goodness .
    On the deck of the