[Reluctant] Buggy

[goldplanet2001]

As they waited in the bright sunlight for the wagon, Price's attention strayed from the group's idle conversation. He gazed around at the ebb and flow of people coming and going, their faces set in thought, their movements casual or purposeful. He noticed the sellers of dates and water shouting the praises of their wares and playfully criticising those of their neighbours. He heard the chink of weaponry and saw two soldiers strolling towards the Keep, their capes of blue and gold hanging almost to the ground, the leather and metal of their gear clean and well cared for. They were discussing a point about last night's civic opera, one more forceful on the subject than the other.
To one side he saw twenty or so brightly coloured rickshaws and those who drew them, some freedmen, mostly slave. The freedmen wore tunics matching the caparisons of their vehicles, as did o




ne or two of the slaves. However, most of the slaves wore plain kilts or loincloths, only two or three were naked. Most waited patiently for their hirers or owners to return, surveying the causeway with the same casual idleness as Price. One, however, caught Price's eye, one whose attitude seemed different to the rest.
Price looked around at his group. Purcell and Tate were haggling with a street vendor. Nicholls was busy sketching again, but most had taken relief from the sun in a shady cafe to drink tea and schnapps until the wagon arrived. The swarthy guide was deep in conversation with a carpet seller and Price found himself standing alone amongst the drifting people.
He glanced across at the rickshaws again and saw the individual with the different attitude staring directly at him, body held upright, quite unlike the casual stances of the others. The person was a strong and voluptuous woman who snapped her head away the instant she realised Price was watching her, as if she feared him. Intrigued, Price found himself walking slowly towards her, brushing through the light human traffic, his sense of surprise growing as he neared her. Surely, it couldn't possibly be?
A young man was rummaging through a basket fixed to the back of the buggy. Price hardly noticed him, his attention focussed on the woman before him, whose breathing was now laboured and who still resolutely looked away from him.
"Hello?" Price's greeting brought her head around and he found himself, to his great astonishment, staring into the face of Jane Fox!
The same Jane Fox, who had laughed openly at them as she had ridden off with the Norvian troops, and who had promised them a slow death by torture at the hands of the Sayalese. He recalled her gleeful face as she told them of her betrayal and of the great plans she had had for her alliance with Carver, of her intended victory over Finch and of her triumphant return to New Formosa at the head of a small fleet of ships. She had then ridden away with the cries of the women and children in her ears, abandoning them to the oncoming Sayalese army, confident she would never see them again.
Something had clearly gone badly awry with her plans.
She stood erect between the shafts of a green-painted rickshaw, her knuckles white as she gripped the wooden handles. She wore thick leather wristcuffs, locked on her with steel and key, a heavy three-linked chain securing each cuff to steel rings set in the shafts. Her head was fastened in a simple leather bridle, the reins looping back to a pommel to the right of the rickshaw seat. She chewed on a thick wad of leather, held between her teeth by the bridle. Her glossy black hair was tied up in a high ponytail and thrust through a hole in the top of the bridle.
Aside from the cuffs and the bridle she wore nothing. Not the slightest rag or string shielded her nudity from the public's vulgar gaze.
She stared back at Price as defiantly as she could, her teeth white on the black leather held cruelly in her mouth. He saw, however, that her bravado was paper thin, her lower jaw was quaking and hot tears of shame streamed down her face to drip off her chin and run down her body between her massive bare breasts.
Price felt he ought to say something, but what? She would richly deserve any taunt he could think of, that much was certain, but he felt ashamed and oddly sympathetic, no one should suffer such a fate as this. He sensed people brushing past, unseeing and uncaring for the plight of a lowly rickshaw slave. He saw to one side some of the other rickshawmen and women studying the situation with interest. He saw in their faces their amusement, their relish at Fox's plight.
"So, Fox," said Price softly, "is this where your plans have led you? Were the Norvians as honourable as you thought?" In answer, she finally dropped her head, unable to meet his eyes, her ponytail quivering.
Price looked about, none of his group was paying any attention to them.
He addressed her again. "Fox, I'd try and buy you out of this, but I'm sure we haven't enough gold right now."
She looked up, her eyes dull.
"Although if you came with us it’d certainly mean the noose for you. At least when we return to New Formosa we can get a message to your friends at Paco's to come and release you.”
She nodded her head, her eyes pleading, and made grunting sounds around the leather.
Price smiled inwardly. Her vanity, it seemed, was not so great that she preferred her current fate to ridicule by her comrades. Though she ran the risk of punishment, even execution, by her employers – Bronze had killed many employees she felt had failed her, death would be preferable to her present predicament.
The young man who had been searching in the basket was now settling into the rickshaw's cushioned seat. He was a cheerful lad with a head of thick curly brown hair and that healthy shine to his skin most of the locals possessed. His clothes were expensive, a gold-edged green tunic, gold-buckled sandals, and a moleskin cap. He wore silver and gold bracelets on one wrist and more gold glinted below one ear.
He grinned at Price and said, "I overheard you earlier. I'm afraid Wobble Cheeks is not for sale, my father loves her."
Fox threw back her head and loudly moaned in anguish, fresh tears bursting from between her tightly squeezed eyelids.
"Whom did you say?" asked Price, looking anew at the miserable woman before him, her head now down as far as the reins would allow.
"My father, Conor delRui. He knows he'll make a fortune from her. He wanted her as a concubine, but those Norvian savages he bought her from had cut her tongue out, damned fools. Still, she’ll serve well enough as a rickshaw slave.”
Price felt another stab of sympathy. He had thought the Norvians might be angry with Fox when they found she had, albeit unintentionally, deceived them, but he never thought they would mutilate and sell her. Re-growing a tongue was a simple enough procedure in a modern hospital but on a less advanced world such as this, such a mutilation was probably permanent.
The young man untied the reins from the pommel and shook them loose. He produced a stick from behind him. The stick, which had been sharpened to a point, trailed a thin length of leather. The slave being driven could be jabbed or lashed as an incentive to greater effort.
"No, no. I meant, what was her name?" persisted Price.
"Oh, the slave," the young man laughed. "Wobble Cheeks. My father likes descriptive names. We've owned her only a week or so and she's already well known around the city. Just a few more days and she'll be out on the street earning for us. You can hire her yourself if you like but you'll have to be patient, she's booked solid for over three weeks already."
The traitress, the former pirate Jane Fox, now the rickshaw slave Wobble Cheeks, was weeping, her composure broken. Her legs were quaking and her hands twisted on the rickshaw handles as she moaned aloud.
Price found his sympathy evaporating for her as he remembered her wicked act. She had abandoned them all to die horribly; he would at least leave her alive and well cared for, although in circumstances she would hardly have chosen.
The young man was almost ready to leave. He jerked her head back with the reins once or twice and pulled her upright. "Be silent, Wobble Cheeks,” he declared sharply. “You know what’ll happen if you make sounds in harness. Your customers won't want to hear your snivelling, or perhaps you would like another whipping?"
Crimson faced, Wobble Cheeks choked back her sobs and stood erect as before, heels together and straight backed, pulling her shoulders as far back as she could and thrusting her enormous breasts out before her. Her chin was high, although it trembled mightily, and saliva mingled with the tears there.
The other rickshaw men and women, especially the freedmen, laughed, relishing her discomfort. Some called out her name, mocking her.
“Wobble Cheeks!” cried the young man, “to the Town Hall via the High Street! Run as quickly as possible, I am already late for my appointment!”
There was nothing more to say. The young man nodded a good-morning to Price, who stepped aside. He flicked the whip around the slave's naked buttocks, and with a gasp of pain she leaned forward and pulled, quickly moving the rickshaw away. Her bare feet slapped on the hot flagstones as she gathered speed and Price chuckled as he called after her.
"How well-named you are!"
Her answer was a shrill yelp as the whip again kissed her. She was running full pelt now, the little buggy racing along behind her, its leather-edged wheels humming over the paving stones. A sound she already knew only too well.
Price shaded his eyes against the bright sunlight and watched the rickshaw recede rapidly along the broad street. He saw Wobble Cheeks’ ponytail jounce and dance as she ran and the young man's head low in the buggy with the strip of leather dancing above them. After a minute or two there was a final toss of the slave’s ponytail before she turned a corner and they were gone. He suddenly became aware of Purcell standing alongside him.
"Strange," murmured the little woman, "she looked familiar."
Price heard the canter of hooves behind him and the deep rumbling of their wagon.
"Yes, I thought so at first," he said, “but I was mistaken, I've never seen her before."