d to fight with real weapons, and she had them, but she
couldn’t force them to save either her or the poor slave behind her. Even
without them Elena knew one thing. That bastard in front of her wasn’t
going to touch his slave again, not unless he cut Elena into pieces first.
Someone stopped to stare, and someone else came out of a shop,
running. When the children who’d been trailing her litter surrounded
her, wailing, a crowd of sorts gathered.
Apparently it was one thing to see a merchant beating his worn-out
drab—the people around here must have seen that almost daily. But to
see this beautiful new girl having her clothes slashed away, this girl with
hair like golden silk under a veil of gold and white, and eyes that
perhaps reminded some of them of a barely remembered blue sky—that
was quite another thing. Moreover, the new girl was obviously a fresh
barbarian slave who had clearly humiliated her master by tearing the
lead ropes from his hands and was standing now with her sanctity veil
made into a mockery.
Terrific street theater.
And even given all of that, the slave owner was preparing for
another stroke, raising his arm high and preparing to put his back into it.
A few people in the crowd gasped; others were muttering indignantly.
Elena’s new sense of hearing, turned up high, could catch their