Much blood must be spilled this day. But he knew he
would live only so long as he kept his back to the wall and his wits
about him, and his men remained loyal to him in his occasional absence
and his nightly sleep. He would live as long as another like himself
did not take similar advantage of him, as he had done to the former
Master Rababull.
There was a sudden outcry of several of his men at the back gates. One
of them came running and knelt before him on one knee to report that
Rababull's many widows had escaped and were even now fleeing into the
nearby city.
He scowled. They were to have been for him and his men, but now they
might bring trouble instead. Too late now. The Emperor of the city
would be too powerful to attack just to get back a few women, any of
whom might easily be old enough to be his mother several times over.
With vile oaths and many despicable and filthy curses, and much
spitting in the dirt, Conabar ordered the enslavement of all remaining
women who were of noble birth and no longer virgin.
As for those women who were freeborn and had not yet known any man,
they must be sorted through. The best would be his to keep or to sell
off. His men could squabble over the rest.
There was even a tale told of a certain beautiful young slave girl who
was an outcast even among her own kind, a redoubtable beauty whose
flower of womanhood had only just begun to bud.
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