“No.” I tried to pull away from Mara. “No!”
A rag was stuffed in my mouth and secured with another piece of cloth. My hands were bound with rope.
Starr stared at my face and smiled. “I have a client who will pay well to have you for his new wife.” He looked at my father. “You’ll receive your portion of the sale price, as agreed.”
Two of Starr’s men dragged me out of the tavern and down to the dock and his ship. They pulled me up a gangplank. I fought them until they dunked my head in a barrel of water and held me down. When one of them pulled my head out of the water, the other said, “If you keep fighting, we’ll hold you down longer next time.”
Still struggling to breathe, I didn’t resist when they hauled me to the ship’s secure hold and left me there, bound and gagged.
But not alone.
There were younger girls, barely more than children, and some of the orphan boys who begged on the streets. None of them were tied up, but there were bruises on their faces, reason enough for them to huddle together now, silent and afraid.
I don’t know how long it took them to load their living cargo. No adolescent boys, but several of the village girls who were old enough to be “wives” in a place where there was a shortage of expendable women.
It was still dark when men escorted Lucy into the hold, bound and gagged as I was. She sat next to me, shivering.
Soon after that, I felt the change in the ship’s movement and knew Starr had given the order to cast off.
Unspoiled goods being taken to an unknown destination and a mean existence. Most of us wouldn’t survive long after arriving at that destination, and those of us who did survive wouldn’t want to.
We had one chance—if I could get free.
I’d started pulling on the gag when one of the boys looked at me and said, “Wait.”
I might have resented the sharp command if I hadn’t seen him watching the stairs down to the hold. Was he someone like me, who had feelings about things?
I slumped and waited, doing my best to look defeated, which wasn’t hard.
A minute later, two men came down the stairs. One dropped a burlap sack on the floor; the other set down a small barrel and a tin cup.
“That’s all there is until you’re traded,” the first one said. “Make it last.”
They went up the stairs and secured the door.
The boy waited another minute, watching the stairs. Then he scurried over to Lucy and undid her gag.
“Dett too,” Lucy said.
He hesitated, then did what she asked.
“One of Starr’s men saw you giving us food,” the boy told Lucy. “That’s why he took you.” He looked at the ropes binding our hands.
“I have a folding knife in my skirt pocket,” I said.
I didn’t feel his hand, but a moment later he held the knife. He freed Lucy first, then me. Folding the knife, he gave it back—and gave me an odd look, which made me wonder if he’d felt the coins.
Lucy rubbed her wrists while another boy, who looked to be the twin of the first, opened the sack and checked the barrel.
“Some food here,” he reported. “Not much if it’s meant for all of us. The barrel is half-full of water.”
“We won’t be here that long,” I said, unbuttoning my skirt in order to reach the safety pin and little pouch. Retrieving the pouch, I held it tight.
“Dett...” Lucy began.
“We’re going to escape.”
“How?”
