Hannibal's Elephant Girl Chapter 7

Previous Chapter "Hannibal's Elephant Girl Chapter 6" 

Hannibal’s Elephant Girl


by

Ariion Kathleen Brindley



Chapter Seven

Jabnet still slept when Yzebel and I left that morning to trade for supplies. A leather pouch attached to a cord around Yzebel’s waist held all the coins, rings, and trinkets the soldiers left on her tables the night before.

We found the skinner at his work bench by a stream near the middle of the camp. I kept quiet and watched while Yzebel haggled over various cuts of meat. Once she was satisfied with the mutton and a small pig he had lain out, there was a great deal of arguing about the value of the jewelry she offered in payment. Finally, she tossed a gold ring into the bargain and demanded three live chickens in addition to the meat. The skinner examined the ring for a long time before agreeing to the transaction. And then Yzebel asked him to include the crate where the chickens were penned up.

On the way back to Yzebel’s tent, I balanced the crate of cackling chickens on my head while she carried the butchered pig on her shoulder--we would have to make a second trip for the mutton.

“Now that,” Yzebel said in a lilting tone, “is what I call a good trade.” Her voice rose and fell in a melody of words. “Not only did we get twice the amount of meat I wanted, but the chickens, too.” She leaned down to peek at me under the crate. “What do you think of that, Liada?”

“I thought you got a lot for the one coin, two necklaces and a small gold ring, but I didn’t want to talk while you bargained with the man.”

“Yes.” Yzebel straightened up and shifted the pig to her other shoulder. “It’s well for you to watch and learn. You must not only know the quality of the things you’re bartering for, but also the value of your items for exchange.”

We arrived at the tent and Yzebel yelled for her lazy son to wake up. She left him to stand guard over the pig and chickens while we went to get the rest of the meat. On the way back from the skinner we stopped by the foot of Stonebreak Hill to barter for raisin wine and durum wheat. Our arms were loaded when we returned to the tent.

“She has stolen your dress,” Jabnet said when we laid the supplies out on a table.

Yzebel reached for a jug and poured wine for herself and me. “No, she has not.”

“Then why does she wear it?”

“Jabnet,” Yzebel said when she picked up the waterskin to thin my wine with a large measure of water. “She’s wearing it because I gave it to her. You make me tired with your foolish questions. Go into the forest and gather firewood so we can start cooking. I also need a strong limb to roast that pig over the fire. Don’t get pine, the sap ruins the taste of the meat.”

He mumbled something to me about sap when he walked between us. Yzebel raised her hand and I thought she would grab him, but she just shook her head and rolled her eyes to the sky. She smiled at me and tucked a stray curl behind her ear.

When we finished our drinks, she gave me two coppers, a tiny gold chain and a pair of looping silver earrings. “Go to Bostar,” she said. “Tell him we need seven loaves of bread.” She hesitated a moment. “No, get eight loaves today. Show him the coins and jewelry, and he’ll take what he needs. He’s the only merchant in camp you can trust this way. Bostar never takes more than the value of his bread. Learn from him what to look for in a man, he’s one of the best.” She dumped out the rest of her coins and jewelry on a square of cloth and handed her empty purse to me.

“Who is another?” I put the jewelry for Bostar into the purse.

Yzebel laughed and folded the cloth into a pouch to hold the rest of her jewelry. “Never mind, if one comes along I’ll point him out to you.” She tucked the pouch behind her apron strings and turned me around to tighten the belt of my dress. “You see where the sun is?”

I shaded my eyes and squinted at the sky. “It’s about middle afternoon.”

“Be back before the sun reaches the treetops.”

“I will, don’t worry.”

##

On the way to Bostar’s tent, I saw the slave girl from the day before. She sat on a small stool outside the black tent with a basket of cotton next to her. I stopped to watch her pick up a tapered stick no longer than her forearm. A clay whorl, like a small wheel, was fitted near one end of the stick. She gave me a bright smile and took a boll of cotton from the basket, picked away some seeds, teased out a few strands of fiber, and joined them to the length of yarn already wrapped around the shaft of her tool. Then she spun the heavy whorl and began feeding fibers from the boll of cotton as new yarn wrapped itself around the spinning shaft.

** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only **

The girl was so expert at her task and her fingers so quick and agile, that the yarn seemed to grow longer of its own accord. She took more cotton from the basket, removed the seeds, teased out the fibers and worked them into the string of yarn, all the while keeping the whorl spinning.

When the tool spun faster toward the ground, she stood up and fed more cotton to the end of the yarn. Soon she stopped the spinning stick, which had grown fat in the middle from the yarn wrapping around the shaft. Then she tied the end of the new yarn to a strand already rolled into a ball and began to unwind the yarn from the shaft and add it to the growing ball.

“Tin tin ban sunia,” she said and handed the shaft to me.

Someone had branded an owner’s mark on her right cheek. The slave of Lotaz also had a brand, but his mark was a different symbol and scarred over long ago. This girl’s brand looked like an arrow with three points and it had a twisting snake for a shaft. The ugly burn appeared to be recent and not yet completely healed.

“What?” I asked.

“Tin tin ban sunia,” she repeated and tugged at the yarn still wrapped around the shaft.

“Tin bim suny?”

“Tin tin ban sunia.”

“Tin tin ban sunia,” I said and held the ends of the shaft loose in my hands so it turned freely.

The slave girl nodded and went to work winding the yarn onto the ball while I held the shaft of the tool.

“I don’t understand what that means.”

When the last of the yarn came off the shaft, she took it from me and began spinning a new string.

“Do you know of the woman called Lotaz?” I asked.

The slave girl spun the whorl and worked the thread longer and longer, seeming to ignore me.

“Lotaz has long curly hair,” I said. “And she makes colors on her lips and cheeks.”

I took a boll of cotton from the basket, removed the seeds and teased a few fibers out the way I had seen the girl do it. She took the cotton from me and quickly worked it into her growing length of yarn. I picked up another boll and we went on working, but she never reacted to any of my words.

“Can you hear what I’m saying?”

No response.

“Your hair is on fire!” I said.

She took another boll of cotton from my hand but said nothing.

“There is a hideous soldier running here to chop us up into little bits and feed us to the lions!”

Still not the slightest response. Finally I said, “Tin tin ban sunia.”

The girl smiled and nodded. Apparently she could hear and she was satisfied with what I told her, although I had no idea what I said.

We continued in this fashion; she making yarn while I teased out the cotton and chattered on about the camp, Yzebel, Obolus and my adventure with the jug of wine. I even told her I had seen Hannibal and how handsome he was.

I thought she was about my age, twelve summers, maybe a little younger, willowy and less than two arrows tall. Her complexion was deeper than a cinnamon peach with eyes dark like night in the forest. She spoke not a word and never acknowledged my presence except to take the cotton bolls from my hand and work them into her yarn.

Soon we had transformed the basket of cotton into three large balls of yarn. The girl placed them in the basket, picked it up and walked past me.

“Tin tin ban sunia,” she said.

It could have meant, “Good bye, nice to know you,” or “I’m finished now, you can go,” or “Please don’t bother me again.”

I sat cross-legged on the square mat where I had been for the last two balls of yarn. I stared at the girl walking away from me, feeling deserted.

After a few paces, she stopped, turned back, and with a big smile said, “Tin tin ban sunia.” She cocked her head in the direction she had started, as if to say, “Come on. What are you waiting for?”

I jumped up and ran to walk beside her. “Tin tin ban sunia?” I asked.

She nodded, pointed up the path and gave me one handle of the basket so that we carried it between us.

The path led up a steep incline where it wound through a pine forest on the dark side of Stonebreak Hill. The tents and shacks below gave way to huts made of logs with roofs of thatched branches. It seemed we left the poorer neighborhood and walked into a wealthier one.

The huts were spaced far apart and there didn’t seem to be anyone around. Down below, the noise of activity continued with many people going about their business, but there in the forest all I heard was the breeze in the treetops and a lone raven cawing in the distance.

“Who lives up here?” I expected no reply, but thought I might read something from the girl’s expression. I did. The girl’s easy smile was gone, replaced by a look of apprehension.

“Tin tin ban sunia,” she whispered and pointed to a small hut at the end of a side trail, far from the others. It was surrounded by tall dark trees. The apprehension on the girl’s face turned to dread.

I could see she didn’t want to go there. “Let’s go back.” I motioned down the trail.

She looked where I pointed, but then slowly turned and started toward the hut. I still held the opposite handle of the basket and so went with her, but not with any eagerness.

When we came near, the door creaked open on its leather hinges and an repulsive ox of a man came out. He wore nothing but the lower part of a tunic tied with a rope under his huge belly, and a pair of black boots. His shaggy head sat upon round shoulders making it appear he had no neck at all. I had never seen so much hair on anyone before. It covered his chest, belly and most of his face. Probably his back too, but I didn’t want to see any more of him.

He gnawed the last bit of meat from the bone of a small animal and tossed it aside. “That’s all you’ve done?” he snarled at the girl and gestured toward the basket.

His raspy, hoarse voice grated across my nerves. Something greasy ran from the corner of his mouth, and he spit on the ground at my feet. He glared at me and wiped his chin with the back of his hand.

The girl and I edged backward.

I never knew a fat man could move so fast, but he stepped forward and swung his hand before I had a chance to turn away. I squeezed my eyes tight, expecting to feel him strike my face, but he hit the girl instead. It was not an open-handed slap but a hard punch with his fist. The blow sent her stumbling into a tree. The back of her head hit the trunk and she went limp, falling to the ground.

I dropped the basket and ran to the girl, falling to my knees at her side. I rolled her over and cried out. Blood ran from the girl’s mouth and nose, and a purple bruise began to form on the side of her face. Her eyes were closed.

“Tin tin ban sunia,” I whispered and took her in my arms.

I never saw the man’s boot coming.




Next Chapter "Hannibal's Elephant Girl Chapter 8"