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Hannah wasn't certain where she was anymore. The convoy had been on the move for weeks now and, with each stop along the way, all she could be certain of was that she had been taken yet another hundred leagues from all that she had come to know.
First, there had been Moab... or so she had always assumed it to be. A city in which the sea was as much a living inhabitant as its people, she had seen little of it besides the intense blue that seemed to drift beneath the curtains of the cart. She had been kept within the caravan at that first stop. Feverish and weak, the slave driver had decided that she would fetch a better price if she were sturdier; that she was worth the extra coin on food and water in the short term, in order to fetch a higher price upon the auction block.
It had been another week before her hand had stopped bleeding and her fever had subsided. A week in which she had felt willing to die. Where she would have been content to be taken on to the next world where there was a promise of peace. Only the fear of where she would indeed go, kept her holding onto life. For where would she go? Was it to Hades, as she was born and raised to believe, to become the power and plaything of the underworld Gods? Or to paradise? And the lands of goodness and joy that were promised to those who were devout? And could she even consider herself to be devout when she still spent her thoughts upon the religion of her youth?
In moments when the fear could not be summoned and strength and energy had entirely failed her, when Hannah had wished for nothing but the fever to break, even if the only respite was to be found in her own demise... one truth broke through a discontented mind of hurt and pain and brought her the smallest semblance of serenity...
Her baby.
Isaiah's baby.
She could not die whilst she held her child within; whilst she was the protector and vessel of a life so precious. Now that Isaiah had been taken, her fingers had been taken... their life had been removed and blotted from existence as if it were barely of passing import to those who took it... her child was the only bright element of her world that had not yet been tainted with sorrow. He or she would be a child that grew up fatherless - hardly a joyous eventuality - but they would at least grow. They would live. And she would do what she could to give them a life of safety and happiness. Even if it had to be given through the bonds of slavery...
By the time the fever had passed, the convoy of slaves had been carted to somewhere new, somewhere buys - the capital Jerusalem perhaps? This time, Hannah had been pulled up onto the auction stand. But, with a bloodied bandage around her hand and her fragile frame reduced even further after sickness, she looked hardly appealing for those who needed a strong pair of hands. Unperturbed, the driver had packed her away and moved her to his next location of business.
This time, Hannah was forced to work. Deemed well enough and reserving the inside of the caravan for other goods and the smaller child slaves that had been forced to walk while she was quarantined within for her fever, Hannah had sought her strength once more and marched diligently forwards.
Her hands bond with rope at the wrists, Hannah had tucked her mutilated hand within the curling fingers of the other, and yet she could still see the bandage and the splotches of crimson turned brown upon the white. Was still reminded of the loss of half her hand.
And she couldn't escape it either.
A chain was connected from binding to binding, forcing the slaves to walk in line, one after another. The chain was tugged from up front, ensuring that each pair of feet following behind moved at a pace deemed fit for auctioning schedules. It kept her hands taut out in front, her loss front and centre in her vision at all times, her arms aching with the presentation of her new life as someone else's property.
She could not even place a hand upon her belly to comfort the child she felt moving within...
As the days of walking dragged on, it was finally to Damascus that the slave driver took them. Not that Hannah knew that to be its name. To her, it was a city that rose from the sandy flatlands as if it were a mirage, unfolding in ripples upon the horizon until the mountain range that cradled the city in its arms was as large as the width of her hand before her eyes. Still they walked on. Until she could see with her own eyes where the open arms of landscape became geometric and moulded into the sharp lines of walls that enclosed the city of academia and private study.
It was just outside these walls, upon the flatlands, that scaffolds had been erected.
Why the auctions were to be held outside the city, Hannah did not understand. She wasn't to know that the city of Damascus was built on the unstable and irregular lands that slowly grew in altitude until they became the mountains of Sheleg. Which meant there were no clear and open areas large enough to host a slave market of this magnitude.
Instead, the people of Damascus had funnelled out of the main gates and into the flatlands where the sun beat down mercilessly and only the rich or servants of the rich were given shelter beneath awnings and cloaks.
Hannah was forced to draw to a stop, where she turned her shoulders in, bent her knees and cowered into as small a frame as she could manage, desperate not to be noticed.
She had no idea whether it was a worse fate to continue walking... until the slave driver decided her to be of spoiled, useless goods and set her free (if she survived that long) or be purchased by an owner who could be gentle or could be cruel... Each potential path of her life appeared to be one that led to sorrow and harm.
Swallowing upon a dry tongue, Hannah looked out at the crowds of people, free or working, who came to assess the stock on behalf of their masters and their homes. She looked from between bedraggled locks of hair turned dark with sweat, grease and sand. Her skin had lost its sweet glow of health and vitality and was now peeling and burnt. Her clothes she had worn for over three weeks and were a potent mixture of sweat, illness and urine. Long ago, she had lost the scent of herself, but she could tell from the faces of passer-by who came to inspect the driver’s goods that they were all of a similar condition. The same as many of the convoys that had joined them for the mass auction.
Hannah's arms pulled in, now permitted to move her bound wrists to her torso as they weren't walking and shamed for her appearance and smell. She closed her eyes and begged to be anywhere else but here...
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Nov 27, 2019 22:23:31 GMT
Posted In Fetch a Price on Nov 27, 2019 22:23:31 GMT
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Hannah wasn't certain where she was anymore. The convoy had been on the move for weeks now and, with each stop along the way, all she could be certain of was that she had been taken yet another hundred leagues from all that she had come to know.
First, there had been Moab... or so she had always assumed it to be. A city in which the sea was as much a living inhabitant as its people, she had seen little of it besides the intense blue that seemed to drift beneath the curtains of the cart. She had been kept within the caravan at that first stop. Feverish and weak, the slave driver had decided that she would fetch a better price if she were sturdier; that she was worth the extra coin on food and water in the short term, in order to fetch a higher price upon the auction block.
It had been another week before her hand had stopped bleeding and her fever had subsided. A week in which she had felt willing to die. Where she would have been content to be taken on to the next world where there was a promise of peace. Only the fear of where she would indeed go, kept her holding onto life. For where would she go? Was it to Hades, as she was born and raised to believe, to become the power and plaything of the underworld Gods? Or to paradise? And the lands of goodness and joy that were promised to those who were devout? And could she even consider herself to be devout when she still spent her thoughts upon the religion of her youth?
In moments when the fear could not be summoned and strength and energy had entirely failed her, when Hannah had wished for nothing but the fever to break, even if the only respite was to be found in her own demise... one truth broke through a discontented mind of hurt and pain and brought her the smallest semblance of serenity...
Her baby.
Isaiah's baby.
She could not die whilst she held her child within; whilst she was the protector and vessel of a life so precious. Now that Isaiah had been taken, her fingers had been taken... their life had been removed and blotted from existence as if it were barely of passing import to those who took it... her child was the only bright element of her world that had not yet been tainted with sorrow. He or she would be a child that grew up fatherless - hardly a joyous eventuality - but they would at least grow. They would live. And she would do what she could to give them a life of safety and happiness. Even if it had to be given through the bonds of slavery...
By the time the fever had passed, the convoy of slaves had been carted to somewhere new, somewhere buys - the capital Jerusalem perhaps? This time, Hannah had been pulled up onto the auction stand. But, with a bloodied bandage around her hand and her fragile frame reduced even further after sickness, she looked hardly appealing for those who needed a strong pair of hands. Unperturbed, the driver had packed her away and moved her to his next location of business.
This time, Hannah was forced to work. Deemed well enough and reserving the inside of the caravan for other goods and the smaller child slaves that had been forced to walk while she was quarantined within for her fever, Hannah had sought her strength once more and marched diligently forwards.
Her hands bond with rope at the wrists, Hannah had tucked her mutilated hand within the curling fingers of the other, and yet she could still see the bandage and the splotches of crimson turned brown upon the white. Was still reminded of the loss of half her hand.
And she couldn't escape it either.
A chain was connected from binding to binding, forcing the slaves to walk in line, one after another. The chain was tugged from up front, ensuring that each pair of feet following behind moved at a pace deemed fit for auctioning schedules. It kept her hands taut out in front, her loss front and centre in her vision at all times, her arms aching with the presentation of her new life as someone else's property.
She could not even place a hand upon her belly to comfort the child she felt moving within...
As the days of walking dragged on, it was finally to Damascus that the slave driver took them. Not that Hannah knew that to be its name. To her, it was a city that rose from the sandy flatlands as if it were a mirage, unfolding in ripples upon the horizon until the mountain range that cradled the city in its arms was as large as the width of her hand before her eyes. Still they walked on. Until she could see with her own eyes where the open arms of landscape became geometric and moulded into the sharp lines of walls that enclosed the city of academia and private study.
It was just outside these walls, upon the flatlands, that scaffolds had been erected.
Why the auctions were to be held outside the city, Hannah did not understand. She wasn't to know that the city of Damascus was built on the unstable and irregular lands that slowly grew in altitude until they became the mountains of Sheleg. Which meant there were no clear and open areas large enough to host a slave market of this magnitude.
Instead, the people of Damascus had funnelled out of the main gates and into the flatlands where the sun beat down mercilessly and only the rich or servants of the rich were given shelter beneath awnings and cloaks.
Hannah was forced to draw to a stop, where she turned her shoulders in, bent her knees and cowered into as small a frame as she could manage, desperate not to be noticed.
She had no idea whether it was a worse fate to continue walking... until the slave driver decided her to be of spoiled, useless goods and set her free (if she survived that long) or be purchased by an owner who could be gentle or could be cruel... Each potential path of her life appeared to be one that led to sorrow and harm.
Swallowing upon a dry tongue, Hannah looked out at the crowds of people, free or working, who came to assess the stock on behalf of their masters and their homes. She looked from between bedraggled locks of hair turned dark with sweat, grease and sand. Her skin had lost its sweet glow of health and vitality and was now peeling and burnt. Her clothes she had worn for over three weeks and were a potent mixture of sweat, illness and urine. Long ago, she had lost the scent of herself, but she could tell from the faces of passer-by who came to inspect the driver’s goods that they were all of a similar condition. The same as many of the convoys that had joined them for the mass auction.
Hannah's arms pulled in, now permitted to move her bound wrists to her torso as they weren't walking and shamed for her appearance and smell. She closed her eyes and begged to be anywhere else but here...
Hannah wasn't certain where she was anymore. The convoy had been on the move for weeks now and, with each stop along the way, all she could be certain of was that she had been taken yet another hundred leagues from all that she had come to know.
First, there had been Moab... or so she had always assumed it to be. A city in which the sea was as much a living inhabitant as its people, she had seen little of it besides the intense blue that seemed to drift beneath the curtains of the cart. She had been kept within the caravan at that first stop. Feverish and weak, the slave driver had decided that she would fetch a better price if she were sturdier; that she was worth the extra coin on food and water in the short term, in order to fetch a higher price upon the auction block.
It had been another week before her hand had stopped bleeding and her fever had subsided. A week in which she had felt willing to die. Where she would have been content to be taken on to the next world where there was a promise of peace. Only the fear of where she would indeed go, kept her holding onto life. For where would she go? Was it to Hades, as she was born and raised to believe, to become the power and plaything of the underworld Gods? Or to paradise? And the lands of goodness and joy that were promised to those who were devout? And could she even consider herself to be devout when she still spent her thoughts upon the religion of her youth?
In moments when the fear could not be summoned and strength and energy had entirely failed her, when Hannah had wished for nothing but the fever to break, even if the only respite was to be found in her own demise... one truth broke through a discontented mind of hurt and pain and brought her the smallest semblance of serenity...
Her baby.
Isaiah's baby.
She could not die whilst she held her child within; whilst she was the protector and vessel of a life so precious. Now that Isaiah had been taken, her fingers had been taken... their life had been removed and blotted from existence as if it were barely of passing import to those who took it... her child was the only bright element of her world that had not yet been tainted with sorrow. He or she would be a child that grew up fatherless - hardly a joyous eventuality - but they would at least grow. They would live. And she would do what she could to give them a life of safety and happiness. Even if it had to be given through the bonds of slavery...
By the time the fever had passed, the convoy of slaves had been carted to somewhere new, somewhere buys - the capital Jerusalem perhaps? This time, Hannah had been pulled up onto the auction stand. But, with a bloodied bandage around her hand and her fragile frame reduced even further after sickness, she looked hardly appealing for those who needed a strong pair of hands. Unperturbed, the driver had packed her away and moved her to his next location of business.
This time, Hannah was forced to work. Deemed well enough and reserving the inside of the caravan for other goods and the smaller child slaves that had been forced to walk while she was quarantined within for her fever, Hannah had sought her strength once more and marched diligently forwards.
Her hands bond with rope at the wrists, Hannah had tucked her mutilated hand within the curling fingers of the other, and yet she could still see the bandage and the splotches of crimson turned brown upon the white. Was still reminded of the loss of half her hand.
And she couldn't escape it either.
A chain was connected from binding to binding, forcing the slaves to walk in line, one after another. The chain was tugged from up front, ensuring that each pair of feet following behind moved at a pace deemed fit for auctioning schedules. It kept her hands taut out in front, her loss front and centre in her vision at all times, her arms aching with the presentation of her new life as someone else's property.
She could not even place a hand upon her belly to comfort the child she felt moving within...
As the days of walking dragged on, it was finally to Damascus that the slave driver took them. Not that Hannah knew that to be its name. To her, it was a city that rose from the sandy flatlands as if it were a mirage, unfolding in ripples upon the horizon until the mountain range that cradled the city in its arms was as large as the width of her hand before her eyes. Still they walked on. Until she could see with her own eyes where the open arms of landscape became geometric and moulded into the sharp lines of walls that enclosed the city of academia and private study.
It was just outside these walls, upon the flatlands, that scaffolds had been erected.
Why the auctions were to be held outside the city, Hannah did not understand. She wasn't to know that the city of Damascus was built on the unstable and irregular lands that slowly grew in altitude until they became the mountains of Sheleg. Which meant there were no clear and open areas large enough to host a slave market of this magnitude.
Instead, the people of Damascus had funnelled out of the main gates and into the flatlands where the sun beat down mercilessly and only the rich or servants of the rich were given shelter beneath awnings and cloaks.
Hannah was forced to draw to a stop, where she turned her shoulders in, bent her knees and cowered into as small a frame as she could manage, desperate not to be noticed.
She had no idea whether it was a worse fate to continue walking... until the slave driver decided her to be of spoiled, useless goods and set her free (if she survived that long) or be purchased by an owner who could be gentle or could be cruel... Each potential path of her life appeared to be one that led to sorrow and harm.
Swallowing upon a dry tongue, Hannah looked out at the crowds of people, free or working, who came to assess the stock on behalf of their masters and their homes. She looked from between bedraggled locks of hair turned dark with sweat, grease and sand. Her skin had lost its sweet glow of health and vitality and was now peeling and burnt. Her clothes she had worn for over three weeks and were a potent mixture of sweat, illness and urine. Long ago, she had lost the scent of herself, but she could tell from the faces of passer-by who came to inspect the driver’s goods that they were all of a similar condition. The same as many of the convoys that had joined them for the mass auction.
Hannah's arms pulled in, now permitted to move her bound wrists to her torso as they weren't walking and shamed for her appearance and smell. She closed her eyes and begged to be anywhere else but here...
With a recent visit from Ayala filling up their pockets momentarily, Gwyneth was thankful she was finally able to take a visit to the markets. Ever since they had to reduce what they sold at their market stall, and Valence's mind grew further and further apart from his body, much of the household chores had to be taken up within the shoulders of the eighteen year old girl, barely old enough to handle leading a household of a half-deranged father and a sister who was always away at work.
Tasked with handling the meals and general household chores meant Gwyneth had to restock the pantries, and Ayala's visit the night before couldn't have come at a more opportune time. She had been left with a small potato and some carrots, along with one corn, and that could hardly make one meal to feed one, much less for two people.
So the girl was happy, eager even, to get to the market. Ensuring again that Valence would be fine by himself, Gwyneth had put on her serviceable brown dress, a beige headscarf over her head secured with a nondescript simple metal pin over her chest, before she picked up the wicker basket she usually used, and went on her way. The usual sounds of the market were welcomed for her, for this was the enviroment in which she grew up, back when both her parents ran the stall and Gwyneth's only job there was to play and attract people to come to their wares.
Now, she came to work... or like she was now, purchasing what the house need. The coin purse attached to her dress jingled, not with a lot of coins, but just enough for her to stock their home's pantry for what they needed for two weeks, and hope it lasted until Ayala's next visit home. Gwyneth did well in making the provisions last as she could, adding extra water to lentil soup or just cutting them up to smaller pieces so they went a longer way. Sure, the soup would taste bland, or sometimes her stomach would growl just as she went to bed, but in the end, she survived, didn't she?
Meat was a luxury, but Ayala had earned a little extra today that Gwyneth was wondering if she'd be able to afford a small cut of meat for their meal for the day. Her father would be happy. He always enjoyed his meats.
Distracted by her quest to find the butcher, she soon purchased what she wanted, but her eyes soon caught sight of something further in the flatlands. Gwyneth would've walked past the mass of people at all... had she not seen an unusual sight. To be fair, if she had been more observant, perhaps the sight would not be so unusual to her, but Valence and Qiana had always ensured the young Gwyneth's eyes were not set on slave trades,f or they wanted their young daughter to grow up at least not familiar with the fact that humans were bought and sold. Not entirely innocent however, she's come to learn of their existence over the last few years, yet this was the first time she's properly seen one, and it baffled her how many were inspecting the chained up humans as they would livestock.
Empathetic by nature, Gwyneth found herself unable to stop from drifting closer to the humans with bound wrists and restricted movement, curiosity getting the better of her as a man who seemed to be in charge of the whole affair began trying to corral the many people who had gathered to listen up. Found herself swept up by the masses, Gwyneth could only go with them as her eyes roamed the rows of people chained together, equal amounts of curious and pity.
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Nov 28, 2019 16:01:24 GMT
Posted In Fetch a Price on Nov 28, 2019 16:01:24 GMT
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With a recent visit from Ayala filling up their pockets momentarily, Gwyneth was thankful she was finally able to take a visit to the markets. Ever since they had to reduce what they sold at their market stall, and Valence's mind grew further and further apart from his body, much of the household chores had to be taken up within the shoulders of the eighteen year old girl, barely old enough to handle leading a household of a half-deranged father and a sister who was always away at work.
Tasked with handling the meals and general household chores meant Gwyneth had to restock the pantries, and Ayala's visit the night before couldn't have come at a more opportune time. She had been left with a small potato and some carrots, along with one corn, and that could hardly make one meal to feed one, much less for two people.
So the girl was happy, eager even, to get to the market. Ensuring again that Valence would be fine by himself, Gwyneth had put on her serviceable brown dress, a beige headscarf over her head secured with a nondescript simple metal pin over her chest, before she picked up the wicker basket she usually used, and went on her way. The usual sounds of the market were welcomed for her, for this was the enviroment in which she grew up, back when both her parents ran the stall and Gwyneth's only job there was to play and attract people to come to their wares.
Now, she came to work... or like she was now, purchasing what the house need. The coin purse attached to her dress jingled, not with a lot of coins, but just enough for her to stock their home's pantry for what they needed for two weeks, and hope it lasted until Ayala's next visit home. Gwyneth did well in making the provisions last as she could, adding extra water to lentil soup or just cutting them up to smaller pieces so they went a longer way. Sure, the soup would taste bland, or sometimes her stomach would growl just as she went to bed, but in the end, she survived, didn't she?
Meat was a luxury, but Ayala had earned a little extra today that Gwyneth was wondering if she'd be able to afford a small cut of meat for their meal for the day. Her father would be happy. He always enjoyed his meats.
Distracted by her quest to find the butcher, she soon purchased what she wanted, but her eyes soon caught sight of something further in the flatlands. Gwyneth would've walked past the mass of people at all... had she not seen an unusual sight. To be fair, if she had been more observant, perhaps the sight would not be so unusual to her, but Valence and Qiana had always ensured the young Gwyneth's eyes were not set on slave trades,f or they wanted their young daughter to grow up at least not familiar with the fact that humans were bought and sold. Not entirely innocent however, she's come to learn of their existence over the last few years, yet this was the first time she's properly seen one, and it baffled her how many were inspecting the chained up humans as they would livestock.
Empathetic by nature, Gwyneth found herself unable to stop from drifting closer to the humans with bound wrists and restricted movement, curiosity getting the better of her as a man who seemed to be in charge of the whole affair began trying to corral the many people who had gathered to listen up. Found herself swept up by the masses, Gwyneth could only go with them as her eyes roamed the rows of people chained together, equal amounts of curious and pity.
With a recent visit from Ayala filling up their pockets momentarily, Gwyneth was thankful she was finally able to take a visit to the markets. Ever since they had to reduce what they sold at their market stall, and Valence's mind grew further and further apart from his body, much of the household chores had to be taken up within the shoulders of the eighteen year old girl, barely old enough to handle leading a household of a half-deranged father and a sister who was always away at work.
Tasked with handling the meals and general household chores meant Gwyneth had to restock the pantries, and Ayala's visit the night before couldn't have come at a more opportune time. She had been left with a small potato and some carrots, along with one corn, and that could hardly make one meal to feed one, much less for two people.
So the girl was happy, eager even, to get to the market. Ensuring again that Valence would be fine by himself, Gwyneth had put on her serviceable brown dress, a beige headscarf over her head secured with a nondescript simple metal pin over her chest, before she picked up the wicker basket she usually used, and went on her way. The usual sounds of the market were welcomed for her, for this was the enviroment in which she grew up, back when both her parents ran the stall and Gwyneth's only job there was to play and attract people to come to their wares.
Now, she came to work... or like she was now, purchasing what the house need. The coin purse attached to her dress jingled, not with a lot of coins, but just enough for her to stock their home's pantry for what they needed for two weeks, and hope it lasted until Ayala's next visit home. Gwyneth did well in making the provisions last as she could, adding extra water to lentil soup or just cutting them up to smaller pieces so they went a longer way. Sure, the soup would taste bland, or sometimes her stomach would growl just as she went to bed, but in the end, she survived, didn't she?
Meat was a luxury, but Ayala had earned a little extra today that Gwyneth was wondering if she'd be able to afford a small cut of meat for their meal for the day. Her father would be happy. He always enjoyed his meats.
Distracted by her quest to find the butcher, she soon purchased what she wanted, but her eyes soon caught sight of something further in the flatlands. Gwyneth would've walked past the mass of people at all... had she not seen an unusual sight. To be fair, if she had been more observant, perhaps the sight would not be so unusual to her, but Valence and Qiana had always ensured the young Gwyneth's eyes were not set on slave trades,f or they wanted their young daughter to grow up at least not familiar with the fact that humans were bought and sold. Not entirely innocent however, she's come to learn of their existence over the last few years, yet this was the first time she's properly seen one, and it baffled her how many were inspecting the chained up humans as they would livestock.
Empathetic by nature, Gwyneth found herself unable to stop from drifting closer to the humans with bound wrists and restricted movement, curiosity getting the better of her as a man who seemed to be in charge of the whole affair began trying to corral the many people who had gathered to listen up. Found herself swept up by the masses, Gwyneth could only go with them as her eyes roamed the rows of people chained together, equal amounts of curious and pity.
The auction was too much. The land was as flat as the eye could see and all it did was emphasise the immense world that lay beyond this single market - this single place in time. Whilst, by comparison, the area immediately around the slaves and the rigged staging that was prepared for each to display and advertise themselves, felt claustrophobic with people. How an area could feel so potentially liberal and yet pour in on ever side to the point where you could not breathe for the scent of human, nor cry for the sake of being heard about the noise.
Hannah attempted to keep herself clear of the bustle and the crush, keeping her eyes on her bare feet and directing them an extra step left or right to avoid the steps of others in case her toes were caught underfoot. She was limited in how and where she could go as her bindings were still attached to those in front and behind her. But now they were packed in together and not trailing their convoy through the desert sands the chains held some slack and she could find a moment of respite in that.
Looking up and out at the crowds, several bedraggled locks that were once light and silky ringlets bounced lankly against her face as she peered between them. They hung like bars across her vision. Like signs of imprisonment - of the jail that was now her life as a slave.
From between them, however, Hannah noticed a young girl who couldn't be more than a year older than herself. Compared to the men and women around her who inspected the sale and goods in a manner natural to this for whom slavery was a natural part of the world, this young woman appeared less at ease with the concept. She looked upon the men, women and children who had been chained like animals and seemed to actually see them as people.
Hannah's gaze slipped down to what the young girl was holding - a wicker basket of food and perhaps drink in those bottles? - and she tried to hurry forwards.
Brought to a halt when the chains would not let her further away from those adjacent to her in the line, and her strain to reach the girl jostled and tugged upon the convoy, Hannah tried to reach out, using the nonexistent slack to try and stretch out her hands, regardless of how the bindings cut into her wrists.
"Please!" She called to the girl her pale, Grecian skin was hidden by dirt and sand but she hoped her light eyes would give away that Hebrew was not her native language. Nor the foreign accent. "Please, honourable miss - do you have any water? A little food? Please!"
Hannah had never begged for anything in her life, but she had felt her stomach turning to turn in on itself in its own starvation and she had not felt moisture in her mouth and throat for two days. At this point in her life, as she reached out with a bandaged hand and a future prospect that looked like little to hold with prise, she would have not stooped to begging for nourishment if it was only she that needed it...
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Nov 28, 2019 23:00:12 GMT
Posted In Fetch a Price on Nov 28, 2019 23:00:12 GMT
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The auction was too much. The land was as flat as the eye could see and all it did was emphasise the immense world that lay beyond this single market - this single place in time. Whilst, by comparison, the area immediately around the slaves and the rigged staging that was prepared for each to display and advertise themselves, felt claustrophobic with people. How an area could feel so potentially liberal and yet pour in on ever side to the point where you could not breathe for the scent of human, nor cry for the sake of being heard about the noise.
Hannah attempted to keep herself clear of the bustle and the crush, keeping her eyes on her bare feet and directing them an extra step left or right to avoid the steps of others in case her toes were caught underfoot. She was limited in how and where she could go as her bindings were still attached to those in front and behind her. But now they were packed in together and not trailing their convoy through the desert sands the chains held some slack and she could find a moment of respite in that.
Looking up and out at the crowds, several bedraggled locks that were once light and silky ringlets bounced lankly against her face as she peered between them. They hung like bars across her vision. Like signs of imprisonment - of the jail that was now her life as a slave.
From between them, however, Hannah noticed a young girl who couldn't be more than a year older than herself. Compared to the men and women around her who inspected the sale and goods in a manner natural to this for whom slavery was a natural part of the world, this young woman appeared less at ease with the concept. She looked upon the men, women and children who had been chained like animals and seemed to actually see them as people.
Hannah's gaze slipped down to what the young girl was holding - a wicker basket of food and perhaps drink in those bottles? - and she tried to hurry forwards.
Brought to a halt when the chains would not let her further away from those adjacent to her in the line, and her strain to reach the girl jostled and tugged upon the convoy, Hannah tried to reach out, using the nonexistent slack to try and stretch out her hands, regardless of how the bindings cut into her wrists.
"Please!" She called to the girl her pale, Grecian skin was hidden by dirt and sand but she hoped her light eyes would give away that Hebrew was not her native language. Nor the foreign accent. "Please, honourable miss - do you have any water? A little food? Please!"
Hannah had never begged for anything in her life, but she had felt her stomach turning to turn in on itself in its own starvation and she had not felt moisture in her mouth and throat for two days. At this point in her life, as she reached out with a bandaged hand and a future prospect that looked like little to hold with prise, she would have not stooped to begging for nourishment if it was only she that needed it...
The auction was too much. The land was as flat as the eye could see and all it did was emphasise the immense world that lay beyond this single market - this single place in time. Whilst, by comparison, the area immediately around the slaves and the rigged staging that was prepared for each to display and advertise themselves, felt claustrophobic with people. How an area could feel so potentially liberal and yet pour in on ever side to the point where you could not breathe for the scent of human, nor cry for the sake of being heard about the noise.
Hannah attempted to keep herself clear of the bustle and the crush, keeping her eyes on her bare feet and directing them an extra step left or right to avoid the steps of others in case her toes were caught underfoot. She was limited in how and where she could go as her bindings were still attached to those in front and behind her. But now they were packed in together and not trailing their convoy through the desert sands the chains held some slack and she could find a moment of respite in that.
Looking up and out at the crowds, several bedraggled locks that were once light and silky ringlets bounced lankly against her face as she peered between them. They hung like bars across her vision. Like signs of imprisonment - of the jail that was now her life as a slave.
From between them, however, Hannah noticed a young girl who couldn't be more than a year older than herself. Compared to the men and women around her who inspected the sale and goods in a manner natural to this for whom slavery was a natural part of the world, this young woman appeared less at ease with the concept. She looked upon the men, women and children who had been chained like animals and seemed to actually see them as people.
Hannah's gaze slipped down to what the young girl was holding - a wicker basket of food and perhaps drink in those bottles? - and she tried to hurry forwards.
Brought to a halt when the chains would not let her further away from those adjacent to her in the line, and her strain to reach the girl jostled and tugged upon the convoy, Hannah tried to reach out, using the nonexistent slack to try and stretch out her hands, regardless of how the bindings cut into her wrists.
"Please!" She called to the girl her pale, Grecian skin was hidden by dirt and sand but she hoped her light eyes would give away that Hebrew was not her native language. Nor the foreign accent. "Please, honourable miss - do you have any water? A little food? Please!"
Hannah had never begged for anything in her life, but she had felt her stomach turning to turn in on itself in its own starvation and she had not felt moisture in her mouth and throat for two days. At this point in her life, as she reached out with a bandaged hand and a future prospect that looked like little to hold with prise, she would have not stooped to begging for nourishment if it was only she that needed it...
Despite the heavy basket off her arm, Gwyneth found her curiosity captured by what was the first slave trade she'd be witnessing. The Damascus born girl was curious by nature, always eager to learn. Had she been born in a family better off then she had now, she would likely be a good candidate for the Damascus university, for she caught on to concepts and things quick. Learning quick as she went along, it was why she was a great help to Valence and Qiana when they were both still peddling their goods in the market, for Gwyneth proved to be a useful helper in a short amount of time.
Naturally gravitating towards new things that catch her interest, Gwyneth almost didn't notice someone approaching her when the loud clash of chains being yanked startled the brunette. Instinctively clasping the front of her headscarf closer to her chest, bringing her basket of food for her father and herself nearer, her eyes widened when the pale looking, dirt covered girl reached out, almost like something out of one's nightmares.
Gwyneth had gasped, and her breathe was flustered as the Grecian slave spoke in a Hebrew that seemed more foreign then usual, a lilt in her tone that made her cock her head. Grecian? She's heard so much about the pale, pasty people over the waters, and how her people did not enjoy having them on their shores at all. Is that why this girl was enslaved? It seemed wrong however, to Gwyneth to put her in a slave chains, when she seemed too skinny to even carry any of it.
Her request for food made the brunette pause, and consider the items she had in her basket. The victuals were designed to last herself and her father for two weeks - and even then, Gwyneth didn't know if she had enough. Could she spare any? The girl worried her bottom lip as she flipped the possibilities in her head, her hazel gaze a sea of hesitant emotions.
Only a desperate person would reach out as if what she had in her basket contained life, and her soft heart eventally won out. Gwyneth dug into her basket, a hesitant, almost scared look at the loud man who seemed to be in charge, the Damascus-borned one ensured he was not looking, before she slipped a crusty bread roll to the chained girl, and then offered the smallest jug of goat's milk to her, hoping the other did not spill it. In her pocket remained a few coins she'd go and get extra milk for her father later - if she could afford it, anyhow. Gwyneth had intended to save the coins for a rainy day, but Yahweh had a funny way of foiling one's plans.
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Despite the heavy basket off her arm, Gwyneth found her curiosity captured by what was the first slave trade she'd be witnessing. The Damascus born girl was curious by nature, always eager to learn. Had she been born in a family better off then she had now, she would likely be a good candidate for the Damascus university, for she caught on to concepts and things quick. Learning quick as she went along, it was why she was a great help to Valence and Qiana when they were both still peddling their goods in the market, for Gwyneth proved to be a useful helper in a short amount of time.
Naturally gravitating towards new things that catch her interest, Gwyneth almost didn't notice someone approaching her when the loud clash of chains being yanked startled the brunette. Instinctively clasping the front of her headscarf closer to her chest, bringing her basket of food for her father and herself nearer, her eyes widened when the pale looking, dirt covered girl reached out, almost like something out of one's nightmares.
Gwyneth had gasped, and her breathe was flustered as the Grecian slave spoke in a Hebrew that seemed more foreign then usual, a lilt in her tone that made her cock her head. Grecian? She's heard so much about the pale, pasty people over the waters, and how her people did not enjoy having them on their shores at all. Is that why this girl was enslaved? It seemed wrong however, to Gwyneth to put her in a slave chains, when she seemed too skinny to even carry any of it.
Her request for food made the brunette pause, and consider the items she had in her basket. The victuals were designed to last herself and her father for two weeks - and even then, Gwyneth didn't know if she had enough. Could she spare any? The girl worried her bottom lip as she flipped the possibilities in her head, her hazel gaze a sea of hesitant emotions.
Only a desperate person would reach out as if what she had in her basket contained life, and her soft heart eventally won out. Gwyneth dug into her basket, a hesitant, almost scared look at the loud man who seemed to be in charge, the Damascus-borned one ensured he was not looking, before she slipped a crusty bread roll to the chained girl, and then offered the smallest jug of goat's milk to her, hoping the other did not spill it. In her pocket remained a few coins she'd go and get extra milk for her father later - if she could afford it, anyhow. Gwyneth had intended to save the coins for a rainy day, but Yahweh had a funny way of foiling one's plans.
Despite the heavy basket off her arm, Gwyneth found her curiosity captured by what was the first slave trade she'd be witnessing. The Damascus born girl was curious by nature, always eager to learn. Had she been born in a family better off then she had now, she would likely be a good candidate for the Damascus university, for she caught on to concepts and things quick. Learning quick as she went along, it was why she was a great help to Valence and Qiana when they were both still peddling their goods in the market, for Gwyneth proved to be a useful helper in a short amount of time.
Naturally gravitating towards new things that catch her interest, Gwyneth almost didn't notice someone approaching her when the loud clash of chains being yanked startled the brunette. Instinctively clasping the front of her headscarf closer to her chest, bringing her basket of food for her father and herself nearer, her eyes widened when the pale looking, dirt covered girl reached out, almost like something out of one's nightmares.
Gwyneth had gasped, and her breathe was flustered as the Grecian slave spoke in a Hebrew that seemed more foreign then usual, a lilt in her tone that made her cock her head. Grecian? She's heard so much about the pale, pasty people over the waters, and how her people did not enjoy having them on their shores at all. Is that why this girl was enslaved? It seemed wrong however, to Gwyneth to put her in a slave chains, when she seemed too skinny to even carry any of it.
Her request for food made the brunette pause, and consider the items she had in her basket. The victuals were designed to last herself and her father for two weeks - and even then, Gwyneth didn't know if she had enough. Could she spare any? The girl worried her bottom lip as she flipped the possibilities in her head, her hazel gaze a sea of hesitant emotions.
Only a desperate person would reach out as if what she had in her basket contained life, and her soft heart eventally won out. Gwyneth dug into her basket, a hesitant, almost scared look at the loud man who seemed to be in charge, the Damascus-borned one ensured he was not looking, before she slipped a crusty bread roll to the chained girl, and then offered the smallest jug of goat's milk to her, hoping the other did not spill it. In her pocket remained a few coins she'd go and get extra milk for her father later - if she could afford it, anyhow. Gwyneth had intended to save the coins for a rainy day, but Yahweh had a funny way of foiling one's plans.
Hannah was not someone who begged. She didn't degrade herself to the point of wishing for something that another person could not necessarily give. Whilst, as a young woman, she had wanted for nothing and knew now that her former self was a selfish creature that never considered the idea that what she had was then something someone else could not have. Since being in Judea and meeting her husband, Hannah had learnt the idea of balance, the way in which everyone was connected and how you should earn what you received.
Yet, life was not always fair.
She hadn't earned the state of slavery in which she now found herself. Nor had her missing husband earned the punishment he was forced to carry out. Neither of them had deserved the lives that now stretched out ahead of them apart and suffering. But still that didn't mean that Hannah deserved to ask of sacrifice from another in order to help herself.
And for herself she would not have done it.
When the young Judean woman stepped back and seemed fearful of her outstretched hands, Hannah drew her grasp back towards her chest a little, her reach less urgent and desperate.
"I am sorry." She told the girl, her Hebrew vocabulary limited but enough for the situation. "I will not hurt you." Her eyes appeared huge within her face as she tried to impress the young woman with her sincerity. The last thing she wanted to do was scare someone who might be compassionate enough to help her.
When the Judean lady offered out a roll of crusty bread, her expression one of uncertainty, Hannah hesitated to take it, suddenly understanding the reality of what she was doing - of what she was taking from another. But it was in that moment that she felt a shift in her abdomen, the softest of movements - like butterflies in her tummy. And nothing could have stopped her from taking the roll from the young woman's hands with a look of greatest gratitude and rapture.
"Thank you, oh thank you!" She murmured, keeping her voice low so as not to draw the attention of the slave driver. "Peace be upon you. Bless you."
The roll was soft in her hands, rough over its surface and seemed to glow with inner heat only the way freshly baked bread could feel. Knowing that, if she was spotted, she would have the food taken from her, Hannah bent low and crouched in a way that would hide her from her seller up ahead. Another slave came over to try and take some from her, clearly just as hungry as she, and Hannah could not allow her selfishness to persist. She broke the roll in half and have them a share before she was inelegantly cramming what was left in her mouth. She chewed as quickly as she could, as if fearful that if she did not get the bread to her stomach fast enough her child might starve within the next few moments...
When she looked around, trying to brush crumbs nervously from her face, her little jaw working like a piston, Hannah was shocked to see the woman holding out goat's milk to go with the bread. She smiled a little and whilst she knew the benefits such milk might offer her body and that of her child, she raised her hands, palm out and shook her head softly.
"You have been kind enough." She told the woman, knowing the expense of fresh milk. She did not need to stress this kind soul more than was needed. And the last thing she wanted was for her to get into trouble for helping her too much.
The sound of a cracking whip and clanking chains had Hannah looking forwards with fear, as her feet were practically dragged and her hands pulled away from the kind girl and several feet closer to the auction stand, as someone else took their place to be bid upon. Hannah hid her features in shame at her lot in life as one of the next slaves to be offered for sale, but she was too far gone to cry at least.
"I hope my future lies with someone as kind as you." Hannah offered the girl with a smile, raising her voice a little so she might be heard by her. Perhaps she would be in luck and the young woman needed a slave...?
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Hannah was not someone who begged. She didn't degrade herself to the point of wishing for something that another person could not necessarily give. Whilst, as a young woman, she had wanted for nothing and knew now that her former self was a selfish creature that never considered the idea that what she had was then something someone else could not have. Since being in Judea and meeting her husband, Hannah had learnt the idea of balance, the way in which everyone was connected and how you should earn what you received.
Yet, life was not always fair.
She hadn't earned the state of slavery in which she now found herself. Nor had her missing husband earned the punishment he was forced to carry out. Neither of them had deserved the lives that now stretched out ahead of them apart and suffering. But still that didn't mean that Hannah deserved to ask of sacrifice from another in order to help herself.
And for herself she would not have done it.
When the young Judean woman stepped back and seemed fearful of her outstretched hands, Hannah drew her grasp back towards her chest a little, her reach less urgent and desperate.
"I am sorry." She told the girl, her Hebrew vocabulary limited but enough for the situation. "I will not hurt you." Her eyes appeared huge within her face as she tried to impress the young woman with her sincerity. The last thing she wanted to do was scare someone who might be compassionate enough to help her.
When the Judean lady offered out a roll of crusty bread, her expression one of uncertainty, Hannah hesitated to take it, suddenly understanding the reality of what she was doing - of what she was taking from another. But it was in that moment that she felt a shift in her abdomen, the softest of movements - like butterflies in her tummy. And nothing could have stopped her from taking the roll from the young woman's hands with a look of greatest gratitude and rapture.
"Thank you, oh thank you!" She murmured, keeping her voice low so as not to draw the attention of the slave driver. "Peace be upon you. Bless you."
The roll was soft in her hands, rough over its surface and seemed to glow with inner heat only the way freshly baked bread could feel. Knowing that, if she was spotted, she would have the food taken from her, Hannah bent low and crouched in a way that would hide her from her seller up ahead. Another slave came over to try and take some from her, clearly just as hungry as she, and Hannah could not allow her selfishness to persist. She broke the roll in half and have them a share before she was inelegantly cramming what was left in her mouth. She chewed as quickly as she could, as if fearful that if she did not get the bread to her stomach fast enough her child might starve within the next few moments...
When she looked around, trying to brush crumbs nervously from her face, her little jaw working like a piston, Hannah was shocked to see the woman holding out goat's milk to go with the bread. She smiled a little and whilst she knew the benefits such milk might offer her body and that of her child, she raised her hands, palm out and shook her head softly.
"You have been kind enough." She told the woman, knowing the expense of fresh milk. She did not need to stress this kind soul more than was needed. And the last thing she wanted was for her to get into trouble for helping her too much.
The sound of a cracking whip and clanking chains had Hannah looking forwards with fear, as her feet were practically dragged and her hands pulled away from the kind girl and several feet closer to the auction stand, as someone else took their place to be bid upon. Hannah hid her features in shame at her lot in life as one of the next slaves to be offered for sale, but she was too far gone to cry at least.
"I hope my future lies with someone as kind as you." Hannah offered the girl with a smile, raising her voice a little so she might be heard by her. Perhaps she would be in luck and the young woman needed a slave...?
Hannah was not someone who begged. She didn't degrade herself to the point of wishing for something that another person could not necessarily give. Whilst, as a young woman, she had wanted for nothing and knew now that her former self was a selfish creature that never considered the idea that what she had was then something someone else could not have. Since being in Judea and meeting her husband, Hannah had learnt the idea of balance, the way in which everyone was connected and how you should earn what you received.
Yet, life was not always fair.
She hadn't earned the state of slavery in which she now found herself. Nor had her missing husband earned the punishment he was forced to carry out. Neither of them had deserved the lives that now stretched out ahead of them apart and suffering. But still that didn't mean that Hannah deserved to ask of sacrifice from another in order to help herself.
And for herself she would not have done it.
When the young Judean woman stepped back and seemed fearful of her outstretched hands, Hannah drew her grasp back towards her chest a little, her reach less urgent and desperate.
"I am sorry." She told the girl, her Hebrew vocabulary limited but enough for the situation. "I will not hurt you." Her eyes appeared huge within her face as she tried to impress the young woman with her sincerity. The last thing she wanted to do was scare someone who might be compassionate enough to help her.
When the Judean lady offered out a roll of crusty bread, her expression one of uncertainty, Hannah hesitated to take it, suddenly understanding the reality of what she was doing - of what she was taking from another. But it was in that moment that she felt a shift in her abdomen, the softest of movements - like butterflies in her tummy. And nothing could have stopped her from taking the roll from the young woman's hands with a look of greatest gratitude and rapture.
"Thank you, oh thank you!" She murmured, keeping her voice low so as not to draw the attention of the slave driver. "Peace be upon you. Bless you."
The roll was soft in her hands, rough over its surface and seemed to glow with inner heat only the way freshly baked bread could feel. Knowing that, if she was spotted, she would have the food taken from her, Hannah bent low and crouched in a way that would hide her from her seller up ahead. Another slave came over to try and take some from her, clearly just as hungry as she, and Hannah could not allow her selfishness to persist. She broke the roll in half and have them a share before she was inelegantly cramming what was left in her mouth. She chewed as quickly as she could, as if fearful that if she did not get the bread to her stomach fast enough her child might starve within the next few moments...
When she looked around, trying to brush crumbs nervously from her face, her little jaw working like a piston, Hannah was shocked to see the woman holding out goat's milk to go with the bread. She smiled a little and whilst she knew the benefits such milk might offer her body and that of her child, she raised her hands, palm out and shook her head softly.
"You have been kind enough." She told the woman, knowing the expense of fresh milk. She did not need to stress this kind soul more than was needed. And the last thing she wanted was for her to get into trouble for helping her too much.
The sound of a cracking whip and clanking chains had Hannah looking forwards with fear, as her feet were practically dragged and her hands pulled away from the kind girl and several feet closer to the auction stand, as someone else took their place to be bid upon. Hannah hid her features in shame at her lot in life as one of the next slaves to be offered for sale, but she was too far gone to cry at least.
"I hope my future lies with someone as kind as you." Hannah offered the girl with a smile, raising her voice a little so she might be heard by her. Perhaps she would be in luck and the young woman needed a slave...?
It took awhile for Gwyneth to make sense of the lilted Hebrew, a language obviously not the slave's first tongue. But it was understandable enough, and Gwyneth gave a halting, but warm smile at the assurance from the girl. Her eyes still darted to the owner of this slave trade, for Gwyneth was fairly certain she would get in huge trouble if she were to be discovered to be feeding a slave, but luckily for her, a couple who owned riches Gwyneth could only dream of were discussing a deal, and the ruthless owner seemed occupied enough for now.
Flicking her eyes back to find the crust of bread gone and the jar of milk still in her hands, she frowned, but shook her head when she noticed the lady, who was far too small for her size, looking gaunt and showing much bone, had given half the crust to a slave next to her, clear from the other slave's dirtied mouth and moving jaws. She was kind, much so then Gwyneth herself could claim to be, and for that, she momentarily felt shame in herself.
She had wanted to press the jar of milk forcefully in the other slave's hands, for it was clear the other needed it more then she did. While she may go to bed hungry occasionally, it was not a long term matter, at least not the way it seemed for this slaves.
But before Gwyneth could do as she wanted, the cracking of a whip had her jumping away as if she had done something wrong, before the clanking of chains made the brunette's jaw dropped as the slaves were dragged away to the auction stand. Were they to be sold like cattle? Gwyneth couldn't imagine humans were likened to cattle or goat, yet here they were.
Biting her bottom lip as she shifted closer, she leaned in to pick the chained hands, and pushed the jar of milk into them. "Take it. I... I wish your future lies with a kind soul too, but I fear those with the coin to purchase... slaves, do not own the soul you would like to work with." Ayala had told her many stories of how stoic, cruel and quiet the men she worked with could be. While there was no basis to Ayala's stories, at that age, Gwyneth believed everything her sister told her to be gospel, and therefore had formed the belief that those of money could hardly be kind. "But drink that. You need it far more then me. It is all I can give with my good wishes."
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It took awhile for Gwyneth to make sense of the lilted Hebrew, a language obviously not the slave's first tongue. But it was understandable enough, and Gwyneth gave a halting, but warm smile at the assurance from the girl. Her eyes still darted to the owner of this slave trade, for Gwyneth was fairly certain she would get in huge trouble if she were to be discovered to be feeding a slave, but luckily for her, a couple who owned riches Gwyneth could only dream of were discussing a deal, and the ruthless owner seemed occupied enough for now.
Flicking her eyes back to find the crust of bread gone and the jar of milk still in her hands, she frowned, but shook her head when she noticed the lady, who was far too small for her size, looking gaunt and showing much bone, had given half the crust to a slave next to her, clear from the other slave's dirtied mouth and moving jaws. She was kind, much so then Gwyneth herself could claim to be, and for that, she momentarily felt shame in herself.
She had wanted to press the jar of milk forcefully in the other slave's hands, for it was clear the other needed it more then she did. While she may go to bed hungry occasionally, it was not a long term matter, at least not the way it seemed for this slaves.
But before Gwyneth could do as she wanted, the cracking of a whip had her jumping away as if she had done something wrong, before the clanking of chains made the brunette's jaw dropped as the slaves were dragged away to the auction stand. Were they to be sold like cattle? Gwyneth couldn't imagine humans were likened to cattle or goat, yet here they were.
Biting her bottom lip as she shifted closer, she leaned in to pick the chained hands, and pushed the jar of milk into them. "Take it. I... I wish your future lies with a kind soul too, but I fear those with the coin to purchase... slaves, do not own the soul you would like to work with." Ayala had told her many stories of how stoic, cruel and quiet the men she worked with could be. While there was no basis to Ayala's stories, at that age, Gwyneth believed everything her sister told her to be gospel, and therefore had formed the belief that those of money could hardly be kind. "But drink that. You need it far more then me. It is all I can give with my good wishes."
It took awhile for Gwyneth to make sense of the lilted Hebrew, a language obviously not the slave's first tongue. But it was understandable enough, and Gwyneth gave a halting, but warm smile at the assurance from the girl. Her eyes still darted to the owner of this slave trade, for Gwyneth was fairly certain she would get in huge trouble if she were to be discovered to be feeding a slave, but luckily for her, a couple who owned riches Gwyneth could only dream of were discussing a deal, and the ruthless owner seemed occupied enough for now.
Flicking her eyes back to find the crust of bread gone and the jar of milk still in her hands, she frowned, but shook her head when she noticed the lady, who was far too small for her size, looking gaunt and showing much bone, had given half the crust to a slave next to her, clear from the other slave's dirtied mouth and moving jaws. She was kind, much so then Gwyneth herself could claim to be, and for that, she momentarily felt shame in herself.
She had wanted to press the jar of milk forcefully in the other slave's hands, for it was clear the other needed it more then she did. While she may go to bed hungry occasionally, it was not a long term matter, at least not the way it seemed for this slaves.
But before Gwyneth could do as she wanted, the cracking of a whip had her jumping away as if she had done something wrong, before the clanking of chains made the brunette's jaw dropped as the slaves were dragged away to the auction stand. Were they to be sold like cattle? Gwyneth couldn't imagine humans were likened to cattle or goat, yet here they were.
Biting her bottom lip as she shifted closer, she leaned in to pick the chained hands, and pushed the jar of milk into them. "Take it. I... I wish your future lies with a kind soul too, but I fear those with the coin to purchase... slaves, do not own the soul you would like to work with." Ayala had told her many stories of how stoic, cruel and quiet the men she worked with could be. While there was no basis to Ayala's stories, at that age, Gwyneth believed everything her sister told her to be gospel, and therefore had formed the belief that those of money could hardly be kind. "But drink that. You need it far more then me. It is all I can give with my good wishes."
As the whip cracked up ahead, Hannah jumped a little as the sharp sound cut through the air. It wasn't shocking for its sound. For the area in which she stood, poised before the kindly young woman who offered her the little that she could spare, was dense with noise. The chatter of the crowds, the shuffle of feet and hooves of cattle or mules drawing carts. The holler of traders and merchants called out above the head of potential patrons and draw the attention of those that might part with their coin for the hides, breads, milks and fabrics that were being sold by those less favourable towards live stock. Amongst the din of the crowds, there was little that could slice through such a hubbub and be heard beyond all else to the point of making someone jump in their skin. No. The reason for Hannah's sudden judder - the way in which her shoulders shifted beneath her skin and her arms pulled into her sides as if fearing some physical pain at the noise - was the promise of what that noise of leather on stony ground would mean...
Whilst Hannah had been a slave for only a short time; weeks that encroached slowly on the months, she knew that there were all kinds of slavers and drivers of human cattle.
There were some that dealt in the finest of stock; those that were dealt to the higher levels of society and encouraged to become the retainers of those of noble birth. She had witnessed such sellers during her youthful years back home in Taengea and accompanied her household's steward to such auctions in order to complete their supple of slave help when one of their females was to marry or leave them in favour of motherhood. Such dealers were gentle with their slaves, encouraging of their care, cleanliness and refinery. They would be kept on single leashes of fine silver chains, looped through bangles around the wrist that could as easily have been jewellery over bondage. They were carefully allocated, never kept in carts too small for their number and fed in a manner that would ensure that they looked healthy and aglow in the skin when it came time for them to be sold.
Then there were those who handled the slaves that were used for... pleasurable purposes. Again, the slaves were kept in prime condition, their beauty preserved and health either made evident or coated upon them in a sheen of deceit by clever means that had them looking more fed or exercised than they truly were.
Beyond those two categories, the slave trade diversified into a plethora of purposes of which Hannah neither knew nor sought to know. Despite her interaction with the slave trade as a young daughter of a wealthy family, such connections had been shallow and all purchases had been conducted in an orderly and appropriate manner. She had never seen the darker and lower circles that made up the rest of the what was so common a business and way of life for so many.
She could imagine though.
Businesses built on the backs of those used for tasks and responsibilities that others could afford to pay someone else to complete when they themselves did not wish to. Tasks that involved heavy labour or jobs that might be considered dangerous or deadly - like mining and farming with sharp instruments. Then there were those that were simply worked to the bone within a household with responsibilities numerous and vast if not potentially fatal... piles of laundry and excessive numbers of chambers for too few pairs of hands to keep sterile. Some slaves were used for the rearing of children and the caring for the young of parents too busy to consider the duty to be their own... wealthy enough to farm it out to strangers that they willingly offered their offspring into the hands of.
Hannah felt her hand naturally fall to her middle where, beneath her long robes - threadbare and damaged but still whole as yet - she could feel the soft swell of her belly. It was the only curve to her body that was still firm and wholesome, as the rest of her seemed to thin and grow weary with lack of food.
For Hannah had not been given to a slave driver that specialised in any of these particular slavery purposes. She was not due to become a retainer or lady's maid to the rich and profitable. Nor was she to go into the employ and care of a family that offered more servants than they had tasks, holding their slaves only through a sense of reputation and to impress upon others the wealth they held enough to be lavish and excessive with their attendants.
Nor was she skilled enough or taught to be skilled enough to become a hard working to the middle-class families. It was a middle ground that she could see herself working well in; committing to long and hard hours of labour yet never truly risking her life over her health and able to return to some room or servants’ quarters at night where she could nurse and care for her child... She didn't care how long her working days were or how thankless the tasks it held in the hours between sunrise and sunset. Instead, she looked only to the hopes of holding a role that wouldn't threaten the safety of she and her unborn babe that would one day be hers alone to protect.
For the loss of Isaiah had been a loss to her child as well as herself.
No. Not to the rich was Hannah due to go, she knew, as the sound of the whip finished echoing against the rocky sands of the flatlands around the city of Damascus. As the shivers finished rolling down her spine and settled in her belly, Hannah's face was turned sharply towards that of her owner - the man who would decide who and how she would be given to another. His stature was tall, and his frame particularly average. Yet his skin was ruddy around his throat and across the backs of his hands, as if he held some sort of rash or malady that rose from the heat upon his skin. Hannah was not vengeful enough to draw any form of satisfaction in the knowledge that her slave driver had suffered on the long walk across the derelict lands as she and her fellow slaves had done. Instead, she could only fear what an angered and discomforted driver would mean for her immediate future and that of her peers. Nothing positive, she was sure.
Her thoughts were distracted, however, when the young girl - the woman really - who had been kind enough to give her bread, insisted upon her taking the milk she had so obviously purchased for her own mouth or family.
Watching her with a bewildered uncertainty of hope, Hannah glanced between the girl's face - the way her lips lilted in a smile of kindness and eyes darted to the slaver in a gesture of hurry and fear that she might be chastised or, worse still, punished for offering his slave something she had so clearly been denied in anything beyond the smallest of portions - and the small, earthen jug that she held in her hands, her fingers wrapped around its lip. The girl was offering it out to her again, despite her previous denial, holding the container in a strangely restrained manner that Hannah quickly realised ensured that the jug was hidden from view by the trailing sleeves of her robes.
Hannah was startled into noticing the difference in what they wore. For whilst the girl before her was hardly a member of the richest circles of Judean society, or even that of a working class as far as she could tell, the difference in the keeping of their garments was thrown into sharp contrast when Hannah reached out to take what was willingly given.
Her supporter was a young woman that wore clothing that had been carefully tended to. They were sturdy and perhaps a little old but they were in no way shabby. They had been cared for upon the edges, and refastened in several places that only someone like Hannah - someone recently introduced to the art of seamstress-ing in a way that would not be noticed by others because funds could not stretch to the purchase of new clothing - would be able to notice for what it was; a means of stretching the longevity of the cloth a little further. Another sign of holding out on the use of the garb beyond its intended period was how it no longer held a hem upon the bottom seem, rolled out as its owner had grown, the hem of the simlah was too short to fully reach the ground and yet was not upturned at its furthest rim. Hannah recognised the act from other attire, worn by those who had lived in the same area as she and Isaiah when they had first married. Whilst she had never before been so poor as to do so with her only clothing, she had helped others to turn out the cloth when needed and could recognise it for what it was - an attempt at frugality so that coin could be spent elsewhere on more necessary resources...
Like milk.
The fact that the woman before her was barely managing to stretch the household funds to cover the necessities of both the filling of bellies and the covering of their backs, only had Hannah all the more thankful for the offering she made in sharing her groceries and purchases with her now.
It also made her starkly aware of how pathetic she must appear to lend someone who had so little to give to recognise a poorer and more needy being in herself. Just as their clothing was making obvious.
For while her helper's clothes were old and run down, they were clearly taken care of. The unfurling of the hems... the clever stitching in the seams... The woman wore her clothing with a confidence that would have no-one looking too closely and noticing the frugal additions to its wear. On Hannah, however, her clothes hung differently. With no needle and thread to call her own to ensure the care of her garb and no means with which to wash them - let alone a second outfit that she might change into so that she could lend water and suds to her simlah and under layers... there was nothing that Hannah could do to keep herself presentable in the eyes the even the lowest circles of society. She stood, simply as the epitome of all that any Judean would not hope to become; dirty, dank, foul of smell and rough of texture, with her clothes torn and ragged and her skin starting to flare and peel with the contagions of the general world seeping into her body without means of removal. She felt barely human, let alone simply sub-standard in what was considered acceptable in polite society.
Taking the jug from the young girl's hands with a shy and tentative smile that was a far stronger expression of thanks and acceptance than any larger or exaggerated expression might be able to offer, Hannah was quick to wrap her fingers around the rough but smoothly glazed surface of the little earthen jug.
It wasn't the largest of objects - possibly big enough to contain a little milk for a family for just a few for only the smallest handful of days... if used sparingly. And yet it could just as easily satisfy a single individual for an entire meal. Such a difference was startling in the light of which it was offered, where Hannah had no-one to truly share it with, without causing a ruckus over the nourishment, selfishly held between her palms. And yet, even if she consumed it all, she knew that she would be hungry.
With a shuffle and orchestrated motion of languid footsteps headed in the direction of their owner, Hannah knew that she had to act quickly. As those ahead of her on the chains started to pull the metal links higher from the ground and drag it into a taut line, pointing the way to the auctioning stage ahead of them, and those that hovered behind Hannah in the queue moved to meet her other side, thee force of their very presence attempting to move her along the line, for fear of being pulled themselves by her tarrying, Hannah had little choice but to accept the gift she had so generously been given in a fit of hurry and lack of true appreciation.
Whilst she might have wished to drink slowly, to relish the refreshment and the taste upon a tongue that had been given little but the driest of flatbreads and the stalest of waters for the last few weeks, she had neither the time or moment to do so. Instead, if she wished to drink it and not have it decorate the front of her robes as she was shoved and jostled by the crowd of her peers, she had to be quick.
Raising the jug to her lips, Hannah took large and gulping mouthfuls, her eyes filling with tears at both the joy and the waste of having something to taste and feel and own deep within her belly and yet the loss of chance for something she could embrace and experience outside of life of trial and suffering that she had led since she had been forced to part from her husband. Yet, her mind could not settle upon the selfish loss of experience in that moment. For what was of far more importance, was that she swallowed down as much of the milk as she could before she was pushed from the side once more and near choked on the shameful evidence she had been attempting to hide away.
As white milk secreted from her mouth and ran down her chin, one of Hannah's hands reached up to stem the flow and hide the reality of the Judean woman's generosity, her other reaching to push the small jug - still a third full - back towards its rightful owner.
She tried to voice her thanks to the girl once more but, in the wake of the milk stifled in her throat, she was left to gasp for air and could only mouth the words of gratitude, as her hands sought to clean her face. Using the backs of her fingers and the balls of her palm, Hannah washed at her skin, feeling the thickness of the milk that would turn sour before long, smearing with the dust and dirt of the road. She winced and reached for the topmost later of her simlah, lifting one of its threadbare edges and pressing the roughly woven and loosely fading cloth to her skin.
With the urgency of a desperate woman with nowhere to go but to someone who offered her a home based solely on her appearance, Hannah rubbed hard at her cheeks and chin, until the slick sweat and dirt had been rolled from a sheeny layer of dust into bits of mucks and old skin. The cleaner, rawer skin beneath was aglow with tinges of heated pink. Her eyes sparkled with unshed tears and Hannah moved in the direction that the crowd around her took her, looking over her shoulder for a moment to watch the other girl disappear from her view.
Was she to turn away and return about her day? Hannah wondered... purchase more milk or return to her family with little more than an explanation for the missing goods? Or perhaps she would remain somewhere lost in the crowds, witnessing the sale of Hannah and people like her upon the wooden scaffold that had been erected just under a hundred yards away from where she now stood. A distance that grew incrementally smaller as she was forced to shuffle in procession behind the young man whom she had offered half of her donated roll to.
Guilt wheedled its way in her belly that she had not offered the man the milk also. For she had not trusted that such a share would not have resulted in a tussle from others and the loss of the gift over the sandy floor. Her haste and the movement of those around her had already seen that several gaspfuls of the stuff had ended up down her front and speckled across the land at her feet. She would have been left with deeper guilt had that which was so generously been offered ended up still more wasted than it had been already.
This was one reason for her self-assurance that she had done right in hiding the second donation of sustenance in the cocooning folds of her robes and the protective frame of her body. The other was that of the life that grew within her. For whilst Hannah would gladly offer her own food and water in exchange for that of her child and not think twice about allowing her body to slowly starve if it meant that her son or daughter could grow healthy, not for several months would such a separation be an option. With her husband's young growing within her... she had to eat in order to sustain him - or her. It was selfish that she gained from what she could take, but it was the only way in which she could give it to they whom she truly begged for.
As the slaves moved forwards - a writhing and shuffling body of life that seemed to move at the slow and dreaded pace of a sludgy brook or thin river - Hannah felt the gift she had been offered turn sour in her belly as the sight of the scaffolding upon which they would be judged and bartered upon came into view.
At the last slave auction, Hannah had been suffering the recent loss of her fingers and neck deep in a fever that had not seemed willing to break. Whilst her owner - her trader - had not been willing to allow her to die and had given her what was needed in its barest forms of food, shelter and rest to recover, he had not been willing to sell her to the first buyer he could find. Clearly, in his mind, she was of more value to him healthy and able to appear strong upon the auctioning block. And the cost of keeping her alive until then was not worth a hasty and cheap sale simply to be rid of her.
But, with her illness and recently meted punishment and her owner's decision that she was too unwell to be auctioned off in Moab, Hannah had not witnessed the slave auction as it had been carried out. Too lost in the heat of malady and aching from her bones to her skin, she had been too preoccupied with an internal vision, focused on the hopes and loves she bore the life within in the hopes that they would not be suffering as she did in this days and weeks.
This, therefore, on the flatlands of Damascus, was Hannah's first experience in witnessing a low-brow slavers auction, from the stock's side of the transaction.
For, once again, Hannah was reminded that she was not to be sold by a man who specialised in good, strong and healthy slaves that were talented and educated to serve as retainers for the wealthy. Whilst, ironically, Hannah had once been Hypatia - a young woman who would offer all of those things and fetch an impressive price at auction - she was now barely Hannah... a woman with no real last name now that the administration of her once home had decided that her husband was a criminal.
Taken from his lands and set upon the boats to be an oarsman in the dark belly of a galley ship, where the men rowed until they sank and drowned or simply died from exhaustion, Isaiah had been dubbed less than a valid citizen of his people. But a traitor to the peace held between the Greeks and the Judeans in Israel. A perpetrator of sedition and revolt. In his punishment, he was stripped of all he owned and with it went Hannah's name... the name of her husband that she had taken upon her marriage and acceptance of the life and faith of a Judean. She had converted in her religion, had altered all acceptances of social norms and had conformed herself to the world that was but dust and heat compared to her flush and fluid world back in Taengea. And now she was left with none of it.
Worse still, it had not solely been Isaiah to be condemned for such hostilities. With her husband branded the ringleader and sent upon a punishment so cruel, Hannah's was to be met out at home, where she was sentenced to the loss of two fingers for her crimes and an a ten year sentence of slavery to be completed before she could be permitted once more to be a free woman. Free to mourn her husband. Instead, she could now only mourn for herself.
Looking down at her right hand, still bandaged yet no longer bleeding through the strips of white muslin, Hypatia felt the tears that she had held in place fall upon her cheeks and sting against the skin she had rubbed raw with her garments. She curled her whole hand around the other, her fingers trying to mask what was missing in its partner, but it was no good. Hannah felt them tingle all the same, lost to her by always in her mind.
Noticing then that specks of goat’s milk had spattered across her sleeves and her hands were marked with the rolls of dirt and streaks of dust that she had rubbed from her face, Hannah attempted to clean her extremities by brushing them against the cloth at her knees. Unfortunately, her clothes were as dirty as she was and there was little more she could do to improve her appearance, admitting defeat and offering up an acceptance to fate that she would remain as she was - tacky, irritated and smeared with sweat and slime that her skin itched to be rid of.
As the body of slaves moved ever forward, with a monotony and an incessance that she could neither deny nor prevent, Hannah shuffled with it, moving as a small entity on a long river she could not control. By the time she reached the front of the queue that was preparing to ascend to the top of the scaffold, she felt positively sick and feared that she would return the Judean woman's kindness by ejecting all that she had eaten upon the wooden slats of the construction. Not only would it perhaps scare off potential buyers of her criminal charge but it would also be a waste to her child and so, Hannah held down upon her midriff and swallowed down the urge to vomit. Instead, she focused solely on placing one foot ahead of the other, taking the wooden steps to the dais only built the day previous up to its furthest reach.
The scaffold was sturdy for something bought so rapidly and due to be dismantled just as quickly. With only the fewest of nails and the most minor of workmanship, it was a credit to the crafters' ingenuity that it didn't immediately fall down the second the last nail was hammered into place. It creaked beneath her sandals and it seemed to echo in its depths as she made her way across the staging to where she would wait in line before drawn forwards to become an individual spectacle in her own right. Yet, the entire thing remained solid nonetheless.
Nervous of how the process of a slave auction worked for those who were within the state of servitude through crime rather than simple owing of debt, Hannah watched with large and fearful eyes that appeared even wider in a face of pale lethargy and cheeks that had begun to sink into the frame of her face. Like a startled deer, caught in the path of a stampeding carriage, she turned her arms into her body and held herself in a subconscious gesture of comfort that would do her no good in the face of something so frightening.
This was her life now, she tried to remind herself, drawing deep breaths down into her lungs. This was the world in which she was now to live... for the next ten years no less. Here, she would be bought and paid for and then sold again in the future should her owner be displeased or wish to see her sent someplace else. This was to be her life - the cargo, a package to be shipped between free individuals without say or reason behind such disruptions to hers and her child's life...
She felt the urge to cry once more by bit into her lower lip to resist the urge.
Oh Isaiah, where are you? Where was the man who had pledge to protect and afore her until their lives were ended? Whilst some might argue that that had come six weeks ago, Hannah's rebellious resilience spoke up to defy it. She was still alive. She was here. And so was their child. And her husband, promised to her until the day they breathed no more, was nowhere to be found, leaving her alone to cope with something so terrifying as having her own future decided for her without choice or-
Hannah's eyes flew wide as the man before her was sold but it was not the fact that she was next to be bid upon that had her startled and her thoughts drawn up short. It had been those last considerations that her flittered through her mind in an angry rant that her missing husband could neither correct nor deserved.
To have her future chosen for her...
That was what she had thought. And she had thought upon it as the greatest of restrictions, an evil that was subtle in its cruelty but still as effective as anything that could be defined as truly mean. And yet those same words could easily have been labelled upon the life she had had before meeting Isaiah. An engagement she had decided not to want yet a mother determined to see it come to pass... a future that she had not chosen, forced to land before her feet.
The very notion made her want to laugh in a bubble of hysteria likely brought on through lack of food. But it also, bizarrely, gave her strength. She had faced this sort of world and scenario before... True, it had been in finer gowns and with a fuller belly than she could currently boast. But it was a life of the same form of suffering. And she had borne it then. And she would bear it now.
For it was she who would now protect the child that her husband could not...
Turning to face the audience that would become the sentencers of her supposed crimes with a newfound moment of determination that quelled the sense of trepidation lying quietly beneath her skin, Hannah held her head high, her chin still reddened from her attempts to clear her face and speckles of black muck rolled upon her skin to dot across her cheeks and brow. Her hands, she held before her in a gesture that was familiar and comfortable; one of good posture, with her hands before her pelvis. It was a posture that had been drilled into her for the first sixteen years of her life and had not been lost on her in the year or so that had passed since. It was a posture of strength and dignity and one that she would uphold with value and honour, regardless of the fact that she now stood upon a bidding block, allocated as being worth nothing but what someone in the near proximity would pay for her.
Determined to neither cry nor permit her features to wobble at the harshness of the voice to her left, Hannah simply watched the horizon out ahead of her, looking over the heads of those that had congregated around the scaffolding and staring with a determination that bordered on hope, as she witnessed the way the sunshine sent ripples of heat, fluttering across the open vastness of the flatlands.
She listened but did not react as the speaker called out her worth and value to those who might be interested in purchasing her. He spoke of her ten years’ service for her crimes as if this was a bonus in her favour, which - to others - it was. For she was a slave with longevity and good investment value. Then he spoke of her youth and attributed it the likes of strength and resourcefulness. He claimed her to be literate. Which was true if he was talking of Greek but a little less so in the native Hebrew.
And then he spoke of a benefit that, in all the times that she had thought upon the creature's value and significance and importance in her life, had never once dawned upon her as a recollection...
He spoke of the fact that she was with child.
For this bidding, he claimed with great enthusiasm, was a sale of two slaves for the price of one.
Hannah felt lead drop into her stomach as her mouth filled with saliva and she feared that all the generosity of the woman she had beseeched for help was about to undo itself before Yahweh and all the world to see.
She had not thought of that. Not for one moment...
Her child would be born a slave.
And unlike herself - who had but ten years to suffer before freedom in penance for her crimes against the Israelite governance... her son or daughter would be born to this life and unable to free themselves from it without substantial pay.
Hannah felt the tears roll down her cheeks unchecked, her lips stretch back in a harsh expression that was as unattractive as it was pitiful and she willed with all that she had for her milk and bread to stay where it was, to feed the babe she had already let down so badly.
For her actions, regardless of how innocent their intentions and purpose and how wrongly she had been judged and accused… regardless of all of that… she, as a parent, had made the first thing she had done for her child and their life… the condemnation of a life of servitude...
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This character is currently a work in progress.
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As the whip cracked up ahead, Hannah jumped a little as the sharp sound cut through the air. It wasn't shocking for its sound. For the area in which she stood, poised before the kindly young woman who offered her the little that she could spare, was dense with noise. The chatter of the crowds, the shuffle of feet and hooves of cattle or mules drawing carts. The holler of traders and merchants called out above the head of potential patrons and draw the attention of those that might part with their coin for the hides, breads, milks and fabrics that were being sold by those less favourable towards live stock. Amongst the din of the crowds, there was little that could slice through such a hubbub and be heard beyond all else to the point of making someone jump in their skin. No. The reason for Hannah's sudden judder - the way in which her shoulders shifted beneath her skin and her arms pulled into her sides as if fearing some physical pain at the noise - was the promise of what that noise of leather on stony ground would mean...
Whilst Hannah had been a slave for only a short time; weeks that encroached slowly on the months, she knew that there were all kinds of slavers and drivers of human cattle.
There were some that dealt in the finest of stock; those that were dealt to the higher levels of society and encouraged to become the retainers of those of noble birth. She had witnessed such sellers during her youthful years back home in Taengea and accompanied her household's steward to such auctions in order to complete their supple of slave help when one of their females was to marry or leave them in favour of motherhood. Such dealers were gentle with their slaves, encouraging of their care, cleanliness and refinery. They would be kept on single leashes of fine silver chains, looped through bangles around the wrist that could as easily have been jewellery over bondage. They were carefully allocated, never kept in carts too small for their number and fed in a manner that would ensure that they looked healthy and aglow in the skin when it came time for them to be sold.
Then there were those who handled the slaves that were used for... pleasurable purposes. Again, the slaves were kept in prime condition, their beauty preserved and health either made evident or coated upon them in a sheen of deceit by clever means that had them looking more fed or exercised than they truly were.
Beyond those two categories, the slave trade diversified into a plethora of purposes of which Hannah neither knew nor sought to know. Despite her interaction with the slave trade as a young daughter of a wealthy family, such connections had been shallow and all purchases had been conducted in an orderly and appropriate manner. She had never seen the darker and lower circles that made up the rest of the what was so common a business and way of life for so many.
She could imagine though.
Businesses built on the backs of those used for tasks and responsibilities that others could afford to pay someone else to complete when they themselves did not wish to. Tasks that involved heavy labour or jobs that might be considered dangerous or deadly - like mining and farming with sharp instruments. Then there were those that were simply worked to the bone within a household with responsibilities numerous and vast if not potentially fatal... piles of laundry and excessive numbers of chambers for too few pairs of hands to keep sterile. Some slaves were used for the rearing of children and the caring for the young of parents too busy to consider the duty to be their own... wealthy enough to farm it out to strangers that they willingly offered their offspring into the hands of.
Hannah felt her hand naturally fall to her middle where, beneath her long robes - threadbare and damaged but still whole as yet - she could feel the soft swell of her belly. It was the only curve to her body that was still firm and wholesome, as the rest of her seemed to thin and grow weary with lack of food.
For Hannah had not been given to a slave driver that specialised in any of these particular slavery purposes. She was not due to become a retainer or lady's maid to the rich and profitable. Nor was she to go into the employ and care of a family that offered more servants than they had tasks, holding their slaves only through a sense of reputation and to impress upon others the wealth they held enough to be lavish and excessive with their attendants.
Nor was she skilled enough or taught to be skilled enough to become a hard working to the middle-class families. It was a middle ground that she could see herself working well in; committing to long and hard hours of labour yet never truly risking her life over her health and able to return to some room or servants’ quarters at night where she could nurse and care for her child... She didn't care how long her working days were or how thankless the tasks it held in the hours between sunrise and sunset. Instead, she looked only to the hopes of holding a role that wouldn't threaten the safety of she and her unborn babe that would one day be hers alone to protect.
For the loss of Isaiah had been a loss to her child as well as herself.
No. Not to the rich was Hannah due to go, she knew, as the sound of the whip finished echoing against the rocky sands of the flatlands around the city of Damascus. As the shivers finished rolling down her spine and settled in her belly, Hannah's face was turned sharply towards that of her owner - the man who would decide who and how she would be given to another. His stature was tall, and his frame particularly average. Yet his skin was ruddy around his throat and across the backs of his hands, as if he held some sort of rash or malady that rose from the heat upon his skin. Hannah was not vengeful enough to draw any form of satisfaction in the knowledge that her slave driver had suffered on the long walk across the derelict lands as she and her fellow slaves had done. Instead, she could only fear what an angered and discomforted driver would mean for her immediate future and that of her peers. Nothing positive, she was sure.
Her thoughts were distracted, however, when the young girl - the woman really - who had been kind enough to give her bread, insisted upon her taking the milk she had so obviously purchased for her own mouth or family.
Watching her with a bewildered uncertainty of hope, Hannah glanced between the girl's face - the way her lips lilted in a smile of kindness and eyes darted to the slaver in a gesture of hurry and fear that she might be chastised or, worse still, punished for offering his slave something she had so clearly been denied in anything beyond the smallest of portions - and the small, earthen jug that she held in her hands, her fingers wrapped around its lip. The girl was offering it out to her again, despite her previous denial, holding the container in a strangely restrained manner that Hannah quickly realised ensured that the jug was hidden from view by the trailing sleeves of her robes.
Hannah was startled into noticing the difference in what they wore. For whilst the girl before her was hardly a member of the richest circles of Judean society, or even that of a working class as far as she could tell, the difference in the keeping of their garments was thrown into sharp contrast when Hannah reached out to take what was willingly given.
Her supporter was a young woman that wore clothing that had been carefully tended to. They were sturdy and perhaps a little old but they were in no way shabby. They had been cared for upon the edges, and refastened in several places that only someone like Hannah - someone recently introduced to the art of seamstress-ing in a way that would not be noticed by others because funds could not stretch to the purchase of new clothing - would be able to notice for what it was; a means of stretching the longevity of the cloth a little further. Another sign of holding out on the use of the garb beyond its intended period was how it no longer held a hem upon the bottom seem, rolled out as its owner had grown, the hem of the simlah was too short to fully reach the ground and yet was not upturned at its furthest rim. Hannah recognised the act from other attire, worn by those who had lived in the same area as she and Isaiah when they had first married. Whilst she had never before been so poor as to do so with her only clothing, she had helped others to turn out the cloth when needed and could recognise it for what it was - an attempt at frugality so that coin could be spent elsewhere on more necessary resources...
Like milk.
The fact that the woman before her was barely managing to stretch the household funds to cover the necessities of both the filling of bellies and the covering of their backs, only had Hannah all the more thankful for the offering she made in sharing her groceries and purchases with her now.
It also made her starkly aware of how pathetic she must appear to lend someone who had so little to give to recognise a poorer and more needy being in herself. Just as their clothing was making obvious.
For while her helper's clothes were old and run down, they were clearly taken care of. The unfurling of the hems... the clever stitching in the seams... The woman wore her clothing with a confidence that would have no-one looking too closely and noticing the frugal additions to its wear. On Hannah, however, her clothes hung differently. With no needle and thread to call her own to ensure the care of her garb and no means with which to wash them - let alone a second outfit that she might change into so that she could lend water and suds to her simlah and under layers... there was nothing that Hannah could do to keep herself presentable in the eyes the even the lowest circles of society. She stood, simply as the epitome of all that any Judean would not hope to become; dirty, dank, foul of smell and rough of texture, with her clothes torn and ragged and her skin starting to flare and peel with the contagions of the general world seeping into her body without means of removal. She felt barely human, let alone simply sub-standard in what was considered acceptable in polite society.
Taking the jug from the young girl's hands with a shy and tentative smile that was a far stronger expression of thanks and acceptance than any larger or exaggerated expression might be able to offer, Hannah was quick to wrap her fingers around the rough but smoothly glazed surface of the little earthen jug.
It wasn't the largest of objects - possibly big enough to contain a little milk for a family for just a few for only the smallest handful of days... if used sparingly. And yet it could just as easily satisfy a single individual for an entire meal. Such a difference was startling in the light of which it was offered, where Hannah had no-one to truly share it with, without causing a ruckus over the nourishment, selfishly held between her palms. And yet, even if she consumed it all, she knew that she would be hungry.
With a shuffle and orchestrated motion of languid footsteps headed in the direction of their owner, Hannah knew that she had to act quickly. As those ahead of her on the chains started to pull the metal links higher from the ground and drag it into a taut line, pointing the way to the auctioning stage ahead of them, and those that hovered behind Hannah in the queue moved to meet her other side, thee force of their very presence attempting to move her along the line, for fear of being pulled themselves by her tarrying, Hannah had little choice but to accept the gift she had so generously been given in a fit of hurry and lack of true appreciation.
Whilst she might have wished to drink slowly, to relish the refreshment and the taste upon a tongue that had been given little but the driest of flatbreads and the stalest of waters for the last few weeks, she had neither the time or moment to do so. Instead, if she wished to drink it and not have it decorate the front of her robes as she was shoved and jostled by the crowd of her peers, she had to be quick.
Raising the jug to her lips, Hannah took large and gulping mouthfuls, her eyes filling with tears at both the joy and the waste of having something to taste and feel and own deep within her belly and yet the loss of chance for something she could embrace and experience outside of life of trial and suffering that she had led since she had been forced to part from her husband. Yet, her mind could not settle upon the selfish loss of experience in that moment. For what was of far more importance, was that she swallowed down as much of the milk as she could before she was pushed from the side once more and near choked on the shameful evidence she had been attempting to hide away.
As white milk secreted from her mouth and ran down her chin, one of Hannah's hands reached up to stem the flow and hide the reality of the Judean woman's generosity, her other reaching to push the small jug - still a third full - back towards its rightful owner.
She tried to voice her thanks to the girl once more but, in the wake of the milk stifled in her throat, she was left to gasp for air and could only mouth the words of gratitude, as her hands sought to clean her face. Using the backs of her fingers and the balls of her palm, Hannah washed at her skin, feeling the thickness of the milk that would turn sour before long, smearing with the dust and dirt of the road. She winced and reached for the topmost later of her simlah, lifting one of its threadbare edges and pressing the roughly woven and loosely fading cloth to her skin.
With the urgency of a desperate woman with nowhere to go but to someone who offered her a home based solely on her appearance, Hannah rubbed hard at her cheeks and chin, until the slick sweat and dirt had been rolled from a sheeny layer of dust into bits of mucks and old skin. The cleaner, rawer skin beneath was aglow with tinges of heated pink. Her eyes sparkled with unshed tears and Hannah moved in the direction that the crowd around her took her, looking over her shoulder for a moment to watch the other girl disappear from her view.
Was she to turn away and return about her day? Hannah wondered... purchase more milk or return to her family with little more than an explanation for the missing goods? Or perhaps she would remain somewhere lost in the crowds, witnessing the sale of Hannah and people like her upon the wooden scaffold that had been erected just under a hundred yards away from where she now stood. A distance that grew incrementally smaller as she was forced to shuffle in procession behind the young man whom she had offered half of her donated roll to.
Guilt wheedled its way in her belly that she had not offered the man the milk also. For she had not trusted that such a share would not have resulted in a tussle from others and the loss of the gift over the sandy floor. Her haste and the movement of those around her had already seen that several gaspfuls of the stuff had ended up down her front and speckled across the land at her feet. She would have been left with deeper guilt had that which was so generously been offered ended up still more wasted than it had been already.
This was one reason for her self-assurance that she had done right in hiding the second donation of sustenance in the cocooning folds of her robes and the protective frame of her body. The other was that of the life that grew within her. For whilst Hannah would gladly offer her own food and water in exchange for that of her child and not think twice about allowing her body to slowly starve if it meant that her son or daughter could grow healthy, not for several months would such a separation be an option. With her husband's young growing within her... she had to eat in order to sustain him - or her. It was selfish that she gained from what she could take, but it was the only way in which she could give it to they whom she truly begged for.
As the slaves moved forwards - a writhing and shuffling body of life that seemed to move at the slow and dreaded pace of a sludgy brook or thin river - Hannah felt the gift she had been offered turn sour in her belly as the sight of the scaffolding upon which they would be judged and bartered upon came into view.
At the last slave auction, Hannah had been suffering the recent loss of her fingers and neck deep in a fever that had not seemed willing to break. Whilst her owner - her trader - had not been willing to allow her to die and had given her what was needed in its barest forms of food, shelter and rest to recover, he had not been willing to sell her to the first buyer he could find. Clearly, in his mind, she was of more value to him healthy and able to appear strong upon the auctioning block. And the cost of keeping her alive until then was not worth a hasty and cheap sale simply to be rid of her.
But, with her illness and recently meted punishment and her owner's decision that she was too unwell to be auctioned off in Moab, Hannah had not witnessed the slave auction as it had been carried out. Too lost in the heat of malady and aching from her bones to her skin, she had been too preoccupied with an internal vision, focused on the hopes and loves she bore the life within in the hopes that they would not be suffering as she did in this days and weeks.
This, therefore, on the flatlands of Damascus, was Hannah's first experience in witnessing a low-brow slavers auction, from the stock's side of the transaction.
For, once again, Hannah was reminded that she was not to be sold by a man who specialised in good, strong and healthy slaves that were talented and educated to serve as retainers for the wealthy. Whilst, ironically, Hannah had once been Hypatia - a young woman who would offer all of those things and fetch an impressive price at auction - she was now barely Hannah... a woman with no real last name now that the administration of her once home had decided that her husband was a criminal.
Taken from his lands and set upon the boats to be an oarsman in the dark belly of a galley ship, where the men rowed until they sank and drowned or simply died from exhaustion, Isaiah had been dubbed less than a valid citizen of his people. But a traitor to the peace held between the Greeks and the Judeans in Israel. A perpetrator of sedition and revolt. In his punishment, he was stripped of all he owned and with it went Hannah's name... the name of her husband that she had taken upon her marriage and acceptance of the life and faith of a Judean. She had converted in her religion, had altered all acceptances of social norms and had conformed herself to the world that was but dust and heat compared to her flush and fluid world back in Taengea. And now she was left with none of it.
Worse still, it had not solely been Isaiah to be condemned for such hostilities. With her husband branded the ringleader and sent upon a punishment so cruel, Hannah's was to be met out at home, where she was sentenced to the loss of two fingers for her crimes and an a ten year sentence of slavery to be completed before she could be permitted once more to be a free woman. Free to mourn her husband. Instead, she could now only mourn for herself.
Looking down at her right hand, still bandaged yet no longer bleeding through the strips of white muslin, Hypatia felt the tears that she had held in place fall upon her cheeks and sting against the skin she had rubbed raw with her garments. She curled her whole hand around the other, her fingers trying to mask what was missing in its partner, but it was no good. Hannah felt them tingle all the same, lost to her by always in her mind.
Noticing then that specks of goat’s milk had spattered across her sleeves and her hands were marked with the rolls of dirt and streaks of dust that she had rubbed from her face, Hannah attempted to clean her extremities by brushing them against the cloth at her knees. Unfortunately, her clothes were as dirty as she was and there was little more she could do to improve her appearance, admitting defeat and offering up an acceptance to fate that she would remain as she was - tacky, irritated and smeared with sweat and slime that her skin itched to be rid of.
As the body of slaves moved ever forward, with a monotony and an incessance that she could neither deny nor prevent, Hannah shuffled with it, moving as a small entity on a long river she could not control. By the time she reached the front of the queue that was preparing to ascend to the top of the scaffold, she felt positively sick and feared that she would return the Judean woman's kindness by ejecting all that she had eaten upon the wooden slats of the construction. Not only would it perhaps scare off potential buyers of her criminal charge but it would also be a waste to her child and so, Hannah held down upon her midriff and swallowed down the urge to vomit. Instead, she focused solely on placing one foot ahead of the other, taking the wooden steps to the dais only built the day previous up to its furthest reach.
The scaffold was sturdy for something bought so rapidly and due to be dismantled just as quickly. With only the fewest of nails and the most minor of workmanship, it was a credit to the crafters' ingenuity that it didn't immediately fall down the second the last nail was hammered into place. It creaked beneath her sandals and it seemed to echo in its depths as she made her way across the staging to where she would wait in line before drawn forwards to become an individual spectacle in her own right. Yet, the entire thing remained solid nonetheless.
Nervous of how the process of a slave auction worked for those who were within the state of servitude through crime rather than simple owing of debt, Hannah watched with large and fearful eyes that appeared even wider in a face of pale lethargy and cheeks that had begun to sink into the frame of her face. Like a startled deer, caught in the path of a stampeding carriage, she turned her arms into her body and held herself in a subconscious gesture of comfort that would do her no good in the face of something so frightening.
This was her life now, she tried to remind herself, drawing deep breaths down into her lungs. This was the world in which she was now to live... for the next ten years no less. Here, she would be bought and paid for and then sold again in the future should her owner be displeased or wish to see her sent someplace else. This was to be her life - the cargo, a package to be shipped between free individuals without say or reason behind such disruptions to hers and her child's life...
She felt the urge to cry once more by bit into her lower lip to resist the urge.
Oh Isaiah, where are you? Where was the man who had pledge to protect and afore her until their lives were ended? Whilst some might argue that that had come six weeks ago, Hannah's rebellious resilience spoke up to defy it. She was still alive. She was here. And so was their child. And her husband, promised to her until the day they breathed no more, was nowhere to be found, leaving her alone to cope with something so terrifying as having her own future decided for her without choice or-
Hannah's eyes flew wide as the man before her was sold but it was not the fact that she was next to be bid upon that had her startled and her thoughts drawn up short. It had been those last considerations that her flittered through her mind in an angry rant that her missing husband could neither correct nor deserved.
To have her future chosen for her...
That was what she had thought. And she had thought upon it as the greatest of restrictions, an evil that was subtle in its cruelty but still as effective as anything that could be defined as truly mean. And yet those same words could easily have been labelled upon the life she had had before meeting Isaiah. An engagement she had decided not to want yet a mother determined to see it come to pass... a future that she had not chosen, forced to land before her feet.
The very notion made her want to laugh in a bubble of hysteria likely brought on through lack of food. But it also, bizarrely, gave her strength. She had faced this sort of world and scenario before... True, it had been in finer gowns and with a fuller belly than she could currently boast. But it was a life of the same form of suffering. And she had borne it then. And she would bear it now.
For it was she who would now protect the child that her husband could not...
Turning to face the audience that would become the sentencers of her supposed crimes with a newfound moment of determination that quelled the sense of trepidation lying quietly beneath her skin, Hannah held her head high, her chin still reddened from her attempts to clear her face and speckles of black muck rolled upon her skin to dot across her cheeks and brow. Her hands, she held before her in a gesture that was familiar and comfortable; one of good posture, with her hands before her pelvis. It was a posture that had been drilled into her for the first sixteen years of her life and had not been lost on her in the year or so that had passed since. It was a posture of strength and dignity and one that she would uphold with value and honour, regardless of the fact that she now stood upon a bidding block, allocated as being worth nothing but what someone in the near proximity would pay for her.
Determined to neither cry nor permit her features to wobble at the harshness of the voice to her left, Hannah simply watched the horizon out ahead of her, looking over the heads of those that had congregated around the scaffolding and staring with a determination that bordered on hope, as she witnessed the way the sunshine sent ripples of heat, fluttering across the open vastness of the flatlands.
She listened but did not react as the speaker called out her worth and value to those who might be interested in purchasing her. He spoke of her ten years’ service for her crimes as if this was a bonus in her favour, which - to others - it was. For she was a slave with longevity and good investment value. Then he spoke of her youth and attributed it the likes of strength and resourcefulness. He claimed her to be literate. Which was true if he was talking of Greek but a little less so in the native Hebrew.
And then he spoke of a benefit that, in all the times that she had thought upon the creature's value and significance and importance in her life, had never once dawned upon her as a recollection...
He spoke of the fact that she was with child.
For this bidding, he claimed with great enthusiasm, was a sale of two slaves for the price of one.
Hannah felt lead drop into her stomach as her mouth filled with saliva and she feared that all the generosity of the woman she had beseeched for help was about to undo itself before Yahweh and all the world to see.
She had not thought of that. Not for one moment...
Her child would be born a slave.
And unlike herself - who had but ten years to suffer before freedom in penance for her crimes against the Israelite governance... her son or daughter would be born to this life and unable to free themselves from it without substantial pay.
Hannah felt the tears roll down her cheeks unchecked, her lips stretch back in a harsh expression that was as unattractive as it was pitiful and she willed with all that she had for her milk and bread to stay where it was, to feed the babe she had already let down so badly.
For her actions, regardless of how innocent their intentions and purpose and how wrongly she had been judged and accused… regardless of all of that… she, as a parent, had made the first thing she had done for her child and their life… the condemnation of a life of servitude...
As the whip cracked up ahead, Hannah jumped a little as the sharp sound cut through the air. It wasn't shocking for its sound. For the area in which she stood, poised before the kindly young woman who offered her the little that she could spare, was dense with noise. The chatter of the crowds, the shuffle of feet and hooves of cattle or mules drawing carts. The holler of traders and merchants called out above the head of potential patrons and draw the attention of those that might part with their coin for the hides, breads, milks and fabrics that were being sold by those less favourable towards live stock. Amongst the din of the crowds, there was little that could slice through such a hubbub and be heard beyond all else to the point of making someone jump in their skin. No. The reason for Hannah's sudden judder - the way in which her shoulders shifted beneath her skin and her arms pulled into her sides as if fearing some physical pain at the noise - was the promise of what that noise of leather on stony ground would mean...
Whilst Hannah had been a slave for only a short time; weeks that encroached slowly on the months, she knew that there were all kinds of slavers and drivers of human cattle.
There were some that dealt in the finest of stock; those that were dealt to the higher levels of society and encouraged to become the retainers of those of noble birth. She had witnessed such sellers during her youthful years back home in Taengea and accompanied her household's steward to such auctions in order to complete their supple of slave help when one of their females was to marry or leave them in favour of motherhood. Such dealers were gentle with their slaves, encouraging of their care, cleanliness and refinery. They would be kept on single leashes of fine silver chains, looped through bangles around the wrist that could as easily have been jewellery over bondage. They were carefully allocated, never kept in carts too small for their number and fed in a manner that would ensure that they looked healthy and aglow in the skin when it came time for them to be sold.
Then there were those who handled the slaves that were used for... pleasurable purposes. Again, the slaves were kept in prime condition, their beauty preserved and health either made evident or coated upon them in a sheen of deceit by clever means that had them looking more fed or exercised than they truly were.
Beyond those two categories, the slave trade diversified into a plethora of purposes of which Hannah neither knew nor sought to know. Despite her interaction with the slave trade as a young daughter of a wealthy family, such connections had been shallow and all purchases had been conducted in an orderly and appropriate manner. She had never seen the darker and lower circles that made up the rest of the what was so common a business and way of life for so many.
She could imagine though.
Businesses built on the backs of those used for tasks and responsibilities that others could afford to pay someone else to complete when they themselves did not wish to. Tasks that involved heavy labour or jobs that might be considered dangerous or deadly - like mining and farming with sharp instruments. Then there were those that were simply worked to the bone within a household with responsibilities numerous and vast if not potentially fatal... piles of laundry and excessive numbers of chambers for too few pairs of hands to keep sterile. Some slaves were used for the rearing of children and the caring for the young of parents too busy to consider the duty to be their own... wealthy enough to farm it out to strangers that they willingly offered their offspring into the hands of.
Hannah felt her hand naturally fall to her middle where, beneath her long robes - threadbare and damaged but still whole as yet - she could feel the soft swell of her belly. It was the only curve to her body that was still firm and wholesome, as the rest of her seemed to thin and grow weary with lack of food.
For Hannah had not been given to a slave driver that specialised in any of these particular slavery purposes. She was not due to become a retainer or lady's maid to the rich and profitable. Nor was she to go into the employ and care of a family that offered more servants than they had tasks, holding their slaves only through a sense of reputation and to impress upon others the wealth they held enough to be lavish and excessive with their attendants.
Nor was she skilled enough or taught to be skilled enough to become a hard working to the middle-class families. It was a middle ground that she could see herself working well in; committing to long and hard hours of labour yet never truly risking her life over her health and able to return to some room or servants’ quarters at night where she could nurse and care for her child... She didn't care how long her working days were or how thankless the tasks it held in the hours between sunrise and sunset. Instead, she looked only to the hopes of holding a role that wouldn't threaten the safety of she and her unborn babe that would one day be hers alone to protect.
For the loss of Isaiah had been a loss to her child as well as herself.
No. Not to the rich was Hannah due to go, she knew, as the sound of the whip finished echoing against the rocky sands of the flatlands around the city of Damascus. As the shivers finished rolling down her spine and settled in her belly, Hannah's face was turned sharply towards that of her owner - the man who would decide who and how she would be given to another. His stature was tall, and his frame particularly average. Yet his skin was ruddy around his throat and across the backs of his hands, as if he held some sort of rash or malady that rose from the heat upon his skin. Hannah was not vengeful enough to draw any form of satisfaction in the knowledge that her slave driver had suffered on the long walk across the derelict lands as she and her fellow slaves had done. Instead, she could only fear what an angered and discomforted driver would mean for her immediate future and that of her peers. Nothing positive, she was sure.
Her thoughts were distracted, however, when the young girl - the woman really - who had been kind enough to give her bread, insisted upon her taking the milk she had so obviously purchased for her own mouth or family.
Watching her with a bewildered uncertainty of hope, Hannah glanced between the girl's face - the way her lips lilted in a smile of kindness and eyes darted to the slaver in a gesture of hurry and fear that she might be chastised or, worse still, punished for offering his slave something she had so clearly been denied in anything beyond the smallest of portions - and the small, earthen jug that she held in her hands, her fingers wrapped around its lip. The girl was offering it out to her again, despite her previous denial, holding the container in a strangely restrained manner that Hannah quickly realised ensured that the jug was hidden from view by the trailing sleeves of her robes.
Hannah was startled into noticing the difference in what they wore. For whilst the girl before her was hardly a member of the richest circles of Judean society, or even that of a working class as far as she could tell, the difference in the keeping of their garments was thrown into sharp contrast when Hannah reached out to take what was willingly given.
Her supporter was a young woman that wore clothing that had been carefully tended to. They were sturdy and perhaps a little old but they were in no way shabby. They had been cared for upon the edges, and refastened in several places that only someone like Hannah - someone recently introduced to the art of seamstress-ing in a way that would not be noticed by others because funds could not stretch to the purchase of new clothing - would be able to notice for what it was; a means of stretching the longevity of the cloth a little further. Another sign of holding out on the use of the garb beyond its intended period was how it no longer held a hem upon the bottom seem, rolled out as its owner had grown, the hem of the simlah was too short to fully reach the ground and yet was not upturned at its furthest rim. Hannah recognised the act from other attire, worn by those who had lived in the same area as she and Isaiah when they had first married. Whilst she had never before been so poor as to do so with her only clothing, she had helped others to turn out the cloth when needed and could recognise it for what it was - an attempt at frugality so that coin could be spent elsewhere on more necessary resources...
Like milk.
The fact that the woman before her was barely managing to stretch the household funds to cover the necessities of both the filling of bellies and the covering of their backs, only had Hannah all the more thankful for the offering she made in sharing her groceries and purchases with her now.
It also made her starkly aware of how pathetic she must appear to lend someone who had so little to give to recognise a poorer and more needy being in herself. Just as their clothing was making obvious.
For while her helper's clothes were old and run down, they were clearly taken care of. The unfurling of the hems... the clever stitching in the seams... The woman wore her clothing with a confidence that would have no-one looking too closely and noticing the frugal additions to its wear. On Hannah, however, her clothes hung differently. With no needle and thread to call her own to ensure the care of her garb and no means with which to wash them - let alone a second outfit that she might change into so that she could lend water and suds to her simlah and under layers... there was nothing that Hannah could do to keep herself presentable in the eyes the even the lowest circles of society. She stood, simply as the epitome of all that any Judean would not hope to become; dirty, dank, foul of smell and rough of texture, with her clothes torn and ragged and her skin starting to flare and peel with the contagions of the general world seeping into her body without means of removal. She felt barely human, let alone simply sub-standard in what was considered acceptable in polite society.
Taking the jug from the young girl's hands with a shy and tentative smile that was a far stronger expression of thanks and acceptance than any larger or exaggerated expression might be able to offer, Hannah was quick to wrap her fingers around the rough but smoothly glazed surface of the little earthen jug.
It wasn't the largest of objects - possibly big enough to contain a little milk for a family for just a few for only the smallest handful of days... if used sparingly. And yet it could just as easily satisfy a single individual for an entire meal. Such a difference was startling in the light of which it was offered, where Hannah had no-one to truly share it with, without causing a ruckus over the nourishment, selfishly held between her palms. And yet, even if she consumed it all, she knew that she would be hungry.
With a shuffle and orchestrated motion of languid footsteps headed in the direction of their owner, Hannah knew that she had to act quickly. As those ahead of her on the chains started to pull the metal links higher from the ground and drag it into a taut line, pointing the way to the auctioning stage ahead of them, and those that hovered behind Hannah in the queue moved to meet her other side, thee force of their very presence attempting to move her along the line, for fear of being pulled themselves by her tarrying, Hannah had little choice but to accept the gift she had so generously been given in a fit of hurry and lack of true appreciation.
Whilst she might have wished to drink slowly, to relish the refreshment and the taste upon a tongue that had been given little but the driest of flatbreads and the stalest of waters for the last few weeks, she had neither the time or moment to do so. Instead, if she wished to drink it and not have it decorate the front of her robes as she was shoved and jostled by the crowd of her peers, she had to be quick.
Raising the jug to her lips, Hannah took large and gulping mouthfuls, her eyes filling with tears at both the joy and the waste of having something to taste and feel and own deep within her belly and yet the loss of chance for something she could embrace and experience outside of life of trial and suffering that she had led since she had been forced to part from her husband. Yet, her mind could not settle upon the selfish loss of experience in that moment. For what was of far more importance, was that she swallowed down as much of the milk as she could before she was pushed from the side once more and near choked on the shameful evidence she had been attempting to hide away.
As white milk secreted from her mouth and ran down her chin, one of Hannah's hands reached up to stem the flow and hide the reality of the Judean woman's generosity, her other reaching to push the small jug - still a third full - back towards its rightful owner.
She tried to voice her thanks to the girl once more but, in the wake of the milk stifled in her throat, she was left to gasp for air and could only mouth the words of gratitude, as her hands sought to clean her face. Using the backs of her fingers and the balls of her palm, Hannah washed at her skin, feeling the thickness of the milk that would turn sour before long, smearing with the dust and dirt of the road. She winced and reached for the topmost later of her simlah, lifting one of its threadbare edges and pressing the roughly woven and loosely fading cloth to her skin.
With the urgency of a desperate woman with nowhere to go but to someone who offered her a home based solely on her appearance, Hannah rubbed hard at her cheeks and chin, until the slick sweat and dirt had been rolled from a sheeny layer of dust into bits of mucks and old skin. The cleaner, rawer skin beneath was aglow with tinges of heated pink. Her eyes sparkled with unshed tears and Hannah moved in the direction that the crowd around her took her, looking over her shoulder for a moment to watch the other girl disappear from her view.
Was she to turn away and return about her day? Hannah wondered... purchase more milk or return to her family with little more than an explanation for the missing goods? Or perhaps she would remain somewhere lost in the crowds, witnessing the sale of Hannah and people like her upon the wooden scaffold that had been erected just under a hundred yards away from where she now stood. A distance that grew incrementally smaller as she was forced to shuffle in procession behind the young man whom she had offered half of her donated roll to.
Guilt wheedled its way in her belly that she had not offered the man the milk also. For she had not trusted that such a share would not have resulted in a tussle from others and the loss of the gift over the sandy floor. Her haste and the movement of those around her had already seen that several gaspfuls of the stuff had ended up down her front and speckled across the land at her feet. She would have been left with deeper guilt had that which was so generously been offered ended up still more wasted than it had been already.
This was one reason for her self-assurance that she had done right in hiding the second donation of sustenance in the cocooning folds of her robes and the protective frame of her body. The other was that of the life that grew within her. For whilst Hannah would gladly offer her own food and water in exchange for that of her child and not think twice about allowing her body to slowly starve if it meant that her son or daughter could grow healthy, not for several months would such a separation be an option. With her husband's young growing within her... she had to eat in order to sustain him - or her. It was selfish that she gained from what she could take, but it was the only way in which she could give it to they whom she truly begged for.
As the slaves moved forwards - a writhing and shuffling body of life that seemed to move at the slow and dreaded pace of a sludgy brook or thin river - Hannah felt the gift she had been offered turn sour in her belly as the sight of the scaffolding upon which they would be judged and bartered upon came into view.
At the last slave auction, Hannah had been suffering the recent loss of her fingers and neck deep in a fever that had not seemed willing to break. Whilst her owner - her trader - had not been willing to allow her to die and had given her what was needed in its barest forms of food, shelter and rest to recover, he had not been willing to sell her to the first buyer he could find. Clearly, in his mind, she was of more value to him healthy and able to appear strong upon the auctioning block. And the cost of keeping her alive until then was not worth a hasty and cheap sale simply to be rid of her.
But, with her illness and recently meted punishment and her owner's decision that she was too unwell to be auctioned off in Moab, Hannah had not witnessed the slave auction as it had been carried out. Too lost in the heat of malady and aching from her bones to her skin, she had been too preoccupied with an internal vision, focused on the hopes and loves she bore the life within in the hopes that they would not be suffering as she did in this days and weeks.
This, therefore, on the flatlands of Damascus, was Hannah's first experience in witnessing a low-brow slavers auction, from the stock's side of the transaction.
For, once again, Hannah was reminded that she was not to be sold by a man who specialised in good, strong and healthy slaves that were talented and educated to serve as retainers for the wealthy. Whilst, ironically, Hannah had once been Hypatia - a young woman who would offer all of those things and fetch an impressive price at auction - she was now barely Hannah... a woman with no real last name now that the administration of her once home had decided that her husband was a criminal.
Taken from his lands and set upon the boats to be an oarsman in the dark belly of a galley ship, where the men rowed until they sank and drowned or simply died from exhaustion, Isaiah had been dubbed less than a valid citizen of his people. But a traitor to the peace held between the Greeks and the Judeans in Israel. A perpetrator of sedition and revolt. In his punishment, he was stripped of all he owned and with it went Hannah's name... the name of her husband that she had taken upon her marriage and acceptance of the life and faith of a Judean. She had converted in her religion, had altered all acceptances of social norms and had conformed herself to the world that was but dust and heat compared to her flush and fluid world back in Taengea. And now she was left with none of it.
Worse still, it had not solely been Isaiah to be condemned for such hostilities. With her husband branded the ringleader and sent upon a punishment so cruel, Hannah's was to be met out at home, where she was sentenced to the loss of two fingers for her crimes and an a ten year sentence of slavery to be completed before she could be permitted once more to be a free woman. Free to mourn her husband. Instead, she could now only mourn for herself.
Looking down at her right hand, still bandaged yet no longer bleeding through the strips of white muslin, Hypatia felt the tears that she had held in place fall upon her cheeks and sting against the skin she had rubbed raw with her garments. She curled her whole hand around the other, her fingers trying to mask what was missing in its partner, but it was no good. Hannah felt them tingle all the same, lost to her by always in her mind.
Noticing then that specks of goat’s milk had spattered across her sleeves and her hands were marked with the rolls of dirt and streaks of dust that she had rubbed from her face, Hannah attempted to clean her extremities by brushing them against the cloth at her knees. Unfortunately, her clothes were as dirty as she was and there was little more she could do to improve her appearance, admitting defeat and offering up an acceptance to fate that she would remain as she was - tacky, irritated and smeared with sweat and slime that her skin itched to be rid of.
As the body of slaves moved ever forward, with a monotony and an incessance that she could neither deny nor prevent, Hannah shuffled with it, moving as a small entity on a long river she could not control. By the time she reached the front of the queue that was preparing to ascend to the top of the scaffold, she felt positively sick and feared that she would return the Judean woman's kindness by ejecting all that she had eaten upon the wooden slats of the construction. Not only would it perhaps scare off potential buyers of her criminal charge but it would also be a waste to her child and so, Hannah held down upon her midriff and swallowed down the urge to vomit. Instead, she focused solely on placing one foot ahead of the other, taking the wooden steps to the dais only built the day previous up to its furthest reach.
The scaffold was sturdy for something bought so rapidly and due to be dismantled just as quickly. With only the fewest of nails and the most minor of workmanship, it was a credit to the crafters' ingenuity that it didn't immediately fall down the second the last nail was hammered into place. It creaked beneath her sandals and it seemed to echo in its depths as she made her way across the staging to where she would wait in line before drawn forwards to become an individual spectacle in her own right. Yet, the entire thing remained solid nonetheless.
Nervous of how the process of a slave auction worked for those who were within the state of servitude through crime rather than simple owing of debt, Hannah watched with large and fearful eyes that appeared even wider in a face of pale lethargy and cheeks that had begun to sink into the frame of her face. Like a startled deer, caught in the path of a stampeding carriage, she turned her arms into her body and held herself in a subconscious gesture of comfort that would do her no good in the face of something so frightening.
This was her life now, she tried to remind herself, drawing deep breaths down into her lungs. This was the world in which she was now to live... for the next ten years no less. Here, she would be bought and paid for and then sold again in the future should her owner be displeased or wish to see her sent someplace else. This was to be her life - the cargo, a package to be shipped between free individuals without say or reason behind such disruptions to hers and her child's life...
She felt the urge to cry once more by bit into her lower lip to resist the urge.
Oh Isaiah, where are you? Where was the man who had pledge to protect and afore her until their lives were ended? Whilst some might argue that that had come six weeks ago, Hannah's rebellious resilience spoke up to defy it. She was still alive. She was here. And so was their child. And her husband, promised to her until the day they breathed no more, was nowhere to be found, leaving her alone to cope with something so terrifying as having her own future decided for her without choice or-
Hannah's eyes flew wide as the man before her was sold but it was not the fact that she was next to be bid upon that had her startled and her thoughts drawn up short. It had been those last considerations that her flittered through her mind in an angry rant that her missing husband could neither correct nor deserved.
To have her future chosen for her...
That was what she had thought. And she had thought upon it as the greatest of restrictions, an evil that was subtle in its cruelty but still as effective as anything that could be defined as truly mean. And yet those same words could easily have been labelled upon the life she had had before meeting Isaiah. An engagement she had decided not to want yet a mother determined to see it come to pass... a future that she had not chosen, forced to land before her feet.
The very notion made her want to laugh in a bubble of hysteria likely brought on through lack of food. But it also, bizarrely, gave her strength. She had faced this sort of world and scenario before... True, it had been in finer gowns and with a fuller belly than she could currently boast. But it was a life of the same form of suffering. And she had borne it then. And she would bear it now.
For it was she who would now protect the child that her husband could not...
Turning to face the audience that would become the sentencers of her supposed crimes with a newfound moment of determination that quelled the sense of trepidation lying quietly beneath her skin, Hannah held her head high, her chin still reddened from her attempts to clear her face and speckles of black muck rolled upon her skin to dot across her cheeks and brow. Her hands, she held before her in a gesture that was familiar and comfortable; one of good posture, with her hands before her pelvis. It was a posture that had been drilled into her for the first sixteen years of her life and had not been lost on her in the year or so that had passed since. It was a posture of strength and dignity and one that she would uphold with value and honour, regardless of the fact that she now stood upon a bidding block, allocated as being worth nothing but what someone in the near proximity would pay for her.
Determined to neither cry nor permit her features to wobble at the harshness of the voice to her left, Hannah simply watched the horizon out ahead of her, looking over the heads of those that had congregated around the scaffolding and staring with a determination that bordered on hope, as she witnessed the way the sunshine sent ripples of heat, fluttering across the open vastness of the flatlands.
She listened but did not react as the speaker called out her worth and value to those who might be interested in purchasing her. He spoke of her ten years’ service for her crimes as if this was a bonus in her favour, which - to others - it was. For she was a slave with longevity and good investment value. Then he spoke of her youth and attributed it the likes of strength and resourcefulness. He claimed her to be literate. Which was true if he was talking of Greek but a little less so in the native Hebrew.
And then he spoke of a benefit that, in all the times that she had thought upon the creature's value and significance and importance in her life, had never once dawned upon her as a recollection...
He spoke of the fact that she was with child.
For this bidding, he claimed with great enthusiasm, was a sale of two slaves for the price of one.
Hannah felt lead drop into her stomach as her mouth filled with saliva and she feared that all the generosity of the woman she had beseeched for help was about to undo itself before Yahweh and all the world to see.
She had not thought of that. Not for one moment...
Her child would be born a slave.
And unlike herself - who had but ten years to suffer before freedom in penance for her crimes against the Israelite governance... her son or daughter would be born to this life and unable to free themselves from it without substantial pay.
Hannah felt the tears roll down her cheeks unchecked, her lips stretch back in a harsh expression that was as unattractive as it was pitiful and she willed with all that she had for her milk and bread to stay where it was, to feed the babe she had already let down so badly.
For her actions, regardless of how innocent their intentions and purpose and how wrongly she had been judged and accused… regardless of all of that… she, as a parent, had made the first thing she had done for her child and their life… the condemnation of a life of servitude...
The atmosphere at a slave market was something Gwyneth was unlikely to forget quickly. It seemed surreal, for it sounded just as any regular market would. She had often been to the market when camel or donkey traders would come in with their livestock for sale, whip cracking and animals braying. It was so similar, except for the fact that the ones for sale were human beings, exactly like she was, simply born in the wrong lot of life. For a moment, Gwyneth couldn't help but question why would Yahweh allow certain human beings to be born under the control of someone else.How was it fair to them? For them to be bought as bartered objects, their welfare secondary to other things.
She felt a tug at her heartstrings as she watched the slave she had been interacting with finally took the earthen jug containing the milk. It was a prized object, for sure, but at the very least, Gwyneth knew she would have access to it again in the following month when Ayala returned with more coin for her to purchase the family necessities. The goat's milk was a luxury her father enjoyed, but it wasn't a necessity, for their house was located near a water source shared by Damascus, and they had no lack of water at least.
Furtively, Gwyneth glanced at the slave driver as the lady who was obviously far too gaunt for her own good, indulged in the creamy liquid she had purchased earlier. It was somewhat satisfying at least, a fulfilling feeling in Gwyneth's chest as she watched the hurried but genuine thankfulness the slave woman gave as she gulped down as much of the milk as she could take. Even if Gwyneth could not offer more food, she knew the milk served as a form of nourishment, far more then simple water and bread could. There was a reason why goat's milk was highly prized in their community afterall.
While she would not have minded for Hannah to have finished the lot of milk, when the earthen jug was given back at a third of its previous portion, Gwyneth did not bother arguing, but quickly pushed the vessel back into her basket to cover evidence, as she could see attention beginning to gather. It would not do for her to get in trouble, for neither she nor any of her family was in a position to get her out. She may not like the family's lack of coin, but now Gwyneth had a whole new appreciation for the freedom she had due to Ayala's job.
So instead, the brunette simply nodded in return to the mouthed words of gratitude from the slave before they were shuffled away, and Gwyneth realized she could follow no longer. If she followed more, it would be too obvious. So Gwyneth could only watch, as they were brought away, questions abound in her head. They were questions that Valence could not answer, for he was no longer in the right mind to explain things to his naturally curious daughter. The next time Ayala came home, Gwyneth could ask her elder sister, in hopes that she would have some answers. But for now, she simply returned back to her family home to go about the rest of the day, and it would not be till nightfall, before she wondered again.
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The atmosphere at a slave market was something Gwyneth was unlikely to forget quickly. It seemed surreal, for it sounded just as any regular market would. She had often been to the market when camel or donkey traders would come in with their livestock for sale, whip cracking and animals braying. It was so similar, except for the fact that the ones for sale were human beings, exactly like she was, simply born in the wrong lot of life. For a moment, Gwyneth couldn't help but question why would Yahweh allow certain human beings to be born under the control of someone else.How was it fair to them? For them to be bought as bartered objects, their welfare secondary to other things.
She felt a tug at her heartstrings as she watched the slave she had been interacting with finally took the earthen jug containing the milk. It was a prized object, for sure, but at the very least, Gwyneth knew she would have access to it again in the following month when Ayala returned with more coin for her to purchase the family necessities. The goat's milk was a luxury her father enjoyed, but it wasn't a necessity, for their house was located near a water source shared by Damascus, and they had no lack of water at least.
Furtively, Gwyneth glanced at the slave driver as the lady who was obviously far too gaunt for her own good, indulged in the creamy liquid she had purchased earlier. It was somewhat satisfying at least, a fulfilling feeling in Gwyneth's chest as she watched the hurried but genuine thankfulness the slave woman gave as she gulped down as much of the milk as she could take. Even if Gwyneth could not offer more food, she knew the milk served as a form of nourishment, far more then simple water and bread could. There was a reason why goat's milk was highly prized in their community afterall.
While she would not have minded for Hannah to have finished the lot of milk, when the earthen jug was given back at a third of its previous portion, Gwyneth did not bother arguing, but quickly pushed the vessel back into her basket to cover evidence, as she could see attention beginning to gather. It would not do for her to get in trouble, for neither she nor any of her family was in a position to get her out. She may not like the family's lack of coin, but now Gwyneth had a whole new appreciation for the freedom she had due to Ayala's job.
So instead, the brunette simply nodded in return to the mouthed words of gratitude from the slave before they were shuffled away, and Gwyneth realized she could follow no longer. If she followed more, it would be too obvious. So Gwyneth could only watch, as they were brought away, questions abound in her head. They were questions that Valence could not answer, for he was no longer in the right mind to explain things to his naturally curious daughter. The next time Ayala came home, Gwyneth could ask her elder sister, in hopes that she would have some answers. But for now, she simply returned back to her family home to go about the rest of the day, and it would not be till nightfall, before she wondered again.
The atmosphere at a slave market was something Gwyneth was unlikely to forget quickly. It seemed surreal, for it sounded just as any regular market would. She had often been to the market when camel or donkey traders would come in with their livestock for sale, whip cracking and animals braying. It was so similar, except for the fact that the ones for sale were human beings, exactly like she was, simply born in the wrong lot of life. For a moment, Gwyneth couldn't help but question why would Yahweh allow certain human beings to be born under the control of someone else.How was it fair to them? For them to be bought as bartered objects, their welfare secondary to other things.
She felt a tug at her heartstrings as she watched the slave she had been interacting with finally took the earthen jug containing the milk. It was a prized object, for sure, but at the very least, Gwyneth knew she would have access to it again in the following month when Ayala returned with more coin for her to purchase the family necessities. The goat's milk was a luxury her father enjoyed, but it wasn't a necessity, for their house was located near a water source shared by Damascus, and they had no lack of water at least.
Furtively, Gwyneth glanced at the slave driver as the lady who was obviously far too gaunt for her own good, indulged in the creamy liquid she had purchased earlier. It was somewhat satisfying at least, a fulfilling feeling in Gwyneth's chest as she watched the hurried but genuine thankfulness the slave woman gave as she gulped down as much of the milk as she could take. Even if Gwyneth could not offer more food, she knew the milk served as a form of nourishment, far more then simple water and bread could. There was a reason why goat's milk was highly prized in their community afterall.
While she would not have minded for Hannah to have finished the lot of milk, when the earthen jug was given back at a third of its previous portion, Gwyneth did not bother arguing, but quickly pushed the vessel back into her basket to cover evidence, as she could see attention beginning to gather. It would not do for her to get in trouble, for neither she nor any of her family was in a position to get her out. She may not like the family's lack of coin, but now Gwyneth had a whole new appreciation for the freedom she had due to Ayala's job.
So instead, the brunette simply nodded in return to the mouthed words of gratitude from the slave before they were shuffled away, and Gwyneth realized she could follow no longer. If she followed more, it would be too obvious. So Gwyneth could only watch, as they were brought away, questions abound in her head. They were questions that Valence could not answer, for he was no longer in the right mind to explain things to his naturally curious daughter. The next time Ayala came home, Gwyneth could ask her elder sister, in hopes that she would have some answers. But for now, she simply returned back to her family home to go about the rest of the day, and it would not be till nightfall, before she wondered again.