1.
Today there were six of them: six men chained collar-to-collar, heads and shoulders bowed respectfully, kneeling in a row on the tithe-hall floor. They were awaiting her inspection - but, the Lady Solande thought - what an unprepossessing lot! The two youngest wore standard slave tunics - shapeless garments cut from homespun cloth that at once marked them out as field slaves of lower rank; woodcutters or charcoal burners, perhaps. One of them, a brown-skinned lad with a thick mop of glossy curls tossed his head and grinned as he caught Solande's eye. He was a good-looking fellow and knew it; much too cocksure and confident for the Lady's taste. She snorted, thinking she would have to have words with her brother. Solande had requested an assortment of well-broken slaves for today's viewing. He must have known by now that she had little use for anything else.
Four of the men were in heavy work-harness, identifying them as slaves from the mines or the mills. While they held various minor holdings in the lowlands, the bulk of the land owned by Solande's family consisted of extensive tracts in the mountains and for that reason mining had always been a particularly lucrative speciality of their estate. There were rich veins of metals and other materials to be found in those mountains and of especial interest -- given the nature of the yearly tribute required by the nearby Coven -- native silver deposits in abundance. A dependable source of wind or water power to drive the machinery required for these mountain mines was however lacking -- and historically, had always limited the scale of mining operations in the area -- although of course these days, forced labour formed a readily-available and easy substitute. At the turn of the last century changes in their country's laws -- initially imposed with a view to restricting the scale of peasant revolt -- had ultimately led to the creation of a new underclass in rural society, an itinerant strata of indentured serfs who were tied for life to a particular nobleman's estate; a slave workforce, in effect. One of Solande's none-too-distant ancestors had invested heavily in the design and construction of a number of mechanically powered workhouses based on the general principles wind or water mills, but which were driven by an entirely different source -- teams of slave labourers bound into the very bowels of the apparatus. The brute strength of these harnessed slaves could be transformed - through intricate series of manifold cogs and levers - into driving or grinding forces directed towards any number of uses; rock-crushers, conveyors and transport belts in the mines - and there were other applications, too. The milling of grain, for example. The estate now imported raw grain and other agricultural products from all over the lowlands and the flour-mills ran not only for a brief season after the harvest was gathered in autumn, but year-round -- and at a tidy profit.
Yes, the great, horizontal grinding-wheels, to each spoke of which as many as four mine-slaves could be tethered shoulder-by-shoulder were indeed a minor wonder of the age, one that visitors -- even braving the werewolf-haunted byways of the time - came from far and wide to view. Due to the foresight and efforts of Solande's great grandfather, her family was now one of the foremost, and certainly the wealthiest of any in the area. And all of this -- all of their power, prestige and privilege -- was based on the efforts of labourers like the miserable collection kneeling before her! It was almost too incredible for belief!
Proximity to these ugly, stinking, sweating, oafish workers came as something as a culture shock for the Lady, for in the past Solande had always chosen her candidates from a selection of indoor serfs (or garden staff - or at a pinch, even the stable hands). The problem was that by this time there were very few suitable men remaining among those ranks of whom the Lady had not tired long ago. Having exhausted the possibilities of the 'higher' classes of trusted slave, Solande had had to resort to the low-grade and disreputable castes of which the current assortment was so sadly representative. Though it was in its way a kind of education -- Solande had never been as close to a mine-slave before. She scrutinized them, intently.
They were of course all powerful-looking men; muscular, especially about the chest and shoulders, and quite well-built. Their work-harnesses interested her particularly; the straps and buckles crossing the mens' upper bodies made them appear more like cart-horses or draft-animals than human slaves -- and it was an effect that Solande found rather enticing. Each harness consisted of a broad pair of leather straps worn in an 'X' shape over the slave's shoulders and across his chest. A pair of large iron rings set into the middle of the harness, one at the centre of the chest and the other at the back, formed the main attachment points by which a slave was lashed onto the wheel of his work-apparatus - be it a rock-grinder, mill-wheel or conveyor belt. If his hands were free he might also take a helpful hold of the straining-spoke in front of him, but most of his pulling efforts were taken through the harness, and originated in the muscles of his legs, his shoulders and his back. The base of the harness was secured to the man's belt or his girdle and also incorporated a single strap or loop that extended down below his abdomen, to provide a pouch or support for the genitals. In the case of mill-slaves, a longer leather strap was also directed back between the legs and fastened to the back of the man's slave-belt so that it fitted as tightly as possible into the cleft of the his buttocks; this so-called 'hygiene belt' was designed to discourage slaves from evacuating their bowels at will while on duty in the mills; a necessary precaution for this category of workers was comprised of characters of only the most unsavoury and degenerate sort.
The three in the middle were slaves from the mines; big, bear-like brutes, with the scars on their exposed arms and flanks turned to greyish tattoos by constant exposure to rock powder and mine-dust. Below the waist they were fitted with long leather breeches that guarded their legs from flying rock-chips and also wore protective boots. Two of them looked enough alike to pass as brothers; they were bearded with broad chests and backs covered in curling mats of black hair. Like in appearance to her late husband, Solande considered, very like - and she shuddered a little at the unwelcome recollection. The third carried at his waist the coiled whip of a trusted slave or overseer's assistant. And he looked like a man who relished the use of it, Solande thought. As if she had not already had treatment enough of that sort!
The last one was obviously from the grain-mills. His rough, heavily-scarred hide was coated in white flour head to foot and the eyes in the ashen face were sore and weeping, coloured blood-red. After a few months in the mills, the dust from the grain and the flour became a dangerous irritant -- and though a slave was usually prevented from breathing this deadly sediment by means of a scarf or muffler tied over the mouth and nose, his eyes customarily bore the brunt of it: in the mill a slave's eyes leaked constantly. The runnels of tears and thin mucus mixed with the flour-dust on his face, quickly setting hard in the heat of the silos to cover him from cheeks to chin with a distinctive, flaking crust. With his dead-white skin and scaly-looking face the mill-slave's appearance was nothing but grotesque, though overall Solande cared little about that. One of the points against him was that few slaves lasted more than a year or so in the grain-mills -- two, at most - which meant that this type of work was reserved for labourers at the very end of their useful lives. And unlike the other men, the mill slave's arms had been shackled by the wrists to his harness behind his back -- the sign of an habitual violent offender. For no other reason than this Solande knew that she should discount the man immediately.
