The man fixing me with a harsh glare was a farmer around thirty years old dressed in a dirty peasant’s shift. His body hardened by daily farm work, his whole air was of a top-notch, energetic worker. He wasn’t as built as Gimul, but he had the hard-edged features and physique characteristic of a man who spent his life doing punishing fieldwork.
Whereas I stood before him shirtless with a pierced belly-button that advertised my status as a slave.
Now, a half-naked man wasn’t exactly an uncommon sight at the worksite. When you have to carry heavy scaffolding lumber or dressed stone, you get drenched in sweat and caked in dirt and grime. Most of the laborers and carpenters were half naked and no one gave it a second thought. But I was supposed to be the site supervisor, so seeing me half naked with my slave piercing exposed was, I now realized, perhaps kind of an issue.
“What’s a slave doing running a construction operation? Who do you think you are?”
I’d taken a grave misstep. In most circumstances, you wouldn’t expect to see a site supervisor with his shirt off, working and sweating alongside his guys. Worse yet, these people weren’t villagers at all. They came from the settlements scattered around the village chief’s territory.
They had no idea who I was. I had to head this guy off.
“I apologize. There’s been a misunderstanding.” My first impulse told me it would be wise to be humble. This was going to be all kinds of trouble, so I yielded immediately and hung my head.
“Harrumph! Answer my question then, slave. Who are you?”
“My name is Shooter. I’m a hunter.”
“They let you be a hunter, even though you’re a slave?”
“Yes—I was a hunter before I became a slave.” I ducked my head in a polite semi-bow, wondering just how much of an introduction I was going to need to give this guy. The village chief had mustered these laborers to help with the construction work. I couldn’t afford to say anything that would upset them or lead to an argument.
After all, the village chief was the one who had appointed me as the site supervisor. If a dispute broke out, it might lead some people to question her authority, and that would cast doubt on Alexandricia’s leadership. On top of that, the enslaved criminals seemed particularly irked that I was in charge of the project, and that could make things even worse. I couldn’t let this get out of hand.
I desperately thought back over all my past part-time jobs, trying to remember something, anything that came close to this situation.
Cassandra and Elpaco had been watching from a distance, but I could see the color draining from their faces. They rushed over to me. I tried to keep my eyes on the group—didn’t want to risk looking away—but I threw just one sideways glance at my wife and Fuzzball. “J-just a moment please, folks.”
Cassandra jumped between me and the villagers, her hands spread. Today she wore a checker-print shirt and bib dress, and still had my shortsword at her hip. “What exactly is going on here?!”
Elpaco held back beside her, ready to draw his knife at any moment.
“There’s no reason to fight! The village chief ordered Shooter to take charge of the site!”
“And who are you? We came here ’cause the village chief said we’d be workin’ for a knight to build a castle. Where’s Gimul? I thought the knight was gonna be Gimul.”
“I am Cassandra, the wife of that very knight. Gimul is no longer with us—he has gone to the bull-kin colony in search of a wife.”
“Gimul’s with the bull-kin? I never heard about that.” That news seemed to throw the square-jawed spokesman for the farmers off-balance. He turned back to the rest of the group and the lot of them fell into a nervous, confused conversation.
I couldn’t let my wife handle the situation forever, so I stood straight and gestured for her and Elpaco to step back.
“Are you all aware,” I said, “that the village chief held talks with the bull-kin a few days ago?”
“No, we never heard a thing. The hell happened with the minotaurs to set off all this?”
“Do you see that big cave beside the lake? The minotaurs have carved an entire city out of a huge cavern in the deepest reaches of the cave.”
“They did?”
Seeing the shock on the farmers’ faces, Cassandra and Elpaco nodded in confirmation.
“How did they manage that in such a place?” The farmer’s eyes flashed. “Is that why we’re building a fort here? To fight them?”
“No.”
“Well, could you explain, then?”
“Yes, fine, I will.”
Wracking my brain for a useful memory, I kiiind of found one. I once worked at a classy bar, and at that sort of place, you inevitably mess up dealing with customers. I tried desperately to remember how I handled that precise situation. What had I said?
Well, I’d gone low profile. Let ’em shout, let ’em complain, all while I bowed my head and kept quiet. When I did that, the other person started demanding an explanation. And if I was going to give them excuses, that was my chance.
I wasn’t about to lose this opportunity. I explained it all: That in exchange for allowing the minotaurs to live in her territory, the village chief had demanded they pay taxes. That we had held a feast to strengthen our bonds, and that we had cemented our commitment with an exchange of pledges.
“It was during the feast that I fought the bull-kin chieftain in their traditional pantsless wrestling style called bullfighting. It was only meant to be entertainment for the feast, but—” I tried not to look too self-absorbed, and I think I did as great a job as usual, “—I just so happened to take the victory.”
“You? A slave? That’s preposterous. I don’t believe you.”
“That’s why I’m here, actually. The village chief rewarded me by conferring a knighthood on me.”
As one, the farmers turned to look at Cassandra. She nodded to them. The disbelief on their faces didn’t change, but since there was a witness corroborating my story, they weren’t quite as secure in their assumptions.
“So what does that mean, if a knight is a slave?” one of the farmers muttered.
Another: “I refuse to be conscripted labor for some slave, getting ordered around while he flaunts his belly piercing!”
A third: “Yeah!”
Not to say that they weren’t still pissy.
I suppose they thought I was being uppity and overreaching my station. But given my position at the worksite, I wasn’t going to let them treat me like a slave, either. As long as everyone was on the same page, I wouldn’t be arrogant or servile.
And there’s where I made them my offer.
“Think of it like this: Slaves have the lowest status in society, and knights are part of the ruling class that serves the governor. Put the two together, divide by two, and that puts me on the same level as you, right?”
When I laid it out like that, the farmers and even Cassandra stared at me, wide-eyed.