When Ilika and Sata stepped outside, a roped line of eight slaves, and one more leaning on her crutch, awaited them. Rags barely covered their bodies, while arms, legs, and feet were bare to the sun and wind.
A guard leaned against the wall. “Need to hire someone to get ‘em to where you’re going?”
“No, I think we can handle it from here.”
“Suit yourself,” he said, and went back inside, leaving Ilika and Sata to deal with their nine slaves. But unlike any other group of slaves in the entire history of the slave market, these nine slaves were all smiling.
Ilika took a moment to look them over, and they all met his gaze with sparkling eyes. Shaggy-haired Kibi, the oldest girl at about sixteen, grinned from ear to ear. Slender, freckled Rini, thirteen, appeared content with the situation, while little Kodi, the youngest boy at twelve, was ready to do handsprings.
Toli, the oldest at nineteen years and taller than the rest by a head, voiced a concern. “Sir, I thought you only needed five. There are nine of us, ten with Sata.”
He gave them the same explanation he had already given Sata and her parents. When they heard about the three great gold pieces, their mouths opened with amazement.
“Is that enough to buy a cart?” Buna, about fourteen, asked with her squirrelly facial expression. “I’ve always wanted to have my own little cart,
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and maybe a donkey to pull it.”
Ilika laughed. “Buna, three great gold is enough to buy three carts, three donkeys, and an entire farm.” While he was speaking, he noticed Sata move over beside thirteen-year-old Mati and her crutch. “When’s the last time you guys had a warm bath?” he asked the group.
“Warm bath?” handsome sixteen-year-old Miko said, looking at Ilika with his penetrating eyes. “What’s that? Masters don’t waste warm water on slaves.”
“Sometimes we don’t even get water!” fifteen-year-old Neti, pretty even in rags, said with frustration.
“Follow me!” Ilika said, and headed for Market Way at a slow pace.
With no one pulling, the eight on the rope stood in confusion for a moment. Boro, the large fourteen-year-old at the front of the line, found the courage to pick up the end of the rope and follow Ilika. The others moved with him, while Mati and Sata came behind.
Ilika stopped at the entrance to the bath house where Doti awaited. The slaves arrived a moment later, smiling when they recognized the healer.
Ilika spoke with the twisted man, then led his charges into the yard. He motioned for them to sit down on the cobblestones around the pool. Mati carefully lowered herself and her crutch onto an old crate.
“This is a very important moment for us,” Ilika began. “Here, in this bath house, the rope comes off and never binds you again.” He moved from person to person, untying the rope from their sore wrists. Some of the ex-slaves couldn’t stop tears from coming, both girls and boys.
When Ilika finished, he coiled the rope and stood before them. “I’m going to start a pile right here,” he said, dropping the rope onto the stones. “The bath house man will burn it with his other trash. This is where your rags go when you take them off, because . . .” He opened his bag and pulled out a tunic. “You all get new clothes as soon as you’re clean.”
They cheered and clapped with their newly-freed hands.
“Doti is here to treat your head lice.”
“That will be so wonderful!” Neti said. “It’s really hard to sleep with them walking around on your head.”
The healer stepped to the front of the group, her potion bag over her
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shoulder. “When you get in the tub, I want you to wet your hair. The potion will burn a little, but leave it on while you’re doing the rest of your bathing.”
Ilika returned to the front. “I realize we don’t have complete privacy.
You’re welcome to keep your underwear on while you bathe.”
The tub was soon filling with bouncing, splashing youth, the water quickly turned gray, and the pile of rags to be burned grew rapidly.
Doti sat on the edge, applying the potion to wet heads as they presented themselves, one at a time.
Kibi helped Mati into the tub, then stood with an uncomfortable expression, still wearing her rags. The healer noticed, set down her potion bottle, and approached the sixteen-year-old. “Sister, you deserve this as much as anyone else. You are now part of a new family, and all the people having fun in that tub are your friends.”
“I know. It’s just . . . scary. It’s been so long since I wore anything but . . .
rags.”
“Now you are free to choose. You can even go back to the slave compound if you want. But if you’re going to stay at the inn with everyone else, and get that education, you have to be clean, free of lice, and nicely dressed.” Doti turned to Ilika. “Can you take someone to the inn who hasn’t bathed?”
“Nope. I could only do it that one day because I had rented the whole common room.”
Kibi looked into the healer’s eyes for a long moment. Then she slowly took off her rags and dropped them into the pile, one by one, painfully, as if they were living organs of her own body.
Doti stood by for moral support.
Kibi looked at the tub, and her friends made a space for her. Suddenly she started crying, but somehow, through her tears, found the edge of the tub. As her friends splashed her, the tears were soon washed away and she began laughing and playing along with everyone else.
Doti smiled and went back to applying her potion. She did an especially good job on Kibi’s head.
Everyone dunked underwater several times to rinse off the lice potion, except Buna who preferred to splash water onto her head. By that time, the
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water in the tub was nearly black. Doti handed a towel to each as they climbed out, and saw their sheer joy at the simple pleasure of using clean cloth.
After a few minutes of trial and error, and some embarrassed laughter, everyone finally received the right size tunic.
“We’re all blue, same as you!” little Kodi said with pride.
Ilika smiled. “In the coming days you’ll get pants, extra tunics, cloaks, and boots.”
“Big warm cloaks you can curl up and sleep in?” Buna asked with amazement.
“Yes,
with
hoods.”
The fourteen-year-old girl danced a little jig of joy right there on the cobblestones.
Deep Learning Notes
A ritual, or ceremony, is a formulaic program of celebration. In what ways was the scene at the bath house a ritual, and what were they celebrating?
Historically, the slaves probably didn’t have any underwear, and were used to bathing in a cold stream without privacy. Sata, a member of the very small medieval middle-class, probably had simple underpants.
Kibi had trouble letting go of her rags. This may be hard for us to understand, but we must remember that those rags were all of her possessions in the world at that moment.