Sweat ran down my skin like the tiny brush of moths’ feet. People dressed in pale robes, in coats and britches, in brightly-coloured evanescent gowns were passing before me. Some had skin the same weather-stained brown as my own, others were as fair as milk, still others as dark as the slaves I’d freed. I was standing on a dais in a market square, and I was dying for a smoke. I wouldn’t lift my eyes, wouldn’t meet a single gaze. Head bent, I watched in my peripheral vision as the people passed before me, stopped in front of me, looked me up and down. As hands were outstretched to try the circumference of an upper arm, or to tug down the jaw and hold it to inspect the teeth, to lift the corner of the shirt and appraise the strength and shape of a thigh. I caught a word here or there. I’d picked up a little of the language, enough to know when it was me that was being spoken of. I knew the word for slave. I’d thought that I was prepared, that I was in command of myself and would at least be able to acquit myself with dignity.
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