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villas—of which Favere Mundi was but one of many. I wondered if my parents had escaped or whether my bullheaded father had stayed to fight to the death. I wondered what my friends would say when they learned I had been taken. I wondered if I would ever see my homeland again.
    Leaving the bay, the ship bounded out into deeper water, and more of the coastline came into view. Away to the south, in the direction of Lycanum, a great, heavy dark cloud of smoke hung like a continuous storm above the gentle hills; and to the north more ships—and still more, strung out all along the coast. I stared in disbelief at the low knifelike hulls, and the full extent of the attack broke over me: it was not a raid, it was an invasion.
    Sadness such as I have never known descended over me as I watched the land of my birth slowly shrink and shrink, growing ever smaller until at last the green headlands disappeared beneath the clear horizon. My heart felt as if it would crack in two; I wanted to cry, but, stunned by grief, I could only stare in dry-eyed wonder.
    Out on the open sea, the breeze stiffened, the sail snapped taut, and the sharp prow bit deep into the waves. I settled back in my place and turned my attention to our captors. There were eight of them aboard ship: big men all, well muscled, and dressed in coarse handwoven, voluminous trousers dyed red, orange, or brown. Most were bare to the waist, with long hair that they wore in one or more braids down their naked backs. Their beards were shaved except for mustaches, which they wore untrimmed. Two had smeared pitch on their faces, chests, and arms in rippled stripes; three had armbands of gold, and all wore torcs around their necks: one of silver, the rest of bronze or iron. They were filthy brutes, one and all.
    My fellow captives sat slumped against the sides of the boat or curled on the narrow central deck. Sunk in despair, they did not lift their heads. Young and old wore the samewitless, dead expressions. Most were, so it appeared to me, farmhands and servants. I knew none of them. They stared with dull eyes at the far horizon, mute in resignation, patient as cattle awaiting the slaughter.
    The pilot of the boat was an older man with a blackened stump on the end of his right arm where his hand should have been. He worked the steering oar keeping one eye on the sail and one on the sea. Three other ships traveled in our wake, and the waves, running smooth and calm, seemed to fly beneath the prow. We sailed through the morning, and while our captors talked among themselves and drank from wineskins and the water stoup from time to time, none of them spoke so much as a word to any of us nor offered us anything to drink.
    After a time, the tedium of the voyage began to tell. I dozed, awakening once to find that Drusilla had fallen asleep with her head against my chest. My first instinct was to push her aside, but I restrained myself. Her troubles, like mine, were just beginning, and I did not care to add to her distress by even such a trivial act. I was thirsty, but there was no relief, so to prevent myself from thinking about it, I went back to sleep.
    I woke again later with a burning thirst and decided to do something about it. Gently shifting Drusilla aside, I rose unsteadily and made my way to the water stoup. One of the guards saw me as I dipped the ladle; he challenged me, but, ignoring him, I drank my fill and then turned and offered the ladle to the captive beside me. The guard, angry now, came to where I stood and snatched the water away from the man. He shouted something at me and pushed me aside, but the pilot called something to him. An argument ensued, which ended with the truculent guard being forced to fill the ladle and pass it along to the captives until everyone had been given a drink.
    I crawled back to my place and dozed again until sunset, when I awoke and saw, against the crimson and purple sky, the low humps of an island far off in the west. I thought