Together, Master and Slavemaster returned to the silent crowd that had gathered around the two boys, and all of the women, except one old grandmother, fell away like chaff before the wind. The one woman, whose name was Breeka, stood her ground, though old and stooped, and her face was as a gargoyle's, very terrible and unmoving, as if naturally grown from some dark and twisted tree bole.
If Master Rababull's years exceeded six hundred, and his wit be steeped in the tap root of the ungood, this old crone was the very epitome of evil and practically a great-grandmother to him by comparison, with the crime of the hour engendering within her shrunken breast a fearless, savage desire for revenge.
Si'Wren felt cold, numbing fear. Something big was up. Something evil. She knew everyone there. Only the very newest additions to the House of Rababull did she not know by name as well as by face. She watched with dire feelings and the gravest of misgivings as Rababull examined the injured boy who lay moaning and writhing in the arms of his weeping mother.
Then he turned and questioned the two slaves who had argued, each of them the father of one of the two boys around whom the entire matter was centered.
The boy who had previously hidden himself was a known trouble-maker. He was a bully of the worst sort, always picking on others smaller than himself. Si'Wren had never known what to think of him, except to steer clear at every opportunity, for she knew that all too soon, he would be a man and whereas now was only a pest, would then be dangerous to her and the other women. The unruly boy had been disciplined before many times, invariably as much for his actual excesses as for his spiteful and miserable attitude.
Rababull finally took the little trouble-maker by the arm and frog-marched him over to the injured boy. He said something to Habrunt, who responded by holding up the injured boy's head so all could see the ruined eye socket.
Si'Wren felt an agonized pang of sympathetic grief for the injured child. She knew him well, and he had always been so harmless and gentle. Now, the boy's left eye was gone and only a emptily staring, bloody cavity remained where his innocent soul had once looked out on the world. Only his good right eye remained, and that one, coupled with his occasional shrieks, betrayed his continuing agony.
Again, Nelatha and Si'Wren exchanged knowing, fearful looks. Rababull suddenly ordered several men to seize and hold the little bully's father immobile before him as all looked on to see what would happen next.
As Rababull questioned the father of the offending boy, the man, scared witless, jerked his head back anxiously, and replied loudly and emphatically in the negative.
Then he looked at his own boy and nodded his head as he gabbled out his protest of the suggested judgement through lips black-stained from his secret addiction to some foul intoxicating substance, and Si'Wren could easily read the gesture.