One of the young boys had suffered a massively crippled hand from the carelessness of his overseers when he was ordered to apply the grease and water and insert the end of a broom more closely beneath the runners. Such boys must reach in and work the water and grease and dirt together with their brooms and fingertips, because sometimes what was poured on would merely run off as quickly again without sinking in.
The older or more experienced boys could also employ the ends of their staffs for this purpose, but when a boy was especially young or new to the job and had never seen a stone boat before, it sometimes pleased the others who had the charge of such a green and inexperienced youth, to order him into the worst labors possible, and few other boys would give the temporary loan of their sticks and staffs, lest one of them suffer a similar ghastly fate. Si'Wren had once heard an agonizing episode of high-pitched screams that began so suddenly as to jolt her right down to the very pit of her stomach. The pitiful childish screams had gradually subsided into long dismaying moans that had continued long into the night, and thus had she known that something of the sort had happened, and she spent the night praying desperately on her bed for the sufferings of the hapless young victim.
The stones comprising this particular load, broken by the stone masons into crude blocks of two and three times the weight of a man, were for the Master's garden wall, which Si'Wren must pass by every day on her way to and from the spice tent. As the two sweating drivers were helped along by the boys, many looked on disinterestedly and more than a few openly laughed and mocked at the slowness of their progress.
One onlooker shouted gleeful insults, bringing on the inevitable vile curses from the aggravated drivers.
The men kept the oxen at their yokes with cursings and whippings, as they dragged the stone boat screeching over the exposed surfaces of rocks and stones in the ground and the wooden runners scraped over them with ear-splitting squealings. Si'Wren watched also as the team made their way slowly past the spice tent and beyond, to where the stone masons labored to build the new garden wall.
Si'Wren bowed her head a little, and shut her eyes gently as she softly sang a prayer for the physical safety of the young boys. She often sang prayers during her work, swaying gently to the rhythm of her own soft sweetly-uttered syllables. It was not merely a prayer she sang always, but sometimes rather, a long-favored tribal song, a song of old which kept alive the promise about the Garden of Heaven to which all good souls must surely one day go.
The day was warm and pleasant. It was the kind of day to lull one into a drifting somnambulance, inviting weary slaves to seize upon the unwatched moment now and then to pause, and wander freely with their eyes across the inner mind and the far skies, in spite of the ever-present risk of sudden discovery and displeasure by the Master.
Nelatha's sudden intake of air accompanied by a frightened gasp of startlement caused Si'Wren to cease abruptly from her labors and look up quickly.
Immediately Si'Wren shrank back in an involuntary motion as she beheld the terrifying sight of a hairy, muscled giant of a man, easily twice the height of any normal individual. The giant had six great fingers, like stout wooden pegs, on each hairy, enormous hand. Because of his size he appeared to be walking with exaggerated slowness, although the long strides with which he covered the ground took him across the level courtyard and up the front steps of the House of Rababull in a surprisingly short time.
His size was truly staggering to behold, and Si'Wren counted it her good fortune that he was already moving away from the tent entrance in such a way that she was not so much as glimpsed by him.