Traveller Manifesto

Kievan Rus – 11th Century.

They were told to sit. The captives, through habits born of harsh lessons, obediently settled to the bottom of the crude boat. Other than curses, they had thankfully not suffered excessively cruel treatment. They knew the prerogative was to have themselves, as the human cargo, arrive without misadventure, for their value was only if they arrived alive and unspoiled. Chained together with iron neck collars, they had little incentive to escape. Not only would a dozen captives have difficulty in swimming and travelling safely, but there were also issues of food and safety. Their party had been attacked on a number of occasions, for tribes and villagers repeatedly attempted to loot wealthy traders. Sensible traders, like this party, were too powerful, so the efforts had been half-hearted at best.

Escape was no option. So it was smarter to remain on their best behaviour. To maintain sanity, one had to let the future take care of itself.

Borislav looked across his cargo and nodded in satisfaction. Twenty men and seven women slaves made him happy, for it was a good shipment and none had yet died. The slim man nodded to the twenty hard men who accompanied him and they jumped into the three large but primitive outrigger boats after pushing them from the muddy shore. Accompanied by one of his sons and a few business partners, the Rus treated the slaves as well as could be expected. He had heard, of course, of the beatings the two newer prisoners had been given. But then again, raiders were rarely left alive. When a settlement was attacked at night, custom had it that any attackers captured alive would be left to the pleasure of the townsfolk. The irony of having a raider sold to the slaver, when it was certain that the raiders were out to capture slaves themselves, was never lost on the townsfolk.

A female raider was extremely rare, even unheard of. It seems she had to endure quite some raping to settle her down. She acted docile now, but experience suggested that she would have to be carefully watched. Though a pretty one, a female warrior had higher value and was a more lucrative bargaining chip than merely a sex slave. There were so many young boys and women collected with the destruction of the Bulgars that there were rumours the market was flooded and the value of slaves had collapsed.

Borislav snorted and then watched as the banks of the mighty river slid by. A deer raised an antlered head in alarm, but only watched them pass.

No, she would be worth the trouble. The men knew to watch her. There were tales of how she had knocked out one of the villagers after she was captured. None really believed that of course, but they were careful nonetheless. As he looked across at the warrior woman, he hoped she wasn’t pregnant. There were wise women who could always solve that little problem, but they had plenty of time on their long voyage to Constantinople to see if that was truly necessary.

Yes, she was going make him a pretty penny.

***

Maksym counted themselves fortunate they had not been split up. It could have happened all too easily. According to the conversation he had overheard between two of the hired men, Borislav had seriously considered selling his captives to another slaver, but had instead opted to make the trading venture himself. Now it was important they concentrate on being model prisoners. They would be treated well, for the moment at least. Human cargo were chattels, like beasts, worth a sale if they arrived in good condition and offered no trouble. Their arrival at the large centre of Kiev had shocked them both. This was to be the destination for their original mission, that was until the British, American and Russian Governments had been complicit in permanently postponing Kiev Traveller.

Even Maksym had to confess that they had been … impetuous. To have stolen the Transporter was one thing, but to kidnap Zak Chandler and his engineers, that was quite another. Their flight did not make for the appropriate implementation of a mission as complex as a Traveller project one thousand years into the past.

They had been overconfident. He realised that now. The decision to rob communities currently in modern Russia seemed a good idea at the time. Their blood had boiled and they craved revenge.

As a result of their impetuous and greedy choices, at least two of his team had been killed. Two 21st Century Special Forces trained soldiers of the highest calibre, armed with modern weapons and fitted with night vision goggles, were murdered, two captured, and the other two escaped. At least that’s what he hoped. Maksym had plenty of time to analyse their errors, their stupidity, and the consequences of their obvious hubris.

What happened back at home was anyone’s guess. He doubted there would have been any happy ending. With the world’s military on their tails? He snorted to himself. The Transporter and the rest of his Traveller Team were probably now in the hands of the British.

He sighed. At least he and Kateryna were in good health. She had been a good girl and it didn’t look like she had been injured. They had not been able to speak since they were handed over to the slaver. A handful of silver and their lives had changed hands.

It was that simple.

Kiev had been a vibrant town, with plenty of flat-bottomed boats shipping trade goods, mainly furs and slaves. It was almost comical how the 21st Century looked at the issue of slaves. While it was common knowledge that women and boys were sold for sex in their home time, where most in the 21sdt Century turned a blind eye to the human misery of such a profitable, black-market trade and pretended it didn’t happen. Here, the slave trade was honourable, profitable and brisk. Even the slaves accepted the inevitability of their fates, hoping for a kind master when they reached the great slave markets of what Borislav described as ‘The Shining City’. The timber town of Kiev was barely more than a staging post on their way to the Black Sea, where they would then sail on to their destination, the trading giant of Constantinople. Kiev’s timber huts were a conglomeration linked with timber boardwalks designed to keep feet away from the thick, black mud. Like Russian Novgorod far to the north, this was both a settlement made of wood as well as a hub of Kievan Rus power. The Viking ancestors of modern Russians and Ukrainians had become canny, if not brutal traders. When tethered to more wretched slaves, Maksym realised that some of the victims to whom he was attached were also Kievan Rus themselves, though from different, potentially hostile tribes. Another was from far away, an Aenglish monk, who looked surprisingly healthy considering the distance he had travelled. There were a couple from tribes even further away. He couldn’t determine who they were but suspected they might be Gaelic Irish.

Of the women, Kateryna had gained a reputation as the woman warrior, the one the slavers believed could have unique value. The others were young, most likely to be sold as sex slaves. They looked miserable and lacked the steel Kateryna flashed all too often.

Their boats, called monoxyla by the Greeks in the Great City, were little more than large, wide canoes with outriggers to permit a degree of stability. They were rowed out into the swift current of the mighty Dnipro River the Europeans called Dnieper, and it wasn’t long before the heavily treed shores smoothly sped past. In this part of the world, hunting camps eked a perilous existence for fur trappers who sold their wares to middle men, who in turn brought the bales of salted and dried product to Kiev. Traders then amassed their goods for the torturous journey, always downstream to the Black Sea. Rapids, hostile tribes, the threat of capsize, and a hundred other perils he could barely imagine meant that Maksym and Kateryna might find themselves in the Constantinople slave markets after almost 1000 gruelling kilometres.

It was later in the day when they joined with six other boats. They were large, flat-bottomed craft like their own and the men called to each other in jest, as if they had travelled this long road before. Hunching into the bottom of the craft with bales of furs and blocks of pine resin had Maksym become restless. He had largely recovered from the beatings received in Smolensk and was eager to make his plans. There was nothing he could do for quite a time, that was obvious, but he decided to at least try. Kateryna was in the boat behind him and he would only see her from afar each evening.

The perversity of life allowed one to settle into routine, even as a captive destined for the Constantinople slave markets. Without having to be overly concerned about anything more than his comfort, Maksym’s life edged into the monotony of simply watching the world go by. The most exciting part of his day was in being moved into and out of the boats, being fed a rye gruel and occasionally assisting in the portage of the vessel around the many waterfalls and rapids that frequented the colossal, untamed river.

When they experienced yet another set of rapids, he called out to one of the overseers. “Hey! Let me help!”

The overseer, who essentially told the other freemen what to do, turned angrily. “Shut up shithead! I’ll knock your head in if you talk to me again.”

“You need more men on the paddles. I can help,” Maksym continued. He felt irritated and bored sitting in the bottom of the boat. His bum was wet and his legs cramped. Beside him sat a lad who had been captured from a tribe in the north, while the English Monk hissed, “Be quiet!” He looked wide-eyed, for he wanted no attention to be drawn to him. Being quiet meant being ignored.

Fuck that! Maksym decided to continue. One of the nearby freemen lashed out with a half-hearted kick, but Maksym easily blocked the blow. “Oh come on,” he continued. “I’m bored. Besides, what am I going to do, jump overboard and swim away?”

One of the freemen gave a snort of amusement. After all, the paddling had been tough. The overseer looked as if he was about to hit Maksym with the flat of a paddle, then paused thoughtfully. “Come on,” persisted Maksym. “Lengthen my chain and give me a fucking paddle. I’m bored shitless.”

There were more laughs from the freemen and the one who had given the half-hearted kick turned to his fellow and suggested, “It couldn’t hurt!”

So, before long, Maksym enthusiastically joined in the paddling. It wasn’t for locomotion rather than to assist in guiding their boat around eddies caused by sunken trees or rocks. They had bumped a couple and, with the awesome current, could easily have tipped, which would mean the loss of the cargo, including the slaves. That would have meant the loss of any profits for the journey.

Maksym’s heart sang. He was experienced in manoeuvring craft through white-water and to finally move his muscles as an active member of the team stopped him going crazy.

Besides, his status would improve.

He would have to take one careful step at a time.