I HAVE TO BELIEVE THERE'S A WORLD OUTSIDE
The boy looked out of the tiny window of the cart they were being transported in. Seen through the iron bars, the world seemed way smaller but incredibly more appealing now that he couldn't reach it anymore. Every time they were moved from one place to another, he would spend the whole time of the travel with his arms outside the window, feeling the fresh air and pretending to be outside instead of in a stinky cart that originally had transported animals and still smelled of them.

There were twenty of them, all crammed in the same cart. They were all boys between twelve and eighteen years of age from all over the country, each of them enslaved for a different reason. Chase was sold by his family because they needed money. He hadn't enough strength to work the fields but he was gorgeous with his long, blond hair and his green eyes, so his father had thought that his beauty was the only thing he could offer to help the family going through the winter.

Blake was one of the outsiders who lived beyond the northern borders. One of the lords ruling over that part of the country had caught him stealing some fruits on his property and had him arrested. Slavers often bought young prisoners because they were cheap and, since they craved to be out of their cells, they were more willing to work for him than boys and men who were sold when they were still free. The slaver had found Blake in jail together with other ten of them, all behind bars because of some minor crimes.

Then, there was him.

The slaver didn't want to buy him at first, because the warder had told him that he had killed a man and therefore he was dangerous. It wasn't exactly the truth. That man's death was an accident, he had just defended himself. The man had tried to force himself upon him, he had to do something. Out of fear, he had reached out for the first thing he could find. Too bad it was a stone. Nobody believed him, of course.

They had put him in a smaller cell alone and nobody spoke to him because they were frightened or disgusted or both. The slaver had asked to give a closer look to him and then decided he was worth the risk. After all, his black, curled hair and blue eyes were not so common in the country, and being only fifteen he could be easily sold.

The only reason he hadn't been already, it was that the slaver had set a very high price for him and he planned to sell him as a rarity to one of the wealthy lords who were always looking for sex slaves or slaves in general to increase the number of their servants. The boy had been the slaver's property for two months now and had been to almost forty fairs so far, but the slaver hadn't had any luck with him. The county fair they were heading to now was going to be his last try, then he would have lowered the price for good.

He really wanted to be sold.

Not that he ached to serve some old, rich and twisted man with a thing for young boys, but he desperately wanted to stop traveling everywhere. He was sure his fathers were looking for him in this very moment while moving around the country with their show, and they could not find him if he kept moving. He knew that if he lived in a proper house somewhere and his father happened to come there, he would have found a way to be with them again. He had just to hang on until that moment.

The cart came to a stop. Someone asked where they were, but he couldn't see anything outside the window except sand and the trunks of some palms in the distance. The door opened right after and the harsh voice of the slaver ordered them out. One after the other they got down the cart and came to stand side by side next to it. The man looked at them closely and checked their handcuffs to be sure none of them could get free. After he made sure everything was alright he barked at them to climb on the stage his men had built while he was taking care of them.

Every time they stopped somewhere to participate to a fair, the slaver would have a stage built for them to be on display, so people could come and see the goods, sometimes even touch them, before buying, while he would praise their abilities and qualities to everyone who was willing to hear him.

The boy took his place on the far end of the stage. Four of them were sold last time, so there was more room on the old scratched boards. The slaver gave him his tag price on a leather strand, and he wore it to his neck. The price was still a four zeros number.

This time the place was huge. It was a big market, with many stands and people as far as the eye could see. It looked like there was no end to it. Judging by the look of the houses, which were short, squat and plain white, they were past the big river, where the desert was. In fact, women wore veils over their heads and some men had turbans on their heads. It was extremely fascinating and aside from the fact he was there to be sold, he loved to look at all the colors of the fabrics and carpets around them and at the faces of the people. He had never been so far away from the northern region before.

From where he stood, the boy could see at least two other slaves sellers and people were queuing to have a look at the boys and girls they had to offer. But men and women were gathering around them too, so he straighten up and looked right in front of himself, like the slaver had told him to do. If there were a chance to be sold in a place like this, he would have made his best to take it. His fathers were always looking for new places to perform, especially if they were big and rich like this one. And if any, there were more chances for them to come here than in a city they had already been to hundreds of times.

The slaver started to tell the people what they were looking at, exaggerating their virtues more than not. Within two hours, he sold four boys, including the twelve years old kid who looked scared when he left the cart. Around sunset, the slaver sold Chase and Blake together to a man who pretended to see them naked before he put the money in the slaver's hand. He wanted them because he needed his female slaves to breed, as he put it, and he needed both beautiful and healthy males.

There were fourteen of them when the sun came down and the slaver stopped extolling their characteristics because there was no one to extoll them to anymore. He made them get down from the stage so his men could dismantle it and they could be on the road again in a couple of hours.

That was when she arrived.

They hadn't see many women actually buying slaves. The ones that had come were accompanied by their husbands or brothers, and it had been always the man the one who actually made the purchase. But she was different, let alone slightly drunk. She dressed more freely than the other women he had seen in the market, with her golden hair uncovered and wild. She was surrounded by a group of men who seemed as drunk as she was and after looking at their group, she called the slaver. “Man, over here,” she called, chuckling and then hiccuping a little bit, which led her to chuckle some more.

The slaver bowed to her quickly and asked her what he could do for her.

“My friend is getting married and we need a wedding gift for him,” she said, nodding to herself and pacing in front of the slaves line. “We want a boy.”

The slavers quickly showed one or two of the older ones, probably hoping to get rid of them since she was drunk; but she shook her head. “No, no, these ones are too mature. We need something younger. And prettier,” she said and then swayed on her heels towards the boy. “Like this one. How old is he? Thirteen?”

The slaver seemed upset as she touched the boy's hair and shoulders, assaying him. He told her he was actually older than he seemed and that, due to his particular look, he was also very expensive. She didn't seem to mind and when he told her the price, she just reached inside her purse and paid. “He will have to do,” she said.

The slaver took the money and then unchained him from the others, giving her the other end of the chain so she could drag him around like a dog on a leash, but she didn't. She gave him to one of the man to hold and, aside from chuckling hysterically every now and then, nobody did anything strange.

They walked a lot, though.

When they finally reached the house where he was going to serve, it was early night and the group was a bit more drunk after stopping to all the bars along the way. “You will like him,” the woman said to him, smiling. Suddenly she didn't seem too drunk anymore. “He can be strict and a general douchebag, but he is a good man. He will treat you right, unlike a lot of people in this city. You have been lucky.”

The boy was in no way reassured but she didn't need an answer from him or any sign he was even listening for that matter, because she immediately turned to her friends and started laughing again. They gave him to one of the servants of the house with a note for her master in which the woman explained he was a gift for the incoming wedding. The servant nodded, led him to a room and left him there, handcuffed as he was, locking him inside.

As he waited to meet his master, he looked outside the window at the bright full moon. Somewhere, his fathers were setting the camp for the night. One was probably singing and cooking for the whole company while the other helped the actors parking their carts. He wondered where they were and if they were still happy as he remembered them to be. But he smiled because the future seemed more bright now that he had finally stopped traveling and he could start thinking how to meet with them again.
There were no bars at the window and his world seemed endless again.