Runaway-Peren "cargo" / the lash tattoo
Who the slavers are actually selling, and the mark that tells you who is doing the selling
The slavers taken in the ruins at Haudh-Gwenn gave up how the trade works (S1E07). The captives are largely Peren, and largely runaways. They left Dhel owners and were taken again by people paid to take them, because an owner pays well to have an escaped Peren returned. Recapture is as much the business as sale is, and cargo is the trade’s own word for the people it moves.
The mark is a single lash inked on the forearm. It is not worn by everyone who drives a wagon or keeps a cage; it belongs to the leadership. Under the Ten Lashes, nine lieutenants carried one lash apiece beneath a captain who carried nine of them in a single tattoo, and the mark was re-inked whenever a seat changed hands. Idir despises the trade and has never stopped it running here. The lash sits on a forearm, under a sleeve, and it turned up on a guard captain as readily as on a man working a ruin.