“I’m so sorry, Beau,” Fledge said. “Although sadly I’m not surprised. A messenger arrived this morning with word that the fever has spread to the guards in both the Upper and Lower Middlelands. The gates along the roadway are thinly guarded, there are reports of bandits overtaking carriages and wagons, and people are getting scared. Angry. But now that the rains have ended, the fever should hopefully stop spreading. Go on, tell me the rest.”
Beau shifted nervously.
“I know you told me not to,” Beau began. “I never thought I’d get caught. I was always so careful. But I really want to win a match against you, and so I needed to practice. Don’t hate me, Fledge, please.”
“You know that would never happen. Go on.”
Beau tugged at his shirt collar, hoping to catch a full breath before diving in. “Barger has my verdigris pawn.”
Fledge paled. “You have a Fist set?”
“It was my mother’s. Hers is nearly identical to yours, except her pawn is a lot nicer, no offense.”
“How did you find it?” Fledge pressed. “Where?”
“Well, back before her rooms were sealed up, I was there one day,” Beau began. “I always liked the way it smelled, being surrounded by her things. Anyway, there was this chest in the far back of the wardrobe. It had all these hidden drawers and compartments you could only access by opening other doors and compartments. Like a puzzle. It took me half the day to figure out how to open up all the chambers. I found the Fist set along with some small bottles and jars in the very last one I opened.”
Fledge winced.
“I swear, Fledge, I will never tell them you taught me. Never!”
Fledge rose from his chair and poked at the fire in the hearth. “I know you won’t.”
“What do I say?” Beau asked. “I’ll have to answer for it somehow. I can tell Barger I had no idea what it was, but I’ll have to admit to finding it in Mother’s room.”
“No,” Fledge said, decisively ending the entire discussion before he softened again. “Leave your mother’s memory out of it. I wish you had told me you’d found it.”
“I was waiting until I knew I could win a match. I wanted you to be proud of me. Instead I put you in danger.”
Fledge rested his hands on Beau’s shoulders. “I’m proud of you regardless. And you don’t have to worry about me. I’ll be just fine.”
“There is one more thing. My father tried to test me again. This time, he—” Beau began, but was interrupted by a loud rapping on the door.
A messenger from Himself’s regiment.
“By the Goodness of Himself! The captain of the first regiment has requested additional blankets,” the messenger announced.
Fledge sighed. “I have no more. I’ll go see if there are any left of the lot that were sent from beyond the Islands. Tell him if I find any, I’ll bring them immediately.” Fledge waited for the messenger to leave before heading for the door himself. “Beau, saddle up your new filly and warm her up out in the paddock. I won’t be long.”
Though Beau’s problems still loomed as large as when he’d arrived in the stables, he felt more assured as he watched Fledge walk away. His friend always had that effect on him; but sadly it always wore off as soon as Beau returned to the Manor.
The chestnut filly whinnied something between a greeting and a threat when Beau entered her stall. She’d been a challenge to train, willful and stubborn, but she was slowly getting used to him. Still, she was no replacement for Puzzle, Beau’s favorite horse, who was stolen along with two of Himself’s stallions more than a season ago.
“I suppose I should finally name you,” Beau said. “What should it be? We need something that fits both sides of your personality.”
He started to slip the bridle over the filly’s head, but she shook it off with such force, it went flying out of the stall.
“Or I’ll just call you Mule since you’re so stubborn,” Beau griped as he went to retrieve the bridle.
And that’s when he saw her.
A girl with a long, brown plait running down her back slipped past, heading toward the adjoining corridor. He’d never seen a girl in the stables before, let alone one who looked to be anywhere near his own age.
“Hello!” Beau called.
The girl turned, the confusion on her face a mirror of his own.
“Are you looking for someone?” Beau asked.
“I . . . I’m looking for Master Fledge,” she said, clasping her hands over her apron pocket. “I was told to bring something to him.”
If that was the truth, it wasn’t very convincing. Beau knew a person with a secret when he saw one.
“He’ll be back soon,” he said. “You should wait for him.”
“No.” She turned back down the corridor. “I’ll come back later.”
Beau had so few opportunities to ever talk to anyone his age—or at least anyone who wasn’t the spawn of a pompous, snobbish Topender. He didn’t want her to go.
“Stay,” he insisted. “I’m sure Fledge would want you to wait for him.”
The girl’s look of surprise melted into a kind of skepticism. “And how do you know what Master Fledge would or would not want? I thought a cordwainer’s apprentice’s job was to cobble and repair boots and tack, not keep track of the stable master.”
Beau was about to correct her when he stopped short. If she knew who he was, she’d either try to impress him or flee. Any chance of a normal conversation would be gone.
“I wish!” Beau said. “I mean, I’m still just a junior apprentice.”
“Well, whatever you are, count yourself lucky that at the end of the day you get to leave here.”
“Why do you say that?”
The girl started back down the cobbled corridor. “The cordwainer might be fine with you stopping your work for idle chatter, but I don’t have that luxury.”
“Oh, come on.” Beau laughed, following her. “You’re too young to have to work.”
The girl stopped and turned on Beau. “Is this your first time on the Manor?”
“Uh . . .” Beau had never been a very assured liar.
“I thought as much,” she said. “You should watch your tongue. Your master’s authority means little when you’re here. Don’t you know the Manor can claim anyone and keep them here to work? Even a cordwainer’s junior apprentice.”
“That’s not true.” There was no mention of anything remotely like that, in even the oldest of The Histories.
“It absolutely is. So unless you want to wind up working the peat bogs or in Mastery House, mind yourself while on these premises,” the girl chided.
“Mastery House? What’s that?”
The girl’s expression flickered between disbelief and pity. “You’re jesting, right? Lucky you to be so blissfully ignorant.”
“I am not ignorant!” Beau bristled. “And who are you lucky enough to be?”
“Fourth nursemaid’s assistant,” the girl replied. “Otherwise known as the very bottom of the bottom.”
“A nursemaid? You look too young for that,” Beau replied. “But I meant what’s your name.”
The girl paused before replying, “Cressi.”
“Named for Cressida the Bold?”
“Probably.” Cressi’s upper lip curled in disgust. “Though I’d take Bucket or Chair over Cressi.”
“Why?” Beau asked. “She’s a heroine of the first Battle for the Bottom.”
“Heroine?” Cressi gave a small half laugh. “She was a traitor.”
“She was not!” Beau volleyed back. “‘She led the Manor forces to the cave where the knaves who blighted our fields were hiding.’ She was directly responsible for Palus’s capture.”
Cressi squinted at him as if he’d suddenly gone out of focus. “That’s definitely a jest, right?”
“It’s all there in Volume Four of The Histories. I mean, she did use the old ways when she charmed Will Cutler into giving up their position, but she turned that information over to the M
anor.”
Cressi paled and stepped back, the wall the only thing stopping her from beating a full retreat.
“You’re not the cordwainer’s apprentice, are you?” Her voice, which had been so strong and certain, now came barely above a whisper.
Beau thought about lying, but he was terrible at it.
“Son of a Topender?” Hope raised the end of her question like a prayer.
As Beau shook his head again, all her surety and self-possession dissolved into a blank mask of subservience.
“I’ve made a terrible mistake, sir.” Cressi dropped down into a deep curtsy. “I am at your mercy.”
“Oh no! Don’t do that.” Beau reached out to pull her back to her feet but stopped when she flinched. “I have no mercy to give. Wait, that’s not what I mean. Just . . . please stand up.”
Cressi stood but refused to look at him. She looked the way he always felt when he stood in front of his father—scared to make a wrong move, yet angry enough to combust.
“See, this is why I didn’t tell you who I was. You should just go on as if I truly were the cordwainer’s apprentice. Can’t you just make believe I’m not who I am? It’s easy, I do it all the time,” Beau said, but the girl remained frozen. “All right then, at least tell me what Mastery House is.”
Cressi pulled her shoulders back and fixed her gaze just above Beau’s head.
“Mastery House trains children for work, in accordance with their abilities,” she replied, her voice cold and removed. “Once their training is completed, they’re placed in service either here on the Manor, in Topend, or sometimes in the Middlelands, but that’s only for those who show a talent for one of the finer crafts.”
“So, if you show a talent for, say, silversmithing, you’re placed as an apprentice? Is that it?”
“Apprenticeships are for children of the Lower Middlelands only. Mastery House children are destined for”—she paused to search for the right word—“lowlier work.”
“You mean like fieldwork?”
“Like digging holes, crawling into mines where adults don’t fit, or picking through manure to save seeds.”
A lump settled in Beau’s throat, making it hard to swallow. “I don’t understand, why would their parents allow this?”
“It’s not about what they allow.” The way Cressi was looking at Beau now left him feeling withered and burned. “The wars stripped the people of the Bottom of everything of worth. The only currency left is bartering, theft, and bribery, yet they still have to pay their tax levy.”
“But if they have no money, how do they pay?”
“With the only things they have of worth. They surrender their children.”
“Surrender their children?” Beau repeated. “How can they do that?”
“You’re asking the wrong question,” Cressi said. “I think you mean, how can they not do it when it’s the only acceptable form of payment.”
“Then they should just hide them away!”
“Where? In the woods, in a cave, perhaps up a tree? You can’t hide in the Bottom or anywhere else for that matter. Those who’ve tried have seen their homes burned to the ground, the men jailed, the women sent to work the peat bogs. And worse.”
“I don’t believe you,” Beau said, trying to wave her words away. “This sounds like something the Badem would have done. Who would force families to give up their children?”
Cressi shook her head, her face pinched with disgust. “You.”
Chapter Three
Mastery House
“Me?” The heir’s eyes went wide, and his plump cheeks reddened. “I’d never force anyone to surrender their own children! Just because I was born as . . . well, me, doesn’t mean I have control over anything at all. My father doesn’t listen to me, ever!”
“Well, at least you’d get to keep your tongue if you dared address him,” Cressi replied.
“Barely. You don’t understand, it’s complicated.”
“Complicated?” Cressi repeated. “Is that what it is?”
There was no way the heir, a boy rumored throughout the Land to be exactly like his father, could be this simpleminded. It was all Cressi could do not to throttle him. But she’d already said way too much and risked ending the day with her head on the chopping block. Although if Nate were here and not still in Mastery House, he’d say it was her duty to run the wretch through with a blade. Then he’d try to convince her, yet again, to run away with him so they could join Doone in launching the next great revolution.
But even as Nate believed that Doone was their greatest and only hope, Cressi knew it was nothing more than wishful thinking. They didn’t need a self-professed savior, they needed change—real change—in the Land.
No, she should just go back to her work tending to the sick guards out in the barracks. She’d told Friedan, the head nursemaid, she was just running to refill her pot of salve, but she’d been gone too long now. Friedan would be getting suspicious, and had possibly already sent someone to find her.
And yet . . .
The heir truly seemed to not know all that was being done in his name. This boy, born into power, just might be the Land’s best chance for liberation.
“I’m sure there are facts about your life I know nothing of,” Cressi said, softening her tone. “But you can’t escape the fact that your family, your bloodline, are responsible for so many terrible things. Your own grandfather created the Mastery House Act.”
“You have that wrong,” the heir said. “My family is here to protect the people of the Land. The Battle of the Bottom, the fight for the Lower Middlelands, defeating the Badem and putting an end to the old ways were all good things. Read The Histories. There’s no mention of a Mastery House or surrendering children in payment anywhere.”
Maybe she was giving him more credit than he deserved.
“You mean the histories written by your family? Has it never occurred to you that they only wrote the parts of the story they wanted known and left out the rest?”
“History is history,” Beau protested. “You can’t change it. What you’re saying makes no sense.”
“Nothing makes any sense!” Cressi tried not to snap. “You only think destroying the Badem was a noble cause because that’s what you’ve been told. Yet you don’t even know about Mastery House, so how can you know the truth of anything?”
The heir looked as if he’d been punched in the gut. He stood there silent, his brow furrowing and twitching as if he were trying to translate her words into a language he could understand. Finally he looked up at her. “This Mastery House, can you take me there?”
Cressi knew she should say no. She’d already risked so much by even talking with him. And yet, how could she not?
“If we get caught, it will mean my head,” Cressi warned as she led Beau to the farthest end of the stables.
“Mine too,” he quietly replied as they turned down the fueling hall.
The dimly lit corridor was lined with half-height storage compartments holding wood for the furnace. Each compartment was locked with a heavy padlock, except for the next-to-last one.
Cressi swung the door open, revealing a low tunnel with a small torch fixed in a holder as its only light source.
“After you, sir,” she said.
“Don’t do that,” the heir insisted. “I’m Beau. Call me by my name.”
“I can’t do that.”
“If you call me sir, I won’t answer.”
“Fine.” Cressi bowed her head. “As you wish.”
Beau peered into the open doorway but didn’t step through. “Where does it lead?”
“To the laundry yard.”
“Why are the stables and the laundry yard connected?” he asked. “And why is it so low?”
“The fires under the washing pots are fueled with dried manure,” Cressi explained. “As for the height, sevens aren’t usually much taller.”
“What’s a seven?”
“A seven-year-old.” Did he truly know no
thing? “Hauling fuel is one of their jobs.”
Beau looked confused and horrified.
“If you want to do this, the moment is now,” Cressi warned.
Beau hesitated, then shook it off and gestured for her to lead the way.
Stooped nearly in half, they slowly made their way through the tunnel in silence until another door came into view. Cressi placed the torch in a holder on the wall and, after listening for noises outside, eased the door open.
The laundry yard was empty except for the web of lines hanging thick with drying uniforms.
“Wait here for a moment.” Cressi left Beau to sprint across the yard, where she grabbed a faded gray jerkin off the line before hurrying back to his side. “Put this on, you’ll be less conspicuous.”
But he wasn’t. Even with the ragged vest over his clothes, the heir still looked far too clean and healthy.
Cressi grabbed a handful of dirt. “Here, rub it in your hair, some on your cheeks too.”
“Why?”
Cressi squinted at him. “Look at me. Then look at you. Then ask that question again.”
Beau looked down at himself, tugging at the misshapen jerkin. He almost seemed pleased at first, until finally she saw understanding wash over his face.
“Oh,” he said meekly.
Even after he’d rubbed himself gray with dirt, he still looked far too hearty, but it would have to do.
“We’re going to make a run for the hedgerow,” Cressi explained, pointing to the far end of the yard. “Mastery House is on the other side.”
Beau squinted at the imposing hedge. As thick and tall as three men, the barrier encircled the Manor in a nearly impenetrable wall.
“How do we get through?” he asked. “I don’t see a gate.”
“It’s more of a path.”
“A path through the hedgerow? Impossible. Have you seen the thorns that grow on it? They’re deadly.”
“Seen and felt their sting more times than I can count,” Cressi countered. “Do you want to see Mastery House or not?”
She could easily have told him the passageway had been stripped of thorns—which it was. But then she’d have to admit that she and Nate had been the ones to cut the path so they could sneak away from Mastery House to visit Fledge. Until today, it was the only rule she’d ever broken. Fledge’s counsel and friendship was well worth the risk, as were the fruit and cakes he’d share with them during their visits.
The Verdigris Pawn Page 2