by E. E. Knight
At the quarry, the pile of limestone had grown, the human chain had been rearranged, they were facing different directions, and new boys stood at the turns. It was like at dance drills: when your muscles were so fatigued you found it impossible to raise your leg again to the front, you switched to the rear.
They broke for lunch. Water wasn’t a difficulty; there was plenty flowing down the mountain and out of the rock walls to the stream down to the Skylake. Some of the apprentices washed themselves before eating. They lined up for Ileth, Quith, and Finila to pass out food. Ileth had to do some quick figuring to work out how to portion the loaves, but Finila was ahead of her. “Half a loaf each, including us and the wingmen—and we’ll have two loaves to spare that way in case of accidents.”
Her calculations proved dead correct.
After the break, the girls had little to do other than run water to the workers. When they weren’t answering calls for water, their dragoneer put them to work pulling out pieces that had interesting coloration and setting those aside, telling them they’d be used at doorway posts and corners. By now the boys were faltering, sprawling on the ground or sitting with head drooped between their knees. Ileth volunteered to take a turn at the passing line and Finila followed her example. The pair wrapped sweat-rags around their palms to save their hands as best as they could.
It was tiring work that made her shoulders ache and her hands burn.
Their dragoneer passed one boy, sitting on a stump next to the creek groaning and massaging his back. It reminded Ileth of Traskeer’s phrase about crying on a stump. The Horse tapped the side of his nose as he pointed at the relay chain. The boy groaned as he got to his feet and rejoined the lot.
The attenuated brick chain could no longer pass from hand to hand. Those remaining walked the short distance to their mates. The Horse, sensing his lot were near the end of their energy, called frequent halts to let people catch their breath and some of those who had fallen out rejoin and others take a break. Several of the boys retied their tunics as loincloths to allow the sweat to flow more freely off their backs, where it traced patterns in the limestone dust. They looked like statues come to life, like in some fable about a sorcerer who could animate stone.
The sun finally touched the western mountains and brought relief. The Horse blew his dragon-whistle and the wingmen yelled at everyone to stop. They sorted out their clothing and picked up the lunch baskets and jugs for the trip back. Some of the boys gallantly offered to carry the girls’ burdens, but Ileth was content to put the empty milk can in the bread basket backpack and shoulder it home. Quith and Finila were only too happy to hand their burdens over and chatted with the boys on the way back. That is, until they approached the gate.
The Horse started a song and his odd lot wearily joined in. His wingmen closed up the back of the file, prodding with their stiff whip-handles rather than cracking them. They passed under the Dragon Gate singing “Our Scarlet Star,” a popular rowing song that most everyone in the Vales had heard from a canal or harbor at one time or another, about a landlord’s beautiful daughter named for the trumpet-shaped national flower. The version the Horse led them in was different from the one Ileth was used to up on the Freesand Coast, though Finila still blushed at even its milder lyrics.
“Horse Lot: eat a good dinner and early bed,” the Horse said with a smile, both naming and dismissing them before the Great Hall. He smiled like a cat in an attic full of mice. “We start again, same time tomorrow.” Groans broke out. Ileth was tired, very tired, but many of the newly named Horse Lot looked shattered.
In the Great Hall, Quith ate her fish and harvest squash mechanically in near silence. “Can’t keep this up. I’ll be the first tossed out.”
“There’s already one out,” Ileth said tiredly. “The boy who wouldn’t sew.”
“Two,” Finila said. “You forget the one who left before he even introduced himself.”
“We’re H-Horse Lot now. Eat like it,” Ileth suggested. Ottavia was always urging her tired dancers to eat more. The girl nodded and showed her shy smile.
Quith had just finished her meal when the wingman Pasfa Sleng walked by. He was in a new flying rig, a short coat cross-stitched and padded in an attractive diamond pattern so it could both be warm and keep with the simpler lines of the uniform tunics coming into fashion.
“Not your fa-favorite these days?” Ileth asked.
“Very much still my favorite,” Quith said, watching him with more appetite than she’d shown for her dinner. “But he’s never noticed me. I’ve tried. All the sad old tricks. Dropping things near him, pretending I can’t make out something in a book, I even cut myself once when he was on kitchen and I was washing up.”
“You didn’t.” Ileth had heard a few tricks for attracting attention, but cutting yourself was dipping your toe in a pool of madness.
“I did. He helped me bandage it and then had me sit and fold towels. Didn’t even ask me about it when we were done for the day.”
“Don’t—hurt yourself again.”
“I’ve learned a worthwhile lesson from it, as the Matron would say. Maybe I’m fooling myself, being here. I’m from a canaler’s family. Barges pulled by horses, you know. There were two when I was little, and one of the two wasn’t worth talking about, running about Sammerdam and above. Now there’s eight, which is the same number of brothers I have. And three sisters, me the middle. Father used to joke with his brother, who handled the horses back then, that kids were cheaper than crew. Now I’m not so sure he was joking. My sisters are pretty enough, Giath, the older, she’s already married with a baby, and Loith will be married soon as she’s sixteen or she gets her family started pleasure-before-rites, as they say on the barges.”
Dinner must have restored Quith somewhat, as she went on:
“I wanted all that, but I’m too plain.”
“Quith!”
“Oh, Ileth, you don’t have to pretend, we’ve known each other long enough to laugh at polite lies.”
“We’ve had a hard day. We shouldn’t be thinking about anything but where to soak our feet.”
Quith ignored her advice. “I used to cut out the wedding announcements from Accounts and Notices and pin them up next to my bed. Quite a few Names first met here, you know. I came here because I’d read that there were ten boys for every girl. I suppose it’s true, but I’m cooped up all the time with our minority and the Matron prowling around to make sure no one is slipping in through the windows. It’s a strange set of boys. Half of them don’t deign to notice you and the other half run like rabbits when you say ‘good morning.’ My mother told me the odds would be good, but she forgot to warn me the goods would act so odd.”
“Isn’t it better to be the aunt who flies around on a dragon? Your nieces and nephews won’t give you a mo-moment’s peace when you visit.”
Quith smiled. “C’mon, they don’t make our kind dragoneers.”
Ileth didn’t want to argue with Quith. Quith would probably mention a dozen names of girls of “their kind” who whiled out their apprenticeships, never having done anything of importance, and ended up cleaning in some inn or sewing overdresses.
Ileth walked with Quith back to the Manor. “Please let there not be a lecture tonight,” Quith asked the fall stars as she said good night.
“You have to wash that tunic we made today. Nap in the laundry. I used to do it.”
“Ugh. I’m already dreading tomorrow,” Quith said. “I’d put my purse on us losing at least one tomorrow morning, unable to rise.”
“I’m not counting on-on-on anything other than you b-being there. It’s easier with a friend.”
Quith’s mouth flicked up. They hugged and parted.
The Dancers’ Quarter and bed had never seemed so far away. When Ileth finally arrived, sore-legged and with an aching back, Ottavia rose from a cushion where she’d been reading with relief that ma
de Ileth think her bed was even farther away.
“Ileth, I was beginning to worry. You’ve had a long day.”
She just nodded in reply.
“Could you do me a very great favor and see to Cunescious? He’s had a bad landing by the up end and tore up a foot on a bottle some fool left by the roadside. He wants someone to take his mind off the pain. Santeel danced while he was being stitched up, and she’s worn out.”
Ileth nodded dumbly and moved off to wash up in their little room at the end of their alley and rinse out her new work tunic. Quith had her worried; usually when she talked, she was lively, discussing connections forming and withering among the little collections of friends in the Serpentine. She never talked of herself, not deeply. Cutting herself to get Wingman Sleng’s attention . . .
She checked Preen’s tea-warmer, desperately needing tea, and just her luck, it was empty. Preen must have had a busy day as well. She could build it up again with a little charcoal and started to do so.
Santeel met her coming out of their tap-room. Santeel was drying her hair, looking bright and alert.
“Ileth, you’re filthy as a canal dredger. What have they been doing with you?”
“Limestone quarry. The Master of Horse is a great believer in fatigues.”
“I’ve heard the Master of Horse cultivated physical culture to an extreme,” Santeel said, testing the dust on Ileth’s overdress and looking at her fingers with a frown. “Overdoing it on the first day to shake out the weaklings, no doubt. He did the same thing at the trials while you were outside on the step. Do you want me to boil you a couple of eggs to have before you turn in?”
Santeel’s spirits lifted Ileth’s.
“I’m to dance for Cunescious.” She tried to match Santeel’s cheery tone and make it sound like she was looking forward to it.
“I was just with him. A cool rinse did me wonders. You’re right about cold water being salubrious.”
Ileth smiled wanly. Santeel was in one of her cheery moods. “Tell you what, Ileth, let me go in your place so you can soak your clothes and sleep.”
“No, Ottavia was specific—”
“I’ll speak to our Charge. I sat all day listening to the physiker talk about how to cut open muscle to extract barbs, or trying to make wing from tail out of that old dragon anatomy book I’ve come to hate, so I’m fresh as the wind off the White Spine. You can do me a favor in return. Write Falth one of your snoop-letters and explain that I’ve been much in society both in the Serpentine and Vyenn and feeling the shortcomings of my wardrobe. I need at least two new dresses for the winter and a dress uniform. My parents must send me more money!”
True enough, Santeel had been looking shabby of late. Ileth knew that Santeel kept a close eye on the calendar for when her quarterly allowance would be available to draw against, but had always been under the impression she had enough money for whatever the shops in Vyenn could provide. She used to complain about the poor selection and laugh off the prices; Vyenn wasn’t Sammerdam or Asposis, after all.
“I thought you . . . thought you hated me for writing—”
Santeel touched her playfully on the nose. “Nonsense! After I thought a bit I realized it was just the sort of device my parents would employ. Falth was probably told to keep a lookout for a girl my age. How are they paying you for it? I never see your name over at the accounts.”
“They’re not. They just . . . just send me postage-paid paper I can fold into an envelope.”
“I thought you northern types drove harder bargains than that. Well, cut-rate or no, I’d still appreciate a letter appealing on behalf of their daughter who looks a shambles in her old clothes. I’m sixteen now, practically a wingman, they should have given me a whopping great increase in allowance, don’t you think?”
The intensity crackled off her. Ileth gave in, after a halfhearted request that she might need Santeel to fill in again until the Horse left off trying to kill them to shake out the weaklings.
“Eat pumpkin seeds, dear,” Santeel said, having quickly climbed back into a dance sheath and covering towel, as she hurried off to explain that she’d cover Ileth with Cunescious. “Best thing for sore muscles and they’re easy to find this time of year. Ottavia often has them squirreled about in those jars where she keeps her nuts. I won’t tell.”
* * *
—
Both parties of the compact were true to their word. Santeel and her boundless reserves of energy danced for Ileth those first few evenings while she rested her tortured body, and Ileth wrote a long letter to Falth about the shortcomings in Santeel’s wardrobe.
Everything in Ileth’s history made her want to dislike Santeel: nobly named birth, pampered upbringing, all the rough spots smoothed and polished, and anything she wanted given at the snap of her perfectly filed fingers. But she was generous with lending or giving away clothing—not just worn castoffs, either; Ileth’s best dancing sheath was from Santeel. And she was so artful about it: Ileth, I’m about to put this in the rag basket, unless you could use it . . .
She never held her Name over the other dancers, even though she was one of the best; her technique in all respects was better than Ileth’s and her knowledge of music added emotion to her performance that even the dragons were able to appreciate. When she was doing her washing, she always went about to ask if anyone had anything that needed to go into the tub.
But if you irritated her, she could be terrifying. Even Shatha obliged her by taking care to examine the floor for her dropped wig pins morning and night. Preen used extra tea leaves when Santeel joined them so it was just as she liked it. Woe to the dancer who wanted to make porridge on their little stove when Santeel had an appetite for eggs, onions, and potatoes. And she never let Ileth forget that her hair could pass for a boy’s.
Ileth’s days, on the other callused hand, grew only a little easier as her muscles adapted to the toil. Her legs were fine, but how her shoulders and arms hurt! The Horse put his lot to carrying the mountain of quarried stones down to the Serpentine (Ileth now knew why so many of the buildings had such fine limestone exteriors). He insisted on having meal breaks all the way up at the quarry, so Ileth, Quith, and Finila had to haul food and milk up the mountain twice a day so they could be fed midmorning and again at midday. They jogged about with canteens, bringing water to the boys taking the rocks down to the Serpentine.
There were fewer boys falling out in the afternoon, but the pace still slowed and Ileth joined in carrying stones so they could finish and get back to the Serpentine to be first for dinner. It caused agony to her fingers and forearms.
Quith and Finila had it worse, as they hadn’t been at Ottavia’s drills and fatigues. Sorting stone gave them horrors about the state of their hands. Every time Quith or Finila sat down, determined to quit and ask for a job sweeping in the halls or pushing a feeding cart for the dragons, Ileth got them up again:
Don’t give him the satisfaction.
The boys are just as tired as you.
It’s just another test. You know how they like to test us.
It occurred to Ileth that she might be prolonging the torture by keeping Quith and Finila in the lot. Perhaps the Horse drove them relentlessly until he lost a third or a half or whatever his goal might be in sniffing out weakness with those dragonish nostrils of his.
At last, after six days and a morning’s work, their allotment of limestone was safely in the Serpentine and ready for the dairy’s walls. Strangely, the Horse brought them back up the mountain and had them sit in the flat circle of dust where the piles had been. His wingmen were mysteriously absent.
“You’ve worked well this week,” the Horse said, his usual cheery smile a bit wider now. “I saw some gutting out and filling in—thank you, girls, you went above and beyond in carrying rock—and you did what was on paper eight days’ work in six. I work my lot hard. Hard work can’t always be rewarde
d, but my lots are fairer than most.”
He led the lot farther up the mountain on a little trail on the other side of the cut, with Ileth just behind him. She was able to observe his wide calf muscles at work as they climbed, sometimes on all fours, up above the cut to the source of the water trickling into the quarry. Nobody complained about the difficult path. They weren’t carrying rocks.
They arrived at a sheltered notch in the mountainside with more limestone falls all about three mountain pools, surrounded by ferns happy in the moisture. The air felt wet and misty here thanks to the splash. The wingmen met them there. They’d been busy filling their tin cups from a tapped cask of beer stuck in the crotch of a tree.
“Real Tyrenna grain beer, not Vyenn ale,” the Horse said, showing off the cask and baskets. “Fresh bread knots lye-boiled from Vyenn, heavily salted, and figs. You’ve been hauling rock, you should have figs.”
Everyone knew the story that the first trade in the Vales was in dried figs brought up to the miners in the mountains, who missed the sweet treats from their homeland. The fig tree was emblazoned on the Republic’s small coin.
The Horse bent and swirled his hand in the water. “Sadly, it’s not a hot spring. But comfortable.”
Ileth experimentally touched the water. He was right, it couldn’t be called hot, but it wasn’t cold either. A tepid spring. The water had the same vaguely metallic taste as the stream flowing out of the cut whose taste Ileth had come to know so well during the work.
“So this is the cut pool,” Quith said.
“Tourists from Vyenn sometimes find it worth the climb,” the Horse said. His wingmen busied themselves pouring.
The Horse lifted a rope with a length of tenting and divided off the smallest of the three pools from the other two. “So my young ladies can enjoy themselves in privacy, keeping modesty—and other virtues—intact.”