by Ila Mercer
He’d had dreams about rat infested holds, and roaches shivering up shackled legs. Of villages burning to the ground, of young ones shrieking as men bagged and tied their legs together with twine. In one dream, an old she-Beast lay dead on the ground, her crimson stain bleeding into the earth. And, because dreams do not adhere to rules of reason, Yaron was one moment a Beast, and then the next the bounty hunter. He had woken once, in the early hours, filled with dread, uncertain where he was. It was only when he heard the soft whistle of Senna Worrel’s somnolent breath that he remembered. Yaron had poured himself a tall glass of gin, allowing it to erase the shameful images from his mind. After that his sleep had been hollow and dull.
Now, all he felt was a sense of restlessness. What could he do, here and now, about anything? Besides, his Keep was not guilty of keeping slaves and he could not stop everyone else. His father had tried this and failed. The problem was too great for one person or even one Keep to tackle alone. Then he wondered what Wright would do if he were Senna of a Keep. Once again, Yaron swelled with the memory of Captain Wright’s approval. But the memory of approval was short lived, for he also remembered the anger in his uncle’s words. ‘You’ll ruin our chances, if you keep this up. I’m going to have to work hard to convince the Sia of your suitability as a suitor after that little performance last night,’ he’d snarled.
Secretly Yaron had been pleased, he could not imagine a life with Deidee or Dodo. His uncle would have to set his sights on some other County’s daughter.
He remembered then that Senna Worrel had been invited to ride through Fallengrove County with the two merchants, Senna Globbet and Sia Fallengrove. His uncle had told him not to come, possibly afraid that Yaron might shoot off with his mouth again. ‘Say nothing, do nothing, until I return,’ his uncle had warned. ‘And then we will talk about your next move.’
After dining alone in his room on preserved fruits, pickled hog and groundnuts, then gazing out the window at the comings and goings of the Keep’s folk for a while, Yaron became restive. He decided that a visit to Fallengrove’s library might still fall within the directive of doing nothing. He threw on his coat and set off down the hall.
When he entered the room, it was dark, for the curtains were drawn. But unlike the silence of his bedchamber, the tone within the library was like a pause - as though someone held their breath. Gently, Yaron closed the door. ‘Hello?’ he called. ‘Is someone there?’
‘Oh, it’s you,’ a feminine voice answered.
Yaron’s eyes acclimatised and he saw Fraya sitting in a chair by the curtains. With a flick of the wrist she tugged at the fabric until a slither of light fell into the room.
‘Why aren’t you out riding with the others?’ he asked.
‘I prefer to read,’ she replied.
‘In the dark?’
‘I heard footsteps, so I closed the curtain. Thought it might be Dodo or Deidee, coming to find me again.’
‘And you’d rather not be found?’
‘Well, would you?’ Fraya said with a sly smile.
Yaron was not about to rise to her bait. Instead he asked, ‘What are you reading?’
‘This? Just a silly romance. There’s nothing of interest on these shelves. It seems Brother Lodorus has removed anything that might be remotely tantalising.’ She cocked her head to one side. ‘You were rather outspoken last night?’
‘And will pay for it,’ he replied, feeling a flush of heat race from his chest to his throat.
‘I thought it was brave. But maybe stupid in your case,’ Fraya said. ‘My husband thinks Senna Worrel has his sights set on an alliance. But you’re unlikely to impress Sia Fallengrove if you appear to have any sympathy for Beasts.’
‘You sound like my uncle.’
She shrugged and put her book back on the shelf. ‘Would you like to come with me? There’s something you should probably see, before you decide whether you want to impress the lovely daughters of Fallengrove.’
‘My uncle told me to stay put,’ Yaron replied.
‘And you do everything your uncle tells you.’
Yaron snorted once. ‘Where is it you want to take me?’
‘Don’t worry, it’s in the Keep. We won’t be going far.’ Fraya swept past him into the hall.
She took his forearm and led him through a maze of corridors. At first he knew where they were going but before long she entered another wing through a narrow arch. She halted occasionally and then resumed. Down a stone stairway she led him, into air that was dank, cloying and dark. At the last doorway she turned to him. ‘I overheard you asking Deidee how they managed such a large harvest with so few folk, last night. She pretended she knew nothing about it. You won’t be so impressed once you know how they reap their grain and harvest their apples.
‘The answer to your question is on the other side. But we must be quiet so as not to gain the attention of the guards. When we go through, there will be a small amount of light from the torches and when your eyes have adjusted, I’ll lead you to the edge. From there we will be able to look down into the carding pits.’
Carding pits? His heart beat a little faster, for finally he had an inkling of what she was about to show him.
They turned the handle and slid through the doorway. He leaned against the cold stone until his eyes became accustomed to the faintest candlelight. Here where light was not to be wasted on those who performed acts so mundane that fingers alone could see by touch.
Stewed air filled his nostrils. It had passed through many bodies, on its way absorbing the pungency of armpits, sheep dags and unwashed wool.
Fraya had already shuffled forward, her body pressed against the stones, her hands grasping a rail as she peered over the edge. She beckoned and Yaron drew alongside of her, hanging his chin over the lip of the wall.
Below them fifty or so women sat crossed-legged, hunched over their own laps as they brushed tufts of wool between wooden paddles with iron teeth. Scritch - scritch. It was like an orchestra of iron fiddles playing a scraping harmonic. For a moment, there was a lull as the women paused to roll fresh tufts onto the paddles that lay balanced on their knees. With fingers softened by lanolin they smoothed the wool between the teeth of a paddle and, once it was even, drew the left paddle across the right like a bow. Their movements were graceful and synchronous, even if the resultant sound was not.
Their eyes were sunken by weariness and each bore the sign of the cross on her left cheek.
‘They’re not Beasts, are they?’ he whispered.
Fraya motioned towards two guards, whose eyes dipped drowsily. ‘If anyone should be named a Beast it is those two. Yesterday I saw them beat one of them because she had fallen asleep when she was supposed to be working.’ She turned to Yaron. ‘Sia Fallengrove is making them work day and night because she wants to send the carded wool back to Yawmouth with the merchants.’
‘I thought nobody kept Beasts at their Keep anymore.’
‘It is not encouraged. But that is not the point. They should never have been taken from their homes just so that they could be used up to satisfy another’s desire.’
He sensed that she was talking about more than the Beasts. ‘Of course, I agree with you. I didn’t expect to see Beasts here. That’s all I meant.’
A guard lifted his eyes and peered in their direction. Fraya and Yaron pulled away from the edge and shuffled back to the wall.
‘We should go,’ Yaron said.
Back in the library, Fraya took up her challenge again. ‘Are you still impressed by Fallengrove’s industry? During the summer she worked them from dawn til dusk in the fields. Hooded too, to preserve the myth about their beastliness. It must have been stifling under all that cloth. And, whenever they were marched through the village, she made them tie rabbit pelts to their hands and feet to make others believe they were furred.’
Yaron shook his head. He had not been in the presence of a Beast in years, had forgotten in fact just how similar they were to his own kin. He wondered
why they did not overcome the guards. Surely, they could, when there were fifty of them and only two guards. Or had they become so resigned to their new lives that they ceased dreaming of anything different?
‘They were docile,’ he said.
‘I hope you don’t mean content. You know, of course, the guards carry whips and pikes. And did you see how they were too afraid to look at each other?’
‘I noticed the way they moved. In time, almost like music.’ Though he agreed with her, her righteous manner irritated him, as though she were attacking him when it was not even his doing.
Fraya narrowed her eyes. ‘It’s the only way they can speak to each other. Like a code.’ She leapt from her seat and began pacing the room. ‘You know they have been carding since dawn. Perhaps you have never had to card wool, but I will tell you that the back of their throats and their eyes will be itching by now. Their legs and backs will be aching with cramp. Not to mention a thirst that would drive others insane. Most will have drunk nothing since dawn. They don’t dare, because a Beast who asks to stop her work in order to urinate might very well be whipped. So as you can imagine their mouths will be parched, and their bellies tight with hunger – because they are not allowed to eat while they work.
‘I plan to buy them from Sia Fallengrove. Senna Globbet has already agreed and will make an offer. In my Keep I will make them my sisters. They will all have proper beds and only have to work the same as anyone else.’
‘Like pets,’ Yaron said. Perversely he found he wanted to bait her even though he agreed with everything she said.
‘How else am I to help them?’
‘Free them?’ As he said it, it seemed right. Simple even. Why not? They could hide amongst the trees in the forest by day and use their Beastly guise by night. He imaged them as a flock of geese, flying over the hills in formation. It seemed so ridiculously easy. He supposed it must happen all the time.
‘What, so that they can be hunted down and made into slaves at some other Keep?’
‘No, I mean return to where they were captured.’
‘Don’t you know anything? They can never return. It is too far.’
‘Why did you show me this?’
‘So, you would know the truth,’ Fraya answered. ‘After what you said last night, I thought you would want to know. And anyway, I overheard your uncle speaking to Sia Fallengrove. She would have him believe that Fallengrove’s wealth comes from cleverness and the hard work of her vassals. Your Keep has a reputation – and she is hedging her bets.’
Yaron nodded. ‘But what does she get out of it?’
Fraya laughed. There was a cynical note in her humour. ‘You are a young Senna of marriageable age. She has two daughters who are plain and a brother who speaks out against the trade. You’ll have little competition. And, if you can keep your mouth shut for long enough, I’m sure you could make a fine deal.’
It was one thing to have voiced this in jest to his uncle a week before, but to hear it from a new acquaintance meant that it rang true in some small way. Did others see him as a thing to be bought or sold just like a Beast?
‘What will you do if Sia Fallengrove refuses to sell her she-Beasts?’ Yaron asked.
‘She won’t.’
‘Why sell them to you when she needs them here? Besides, even if she agreed to sell them it wouldn’t stop her from buying more to replace them.’
Fraya grew pensive. ‘I can’t help that.’
‘It doesn’t change anything.’
‘It will for the ones I manage to save. It will make all the difference to them. But then again, I would not expect someone from the Downs to understand. Despite your words, you have not made any difference to one Beast’s life.’
But it wasn’t true, Yaron thought. Many years before, his Keep had made a great difference to one Beast’s fortunes – but not in a good way. ‘You know the moment your coin hits her pocket she will buy more. And it will probably suit her well. The Beasts in her pits are half-dead from overwork. But you will give her the means to buy fresh she-Beasts and they will be able to work twice as hard and twice as long as they do now.’ Fraya bit her bottom lip, and he could see that she hated him for saying what was obvious. ‘If it were me,’ he said, ‘I would give them their freedom.’
*
That evening Fallengrove’s courtyard resounded with the dull clatter of horseshoes, hunters chatter, and the whimper of dogs as they strained at their leathers. A dozen lamps cast a wan yellow light across the yard, illuminating wisps of steam that rose from piles of pungent manure. They waited for Sia Fallengrove’s daughters. Having worn elaborate costumes to dinner, they were now changing into more suitable atire.
Senna Globbet had a heavy crossbow slung across his back and the merchants had smaller, lighter versions. Yaron wondered if they even knew how to use them. He and his uncle both had long bows. Their weapons required more skill than the crossbow but had a longer range and were faster.
Yaron felt excited. It wasn’t that he wanted to kill the stag, he told himself. But there was something about a hunt that made one feel more alive than usual. Particularly a night hunt. It would require far greater skill than a day hunt, and he hoped to show off his accuracy with the bow. Under the tutelage of the Jims he had developed a deadly accuracy.
His feet stirred in the stirrups, and his fingers longed to slap the riding crop against his horse’s withers. A curtain lifted in a room high above them and a face peered down. He could not see her features clearly, but he knew it was Fraya. She disapproved of course and had begged him to stay behind with her. Throughout dinner she’d been cagey and excited, and he guessed that she had gone ahead and bought her Beasts.
He thought of them now, toiling away in the Keep’s lower pits. Guilt threatened to spoil his good mood. But what could he do? Nothing he might say to Sia Fallengrove would alter things. If her own brother was unable to change her mind, what chance had he? Naturally he had told Senna Worrel when he returned from his tour of the County. But his uncle told him to ‘grow up,’ and lose his ‘foolish idealisms.’
‘I’ll not be a party to it.’ Yaron had replied. ‘When I rule the Keep, we’ll have nothing to do with the trade.’
‘Too late,’ his uncle replied. ‘How do you think the Downs made its riches in your Great Grandfather’s day? Granted we’re not as wealthy as Fallengrove now. But not so long ago, we were. And all the things you enjoy – your position at the Keep, your horses, the lands we own, are in some way a result of Beasts. Did you know that your Great Grandfather only owned a small holding near Yawmouth and then he ventured into trade? By the time he was twenty-five he was the richest merchant in Dracodia. The Downs at that time was a ruin but he married its Sia and brought the Keep and its lands back to health.’
‘I didn’t know. Why has nobody told me this before?’
His uncle shrugged. ‘Nobody celebrates their humble beginnings.’
‘There’s no shame in being poor.’
‘There is no glory in it either,’ his uncle replied.
This discussion had left Yaron feeling unsettled and threatened to spoil his good mood again. But what was he to do? Was it possible to change the actions of an entire empire? Was it even worth trying? After all, Wright’s speech the night before seemed to have had no impact on the others. So what was the point? All day these thoughts had circled through his head and now he felt weary of them. Why couldn’t he just be glad that he was born a Senna, and thankful that he had dodged a harsher fate assigned to so many others? Did it mean he had in some sense deserved the destiny he was given? Preordained before his birth. Or was it blind luck? And if so, what responsibility did he owe other living creatures? It was a problem too hard to solve. And the worst part was he did not know what he could do. It left him feeling edgy. Why could life not be simple and happy, he thought. Somehow it seemed unfair that he should bear the moral legacy of other folk’s actions.
In a loud braying voice Senna Globbet said to no one in particular, �
�This reminds me of the time we hunted an old stag in the King’s estate. It took great cunning to outwit that beast. Five hunts he alluded us, dodging our dogs with the speed of a sparrowhawk, tail a-wag as if he were thumbing his nose, tempting the hunt further and further into the wood until we had to abandon our chase for fear of losing our way home.’ He shook his head solemnly and then continued. ‘His antlers branched from his head like an old willow – they were so thick with age. It was said that when he was in the mood for rutting his call lured does from as far away as the great lakes. I have his head on the wall of my study.’
‘Indeed?’ Senna Worrel said.
It was obvious to all that Senna Globbet had been waiting for an opportunity to make his boast.
‘Yes. I wonder if the White Stag will give us as much sport?’ he said.
Sia Fallengrove’s daughters descended from a stairwell. And, as though they had timed their entrance for the most dramatic effect, moonlight burst over the lip of the wall. It softly illuminated their bland faces.
Dodo had a horn tucked under her armpit, and when her mother gave the nod, she pressed it to her lips and blew. The note was like a high-strangled shriek, sending roosted birds from their nests, causing the dogs to whine as they tugged at their leathers, and prickling the hairs at the base of Yaron’s neck. Immediately, all who were assembled became quiet.
‘When the dogs flush the stag from the woods,’ Sia Fallengrove addressed the hunters, ‘we’ll be able to take decent aim. It was sighted last night, on the Eastern Ridge. So that is where we’ll head first. Henley laid a scent trail to the ridge this afternoon, so all we need do is follow the dogs.’
A pair of gamekeepers fumbled with the leathers that held the dogs. There were five in all. The largest was a black brute with a flat face and saggy jowls. White froth lathered his jaws and he shook his head as the gamekeeper slipped the collar from his muscular neck. He lifted his blunt snout into the air and sniffed. With a whimper he turned and sought Sia Fallengrove’s eyes.