“Stop it,” she said, intending to sound forceful, but the words came out weak and uncertain. “Really,” she added, but he was pushing down on her chest, and squeezing, hard. Crying out in pain, she tried to twist away, and then his bulk came down on top of her, crushing her air away. Fear raced her blood. He wasn’t going to stop!
Desperately Sayri searched with her hands for something to hit him with, not to hurt him, but just to stun him so she could run. All she found was straw. She grabbed a handful and tried to stuff it in his face, but his hand came down on her wrist, pulling it away and twisting, and she involuntarily arched her back away from him. Then his mouth was on her breast. How was she bare? He bit on her nipple, and she cried out in pain.
That made him pause; for a moment she thought he might give up. He looked up towards the closed barn door, his hand slipping over her mouth. Her head turned and her eyes drew up towards the door as well; in the distance she could hear her father’s voice roaring in laughter, and her brothers as well, less confident but happy. A sprinter yelped again, somewhere beyond the barn’s walls, perhaps in the field, it’s voice echoing across the valley, and a sheep bleated. Though the door remained closed, it seemed about to open, her brother or father about to burst through in a rage, throwing the reeve off her and pummelling him until he cried, and begged to be forgiven, and cringed rather than ever look upon directly her again.
The reeve’s mouth replaced his hand; it smelled sour from wine and tasted salty from the roast. She tried to turn away in revulsion, but his fist had become tangled in her hair, pulling it tightly up from both her temples, the pain holding her fast. He was ripping at her breeches, and bruising her thighs as he hammered them aside despite her resisting, and then she felt a terrible piercing as he broke into her, and she was torn open.
Sayri tried to think of something else. She stopped fighting, and went limp. Maybe he’d lose interest? Mother always cried out and said things to father, things that he obviously liked, because even from her sleeping room across the hall, she could hear his playful growling and laughing replies. If she didn’t do that, the reeve wouldn’t like her, and he’d stop?
The reeve was perspiring now, his slick, hairy chest sliding back and forth across her breasts, his enormous belly pressing heavily upon her, as though he would envelop her in his fatty, sweaty, bulk. He was grunting; no, was he moaning? He sounded distressed, air retching in and out of him in coughing gasps. Was he going to die? A terror seized Sayri, her eyes wide and her throat tight. What if he died on top of her? If she couldn’t get him off and was trapped under him, stripped bare, her legs spread, speared by him, for who knew how long until her father finally burst in and found her there? What would her parents think?
Then suddenly, after a final, breathy squeak, he sighed, and it was over. The reeve stood up, buckled his breeches, smiled sickly at her, and said, “Fine girl.” He sat back at the table, taking up his cup, poured more wine into it, and drank deeply before slumping to his elbows on the tabletop. “A feisty, you. I think . . . little darlin’, my visits here are t’ be a mite more interestin’ ahead . . . Aye,” he said, nodding to himself and raising his cup, then slurping at it as if toasting the idea, “a full lot more interesting.”
Sayri’s mind went flat.
She stood up, picked up her breeches and pulled them on, neatly tying the belt. Pulling her shirt closed, she buttoned and smoothed it down, walked over to the tool wall, and took a shearing knife down with both hands, then gripped it firmly in her right. She walked slowly over to where the reeve sat half turned from her, smiling into his wine. As she approached, he glanced up, saw the knife in her hand, and spit wine in amusement, opening his mouth to say something, yellow-brown teeth glittering with saliva. She put the knife in his neck. Father had shown her how, when a sheep became too old or sick, or when it was a harsh winter and they needed the meat, you could do it quickly so the sheep didn’t scream. She didn’t pet the reeve on the head first, like you would a sheep to show compassion, but once the knife was in, she turned it so it wouldn’t stick, then held it with both hands and pulled it out the front. She felt the windpipe tearing and muscles letting go. The skin stretched a bit, but it wasn’t tougher than a goose’s skin at Midwinter Feast, once it was well baked, and the knife came free, all red and shiny, and the reeve didn’t make a sound. He just fell forward on the table, and his blood mixed with the spilled wine, and she couldn’t tell the difference.
2 SAYRI
Poking its head above the hole’s opening, a fuzzy lapizar sniffed at the strange white grass surrounding the lip of its burrow. The lapizar had never seen such grass, so it took a long moment to examine its odd scent, and to see if there was any sign of danger. None appeared, and the early autumn morning remained quiet. A few quick muzzle twitches, and the lapizar climbed out onto the dirt pile it had recently kicked out of its burrow, intending to find high ground and sing for a mate.
Sayri tightened the noose with a quick jerk, and the lapizar was snared around the neck. She came up over the hill’s edge and seized it by the back of its diamond-shaped head as it thrashed helplessly in her trap, drove her knife up under the corner of the jaw, and twisted. The lapizar went limp. She removed her noose from its fatal encirclement around the lizard’s neck, then sat down and began to skin it, the short, bristly feathers coming off easily under her blade, followed by the thick reptilian skin.
Lapizar wasn’t particularly good eating, but they were very common on the plateaus above the Lower Valley, and easy to catch with a bit of knowledge of their habits. Sayri had spent enough time watching them in her wanderings that she had needed little time to devise an effective snare—there was probably a type of trap that would snare the creature automatically as it emerged from its den, but she hadn’t figured that out yet. An extended pre-dawn wait alongside each little creature’s den had become a daily ritual. She didn’t mind, though; it had given her time to consider her next move, and to make mental preparations.
As she deftly peeled the fat lizard’s thick skin away, sliding her thumbs into its belly to extract the entrails, she ran over the sequence of events in her mind again, as she had done already a hundred times, starting from that . . . moment . . . in the barn.
There had been no rescue, no bursting open of the barn door by her father and brothers, no pulling up and beating down of the reeve before he could—
Don’t think about that.
Just as she did now, Sayri had taken care of things herself then. The weapon had been cleaned. The cup and jug had been picked up. The reeve . . . she had left him there, because she didn’t know what to do with the dead man, and couldn’t have lifted him in any case. She had taken the dishes into the house, cleaned them at the sink and then, when her father asked if the reeve was properly settled in to his cot in the barn, she had told him that he was dead.
The matter-of-factness of the words had surprised even her, and when her father had laughed she had felt her face begin to flush, and a pressure came out behind her eyes, and she began to shake. She heard the cup hit the stone tiles with a metallic ring and the jug exploded, splashing the remnants of warm red wine all over her bare feet. It looked like blood. Sayri heard a strangled whining sound, and when her hands were on the stone floor and her face was pressed against the wine-soaked tile, she realized it had been her.
She didn’t remember anything else about that night. Somehow she was cleaned up, and she was taken to sleep, and Ma was holding her and singing quietly. Somehow, she had slept.
The lizard was clean, and Sayri left the skin and walked back to her campsite a few hundred yards away. She took the snare with her; it could be used again, so long as she cleaned it well so that other lapizars couldn’t scent the one she had killed. The creatures were extremely fearful of others of their own species, far as she could tell, and would hide in their burrows for days if they smelled the slightest hint of another lapizar. It had taken her a number of hungry days, with meager survival on roots and berri
es, puzzling over the lapizars and their refusal to emerge, until she had come to the conclusion that the scent of the first dead lapizar was lingering on her clothing and gear. A thorough cleanup after each daily meal solved that problem, and she had eaten well since.
The lizard skewered and beginning to brown over her tiny fire, she pondered again. Two days after the reeve was buried in the field, there had been discussion with her parents about what to do next. Sayri had wondered, in those two days, if the whole thing might just be forgotten. Her brothers had been very kind to her, even Bress, who had brought her some sweetroot from the village square. But especially Markel, who was waiting on the front porch when she rose each day with tears in his eyes and his jaw clenched. When he saw her his grimace quickly changed to a warm smile, and he was ready to embrace her.
Sayri told them all that the reeve had attacked her, and she had killed him. Her father had asked her directly if he had soiled her, and she had said no, that she killed him before he could. Her parents had accepted that, her father shaking his head and sighing, and wondering aloud why he’d not been fortunate enough to hear the ruckus, and intervene before it became violent. But that had been that, her story accepted, and her family all began the discussion amongst themselves of what do next. All except Markel who, though he smiled at Sayri when he brushed her hair and tucked her into her blankets at night, if she glanced back just before he walked from her bedside, she saw the anguish on his face and was certain of it. He knew.
“We tell the villagers as he died in an accident; I go Lord Perrile and explain of his death in the teeth of a boxcat,” Davoy had said the third morning, over a bowl of steaming barleymeal. “But the lord, he will not take it as such. He should want to know sure, in my estimation, and so he would call in the Collectors, and they visit the town, and likewise visit our farm. And then,” he had finished sadly, “they should know it all.”
“Surely the truth would be enough,” Sayri’s mother had said, placing her hand over her husband’s. “She is but fifteen summers, a child. They would believe the truth, I’m sure of it, Davoy.”
“Does not matter,” her father had answered. “The laws are to keep the order of things, and the peace. Sayri did kill a lordsman. Law is the law.” He had sighed, looking over to where his daughter sat, hands in her lap with palms up, eyes plaintive. His eyes had been full of defeat.
The law was the law. The Collectors would find the truth; they always did, no matter how well you tried to hide it away in the back of your mind. Sayri had killed a lordsman; in her last days she would be beaten by dozens of warders and ravaged, just like the reeve had done, before she was left to die of thirst naked, on a chain in the centre of the village square, for all to witness her guilt.
Sayri winced as she imagined it, though it had never come close to passing. There was only one thing for it, her parents had concluded; become a runaway. Sayri had the skills to survive in the wild. If she could make it safely over the plateau, beyond the town of Red Rock and the Sunset Cliffs to the coastal free city of Benn’s Harbour, she could be safe. Lower Valley law, like that of all feudal settlements, was clear in that runaways could only be pursued for a year and a day. Benn’s Harbour was a free city; if she made it there, she could hide out for a year in the city, then return safely home, as a free citizen. Of course Lord Perrile’s warders could seek her out in the city, but among the many thousands living there she could easily hide. In all likelihood the lord would give up the chase after a few tendays, and he probably wouldn’t even send his warders to the city to search, since it would be like finding a fetchgrass nut in a freshly seeded field. Certainly he would not send Collectors to the city to investigate, the act of which would anger the city folk, and possibly end in violence. A lord had power in the towns and villages of his land, but in the city even he had best be wary of who he offended. No, Sayri would be safe enough in the city, if she could make it there.
Her mother had cried, of course, and her father and Bress frowned as they held their own tears, but hardest part had been getting away from Markel. He didn’t cry—and Sayri knew why; he would never let her go alone. Her parents knew it too, so they had planned for her to secretly leave a day early when he was in the village, running errands with Bress. Sayri hadn’t imagined that to stop him, and it didn’t; she had hidden in the ravines beyond her family’s field for hours while Markel charged past her, no doubt having left with their father’s shouting at his back, then returned later in defeat. She had clearly seen his forlorn face as he passed her hiding place in the tall rushes along the path. Sayri had wanted to leap out, surprising him with laughter and an embrace. She had wanted to take him along, to travel together as an intrepid team, taking on all dangers on the trail and challenges in the city, then returning home in triumph. But if the lordsmen found out he had left, he would be assumed to be helping her. Being a runaway was punishable with a whipping, but aiding one was considered rebellion in Lord’s Law—and punishable by death. So she had followed him sadly with only her eyes, and let him pass without a sound.
Sayri polished off the meaty parts of the lapizar, then left its oversized hind legs, responsible for its odd hopping gate, to smoke in the popping embers of the fire. She wasn’t particularly hungry any more, but wasting meat was not an option. The mid morning sun becoming hot, she left the fire to do its cooking and made her way down to the stream she had camped near, to clean up and cool off before continuing her trek westward.
・
The town of Red Rock, so named for the iron-rich outcroppings bursting from the plateau north of the city, was a bustling industrial centre. From one of the many deep ravines a few thousand paces north of town, Sayri could clearly hear the ring of hammers on anvil, the rush of gravel down collection chutes, and the rattling of chains as workers tugged on massive pulleys to drag mammoth metal bins full of ore. Beyond, in the city centre, the buzz of hundreds of voices from the town square, no doubt full of vendors and customers, laborers and warders, and, of course, lords and ladies in the resplendent rainbow of fashions Sayri had heard so much of, yet never witnessed. From the curling trails of smoke no doubt rising from chimneys of homes and inns alike, she could smell a mouthwatering medley of local delicacies in the air. She debated slipping past the mine and into the town square, to sip spiced wine from a wallhorn and devour juicy Talarmi meat sticks, sweet cockleseed squares, tender roasted lapizar nuggets . . . well, she’d had enough lapizar for a year, in any case. And the rest, well, it would have to wait. The lordsmen would surely have alerted the local warders of her story, as well as her description and possible whereabouts.
No, it wouldn’t do to enter the town. Sayri stayed low, keeping her body below the ridge of the ravine, and studied the landscape to the west. It was completely flat, had been most of the plateau since she came up out of the Lower Valley, with little cover and no trees to speak of. The miners, it seemed, had made best use of the local deposits and worked the ravines extensively, giving little concern to the forest in their way. The landscape was dotted with dried-out stumps and desiccated trunks discarded haphazardly across the arid sandy soil. Very few places to hide; if the warders were watching for her, they would certainly spot her stealing across this terrain. Especially considering how slowed her pace would be, crawling in and out of each ravine as she made her way across. Perhaps travel at night would be wiser, but the way was also treacherous; she would like as not end up falling into a crack and breaking her neck.
Shading her eyes from the noonday sun, Sayri studied the ravines. Could they be connected?
She slid back down the sandy slope to the bottom of the crevice and started walking. The ground was relatively flat, and the sides of the ravine a mix of hard rock and dried-up mud, no doubt compressed by years of successive spring runoff and drought. Here and there, a heavy wooden timber crossed overhead with a mighty post supporting its centre, pressed into boulders on either side to prevent the ravine from collapsing. The miners had dug down into the ground a few fat
homs, then continued across, taking what rock was easily accessible from directly above. An ingenious and time-saving method of mining, Sayri imagined, though only viable due to the enormous amount of iron right here near the surface. In most mining settlements, the workers had to spend tendays deep under ground, dreaming of the sun, scrabbling about like blind earthrats with no more than candlelight to seek their quarry, which was often more precious metals such as aurum, argent, and cinnabar. She did not envy them their trade; many would die down there, never seeing the light again. She had heard stories from her father’s friends down at the Lower Valley tavern, of men who lost their minds deep in the tunnels of a mine, forgetting about the sun and surface entirely, and choosing to remain there until they died pasty and shrivelled with eyes turning pink in the darkness, so that they came to resemble earthrats themselves.
Still, with the sun directly above her, the ravine was hot enough that she quickly began to perspire, and she realized that the miners who worked these trenches would face other hardships. Surely dehydration felled many a man here on a hot summer day, and the mines were not known for having healers on call. Likely, many of those men had left their sun-bleached bones down here; she couldn’t help but peer about for them, but none were in view.
Sayri came to a fork in the ravine and continued west, or at least her closest estimation of west with the sun directly overhead. The ravine’s floor remained flat, but she couldn’t see far ahead with all the twists and turns, and sharp rocks jutting out from both sides often several steps into her path. The dirt was still reddish here; clearly the miners had concerned themselves only with the ore they could extract quickly and easily, and followed it as they dug. The resulting path was far from convenient to a traveler, but if Sayri couldn’t see out or ahead, then no one could see her. Still, her fingers played at the handle of her belt knife. It was small protection for a traveler alone; Sayri wished she had something larger, like the machete her father used to clear weeds around the gate in spring.
Sayri's Whisper: The Great Link Book 1 Page 3