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Valencio was frightened. They were not going to be allowed to leave, he knew it. Helene was beginning to worry as well, as reports came in from the women who’d been with clients the previous evening.
Angini: “He was laughing, except that I’m not sure he was really laughing. He said he couldn’t possibly let me go. I was too beautiful.”
Bridget: “Shar-kutsu was very smug. He’s persuaded two sisters to promise to marry him. He said it was better than getting angry because they’d be losing the enclosure services.”
There were more hints, nothing definite.
Helene and Carol spoke to Abensur in the afternoon, who looked worried and finally said, “Keep your heads down as much as you can. And there’d best be no more groups outside the enclosure.” He didn’t reassure, instead saying decisively, “I’ll talk to Fudo, I think. A good thing he’s not one of our clients. If Fudo decided not to let you go, it would be very awkward.”
Carol said, “Valencio appears to have given up eating entirely, and spends most of his time sitting against the fence. And when he’s not sitting against the fence, he’s shaking with nerves.”
Abensur said seriously, “Try very hard to keep him calm tomorrow, if you can. An explosion now might precipitate fighting.”
Helene said, “I’ll put Emma in his group. He tries never to upset Emma. It might help.”
“Hilde, too, would be good. If only he was more trusting, I’d suggest a calming potion.”
“He wouldn’t take it.”
Helene and Carol spoke about it with the Committee, but then the talk switched back to their prospective new home, ‘Loch Carrikh.’ Helene had made the trip with Bellamy that morning, and spoke sometimes shakily. “Mountains, and it’s wild and free, just like Carol said.” She laughed, “Two tall girls in uniform robes, who ran to him, shrieking Dad!”
Carol said, “Valencio wants us all to be armed, just in case there’s a last minute change of mind.”
“What do you think?”
“He gave me something a long time ago, just a shard of glass attached to a thin stick, but it’s very sharp and is a weapon. Freedom’s worth fighting for, I think.”
Freedom was worth fighting for, but now the mood swung back to wild optimism. The Committee Meeting expanded to a full meeting. They had to have some sort of a cover story to explain their presence. They finally decided that close to the truth was best, and would say, if pressed, but not unless pressed, that they’d been in the harem of an Arab Sheik.
Tiffany asked, “Can I say they took me because I won a Miss America contest?”
“Did you?”
Tiffany nodded. “I don’t know what the organizers had to say when I vanished the next day.”
“That was like me,” said Deirdre. “I was Miss Ireland for nearly a whole day.”
Connie said, “They took Bernice, Mary and I from a Catholic Confirmation Service, all in our sweet little white dresses.”
There was a silence then. They all knew what had happened to the little girls in their sweet little white dresses.
Dinner, and the talk alternated, sometimes low voices, hurried, frightened, sometimes hilarity, the laughter overly shrill. Valencio didn’t go to dinner. It was impossible for him to put up any pretence of normality. He wanted to scream, attack the fences, attack the guards, he needed to be free!
Tasha found him and said that he should come to dinner. “The guards have gone and you should hear what they’re saying.” He obeyed and listened to the chatter. But so many were silent, as afraid as he was himself, perhaps.
Clarence cheered him up with a story he’d learned from Bouchra. “Ahjmed. He was too rough with a Kobi-Wynn girl when he was told to get her pregnant, and afterwards she paralyzed him, and she and a slave-girl, one of us, stuck his wand as hard as they could into his bottom. He was found in the morning, still paralyzed, with just an inch of wand poking out.”
Valencio grinned broadly. How utterly appropriate! Thank goodness Ahjmed had never had him.
“What happened to the Kobi girl?”
“She had her baby and disappeared, almost certainly killed, and that baby was Najia’s mother. The slave-girl’s name was Pamela.” No-one asked what had happened to Pamela.
When the noise died down, Carol rose and said, “We have to be very quiet and very cooperative tomorrow. We’re not truly free until we’re out of here. Helene has the lists of groups, and a copy on the notice board. Stay with your group and do exactly what he says.”
Helene added, “We can’t afford to give him the slightest trouble. He’s been working too hard. He might be getting sick, because he seems to be getting the shakes all the time. After tomorrow... It’s a wild place, messy at the moment, and people swarming everywhere trying to get it ready for us. We’ll have to work together, and at the beginning we’ll do exactly what we’re told, but we’ll have our Committee still, and we’ll take over fairly quickly.”
“Is that what Bellamy says?”
“That’s what the Committee says.”
Tasha explained to her husband, who’d been missing a lot of the talk. “Each group has a group leader, who’s supposed to make sure everyone’s organized. Carol thinks that some might even hide.”
“Hide?”
“It’s frightening. I don’t think you understand how frightening it is for most of us.”
Valencio said uncertainly, “I’m frightened, too...”
“Yes, but you’re frightened it won’t happen. I think the older ones are more frightened that it will happen.”
Prudently, all the women in Enclosure 1 had appointments that evening, and even a couple in Enclosure 2 - ‘Just to say goodbye.’ They had to keep the wizards happy, best if they were kept soothed, at least some of them separated from the others, happy enough that they wouldn’t start to plot.
Kamchatsu demanded, and Maliwan went off with him. He was a possible threat, and she made very sure to give him a good time, and then tried suggesting that he take her to his own room and then she could sleep with him all night. But he only said curtly that he was on duty all evening, and less than half an hour later, was participating in some very resentful talk.
It all depended on John Bellamy, who looked ordinary, who wore old jeans, had white in his hair, even when he looked young, and trembled with fatigue. Yet he was a great and powerful wizard, who’d defeated all the powerful Kobis, and was now working very hard to free them. Carol and Helene said that they should put their trust in him.
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A Change of Fortune Page 17