“Don’t drop it,” I advised Nico. “I think they might take it badly if you lost it.”
Nico sighed. “I have actually managed to use a tool without losing it, every once in a while.”
“Yes, all right.” Just not all that often, I thought, but I didn’t say it out loud. There was no point in fighting.
I rolled up my trousers and took off my boots. There was a flat-bottomed barge, but apparently that was meant only for the reeds we cut. The workers just had to get their feet wet. Feet, and ankles, and thighs. As for the trousers, I might have saved myself the trouble. They were soon soaked anyway. The lake bottom was so slick and slimy that it felt almost like walking on the back of some living creature. And there was life of a sort, I supposed, what with all the bristle worms and other crawlies. Black mud seeped up between my toes, and I tried not to think of leeches and other bloodsuckers.
It was hard work. Very soon, the small of my back ached uncomfortably, and my hands and arms got sore, too. At first, the water had felt nearly warm, but it sapped the heat from my feet and lower legs all the same, so they became chilled and bloodless. And then there were all the irritating little bugs that buzzed and swarmed and stung and bit at you.
It was probably worse for Nico. I had helped with the harvest often enough back home in Birches, and except for the fact that we were wading in water up to our knees, this was not so different. Nico didn’t even know how to hold a sickle at first. Of course this made him slower than the rest of us, and it didn’t take long before one of the uniformed overseers noticed.
“Move along, you lazy dog,” he yelled. “What’s your number, grayling? Yes, you. What’s your number?”
Nico had to think for a moment. “It’s 8-E-11.”
“I have you down!” The overseer waved a slate. “Don’t think you can put one over on me. This is the only warning you get: you don’t work, you don’t eat.”
“What does he mean?” I asked one of the other workers.
“If they don’t like the way you work, they put you on half-rations at supper,” he said. “And that’s hardly enough to keep a man alive.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. We needed a chance to regain our strength, not a starvation diet.
“Can’t you work a little faster?” I whispered to Nico.
“I’m trying,” he muttered. “I’m trying.”
And he was. He was doing the best he could, without complaint. But his best still wasn’t very fast. Finally the overseer rode his horse into the water and crowded Nico so hard that he could barely straighten without banging his head into a dripping muzzle. The man kept up a storm of abuse directed at Nico, almost as if he wanted him to answer back. Nico didn’t. He set his jaw and kept working, bending and cutting, bending and cutting, without saying a word. And if Nico could keep his mouth shut, then so could I, I supposed. But it was not easy. And while I heard that vicious bastard going on and on about Nico’s incompetence, laziness, and general clumsiness, I couldn’t help thinking of all the times I had nagged at him. The words I had used may have been less coarse, but then they probably stung all the more because they came from me, and not some stranger.
They kept us at it until the sun hung huge and orange, practically touching the rooftops. Fair enough that we should work for the room and board the city gave us, but it seemed to me they piled on the labor with a fairly heavy hand. And when we handed back our sickles to the overseers, I noticed that Nico’s had large reddish brown stains on the handle.
“Show me your hands,” I said.
He just shook his head. “There’s no point.”
“Nico!”
“What would you do about it? Wash them in rosewater and wrap them in silk? I’ll get calluses soon enough. I’ll have to, won’t I?”
At supper there were only half-rations for 8-E-11. I sneaked a few spoonfuls of my lentils onto his plate.
“I don’t want any favors!” whispered Nico furiously and tried to give them back.
“Nico, please. Just shut up and eat.”
Our room was almost full—only two bunks were still unoccupied. Ten men in such a small space made for a pretty muggy atmosphere. I opened the shutters in the hope of catching a few mouthfuls of breathable air now and then.
“The mosquitos will be up from the lake, then,” said 8-E-6.
“Do you want me to close them again?”
“No,” he said. “Can’t hardly breathe then, can you?”
I took off my shirt and climbed onto my bunk. There wasn’t room to sit upright. It was a shelf for sleeping on and no more.
I had succeeded in having a quick word with Mama after supper. She had graciously been allowed to sit with Melli because Melli had a fever, but Rose and Dina had beaten flax all afternoon and were just as work-weary as Nico and me.
I closed my eyes and promised myself that we wouldn’t stay here. Not a day longer than we had to. As soon as Melli was a little better, the Foundation could kiss us good-bye.
DAVIN
The Black Men
“Anyone here know how to use a hammer and saw?”
Nico nudged me. “You do.”
I hesitated. “I’m not sure it’s such a good idea to volunteer for anything around here.” And if I did, that would leave Nico alone in the reeds. The thought worried me.
“Whatever it is, it can’t be any worse than cutting reeds. Go on, do it!” He practically shoved me forward, and the person who was asking, a small man with a slate in his hand, caught sight of me.
“Number?”
“Eight-E-10.”
“And you have experience with carpentry?”
“Yes.” Some, anyway.
“Right, then. Report to Mesire Aurelius in Silver Street. Seems they want a bigger coach shed.” He gave me a flat wooden token with the double dragon of the Draconis Foundation on one side. On the other, there was a hollow filled with wax. “Give Mesire the token. When he is satisfied with your work, he will set his seal in the wax, and you will bring it back here.”
I turned the token over in my hand a few times. Where was Silver Street? Well, I supposed I could ask directions along the way.
“Good luck,” said Nico. “See you tonight.”
“Yes,” I said slowly. He would need the luck more than me, I thought, and hoped he would get through the day without slicing off his thumb or getting into a fight with that malicious overseer.
As I walked through the streets of Sagisloc, I noticed quite a few people who wore the Foundation’s gray clothing just as I did. Mostly, they seemed to be doing chores like sweeping horse dung off the street, or carrying sacks or boxes, or scrubbing the stone steps in front of the houses. Once I even saw a small cart drawn by two graylings, harnessed almost as if they were horses. From the cart a velvet-clad citizen waved amiably at other velvet-clad citizens along the way. He didn’t wave to me. As a matter of fact, he seemed to look right through me—I might as well have been a ghost. But then, I hadn’t paid much heed to the gray forms on my first day here. Silk and silver buttons were more apt to catch the eye.
“Excuse me,” I asked a woman holding a little boy by the hand. “How do I find—”
She continued past me, and when the child turned and wanted to stop, she hauled him along and scolded him, as if he had been about to sit down in the dirt.
She was either very rude or in a tearing hurry, I decided. Or both. Well, there were other people in the street. Like the two elderly gentlemen chatting on the next corner. I stopped, waiting for them to pause in their conversation, but they didn’t seem to notice me. They were deeply engaged in a talk about the price of linen in various places in the country.
“If one can get a caravan safely through to Campana, one may demand a very decent price, I have heard. As much as ten marks the yard.” One of the men waved his silver-headed cane for effect. The other nodded, fumbling for his purse.
“Excuse me,” I said. “But—”
“Yes, all right, then,” said the man w
ith the purse. “Here is a penny. Run along now. I thought the whole idea was that you shouldn’t beg anymore.”
He threw me a copper penny. Reflexively, I caught it. Then I felt the heat rising in my cheeks and knew that my face had gone lobster red.
“I don’t want your penny,” I said angrily and flung it at his feet. That ended any more talk of linen prices. But even though I walked off as quickly as I could, I still heard their offended remarks.
“The cheek of the boy!” said one. “So a penny isn’t good enough!”
“And when you consider that nobody has to beg anymore, now that we have the Foundation,” said the other. “But I expect there will always be a few hopeless cases. No pride, I suppose. No shame or ordinary decency.”
I wasn’t about to make the same mistake a third time. I found a man dressed in the same kind of gray shirt I wore and asked him for directions. And he told me how to get to Silver Street, to the house of Mesire Aurelius.
It was a stone house, with a shiny black door and a knocker shaped like a lion’s head. It was so gleamy bright I hardly dared touch it—I was beginning to understand, at last, that my gray shirt made me one of the lowest in this city. But I had been told to come here, so I knocked.
A grayling girl opened the door.
“What do you want?” she asked. “Mesire is out, and we haven’t ordered anything.”
I showed her the token. “Something about the coach shed?” I said.
“Oh, that. Go round the back and I’ll let you into the kitchen.”
She shut the door in my face, apparently not expecting any reply. I walked along the front of the house until I came to a gateway leading into a closed courtyard at the back.
“Down here,” called the girl.
The kitchen was in the basement, but even there the windows had glass panes in them, and quite a lot of light came in from the yard.
“You’ll have to wait until Mesire comes back,” said the girl. “He can tell you what needs to be done. Would you like a cup of tea? And a bit of bread? There are some leftovers from Medama’s breakfast tray.”
“Thank you.” A far cry from the reeds, this.
“My name is Ines,” she said. “Who are you?”
“Davin.”
“New here, aren’t you?”
“Why do you think that?”
“Haven’t seen you around the Foundation.” Her brown eyes were watching me curiously.
“We came here the day before yesterday,” I said.
“Well, then. Haven’t quite got used to it, then, have you?”
“I’m not going to get used to it,” I said, surprised at how much anger I felt at the mention of the Foundation. “We’ll only be here a few days.”
“That’s what they all say. But take it from me, my friend. That shirt is easy to put on—but getting rid of it again is another matter.”
“How long have you had yours?”
“Four years.”
“Four years?” I couldn’t imagine how anybody—I mean, just sleeping on that miserable wooden shelf. For four years?
She shrugged. “What can you do? Not a lot. Did they show you your debtor’s board yet?”
“My what?”
“Didn’t think so. You see, at the Foundation, nothing is free.”
“So I’ve noticed. I’ve worked in the reeds for nearly two days!”
“Yes, and your labor is duly noted on one side of the line. On the other is the sum you owe them for food and housing and baths and clothing. And that is a little more. Not a lot. Just enough so that you probably won’t be able to pay them the difference.”
“But I worked my tail off. We harvested barge after barge of those miserable reeds. They have to be worth more than a bunk and a few bowlfuls of barley soup.”
“The Foundation decides the price of things. Both your labor and the barley soup.”
“They didn’t tell us that when we arrived!”
“Course not. They’re not stupid, see? They’re always smiley-kind-and-nice to the newcomers. At first.”
“But—but that’s not fair!”
“Welcome to Sagisloc.”
“But what if you leave?”
“That’s called theft,” she said. “If they catch you, it’s the Sagisburg for you.”
“The what?”
“You really are new, aren’t you?” She looked as if she could hardly imagine anyone not having heard of the Sagisburg. “That’s where—”
She got no further. A door slammed, and feet came clattering down the stairs at a stumbling run. Long before the girl child actually entered the kitchen, we could hear her crying, in the loud tones of someone who feels she has been wronged.
“He hit me. Ines, the man hit me!”
Velvet bows in blond curls, red velvet dress with a white lace collar and silver buttons on the shoulders. Oh yes, this was very much an upstairs child.
“There, there,” said Ines. “Show me—where?”
The girl held out her hands. There was a red mark across one palm.
“He hit me with his ruler. I hate him!” Tears poured down her angry red cheeks.
A gray-haired man in a black robe came down the stairs at a far more dignified pace.
“I must ask the little miss to return to the schoolroom immediately!” he said. “She has barely begun her exercises.”
“No, I won’t,” yelled the little miss. “You are a stupid old man, and you smell bad. I hate you!”
There actually was a none too pleasant smell about him—somehow both sweetish and decaying, like rotten hay. But he probably didn’t relish being told so by a girl no older than Melli. He practically gulped with indignation.
“Really!” He spun and meant to storm out of the kitchen, but he couldn’t. The doorway was blocked now by a woman wearing a velvet dress matching the girl’s, only in a more adult version.
“Master Rubens,” she said, “do tell me what the problem is.”
“I resign,” he snarled. “Immediately! And then we shall see if Medama can find anyone to teach the little monster. I very much doubt it!”
“Oh, no,” moaned the lady of the house. “What has she done now?”
“The impertinence of the child! Defiant. Willful. Unheard of!”
“He hit me,” said the willful child in question, holding out her palm.
“Oh, no. Master Rubens, I hardly think hitting Mira is going to—”
“Medama intends to lecture me on method, now?”
“No. No, of course not….”
“The child is unteachable. Rebellious. There is a proclivity in her—yes, I will say it plainly—a flaw in her character. Where one ought to find natural womanly obedience, there is only rebellion and savagery.”
Natural womanly obedience? He had obviously never met Melli. Or Dina. Or Mama.
“She misses her brother.” Medama Aurelius was pleading now. “I’ll speak to her. Strongly. And tomorrow everything will be much improved.”
“Possibly—but without my services. I hereby advance my resignation.” He bowed to the child’s mother in a measured fashion and strode up the kitchen stairs.
“Oh, no,” said Medama for the third time. “Please, Master Rubens, you mustn’t do that. We can—I’m sure my husband is willing to raise your fee.”
But Master Rubens was not about to stop.
“It is not about money,” he spat. “It is about the proper respect!” And he walked through the door and slammed it behind him.
For a moment, the woman stood looking up the stairs, as if she was half expecting him to come back. Then she collapsed onto one of the kitchen benches, weeping helplessly.
“Oh, Mira,” she said, hugging the child, “what have you done?”
“But, he hit me, Mama,” said the girl uncertainly. “Mama, please don’t cry.”
I couldn’t understand the mother’s helpless tears. Personally, I wouldn’t have gone out of my way to keep the services of the good Master Rubens.
; “I told you, Mira-love,” she murmured into her daughter’s hair. “You have to be good and try to learn. Or they’ll take you away from me.”
That had the child crying again, hiccupping loudly. “But I don’t want to, Mama. I don’t want to go away with the black men.”
“Oh, my sweet love.”
“What black men?” I asked.
The mother seemed to notice me for the first time. “Who are you?”
“My name is Davin.” Damned if I would introduce myself as 8-E-10. “I’m here for the coach shed. Who are the black men that Mira is afraid of?”
For a moment she seemed to consider whether it was really suitable to share such personal troubles with a lowly grayling. But I think she was too miserable to keep silent.
“They call it the Law of Rightful Education,” she said bitterly. “But I think they should call it wrongful education instead. All citizens’ children have to attend an annual test of their knowledge and skills. If they do not pass it, then—then they are sent away for schooling.” She clung to the child as if she could already feel Mira slipping away from her. “They’ve taken Markus. I couldn’t bear to lose Mira as well.”
An idea stirred somewhere inside my head.
“How long is it before Mira has to take her test?” I asked.
New tears ran down her mother’s cheeks. “A week,” she said, so choked the words were barely audible. “Oh, Mira, why couldn’t you be nice and behave?”
I took a deep breath. “My cousin is an excellent teacher…,” I began.
It was no easy task to convince her that a grayling might be able to help her child. She had probably never considered that there might be people at the Foundation who could actually read and write, and if she had been able to think of any other way out, she would never have accepted. But in the end we agreed that I should fetch Nico right away. Whatever else, I thought, it would at least get him out of the reeds for a while.
Ines saw me to the door.
“You have a way with you,” she said admiringly. “This cousin of yours, does he really know about such things?”
The Serpent Gift Page 12