by Juliet Sem
Hours later, in the dead of night, she awoke when the wagon stopped moving. She was gently urged to follow the man into a house, where she was shown to a small straw mattress near a fire. Her clothing had dried during the trip, and she eased her leather shoes off her feet, curled up with her rough blankets, and warmed by the heat from the fire, gratefully went back to sleep.
She woke early the next day to the sound of a woman's voice and opened her eyes to electric lighting. She looked up to see a stocky woman with light brown hair and light blue eyes leaning over her.
"Sorry to wake you," the woman said in fluent Unity when she saw Keestu looking at her. "But it's time to make breakfast. Are you hungry, Union woman?"
Keestu found to her surprise that she was. "Yes. And the name is, um, Rue."
"Umrue?"
"Sorry, just Rue," Keestu said. She had considered giving her real name, but on the off chance Rue was still alive, Keestu didn't want to break her cover, and if Rue was dead, then Keestu didn't want to break hers.
"I'm Anthan," the woman informed her. "You're outside of Outskirts, about ten kilometers away from Palace City. My man, Dex, brought you here last night by wagon on the back trails. Said you'd been attacked by the nobles."
"Yes, and I don't know why," Keestu said, wincing as she rose from the straw mattress. Her jaw ached, and she put her hand up to it, suddenly remembering the noble who had struck her in the back with his stun staff had also hit her in the face with it. She realized it had actually been a glancing blow; a direct hit probably would have broken her jaw. Her right shin throbbed, and her left shoulder ached, though she'd slept on her right side, and the small of her back hurt as well. She threw off the blankets with difficulty, looked down and saw that she had bits of straw stuck to her hair, the fabric of her pants was torn, her right leg was scraped and bruised where she'd collided with a boulder in the river, and she surmised that her, face, shoulder, and lower back looked no better.
"The privy is in there. Do you know how to work an earth toilet?"
"I'm sorry, no."
"You use the big bucket with the seat, put used paper in, then use one or two scoops of the material from the smaller bucket to cover."
Anthan ladled hot water into a basin, adding some cold water before checking its temperature. "Here's water to wash when you're done. Pour it into the dispenser above the sink before you use the commode."
Keestu went to the privy room, which while cold was more sophisticated than it sounded. A hollow log with a natural bend in it extended from the back of the bucket used as the stool and went out through the wall, taking with it any smell. There was a sink made of polished wood with one small basin over another and another wood pipe that exited through the wall. Keestu poured the water into the basin at the top of the sink, used the privy, scooped some decaying leaf matter into the bucket, and then pushed on a lever with her elbow so the water dribbled slowly from the top basin into the sink, giving Keestu ample time to wash her hands. She dried herself with a clean hand-woven towel that hung against the wall.
When she came back out, Anthan was at the fire, pulling a kettle to her with a metal hook. She took a metal dipper and scooped out some hot water, which she poured into a ceramic mug. She handed the steaming mug to Keestu, who inhaled the pungent scent that wafted from it.
"Drink it, Rue. It's herbal pain powder dissolved in hot water. The plant grows here on Vulo and is better than that chemical mix the nobles use."
Keestu sniffed the mug again, tasted it and found it a little sour, but she sipped the hot concoction as she watched Anthan work.
Anthan was slicing yeast bread into thick portions. She pulled a metal rack from the hearth, dropped the bread slices into it, placing it next to the fire to toast.
Keestu examined Anthan's home with interest. It was a small but neat earthen house with walls made of packed dirt mixed with straw, which had hardened as it dried to a brick like consistency that was then painted over with whitewash. Above her, Keestu saw a wood-beam ceiling supporting the second floor of this humble abode.
Anthan used another ladle to stir a pot of porridge, and then deftly used a metal hook to pick up and turn the rack of toasting bread. She sang contentedly to herself in Phaet as she went to the wall and got down a jar and scooped a different powdered substance into several more mugs.
When that was done, she went to a ladder and called something up it in Phaet. Noises from the level above indicated that the other occupants of the house were awake, and soon enough, Dex and two young boys climbed one after the other down the ladder. The boys immediately took a basin of hot water and went to the privy room together, while Dex looked Keestu over.
"You look awful," he said, shaking his head.
Anthan gave her mate a sharp look and clucked her tongue at him emphatically.
Keestu realized there were no mirrors in this home. She felt the back of her hair, which had come undone in the river. It was a tangled mass, and she had lost her headdress in the river.
Unphased, Dex continued, "Jaw is purple and swollen, and shoulders are hunched. You look like it was terrible fight."
"Most of the damage was done by rocks in the river." Keestu noted that his Unity wasn't nearly as fluent as that of his wife.
"Still, you got away from them. Not many do."
Anthan had filled his mug, and he went to a low table and pulled up a stool made from a stump of wood with a cushion tied to the top.
The boys came back from the privy, smiling shyly at Keestu.
"Orta," they said in greeting to Keestu before taking their mugs to their places at the table. Keestu smiled back. She knew enough Phaet that it was the equivalent of 'morning' and returned the greeting.
"I've picked up a few words of your language while visiting Phaet," she explained to Anthan who was looking at her in surprise.
Anthan waved Keestu to the table, and she took the stool offered while Anthan filled her mug with the same herbal drink she'd made the others. She returned to the fire and brought the toast, which was smeared with herbed clarified fat, then the pot of porridge that was also herbed but not sweetened.
While the meal was quite simple, it was very hearty, and Keestu was soon full, though there was no food left over.
"Must tell others you here," Dex explained after the boys were sent out to do their morning chores. "Only ones I trust. Others we tell you cousin come to visit while fetching tithe for us this month."
"Tithe?"
"Our monthly tithe has to be taken into town. When you return to town, we thinking you could deliver it for us. Save us two day walking, one there, one back, give you cover go into town same time."
Keestu was at a loss. Now that she felt rested and safe for the time being, she had not thought what she was to do next.
"Can I get off the planet from Palace City?"
"No, you need go Spaceport City, two day walk other direction."
Anthan interrupted. "She can deliver our tithe to Spaceport City instead. Covers both us and her, since there is a tithing station there."
"But how do I pay to get transported off planet? I need to get back to Phaet at the least, or Autocracy Station at the best." Keestu's mind raced, now that she was considering her options, and she realized if she could get to Phaet, she could reveal herself to the guards at the Autocrats' palace or walk to the Purvol estate from the spaceport. She was certain either would be more than happy to summon the Jewel to come get her.
"Is your tithe ready to go? I can start today?"
"No, today is too soon," Anthan said. "We don't spend more time away from home than we have to during harvest time. Tomorrow would be better, since it's a longer trip to Spaceport City, and then you'll meet up with others going that direction, and be less likely to be stopped."
Keestu nodded. This was making sense. So she'd have cover for getting to Spaceport City, then she groaned as the thought occurred to her, "How will I pay for passage, and would they let someone dressed like this board a ship?
" She pointed to her torn and dirty clothing, picking at several more pieces of straw she found stuck to her in demonstration.
Anthan frowned, taking Dex aside and murmuring to him a while in Phaet. It was too fast for Keestu to follow, but she didn't reach for her cuff to check if it still worked since she didn't want to upset her only allies.
Dex looked over at Keestu, considering, then nodded at Anthan, who went up the ladder. Keestu heard some rustling, then a flat fabric wrapped package dropped down to Dex, who brought it to Keestu.
"I noble," he admitted quietly, thumping his chest with one hand. "I meet Anthan, love her, attach her. This against Vulo law, but not enforced long time, only ever since..." he broke off, changing what he was saying. "I keep clothes though gone Dunne. This also against Vulo law. However, you stranger. Dress Vulo noble, not be harm if caught. You 'not know' who rescue you, give you clothes. Vulo not trace. These get you to spaceport and off planet."
"How do I pay?"
"We barter. Know patch fungus grow, very rare, very desirable for medical on way Spaceport City. You pick, you give at spaceport, no problem leave Vulo."
"But if it's that rare, why give it to me?"
"Have what need. Every year pick some when need, leave plenty to grow more. I woodsman, more likely find it than others. This year, you need. Fernuin cruel ruler. Hope he thumped good at Tourney, maybe learn respect others."
Dex unwrapped the package, revealing the gold with royal blue stripe satin clothing of a lesser noble. Keestu nodded, suddenly appreciating the generic look of it. She was not likely to be questioned, and if caught, she could say she found the clothing, or stole it from someone's laundry line. She touched her jaw, and then grinned though it was painful.
"Bet I look like I got thumped good in challenge," she explained to Dex and Anthan, who laughed in surprised agreement.
"I go now, tell who needs know you here. Women come, help get you ready go, re-size clothes, get tithe ready early for us."
He went to Anthan, touched her cheek with great affection, then picked up an axe and left through a heavy wood door that creaked as he swung it open and shut.
Anthan handed Keestu a brush for her hair, then washed the breakfast dishes as Keestu carefully pulled out the worst of the tangles. She found most of her hairpins hadn't fallen out, and set those carefully aside as she worked along with bits of straw she came across. When she was done, she realized her hair was standing out in a halo from her head. It was naturally curly, and having had it in a bun and braid only accentuated the curls. She decided that when she got to Spaceport City, she would pull all her hair back into a braid, as the more active noble women with long hair did to keep their visual fields clear.
Now that the plan was set, Keestu found herself restless. She wanted to start for the spaceport today, but knowing it would endanger Dex and Anthan, she resigned herself to waiting.
A few minutes later, there was a soft knock on the door.
"Ako non," Anthan called out, and four women carrying baskets entered, chattering quietly. They stopped when they saw Keestu and bowed their heads shyly.
"This is Rue, Union noble," Anthan said in Unity. "We are helping her escape Prató Fernuin. She needs to go to Spaceport City, and this is why our tithe needs to be ready early. She needs noble clothes to get on a ship, so these need resizing." She handed the clothes to one woman.
Anthan tossed a scarf to one woman. Keestu saw that it was made of numerous woven squares that had been joined together. "You know what to do with this, sister. We send her to Linson tomorrow." The woman nodded and went to the table to work on embroidering the scarf under the bright electric lights hanging there.
Keestu found herself ushered to the privy, where the woman with the Vuloan clothing bade her undress, sucking her breath in at the sight of Keestu's battered body. Keestu looked down, finding several large blue-black bruises she'd gotten when being washed down the river, and her ankles were still stained brown, making them look dirty. Recovering her composure, the woman had Keestu put the Vuloan noble clothing on, and then set to work, pinning first the sides and arms of the shirt, which Keestu carefully unbuttoned and removed after the pinning was done, and then the pants, which had an adjustable hook and loop waist, and therefore only needed some material removed from the inside seam of the pants and bottom cuffs.
Once that was done, the woman left Keestu to get redressed. When she returned to the living area, Keestu saw the first woman already working on the shirt and had given the pants to another. The fourth was standing at the bottom of the ladder, catching two light but bulky packages that Anthan dropped to her.
Anthan came back downstairs, and the woman who'd measured Keestu spoke to Anthan, who turned to Keestu. "Loodev says you need to wash your feet?"
Keestu shook her head, saying, "My ankles have been stained and will remain stained for another couple of months."
"Hmm, you have some strange customs in the Union," Anthan said, then changed the subject. "We felt these," Anthan said as she unwrapped one of the bundles. Keestu saw a fabric like the one Dinus had traded to her mother for hirot liqueur. Unfelted, though, the individual pieces could be seen through, and they were sewn together visibly at the edges. "This shrinks the fabric. We make hooked pieces and sew them together, and felting it tightens it so the seams blend, and you get geometric fabric that looks woven that way, but isn't hard to make," Anthan explained to a fascinated Keestu.
"I know you've never seen lesser odek fleece before, but have you ever carded any fiber?"
"No, sorry. But I can try."
Anthan showed Keestu to a corner chair, where a large barrel of fluffy clean fiber lay. Next to the chair was a table with a drum carder, the first Keestu had ever seen. "You pull out a handful of fiber so," Anthan demonstrated, "Fluff it open, lay in tray with ends this way, slowly turn crank, brush down, repeat three times, more is too much. Then take old needler and pull up here to separate," she showed Keestu the seam in the carding cloth, "then peel fiber from carder, lay aside. You get a total of four made, tear each in quarters, mix one quarter each, run through again, done with those four. Then start another four. Any questions, ask my sister Maurni at that table." Anthan pointed out her sister to Keestu.
Keestu nodded, pulling out her first handful of lesser odek fiber. It was soft, and on closer examination wasn't all a uniform color. The tips were lighter than the cut ends, and there were other variations in the fleece as well. However, as she carded the soft mass, she noted how the colors blended into a more uniform brown, though here and there interesting flecks of color remained. Looking at a homemade jacket hanging on the wall, she realized that Anthan had probably made it from the fleece up. It humbled her to realize how much effort went into making such a basic necessity as clothing, something she had never thought of while living a life of luxury in her father's palace where she saw large bolts of cloth several times a year and thought nothing of how they came to be.
She realized after an hour that her shoulders were tired. Her left still gave her occasional sharp twinges of pain, but not as much as it had, so Anthan's herbal pain remedy was helping.
She made twelve finished batts before Anthan and her assistant came back in, and the women took a break. Anthan made Keestu drink another mug of pain relieving herb.
Maurni displayed her progress on embroidering the scarf. A line of uniform green stems marched all around the edges, and some pink flowers had been seemingly randomly embroidered on many of the stems, and now Maurni was working on randomly stitching yellow flowers. Anthan studied it intently, and then nodded.
Seeing Keestu's puzzled expression, Anthan explained. "We use this for secret writing. Only pink flowers give message. Then we fill in with other colors at random, as this is a traditional design. Danmal a famous male needler invented this for secret writing when he realized we needed to send messages the nobles can't read. If they don't know it's a message, they don't try and read it. We also use pictograms that come from ancient tradit
ion in some longer messages."
Keestu looked at the scarf with fresh eyes and noted, indeed, that some patterns were repeated in the pink flowers. However, she knew that once other colors were added, it would be much more difficult to discern a pattern to the pink flowers.
"So each flower represents what?"
"A single letter. It's time consuming, and the message can't be that long, but then secret messages never are. We write them in Unity, as my family and I learned it to trade with the Rillul before moving away from Palace City after Fernuin became Prató." Anthan pulled out a sheet of paper and charcoal stick. "I don't write Union, but I can sound out letters for you." She made a quick line of stems and made little bulbs on them to represent where the pink flowers went on each letter, then gave the charcoal stick to Keestu and sounded out the letters one by one. Keestu wrote out the letters using cursive Sandarian, randomly breaking between letters in case they were interrupted while she was learning it. She could then say that she was learning how to embroider different colors for flowers and this was her personal note on how to do it. She went to the privy to wash her hands when she was done so she didn't get any of the charcoal on the fiber she was carding.
"Learn that while you continue carding," Anthan said, "And you can read the message on the scarf."
Their break was over, and the women got back to work. Keestu was interrupted several times by the women adjusting the clothing. Temporary seams were put into the clothes, and the fit was carefully checked before the excess fabric was trimmed and the real sewing began. Maurni continued embroidering, using other pastel colors to fill in the rest of the blossoms on the message scarf.