The manager shuffled his feet. “Perhaps a little refreshment first…”
“No, thank you.” The lord took his niece’s elbow. “Let’s get this over with, shall we?”
“Of course.” The manager made a sign to someone within the doors. “I should warn you, though that the, er, the young ladies who work on the main floor are somewhat, erm, rough in their ways, and…”
The lord nodded. “I did tell you, Aude. Perhaps…”
“I won’t faint.” There was a definite edge to the niece’s voice. “And you said I could see.”
“Very well.” The lord sounded more resigned than angered. He beckoned to Jehan. “Perhaps you should accompany us, Lieutenant.”
“Certainly, Monseigneur.” That faint memory teased at the fringes of Jehan’s mind again. Something about a letter?
A dull thudding reverberated from within the building; as they made their way inside, it grew louder. The manager led them down a long tiled hallway and up a wide flight of stairs. “The main area is on the ground floor, of course, but you will have a better view from the gallery.” He led them down another, shorter corridor toward a set of double doors. A regular vibration ran through the floorboards, shivering up through the worn soles of Jehan’s boots. The lord frowned. The manager went on, hurriedly, “The noise is unpleasant, I regret.” He opened the doors, and the thud became a thunder.
A wide room stretched out below them, lit by tall dirty windows in the side walls. Row upon row of dark iron machines marched down its length, each festooned with tight lines of thread. Women in grayish aprons leaned over them, sleeves rolled up to the elbow, hair tucked up under rough caps and headscarves. Shuttles plowed back and forth; foot pedals thumped and racketed on the hard earth floor. Children scuttled here and there, diving under looms to retrieve clumps of broken thread and floss. The air was thick with fragments of fiber. The lord coughed, tugging a handkerchief from a pocket and pressing it to his mouth. The manager was speaking, but Jehan could not make out his words over the noise from below.
The niece—Aude—stepped forward. Setting her elbows on the top of the balustrade that edged the gallery, she leaned forward to watch what went on below. The manager, frowning, joined her. Pointing, she asked a question, which the man seemed to answer. She shook her head and asked another.
On the floor below, something changed. Almost before he’d registered that, Jehan found his hand on his sword hilt. Something…One by one, the women working the looms stepped back, shaking their heads or pointing. Jehan stepped to the side, where he could see past Aude and the manager but still keep an eye on the door. A man in heavy trousers and a filthy apron—the foreman, most likely—had hold of one of the women, hauling her away from her machine. As one by one the looms stopped, the noise subsided. Jehan could make out the thrum of the manager’s voice as he explained the mechanisms.
The last loom thumped and rattled into stillness. From below, the voice of the foreman rose: “…think we don’t notice, but our eyes are everywhere. Everywhere, d’you hear me?”
The young woman’s response was inaudible, but up and down the rows of machinery, a ripple of murmurs spread. The foreman looked around, still holding on to his victim, “And you lot should be working, not gossiping.”
The murmurs rose, and a couple of the women began to move down the room. The manager said, quickly, “Yes, well, perhaps we should be moving…”
“Up there,” a voice said. “Is that what this is? Showing off for the aristos?” On the factory floor, heads began to turn, looking up at the gallery. Jehan did not like what he could see brewing in the faces.
The manager took hold of Aude’s elbow. “Let me take you to my office. I think…”
“But he’s hurting her,” Aude said. She shook the man’s hand off and started toward the door.
Her uncle made to intercept her, but she ducked past him and out into the corridor. He tutted, blocking the exit to call after her. “Come back at once.”
“This is really a most uncommon happening,” the manager said, hustling forward. “Our girls are all very honest, very reliable. We don’t allow any troublemakers here.”
“Hmmm.” The uncle looked as if he wanted to make something out of that.
Time was wasting. As firmly as he might, Jehan said, “Perhaps, messieurs, you might retire to the office? I’ll attend the young lady.” The voices from below were growing sharper. A dull thump suggested that something had been thrown. The two gentlemen continued to stand in the doorway. Jehan repeated, “Messieurs…”
A clear sharp voice carried up from the weaving floor. “What do you think you’re doing? You’re hurting her. Let her go.”
Jehan shut his eyes and cursed. Then he pushed through the dithering older men and set off down the corridor at a run.
It wasn’t fair. Heels clattering on the wooden floors, Aude ran down the stairs at full tilt and headed for what must be the doors to the weaving shed. Surprised male faces looked out at her from office doors as she passed. She ignored them, focused on what she had seen. The final door banged behind her as she whisked through. The foreman had his back to her. Before he could try to turn or react, she grabbed hold of his arm and started tugging. “What do you think you’re doing? You’re hurting her. Let her go.”
“None of your…” The man twisted to face her, dragging his captive with him. Taking in Aude’s curled hair and fine wool pelisse, his words stumbled into silence, as his jaw hung open.
Aude repeated, “Let her go.” A murmur ran through the line of women.
“Now, Mademoiselle, I know you mean well, but…”
“This is my mill. I won’t have you mistreat her.”
The foreman looked up over her head, hunting, no doubt, for the manager. The young woman still in his grasp stared at Aude. Tears hung in the corners of her eyes. Her face was too thin and pinched about the mouth, and her coarse dress hung loose from her shoulders. It was hard to believe she had the energy to work one of the vast looms, let alone plot and carry out whatever crime it was the foreman suspected. One of his hands was twisted into the back of her collar, causing her to told her head at a painful angle. The other grasped both her skinny wrists. Holding Aude’s gaze, she mouthed something.
It looked like a plea. Aude dug her fingers into the foreman’s arm. She said, “I’m ordering you to release her. Now. Or you’ll be the one whose job is in question.”
The foreman shot one last look at the gallery, and then, receiving no assistance, he shook his head and let go. The young woman stumbled forward, rubbing at her neck. The man said, “She’s not what you think, Mademoiselle.”
Aude ignored him. Fishing in her pocket, she found her handkerchief and handed it to the girl. “Here, take this.” She turned to the knot of women. “Is there somewhere she can sit down and rest? A parlor?”
Someone tittered. There was a moment’s silence, then one of the older women said, “There’s nothing like that here. We’re not a girls’ school.”
“One of the offices, then. She needs a rest and something to drink, some tea or a posset.”
This time the titter was louder. The foreman, recovering a little of his bullishness, said, “Now, Mademoiselle, I let her go. Best you go back to your friends now.”
“Not until I’m sure she’s all right.”
“Oh, she’s all right. Her kind always are.” The resentment was clear in the man’s voice. “Don’t let her fool you—look at this.” He waved something at Aude, a scarf or kerchief in a dirty gray, printed with a pattern of black birds.
It looked nothing like the cloth on the looms. Aude said, “I don’t see…”
The young woman grabbed hold of her. Though there were still red marks on the woman’s wrists where the foreman had held her, her grasp was strong and tight. Into Aude’s ear, she whispered, “Now, be a good young lady and do what I say.” Something cold pressed into the side of Aude’s neck.
A knife.
A gaggle of clerks crowded th
e hall in front of the weaving shed, attracted by the noise. Jehan grabbed the nearest and sent him out to the yard to fetch the rest of his soldiers. Then he elbowed his way through the pack to the doors. Curse the girl! Did no one ever teach aristos any common sense? No woman bred here in the Brass City would charge in like that. Mill workers were notorious for their volatility. Two months ago, a group of them had mutinied and murdered an overseer in one of the noisome alleys behind the Old Palace. It had gone worryingly quiet behind the door. That was never a good sign.
If the stupid girl got herself hurt, it would be his career on the line. A handful of armed men should, in theory, find it easy to master a group of angry women. Except, of course, that firing a gun in a weaving shed was a shortcut to death or serious injury, with all the lint that filled the air. And a sword could only do so much against a mob.
Not that he had much choice. Straightening his shoulders, he pushed through the door. The foreman turned to gawp at him, a dirty scarf hanging from his hand. Jehan recognized its pattern right away, the gray and black of the Eschappés, the troublemakers who stirred up workers with talk of higher wages and shorter hours and worse. No mill owner wanted anyone who sympathized with that movement working on their premises. Not, doubtless, that Mademoiselle Pèlerin des Puiz had the least idea about that. They never did, the nobles in their fine houses. They knew nothing at all about the world that sustained them. This example of the species, with her smooth skin and fancy clothes, stood as if turned to stone with a short knife pressed into her windpipe. The young woman who held her was smiling, exposing broken front teeth. She was probably younger than her captive, but work and poverty added years to her age. She met his eyes and said, “Going to blow us all up, soldier?”
“I’d rather not.” Jehan kept his hands away from his weapons. “Let the young lady go before you get into more trouble.”
“What, and let you arrest me? I’m not stupid.”
“I have half a platoon with me.” That was an exaggeration, but it might help.
“Then this one will get me past them, won’t she?” The girl began to move toward the door, pushing Aude before her. Her colleagues from the weaving shed stood and watched. Nothing about the situation was good. Jehan wondered if Aude had the least idea what her actions had done. However this came out, authority in this mill was compromised for the foreseeable future. The foreman was probably out of a job. And that meant…
The foreman lunged at the two women, his face distorted into a snarl. Aude let out a squeak as the mill girl tightened her grip. A thin thread of blood trickled down her throat. The foreman had his hands on the mill girl’s waist, tugging at her. She spat at him and let go of Aude’s shoulder. Her foot tangled with the hem of Aude’s pelisse, and she staggered. Both women went down in a knot of fabric and panic and limbs. The foreman yelled something incoherent, fists clenched ready to strike.
Jehan kicked his legs out from under him. The foreman crashed to the floor a few feet away and lay there, gasping. The mill girl, more used, perhaps, to fighting, had already got her feet back under her and crouched over Aude, the knife still in her hand. Her eyes, meeting Jehan’s, were feral. He hesitated, and she lunged for him. Sidestepping, he grabbed for her wrist as she struck. She pulled away, dragging him off balance. He staggered, holding on. With her free hand, she tried to pull his fingers loose.
Behind him, the door banged open. Boots thudded on the floor. Two soldiers laid hands on the mill girl and dragged her upright. Jehan shook himself and went to check on Aude. She lay curled on her side, one hand pressed to her throat. Tears streaked down her cheeks. She turned to look at him, and she bit her lip.
He held out a hand. She took it and climbed slowly to her feet. Very quietly, she said, “I’m sorry, Lieutenant.”
He escorted her to the door in silence and handed her over to her uncle.
Her uncle was furious. Noise filtered into the carriage from outside as they rattled their way back to the townhouse, but inside silence held sway. Aude kept her handkerchief pressed to her throat, avoiding the eyes of her maid. Her uncle sat with his back poker straight, eyes fixed on the window. When they reached the house, he marched inside, throwing his coat to the footman, and slammed the door of his study behind him.
The footman stared. He was one of the new servants, hired to add glory to the new town life. Ketty helped Aude off with her pelisse and glared at the man until he blushed. She said, “I’ll be wanting a bowl of warm water and clean linen in Mademoiselle’s room.” She looked at Aude, then added, “And the brandy decanter.” For an instant, it seemed as if the footman might object, then he nodded and took himself off.
“Well,” said the maid. And then, “Come upstairs with me, Mademoiselle, and let me look at that cut.”
Aude wanted to run away, to curl up in her old safe bed at home or in her secret shrubbery hideaway. She wanted to bury her face in Nurse’s broad familiar lap and cry. She could do none of that. She had no one left who knew her, who helped or sustained her. She bit her lip and kept her face averted. Once in her room, the maid led her to the low stool that stood in front of her dressing table, tilting the mirror so that she could not see herself. A low knock heralded the arrival of a chambermaid with the requested items. Ketty took them and waved the girl away.
She set the bowl on the table. “There. Now, Mademoiselle, let me see.”
Aude swallowed. The handkerchief was sticky with her blood when she pulled it away. Taking it from her, Ketty dropped it onto a small card tray, then began to bathe the cut with a damp fresh cloth. Her hands—so harsh on Aude’s hair every morning and night—were light and kind. She said, as if they had talked all the way back from the mill, “It’s a hard place to work, a mill. Those that work there…They get worse than this, often as not.” Her voice was kind. Surprised, Aude turned to look up at her, and the cloth smeared across her cheek. Ketty shook her head. “You need to keep still, Mademoiselle.”
She could not know what had happened. Aude’s uncle had whisked her into the carriage with barely a word to the lieutenant, and he ordered the coachman to depart straight away, before Aude had a chance to protest or question. The maid was a stranger, or as good as, paid to ensure Aude looked as was appropriate to her rank and wealth. She finished washing the cut, said, “That doesn’t look so bad. We’ll tie a fresh kerchief over it for now and keep it clean for the next few days, and it should heal clean.”
Aude’s voice felt strange to her. “Don’t you…Don’t you want to know what happened?”
Ketty poured a measure from the brandy decanter into a small glass and handed it to her. “Drink this.” And then, as Aude sipped, “The Brass City isn’t an easy place, Mademoiselle. Most young ladies…Well, they don’t go there.”
The brandy was sour in her mouth, but in her stomach it was warm and comforting. Aude put up her chin, “Why not?”
Not proper, her uncle had said, when she had expressed a desire to see the old temples of the Brass City as a birthday outing. But she had stood her ground. They were truly old, older than anywhere she had ever been, and she had hoped that somewhere within their precincts she might catch at least a hint of the shining place. Instead, she had found dank stone and unswept rooms and priests whose attention was compelled more by the hope of patronage than any apparent love of the gods and their mysteries. The mill had been added almost as an afterthought, to convince her uncle of her interest in the workings of her fortune. She did not know what she had expected from that. She had had no knowledge at all of cloth making, other than hazy memories of village women spinning with a drop spindle. But the noisy, dirty weaving shed with its rows of stooped workers had been something beyond anything she had imagined. It was proper, it seemed, for those girls to work there. But not for Aude to see it.
Ketty said, “Down there…It isn’t nice to see, sometimes. Your…Noble ladies shouldn’t see such things.” She spoke to the water bowl.
Young ladies owned mills. Aude said, “There was a girl the
re. The soldiers took her. What will happen to her?”
Ketty gathered up the used cloths and the bowl. “I can’t say, Mademoiselle.” Her voice was suddenly curt, as if she wished to end the conversation
“Will they hurt her?” Aude’s hand went to the neat bandage at her throat. If she had not been there, or if she had not intervened, there would have been no soldiers. She said, “I don’t want them to hurt her.”
“They have to do their duty, Mademoiselle.”
“I’ll ask my uncle.” But her uncle was angry. The officer had been angry, too, and the foreman. Aude said, “It was my fault.”
Ketty looked up. “Faults are easier to overlook in some people than in others, Mademoiselle.”
A long stairway linked the Silver City with the Brass, cut into the rock by long dead workmen at the command of some ancient governor or king. At dawn every day the scullery and laundry maids, the boot boys and under gardeners who served the Silver City made their way up it, shivering and coughing in the thin morning air, some of them no more than eleven or twelve years old, all of them thin and dull-skinned. Aude had never spoken with any of them; here in the Silver City, the upper servants were jealous of their rank and kept their inferiors well away from the gentry. But she had seen the head of the stairway with its black gate and bored sentries on her daily walks, and, waking early, she had sometimes heard the voices and footsteps of the under servants as they arrived.
Around an hour after dawn on the day after her visit to the mill, she came to stand at the head of the stairs. It had been easy enough to slip out of the house; when Ketty had come in with her morning chocolate, Aude had been awake and ready. Pushing the drink aside, she said, “I’m going to do something about that girl. Will you help me?”
There had been a long difficult moment while Ketty considered. Then, finally, she nodded. Aude said, “Thank you,” and then, “I thought if I could find the officer from yesterday, the lieutenant, I could talk to him. But I don’t want my uncle to know. He’d only interfere.” She could not tell if Ketty approved or not—the sour-lemon face was expressionless. But the maid helped her dress in an old gown and coat and veiled hat and called the footman away so that she could sneak out unobserved.
The Grass King’s Concubine Page 5