“Stealer of goods!” yelled Kinder. He obviously felt better. He had at least found his voice again.
“What?” I asked, blowing gently on my fire to make it grow.
“Recks has sticky fingers, which is what got us into the fix we presently find ourselves,” said Kinder.
“I don’t hear you complaining when you’re enjoying the spoils, old man.”
“What did you take?” I asked, skewering the bird and laying it over the flames.
“Only a heel of bread,” Recks insisted. “We’re seldom paid for the service we provide.”
“Is Kinder a performer too?”
“In a manner of speaking. He is an academic, a man of studies.”
“What does he study?”
“I’m right here, you know,” Kinder grumbled from behind the door.
“Be more polite to the woman who saved your life, fool. Don’t you know how close you are to death’s embrace?”
“Better the devil you know than the one you don’t,” muttered Kinder.
“What?” I approached the door again.
“Never mind him,” said Recks. “He’s overly fond of proverbs.”
“I’ve brought some things that will help with the chill,” I said, pulling out the blanket and the woolen socks. I’d have to find replacements for myself for next winter. Recks gasped in pleasure at the sight of the gifts.
“What is it?” Kinder demanded, unable to see. I fed the blanket through the slot to Recks, who laughed as he pulled it through. As before, he rushed it over to Kinder, spreading it out over him.
“You’ll have to hide it when Tow comes,” I said, stuffing the socks through the same hole.
“Of course,” said Recks, pulling the socks onto his hands and admiring them. “What else have you got under there?”
I flinched under the billa as if Recks saw right through it. He could never see me. No one could.
“Nothing,” I said. “Is there something else you require?”
“A key to the lock would be dandy.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know where Master Tow keeps it.”
“Ah well, he’s not a stupid man, is he? He caught us. Not an easy thing to do.”
I retreated back to tend the fire and the little roasting bird, which smelled delicious.
“So my gift to you, Alana, is a tale,” said Recks. “It’s not much, but it’s all I have.”
I sat down, making myself as comfortable as I could considering the rubble that littered the room. I’d seen street performers from time to time, but I’d never been so close or had the time to really listen. For a minute, the only sound was the popping of the dry sticks in the fire. Then Recks cleared his throat.
“You’ll have to forgive me. This isn’t the best place for telling stories.”
“Never stopped you before,” grumbled Kinder.
“Shush,” Recks told him. “Your dinner’s coming. Do you have any favorites, Alana?”
The few stories I knew were ones told by Dine’s first wife to her children. They were short and generally brutal, told to teach some lesson when they misbehaved. They weren’t the kind of tales I wanted to hear.
“I don’t know any stories.”
“That’s impossible. Did your mother never tell you ‘The Fox and the Hen’? And everyone knows ‘The Ruby Quiver.’”
“No, no one’s ever told me any stories.”
“Why not?”
“Recks, you nitwit. Can’t you see the girl’s a slave?” barked Kinder.
“How can that be? She walks freely.”
“Ask her yourself. Not all are enslaved by chains. Who would wear that willingly?”
“Is it true, Alana?”
“Yes,” I said, turning the meat with my fingertips.
“But why are you here? Why don’t you run?”
“And go where? It’s all like here, isn’t it?”
“No. The world is a wide, wondrous place. It’s not all like Roma.”
“Thank Mother Sun for that!” exclaimed Kinder. “Is the meat done yet?”
“Done enough, I suppose,” I said, pulling the stick of roast partridge away from the flames. “It’s not much,” I said as I walked it over to the men in the cell and put it in the slot.
“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush!” Kinder said, clearly delighted. They both devoured it eagerly, even as it burned their fingers and tongues. They groaned in pleasure and pain, but they didn’t stop eating until every bite was gone. When I dug the sunflower seed cakes out of the basket, they both smiled as if I’d presented them with the key to their freedom.
“We should get arrested in Roma more often,” said Kinder, crunching on the sticky cake. “I can’t remember when I’ve eaten so well.”
“Me neither,” said Recks, licking the honey from his fingers. “Just for that, I’m going to tell you the best story I know.”
“I can’t stay much longer. I’ll be missed.”
“Then I’ll be quick about it,” said Recks, wiping his hands on his shabby tunic and then holding them palms up toward the sky. “Mother Sun knows the hearts of all men. May they all please her.”
That I’d heard many times. It was the traditional prayer before beginning any work. One never knew what might displease Mother Sun, so it was customary to let her know your intentions were good in the hope that she would take pity on you.
“In the Time of Great Darkness, there lived a young boy. He had lost everyone and everything he’d ever known: his mother, his father, and his sister dead with many thousands of others. His village overflowed with the dead. No one was left to bury them all. Mother Sun willed it so, but she let this one boy live. He was special, wise beyond his years, and Mother Sun knew he could found a new race of men. She guided him to a sacred valley, high in the mountains, far from his home. On his journey, he met others like himself—thinkers, artists, healers, poets, and storytellers. They banded together and sought to create a world better than the one before the Time of Great Darkness. They built their city on the cliffs above a valley, where they live in comfort. To this day, they grow all they need. Everyone helps, none go hungry, and there are no slaves.”
“No slaves?” I asked, incredulous.
“Ask Kinder. He’s actually been there,” said Recks.
“You have?”
“Many moons ago. Then I got a crazy notion about wanting to study the peoples of the West. Now I wish I’d never left.”
“No fool like an old fool, huh, Kinder?” teased Recks.
The call of an owl outside reminded me I was in Roma, not a magical, shining city of freedom.
“I have to go,” I said, standing up. I doused the embers of the fire with my water bag, sending steam hissing into the air.
“Alana?” Recks whispered through the hole in the door. Two of his fingers poked out, reaching for me in the darkness.
“Yes?”
“Did you like the story?”
“Like” seemed too casual a word for how I felt. Overwhelmed was a better choice. It stretched my imagination, showed me how much I didn’t know about the world. I trembled, knowing I’d remember this story for the rest of my pitiful life. Now in the cover of darkness, I reached out of the billa and touched his two warm, rough fingers with one of my own.
“Yes.”
“Master?” I’d finished my morning chores. I knelt at Dine’s knee in the way any proper slave would, waiting for him to acknowledge me. I couldn’t afford his anger. He could confine me to the house on a whim, and my prisoners would go hungry. They were all I thought about now. I cared for Dine’s children from time to time, but never anyone who needed me like this.
Master Dine put on his jacket to go out. He turned toward me, impatient.
“What’s Tow having you do for him?”
“He told me to feed the prisoners once a day.” By now, news of the prisoners had spread through every home in Roma. The Reticents h
ardly ever came to this frigid corner of the world. Plans were underway for a reception. Everyone knew what had happened. Dine snorted.
“Doesn’t he know who your master is?”
“Shall I tell him you forbid it?” I hoped with every part of me he would say no, but he paused, considering it.
“He should feed them. He’s the one who caught them,” Dine grumbled. “Stand up, chit.”
As I stood before him, he grabbed the fabric over my face and pulled it up to reveal my horrible face. I fought the urge to rip it away from him and cover myself. I stared at the dirt caked on his boots. I don’t know why he liked to look upon my face sometimes. Maybe it reminded him why he hated me. I knew if my hand crept up to cover the scars, he’d slap it away, so I concentrated on being a stone until he was done. Mercifully, he dropped the drape almost as soon as he’d lifted it.
“You can do Tow’s chore. The Envoy will be here in just a few days.” Dine turned to go. I knelt again.
“Master?”
“What is it?” Dine ran a rough hand through his black hair.
“May I go to the riverbank for clay to replace the teapot I broke?”
“Go,” was all Dine said as he left.
***
It was true I needed to gather clay, but I had other motives for visiting the river. It would take a good hour to get there on foot and always required permission. It was the furthest from Roma I was allowed to travel on my own. The only reason Dine let me was because there was nothing else beyond it—no cities, no villages, and no people. If I went any further, I’d be alone in the wilderness where the old and sick went to die.
Sometimes I thought about escaping when I came here, but I pushed those thoughts from my head today. I was too busy planning a meal for my prisoners. I almost always found something to eat here. I also collected sumasara, the red bark of a special tree. Consumed in small amounts, it prevented pregnancy. Too much and one could die. Had I known of the plant when I was younger, I might have prevented Shel’s attack, the one that left me maimed. No one could bear Dine children but his wives. It was a mistake I almost didn’t survive. My child didn’t.
I carried my usual basket. I picked several branches of sumasara, breaking enough to last several months into hand-sized twigs and tying them with a bit of bark in a bundle. I tucked them in the basket and continued to the river where the clay waited to be dug out of the cut bank.
There was no way to dig clay in a billa without getting it filthy, but no one would see me here. I removed the frame from my head and set it on the grass before climbing down the bank. I quickly collected enough clay for the teapot and brought it back to the top of the bank. While I fashioned the pot, my head felt light, like it might float away with the clouds in the warm spring sky. It was easy work, and I finished quickly. I set the pot on a rock to dry and washed my arms clean in the cold, green river water before foraging.
There were cress, which could be eaten raw, and tubers that made a fluffy white starch when cooked. Even salt could be scraped off the rocks here for flavoring. Once my basket was full and the pot dry enough to travel, I replaced the billa on my head and started for home.
It would be midday before I got back to Roma. I hurried, hoping Recks and Kinder weren’t too hungry. I left the pot by the hearth at home to cure and grabbed my water bag.
***
I allowed myself a small smile as I approached the ruins. Something like happiness stirred in my chest. It made me less cautious than I should’ve been, and I ran down the stairs without thinking. Too late, I heard Tow’s voice talking, low and taut. I froze.
“Who’s there?” Tow demanded. He walked to the stairway and looked up at me. “Oh, it’s you.”
Try as I might, I couldn’t still my ragged breath. If it weren’t for the billa, Tow would have seen the look of surprise on my face. My heart, now in my throat, threatened to leap out of my open mouth.
“Come on then,” said Tow.
My grip on my basket tightened as I walked down the rest of the stairs. My basket was full of early spring delicacies. If Tow saw, he would know what I’d done. I carefully slipped the basket inside my billa to hide its contents. Searching frantically with my hands, I found the two caysha roots I’d collected earlier. I handed them to Recks through the slot. His fingers caressed mine in a wordless thank you as he took them from my hands. I hoped he wouldn’t actually eat them. Next I gave him the water bag in exchange for the empty one. Recks’s hands steadied my own shaking ones.
***
I left much quieter than I arrived, wishing I’d been more careful, and went straight home. I spent the afternoon pulling weeds in the garden, trying to convince myself it was ridiculous to become attached to my prisoners like this. They would be gone soon. What were they to me? Another chore in my day, another opportunity to displease Dine in one way or another. Still, I couldn’t stop thinking about Recks’s story about a place of freedom, a story I would’ve dismissed as fantasy except that Kinder had been there. Where was it? How did a person get there? And if I knew, could I really escape Dine?
These thoughts bounced round and round in my skull uninterrupted, since few ever spoke to me, until I thought I would go mad.
At dusk, Master Tow joined Master Dine’s family for dinner. I served them last winter’s potatoes and a haunch of venison Master Dine had caught and listened very close to their conversation for any news.
“When will the Envoy be here?” asked Shel, never shy. She was Dine’s most outspoken wife, though she paid dearly for it. She was as devoted to him as he was vicious to her, which made her dangerous.
“A day or two at the most,” said Tow. “The runner came today with the word.”
“Did he say how many priests were coming?” asked Dine, his mouth half full of meat. The Envoy would expect food and lodging for their trouble. Their journey was a week each way, so they would probably stay several days.
Normally, the Envoy came once a year for the summer celebration. Food was plentiful at that time of year. Whether there was food or not, the village leaders had to provide the meals for the priests, and this troubled them. Tow shook his head.
“Six maybe? Seven, if the runner returns with them.”
“Can’t feed them caysha root,” said Dine.
“And who knows how long they’ll stay? Could be a week.”
“Do they mean to hold the trial here?”
“I doubt it,” said Tow. “They’ve been looking for this old man for some time. He’s been spreading heresy. They’ll want to take him back to the Council of Eight, make an example of him.”
“Heresy? What did he do?” asked Shel.
“The man’s an inventor, a tinkerer … He makes machines,” said Tow. “That’s what the runner said anyway.”
The women at the table gasped. The Reticents have always taught us about the dangers of angering Mother Sun. She’d taken machines from men once, and she’d do it again if she caught anyone so much as trying to rebuild them. To do so put our whole world at risk. I couldn’t believe Kinder was guilty of such a thing. How could he do this and survive?
“What about the boy?” a woman asked.
“He’s probably nineteen, plenty old enough to be a man,” said Tow.
“Merely a thief, that one,” added Dine. “The Reticents may execute him here and be done with him. It’s the old one they want.”
From my corner where I waited to clear their dishes, I sucked in a tiny breath, but no one heard me inside my billa.
“We haven’t had an execution in ever so long.” Shel said it like it was cause for celebration. I hated her then, even though she wasn’t worth the effort.
“Wonder how they’ll do it,” muttered Dine. “Seems a shame to waste the food on him.”
“He’s got to be able to at least stand when they come. I’m not carrying him,” said Tow, chuckling.
Reticent Envoys hadn’t been to our corner of the world since last summer
, mainly because there was little to do and few to minister to. Occasionally we would get travelers who told of executions in other places. From the tales, everyone knew the Reticents were not kind, not to petty thieves and certainly not to heretics.
I could hardly hold myself in my corner. I knew I had to do something, but what? Kinder was in no shape for an escape attempt. Perhaps Recks? But how could I manage it?
***
That night, I waited until I heard Dine snore. I’d slipped some hippa in his last cup of tea to be sure he’d sleep well. The billa helped me blend in with the night, but it also made it hard to see. I parted the small drape in front of my eyes and ran as quietly as I could behind the houses, avoiding the rock-lined street where my shoes might click.
I crept up to the ruins, this time listening for any voices, but all I heard were some branches scraping the crumbling stone walls in the wind. I moved like a shadow down into the dungeon, pausing, listening, moving, and pausing again. Once out of the wind, I lit a stick of greasewood to light my way. I heard Kinder’s rattled breathing rise and fall but nothing from Recks. I peered in to see the outline of Kinder under the blanket just outside the range of my torchlight.
“Recks?” I whispered.
The blanket moved and someone got up. Soon, Recks’s face hovered close to mine in the firelight.
“Alana, what is it?”
“I … I brought you better food. I was going to give it to you earlier, but Tow surprised me. I’m sorry.”
I shoved the greens through the slot and the tubers seasoned with the salt I’d baked at the house. The remains of the venison were last.
“You didn’t have to do this,” said Recks. “Coming here in the middle of the night. It’s not safe.”
“I’m invisible in my cloak.” My voice sounded resigned, defeated. Recks put the food down and looked through the door.
“Why do you wear it, Alana?”
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