by Ian Irvine
Matron loomed over her. ‘Will you sign?’ she panted, her cheeks like slices of bloody liver.
‘No!’ Tiaan scrabbled out of the way, expecting more blows.
Matron’s anger disappeared just as quickly. ‘No matter!’ She now seemed grimly indifferent.
‘You can’t keep me here without my signature. I’m not a child.’
Matron looked irritated. ‘You have been certified insane by your own healers. I have the record here. It’s properly drawn up and witnessed by the manufactory legalist, Chicanist Runne, and our own, Shyster Dusin. I don’t need your signature.’
‘I’m not insane!’ Tiaan said vehemently.
‘Do you have a certificate to prove your sanity?’
‘No one does,’ said Tiaan.
‘Then you’re still insane. It says so right here.’ Matron was growing bored with the business. She rang a bell on her desk. The attendant appeared. ‘Take Virgin Tiaan to her room. And keep a firm hold on her, just in case.’
Tiaan went scarlet. The title was mortifying.
‘Please,’ she said plaintively. ‘I’d like to see my mother.’ She felt lost. She needed the familiarity of Marnie.
‘Good idea! She’s an absolute corker is Marnie. Almost past it, but she still pulls in her regulars, and punches out a child every year. Nothing like old Marnie for convincing reluctant virgins. Take her dinner down there.’
Marnie was on her bed, as always, leafing through an illuminated book. As soon as Tiaan was ushered in, her mother tossed it aside with a bored frown. She always looked bored, unless she was eating or preening.
‘Tiaan!’ she exclaimed. ‘What trouble you’ve caused me. I had no end of work to get you in here.’
Tiaan doubted if her mother had anything to do with it, but let that pass. ‘You’re looking well, mother.’
‘I’m not! The effort it takes to maintain my position is incredible. But somehow I manage it. There’s a dozen begging for my favours tonight. Not many women can say that, at my age.’
Vain cow, Tiaan thought. Her mother had probably not been outside the breeding factory in twenty years. Her skin was so pale that she looked like a fat slug crawling across the bedcovers.
‘Mother …?’
‘Marnie, dear. Call me Marnie, I do so loathe the word mother.’
That was odd, since mother was the very description of her life. ‘Marnie, I need to ask you a few questions about this place.’
Marnie waved a plump hand. ‘Ask me anything, daughter. Oh, I’m so happy you’ve come. We’ll have such times together.’
‘It’s just that – what do I do?’
‘You mate, and you have babies.’
‘And the rest of the time?’
‘Bathe, eat, be pampered. Talk to the baby. Read. You can do anything you want.’
‘What else?’ Tiaan felt rather alarmed.
‘You don’t have to do anything. That’s what’s so wonderful.’
‘What about work? I can’t do nothing, Marnie. I’ll turn into a mindless idiot …’ She broke off, not quickly enough.
‘How dare you!’ Marnie flung a vase of flowers at her.
Tiaan ducked and the vase shattered against the wall. She began mopping up the water with a hand towel.
‘Leave it!’ Marnie screeched. ‘That’s not work fit for one of us.’
Tiaan did it anyway. ‘I’m sorry, Marnie, I didn’t mean to sound rude.’
Marnie sniffed and turned her vast back. Tiaan went round the other side, got down on her knees and stroked her mother’s hand. She knew how to placate her.
‘I’m sorry. I do appreciate how hard you’ve worked for me,’ she said untruthfully. ‘I – I’m afraid, mother. About what happens … with a client.’
‘You don’t know?’ Marnie’s eyebrows danced in astonishment.
‘Of course I know. It’s just that I’ve never done anything with a man.’
‘But you’re …’ Marnie calculated, using her fingers, ‘you’re twenty!’ She said it accusingly.
Nice of you to remember your firstborn! ‘There’s always more work than I can get done.’
‘And to think I was worried about your virtue up at that horrible place. No wonder you had a breakdown.’ Marnie sniffed. ‘You have to live, child. You can’t just work. Women can’t do without it any more than men can. Of course you went mad, holding it in like that. Now, this is what’s going to happen for your first time. You lie on the bed, open your legs, then the man …’
‘I know how it’s done, mother!’ Tiaan snapped. ‘I’m not a complete idiot. I want to know what’s expected of me. How often do we mate? Once a year? Once a month? How long does it take to get a baby?’
Marnie burst out laughing, which sent ripples along her belly and flanks. ‘Dear me, child, you have no idea, do you?’
Tiaan gritted her teeth. ‘That’s why I’m asking, Marnie.’
‘You have only one client for the month, and you do it every day, except during your courses. That’s how The Mothers’ Palace survives and prospers.’
The light suddenly dawned. ‘You mean this place is a … brothel? And we’re just common harlots?’ Harlotry was not a dishonourable profession, well above seamstress or washerwoman or nurse in status, but it was a long way below artisan.
‘Certainly not!’ Marnie rose off the bed in her wrath. ‘What do you take me for? We’re doing a vital job here, setting an example to the women of the world. No work can compare to that of breeding. Without what we do, humanity would disappear.’
‘We don’t need a breeding factory for that.’
‘Yes we do! Too many women have become selfish, like you. They prefer to work rather than doing what’s required. We’re showing them how wrong they are.’
‘Ordinary men and women …’
‘Half the men are dead; there aren’t enough to go around. Besides, the men we mate with are carefully chosen.’
That reminded Tiaan of the stud book upstairs, and her own longing. ‘Who was my father, Marnie?’
‘Don’t start that again!’ Marnie said coldly.
‘I’ve got to know my father’s family Histories; surely you can see that? Not knowing them is like only having half a life.’
‘You’ll not get them from me!’ Marnie snapped. ‘The Histories are a waste of time. Your father’s aren’t worth having.’
‘Mother!’ Tiaan cried out, aghast. ‘How can you say such a wicked thing?’ The Histories were everything. People often tried to censor their past, but never to ignore it or wipe it away completely. To have no past was worse than having an evil one.
‘Well, it’s true. We should be thinking about the future. I wish I’d never met your father. If I hadn’t been so young and stupid I’d have refused him.’
‘What was he like? At least tell me that,’ Tiaan pleaded. ‘Can’t you see how hard it is not to know my own Histories? I hardly know who I am.’
‘He was selfish, dominating and cruel. He thought he knew better than I did. He wanted to carry me away from here – the only place I’ve ever been happy. And the fuss he made when you were born.’
‘What fuss?’ Tiaan asked eagerly.
‘He seemed to think he had rights over you. He wanted to take you home. Stupid man. They’re all stupid! They lie with you a few times and then think they have rights. They’re just tools to get children.’
‘What happened?’
‘Matron put guards at the door. He fought to get in. I had to speak to one of my other clients, an influential man. Your father was sent to the front-lines.’
‘Was he a soldier?’
‘Of course not!’ Marnie sneered. ‘What do you take me for?’
Tiaan gritted her teeth. She felt like telling her mother exactly what she took her for. ‘What happened to him?’
‘He never came back,’ said Marnie. ‘I suppose the enemy ate him.’
It was like a blow in the belly. ‘You killed him,’ cried Tiaan. ‘You killed my father!’
‘The enemy killed him. Why should he live when so many others were dying?’
‘Why should you live?’ Tiaan snapped.
‘Because I create the future!’
‘Only as long as you can have children,’ Tiaan said frigidly.
Marnie stiffened, drawing in a deep, gasping breath. So that’s what the matter was, thought Tiaan. Her life here was practically over and Marnie was terrified.
‘I’m sorry, mother. Please.’
Marnie turned her face to the wall and Tiaan knew she would get no more from her on that topic.
There was a long silence. ‘Our partners are selected carefully, you said?’
‘They’re prime specimens,’ her mother enunciated, ‘chosen for the qualities they bring to our children.’
‘But they pay?’ Tiaan persisted.
‘Of course they pay! Where do you think all this comes from?’ She swept an arm around the room.
‘Thank you, mother. You’ve told me all I need to know.’ Tiaan went to the door, which opened and an attendant came through, bearing a loaded tray – her dinner. ‘I’ll take that in my room,’ she said grandly, and sailed out.
Tiaan hugged her thoughts all the way back to her room. Her father had cared for her. He’d tried to take her away from this ghastly place. It made her feel warm inside.
Logic told her that the poor man must be dead, though she clung to the hope that he had survived, perhaps trapped in a foreign land. All the more important that she find out who he had been and learn his Histories. When she had children they must know. It was practically a crime to bring up a child without its family Histories. She wondered what qualities her father had given to her. Well, she was unlike her mother in practically every respect, so she must be a lot like her father. If Marnie would not tell her, there was only one way to find out. She would have to take another look in the bloodline register.
Tiaan sampled the pastries on her tray. They were delicious, though they left a fatty taste in her mouth and she was still overfull from her previous meal. She had to get away. She would go mad here. That thought made her smile wryly. Or end up like my mother.
She went out again, walking the halls, acutely conscious that she was naked under her gown. No one gave it a second glance – the other women wore more or less flamboyant versions of the same article.
Tiaan came down a staircase into the colonnaded marble foyer, whereupon she was stopped by an elderly man in maroon and grey livery.
‘Tiaan Liise-Mar,’ he said. ‘Where are you going?’
‘To the markets. I have some shopping to do.’
‘You may not go out unescorted. Your indenture has not been cleared.’
She whirled and stormed up the stairs, back to her mother’s room. ‘They won’t let me go out!’ she cried.
Marnie looked up irritably. ‘Of course you can’t go out. You might run away.’
‘You mean I have to stay trapped in this hideous place until I die?’
Her mother pursed her lips. ‘You are permitted to go shopping once a month with an attendant. You will, of course, wear a discreet wrist manacle.’
‘What, forever?’
‘Until your indenture is paid off.’
‘But that’s two years away, even with what I’ve got saved.’
‘The old indenture was paid out when you came here, and a new one written. All this has to be paid for,’ Marnie said. ‘Your gowns, food, attendants …’
‘Not forgetting the manacle. I suppose I have to pay for that too?’
‘Well, of course you do. Money doesn’t float in the air like butterflies.’
‘I didn’t ask for any of this.’
‘It comes with the position.’
‘How long?’ Tiaan cried hoarsely.
‘Depends on how many clients you service, how many children you bear, and how many of them survive. Some women have done it in five years, some ten or twelve, and some …’
‘Twelve years!’ Tiaan sank down on the bed in despair.
‘Tiaan, daughter. It’s a wonderful life here. You’ll soon come to love it.’
‘If it’s so wonderful, how come we have to be chained to a guard when we go out?’
ELEVEN
Tiaan had two more days of eating, sleeping and being waited upon. Her attendants appeared three times a day, doing more work on hands, skin and nails. She hardly noticed. Tiaan had not stopped thinking about her father. It sounded as if he’d been a young man of good family. Clearly he’d loved his daughter, and Marnie had repaid him by sending him off to be killed. Every time she thought about it, tears streamed down Tiaan’s cheeks. How could she find out? There was no one to ask. Her grandmother had died nine years ago and Tiaan had no other relatives. She was never alone, even for the few minutes it would take to sneak into Matron’s office and check the register.
On her third lucid evening, Tiaan sat in silence until the attendants finished working on her hands, trying and failing to work out a plan. Tomorrow was to be her first time with a client, so she had to escape tonight. No way was she going to give herself to a man for money. There were too many of her grandmother’s romantic stories in her head. Too many dreams. As she had that thought, her first dream came back – the young man on the balcony, crying out for help. The later dreams she had had of him followed.
But were they dreams? They were different from crystal-induced ones, which were like chopped-up nightmares that vanished on waking. The young man had been much more vivid. She could remember every incident perfectly, as if they had actually happened. He must be real. And he had cried out to her for help. Her soft heart was touched. She had to find out who he was. But how could she, except through her dreams?
Maybe her artisan’s life was over, but never would she work in this disgusting place. They had no right over her, no matter what the law said. She would break out and make a new life for herself, far away. At that thought, Tiaan felt the terror of the unknown. Her whole existence had been organised for her. In the manufactory everything was taken care of and all she had to do was work. Here it would be the same. But if she fled, how would she survive? A runaway would not be welcome anywhere. Did she have the courage? She was no longer sure.
The moon was rising through her barred window. There had been gales and snow all day but they had passed, leaving clear skies. It was late, past ten o’clock. Tiaan was not tired – she’d slept for a week. How to escape? She’d gained the impression, from the chatter of the attendants, that the work of the breeding factory went on until the early hours of the morning.
Sitting by the window, she ran various schemes through her mind. The window bars were set solidly into the mortar and it would take days to dig them out. She must have money and warm clothes, for winter was coming and even down on the coast the nights would be bitter. But first she had to recover her artisan’s toolkit, her most precious possession. If only she still had her pliance. Just the thought of it set off a flood of withdrawal. Deprived artisans had committed the most degrading acts to get their pliances back.
The door opened. It was Matron. ‘Your first contract begins at one tomorrow afternoon. The attendants will wake you at nine with breakfast. They will take you to your bath at eleven, then make you ready. Go to sleep now.’
Matron pulled the door closed. A key turned in the lock.
Tiaan was left with her despair. Would the fits start again, the next time she used a hedron? What if she had an attack out in the snow where there was no one to look after her? Tiaan knew little about the world and how to survive in it. She’d never had to and was not sure she could. Maybe she was more like her mother than she’d thought.
The moon, shining on her face, roused Tiaan. It was bright for a crescent – the bright face of the moon, not the dark. It must be well after midnight. She lit the lamp and tiptoed to the door to examine the lock. It was an old-fashioned one, enough to keep in any ordinary prisoner, but not an artisan with her skills.
Bending one of the ti
nes of her dinner fork over, Tiaan picked the lock in a minute. The corridor was dark but for a night lamp down the far end. She went back, grabbed the knife and headed up the hall. She had to find clothes and shoes; but first, the register.
Tiaan opened Matron’s office easily enough – the lock was similar to the first. She felt around until she found a lamp and got it going. The bloodline register was no longer among the mess on the table. The cupboard was locked and her probe would not fit through the tiny keyhole.
She looked around for something to break in with. Her eye lighted on a climbing vine in a pot in the corner, which spiralled up around a length of wrought metal. Pulling it free, she jammed the point between the doors and wrenched. The timber split from top to bottom with a loud squeal. She whipped out the register and frantically turned the pages.
Someone called out, down the hall. Better hurry. The book was arranged in date order. Unfortunately Tiaan did not know what year Marnie had come here. Matron’s writing was hard to read in the dim light and it was not until Tiaan noticed a familiar name, Jaski, that she realised she was on her mother’s page. Jaski was one of her half-sisters, only four years old. Tiaan looked to the top of the page. No name. Marnie had been here so long that she had several pages. She flipped back to the first, scanning the entries until she found her own name, details of her birth and her first years. A cryptic note was scrawled in the Comments column, ‘Does she have it?’ and below that, in another hand, ‘Not possible to tell. Put her into a suitable job and see.’
Have what? Footsteps roused her. Someone was coming. The name, quick! She checked the entry but could not make it out. The ink was faded, the handwriting abominable. Was the first name Omarti, or Amante, or even Arranti? The second name was a scrawl she could not decipher at all. It might have been Ullerdye, or Menodyn, or something quite different. She ran through the sounds in her mind. They did not seem to fit. Below the name, in different ink, it said simply ‘Deceased’.