by Jay Lake
“Everything hurts,” I told her quietly.
“Then sleep.” She offered me a piece of crumbling cheese and a wad of leaves.
I took them. The cheese had a deep ammoniac scent, overlaid with salt and the veining mold of a blue. The leaves were dry-cured kale with lard smeared amid the rolled layers.
It all smelled like paradise to my rumbling gut. I ate quickly, then just as quickly was starved with thirst.
“There are water barrels near the window,” the Dancing Mistress said. “They are filled with rainwater collection, and might taste of the roof.” She bent close again. “I must go out and be seen. There can be no suspicion that I am part of what is still happening in the Factor’s house. Will you remain here and keep absolutely quiet?”
“Yes,” I said around a mouthful of kale.
“No matter how angry or despairing you may feel, do not stamp your feet or throw things. Men will be working downstairs on the morrow, and they may hear you.”
I looked at my hands, full of half-eaten food. Mistress Tirelle would never eat again. “No, Mistress.”
“When I can safely do so, I shall return. Probably tomorrow night. Federo may be here as well.”
My heart leapt at that; then I wondered why. Even my friends were trouble for me. “I will remain silent.”
“As best as can be hoped for.” She ran a hand through my hair. “We will do what we can to see that you are well-served. I am not sure how much is left to us, though.”
“Good night,” I said, and then she was gone.
Sleep brought only the memory of death. My relationship with my dreams continues uneasy to this day, but that night was the worst I have ever known. I don’t recall my dreams when Federo first stole me away from Papa. The dreams of small children are said to be as unformed as their thoughts, but that cannot be true. My thoughts were well-formed even then. I knew what I wanted and did not want.
Later I dreamed of the past, Endurance and my grandmother and my little life among the ditches and fields of Papa’s rice. Those were about loss and regret. As I grew older and my training became more complex, I often dreamed of the sorts of things one does then-endless loaves of bread spilling from the oven, or reading a book that bred new pages for itself faster than I could turn them.
That night, though, all I could dream of was death. Perhaps I had once killed my grandmother. How had my mother died? Mistress Tirelle’s head spun away from my kick over and over as her neck snapped. The scent of her voiding her bowels as she died. The way her body collapsed, as if she had already stopped trying to protect herself the way any living person does, with or without training.
How many ways were there to kill? How many ways were there to die? Those questions chased me through the sick regrets of that night, until finally I awoke with the answers ringing in my head.
There are as many ways to die as there are to live.
There are as many ways to kill as there are killers to try them.
My body ached as if I’d been trampled by one of the Factor’s horses. The pallet on which I’d slept was kicked aside, and I was lying on the old wooden floor. I didn’t feel much like a killer, but I knew I was. I also knew that someday I would die. Possibly very soon, depending on whether and how the Factor’s justice caught up with me.
I climbed to my feet, swaying with fatigue and an overwhelming sense of weakness. Last night’s fear and rush had taken their toll.
Morning arrived amid a vague silvery light that struggled through the round window at the end of the attic. The filth on the glass looked to be at least a generation of neglect. I knew exactly what a maid would do to cut it down.
This room was huge, though a tall man could stand only in the center, where the peak of the roof ran. The low edges were filled with odd equipment-the frames from old looms, mechanical devices for which I had no name. All was covered in deep dust.
Finding the rain barrels, I drank from a little tin ladle there. The water tasted of tar and sand. Even at the edge of foulness, it was refreshing after breathing the dry air all night.
Otherwise I had nothing to relieve the itching of my cheeks and ears, and the mix of feelings in my heart. No food, no distractions, nothing.
I spent a long time simmering in my anger before Federo appeared. He surprised me in climbing through the floor in the middle of the day.
“They are at their lunch below,” he explained to my unspoken question. He looked worried, and was dressed like a common laborer of the city. “I have stood the warehousemen a round of ales down the street once a week for quite some time. No one wonders at me in this neighborhood.”
“You are not unusual anymore.” I recalled my lessons at the art of the swift eye.
“Precisely.” He pulled a paper wrapping out of his pocket. “Here is some salt beef with cold roast potatoes. It is the best I could do right now. I will be back with the Dancing Mistress tonight. We need to think on what to do with you next.”
“You will do nothing with me,” I told him coldly. “I will decide what to do with myself.”
He looked unhappy, but retreated beneath the floor.
They would not use me. Not the Factor, not the Duke, not this little conspiracy of child-stealer and rogue Mistress. I spent the afternoon imagining ways to flee, directions to run in, but I knew nothing practical of the city or its surrounds. If I could go back to Endurance, I would, but all I remembered of the way home was that I should cross the water.
At that time, I did not even know the name of my birth country, let alone the village where Papa’s farm lay. I had no money or maps or practical experience of any sort.
I realized that I had done nothing more than exchange one prison for another. This one was far less comfortable and more dangerous. My anger rose once more like a burning tide. I might be free of the Factor, but my choices continued not to be my own.
Why had Federo and the Dancing Mistress guided me toward a sense of my independence? I wondered. Would I have not been better off in ignorance? I could have grown into a lady and lived the life that had been bought for me.
They would have no satisfaction of me either, I resolved.
My rescuers came back that night with several sacks. I assumed these contained provisions. He was once more dressed like a common laborer, while she wore the same loose tunic as usual. The Dancing Mistress pushed their sacks to one side of the cleared space of floor that marked our area; then she and Federo made up a little table of two crates and three lengths of lumber. She produced a hooded lantern from one of the sacks while Federo found smaller boxes for us to sit on.
Soon we were gathered around a little table with knobby carrots, a string of sweet onions, and a handful of small brown rolls to share for our dinner. Both of them had been silent through this process. I was determined not to speak first.
“We are civilized,” Federo finally said. “People at table with food before them.”
“The shared feast is a tradition of my people,” the Dancing Mistress added.
Both of them spoke in the tone of someone desperate to return a bad moment to normal.
I said nothing. Instead I simply glared at them both.
They looked back, Federo seemingly puzzled, the Dancing Mistress with a blank-eyed indifference that I was not sure how to read upon her nonhuman face. We all stared awhile.
My resolve broke first.
“She was a cow,” I said in my language.
Federo rubbed his eyes. “Within two more years, we could have had you inside the Duke’s palace.” He suddenly sounded terribly exhausted.
The Dancing Mistress sighed. “We should have known.”
“Known what?” I demanded.
Federo stared at me. “Stop talking like a barbarian,” he snapped. “This is Copper Downs.”
“Barbarian?” I bit off a shout. “You are the… the…” I didn’t have a word for barbarian in my language. Certainly I’d no reason to know it when I was a tiny child. “Animals. You are animals.”
“That could have been changed,” he said. “With your help.”
The Dancing Mistress gave me one of her long, slow looks. “Please, speak so I can understand you. Or we won’t get far.”
I begrudged her the words, but I recalled that Petraean wasn’t her home language either. “Very well,” I muttered, knowing my own poor grace for what it was.
“Emerald,” Federo began.
“Green!” I slammed my fist into the planks of our table. “My name is not Emerald. You may call me Green.”
The Dancing Mistress waved toward Federo in a shushing motion. “Well, Green,” she said. “Federo had always thought you might have the heart-fire to hold your spirit true against the Factor’s training. You-”
“You did,” Federo interrupted. His voice had a note of pride, even now. I hated him for that. It was as if he’d made me who I was, merely by being clever enough to buy me in the market.
“Too much heart, perhaps,” the Dancing Mistress went on.
“What of it?” I demanded. “Was I to be your creature instead of the Factor’s? I am a person of my own, not some thing to be shaped by him or you or anyone else.”
The Dancing Mistress’ claws drummed on the raw wood of the table. They sent splinters flying. “We are all shaped by life.”
“Indeed,” said Federo. “And there is much you do not know. Am I correct in thinking you read nothing more recently published than Lacodemus’ Commentaries?”
“Yes.” What did this question signify? Lacodemus had been fascinated with men risen from the grave and people who lived on their heads, speaking by the motions of their feet. I hadn’t taken him seriously. The world obeyed a certain order. Just because a tale came from far away did not mean that common sense could be cast aside in judging it.
“Then know this little bit of recent history here in Copper Downs.” He leaned forward and pressed the palms of his hands flat on the rough wood. “There has not been a Ducal succession in four centuries.”
“Mistress Tirelle told me as much. She did not say it so clearly.” I thought of the Factor’s dead eye, sullen and fatal as that of the sea creature that had tried to take me so long ago. Lacodemus had been right, in a sense. “This city is ruled by immortals.”
The Dancing Mistress laughed, her voice soft and bitter. “Immortal, no. Undying? Well, yes… so far.”
“You meant for me to kill the Duke,” I breathed, barely lending sound to the words. Killing the Duke would cause the Factor to lose his power. Women… girls… would be safer. Even a new tyrant could hardly rebuild the power of this Duke’s long rule with any speed.
“That was one hope, yes,” Federo admitted. “There were other plans. We had played at a game of years here.”
I gave voice to his unspoken conclusion. “Until I tipped over the board and set fire to the rules.”
“Well, yes.” I could see a smile flirting with his face despite himself. “That spirit of yours rose up, I think.”
My fingers brushed at the itching scabs upon my cheek. “For all the good it has done me. What now of your plans?”
They both stared me down. Dust flecks and wood shavings floated between us. Eventually Federo’s face fell back to his recent dismay. “If you can escape detection by the patrols roaming the city right now, and survive the substantial bounty that has been placed upon your head, you are free to flee Copper Downs and find a life of your own elsewhere.”
The Dancing Mistress slipped a claw-tipped finger across her own furred cheek. “But you have made yourself too distinctive for safety, I fear. Easily recognized should there be a hue and cry.”
I thought of Endurance’s great brown eyes, and of my grandmother’s bells ringing for the last time beneath the hot sun. What would my grandmother have wanted from me? Or Papa? What did he want? Endurance, I knew, wished only to call me home.
What did I want?
To go home.
But even more than that, I realized, I wanted never to see a child sold to these terrible people again. Not to the Factor and his Mistresses, not to Federo and his charming ways. This trade in thinking, talking livestock must end.
I could not say then who was more guilty, Federo for having bought me or my father for having sold me to him. It did not matter. They were but pawns on a larger board. The Duke, and his procuring agent the Factor, had first set the machinery of guilt in motion. I realized my mistake in fleeing the Factor’s house, when all I had to do was stand my ground and keep my spirit inflamed in order to fight back with my beauty as my weapon.
The weapon I had thrown away in a moment of anguished passion before murdering a woman whose only real crime was to serve her masters.
A new thought dawned upon me. “There must be another way,” I said. “Or we would not be speaking now. You have some proposal. One of the ‘other plans’ you mentioned.”
Federo and the Dancing Mistress exchanged a long look. I saw fear in their faces, but I held my tongue.
He nodded slightly and began to speak in a rush, as if he did not quite believe his own words. “Allow yourself to be captured. Tell them of a plot against the Duke. Tell them of us. You will most likely be taken before him for a hearing, both for the sake of the accusation, and even more because you are his lost jewel. He will be jealous of you. Once in his presence, if you can…”
“If I can?” Once more laughter at these idiots bubbled up. “If I can what, kill him? I am a girl of twelve. I would be standing before him in his court. If I had been his bedmate, that might be one thing. But surrounded by men and their weapons? You are fools.” In my own language, I added, “I am but a girl.” My laughter slid into a snarl. “I can kick old women to death, but not a man on a throne surrounded by guards. He is beyond my reach.”
The Dancing Mistress shifted her weight. Her eyes locked on mine. They did not swiftly flick away again as anyone else’s would have done. I knew her well enough to see that she was measuring her words, so I kept her gaze and watched in silence.
Finally she spoke. “There is another way.”
“Of course there is.” I kept my voice hard as I could manage. “You taught me to kill.”
“Actually, she taught you how not to die,” Federo said, interrupting. “Listen to me, Green. If you wish to throw us away and walk out into the streets, that is your choice. You are no prisoner here.”
“No?”
“Did you try the trapdoor?” he asked. “It has been unlocked this whole time.”
“Oh.” For a moment I felt foolish.
“You may go as your heart tells you. I beg this, for the sake of whatever goodwill you might have borne me, listen first to the Dancing Mistress. She speaks difficult truths that may not come to pass. But before you choose, know what you are rejecting.”
“ This time,” I said bitterly. His message was clear enough. Back at the Pomegranate Court, I had chosen in ignorance. Though I did not want to admit it, I saw the wisdom of his plea now.
“There is a thing about the Duke that is known to very, very few.” The Dancing Mistress’ words came slowly. “His, well, agelessness… it is bound by spells wrested from my people. There are other spells that can release those bindings-things that need to be said to him in close confidence to have their power. Not”-she raised her hand to me-“the quiet of the bedchamber. But close nonetheless. They cannot be spoken in this Petraean tongue. The Duke through his magics has bound the very words to himself, lest someone utter them in his presence.”
“Can they be spoken in my tongue?” I asked.
She looked very unhappy. “I do not know if the forces will heed you. This is not my soulpath, to understand spells and how they work. Since the Duke took his throne on the strength of our magics, my people have folded away their own power like an old cloak. I can teach you certain words through the expedient of writing them in the dust here, though neither of us can speak them aloud. If you say them in your tongue… who knows what effect they will have? I certainly do not.”
I was incredulous. “In four hundred years, no one has ever tried this?”
“It is not a common wisdom,” Federo said dryly. “Suffice that we have managed to coordinate intentions now. Will you help?”
At that point, my decision was simple enough. Where else would I go? I could not swim the seas to home. If I said no and simply walked out the door, the Factor would buy more children, then Federo and the Dancing Mistress would raise another rebel in the shadows of his house. Some other child would have to make my choices anew someday.
Here I was; here I would stand.
“I will do this thing.” I spoke carefully. “You may teach me the words. Federo will need to help me with my own tongue, for almost certainly I do not have enough of it to make a worthwhile saying from whatever you write before me in the dust.” I turned to him. “Bring a dictionary of my people’s speech, if such a thing can be found here in Copper Downs. Also, before I will try this magic for you, I want seven yards of silk, needles, spools of thread, and five thousand tiny bells like those used for dancing shoes.”
“Five thousand? Where am I-?”
“You know what I want them for,” I said, interrupting him again. “I should not want to walk toward my death without the bells of my life ringing about me. Don’t pretend this is not murder of another kind. For the Duke if I am lucky, and for me almost certainly.”
“No, n-no,” he stammered. “You have the right of it.”
“Then we are agreed.”
The Dancing Mistress nodded slowly, pain written on her patient face. I gave her a small, real smile. She deserved something from me besides my anger and contempt. The girls who would have followed in my place deserved everything from me. Even my very life itself. When this was done, one way or the other, I would be home.
My grandmother would have approved. As would the ox.
I have never known the true number of the days of my life. The count had broken when Federo took me away from Papa. I did not understand then, but the bells of my long-lost silk would have remembered for me until I was old enough to tally the days myself. Though I had tried and tried again to return to my silk, the number had always been a guess. The count I had been keeping in my imagination these years since was more of a guess at a guess.