Misery's Child (The Cadian Chronicles) (3 page)

But it wasn’t
entirely useless, this pretty flesh of hers, was it? It could bring honor back
to her impoverished family, provide a ransom in tribute from the shallan and
the other provinces that would enable them to survive, perhaps even lift them
from the never-ending cycle of debt and deprivation.

“Do you understand
what I’m telling you, child?”

Lillitha’s
enormous eyes turned up to her mother’s face. She recognized the love and worry
etched in those hard lines. Lillitha smiled her best and brightest smile.

“I understand,
muma. Truly, I do. I won’t disappoint you or father. I promise.”

She kissed her
mother quickly on one sagging cheek.

“You’d better keep
these in your room.” Ersala fished a small sack from the inner pocket of her
long apron and handed it to Lillitha. “Someone’s been in the pantry again. They
can’t steal what they can’t find.”

She saw no need to
burden Lillitha with the knowledge that her own sister coveted what did not
belong to her. Lillitha had accepted without protest every part of her
consecration—the endless studies and prayers, the constant presence of a
chaperone, the limited freedom and even the long robes that covered her head to
foot on those rare occasions when she left the tower room. But accepting Oman’s
Tenth had been uncomfortable for her. She was generous by nature and taking
anything off the family table for her personal consumption embarrassed the
child.

Lillitha peered
into the sack. “Paggies? Father always loved these.”

“He’s due back
home before supper. I’d better go down and see if I can help in the
kitchen—”

Lillitha’s face
lit up. “You must take these and make his favorite tart. No, please. I don’t
mind—”

“But
Yannamarie—”

The girl laughed,
a clear tinkling sound like bells. “I’ll remind her that the Book of Belah says
that he who gives freely is blessed. She won’t be able to argue with me. Summer
is almost over and these are the last paggies we’ll see for a long time. I want
everyone to enjoy them. Please.”

Ersala relented
and kissed her daughter gently on the forehead.

“Tis a good girl,
you are, Lillitha. You make me very proud. I’ll take these back down to the
kitchen then, though I expect Tesla will grumble about last minute changes to
her menu.”

“Oh, wait!”
Lillitha fumbled in the sack, pulling out two of the biggest and best paggies.
“Here, save these two.
One for Edlin and one for Marta.
You know how much Marta loves these.”

Ersala stared at
her daughter. Too often Lillitha seemed to know what went on in the house
without being told. Was it possible that she had a touch of the Sight? Ersala’s
grandmother had claimed to be
tadomani
,
for all the good it did her. An icy finger tickled Ersala’s spine.

But Lillitha
merely smiled, an expression without a trace of guile or calculation.

“I’ll see you at
dinner, daughter. Get back to your studies or Yannamarie will be displeased.”

“Yes, Mother.”

Chapter 2: Marta

Marta waited until
the copse of fen trees shielded her from view of the house before pulling the
stolen fruit from her pocket and biting into it. The juice dribbled down her chin
and hand, leaving sticky pink streaks that she wiped hastily on her dress
before she remembered that doing so would leave evidence of her crime. Her
mother’s eyes were too scriving sharp for her liking.

Scriving.
She said the word aloud, giggling guiltily and enjoying the way it
rolled off her tongue as she strode through the tall grasses of the
east meadow
. She wondered contemptuously if her mother even
knew what the word meant. Then she supposed she must, having borne seven
children, only five of which survived infancy. It was a dirty, common word, but
Marta liked it anyway.
Scrive
the whole lot of them.

She stumbled over
another of the small rocks that littered her family’s land. She kicked it with
her scuffed boot and then winced at her own childishness. Her father was a fool
to try farming this land, nothing but loose sandy soil and rocks everywhere.
Small wonder they were starving. Even Marta knew that to make money in
Kirrisian, you had to have ships. Ships to fish or to bring in things that people
wanted from other places along the coast. Silk and lace and Corellian wine,
spices from the Ceanese Isles. Tomack’s father had ships, lots of them.

Tomack had taught
her that deliciously dirty word, whispering it in her ear as his hands groped
in the front of her loosened bodice. Marta knew that’s what he wanted to do to
her, to scrive her in the haystacks of the far meadow. But she wasn’t that
foolish, though she let him think that perhaps she was. Tomack was a swaggering
fool, but he was handsome and his father was rich. One day Tomack would have
his father’s ships.

And she meant to
have Tomack.

It was difficult
to keep him dangling. He was very persistent, used to having his own way and
not without a rough charm. He was sixteen, two summers older than she. It was a
pity she was so young, she thought; it would be another summer at least before
her father would even begin to think of choosing a husband for her, and another
summer or two after that spent considering suitors and alliances. That was a
great deal of time to simultaneously hold Tomack at bay and yet fan his desire
for her. Well, that was all right. Let him spend that time bedding every
village slut in the province; when he got ready to marry, he would think of the
one he hadn’t been able to bed. His pride wouldn’t be able to stand it.

Besides, she was
the vidor’s daughter. If it weren’t for her family’s poverty, Tomack could
never hope to wed so high above his station.

The village was
just over the rise of the next
hill,
a dreary
congregation of stone huts and whitewashed wooden buildings that became more
cramped as she moved toward the heart of Jennymeede. She gnawed at the core of
the paggie,
then
threw it aside as she cut through
Widow Hargrow’s raggedy garden and made for the lane that led to the docks.

The old men were
gathered outside Griffith Tavern as usual, settled on rough-hewn benches
overlooking the common. Above their heads swung the wooden sign emblazoned with
a dreadful carving of what was supposed to be a coat of arms. The Griffith was
a tame establishment where a man too old for the fields or the docks could bid
his time without his wife accusing him of whore mongering.
The
Griffith was owned by Widow Hargrow, who wasn’t against a game of dice or
drawing a flagon of ale, but drew the line at admitting the local trollops
.
In the Griffith they were also safe from the young pups eager to prove their
manhood with their fists. All of that trouble kept to the waterfront, despite
all of her father’s efforts to keep the riff-raff away from the merchants’
offices and warehouses.

 
Marta waved, flashing a dazzling smile
and putting an extra swing in her hips for the old men’s benefit. A corpulent
old grunt named Syfert waved back, and she laughed at his invitation, but kept
on walking. Old Sy always gave her a sip of his cider ale when she sat on his
lap, pretending that she didn’t know she was too old for men’s laps and too
young for ale. The rest of them were too afraid of her father to let her try
such games, but old Sy wasn’t quite right in the head anymore.
 

Today she had no
time for such pleasantries if she wanted to be back home in time to change her
dress and bind up her hair properly before her father returned. She turned the
corner and squinted towards the end of the packed-dirt lane where the land
ended and the sea began.

The afternoon was
bright and the sun that glinted off the water was nearly blinding. As she
neared the waterfront, the noise of the docks swelled with rough voices barking
orders and the cries of the seabirds spiraling overhead.

“Ya break that
case of wine,” a deep voice boomed over the hubbub, “and it’ll be coming out
a’ya pay, you scriving arse!”

People swarmed
like ants over the wooden piers. Bare-chested sailors in their funny short
pants outnumbered the merchants in their somber-colored coats that flapped
about their legs as the wind gusted off the water. Small dirty children ran as
if they had some purpose and indeed many were legitimately employed carrying
messages and cargo bills from the storefronts to the captains and back again.
Still others hung around hoping to pick up a coin or two when the next ship
docked. Women with baskets scurried to and fro, bearing produce from their
fields down to the markets where they could be sold or traded for mullocks and
gantry fish.

Marta felt safe
knowing her mother had already been to the market that morning and her father
was still at least an hour’s ride away. They always warned her it wasn’t safe
for a young woman to roam Jennymeede alone, but Marta dismissed their pleas and
demands. She’d been coming to the docks alone since she could walk; she knew
every nook and cranny, every shadowed alley and sun-lit lane. She knew the
dockmas and foremen by name, as well as the merchants and tavern-keepers. She
recognized, too, the less reputable character that even now hung out of an
upper window of the notorious Blue Darma Tavern, calling to one of the sailors
lolling against the pier.

“Hallo, buckie!”
Tanra Jille was nearly forty and quite plump, but Marta couldn’t help admiring
any woman who ran her own business as successfully as Tanra Jille did. Unlike
the Widow Hargrow, Tanra had not inherited her tavern from a dead husband nor
did she have any pretensions about the morality of her establishment. “Yer
lookin’ mighty dry and lonely down there, sweetie!”

The sailor, a lean
and tawny fellow with a rag tied about his throat and a beaten copper bracelet
straining against one bicep, laughed to show crooked, gray teeth. He elbowed
his companion and then made an obscene gesture with his hand. Marta caught his
eye and he smiled brazenly.

“Why should I
spend my hard-earned coppers on you, you old whore,” he bellowed, “when such
fine fresh companionship is available right down here?”

Marta tossed her
head and kept on walking, knowing the effect of her disheveled hair as it
bounced down her shoulders. Her hair was her best feature, just like her
sister’s, a glorious mane of red-gold tresses the color of the setting sun,
inherited from their mother. Next year she’d be too old to appear in public
without binding it up properly, but for now she intended to make the most of
it.

“Don’t be a dolt,”
Tanra Jille yelled from her window, her thick lips pursed in annoyance. “That
ain’t no village wench, that’s the blinkin’ vidor’s daughter.”

Marta was a good
four jackles away now, careful not to walk too fast or too slow, but his
throaty reply followed her on the breeze.

“Makes a man’s
mouth water, so she does. Rowle’s daughter or no.”

Fifteen or twenty
boats sat on the water. Above most of the bigger ones flapped the blue and gold
flags of House Danaus. The boats were barrel-shaped constructions of wood,
stained with a dark pitch from the fen trees, with massive strips of metal
forged around their bellies. Those most recently put to port still had their
sails unfurled, a sight that never failed to thrill Marta’s heart, for the
sheer beauty of the sails made up for the clumsiness of the hulls. The sails
were a riot of color and design as every family tried to outshine the others.

Danaus’ ships had
blue sails more vivid than the sky. Yagret’s ships, the next most numerous,
sported brilliant orange sails with a single globe of yellow in the center.
Billra had only two ships, but Marta wished him more, simply because his green,
white and crimson striped sails were so splendid. Even the poorer fishermen
were proud of their patched and sun-bleached sails.

Only one small
boat, an ancient vessel showing signs of rot around the stern, flew the colors
of Marta’s house: a red field with three interlocking gold circles. Rowle had
two sailors whom he paid not in coin but in a share of the catch.

Marta sped past
her father’s men, glad their heads were bent over a tangled net. She didn’t
want to speak to them or she would feel the flush of humiliation creep to the
very roots of her hair. They fancied themselves her equal just because her
father had no coin with which to pay them. Her father said they were good
fellows and honest men. Marta thought him a fool for not seeing the way they
snickered behind his back.

“You’re too proud,
calla Marta,” her father would only laugh, “to imagine slights were none are
intended. Vidor or no, I grew up with Cal and Ryton. I’m lucky to have good
fisherman and they are lucky to have a boat.”

She heard Tomack’s
voice before she saw him. He was standing on the pier scowling over a cargo
bill.

“There are
supposed to be five cases of Farcali brandy, not four,” he bellowed. “Next,
you’ll be telling me how one of them fell overboard—”

She crept up
behind him, standing on tiptoe to clap her hands over his eyes.