Misery's Child (The Cadian Chronicles) (5 page)

Danaus was no
fool. After he escorted the girl down the gangplank and bid her good-bye, he
stood beside his son, watching the subtle swing of her hips as she made her way
back up the lane. Before she vanished between the rows of whitewashed
buildings, she spun quickly and waved once more.

“Be careful of
that one,” Danaus said lowly to his son.

“She’s just a
child, father,” Tomack protested, feeling a guilty heat rise to his face. “She
doesn’t mean any harm—”

The merchant
grunted something between a laugh and a snort of contempt for his son’s feeble
defense.

“The hell she
doesn’t. That child knows exactly what she’s doing. You be careful with that
one, or I’ll skin you alive and throw what’s left of you to the nivey fish.”

“I would never lay
a hand on her—”

“You’d better
not,” Danaus said as he turned to go. “If I have my way, you’ll be marrying
that girl.”

***

Marta slipped
inside the gate and impulsively blew a taunting, almost cruel kiss to the lone
sentinel as she hurried past. The guard was a sallow-faced young man named
Garolic, from one of the far villages and therefore even more unsophisticated
than the local soldiers in her father’s troop; they were a scruffy lot, thought
Marta, all dumb as posts. Garolic’s presence on the parapet was more tradition than
necessity; the Omani Realm had known no war in more than two hundred summers,
unless one counted the occasional skirmishes along the border. The Torian
raiders that hid in the Shumdan Mountains harried the people in Gezana, Bann
and Bethosa, but here in Kirrisian along the coast of the Far Sea, there was
little to fear.

Marta glanced
upwards as she mounted the crumbling front steps and felt once more the ominous
weight settle on her shoulders. House Kirrisian was a relic from the time
before Belah united the twelve quarrelsome tribes into the Realm of Omani as
one people under a common god. The house looked like what it was: a fort
constructed for defense and safety, not aesthetics. Built of heavy stone
dragged from the quarries in Narkissa, some three hundred parsecs to the east,
it was
a
bland but sturdy structure that would not
burn, nor could its smooth surface be easily scaled.
Each
corner was topped by a small, squat tower
; square rather than rounded,
as was the fashion of more recent times. The towers were connected by a parapet
that circled the entire perimeter in grim, narrow alleys where soldiers once
crouched with
siva
bows and boiling
cauldrons, ready to rain down arrows or hot pitch on besieging armies.

Marta longed for
the day when she’d leave this house forever. Let her younger brother Paul
inherit it lock, stock and barrel, that was fine with her. It was an ugly
place, bereft of columns or porticos, and even the stone carvings around the
front entrance were falling into disrepair.

 
Inside, the main hall was dark and dank,
the odor of rotting tapestries thick in the still air. Because it had been
built as a fortress, the lower hall had no windows to catch the breeze off the
ocean. In the winter, smoke from the hearth often backed up in the chimney and
turned the room into a hazy hell, blackening the wooden beams that supported
the ceiling and almost completely obscuring the ancient frescos painted there.
Her father’s armor, also black with tarnish and soot, hung over the mantel, a
souvenir of the days when a younger man had done his duty to Oman and realm.

But for the armor,
the room was clean, kept in as good order as Ersala could manage. The armor, by
tradition, could never be polished; to do so invited bad luck and war. It was a
silly superstition, to Marta’s thinking, but at least it was one less bit of
work for her.
 

Marta could not
appreciate the gleaming wood beneath her feet, so bitterly did she resent the
back-breaking
labor and chapped hands that kept them in such
good condition. She was sick of sweeping this room, sick of beating the rugs
and raking out the hearth. It wasn’t fair that she spent hours on her hands and
knees scrubbing while her sister lounged in her tower like some princess in a
calla-mundie
. But then her sister was never
allowed into the hall where once every moonrise, her father received petitions
while seated on the enormous chair of carved fen wood. Marta loved petition
days almost as much as she dreaded them, humiliated for her father and herself
yet unable to resist the tawdry pageantry as ragged peasants and well-dressed
merchants elbowed each other impatiently for their chance to complain to Vidor
Rowle. And they always complained about the same things.

“The man is thief,
my lord,” some beggar would moan, naming one of the shopkeepers in the village.
“He overcharges for grain he knows is filled with weevils, then threatens me
with the stocks if I do not pay him—”

 
“My good Vidor Rowle,” a fat merchant
would begin, his voice as slippery as a nivey fish, “it is becoming impossible
for an honest man to make a living along the waterfront! Decent women are
afraid to bring their daughters into my shop because of the abominable behavior
of drunken sailors coming out of the Blue Darma at all hours of the day and
night—”

They came and
brought with them all the news of Kirrisian in their troubles and woes, their
quarrels and scandals. Marta always hurried through her chores in order to sit
on the small stool at her father’s feet and listen. Ersala opposed it at first,
saying that court matters were often unfit for the child’s ears; but Rowle
encouraged her interest, mistaking her gossip’s curiosity for a civic concern
and daughterly devotion. Eventually, Marta’s presence became routine, a lone
female amid the justice of the court, though some of the older men of the
village grumbled that Vidor Rowle was too lax with his women folk.

Women did not
attend petition day. A woman with a grievance sent her nearest male relative to
plead her cause, waiting outside in the courtyard where Ersala sometimes served
tea and biscuits.
All except for Tanra Jille.
She
would waddle past the clutch of women huddled on the steps without a backward
glance or a moment’s hesitation. She walked into the great hall with a somber
black burlang draped over her voluptuous figure in a half-hearted effort to
hide the bright pattern and low bodice of her normal dress underneath. And as
she strode proudly to the steps of the raised dais, Tanra was oblivious to the
stares of male peasant and merchant alike. She folded her thick arms over her
ample bosom as if she were haggling with a fishmonger rather than asking favors
of her lord and master.

Marta would rather
die than miss one of Tanra Jille’s appearances on Petition Day. Her complaints
were so much more interesting than anyone else’s.

“He broke the
girl’s jaw, so he did! Then the fellow has the copper to refuse to pay for the
damages. I will be having five placas for the table he broke and another six
placas for the girl—”

“Why six placas
for the girl?” Rowle had asked, bemused.

“Well, the child
can’t be earning a living for another fortnight, don’t you know? He owes her.”

“And tell me
again, Mistress Jille,” Rowle would ask, fighting a smile, “in exactly what
capacity does this poor injured girl earn her living at your establishment? I
thought I understood you to say she was a serving wench. Can she not pour ale
with a broken jaw?”

Tanra Jille didn’t
blink, just grinned slyly back at Vidor Rowle.

“Well, a serving
wench earns most of her coin in tips, but I wouldn’t expect such a fine lord as
yourself to know such things. And what buckie is going to be giving his
hard-earned coppers to a girl what can’t even smile at him, I ask ya?”

“And this girl
would reasonably expect to earn six placas in a fortnight, just from tips?
That’s a good deal of coin, is it not? Your customers must be very rich or very
generous.”

Tanra Jille winked
at him. “Well, she’s a very good serving wench, she is, my lord.”

Rowle ruled in
Tanra’s favor, as he always did. Marta suspected her father admired Tanra Jille
as much as she did.

“As much as I may
not agree with the way she makes her living,” she’d overheard her father
telling Ersala, “Tanra is an honest woman who takes care of her own. I can’t
fault her for that.”

“She’s lucky to
have you take her part,” Ersala remarked flatly. “Yagret Simanous has been
trying to shut her down for summers. The merchants despise her.”

“That’s because
she serves better ale than any other tavern in the village,” Rowle had laughed.
“Yagret’s concoction is more water than ale and bitter to boot.”

“And how would you
be knowing such things, my husband?”

“Why, from the
complaints of my subjects, dear wife. How else?”

But the hall was
empty now and the hearth a hollow, blackened maw. Even in the coming winter, with
fuel so dear, the household would keep to the smaller rooms off the
kitchen, which were
easier to heat. The hall fires would
only be lit on Petitioners’ Day, where the meager warmth would do little
against a keel’s worth of cold, dead air and fool no one but the poorest
peasants whose homes were even colder. Marta had seen the smug looks on the
merchants’ faces as they cupped their jeweled hands before their faces to warm
fingers with their own breath. It was this humiliation she dreaded on Petition
Day. What good was it to be the vidor’s daughter when everyone knew you froze
in winter like the poorest child of a tinker?

But in Lillitha’s
room, it would be warm as toast, no matter how bitterly the winds howled
outside. On Lillitha’s bed would be the best goose-down coverlet in the whole
household, the cleanest burning olive wood in her hearth grate. Oh, it wasn’t
fair!

The thought of
another bitter winter in this house sent a shiver down Marta’s back in spite of
the late summer heat. She walked the length of the great hall quickly, turning
to the stairs that lead to the bedchambers above.

Her own chamber
was across the hall from her mother and father’s suite. They claimed they had
given her this small dark room because it was warmer in the winter, on the opposite
side of the house from the winds that blew in from the sea, but Marta was sure
they’d chosen this room to punish her. The walls were still washed with the
pale rose color of her infant nursery. The room itself was hardly big enough
for the tiny wooden bed and a washstand, its mirror cracked and discolored, and
a scarred chest of drawers.

She pulled another
frock from the chest and examined it for stains. When she was satisfied it
would do, she flung it aside and stripped down to her frayed and dingy shift.

She paused for a
moment to admire
herself
in the mirror, standing on
tiptoe to check for further evidence that her breasts were indeed developing
nicely.
 
She wished her mother would
relent and give her her first corset before next year, for she was sure it
would lend an added curve to her bosom. One day, Marta promised herself, she
would have a full-length mirror, one that wasn’t cracked or stained. How could
a girl know what she looked like without a proper mirror?

She sighed and
slipped the fresh dress over her head, smoothing the skirts into place and
buttoning the collar. Childishly cut without a real bodice, it hung shapeless
over her breasts and hips. But then that was the reason she’d chosen it, wasn’t
it? Let Mother and Yanna whisper whatever they might in Rowle’s ear about their
youngest running wild through the village; he would see only his little girl,
his sweet calla Marta who still sat on his knee and kissed his cheeks, dressed
demurely in faded blue cotta.

Of course, she
hated the dress. It made her look like a child. But a child she must appear
until her father said otherwise.

She pulled a comb
through her curls, gritting her teeth as her scalp protested. She took a blue
silk ribbon—one of only three she possessed, and this one had been stolen
from Lillitha—and tied back her hair, allowing one curl to escape for her
vanity’s sake.

A commotion arose
in the courtyard filled with the barks of dogs and the cries of small children.
A booming, masculine voice cut through the tumult and Marta knew her father was
home.

She practiced her
smile just once in the mirror before racing down the stairs to the kitchen.

“Your father must
have just ridden in,” Tesla informed her as she entered the kitchen. “Your
mother’s gone to greet him.”

“I know.” Marta
stuck a finger in a bowl of warm kanard and lifted it to her mouth. “I thought
you might need some help. He’s early.”

The House
Kirrisian cook was a gaunt, sunken-eyed widow with little patience for Marta,
who rarely condescended to speak to her unless she was wheedling seconds. She
was up to her elbows in radishes, charoot and onions, chopping with a skilled
savagery born of too much work and too little time.

Tesla’s eyes
narrowed suspiciously. She snorted as she waved her knife at Marta. “If you’re
wanting to help, then I’ll thank you to be keeping your dirty fingers out of
the kanard and go stir that pot on the fire. Be sure to scrape the bottom or
it’ll stick.”