Neveryona (56 page)

‘Oh, I don’t think –’

But Pryn turned and sprinted away among staves, pots, leaning tools, hanging baskets and out flapping hide.

More workers stood in front of the eating hall than usual. Many were climbing into a large, open wagon. Ahead on the road, another wagon full of men and women was just rolling off north. Everybody was in a good mood. Half a dozen men stood at the road side, bending and hooting with laughter at a story from a heavy woman at the wagon’s edge. She gestured and grimaced, making strange growls and grunts – in the narrative, Pryn caught the passing
nivu
, the casual
har
’, but understood none of the barbaric comedy.

She crossed the cool, yellow dirt and turned from the door when a bunch of jabbering men came out followed by several silent women.

‘There
you are!’ Juni ducked from the door-hanging, drying her hands on her work apron. She wore a dress that was
very
blue.

Juni hurried over to her. ‘What in the world happened to
you
last night?’ (Pryn thought it might be reassuring to take out her knife. But wouldn’t it look odd to Juni …?) ‘His Lordship drove down here this morning, woke up Old Rorkar, and the two of them were in the hall soon as we opened, asking if anyone had seen you.’ Juni’s dress had none of the metallic glitter of the earl’s cloak, but it was definitely the same color.

Pryn put her palm against the knife and felt it through the doubled cloth.

‘The earl said you’d decided to come home by yourself …? He said he’d offered to have you driven back, but there was some misunderstanding … ?’

Pryn blinked. ‘Yes.’ She thought: I’ll just say ‘yes’ to everything anyone asks until a dragon plucks me up and away and I’m gone …

‘it’s an awfully long walk back from his Lordship’s estate,’ Juni said. ‘But then, the moon was full last night. It was still out when I got up to come here this morning. I
just wish it hadn’t rained, though … Well, when they went to the barracks, you weren’t there!’

Pryn nodded.

Juni took a large breath. ‘Finally they went and got Bruka
anyway
. And took her out back! It was awful! Afterwards, when his Lordship had driven off, Rorkar came in and sat in the empty hall and kept on saying this
wasn’t
the way he wanted to begin the Labor Festival. I felt so
sorry
for him … !’

‘Bruka?’ Pryn frowned.

‘They should have waited to find you,’ Juni said. ‘That’s what Rorkar told his Lordship. I mean, even a slave has
some
rights – and there’s
supposed
to be a witness. But his Lordship got very angry and said I’m sorry, my man, but for all he knew the silly girl – which was you – wouldn’t
be
back! He said they’d looked for you several hours before they decided you must have made your own way home. And besides, he said, when Bruka was confronted with it, she’d confess.’ Juni tossed her apron hem down. ‘They went and got her and took her out in the back …’ Her dark eyes widened. ‘They
used
to do it here in front, you know, for everybody to see. Two big logs, sticking out of the ground right there by the road, with manacles hanging on them! I remember, because when I was six or seven, my cousin drove me by and we saw them doing it. It bothered me for days, weeks – oh, it
still
bothers me … Where are you going?’

Pryn walked away along the wall.

She heard Juni come up behind her, stopped when Juni put her hand on her shoulder.
‘Don’t
go back there …’

Pryn glanced over her shoulder.

‘There’s nothing you can do. I mean there was nothing you
could
have done, even if they’d found you – since they didn’t wait. They’ll cut her loose when everyone comes back this evening –’

Pryn walked again.

‘Well, don’t stay there too long, then!’ Juni called. ‘I’m going to get in the wagon … I wish you’d come, too; and tell me all the wonderful things that happened last night at his Lordship’s …’

Pryn turned the back corner of the hall.

There were some barrels on the eating hall’s back porch. That’s all. It didn’t feel particularly like morning. She looked across the stone benches stretching to the forest.

She’d expected a stake driven into the ground somewhere and the old woman dangling, chained to it.

She saw nothing.

Out in front she heard another wagon pull up. Someone was shouting for someone else to hurry, hurry up! Someone else was laughing very hard about it – or something else entirely.

Pryn walked out between the benches.

Reaching the aisle, she crossed over dandelions and sedge. Weeds tufted gravel and fallen leaves. She walked between the next seats. The tarred staples left rusted halos on the stone. In various chipped indentations, water had gathered. A third of the staples had broken off. Many were only nubs.

At the bench’s end, Pryn walked around the weedy dirt piled against it.

Five, or six, or seven benches away, a rope was tied round one of the staples. It went over the stone’s edge and down.

It was moving.

Pryn frowned.

She climbed up to stand on the bench nearest. With a long step and a jump, she got to the next; and the next; and the next –

The woman lay on her side, face against the rock. The vine was lashed half a dozen times around her bony forearms, from her wrists halfway up to her elbows, which
were pressed together. The skin above the rope was red. Her dress had been stripped to her waist. She was breathing very quietly.

As Pryn stood looking down, Bruka opened her eyes. She didn’t look particularly surprised. But after a few moments, she closed her eyes again and shifted her bound arms. The vine rope slid an inch along the stone.

The first thing Pryn thought was that it wasn’t as horrible as she’d expected.

It was only rope, not chain; and only along two of the welts on her back had the skin broken enough to bleed – though as Pryn climbed down, she saw a splatter of red on the weeds. And there was a brown smear on the bench’s side.

Pryn squatted, looking about. There was no one – though later she told herself it wouldn’t have mattered if there were. She would have done the same. She took the knife from her sash under the fold, grabbed one of the lengths of vine rope tied to the staple, and began to saw at it. Getting through it took about two minutes – it was much better rope than she’d been able to make for her dragon bridle.

She was halfway through the second when Bruka opened her eyes again and said, ‘What are you doing?’

‘Cutting you free.’

‘Did he send you? Is the sun down?’

Pryn shook her head and kept sawing.

‘You’re freeing me … !’ Bruka struggled to sit up.

Pryn grunted; the rope was jerked from her hand. She pulled it back and kept sawing.

‘The indignity … !’ Bruka whispered. ‘They wouldn’t do it out front, where people could see. No. They hid me away here in the back – pretending it wasn’t happening! Why do it, then? But they know, now: people won’t tolerate it – not the free ones! Then why
do
it, I said. Who’s it to be an example to, I asked. Not an old woman
like me, an old slave … there won’t be any more slaves, soon. They won’t put up with it … You’re freeing me? You’re mad!’ The old woman narrowed her eyes. ‘You’re mad, you know. You know what they’ll do to you – a lot worse than this! It’s a crime what
you re
doing –’

Pryn stopped sawing. ‘Do you want me to leave you here?’

With her fingers on the bench edge, Bruka dragged herself up. ‘No … !’

Pryn grasped the rope and sawed at it some more.

‘But you’re mad – !’

‘Me and Queen Olin,’ Pryn said. ‘Since I got you into this mess with that useless astrolabe – it’s gone now, by the way, so don’t worry – this seems the
least
I can do.’ On
least
the rope parted. ‘Let me see your arms.’

Bruka thrust them forward.

Pryn pulled at the rope, but it was knotted at both ends of the lashing. Bruka’s fingers and hands were puffy.

‘Here …’ Pryn moved around beside her, so that she could get the bound arms under one of hers to steady them. ‘Hold still, or I might cut you …’ It was hard sawing; and Pryn still didn’t feel all that well. In the middle of picking and cutting at the knot, her forehead broke out in beaded water, and her sawing arm began to slip against her side. ‘What are you going to do when you get free?’ She cut more.

‘Oh, they think I don’t know, because I’m an old woman. But I do! There are ways for a slave to get north to Kolhari and not
once
step on the main road. There’re the little trails and paths the smugglers use. There’re the little roads.
I
know …’

‘You’re going to Kolhari?’ Pryn glanced back at her. ‘Me too. Perhaps I’ll see you there.’ She went back to her cutting.

‘They don’t have slaves in Kolhari,’ Bruka said. ‘Only free men and women.’

‘Mmm,’ Pryn said. She pushed away the image of an old woman alone in those crowded streets.

‘There’s a Court of Eagles,’ Bruka said. ‘Where everything is decided fairly. With real eagles, too. I talked to a man who went to Kolhari once, and
he
said he saw no eagles. But I said there must a real eagle there, someplace. Don’t you think?’

‘Oh, there is,’ Pryn said, ‘It’s huge. Its wingspan would block the sunlight away from this whole brewery. Its feathers are gold and iron. Its beak and claws are clotted with gems. And it guards the city and keeps its markets and businesses running quite smoothly, thank you. But they keep it hidden. You’ll be in Kolhari quite a while before you ever get a look at its glittering face. They’re vicious birds, you know – eagles. Mountain birds; and I come from the mountains. Dirty, too. Really, they’re just a kind of vulture –’

‘You’re mad,’ Bruka said.

The rope came free. ‘There …’

Pryn put the knife up on the stone and unwrapped Bruka’s bound arms. The grain of the vine had printed itself on the yellow flesh – and of course there was another place, Pryn saw as she unwrapped more lashing, where the rope was
again
knotted about her forearm. But that only took a half-minute to untie.

‘It happened to my father, too,’ Bruka said. ‘The same way. I wish I’d known him, at least long enough for him to tell me – but it wouldn’t have done any good. They always said I was a headstrong girl.’ The last of the rope came away, and Bruka suddenly grinned. ‘Like you, eh?’

Pryn waited for the old woman to flex her swollen hands. But she only stretched her arms out; sitting up tall, she looked over the bench tops.

Pryn looked too.

There was still no one.

‘You’re sure you can get north to Kolhari … ?’ Pryn asked.

The swollen hands on the marked and raddled forearms came back to Bruka’s neck. The old slave grimaced, slipping two fingers of each hand under the iron collar at each side. She pulled.

The lock separated, and the collar came open on its hinge. Pryn had an impression of incredible strength, a strength that, if it could tear open such a collar, could easily have broken the ropes!

Bruka looked at her, then frowned at what was certainly an odd expression on Pryn’s face. ‘But I
never
wear it locked,’ she explained. ‘In the day it’s all right, I guess. But at night it chokes me … someone got a key here, years ago. Old Rorkar never knew. But I think the lock’s broken by now, anyway. The hinge is tight, so it holds …’ She took the collar from her neck and put it on the bench. Once more she frowned at Pryn. ‘I’m not too old, you know. I’ve always wanted to go. I can. I know how. I’ve always known. Thank you for freeing me.’ Bruka reached forward, touched Pryn’s knee. ‘Thank you, my Lady …’ Then she scrambled awkwardly to her wide feet, pulled her dress up over her dark-aureoled breasts, stuck her yellow arms through the ragged holes, turned and hurried toward the trees. Bent nearly double, she was among them; was within them; was gone.

Pryn stood.

She wiped her forehead with her fingers and shook them. Drops darkened the stone. She picked up the knife, lifted the blousing, stuck it in her sash, and let green cloth fall.

She picked up the collar, holding an iron semi-circle in each fist. The metal loop to attach the neck-chain separated the second and third fingers of her right hand. She brought its double tenon into the groove: a click.

She pulled.

Another click – it came open again, though the hinge was indeed firm enough to hold it at whatever position, opened or closed.

Pryn raised it to her neck.

The iron was a neutral temperature against her skin. Holding it with both fists, though, she couldn’t close it all the way; so she took it off again and stuck it around her sash, closed there, pulling enough cloth through to cover it.

Pryn walked back among the benches toward the building corner. She felt as though she’d been here an hour – though, really, it was probably no more than ten minutes. When she came around the hall, they were only just starting the wagon. Horses clomped forward. Then, at the wagon’s edge, Juni hollered at the driver to stop, stop, please, stop, just once more, and everybody groaned or laughed as though this had happened two or three times already.