Storms of Destiny (21 page)

The Chonao took a job guarding a warehouse at night, so they managed to pay their rent and to eat, but there was nothing left over. Jezzil’s savings from his job with the caravan steadily dwindled.

It took Thia a full tenday to gain the courage to leave the room, to walk the streets and look for work. Q’Kal was far larger than Verang, and much more boisterous. Cutthroats and beggars, pickpockets and whores, abounded.

Their lodgings were on the edge of the city’s worst sector.

When she looked across her street at lamplighting, Thia could see the whores awaiting their customers.

Reluctantly, she abandoned her veil after just a few days.

Nobody in Q’Kal wore them, and she realized that clinging to her shrouding gray garments and veil would only help searchers to identify her. Instead she traded an amber bracelet the Shekk had given her for a dull-colored plaid skirt, homespun blouse, and loose overtunic. Dressed more like the chambermaids and other women workers she saw passing by, she gathered up her courage and went out to seek work, while Jezzil slept, exhausted from his night watch duty.

She walked along the squalid streets, picking her way over piles of horse dung and splashes of human waste, hardly daring to take her eyes off what lay before her. She crossed the street, barely managing to dodge in time when she heard a shout of “Heads up below!” and someone emptied a chamberpot from an upper story. When she reached the relative safety of the storefronts, she glanced around to get her bearings. Her eyes widened as she realized that a rough-looking man was eyeing her speculatively.

Thia forced herself to drop her eyes, and held her shawl clutched around her so her face was half hidden.
Who is he?

Could the priests have sent him? Or does he wish to grab me
and take me away to force me?

She dared another glance, saw the man walking in her direction, and her heart pounded so hard that she feared she might faint.
Don’t swoon! If you do, you’re finished!
Panic made her dart out into the street, running blindly. Skirts kilted up in one hand, she ran, splashing through foul puddles, leaping over mounting blocks that suddenly appeared in her way, dodging around carts, horses, and people. She ran, scarcely seeing where she was going, her only thought to get away, far away.

Finally, unable to run another step, she staggered over to a nearby wall and leaned against it, breathing in gasps that tore her chest. When she finally dared to look around, she saw that nobody was paying any attention to her, and the man was nowhere in sight.

When she could finally breathe without pain, she looked around her, seeing that she was in a much better part of town. There were no houses here, only tidy shops, with hitching posts before them. As she watched, she saw a carriage clatter down the street, drawn by a team of matched bays.

Wondering how she could find her way back to the loft on Baker’s Alley, Thia stood up straight, then turned to look around the corner at the building she had been leaning on. It was a brick building with a glass window, and she recognized what was displayed in the window. A book. Like the one she’d seen in Coquillon.

Jezzil called them printers. They make books without
scribes to copy them.

Intrigued, she walked over to the window to get a closer look at the book, which was open and displayed on a wooden stand. Through the window she saw a woman behind a counter, and through the doorway she saw a man’s back, standing before several shelves of books. Slowly, she puzzled out the sign. She’d learned to read a little Pelanese when she’d helped Shekk Marzet with his accounts. But they were mostly numbers … the letters still gave her pause.

book shop and printer.

Before she could stop herself, Thia gently pushed open the door and went in. Inside there were shelves, and standing upon those shelves were books and rolled scrolls, much like the ones she’d worked on for years.

The woman behind the counter was regarding her warily.

She was short, with a round girlish face beneath a beribboned lace cap. “Good morn, mistress,” she said after a moment.

Thia nodded. “Good morn to you. I wanted to see the books.”

“Well, there they are,” the woman said, seeming to relax slightly. She walked out from behind the counter, and Thia realized from the bulge beneath her gown and her ungainly walk that she was far advanced in pregnancy. Thia had rarely seen anyone who was pregnant, and had to force herself not to stare.

“If your hands are clean, you can touch ’em, even,” the woman said.

Thia presented her hands for inspection, palms up, thankful for the bucket of cold water Jezzil hauled up the stairs each morning so they could both wash. The woman eyed them, then nodded.

“Were you looking for anything in particular?”

“No,” Thia said. “I used to … I used to make books myself. Well,” she amended, “scrolls. I wanted to see the ones made by the machine.”

“Well, go ahead, but be careful.”

Thia gently touched the leather covers, then opened the books, eyeing the printed first pages wonderingly, running a fingertip over the watermarked endpapers. Some had real hand-drawn and colored maps inside. She held one book up, studying to see how it was put together.
Sewn into place,
she realized.

“They’re beautiful,” she said, her voice warm with genuine admiration.

The woman smiled at her. “You can read?”

“Yes,” Thia said. “I haven’t had much chance to learn Pelanese yet, but I know a little.”

“Where are ye from?”

Thia hesitated. “Far north. Amavav.”

“Oh, that explains the accent,” said the woman. “You was a scholar, you say?”

“Yes. I copied books, so they could be preserved.”

The well-dressed man finally selected a book. While the woman waited on him, Thia looked over the texts in several of the books, realizing she could puzzle out many of the words if she sounded them out.

Absorbed in reading the first pages of a Pelanese novel, Thia jumped when she heard a rhythmic pounding from the other room. The woman laughed. “Ah, that’s just the press, mistress. Denno is a’printin’ up some bills for the new performance over at the theater.” She beckoned Thia toward the doorway. “Denno! Can she watch while you print?”

Thia came over to the doorway and stood there, watching as the printer fed the sheets of paper into the machine, one by one. She watched in fascination as he reinked the type, then printed several more. The familiar smells of ink and paper were comforting, and she felt completely warm and safe for the first time since she’d left the twin ziggurats.

When Denno was finished, he turned to regard her, his eyes bright in a countenance that was smudged black in several places. He was not a tall man, but he was solidly built, like a tree trunk, with bushy brown hair and freckles. “So, you’re interested in printin’, mistress?”

“Yes,” Thia said. “This is a wonderful machine.”

The woman had followed her in and was standing in the doorway between the bookshop and the printing shop.

“She’s from Amavav,” she said. “Can read and write. Used to be a scribe, Denno.”

“Well, well,” Denno said. He walked over to a cluttered desk. “Can you show me what you used to do?” he asked. “I might be in need of some help. Beddi won’t be able to keep shop much longer, as you can see.”

Beddi giggled. Thia decided the pair were husband and wife.
Working in the print shop? That would be wonderful!

Eagerly, she went over to the desk, sat down, took up a pen, dipped it. “What would you like me to write?” she asked.

“The alphabet,” Denno said.

Quickly, Thia scribbled down the Amaranian alphabet, then as much as she could recall of the Pelanese. Her fingers seemed to remember her old skills. She forgot everything except what she was doing, enjoying the scratch of the pen, the smell of the inks.

Denno nodded, impressed when he saw her neat, precise script. “Can you do aught else?”

“I can cipher,” Thia said. “And I can illuminate.”

“You mean you can make them fancy capitals?”

“Yes.”

“Draw me one. Pelanese, please.”

Thia labored over the unfamiliar character, sketching in its outlines with short, precise strokes. Finally she looked up. “I’ll need colored inks to finish,” she said.

Denno was nodding. “Very nice. Those hand-colored capitals would add a nice touch to some of our jobs. Invita-tions, and cards and suchlike. And the first letters of poems and such.” He gazed down at her. “You be lookin’ for work, mistress?”

Thia nodded. “My name is Thia. Yes, I would love to work here. I want to learn how the machine works. I’ll work hard, Master Denno.”

“Just Denno,” he said. “I can’t pay much, but you’ll be learnin’ a skill. Five half-liera a month?”

That amount was almost as much as Jezzil was making as a guard. Thia nodded. “That’s fine … Denno.”

“When can ye start?”

Thia stood up, smiling. “How about now?”

Working for Denno and Beddi required long hours, but Thia was so happy to be working and earning that she didn’t mind. The coins she was earning allowed her to buy and prepare better food, and provided Falar with a ration of grain at the boarding stable.

Her duties for Denno were exacting but not onerous. After Beddi grew so close to her time that she could no longer wait on customers, Thia took over that task, and both she and Denno worked at cleaning the shop and keeping it tidy.

Denno began teaching her how to set type for the press, but that was a difficult job, requiring a great deal of experience to do efficiently. Thia was amazed by how quickly Denno could set a page. His hands seemed to move in a blur.

Three weeks after she began working in the print shop, Beddi gave birth to a daughter. Denno invited her upstairs to their living quarters to see the new arrival. Thia gazed at the baby in wonder, never having seen a newborn up close.

When Denno placed the squirming, flailing bundle into her arms, she gazed at him nearly in panic. “I’ll drop her!”

Denno chuckled, beaming with pride. “Nah. Isn’t she a pretty thing?”

Privately, Thia thought the infant looked like a reddish-orange blob, but as she gazed down at the newborn, she felt a tightness in her throat. It felt good to cradle the warm, damp weight of a baby in her arms.

She gazed up at Denno and smiled. “Thank you,” she said.

He grinned back at her. “Wait until you have to change her nappies, Thia.”

Several times after the baby was born, Thia came into the shop to find Denno red-eyed from lack of sleep. “Baby had colic,” he always explained.

But when Thia asked Beddi if little Damris had gotten over the colic, Beddi gazed at her in surprise as she sat nursing her daughter. “Colic? Not this one. She’s got the digestion of an ox, and thank the Goddess for it. My mother’s often told me that I was a colicky baby, and how she nearly dropped me out a window more than once because of it.”

“But Denno—” Thia started to say, then abruptly closed her mouth. Beddi, crooning to her baby, did not notice.

One morning Thia arrived early, only to hear the press running already. When he heard the tinkle of the front door, Denno appeared in the doorway, red-eyed and obviously flustered. “Thia! You’re early, lass!”

“So I am,” she said, putting her lunch down on her desk and taking off her shawl to hang it on a hook. “I thought I’d give the floor a good scrubbing. All this spring mud—”

“Good idea, good idea,” mumbled Denno. “I’ll be done in a few minutes.

The press resumed operation.

Thia swept the shop floor, then hauled in water from the public well and added in a few yellow soap shavings, mixing hard until some bubbles appeared. Taking the mop, she began swabbing the floor vigorously, occasionally dropping to her hands and knees to scrub up the worst of the scuffs and marks.

A few minutes later Denno appeared, his arms laden with a box of documents. “I’ll be back in a few hours, Thia.

Watch the shop.”

“Of course,” she said. “Go out the back way, so you won’t track up my floor. ’Tis still wet.”

He nodded at the clean floor. “Looks cleaner than I can ever remember it!”

Moments later Thia heard the back door slam.

After she finished rinsing the shop floor, Thia went back into the press room, thinking that perhaps she ought to try cleaning that floor.
So much spilled ink, mixed with dirt and
boot marks.

She sighed, straightening her back.
Well, it’s still too early
for customers, so I might as well.

Grabbing a broom, she began sweeping around the press.

As she reached the far side of the big machine, she saw part of a paper sticking out from the bottom, where it had evidently gotten caught from the last print run. She reached out and tugged it free, tearing it in the process.

As she started to toss it onto the trash pile, she stopped, staring down at it, her attention caught by the words Denno had printed.

Thia’s Pelanese was fluent now, both spoken and written.

Her eyes widened as she read the torn document:
… sucks the marrow from our bones. Pela is draining us
like a night-demon, and we must fight to preserve ourselves
and our families. Fellow patriots, join with me. The time for
petitions and speeches is nearly over. Soon, if we value our
freedom, we must be prepared to defend it. Someday soon,
we must stand united against the motherland, and let our
voices be heard for what is just and right. We can no longer
allow the King to denigrate our land by shipping the refuse
of Pela to our shores. Already we are taxed until we groan
under the burden. If we wish to preserve our way of life, we
must stand together!

It is time, my fellow patriots, for us to rise up, to defend
ourselves and our land from tyranny. Join with me!

Thia gazed at the torn broadside wonderingly, then her eyes fell on the name at the bottom of the document.

Rufen Castio …

She stood there, rereading the document.
So this is what
Denno stayed up all night printing. Who is Rufen Castio?