The Lord Son's Travels (44 page)

Brendan
had completed his agonizing walk to his new owner’s wagon and collapsed by one
of the back wheels.
 
She had
glanced disdainfully his way and ordered one of her other men to lay him on the
floor of the wagon and deliver him to her house.
 
When he came to again, he was lying in a small, dimly-lit
bedchamber.
 
The woman was gently
examining Adrien’s stitch work on his wounds, which had been pulled open by his
efforts that afternoon.
 

She
chided him softly, “I bought damaged goods.
 
What is your name and where come you from?”

“Bran,”
he managed, his voice cracked and dry.
 
He tried to pull himself up to a seat.
 
She aided him, setting a couple of pillows behind his back.
 

“From
Allé-dôn?” she inquired idly as she continued to clean the wound in his
arm.
 

He
pursed his lips.
 
That much he
didn’t want to admit to yet.
 

“Tis
in your voice, lad,” she continued.
 
“I’ve heard every twist of the tongue in the Eastlands from my
investments.
 
None too many from
your way.”
 
Thankfully she didn’t
continue with her idle interrogation, but instead silently rebandaged his
wounds.
 
She then asked if he was
hungry and pointed to a tray balanced on the small table beside him.
 
He dug in ravenously.
 
When his momentum had slowed she spoke
again.
 
“You’ll remain in this room
until you are healed, Bran.”

“Then?”
he pressed.

She
smiled.
 
“Then your work will
begin.”

Elenna
and Adrien were ushered into the servant’s door in the back through the twists
of the main hall to a well appointed office, still tied tightly and guarded on
each side by a tall brutish man.
 
Their driver followed a few steps behind.
 
Inside waited a well-dressed younger man, absorbed in a stack
of paperwork.
 
He looked up with
interest as the party entered.

“Henrik,
you’ve been shopping again?” he asked the man slipping into the room behind
them.
 
“We have plenty of slaves,
and our expenses have been too high.”

Henrik
explained, “We need a new cleaning help.
 
The last one had an unfortunate accident.”

The
overseer nodded.
 
“Why the other?”

“They
are married,” his assistant explained.
 
“And another stable hand will be useful.”
 
This extinguished the last of the overseer’s interest.
 
He ordered them away so he could return
to his reading.
 
Henrik retraced
their steps back to the servant’s area.
 
Here he ordered the guards to leave them and rejoin their patrols around
the perimeter of the house.
 
The
servant's hall was lined with doors on both sides.
 
Henrik picked one and swung it open to reveal a tiny
windowless chamber.
 
The walls were
plain; the only furniture a sagging bed, a scuffed wooden table and a long
bench.
 

“You
will stay here when not on duty,” Henrik announced.
 
“You will report to the stable at dawn, and you to the
cookhouse.
 
If you are not there,
two other slaves will be killed in your stead.”
 
He paused.
 
“I
suppose I must call you something.
 
You are Fox,” he pointed to Adrien, “and you … Cat.”
 
He caught Adrien’s flash of anger.
 
“You will not wish to anger me.
 
My punishments are not creative, but
effective.”
 
He turned on his heels
and slammed the door shut behind him.
  

Left
alone inside the room, Adrien and Elenna faced each other.
 

“Shit,”
Elenna muttered.
 

“Free
me,” Adrien ordered.
 
He turned
around to give her access to his bound hands.
 
She studied the knots, then called for Midiral to cut
through the tight bonds.
 
Then she
turned around and he used Aréal to free her.
 
She glanced at her wrists, which had been rubbed raw by the
tight rough ropes.
 
He paced back
and forth across the tiny chamber, rubbing his own reddened hands.
 

“What
are we going to do?” she sat on the wooden bench and watched him pass back and
forth.
 

Adrien
opened his mouth and a stream of obscenities issued forth.
 
Elenna raised her eyebrows in surprise
at his amazingly creative wordings.
 

“Feel
better?” she asked when he finally paused for breath.
 
He glanced her way, and she pitied the despair in his
eyes.
 
He looked defeated.
 
She tried to comfort him with optimism.
“Evendor knows we were coming.
 
When we don’t arrive, they’ll send someone to find us.”

He
sank onto a corner of the bed and dropped his head down into his hands.
 
When the silence had grown
uncomfortable, he turned to face her.
 
“This land is in the custody of Southland’s men now.
 
Evendor will not risk a battle yet only
for us.”
 
He sighed deeply.
 
“I won’t leave without Brendan.”

“Of
course not!” she nodded vigorously.
 
“We’ll find out where he is, and wait until he is ready to travel.”

Adrien
shook his head at her unflappable resolve.
 
“You always see possibilities, don’t you?”

She
shrugged.
 
“We've made it this
far.
 
Come on, you’re
exhausted.
 
Lie down and go to
sleep.” He closed his eyes and with effort reopened them.
 
He glanced down at the rough wool
blanket and frowned.
 
Elenna
understood his concern.

“There
is no need for this to be a problem,” she stated calmly. “We’re adults, we can
manage.
 
You take that side, I’ll
take this side, both of us will be okay and no one has to sleep on a dirty cold
floor.
 
All right?”

Only
extreme weariness would allow him to agree to such an inappropriate
situation.
 
He added the
stipulation that he could have the side facing the door.
 
She refused.

“No
way, you snore if you lie on your right side.”
 
This roused Adrien into a vigorous protest for the sake of
his dignity.
 
She held her ground,
secretly happy to move the conversation to a less serious topic.
 
“Yes you do!
 
Didn’t you ever notice I would only sleep when you were on
watch?
 
You used to make the trees
shake!”
 
He shook his head in faint
amusement, then slowly pulled off his boots and laid back on his assigned side
of the bed.
 
Shyly Elenna removed
her own boots and slid under the blanket on her side.
 
After Adrien had extinguished the candles on the table at
his side, both lay side by side in the pitch black darkness, each lost in their
own correspondingly dark thoughts.
 

Elenna
broke the silence.
 
“Rian, why did
that man give us animal names?”

“Tis
an insult,” he answered bitterly.
 
“All slaves are called such.
 
To them we are only animals.”

“Oh,”
 
This was followed by a pause long
enough that Adrien thought she had fallen asleep.
 
"In my home, we sometimes used animals to represent
personal qualities.
 
Foxes
represented intelligence and craftiness.”

She
couldn’t see the faint smile that crossed his lips.
 
“I doubt he would have named me such if he knew that.”

He
waited for an answer, but this time she had fallen asleep.
 
He lay awake only for a few minutes
longer, drifting off to a review of his knowledge of foxes and their ways.

Chapter 40

The
next evening there was no debate or modesty involving their sleeping
arrangements.
 
After they finally
were released from their onerous duties, both collapsed in the bed together,
exhausted and aching, with barely a word of acknowledgement passing between
them.
 
Adrien had been assigned to
the chief groomsman, a short dour fellow who glared up at his new taciturn
assistant with distaste.
 
The
estate housed a large number of horses; some lively ones for the use of the
overseer and his family, but most a collection of broken-down, decrepit farm
nags kept for the use of the workers.
 
Adrien showed no emotion as the groomsman tossed him a rusty shovel and
motioned him to the back of the stable.
 
He obeyed silently.
 
Another
slave pointed him to an empty stall, and the rolling barrel which he was
supposed to fill.
 
When no one was
looking he rubbed his nose with a scowl, and then dug in.
 
Adrien had sometimes glanced at the
workers at the military’s or his father’s stables when he came for his
mount.
 
He had certainly never
noticed the smell; he hoped it would fade soon enough so his eyes would stop
watering.
 
He finished a stall and
moved to the next.
 
The horses were
used to the routine and were moved easily enough by a more experienced
slave.
 
One horse reminded him of
his old mount Madoc.
 
Adrien hoped
he had found himself a better home than this place.
 
As he carried shovelfuls to the barrel, he tried to examine
what he could see of the estate outside the stable windows.
 
All he saw was the same buildings as
the night before.
 
The slave
dormitories, or so he imagined the largest buildings, were too large to house
just slaves for the homestead; he wondered what the residents were used for.

When
the sun was at its zenith the slaves were marched to the cookhouse for the noon
meal.
 
Futilely Adrien sought for
Elenna among the crowds of women serving food.
 
After a few moments of rest under the blazing sun, they were
ordered back to the stables until the sun began to set and the evening meal was
served.
 
After this, the men were
allowed to return to their rooms to rest until morning.
 
Throughout the day, except for his
encounter with the groomsmen, Adrien had not heard a word spoken.
 
In the afternoon, an older slave had
been put to work in a stall next to him.
 
As far as Adrien could tell, they were completely alone, but when he had
stopped work a moment to approach the other man, he had panicked and frantically
waved him away.
 
As the men dropped
their tools in a pile and took to the path leading to the dormitories, Adrien
turned the other way to trudge slowly to the main house and their chamber.
 

Elenna’s
first day hadn’t gone any easier.
 
Adrien had been summoned first to his work.
 
After he had left, she lay on the bed, hands behind head,
and wondered about escaping.
 
A
harsh pounding on the door was immediately followed by its swinging open on
rusty hinges.
 
A large woman with
thin white hair plunged into the room and barked at Elenna to get to her
feet.
 
She carried an old tattered
dress over her left arm, which she tossed at the now standing girl and ordered
her to change.
 
Elenna complied
quickly, and followed her new boss down the hall to the family cookroom.
 
Inside was chaos as a trio of slave
women tried to prepare the overseer and his family’s morning meal.
 
The old woman pointed to a bucket
filled with steaming soapy water.
 
An old mop leaned against it, with a cleaning rag draped over its handle.

“Clean
the house,” she commanded in a rough, raspy voice.
 

Elenna
blinked.
 
“Clean the what?” she
answered without thinking.
 
The old
woman moved very quickly despite of her frail appearance.
 
She stepped forward and slapped Elenna
smartly across her right cheek.
 
She had nearly called for her sword and assumed a fighting stance when
reason took over and reminded her to lower her eyes in submission.

The
old woman glared.
 
“Every room will
please the Lady of this House by sunset or you’ll feel her wrath!”
 
Elenna accepted the rough handle of the
mop thrust at her and kept her own wrath in check.
 
If the old woman sensed any threat in the bold new slave,
she kept her suspicions hidden.
 
She informed Elenna to start in the sitting room next door, and gestured
for her to take her equipment and go.
 
Throughout the day, Elenna could hear her screaming at various slaves
who she had found lacking in effort.
 
Wherever the Lady of the House was, she evidently didn’t mind the sounds
of discipline echoing through her halls.
 
Elenna mopped and wiped and scrubbed and grumbled silently all day,
often returning to the cookroom for a fresh bucket of soapy water.
 
The soap they used was strong; she
wished she had a pair of gloves.
 
Her noonmeal was brought to the room she was currently cleaning by her
supervisor, who allowed her only enough time to slurp down the soup with a cup
of warm water.

The
house grew warm under the strong rays of the afternoon sun, and her dress was a
thick cotton.
 
She paused to gaze
out the windows of the second floor of the house, studying the grounds of the
estate.
 
Beyond the span of the
surrounding buildings was only the wastelands they had driven through last
night.
 
She couldn’t see the town
in any direction.
 
She thought of
Brendan and sighed.
 
The old woman
had exaggerated; she found that the cookroom and the sleeping rooms of the
overseer were cared for by other slaves and not her responsibility.
  
Her arms ached, her back was
stiff from hunching over, but she did finish her work by the time her supervisor
came to find her and release her for the day.
 
She dropped off her equipment in the cookroom and stumbled
down the hall to their chamber.
 

By
the end of the week they had each built up enough stamina to interact in the
evening.
 
After her first morning
waking up to Eau de Horse, Elenna brought an extra wash tub from the cookroom
and a supply of soap.
 
Both had
been given two changes of clothes, so at night before collapsing into bed she
would scrub up the day’s wear after each had changed into their cleaner set.

Two
weeks later was the worst day for Elenna.
 
Her supervisor had accused her of slacking off when she found her
rubbing her aching back, and delivered a blow hard enough to send Elenna off
balance.
 
Later she met the
overseer again when she entered his study to clean.
 
He had smiled and invited her in for a seat.
 
She complied unwillingly, glancing at
the door which he firmly shut and locked behind her.
 
When he sat next to her on the sofa and placed his hand on
her thigh, she froze in anger and fear.
 
His gaze grew colder.
 
As he
approached closer someone knocked on the door; an opportunity seized by Elenna
as she flew from the couch.
 
His
expression was displeased, and now as she escaped into her empty chamber her
tears flowed hotly across her cheeks.
 
She pulled off her gown and threw it into the hot water, sobbing as she
knelt in her undergown next to the steamy tub.
 

When
Adrien came in for the evening, she was stone-faced and straightening the
sheets on the bed.
 
He dropped
wearily in the wooden chair and silently observed her work.
 
She didn’t even realize he had come in
until he jumped up from his seat to pace across the floor.
 
He visited each corner of the room,
picking up and examining their few belongings.
 

“What’s
wrong?” she asked, but he didn’t hear her.
 
His mind was far away in a memory he had not recalled for
many years.
 
Once when he was a
child, he been caught by his father snapping at a maid.
 
She had been sent to clean his room,
interrupting his study of a book of Outland travels.
 
He had ordered her to leave in an unusually rough growl for
a young boy.
 
His father had been
passing in the hall; when he heard the command he stopped and reprimanded his
son.
 

For
a punishment, Adrien was sent as an assistant to the chief housekeeper for a
day.
 
She had relished the
assignment, and sent the young boy on a series of backbreaking chores that left
him exhausted and sore for days after.
 
Worse had been the feeling of conquest.
 
Though he could think of several ways to do any of the
chores more efficiently, he was forced to follow his mistress’s
instructions.
 
He had hated the
sense of powerlessness under unfair command.
 
This was one lesson from his father that he had carried on;
for the rest of his life he had been a free man bending to no one else’s
orders.
 
Now he was returned to
this hated punishment of his youth, and his father wasn’t there to grant him
release.

“What
is wrong?” she asked again.
 
She
dropped the last of the washing back into the tub and slowly rose to her
feet.
 
He noted the way she
clutched her back, and his frustration increased.
 
He clenched his fists and began pacing again.
 
She placed her hands on her hips and
eyed him thoughtfully.
 
Patiently
she waited.
 
Finally she had
enough.
 
“So tell me…”

“Woman,
can I have a minute’s peace here!” he bellowed.
 
He glared his fiercest in her direction.
 
She flinched, but stood her
ground.
 
“There is no place for me
to think in quiet!”
 
He thumped the
washtub with his foot in frustration.
 
“The hogs have more room in which to move.”
 
He slumped into the chair again.
 
She waited for his outbursts to come to an end, then seated
herself on the edge of the bed near him.
  
He rested his head in his hands, eyes clenched, and
returned to silence.
 

“What
happened today?” she asked in a quiet soft tone.
 
He felt the change in her tone from curiosity to
concern.
 

He
shrugged, still hiding his expression.
 
“One slave spoke today.
 
He
warned another of a falling hay-rake from the upper floor.
 
The overseer stabbed him with his knife
where he stood.”

Elenna’s
face fell.
 
“Oh,” she said.
 
She reached out to stroke his
forearm.
 
He pulled away, stood up
and turned to face the door.

“We
are only animals here.
 
Tis all we
will ever be.
 
Allé-dôn will fall,
and I will be here cleaning a Lady-forsaken stable.”

Elenna
earnestly shook her head.
 
“Don’t
think that way.
 
We’ll get out of
here, we’ll find Bren, we’ll get back on the road.”
 
She tried again to touch his arm and offer comfort.
 
He pulled away roughly, hiding his face
again with his hands.

 
“You think we’ll see him again?”
 
Her eyes narrowed as she caught his
meaning.
 
“Brendan is dead,” he
snapped.
 
“You know as well as
I.
 
We rot here because of foolish
hope.”

Elenna
grasped his shoulder, this time refusing his efforts to shake her off.
 
“Don’t you say that!” she exclaimed
angrily.
 
“You don’t know that!”

“You
saw his wounds!” he exclaimed angrily, and now she could see his eyes were
swollen and red.
 
She hugged him
tightly, murmuring encouraging words as he finally gave in and allowed the
embrace.
 
When he had calmed enough
to hear her, she spoke again.

 
“Look, life sucks right now, I
agree.
 
But we can’t give up.
 
We’ve been in bad places before and
we’ll probably be in worse before we’re done.
 
We have to think of a way out of this.
 
I’m not giving up on Bren yet, and
you’re not going to either.”
 
He
pulled back his head so he could see the truthfulness in her expression matched
her words.
 
She continued, “Let’s
give it another week and see what happens.
 
We can do that.”
 
He gave a barely perceptible nod in reply and pulled back reluctantly
from her embrace.
 
She motioned for
him to lie down on the bed and covered him up with their spare blanket.
 
He laid back and watched her as she
finished the last of her evening chores.
 
She thought he had finally fallen asleep when she doused the candle and
crept under the covers on her side.
 
But then he spoke softly.