Untalented (23 page)

“Faro, the fever—if it takes you, I can help you.” She could never make up for what she’d done to the woman but no one else would die of plague if she could help it.

The guard yanked her arm, but she resisted. Faro’s lip curled. “You are not a healer. You can’t help me, or anyone.”

“But I know where you can find a cure!”

“Feeble—did you think to sway me with such an outrageous lie? Take her away.”

The guard pushed her into the passage and led her down the stairs. Would the healer, once aware of his own death sentence, change his mind?

“Guilty.”

Saroya stared around the room, but did not find a single friendly face. Hostile healers filled the ranks of benches. She turned back to face the master healer.

“For the crime of impersonating a healer, and endangering the life of a patient, the defendant is to be placed in the prison camp for criminal Untalents.”

Saroya’s heart sank. The ruling was tantamount to a death sentence. Plague had already killed half the population of the newly cobbled-together prison camp outside the city. She started to shake. She watched helplessly as a senior Adept approached the master healer. The Adept handed him a note. The master healer frowned.

“It seems I have been overruled. The defendant is thus given into indenture. Bond has already been sold.”

The assembled healers rose as one and bowed to the master healer, who bowed back and exited the room without a backward glance. A guard led Saroya out a side door as the rest of the healers filed out.

Back in her cell, Saroya stared at the wall, her mind vacant. A trickle of water oozed down the canal-side wall where mortar was missing from the stonemasonry. Indenture. Sold as property. Maybe she had known it would come to this. Still, better life as a slave than the death camps. Right?

A distant part of her registered the scrape of the bar across the door as somebody hauled at it, and the splash of a foot sloshing through one of the puddles on the floor, but she did not rouse from her stupor until she sensed a presence next to her. Nalini sat on the decrepit stool next to her pallet.

 
“Did the baby live?” Saroya braced herself.

“It wasn’t a sure thing for a long while but everyone’s all right.”

“I thought I could handle it. I promise it will never happen again. I didn’t get it before. Now I do.”

Nalini bit her lip. “Why should I believe you’ll stick to this promise any more than the last one? I can’t stay long. Mother’s got a fever and if I don’t do something to help I’ll go crazy.”

“Listen—I think I found something that cures the plague.”

Nalini shook her head. “After all this—all the lies you told—I can’t believe you’d stoop to this.”

“I’m not lying!” But why should Nalini believe her? She’d lied too often. To Nalini, to herself. How could she expect anyone to believe her now? Now when she most needed them to, with so many lives at stake.

“A plague cure. You expect me to believe you just stumbled upon it? Something healers have been looking for ever since the last Great Plague?” Nalini stormed to the door.

She had to try to make Nalini see. See beyond her lies to the truth. “Look, believe me or not, but for the sake of your mother, if you go to Aba—”

“I don’t want to hear it.”

Saroya lifted her tunic to show Nalini her pustule scars but Nalini was already in the hall. Saroya called out. “If my new master lets me have paper, I’ll write once I’m settled.”

“I’d rather you not.”

The creak of hinges woke Saroya from a restless nap. A man she did not recognize beckoned her out.

“Where are we going?”

“Shut yer yap and follow me.”

He led her up the stone stairs of the guild cellar and out into a courtyard at the rear of the building. Saroya blinked; even the watery gray light of this drizzly day was more than the lamplight she’d seen during her days awaiting trial. A cart driver sat waiting at the reins of a delivery wagon. The guard shoved her into the bed of the wagon. He clambered in after her and lashed her hands to a post. The driver slapped the reins on his mule’s hindquarters and the cart lurched off. She braced herself against a heavy barrel, looking for a dry spot wedged in among the goods within the reach of the post.

They exited the gates of the Healer’s Guild enclave, right into the middle of an angry mob. Guards at the gate stood elbow to elbow, swords drawn. Hurled stones bounced off the guards’ shields. One rock grazed Saroya and she ducked behind the barrel. She heard desperate shouts and pleas for healing herbs and fever remedies.

“Why is the guild doing nothing? We’re dying out here … Let’s see how fast a cure comes when you all get sick.”

The cart driver urged the mule into a trot. The mob parted grudgingly to make way, until one man raised his voice.

“Is that an Untalent ye’ve got there? Goin’ to the pens, is she?”

The cart driver shook his head. “Those aren’t me orders.”

The attention of the crowd shifted to the cart.

“Why’s she tied up?

Another voice shouted, “So’s she can’t spread the plague … So’s she can’t wander round givin’ it t’all of us.”

“Why’re the healers gettin’ rid of her then?”

“So’s she can’t spread the fever to them.”

“She’ll just give it to us … Get her!”

The cart driver whipped his mule. A rock hit the barrel Saroya leaned against and she shrank down. The driver cursed. “You’ll get me killed, girl.” Saroya stared wide-eyed at him. Did he think she was egging them on?

More missiles pelted the cart. Saroya kicked at hands that reached for her over the edge of the cart. The driver snapped his whip at two men blocking the cart. The path ahead cleared as the mob closed in from three sides. The mule broke into a lumbering canter and suddenly they were free of the shouted invective and hail of projectiles.
 

Saroya shook with relief when they crossed the Healer’s Canal and cleared the confrontation. Could they really hate her that much? So much that they’d kill her just because she was Untalented? She wasn’t making people sick. She knew it. She could heal them if only she could tell the right person about the well. She thought Nalini was that person but she’d been wrong.

And what about all the Untalents being subjected to the same treatment or worse? If she could give the city a cure to the plague, would all their lives get better as a result? Would people stop comparing the Untalented to roaches? Give them the benefit of the doubt? Surely the Talented would have to admit the usefulness of even Untalents then.

The cart bumped across U’Veyle. The driver avoided the central Market Square, then turned southeast, crossing a single canal before veering left onto the main thoroughfare to the Grand Plaza. For a moment, she wondered if he was taking her to the castle, but he angled left in the plaza, scattering pigeons and gulls—the driver headed for the Manor District. The cart turned down the northernmost spur off Manor Circle, then onto an unfamiliar boulevard, and stopped in front of an imposing iron gate. By this time, Saroya was soaked from the rain, but she could do nothing about her bedraggled appearance. The mule’s hooves echoed on the stone drive as they approached the house. Saroya caught a glimpse of an even more imposing gate to one side of the property, and understood that however grand the entrance they just passed through, it was still the back door. She swallowed.

The house they approached succeeded in looking both opulent and threatening at the same time. The dark gray stone was carved with fantastic creatures. Tall thin windows squinted at the lawns. The perfectly groomed grounds sloping down to the canal on the south side of the property discouraged casual walks.

The cart stopped with a jerk in front of a heavy oak door. A thin woman with a sour face waited for them on the steps. She waved impatiently for the driver to untie Saroya and let her down then paid him with a few coins. He left in haste.

“Hurry up, there’s no dawdling around here.” The woman’s nasal voice grated on Saroya’s ears. She followed her into the manor and stood dripping on the slate floor, not sure where to go now.

“What did I just tell you about dawdling?”

Saroya spotted the woman on a narrow set of stairs and hurried after her. She soon found herself in a tiny attic room, which hadn’t been swept for cobwebs in years. The woman thrust a bundle of dry clothes into Saroya’s hands and ordered her to get changed.

“When you’re done, come back down to the kitchen and clean the oven.”

The woman spun on her heels to leave. Saroya hesitated only slightly before asking, “Excuse me, but—what is your name and where am I?”

“You need no other name for me but ‘Mistress’. Your bond was purchased by House Dorn and this is the family seat.” She marched out of the room.

House Dorn! Saroya’s mind raced. Hadn’t her mother’s sister married into House Dorn? She couldn’t decide if this news was a stroke of good luck or yet another setback. On the one hand, Isolte was family. On the other, Veshwa warned her about Isolte’s jealousy of Padvai—would she feel the same about Saroya? Saroya resolved to keep to herself for a while. She’d gain nothing by approaching a potential ally in the wrong manner. That was one thing she’d learned from her failures with Nalini.

She shrugged a clean tunic over her head. For years, Saroya admired the Adepts’ simple silvery gray robes, imagining that one day she might wear one herself, perhaps with a sash of green for growing, or blue for healing, or even the brown of the Builder’s Guild. She hadn’t dared to hope that one day her own robe might be embroidered with the trim of a master Adept, much less the subtle golden gilt of a doyenne, but she’d never pictured herself without that robe or the crest of a guild emblazoned on her tunic. Much less wearing the shameful, dark slate gray clothes of the indentured.

Back in the kitchen Saroya discovered the practical reasons for drab gray instead of livery in the House colors. Any dirty job, Mistress gave to her. No one spoke a word of welcome. After scouring the oven and disposing of the ashes in the bins where they would be kept for soap-making days, Saroya took out the chamber pots. The smell clung to her fingers; one of the houseguests had been ill in the night, splattering foulness all over his bowl. Mistress scowled on inspecting the floor Saroya scrubbed next. The woman clouted Saroya’s ear so hard Saroya’s vision blurred. “You missed a spot.” As soon as Saroya finished one job, she scurried off to the next. Her stomach growling, she finally approached Cook. “Please, is there anything to eat, maybe just a little bread?”

“I’m not here to aid you in shirking your duties. Off with you, now. I’ll give you a good lashing next time.”

Her evening meal consisted of the leavings of a botched stew and a hard slice of bread. Mistress added Saroya’s food, lodging and clothing costs to the price of her bond. House Dorn was not in the habit of letting indentured servants take advantage of the House hospitality. After deducting these costs from her daily wage, only a pittance remained to put against buying back her bond. At the current rate, Saroya might obtain her freedom in ten years or so.

On the evening of her second day, she crouched on her hands and knees cleaning the grate of the library fireplace. She heard the scuff of a shoe against the carpet, and her heart sank. The man padding into the room must be Lord Dorn. She was supposed to deal with the grate hours ago, but a crisis of spilled oil in the kitchens held her up. She did her best to appear unobtrusive as she laid fresh logs for the fire. Lord Dorn looked up from the letter he was reading as the last log slipped from her hands and thudded to the floor.