Well of Sorrows (4 page)

2

OLIN CROUCHED DOWN IN THE GRASS at the lip of a knoll, his head just above the waving stalks, the knot of his sling clutched in his right hand. The late summer sun beat down on the plains spread out around him, turning the grass gold. Spring had come and gone, most of summer as well. The heat had dried out the ground and the grain had ripened, the seed heads pattering lightly against Colin’s face as he stared down onto the flat land below.

Mounds of dirt pockmarked the ground in all directions, the entrances to the burrows beneath like black eyes. An occasional prairie dog poked its head up, chirruped briefly, before vanishing again. But they were relaxing, growing used to Colin’s presence. He’d arrived over an hour ago, had settled into position downwind of the burrows for the wait.

One of the prairie dogs slid out from its burrow and stood on its hind legs, nose twitching, tan fur blending into the grasses around it. It scanned the area, turning with quick shifts of its body. It chirruped, went down to all fours, and slid away from the entrance. Three more heads appeared in other burrows, surveying the area, and farther away two more slunk out of their protection into the sun. They called to each other, moving onto the plains warily, at least a third of them standing up and on guard while the rest foraged through the grasses. Clouds passed by, and in the breeze coming from the east Colin could smell a hint of coming rain. But he didn’t move. He waited, the prairie dogs edging farther and farther from their burrows. He’d learned the hard way that the little buggers were quick, that with a single chirp of warning from one of the guards all of them could vanish into safety beneath the earth in the blink of an eye.

One of the prairie dogs inched closer, picking through the grass with his nose and front feet. Colin focused in, clenched his hand around the knot of the sling. His breathing slowed as he watched. The bands of the sling tied around his forearm pressed into muscle as he raised his arm, as he began to gently twirl the stone already placed in the pouch. An overhead throw, because the distance was short.

And because he needed a killing blow.

The motion caught the prairie dog’s attention and it stilled, then lifted its head in one swift jerk. At the same instant, one of the guardians emitted a piercing chirp.

Every prairie dog in sight stood up, long bodies rigid, small front feet dangling over the soft lighter fur of their underbellies. All of them turned in his direction.

Colin swore and released the sling, cords snapping out, stone flung.

In puffs of dirt, every prairie dog vanished. Except one.

Colin released his pent breath with a fierce whoop of triumph and wiped the sweat from his forehead, grinning so hard it hurt. Skidding down the incline, he crouched down next to the body of the prairie dog, noted the splash of blood and matted fur where the stone had struck its head. Exactly where he’d intended.

He sat back on his haunches and smiled. He’d been practicing for months, first on the beach, getting the feel for the sling, for distance, for accuracy. Blocks of driftwood served as targets, set at intervals down the sand, where they remained stationary, then thrown out into the ocean, where he could practice hitting a moving target as the wood bobbed and rocked in the waves. Hours of practice, begun as soon as his chores were finished.

His father had watched him on occasion, had come to throw with him when he could, when he wasn’t doing some menial labor in Portstown or helping someone in Lean-to. It had been his idea to send Colin and others out to the plains to hunt for rabbits and fowl and whatever else they could find in this new world that everyone had started to call New Andover. Others from Lean-to were sent down to the beaches to dig for clams or to catch the occasional large crab that had wandered up onto the sand. Still others were sent out in boats into the channel to fish.

Yet over half of those in Lean-to—mostly criminals and miscreants who’d chosen the New World over the Armory in Andover— were doing nothing except seething in discontent and squalor.

Colin had had little success at first on the plains—real animals were harder to hunt than driftwood—but now . . .

Now, he felt ready for his real target.

His smile twisted with anger as his eyes narrowed. His hand clenched on the cords of the sling.

A gust of air, leaden with the weight of rain, pushed against his face. Shoving the anger down, but not the anticipation, Colin closed his eyes and bowed his head, murmuring a quick prayer of thanks to Diermani for the kill, as his mother had taught him, then gathered up the limp body of the prairie dog and placed it into the satchel at his side that contained the two rabbits he’d caught that morning. Shading his eyes, he squinted up at the sun, then stood and scanned the horizon to the east.

“Time to head back,” he said to himself.

But he didn’t move.

The breeze brushed his hair back from his eyes, the scent of rain stronger now. In the distance, he could see the leading edge of the storm, white clouds at the forefront, darker clouds behind. It would arrive within the hour.

He sighed, removed his sling and stowed it in a separate pocket of the satchel, and headed back to the west, trudging up the incline where he’d waited for the prairie dogs and down the far side. The satchel bounced against his side as he moved, as he picked up his pace.

Half an hour later—the wind gusting at his back with enough force to flatten the grass around him, the clouds beginning to blot out the sun overhead—Colin came upon the outermost farms still close enough to be considered part of Portstown. He paused as he drew alongside the first. The house had yet to be completed, but the barn, twice as large as the house, had been raised the week before in the span of two days. A large tract of land had already been carved out of the grassland, freshly plowed, and if Colin shaded his eye he could see a team of horses in the distance, digging out another stretch of field. A woman worked in the garden plot nearest the house, a basket tucked in tight to her hip. Two children roughhoused around her.

She stood as soon as she noticed Colin, glared at him, face set with hostility.

Colin spat to one side—a habit his father had picked up in the past months whenever those in Portstown were mentioned—and continued on his way.

He entered Lean-to with the first fat drops of rain pattering down from the sky. Men and women cursed and shot black looks at the clouds, then tucked pots and baskets under their arms, shielding them from the rain as they ducked into huts and tents, flaps falling closed behind them. One woman bellowed, “Come here you little terrors!” and rounded up the last of her four children, ushering them into a shack made from pieces of discarded boat hulls and driftwood.

Colin ducked into his parent’s hut to the first grumble of thunder. He squatted and pulled a shutter of wood over the front of the opening before letting the blanket drop, then turned.

And halted. His parents had guests.

“They’ve shut us out completely!” Paul spat, then took a pull from an aleskin. He shoved it at Sam, who wiped the mouthpiece on his shirt before taking his own pull.

“What is he talking about, Sam?” Colin’s mother asked in disgust, motioning Colin toward her where she worked near the fire, taking his satchel.

Colin settled down next to his mother, away from the table where his father, Paul, Sam, and Shay sat on various crates and stools, a game of Crook and Row set out before them. Sam glared at his cards, then threw one before answering, Shay snorting as he picked up the tossed card.

“The Proprietor has banned anyone from Lean-to from the docks. We can no longer seek work there or at the warehouses. It’s as if we have the plague!”

“He can’t do that.”

“Oh, he didn’t officially ‘ban’ us,” Paul said, his words slurred with more than derision. “No, no, he’s too crafty for that.”

Shay played a stretch of four and discarded. “The bastard has sent out the Armory, men just over from Andover, sent by the Family. They’ve started patrolling the docks.”

“I don’t understand it,” Ana said, knife slicing through the first rabbit with rough jerks as she began gutting and cleaning it. She motioned for Colin to help her. “He should
want
to have refugees flooding the town. He could double its size within months. There’d be more land producing goods, more tradesmen producing wares. Trade would increase. He’d be wallowing in the profits!”

“Portstown has already doubled in size,” his father said, as he continued with his own move. “There’s a new mill along the river, at least five new merchant houses, two taverns, a granary. But none of that matters. He doesn’t need profit, he’s already wallowing in it.”

“Then what’s he looking for?” Paul asked.

“Status.”

Everyone at the table turned toward him. Sam frowned. “What do you mean?”

Colin’s father paused, caught their intent looks, then set his cards down. “It’s all political. I think Sartori sees Portstown as his path into the Court. Look at what he’s done with the land since we arrived. He’s parceled it out to members of various Families in Andover, to their lesser sons, to those allied strongly with the Carrente Doms and their immediate successors. Last week, he awarded a huge chunk of land to the east to the third son of Dom Umberto, a thousand acres of arable farmland at least.”

Paul choked on his ale. “Umberto is part of the Scarrelli Family!”

His father nodded, anger touching his eyes. “Sartori is curr ying favor with his allies and the Family trading companies, using the land as his collateral. In exchange, he’s gaining influence in the Court. That’s where the Armor y is coming from. His allies are bringing them in to protect their interests here in Portstown. He’s never going to award the land to any of us, because we don’t have anything that he needs. We can’t help him take advantage of the Feud in Andover. Look at all of us here in Lean-to! We’re either bonded to one of the rival Families of the Carrentes, or we’re miscreants, troublemakers, or criminals shipped here from Andover.”

Colin’s mother snorted. “We came here to escape the Feud.” No one responded. Rain began pounding on the roof of the hut, leaking through near the covered hole where the smoke from the fire could escape. Colin’s mother shook her head and set a pot under the drip before returning to the carcasses. They’d finished the two rabbits, had begun working on the prairie dog.

As Colin began cutting it open, careful not to damage the hide, since his mother could use the pelt, he said into the silence, “I saw it.”

All of the men turned toward Colin. The knife slipped in his hand, narrowly missing his palm.

“What did you see?” Shay asked.

Colin forced his hands to stop trembling. “I saw the farm, the one given to Umberto’s son. On my way back from the plains.”

His mother gasped as she took the prairie dog and knife from him. “You were out that far into the plains? I told you to stay close. We don’t know what’s out there!”

“Ana,” his father said, and his mother fell silent with a glower. His father didn’t notice, his attention on Colin. “What have they done so far?”

Colin glanced toward Sam and Paul, toward Shay, who’d shifted forward. He didn’t like the darkness in their eyes, the intensity, especially in Shay’s. Their cards had been forgotten. And the ale.

Thunder growled overhead as Colin said, “They’ve plowed at least two fields. And the garden.”

“What about the house?” Sam asked. “The barn?”

And suddenly Colin understood. They were carpenters and masons and smiths. They could have been hired to help raise the barn, to help build the house.

But they hadn’t been. Just as they hadn’t been hired to help with the new buildings in Portstown, the mill or the granary.

He swallowed against the sourness in his stomach, against the faint taste of bile in the back of his throat, and said, “The barn is already up. The house isn’t finished, but—”

“But it’s been started,” his father finished for him as all four of them slumped back into their chairs.

Shay slammed his cards down onto the table. “Goddamned bloody cursed motherf—”

“Shay Jones!” his mother barked, and Shay leaped to his feet. “What!” he spat, face livid. “I can’t swear? The goddamned Proprietor is sucking our lives away—purposefully!—and I can’t bloody curse? What’s going to happen? Is the blessed Diermani going to strike me dead where I stand? Is He going to send lightning to crisp me into ash? Because at this point I’d bloody well welcome it!”

“Shay,” Colin’s father said, and then repeated more harshly. “Shay! Sit down!”

Shay collapsed back into his seat, but the rage on his face didn’t change. “What did we cross the bloody Arduon for? Not for this.” He motioned toward the rest of the hut, toward all of Lean-to. “Not to live in a shack, begging for menial work on the docks. Not scouring the beaches for crabs or scavenging the plains for rodents, just to eat.” Leaning forward, he hissed, “I didn’t give up an apprenticeship with one of the finest guilds in Andover for
this
. Something has got to change or, Diermani is my witness, I’ll
make
it change.”

He hesitated, eyes locked on Tom, then shoved back from the table, the crate he’d been sitting on tilting and tumbling to the ground. He’d ducked out into the storm, the shutter thrown aside, before anyone had even drawn a breath.