5. N #2
The woman looked around, saw the table that Triana had used for her clothing alterations, hooked a heel around it and dragged it closer to the door.
Triana watched as she slid a chair away from one wall, covered the small table with a cloth from the cart, then set down the tray.
When she was done adjusting things to her liking, she took a small, shiny vase out of the basket and set it in the middle of the table. The vase held a single, lonely flower.
Triana met the woman’s eyes and opened her mouth to speak, when the dumpy-looking woman pressed her finger to her lips, cutting Triana off with the gesture.
The woman spoke, addressing Triana as if she were a very slow and slightly deaf child.
“Boss say you no speaking good. You sitting here. Eating all good food. Boss sending for you later. Sitting? Eating? Yes?”
Triana simply had no idea how to respond. The absurdity of the language, the pantomime, the condescension, the totality of the strangeness, all left her without a single word’s reply. Her stomach rumbled again, suggesting it at least knew what to do next. She nodded her head once.
The woman smiled broadly at her, and backed away. The guards withdrew, leaving her with her breakfast. She went to it eagerly.
The central portion of the meal consisted of some kind of sweetened porridge, flavored with something she couldn’t identify, but “fruity.”
Then bread with a salty spread, which she tasted once and discarded for its odd, musty flavor.
A small dish of berries. She ate the firm ones, enjoying the mix of sweet and tart, and left the ones gone soft.
Bad form for the staff. They should know better.
Finally there was some manner of tart drink in the glass, the flavor faint, just enough to be detected.
No meat, but not a big loss. She typically ate lightly in the mornings anyway.
She finished the meal, and while it was not up to anything close to the standards she expected at home, it filled her stomach.
She concluded that it had proved more bland than anything else, another fault of the staff.
Her kitchen slaves could (though they would never have to) work with even the most basic products and turn out meals far more …
interesting … than this. No color, not much flavor. Just utterly forgettable.
The woman returned to retrieve her bowls and plates, again with a guard hovering in the background.
“When will I see the … ummm, Hearthmaster?” she asked, then added a “Mistress.” A small gesture and probably way above this servant’s station, but small gestures sometimes didn’t hurt.
The servant replied, something that Triana didn’t understand.
She could pick through the words … her part seemed the easier of the two.
She could usually puzzle out the context, but the servant appeared lost at her replies.
Eventually, she pantomimed writing. The woman nodded with relief, and patted her apron.
There followed a small comic opera of asking the guard for a writing utensil, and then another passing servant who had some kind of stylus of some sort, then a second round of japes to find a scrap of paper before the servant could write out her response.
Triana studied the message. Quar …. The writing seemed similar to what she knew, but with different spellings … longer here, and with more letters, shaped differently, and written together. It took her a moment to puzzle through odd construction. Quarantine. Disease.
She blinked, a bit surprised, and looked at the servant, who was glancing from her to the paper and back. “Mine or yours?” she asked. The servant bobbed her head, happy that one message got through.
“You,” she said, “make sure no sick.”
Triana had never been ill a day in her life …
but that didn’t mean that the elven lords were immune to diseases.
Nor did it mean she couldn’t be carrying something from home.
She did know about sickness, even plagues, of course—anyone who had human slaves …
and that was nearly everyone worth knowing …
knew how a disease could run through them, killing hundreds in the course of less than a month, unless precautions and mitigations were taken.
So they could be protecting themselves from her, or the other way around.
If conditions had deteriorated here to the point where the monsters were nearly breaking down protective fields and city walls, there could even be diseases they had that could hurt her.
It had been a long, long time, Triana hadn’t been born here, and any immunities had probably vanished in her people.
“How long?” she asked.
The woman shook her head, and pantomimed an exaggerated shrug. She didn’t know. The servant took the bowls and left, exhaling deeply as she left the room.
Breakfast over, Triana sat on the end of the bed and waited for what would happen next. This turned out to be … nothing. Followed by more nothing. Then a bland lunch. Then, still more nothing. Time slowed to a crawl.
By the midday, she already felt jittery with boredom, and she found herself looking forward to the servant’s return, just for the few words of not-quite conversation. At lunch she tried to get the woman’s name … but that got tangled up, and the closest she came was something like Marag.
“Marag, servant to make the bed? Clean up?” she asked.
Marag just stared at her. “No servant. Quarantine.”
After she left, Triana looked at the jumble.
She disliked disorder, and the rumpled bedclothes, the small pile of towels, and the soiled clothes annoyed her.
So, that afternoon, for the first time in her life, she made her own bed.
It turned out to be a fairly straightforward process, but not one she wanted to make a habit out of.
She also took the time to use a bit of her magic to make the fabrics softer, much more pleasant to use.
That, at least, was worth spending the energy on.
It took her two days to figure out how to pick the lock on her door.
She had learned how to pick locks as a child when she’d been locked into the nursery while her father entertained.
After being caught filching dainties from the hors d’oeuvres, she’d also learned to snitch from the kitchen, not hide under tablecloths and snitch from buffets.
And she’d found plenty of places to watch the goings-on too.
The first night’s attempt had been only half serious.
Unable to sleep after too much napping, she got up and tested the lock.
A small tendril of power to feel its contours.
Not spell proofed, which took her by surprise.
She didn’t get the lock open, but the careful probing taught her its nature.
She could hear her mother’s voice in her ear.
Males might be better at the large magics, but for finesse … that is woman’s work.
She had little to do the next day except picture the lock in her mind, disassemble it, and think through how a tool would need to be shaped, and how she would need to move it with her mind …
long with a soft-metal tool shaped just so to slip between the tumblers once she aligned them with her mind.
Then, a quick push and turn so that it snapped open.
She worked through the steps a dozen times, then searched her room for the small items she would need for the attempt.
A small sliver of bronze from a pipe fitting for the chamberpot, and a short piece of coiled wire carefully unwound and shaped, with a tiny bit of magic to flatten it to hold the tumblers open.
When she was done, she’d made a decent fibber-key, thin and flexible, and well-shaped for defeating the lock that kept her in.
She used the key and a bit of magic to keep herself entertained, practicing opening locks that she conjured.
They were simple illusions, but she made the task more difficult adding twists and turns where she had to work the key through, and without touching the edges of the conjurings.
The day’s mental rehearsals made the night’s work all too easy. The coiled spring to tension the lock so that she could feel its movements, the trickle of magic to turn the tumblers, and the fibber-key slipped in to align the lock and open the door. Too easy, when all was said and done.
The lock clicked open, and she slowly opened the door, just enough for her to peep out.
Across the hall, dozing in his chair, sat a guard.
She watched him trying to get comfortable on the chair, turning to one side, to doze and snore, then jerk himself awake.
So. Guarded, but not a task taken so seriously.
Still, as someone with her own estates, she found herself quite angry on the Hearthmaster’s behalf.
He had given an order, and it should be obeyed as he meant it to be obeyed …
she had ordered slaves flogged for far smaller offenses.
She smiled to herself as she reclosed the door.
A more awake guard would have heard even the small sound of the lock turning or seen the slight movement of the door.
Completing her night’s work involved the tiniest of magics, the sort used for fixing a broken necklace clasp.
She adjusted the lock, so that she could open it when she wished, without needing the tools.
Then, to fully cover her tracks, she replaced the spring, and gently molded the piece of bronze back onto its fitting.
It didn’t quite match, but she doubted anyone would be peering at the pipe threads.
Unfortunately, the lock proved to be the only real problem she had to solve, and she had never acquired the gift of …
patience. She did her best to keep herself busy the second day.
Then the third. By the fourth day, she was ready to climb the walls.
She had been reduced to singing songs, trying to recite ancient poems, and even doing the dance steps she had always hated, along with exercises and physical activity to try and wear herself out in order to sleep.
Anything to pass the time. She had never been comfortable with just her own company, wasn’t particularly interested in learning things, preferring passive entertainment.
She altogether did not care for the long periods where memory roused and the unpleasant things stirred.
Too many shadows that she kept locked tightly away escaped during those nights, and the nightmares left her shaking and sweating.
She became waspish with Marag the servant, more demanding and imperious …