16. N
Triana finished her bowl of gruel, carefully licked out the last few bits and looked over at the … whatever it was. “Well, it’s been three days … sleeps rather … and I can’t think of anything better, so ‘Rock’ it is. If you’d rather be called something else, then feel free to chime in.”
The sleeping-collar might have been removed, but its heavy presence lingered. The nightmares had faded a bit, from the collar-induced horrors to the ordinary ones her mind concocted. Her own dreams were bad. But, ordinary bad.
She bent to collect her shovel. It had taken her a day or so to work out the rhythm, but now she had it. Sleep as little as she could get away with, work to fill the bucket, pushing herself to exhaustion. Sleep more until her food came. Eat. Then start again.
She suspected the ration she got had just enough food to keep her going to the next meal, as she was always ravenous by the time the bowl came, and the gruel …
she suspected someone had worked pretty hard to come up with a food product utterly devoid of anything resembling flavor.
Then again, during her brief, and all too disastrous stint making food, those workers got paid by numbers, not taste.
Still, would it end the world to have just a touch of savor?
She tried one time to rework the gruel into something more edible, using what she;d learned in the Makers’ Hall. The collar had flared to life the moment she tried to gather her magic, and left her choking on the floor. One of those experiences proved sufficient.
She looked at the inside of the bowl. All gone.
Her stomach rumbled, still not full. She stood and went to the water spout and pulled the handle.
Water poured down, sluicing over her and washing away some of the sweat from her work.
She swallowed as much water as she could hold.
The liquid fooled her stomach, at least for a time.
She might not be getting enough to eat, and her dreams still tormented her, but at least the Beast hadn’t flattened her. Small mercies.
She bent and picked up the shovel.
She heard the large door to the Rock’s stable open. Odd. No one came down here except the guards, and then only to collect the ash can and her empty bowl, and then to bring food. Surely Haldeen wasn’t sending someone down here to interrogate her? What more could he possibly learn?
Well, he probably doesn’t believe I can’t tell him anything more, in spite of what he said.
“On the step, Bones,” came the guard’s voice. “Hands behind your head, looking away.”
She did as she was bid, going to stand on the lowest step and facing away from the two guards.
She interlaced her fingers behind her head, and stood facing away as she had been ordered.
The one time she had asked why, the one had simply tipped her dinner into the drain hole while the other laughed and smirked.
Obedience learned one bowl of gruel at a time.
“You got the control rod?” she heard the first one say to the other.
Gravelly voice. He would be the short one, with the scarred face and voice that came from a near deadly punch to the throat.
Not a punch she had delivered, sadly. Exactly the sort of person one would expect as a guard here …
dim-witted, thick-browed, and mean. She wasn’t sure of his name, but his partner was Gelbert.
“I got it,” came a higher and lighter voice. Gelbert held the control rod, and kept an eye out for the Rock. She had gotten used to that pattern … Gravel Voice to collect the bucket and leave her food, Gelbert to watch for trouble from her or the Rock.
She heard Gravel Voice enter, and then heard a rustle of cloth, before he retreated back out of the cell. The double clang followed as the cage lock set. She turned around to see fresh clothing and a brightly colored child’s blanket lay on a clean spot of floor. She looked at them in puzzlement.
“It’s clothing,” the short one said. “What’cher wearing is filthy. No need to stink us all out. You change into fresh, and leave the dirty with your next bowl. Lose it and it gets charged to your account. Same with the blanket.”
She just stared at it. The bright colors and patterns were a splash of beauty she hadn’t realized she hungered for ….
Still, she hesitated; she needed the blanket, but the incongruity of the colors confused her; why would they give her something pretty, rather than just some old rags?
Maybe someone’s child died and they couldn’t bear to look at its favorite blanket.
These people wasted nothing, from the least scrap of food to the smallest rag.
Not recognizing that had been the first step in her downfall.
Haldeen must have been furious when she rejected some of his fruit, and she sensed he didn’t just hold grudges, he caressed them, cherished them, and celebrated their birth anniversaries.
She had no towel, and the water stayed barely lukewarm.
Her hygiene regimen consisted of dousing herself under the spout to wash herself as best she could, and then to stand shivering in the cool air of the stable until she air dried enough to get back into rancid clothes.
This blanket could be both a towel and a covering.
She had to think like these people. Waste nothing.
The guards left, the shorter one looking over his shoulder at her as she came down off the step and went over to the small pile.
The feeling of fresh clothing proved too much a temptation, and she didn’t care if they were watching from the stable door.
She quickly stripped, got under the spout and gave herself a good dousing, scrubbing her hair with her fingers and trying to clean off as much dirt as she could.
When she was done, she wrapped herself in the blanket, and wrapped it tight, while she tried to do something about drying her hair, fluffing it with her fingers.
The clothing, poorly made and ill-fitting, felt like the finest silk after the filthy things she had worn. A meal (such as it was), a bath, and a fresh set of clothes and she felt a lot better about the world. Still, work beckoned.
She took the damp blanket, shook it out neatly and draped it over the cot to dry.
She still didn’t understand why she had been given this particular object …
. Haldeen seemed the sort to hand out blankets he had selected for being scratchy and cheap, not this thing.
Especially given how much he despised her.
She rubbed the hem between her fingers. Comfortable and well made, though it really was only a little larger than the towels she had used in her bath, at her estate, so long ago.
She gathered up her shovel and went to start her shift.
Rock didn’t say much (didn’t say anything, actually) but she and it seemed to have reached a sort of understanding.
It didn’t squash her, and she made sure its food kept coming without using the control rod on it.
It seemed pretty content with its part of the deal …
following her around as she spread manure and straw in front of it to crunch up before she washed off the shovel to scrape up the gray ash it left behind.
Once in a while she even patted it, gingerly, and muttered something about “good boy.”
She had no idea if it even noticed. It didn’t give her much of a response, but it did seem to huff and scrape more after the guards had been in the cell, or so she thought.
She’d also wondered where the manure came from.
She hadn’t seen any kind of riding beast or ruminant since arriving, but the dung said they were there …
the city is starving but someone’s stable is still getting mucked out while someone’s horses consume rations that are supposed to be more precious than diamonds.
She laughed … no matter how much “we’re all in this together” got tossed around, that was never true.
A memory of Er-lord Aelmarkin came unbidden; one of his pep-talks to the lords after the first string of human victories …
. “We’re all equal in this fight!” And Triana, trying to keep a straight face as one of the older lords sitting behind her whispered to his friend, “And some of us are always more equal than others.”
So it proved at home, and so it proved here.
She wondered if perhaps the dung was from the latrines, and might be human …
well, if so, at least they dried it before they dumped it in here.
Probably for their own convenience. Dried shit is easier and lighter to move than wet shit.
Then, she turned over a shovelful, and a dried horse-apple fell intact to the ground.
I stand corrected. At least a horse. Or something the size of one. No human sphincter made that.
She let her mind drift as she worked, moving in a slow circle, spreading waste and straw, cleaning the shovel, scraping ash.
Around and around. In time, the ash bucket had been filled, mounded over to account for the inevitable settling, and she could stop.
She straightened, putting her hands in the small of her back and stretching until the bones in her spine popped and cracked like twigs breaking.
The shovel they gave her was exactly the wrong length, short enough to have to bend over to scrape or spread.
At least the blade on it lay flat against the ground and had a square edge.
A curved shovel would have made the job close to impossible. ,
She felt exhausted, worse than the usual fatigue that followed not enough food and too much work.
She felt warm, or the stable had cooled.
She went to the cot and laid down, pulling her new blanket around her shoulders like a shawl and curling up so as much of her was under it as possible. She was asleep moments later.
Waking proved to be far more than just “a chore.”
For some reason it was much harder than usual.
She felt hot, and chilled at the same time.
She rose from the cot and sat on the edge for a moment to let a wave of dizziness pass.
Her throat felt scratchy, and she wanted a drink, but the pulse of pain in her head and joints kept her still for a moment.
Am I sick again? How? I haven’t been near any sick people …
haven’t been near anything since …. She stopped and looked up at the Rock.
“Is this your fault?” she asked it hoarsely. No reply. Of course not.
Sick or not … no work, no eat. The bastard Overseer had made that abundantly clear.