17. N #3
She continued for what had to be a quarter of a day, wearing herself out as she repeated the process.
Reset the rod on the shovel, test the flex, step up bounce on the rod, try not to fall of Rock.
She took the shortest of breaks, just long enough to replenish his food, re-ascend, though the climbs got tougher she grew more fatigued.
At some point the bronze rod had bounced back up and barked her shins, drawing blood and scraping along the shin bone.
She continued past the point of sense, fueled by frustration and growing desperation, until she could barely stand.
No evidence of progress. None whatsoever.
Crying with frustration and hunger now, she made one final attempt, setting the shovel up for one final try, positioning the heavy bronze rod with weary arms and leaden legs.
The bounce was neither her best, nor her strongest, but this time it was just enough.
She heard the tiniest crack and felt the a vibration as she brought her weight down on the bronze rod. The rod rebounded and skittered away to the right, but in the middle of that action she felt something she hadn’t before. The embedded rod had moved. Just a tiny bit. But it moved.
Exhausted, she landed on her already bruised and skinned knees on Rock’s back and wept. “Enough for today,” she told Rock. “That’s all I can do, and I still have to do work for my food. But, it worked!”
She disassembled her rig with tired fingers, and carried the pieces down.
Her arms nearly gave out on the last trip up, and she’d had to lock her legs and rest while she shook them out to try to ease the trembling.
She did not have much progress to show, but the sweet sound at the end told her this would be a matter of brute force and conviction.
She would just have to try harder tomorrow.
And maybe it would help to crack the carapace around the embedded rod a little more.
She hated to hurt him like that … but maybe his shell didn’t have pain nerves.
She lost track of time for a while, lifting shovel after shovel of manure with leaden arms, and scraping away the ash to collect, but when it was done she had filled her bucket.
She could barely lift her arms at that point, and reaching up to open the sluice for a bath proved one of the hardest things she had done.
Bending over to strip off her clothing stressed the muscles she used to both bounce on the rod and shovel out manure.
She wanted to be clean for the clothing change, and the dirties were sweaty, torn and bloody. As was she.
Going to have to explain the damage. She reached up for the sluice handle and felt the stiffened muscles along her ribs complain.
Every fiber felt strained, bruised, or worn out.
She was midway through her bath under the sluice when the stable doors opened and the guard entered.
Triana from Before (as she had started calling the time before Haldeen had brought her here) had little body modesty, and enjoyed flaunting her beauty …
but that coin proved counterfeit here. Triana of Today had had the guards observe her at her most undignified, though their comments suggested she had little to fear from an assault and little to gain from attempting a seduction.
“Beanpole” and “Horseface” had been the kindest, with a steep descent after that.
She heard Gelbert give a low whistle from the cage door. “What did you do to yourself? You look like you got trampled by a pack of horses.”
“I slipped on some water, and things just got worse from there,” she lied.
She wasn’t quite comfortable with him staring at her in the altogether, but wasn’t in a position to put the dirty clothing back on.
She did the best she could, standing with her back to him.
“Then I got up, stepped on the shovel, it smacked me in the head, I fell down again, stumbled into the wall, slipped again and this time cut myself on the shovel blade at the same time, fell for a third time, this time into the damned cot,
it overturned on me I ended up wrestling with it and I cut myself up some more. If any of those bitches in the food room are able to cast curse spells, I think they all caught up with me at once. The only thing I didn’t break was my bowl.”
It was the most she had ever said to him, but she hoped that the absurdity of it all would distract him from the improbability of it.
Because no one would make up a story like that, right?
It worked; he stared at her, his face worked for a while, and then he roared with laughter, holding his sides, until tears ran down his face.
“Should I stand on the step?” she asked.
He chortled, still enjoying his laugh. “Naw, th’ way your luck is going, you might fall off and break your neck.”
He wiped his eyes. “Look, I haven’t had this good a laugh in … can’t think how long. Gonna cut you a break, cause it’s worth it.”
He put down the bowl, then fished in his pocket and put a small wrapped cube beside it.
“You’ll like this. Make it last,” he cautioned.
“Just scrape a little into your mush. I’ll make up some stupid story about how the Beast scraped you along the wall to explain why your clothes got messed up.”
He paused. “I’d tell them the true story, but that’s one I want to keep to myself. It’s too good.”
He paused again. “I shouldn’t say or do this but … if you think you can fill up a bucket faster, you want me to come with food more often?”
Triana bit down on her immediate response, an incredulous “yes”.
She wanted the food, wanted it badly, and had to force herself to pause and think it through.
She knew the beginnings of a quid pro quo when she heard it, and an opening offer by a guard seeing her naked was no different than elven lord fishing for an alliance or a wedding bed.
She knew he did not find her attractive, but males were notoriously flexible in that regard, and female was female, after all.
She wasn’t necessarily opposed to the idea, and it was after all, well trod ground where she came from.
Provided he was making an opening offer, then she could wait and see how it developed.
Given Rock’s history of squashing things that annoyed him, the guard would have to take her out of the cage if he wanted her, which would open up opportunities.
On the other hand, having him turn up more often raised the risk that he might walk in just as she was hopping up and down on a lever made from a bronze rod, while trying to free a behemoth the size of a house from its magic restraints.
She imagined how that would look from someone walking in …
ridiculous at first … but she had no doubt there had been a reason that they had rammed five into his back.
She could well imagine the shock and incredulity giving way to fear, and her collar soon after constricting around her throat.
“Well,” she temporized, “I’m turning to skin and bones, and an extra meal here and there wouldn’t go amiss. I know food is … a very fraught question right now. I wouldn’t want you to get into trouble, or take food out of the mouth of a child.”
“That ash goes into the paste,” he volunteered, “So it’s not as if you’re not contributing.”
He frowned thoughtfully. “And you are supposed to get a one-for-one exchange of a bucket for a bowl. I’ll bring you a second bucket. If you leave me two buckets in the morning or at night, I can bring two bowls for exchange and no one is going to say anything. But just once a day, mind.
Anything more … I can’t justify it. And if you only leave me one bucket, you only get one bowl, and I’ll put the other back in the common pot.”
“Why are you doing this for me?” she asked, harshly, just wanting to get to the real bargain here.
“Well, you might be a bitch, but you’ve never been a bitch to me,” he pointed out.
“And everyone else treats me like scum and my superiors give me the crap jobs because I’m a magic-scrub … what they call a ‘dead red.’ Can’t run a firelance, can’t work in the food room, can barely make the first gem glow the tiniest bit. I’m just a set of hands to them. Kind of like you.”
He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand.
“If we still had fields I’d be working in them. If we still had beasts, I’d be cleaning their pens. But I’m strong enough to use a spear and ax, so I’m down here. Sometimes I wish I had the guts to do what you did and just smack the hell out of a bunch of them.”
She looked around the cage. “You see what that got me?”
He nodded, interrupting before she could continue.
“Yes. I dunno, I don’t think about feelings much. I’m not saying something stupid like us scrubs gotta stick together, because you’re a prisoner and I’m not, and that’s ridiculous. But down here you’re putting in your share, you’re doing better with the Beast than anyone ever did,
and you’re not getting your fair share of food. I guess ….”
He visibly groped for words. “I guess I just want to be able to make things a little bit fair. Do something that I can think about and fall asleep at night going, ‘Well, I did that all right.’ Maybe that don’t make sense to you, but my ma raised me right, and it makes sense to me.
Damn-all nothing else does around here.”
“I understand,” Triana lied. In reality she didn’t understand; she felt quite off-balance.
She’d expected a sly offer to trade considerations, or straight up exchange of two bowls to knock boots twice a week, or some such thing.
She couldn’t figure his angle, and his approach was either so indirect that she missed it, or he was too uncertain to frame the deal.
She had no reason to turn him down, especially since he wouldn’t be interrupting her if he took two buckets in the morning and left two bowls of food, and she really wanted the food.
“Done.” Smile, Triana. He’s doing you a favor …
until he figures out his “ask.” She stretched her lips into an expression that had been so unaccustomed lately that her mouth muscles actually hurt a little.
“Thank you. You’re a good man. Morning would be great!”