Chapter 6
Chapter
Six
I spent the next few months throwing myself into my studies.
Including the study of myself.
Now that I knew for sure I had mud blood, I was determined to learn everything I could about my people, and why our society worked the way it did.
Mud boys were treated as less than; they were uneducated brutes with no manners and grace.
Yet, I could forgive that, knowing how they grew up.
From bits and pieces I’d collected from M and the other boys, each one of them had to fight for survival daily back in the mud quarter. Manners didn’t keep you alive.
And the mud boys weren’t stupid. They were uncouth, rough, and violent, but rarely stupid. I wasn’t stupid, and I wasn’t less than any Noble boy simply because I was half of a mud boy.
Saying people from the mud district were less was a common belief among the other Nobles, and while it was easy to believe, it made little sense.
If the mud people were so inferior, why did the reaping take the most amount of girls from that quarter, and nearly all of them always got scooped up for marriages to Noble men?
Yet despite that, there weren’t litters of dark-haired Noble children running around.
Curious.
And hypocritical.
Everyone from the mud quarter seemed to share a similar heritage with dark hair and eyes that weren’t shared by the Nobles or any of the girls from the other trade quarters. Why was that?
There were far more mud boys, outnumbering the Noble boys almost four to one. Those numbers weren’t sustainable. And if the mud girls were marrying and having children with Nobles, why weren’t there more boys my age with dark hair and dark eyes?
Something was very, very wrong.
So I dove into my research, tearing the archives apart to find out everything I could about the mud quarter.
And the results were shocking.
“Did you need any more tomes? I am leaving for the day.” Elo was another scribe apprentice around my age, though a Noble boy who was a self-described book worm and researcher.
Like me, he didn’t have the patience for people.
His parents were pushing him into choosing a mud girl bride, but Elo was married only to his books.
I respected that.
“If I require anything else, I will fetch it,” I reassured him, eager to be alone to draw my own conclusions from the massive amount of census records and mining data.
Elo shrugged. “Very well. Don’t know what you find fascinating about all this. Unless it’s … familial related?”
He gave me a nervous look, stepping away as though already expecting my anger.
I weighed my options. He was a good researcher, and a loner, like me. He didn’t talk to others and kept to himself. He could be useful.
“Yes,” I finally responded. “It is … familial related.”
His eyes sparked with interest. “Ah! I understand. May I be a part of your project? I’ve been working on learning the old language that’s on a lot of the more aged parchments.”
My eyes widened a fraction, but otherwise I kept my expression schooled.
Had he been watching and monitoring what I was studying, noting my growing frustration with being unable to understand the language the older records were written in?
I let my annoyance with him at spying on me slide, in favor of how I could use this to my advantage.
“How on earth—” I began.
“Here, I will show you,” he began enthusiastically, pulling up a stool next to me and sitting down, grabbing parchments and rearranging the desk with all thoughts of leaving forgotten.
Four hours later, night had fallen, and we’d burned through several candles with no signs of stopping. What I learned shook me to my core, though Elo took all of it with the stride of a researcher discovering new knowledge.
“Where is Hoveria?” I asked, the odd name jumping out at me from the top of a long ledger filled with numbers and tally marks. The binding on the old leather tome threatened to disintegrate in my hands, Elo and I leaning in so close our noses brushed the edges of the dusty pages.
“So you realized it’s a place! You pick up languages well!” Elo remarked, sitting back in his chair.
I followed suit, stretching out my back and putting my arms over my head .
“I’ve never heard of a Hoveria in any of our history lessons or any other readings,” I continued.
Elo shrugged. “Likely a trade partner of some kind. We had an abundance of jewels when our mines were operating at full capacity, so it makes sense we’d have to trade with someone.”
It made sense, especially with the way the tally marks and odd names lined up on the book in perfect rows. Likely, the names of various gems in the other language.
“Follow me in my line of logic,” I said out loud, staring down at the book as though it would suddenly shout its secrets to me.
“I’ll do my best,” Elo grinned, leaning in towards me.
I shrugged off his attempts to be friendly, ignoring them. This was business with a colleague of a medium amount of intelligence, and nothing more.
“Do you think those of the mud quarter may be from this Hoveria?” I said out loud, finally speaking what had weighed on my mind that past few hours.
Elo’s brow furrowed. “You’re thinking about the physical characteristics unique to them,” he muttered, eyes focusing on my dark hair.
His own was strawberry blond, but so far, Elo hadn’t treated me any differently or shown he was anything like the other Nobles who scorned me for my illegitimate birth.
Unless he was saving it for when it would be most convenient for him.
“If we agree that it’s possible—or even probable—that the mud district people are from this Hoveria, the question is why and to what purpose,” I continued.
Elo snorted and smirked as if I’d made a clever joke.
I hadn’t.
“What?” I asked defensively.
Elo blinked, picking up on my sudden prickliness. “ Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?”
I glared, and he ducked his head.
“Ok, sorry. Maybe it isn’t since you’re … one of them. No disrespect!” He held out his hands as though I was ready to jump him. Did he think me uncouth like the other mud boys, prone to violence and ready to attack at the slightest provocation?
My wariness in getting close to him felt justified. He was easy to work with, but ultimately just like any other Noble: prejudiced and stupid.
“Spell it out for me, then,” I grit out.
Elo cleared his throat, straightening the corners of the parchment on the desk. He was stalling.
“Well … people were needed to work the mines, weren’t they? Could you really envision the Nobles of the stone quarter being the ones to get their hands dirty? They were overseers, not miners.”
The image of the few stone quarter Nobles I knew filled my mind: all of them were pompous, thin-skinned idiots who tried to outdo each other by wearing as many jewels as they could get away with.
Since the mines were now closed the only jewels came from private mines under their homes, and therefore a precious commodity.
I doubted any had known a hard day’s work in their entire lives.
“No, I can’t see them getting their hands dirty,” I agreed.
Elo’s expression sagged with relief. “You understand, then! It is likely that these people,” he pointed to the parchment and its tally marks, “were brought in to work the mines. Now that the mines are closed, their descendants languish in the mud quarter without purpose or direction.”
He finished with a smile in my direction as if it all made sense now and he had presented it as a perfectly wrapped present, complete with a bow .
“Slaves,” I breathed out, finally understanding. “They were slaves. That’s why they’re marked down on this parchment like … property. Because they were. They are . Oh, my gods.”
Elo’s face twisted with understanding, but then he nodded, finding the sense in it. My feelings were a bit more complicated.
“I need to go,” I muttered, standing up and abandoning my work table.
Elo didn’t think my sudden change in behavior odd. He didn’t know me, and I didn’t know him. And he was already tidying my books, arranging my notes and papers in a neat pile for when I came back.
I left without making a remark on it.
I was too shocked by what I’d learned that I wasn’t paying good enough attention to my surroundings. I rounded a corner too fast, not listening for footsteps.
WHUMPF.
“Ow!”
The feminine cry reassured me I hadn’t run into a Fireguard, who would ask awkward questions about why I wasn’t in the dormitories.
As a scribe, I was allowed to come and go as I pleased, but proving it to some freshly appointed guard was a pain in the ass, and to be avoided at all costs, if possible.
But the figure sprawled on the floor with her skirts askew wasn’t a Fireguard.
I eyed the bare expanse of one creamy, exposed thigh, and my cock stirred. I knew I was near the age for such things to give me interest, and I’d heard enough living with other boys to know the basics. Books filled in the rest .
“My apologies,” I offered smoothly, extending my hand.
Bright blue eyes widened in fear, but relaxed when she saw I wasn’t a Fireguard. An odd sense of kinship flared inside of me as I realized we’d both been afraid of the other for the same reason.
“No, I’m sorry. I was just trying to get back to the kitchens?—”
“At this hour?” I questioned sharpy, watching as she nervously smoothed down her skirts, balling her fists in the fabric. She shifted her weight from side to side, clearly ill at ease around me.
“Yes?” she whispered tremulously. “I live there. A few of us sleep on the floor near the fire where it’s warm, and that way we can keep the fire going for the porridge in the morning?—”
I waved my hand at her, not needing every minute detail of her dreadful existence. More intriguing was how she pressed herself back up against the wall, as if I were someone to be feared. My chest puffed a little at this; I wasn’t used to anyone being intimidated by me.
I liked it and would reward her.