Chapter 11 #2
The village blacksmith thought only an idiot would lose such a big net—given the dopes who’d let it float away, I didn’t disagree—but in the interest of keeping the clan fed, he would let his slave help me, since she was a hard worker with clever hands, and he clearly didn’t trust me to even tie a single knot.
The slave he was so proud of turned out to be the short-haired woman in leather I’d noticed before, with her pair of young orcs lumbering along behind her.
“I wondered if I’d get a chance to meet this witch man they’re all going on about,” she said.
The children blew frantically into clenched fists as they cowered behind her like a pair of piglets trying to hide behind a broomstick. “I’m Bess.”
“Eli,” I said cautiously.
“Why are you covered in fish guts?”
“It’s been one of those days.”
Bess sent the whelps off with some orders for fresh clothes, then plunked down a spool of cording between us and sat cross-legged on the floor.
She said, “I met a magician once, when I took my last family’s children to the traveling carnival.
Turned out all of his magic was nothing but a few gadgets and a lot of hot air. ”
“Of course I’m not a witch. But you can’t expect to reason with these, these….”
“Orcs?” She shrugged. “They seem simple enough to me. Work hard, don’t complain, and know your place, and they treat you a fair sight better than the rich folk in the Fortifications.”
Maybe for her. But her “place” wasn’t inside a larkwood box.
She went on. “Their ways take some learning—they don’t use furniture, for one, and they’ve got a thing for eating bugs—but I’m able to do plenty of things they can’t.
My first night here, I dug a splinter out of the youngest’s foot.
It was practically as big as a ha’penny nail, and they couldn’t even see it!
And they’re clumsy with the small, fiddly stuff, too.
You should’ve seen the daughter prance around like a princess when I plaited her hair.
Back in the Fortifications, I waited on my last family hand and foot, and they treated me worse than their dog.
But here, this family actually appreciates the things I can do. ”
My fingers went to my cheek before I realized what I’d done. Bess flushed beneath her slave brand, turned away, and set to unspooling the twine. So, she wasn’t entirely resigned to being a slave, after all.
In fact, she might still possess more of herself than I did.
The way she worked alongside me—steady, focused, pragmatic—made something shift in me. I couldn’t help wondering if this what my life would’ve been, had I stayed on the farm. Married the neighbor girl like everyone expected. Taken over the fields, the livestock, the harvests.
It wouldn’t have been a bad life. It might even have been a decent one. But then a sailor passed through town, sun-browned and sharp-tongued. And when he took me out behind the pub and thrust his hand down my breeches, my simple world capsized.
I never saw the farm again.
I’d told myself I was chasing freedom…when, really, I was just chasing my own wants.
Bess had never knotted a fishing net before, but she was a quick study. We fell into the work in silence until her orc whelps came back, each of them with a huge armload of clothes—which they dumped in a pile next to Bess before trotting off to hide behind the corner of the armory.
“Take what you want,” she told me. “Unlike the greedy jerks I worked for in the Fortifications who’d rather toss their old clothes on the fire than give them to the poor, this family won’t miss the things they don’t use.”
The new tunic fit better in the shoulders—it might have been cut for the girl, though male or female, orcs dress the same. But I felt strangely reluctant to part with the soiled one Kof had commandeered for me. Probably because it reminded me of him.
I hadn’t yet figured out his true motive.
Feeling eyes on me, I glanced back at the armory. A pair of heads quickly ducked out of sight.
“You’re the bogeyman under the bed,” Bess said without looking up from her work. “Not that they actually have a bed.”
“If I’d known witches commanded so much respect, I would have capitalized on it a long time ago.”
“Oh no, that’s not it. Sure, they’re spooked by your so-called magic. But they’re even more worried the Lost Clan will scoop them up and carry them away.”
As far as I knew, other clans just regarded us as a nuisance to put up with until the next full moon. “Who on earth gave them that idea?”
“It’s common knowledge.” She shifted her voice, affecting a lecturing orcish tone. “In the tapestry of the Lost Clan, some are cut loose, and some woven in.”
There was a new hunter, come to think of it. A quiet woman who kept to herself. I’d always thought she joined up voluntarily. Now I wasn’t so sure.
Bess went on. “But if you were thinking of wintering here, I wouldn’t get your hopes up. They might claim some are woven in. As far as I’ve heard, though, all the orcs talk about are the ones they’ve had to cut loose.”
If you’d asked whether there was any hope left in me, I would have denied it. But now that she’d brought it up….
No. I couldn’t stay. And I’d be a fool to plant the seed of hope where it had no chance of survival. I stamped it out without a second thought.