Chapter One A Slumdog’s Long-Awaited Revenge in Three Acts #2
Lythlet slipped in then, hand dipping into the unguarded pocket. Retrieving the pilfered coin purse, she darted away, completely unnoticed, sprinting to the end of the road and turning the corner.
Streets away, certain she had been neither noticed nor followed, she checked the old man’s coin purse, eyeing the coins wistfully. Then she looked up and saw the mutt trotting toward her with a wagging tail and a muzzle full of bone and half-chewed turkey.
“Good boy,” she cheered softly with her second smile of the day.
· · ·
B IDDING FAREWELL TO the stray, Lythlet returned to Fithan Avenue, but the old man was nowhere to be found. The queue had completely vanished, the muna-muna trishaw closed up for the night.
Loath as she was to admit it, she felt relieved the purse would stay with her. She needed all the coin she could get, and those four extra coins in the old man’s purse were practically a fortune at the moment.
But I still need more , Lythlet thought glumly. Tucoras expects three white valirs tomorrow, and I haven’t even a quarter of that.
It irked her how a sum of three coins—just three!
—was causing her so much grief. As a bookkeeper, she had handled accounts worth a thousand times that, accounts belonging to those unlikely to even notice the absence of three white valirs.
If she could only pay a brief visit to one of the mansions in Central Setgad, she’d have all the coin she’d need without anyone noticing.
Just grazing the pocket change of someone like Governor Matheranos would likely end all her problems.
But even stepping foot into the governor’s precinct would be the death of her; the bulk of the city’s watchmen were posted there, protecting the rich from slumdogs like her.
No—if she were to turn to thievery tonight, it would have to be amongst her people, the underclass toiling away in Southeast Setgad.
The watchmen did not care to catch petty thieves so long as they stole only from petty lives.
Petty lives like yours truly, lives easily cast aside by those whose fingers tighten the purse strings. She paused. Those like Master Winaro.
Now that was a man who deserved a reckoning and a half. It was his temper that had put her in this desperate position, after all.
Seven months in all, she had worked under Hive-Master Valanti Winaro at his hive maintenance workshop.
Both government and civilian markets commissioned him to tend to the lightning-bees, to clean the rot out of their hives and prolong the lives of the colonies.
After years of working for crooks and fraudsters, Lythlet had been overjoyed to work as the money-minder for someone who ran a clean business, no numbers in his books needing alteration.
To all beyond his little workshop on Destaro Street, he was renowned for being reliable, working hard from dawn till midnight.
Yet she alone within the walls of his workshop knew his temper and bore the brunt of it.
It would rear its head at the end of a long day, when there remained shelves and shelves of hives to tend to after he’d taken on too many in too little time.
It had begun with him cursing her, but curses she could survive. She knew how to swallow her pride for coin, and she and Desil were desperate for it. But as a crisp autumn had paled to a gray-skied winter, bruises began to pockmark her bony brown body.
It happened once, and he apologized. It happened twice, and he apologized. Thrice and a third apology, and she could no longer convince herself these were aberrations.
Yesterday evening had been the last time, and it had begun with—of all things—a visit from Governor Matheranos.
Lythlet had been sterilizing a tray of scalpels Master Winaro used to scrape away the white rot that accumulated on the bioluminescent hives when the bell by the door tinkled.
She’d raised her head, half-covered by a thick protective shroud so she wouldn’t breathe in the poisonous rot residue, to bob politely at the customer—and was stunned to see none other than Governor Matheranos entering, a swath of cloaked guards escorting him.
They stood in formation behind him, the ship-within-a-diamond emblem representing the United Setgad Party stitched onto their cloaks, nightsticks and short swords hanging on their belts.
The hive maintenance workshop was frequently commissioned by the governor, but she had never expected the twice-elected leader of Setgad, second in power only to the twelve judges of the Einveldi Court, to actually deign to visit their premises himself.
Master Winaro’s eyes widened, and he yanked down his own protective shroud as he bowed.
“Bow,” he snapped at Lythlet, even as she made her torso parallel to the floor.
He slapped her back, pushing her even lower, as if he wanted her to prostrate herself on the ground the way she would before the divine or to her parents.
A needless gesture, transforming an act of respect into one of subjugation—but with that one unsubtle gesture, Master Winaro had signaled two things to the governor: that according to the hierarchy of Setgad, Lythlet was the lowest person in that room, and could thus safely be ignored, and more importantly, that Master Winaro was respectful enough of the governor’s ranking above him that he was willing to debase his subordinate as such.
“Please, hive-master, none of that,” Governor Matheranos said with a laugh, waving them up.
His famed mane of wild white hair shook as he gave a brief, pitying smile in Lythlet’s direction.
Lythlet demurely lowered her gaze; the governor would consider her ill-bred if she met his eyes directly for too long.
“To what do we owe the honor of your presence, Governor?” Master Winaro said, an oily smile greasing his face.
“I’ve come to make a special request. I’m entertaining a gaggle of ministers from the Party later this week, and I intend on taking them on a brief tour through some Southeastern streets.”
“Here in the slums?” Earnest concern laced the hive-master’s words.
“Oh, not to worry, Valanti. We’ll have enough watchmen to protect us from cutpurses and whatnot.
My friends are simply curious about the way life is led down here, and I deemed it my duty to educate them.
Which brings me to my request: these streets must be lit as brightly as possible to make their tour more hospitable.
Unfortunately, their hives haven’t been serviced in a year, and rot is dimming the lights.
Here’s the list prepared by my advisors on the streets to be serviced by the end of this week. ”
Lythlet peeked up from the scalpels to the parchment in Master Winaro’s hand. Her gut sank at the length of the list—yet even more long sleepless nights were waiting for her.
“Will there be any issues, Valanti?” the governor said.
“None at all,” said Master Winaro, bowing graciously.
“Excellent,” returned the governor jovially. “Your work in keeping the hives of the southern sectors clean has not gone unappreciated.”
“I would, of course, be very happy to take on the business of servicing the northern hives,” Master Winaro said hopefully.
Governor Matheranos laughed. “All in good time, Valanti. The hive-master we commission up north does good work, but if he ever retires, we’ll come to you.”
Forcing a polite smile out of his tightened jaw, Master Winaro bowed once more. “It is an honor beyond words that you would come to me personally with this request,” he said, manners cloaking his chagrin. “I know your governorship has been harangued by much trouble lately.”
Governor Matheranos barked a harsh laugh.
“You mean that rabble-rouser Corio Brandolas? Pah, he’s nothing but a bloviating popinjay trying to oust me so he can be governor instead.
Honestly, he wouldn’t even be given the time of day by anyone if it weren’t for the family he married into.
” He leaned in. “Just between the two of us, the Einveldi Court has decided today to ban the sale of his book. Almost a unanimous decision—eleven to one! News will be released soon.”
“Oh, certainly a most wise decision,” said Master Winaro, nodding obsequiously.
Lythlet cast a brief side-eye at him—Master Winaro’s dog-eared copy of The Setgad Dilemma , an incendiary polemic advocating for the removal of Governor Matheranos written by Corio Brandolas, the leader of the Coalition of Hope party, was sitting just beneath the counter, no more than a foot away from Governor Matheranos.
Master Winaro and Lythlet bowed once more as Governor Matheranos took his leave, the bell tinkling overhead.
A groan left the hive-master the moment the door swung shut, and he shook the list the governor had given him. “Ten streets to be serviced in two days,” he muttered. “Madness. Does he think a hive takes only five minutes to clean?”
Lythlet grimaced. That was at least a hundred hives. She’d be sleeping in the administration quarters again, this commission making returning home a wistful daydream.
Master Winaro looked sharply at her. “This is your fault,” he snapped.
“Yes, Master Winaro,” she said, knowing better than to argue.
“If you weren’t so slow, we’d be able to clean dozens of hives a day. But now we’ve this backlog to deal with, and more to come.” He waved a hand over the apiary shelves housing scores of hives awaiting his maintenance.
“Yes, Master Winaro.” Just keep working.
“Honestly, how hard is it to obey my instructions? Even a child could work quicker than you. It says much about your father and mother that they never taught you an ounce of diligence.”
At the invocation of her parents, something inside Lythlet snapped. “It says much about you that you would insult my parents when they have nothing to do with this,” she spat, flinging a scalpel into the tray with a ringing clatter.
Master Winaro stared, stunned at her outburst.