by Clare London
“But the children mix at the Central School. They’re all educated together.”
He shrugged. “Maybe in the first few years. But when it comes to training for jobs and positions in the Household, your brand becomes your entrance pass. And if it’s just a bunch of Remainder scribbles, they’re not interested in you.” He’d unconsciously pulled his arm in against his side, although I couldn’t see the details of his brand under the sleeves of his gown.
“There should be more opportunities,” I said slowly. “There have been Remainders—there must be Remainders—who can contribute to the city beyond a pair of ready hands. They should be welcomed into the Households, encouraged to learn more, do more.”
Kiel’s voice was low now. “That’s not a common or safe way to talk, Maen.” When I stared at him, he colored again. “It’s disloyalty to the city. Disloyalty to the old ways, the way things were set up by the Queens who originally colonized the planet. All the recent Histories say this, again and again. It’s the way things have been done, and must always be done. It’s the best for the welfare of the city—or that’s what the Remainders are told to believe. The Households run the city, their citizens blessed and superior in all ways, and the Remainders are meant to be grateful for their chance to support that. Ask for anything more and you’re accused of being an Exile spy, of plotting to give the Exiles access to the city and its secret ways.”
“Is that what happens?” My voice had dropped in volume too, matching his. “Do you know of that happening—?”
He interrupted me, his voice suddenly louder and brighter as if someone might be listening to him beyond the alley. “Things aren’t bad for Remainders nowadays, anyway. There are plenty of new opportunities in the city for us. Better health—we’re allowed more than one surgery visit a month at the House of Physic, you know. Better transport, for some of us can travel by horseback now, though obviously only on Household business. Our living quarters are being built with stronger materials as protection against the earth shuddering we’ve had this season, and just in the last year, they’ve set up new lessons for us in the Central School. Well, that’s as long as your current employer reviews you well and there’s sponsorship from the Mistress of the Household.”
“Mistress Seleste….” I paused. “The Queen has been behind many of these initiatives.” Seleste had spoken of them to me, even before she became Queen. Talking to Kiel today, however, they seemed less like the new world she’d boasted of and more like a drop of piss into a full bucket.
Kiel put a hand on my arm and leaned in to speak, more slowly again. “You look distressed, but it’s worked well for me, Maen. Young men can now train for jobs they’d never considered before. Some of the rules for apprenticeship changed even before the battle, and Mistress Flora allowed me to train as a blind scribe.” He was watching my look of puzzlement. “Don’t you know what that is?”
I shook my head, bemused.
“A blind scribe is a man who writes on behalf of another. He copies documents, books, lists, whatever the Mistress needs. You need a firm hand and a good eye for detail, but you don’t need to read or write very well on your own behalf. It’s a fair enough life and has benefits, there are some whose work is much sought after, and some who create works of art around the words, all their own work. Maybe I’ll be someone like that one day. Most of those scribes inside the Library are blind in that way. They could only create your Grand History if it were dictated to them or drafted first in another man’s hand, although they could embellish it and draw up a splendid document based on that.”
I stared at him. He stared back boldly, but gradually his cheeks started to go pink. “What’s wrong with my explanation?”
“I suspect you are no longer blind,” I said, slowly.
He bit at his lower lip. His hands were suddenly still in his lap. “Why in Devotions’ name would you suspect that?”
I shrugged. “I was looking for someone who could actually transcribe the accounts of the men who were at the battle, of the women who sponsored them, of the Queen who was victorious and is now our ultimate Mistress. Someone who wasn’t just a clerk, someone who’d bring their own literary skills to the work, rather than being a mere puppet. But maybe I just trusted to luck to find that.”
Kiel glared at me. “Now you’re treating me like a fool.”
“Am I?” I could stare him out for as long as he chose to defy me, but I would know the truth in the end. Silence was often a stronger weapon than ranting and raving.
He sighed, and his gaze dropped away from mine. “So you know it’s true, I might as well admit it to you. I’ve taught myself to read and write beyond the very basic training I had at school. It isn’t hard when you know your way around, when you’re determined. No one offered to help me, no one else is to blame. You must understand that. It wasn’t really an option for a Remainder, no one offers extra lessons for a clerk who’d be just as useful to the Household blind as educated, but my Mistress gave me enough time to find out things for myself….”
And then he fell silent again.
I leaned back against the wall of the alley and sighed. “Is it your ambition to be a writer, Kiel?”
He gave one of his snorts and flushed again. “It doesn’t pay to have ambitions, Maen, unless you’re keen on losing tens of nights’ sleep to disappointment and frustration. This is a good enough project for me.”
I wasn’t convinced by his modesty, but I was pleased to have brought something useful to his life. “You’re not talking so rashly now either,” I said, meaning to relax him with a joke, but his reaction startled me.
“I don’t have to!” His gaze was suddenly hot with anger. “Or do I? Will you punish me for this, Maen? Report me to my new Mistress or the Queen for my disobedience?” His voice was much stronger now, much fiercer. “After all, I’m a willful Remainder boy who’s presumed to use the city’s time and resources to gain skills no one wants me to have, nor needs me to master. Service to the city is its own reward, I know the saying, and I’ve no right to seek my own desires. You tricked me into speaking, into confessing!” He looked stricken, and restless too, as if he didn’t know whether to rise up from the crate or stay sitting. “You’re one of the Queen’s men at heart, that’s your only ambition, I can see, to grovel for her favors—”
“Just as I can see you’re no longer a nervous, chattering child!” I interrupted him sharply. “Now who’s treating who as a fool?”
He stared at me a little longer, but the anger in his eyes gave way to a flicker of fear.
I shifted on my seat, mainly to put myself in his way so he couldn’t take flight. “Kiel, it seems to me now you’re a very different man from the one I first met in that attic. I don’t know what that means or why that is, but I have no intention of reporting you or punishing you for it. I want you to do this job, but I want you to feel both safe and confident about it.” There’d been something about him from the very first, something that made me take notice of him. Admittedly, I hadn’t known about the scribes, or that most of them couldn’t write well independently, but I’d seen Kiel’s energy and wit. It hadn’t been solely to stop Zander cutting his throat that I’d decided to put Kiel in charge of the History. “Don’t make me wrong,” I said softly. “Don’t run, don’t fight me. We’re working together on this.”
He was quiet for a while, his gaze flickering along the alley, toward the courtyard, then back to me, then down at his hands and restless feet. “I… want to do it. I can do it. Whatever you want of me.”
“I just want you to produce something you’re proud of. I want you to be the one who does it. I want you to have an ambition, Kiel—to be someone rather than an afterthought.”
He shook his head slowly. “You’re… unusual, Maen.” He went quiet again, no longer hiding behind his stream of constant chatter.
“What were you working on when I arrived?”
His eyes lit up again, though warily. “The introduction. I want the History to begin w
ith the spectacular closing stages of the battle, all the colors, the noise, the blood, and the anger. I want the reader to imagine the sight of the beautiful Ladies, the fascinated spectators, the wonderful heroes.”
“You’ve talked to some of the attendees already?”
He flushed. “Just a few servants who were there on the day.” He was defensive, as if he thought I’d be angry at his presumption. “Some of the builders who made the Battle Horse, a man who sold refreshments, one of the grooms who looks after the Ladies’ carriages.” He looked worried. “Not many. They won’t talk much to me.”
I smiled. “They will when I tell them to, for that’s exactly what you must do.” He’d impressed me yet again. He’d started the work without any formal instruction, and was bringing his own imagination and enthusiasm to it. I had an appointment with Seleste to ask her how she’d like the History to proceed, but I expected her to leave it to others to monitor, maybe even order me to. I let Kiel’s barely repressed excitement bubble through me, and I decided I wouldn’t complain if she did.
“Who will I see?” he asked. “I mean, I don’t expect to talk to Ladies or the Mistress, nothing like that. But for the battle tale, I need to speak to the serving soldiers. Can you arrange that, Maen? Some of the Silver Captains, maybe?” His eyes clouded briefly and his cheeks became pinker. “Well, to meet some of the Gold Warriors would be beyond my dreams, I can’t see how that could happen, but then, it’s very important to get a proper account of the day, isn’t it?”
“It is,” I said gravely.
He was racing ahead, reverting to his younger voice again. “The heroes will be the ones who live on in the pages of the History. Like… like Zander, I know he’s so very fierce, but he was magnificent on the day….”
“You saw the battle?”
Kiel nodded. “Some of it. Mistress Flora’s Household was in uproar as the day went on and it looked like she’d be fighting through to the end. No one saw where I went, to be honest, and I managed to find a space in the west stand, and there I saw him….” He paused and coughed awkwardly. “I mean, I saw all the soldiers of Mistress Seleste and my own Mistress. You were there as well, of course! Though I doubt they’ll let me use your words because they’ve cut you from the ranks again, more’s the pity. But it was all so exciting.”
I smiled again, but this time to myself. “I’ll ask Zander to tell you his version of the day.”
Kiel’s expression was an odd mixture of delight and terror. “Will he… I don’t know…. Won’t that be trouble for him, Maen? I’m only a scribe.”
I shrugged. “It’ll be all right. I’ll make sure he helps you.”
If Zander enjoyed being the hero of the day so much, I thought wryly, he could give some time to those who admired him for it. I didn’t doubt he’d complain, but he’d agree to it for the sake of his Mistress’s glorification in print. I was aware suddenly of the time we’d spent here and the business starting to unfold elsewhere in the Household as the day rolled on its hours. In the distance I could hear someone calling from the kitchens and the rattle of a cart passing over the courtyard, carrying materials to another part of the building. I shifted on the uncomfortable crate, preparing to return to my own quarters.
“He was right,” Kiel said softly. “Zander was right the other night, when he caught me at the wall. I did hear everything you both said.”
I was quiet, not knowing what to say. It had been a sad, painful evening for me, even before Zander happened on my private place. “That’s all right, Kiel. There wasn’t anything said that isn’t common knowledge.”
“You knew a Remainder man once,” he said, almost to himself. “A man who was chosen as a Bronzeman. I’ve never heard of it happening before in my lifetime, or since. I’ve spent a little time finding out the tales about you. You were a Gold Warrior then, but I should’ve known that, for you’ve always looked like you carry that authority, even without the armor and the earring. You were captured by the Exiles, you and the Bronzeman. And when you came back to the city you bore the marks of torture….”
“And I was no longer a Gold Warrior.” My words sounded hollow. “My Mistress Luana no longer trusted me with that responsibility.” I didn’t want to hear the rest of the sorry tale in his brave young voice, so I thought it best to confirm it myself. “We were both interrogated and imprisoned. I was chosen by Mistress Seleste to transfer to her Household, and the Bronzeman was sentenced to death.”
Kiel was staring at me. “But there’s something…. You fight against it all, don’t you, Maen? The battle is inside you, not plain to everyone. You’re one of her citizens, yet sometimes you feel you have to speak outside of it all, to question your position when things appall you that others take for granted.” His face twisted as he struggled to find the right words. “You’re no blind soldier yourself, you don’t—”
“Fit in,” I interrupted hoarsely. His stumbling assessment had shocked me.
He drew in a quick, sharp breath. “I’m sorry, this is so painful for you. I should never have said—”
“No.” I stopped his apology. “Someone told me recently I should talk about it.” I’d just never thought I would find someone I would trust to listen. Nor had I ever imagined it might be another young Remainder man.
“The Bronzeman escaped?”
I nodded, and then I let my head fall forward so that Kiel couldn’t see my eyes. “But it was still a death sentence. He just died in a different place, with other people, and from a different conflict.” I lifted my head again, but I couldn’t see Kiel’s face clearly through the sting of tears.
“You still think about him?”
It was madness to answer that—as dangerous as admitting there’d been more between us than commander and loyal recruit. But how long was I going to hold all this to myself? What good was it doing me, clinging to a life that made waking every morning a struggle, every word a dead stone in my mouth, every touch of another body a reminder of who they weren’t? Kiel had been right about the conflict hidden in me, eating me up from the inside, as even Zander had said, though he had no idea what was really there.
“Yes, I do. I do still think about him. Does that shock you?”
We both knew it was unacceptable for soldiers to have favorites, to build personal relationships beyond casual coupling. But something far worse than that was the horror—and the treason—of defiling a Bronzeman.
Kiel was very flushed, but his gaze was steady. “We look at things differently as Remainders. We don’t have so many rules. Not as many things are forbidden, as long as we keep them to ourselves. Many people bind together, care for each other, men and women, and it’s accepted. We can have such feelings for each other, and we’re not penalized for it.”
“And yet I never felt his death—I never felt his passing.” How could that be? How could someone who had been so very deep in my thoughts, so much a part of my core, pass away without the tragedy striking me dead alongside him?
“Maybe he’s not dead, then,” Kiel whispered.
“Don’t,” I said sharply, though I didn’t want to be harsh with him. “Don’t try to console me, for you don’t understand. I have a life in the Household, and I’ll continue with it, as best I can.” There was nothing more for me until I could find my own escape from this anguish. Nothing more at all. “And so, what were you doing that night?”
Kiel was startled. “Me? I said I was just—”
“No, you weren’t.” I stared him out again; his expression was panicky. “You were there for a reason, Kiel. Not just to take the air, not just to piss, not just to listen in to us. Don’t treat me as a fool again.”
He stood abruptly, but he didn’t run.
“You’d been through the break in the wall, I could see that,” I continued relentlessly. “That was maybe not the first time either. You said you were once a messenger for Mistress Flora.”
His breathing had shortened, and he frowned with concentration as if playing things through his mi
nd very quickly.
“I don’t mean her harm, Kiel, if I can avoid it. It may be she needs help, and if she’s no danger to Mistress Seleste, there’s no need to persecute her. Talk to me.”
The fear was back in his face, but the excitement was too. “How may I trust you?”
I didn’t answer that. He knew as much of me as I knew of him and would have to make the same decisions. Behind me I could hear commotion by the Library entrance, as if more people had arrived there.
He nodded once, his eyes fixed on mine, his decision made. “I can show you.” His voice was very quiet, very breathless. “I can tell you where I leave the messages. I can show you… where she is.”
And at that same moment, I heard Zander’s voice calling from the front of the building, demanding to know where we were.
ZANDER AND his men filled most of the space in the doorway, and Kiel took his time about pushing back through into the Library. He got as far as the front desk, and then Zander gripped his neck and pulled him to a halt.
The Silver Captains drew back respectfully. I stepped forward.
Zander looked at me, Kiel shaking a little in his hold. “What is it with this little rat, Maen, that we always find him wriggling about where he’s not meant to be?”
“I was instructing him on the History,” I said calmly. “We stepped out for a moment, but now he’s back to his duty. Or at least he would be if you’d let him go.”
Zander looked between us, his gaze lingering on Kiel. As I watched, I saw Kiel’s face turn red and his mouth start to form words. I groaned to myself, but there was no stopping him.
“Why are you abusing me like this?” Zander had lifted Kiel almost off his feet, and Kiel twisted, kicking back at Zander’s boots. “Doesn’t a Gold Warrior have more important work than bullying scribes?”
