“Fourteen, my lady.”
That was a lie, Ella decided. The youngest was eleven, tops. His parents probably had no choice but to send him. Perhaps someone at home was sick, and the family needed extra money to pay for treatment. Or maybe the boy was orphaned. But child welfare was a larger issue, and one that Ella alone couldn’t solve. It was a problem for the Assembly. The king. It was something that Dash would confront someday, she hoped. Some changes would have to be slow.
Ella inspected the rooms on the second floor, and the third. The top floor was a sewing room and held the largest number of workers. They were bent over long tables, some stitching together yellow fabric pieces that gave off a faint glow, others hard at work tatting the scarves that doubled as nets. The dye from the yellow fabric had a strong, unpleasant smell, and Ella’s eyes smarted. She made a note of it.
A wet cough from the far corner of the room sent a chill up her spine. Ella hurried to the far corner, where the cough had come from. The sick woman was easy to find; she had her fist pressed to her mouth, and her face was as red as her hair from holding in the spasm. When Ella reached her, the woman could no longer hide it; she turned her head to the wall and coughed until blood spattered on the bricks.
Ella crouched behind the woman, who was panting, and she laid a hand on her shoulder.
“What’s your name?”
“P-Pelerine.”
“You shouldn’t be working, Pelerine,” said Ella very quietly. “You have to rest, or the roop won’t get any better.”
Pelerine gave her a wild look. “It’s just a cold,” she whispered, rubbing a handkerchief over the pink spittle on her lips. “Anyway, who are you?”
“Someone who knows what I’m talking about, hey?” said Ella. “You have children.”
“Yeah.”
“How many?”
“Three.”
“That’s three children who can’t do without you,” Ella said.
“They can’t do without food either,” said Pelerine bitterly, fishing a Ubiquitous acorn out of her apron pocket. She cracked it hard against the worktable in front of her, and it transformed into a lozenge. For a brief second, the lozenge sparked, and Ella reared back — the whole table was covered in thread that could easily catch fire — but Pelerine smothered the spark with her palm. She stuck the lozenge in her mouth and rubbed her burned hand on her apron.
“Makes my throat feel better,” she mumbled. “I’ll be fine now.”
But she wouldn’t. Ubiquitous lozenges only quieted the roop. They didn’t cure it.
“Come with me,” said Ella. “Bring your things. You’re not in trouble, I just want a word.”
She took Pelerine down to the tiny closet of a room that served as Amice’s office. She confessed she was Earnest Coach’s child, and she told Pelerine her history. The young woman stared at her in amazement.
“You really worked for Jacquard?” Pelerine asked when Ella was finished. “I’ve never been to the shop in Fulcrum, but the one here is a nightmare, hey? Twisted place. I worked there two years, then got lucky and got this job — it’s leagues better here, I can tell you. Nicer place, better pay, shorter hours — everyone would rather be here.”
Ella was unfathomably glad to hear it.
“How many people here have roop?”
Pelerine twisted her dirty handkerchief in her lap. “They’d hate me if I told you.”
“How many?” said Ella. “Please. I won’t let anyone starve, I won’t. No one should die like this.” She took out her purse and fished out the healthy stack of nauts that she had brought with her in case of finding sickness. She pressed the money into Pelerine’s hand. “Here’s my proof,” she said. “I’ll take care of you, all right? You go back to your cott and recover, and your job will wait for you. On my honor, it will. Tell me where you live, and I’ll visit every week and be sure your children have what they need.”
Pelerine stared down at the money.
Then, suddenly, she bent her head and wept.
“You’re — like a fairy godmother,” she choked. “Like a dream.”
“I’m not,” Ella whispered. “I should have come here months ago to see what I could do.”
Pelerine didn’t seem to love her less for this. She reached out and clutched Ella’s hand. When she had recovered herself, she told Ella everything she knew about the people in the workshop who were sick and suffering. Ella took careful notes. This she would not discuss or negotiate. This would change tonight.
She sent Pelerine home. There was more to do here — she would come back tomorrow — but for now, she had enough to get started. Once out on the narrow street, she picked her way carefully over the broken cobblestones and down along Ragg Row to the next intersection. She was about to head for the wharf when she heard a man’s rough, leering voice call to her from across the way.
“Didn’t they want you at Practical Elegance, bobbin?”
Ella glanced up. A short man with bruise-colored bags under his eyes stood leaning against the corner of a building that consumed the whole next block.
The short man beckoned to her. “Looking for a job, hey, lovely?” he asked, baring his yellow teeth in a smile. “There’s always room for talent at Jacquard.”
Ella’s stomach turned over. She looked up at the building across the road. Its walls were old and crumbling, and thick with grime, and it had almost no windows. From the outside, it was worse than the shop in Fulcrum, like a great stone tomb. She wondered just how bad it was within.
Some force within her compelled her to cross the road. She had to see it. See if it was really as bad as she remembered — or worse. She’d never have another chance to get inside this place.
“Yeah,” she heard herself say, “I need a job.”
“Name’s Neats,” said the man, thumping his chest. “You?”
“Kit,” she said.
“Walk with me, Kit. Let’s see if you’re fit to be employed.”
She followed him into the Jacquard workshop.
THE carriage stopped, and for the first time, he thought of turning back. He could imagine what lay outside, but he did not really know. It scared him.
He was sure it would scare Lavaliere. He was counting on her reaction.
“Are we there?” Lavaliere opened her eyes. “Finally.”
Tanner opened the door, and Dash stepped out onto the dim, narrow street over which the Jacquard workshop loomed, a massive block of rotting, ominous stone. For a moment, he couldn’t focus on anything but the assault on his senses — the sound of something dripping, the moisture in the fetid air, a pair of churls chewing some dead, rotten animal near the doorstep.
“What is that smell?” said Lavaliere from within the carriage.
Dash reached in for her hand, and Lavaliere stepped onto the street. Above the black door directly in front of them, the word Jacquard was painted in small red letters on the grimy wall.
“Surprise,” he said.
“What is this?” Lavaliere stared at her surname. “Where are we?” She gazed without understanding at the enormous building before them. Around her, the scribes were equally confused.
“Is this where your mother is hiding, Your Highness?” ventured one of them.
“No, mule, it’s the Jacquard workshop,” scoffed a plump scribe. “Haven’t you ever been in this district?”
Dash was surprised that any of them had.
Lavaliere’s mouth, meanwhile, had opened in dismay. “You brought me to Ragg Row?” She looked terrified. Revolted. The scribes watched her every movement.
“This is our future,” Dash said. “We should see it together.” He glanced at the scribes. “I’d like a few of you to follow us inside.” The scribes came back to life, shouting to be chosen.
“I’m telling my mother,” Lavaliere said.
“Yes,” said Dash. “Please tell her I’m interested in her life’s work.” It wasn’t really a lie. He had no trouble saying it. He even managed a smile.
Lavaliere threw his hand away from her. Red-faced, she climbed back into the carriage and slammed its ornate door on him. This the scribes noted with glee, and Dash scanned the group of them to select his ambassador to the Criers. His eyes settled on the plump scribe who knew what a workshop was. She was busy looking up and down the street and taking notes on their surroundings rather than paying attention to Lavaliere’s tantrum.
“What’s your name?” he asked, nodding to her.
“Nettie Belting, Your Royal Highness,” she said, stepping forward.
“You wrote the Coach story. The good one.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Nettie, looking flattered. At the mention of the Coach name, a few of the other scribes cocked their heads and did a bit of scribbling.
“What else have you written?” asked Dash. “Anything I’d know?”
“The Rapunzel story, sir. I interviewed her at the Fortress of Bole a few months back.”
He remembered that one. On the whole, it had been a decent interview. Mostly substantial. Just a bit of gossip for dressing.
“Nettie,” he said, “follow me.” He beckoned to a few other scribes as well, and they hurried to attend him. Sure of his purpose, Dash marched up to Lariat Jacquard’s workshop, with scribes right behind him.
NEATS beckoned Ella into a tiny, low-ceilinged entrance hall and locked the door behind them. He ducked into an open room with an oil lamp burning on the desk; the smell of its smoke did nothing to disguise the sour stink of sweat and mold that filled the air. He came out again with a ring of clinking keys and a shabby, poufy cap. “Put this on,” he said, tossing it at her. “Keeps your hair from getting mixed up with the silk. We don’t want polluted goods.”
Ella loathed the thought of wearing it: Long ago, she’d gotten lice from one of these caps, and she’d spent nights in front of the fire, her mum picking through her curls strand by strand for every louse and nit. She’d always brought her own cap after that. Having little choice now, however, she donned the one Neats offered and tucked all her hair in. Her scalp crawled.
Neats walked her to the dark, narrow stairwell.
“What’re your skills?” he demanded.
“Unrolling silk and spinning it.”
“Your fingers are too big for unrolling.”
“I have lots of practice.”
“Good. One of our girls stopped showing for work. I need a replacement.”
Ella hoped the girl wasn’t dead.
“Let’s go.” Neats jerked his chin at the stairs. “Fifth floor. Haven’t got all day.”
Ella put her foot on the first wooden stair, which was water-stained and in danger of caving in. At the landing of each flight of rickety steps, they passed doors that were bolted and padlocked shut from the outside. Neats checked each lock, jingling his keys.
On the uppermost floor, he unbolted the door. The air that exhaled from the room was putrid with sickness. Ella looked in. It was a long, rectangular slab of a room with a few narrow windows so dirty that no sunlight broke through. Half of the chamber was packed close with people of all ages, kneeling on threadbare mats and spinning at their wheels, many of them smothering coughs as they worked.
The other half was full of children.
They sat beneath the windows at long, low tables heaped with boiled cocoons. None of them dared look at Ella, not even the little ones, who were tied tight to their chairs with short lengths of splintering rope.
Neats steered her to the end of the children’s tables. She was the oldest among them by at least five years. Ella sat, trying not to disrupt the work of the girl on her left and the boy on her right. A dull knocking could be heard from the stairwell.
“Better see who’s here,” said Neats. He picked up a cocoon, dropped it on the table in front of Ella, and slapped her on the shoulder. “Now get to work.” He left the room, shutting the door behind him. Ella heard the bolt on the outer door scrape as Neats locked them back in.
She looked down the table at the children in her row. The little ones seemed so uncomfortable, their bellies pressing the ropes, their skinny faces sweating in the shadowy light, their fingertips raw.
“Neats’ll hit you if you don’t start,” whispered the boy next to her.
Ella looked around. “There’s no floor manager up here?” she asked.
“Hasn’t been one for months,” the boy said. “But don’t think about slacking. Neats is quick, and he’ll be back.”
Ella’s fingers moved automatically, finding the end of the pulsing thread and prying it free, then ever so carefully guiding the tip of her finger along the fragile line of it, pulling it with one hand while her opposite fingers unrolled the cocoon.
A little girl at the next table began to cough. Her bony shoulder blades made dents in her loose brown smock. Ella crushed the half-unrolled cocoon in her fingers.
Why had she come here? What good could she do here? She had no authority to change Jacquard Silks, she couldn’t make them stop this — she couldn’t even admit she was here, or she’d be arrested for trespassing. Even if she could rally the workers and march them all out of here, what would be the real result? Homelessness and starvation?
The girl coughed again, smothering the wet noise in her arms. Down at the farthest end of the children’s table, another child joined in the coughing fit, her stomach straining against the rope that held her in place as she seized. They were trapped. Just like she’d been.
And she could not rescue them.
IT took several minutes for someone to open the front door of the Jacquard workshop. When he saw Dash’s royal coat, the troop of scribes, and the uniformed guards, his eyes popped and he bowed low.
“Your Royal Highness,” he croaked.
“Are you the manager?”
“I am, sir, I am — name’s Neats, foreman here at Jacquard. How may I serve you, sir?”
“I want a tour of the premises. To better understand the business of my future wife.”
“Yes, sir, of course.” Still maintaining his uncomfortable bow, the man shuffled to the side to let Dash enter the building.
The place was narrow, dark, and damp, and smelled worse than the street outside. Mice skittered down the corridor ahead, but Dash made himself proceed in spite of his disgust. Nettie followed close behind his guards with the other scribes behind her, and Neats shuffled at their heels. One of the scribes peeled off from the group and left the workshop, holding his nose.
“Quite a few stages of silk production are handled here, sir, quite a few,” said Neats, sidling in front of the guards to unlock a door. “In this room, you’ll see our weavers at the looms, sir.”
Neats pulled the door open. The long, narrow room that Dash peered into was dim and musty, filled end to end with looms. People hunched uncomfortably on low stools, leaning very close to their work to have a hope of seeing it.
“This isn’t where the story’s at,” he heard one scribe whisper to another. “Who cares about dirty workshops? I’d rather see if I can get a word from Miss Jacquard.” The other scribe nodded agreement, and the two of them backed out of the room.
Dash pointed to the windows, so blackened that they blocked daylight. “They’re filthy.”
“I’ll have them cleaned, sir,” said Neats at once. “Tomorrow.”
Dash didn’t see why they ought to wait. Neats had a dirty rag tucked into the back of his belt; Dash snatched it from him and went to the windows himself. He climbed onto a chair and drew the rag down a stripe of the first window. It barely made a difference. He spat on the rag and tried again, applying more pressure as he swiped at the dirt, and he was pleased to see a streak of bright glass appear as a result of his effort. He spat again and wiped another clean streak, and another. As he did, the sun broke through. The people at the looms looked up to see what had caused the rise in light. Their eyes fell on Dash and his guards.
The people’s hands stopped moving on their looms. They stood, some of them with great difficulty, bracing their
backs with their hands. They bowed to him.
Nettie scribbled furiously, sweating to catch every detail. Dash’s voice failed him completely as he gazed down upon his subjects. What could he say to these people whom the Charmings had so long neglected? Nothing. Even the Charming Curse would not have known how to talk its way out of this. Only action mattered.
From his perch upon the chair, he spied another locked door at the far end of the room.
“What’s that?” he asked, pointing.
“Another room, sir. For the boiling vats.” Neats went and unbolted the far-end door.
Dash stepped down from the chair and followed. “Why do you lock your workers in?”
“It prevents theft, sir,” said Neats. “Silk’s precious, you understand. Some of it’s Prism — plush as jewels. I also check their bags when they go. Employer’s orders.”
“Couldn’t you hire more supervisors instead?”
Neats’s eyes shifted away, and his already ruddy face turned blotchy. “True, sir, true,” he muttered. He shoved open the door that separated the rooms, and now Dash knew why the air in the place was so moist; steam billowed from the open chamber, oppressive and hot almost to scalding. The workers here were mostly eclipsed by the fog, but Dash could see their chapped skin, red brows, clouded eyes. They dumped baskets of wriggling cocoons into the boiling water, and the water splashed back, burning them. They merely flinched and kept stirring.
Dash approached a boy who might have been nine at best.
“How old are you?” he asked, and when the boy saw his crest, he bowed low.
“Your Royal Highness,” said the boy. “I’m —” He glanced up and saw Neats. “I’m fourteen,” he finally said, trying to make himself look taller.
Dash did not contradict him. “Your name?”
“Singer, sir. Singer Mantle.”
“My middle name is Mantle.”
“I know, sir,” said Singer.
“You go to school?”
“No, sir. My brother Raglan teaches me,” said Singer. “He works upstairs, but sometimes at night, when he’s not too tired, he reads to me.”
Disenchanted: The Trials of Cinderella Page 30
