“You don’t want to try that!” she warns turning from me. “Wait here,”
She walks over to the far door and opens it.
Our holding cell is suddenly full of voices talking and laughing, one on top of the other, and the acrid smell of burning wood. Jey grabs my hand and squeezes tight, fear making her slight frame tremble. When the door opens again, the Beak stands before us erect, proud in her neck-tight ruff. Two black-clad Enforcers tower behind her, their eyes unreadable. The door closes behind them. This part of the process must cause her trouble I guess, that, or she is afraid of what I might do.
She stands before us stiff and haughty.
“The time has come girls for you to serve your masters,” she says, her neck high, held in stiff position by the ruff.
I can’t take my eyes off the grey bonnet strings tied tight into her sagging skin.
“The Primitive Elect have cared for you, kept you from harm and guided you on the right path,” she lies. “You must understand that it is a privilege to be bound to the Primitive Elect. If you are lucky, you will be taken as a Wife. This is a great honour. Praise be to God and the Primitive Elect.”
A sigh of relief sounds out behind me.
“You see!” exclaims Jennet poking me in the back and hissing in my ear. “It is a privilege to be here. I’m sure I will be chosen as a Wife of the Elect.”
“If it makes you feel better to believe that Jennet,” I hiss back.
“Silence,” The Beak shouts. “Jey Beswice.”
Jey stiffens and grips my hand tighter.
“You have first privilege and I know that someone special is waiting for you on the other side of that door,” she adds, giving Jey a gloating smile, the stains on her teeth adding to the feeling of revulsion I have towards her.
Jey’s body sags and I feel her grip loosen. The two guards step forward, grab beneath her arms, walk her forward and into the noise of the next room before I can grab her tightly to me. She’s gone. I slump to the floor broken and listen in despair to the lull, then rise of voices, in the next room. A sharp clack sounds out and the Beak returns.
“Meriall Beswice,” she calls, “it is your privilege now.”
“Privilege!” I shout, scornfully. “What kind of privilege is it to be sold?”
“Shut up girl!” she hisses back to me, pulling the door closed behind her.
The two guards step forward.
“Get her up,” she commands.
They grab my arms and pull me to my feet and the tightness of the leather belt bites into my stomach as I’m wrenched forward. My anger rises.
“You’re a liar. You’re all liars,” I seethe as I’m pulled up straight before her.
“Listen, girl,” she scowls, pinching my chin between her bony fingers, “you’ll be lucky if anyone wants you—given the state you’re in,” she adds, the spite thick in her voice. “Skinny, scarred, impure—you’ll be for the Scrap Yard if you’re not careful—up for anyone to take.”
The look of malice in her eyes is more than I can bear and I spit in her face. Her reaction is instant. She lets go of my chin and slaps me hard. The scar burns and the fingers gripping my arms dig further into my flesh until I wince under the pain.
“Take her out and get her sold.”
The doors open and the noise and smell of the room overwhelms me again, but a mumbling hush falls across the gathered crowd as I step out into the room and down the empty walkway to the raised platform at the front. I raise my head, shake back my hair in defiance and focus on walking, forcing my trembling legs to keep moving forward, willing them not to betray me. Grumbles of discontent sound among the nearest viewers as I pass. I feel my cheeks begin to burn. Focus on the steps. Just look at them. The fingers gripping my arms are tight bands, rough even over the white cotton sleeves of my gown. Steps ahead of me rise to a platform that will raise me up for all to see. The auctioneer stands at their base, small wooden hammer in hand, the Beak’s log book at his table. His leaden eyes search over my body, taking me in.
As I walk towards the podium, I see a familiar face in the corner of my vision. A heavy thud jolts my heart and sinks into my belly as fear washes over me—the Captain. He stands firm among the jostling crowd, eyes fixed on me. My legs quake and I stumble. Someone in the crowd laughs, others mumble, and the flesh on my neck creeps as I feel the Captain’s eyes boring into me as I finally stand on the platform, the guard holding me firmly in place.
“Lot 2. Status: Outlier, class 2. Keeper: Watcher Craslow,” the auctioneer shouts out over the mumbling crowd. “Here we have a seventeen-year old female: slim; five feet five inches; auburn hair. A strong woman, marked, but useful for all purposes: work and play.”
A titter across the room.
“What’s her purity?” a voice shouts from below.
It belongs to a man of about forty, squat, pot-bellied with a greying beard.
My stomach lurches. Please, no! Dread realisation of what is happening to me surges through my body and my legs quake again, but I’m held still by the iron grip of the guard. The auctioneer refers to the log book.
“Impure.”
The grey beard shakes his head and steps back, interest lost.
“I’ll take her,” the Captain says stepping forward, his eyes fixed on mine.
I cannot bear the look of desire that I see there. You can’t have me! He steps closer again and reaches out his hand, fingering the hem of my cotton gown. I stagger back, pushing against the guards holding me taut. I’m trapped, unable to move out of his reach. His hand strokes the back of my calf and with the other he lifts the hem of my shift, bending as though to peer inside, to look at me, my most private me.
“Aagh!” I hear myself explode, unable to bear his violation a second longer.
I kick at him with all my force, my bare foot crashing into his cheek. He staggers, falls back and thuds to the wooden floor, his hand clasped to his face. In the seconds that pass before I’m wrenched down from the podium, I lock my eyes in anger with his and watch as the blood seeps through his fingers, sliced by the sharpness of my jagged toenails. A grumbling murmur ripples through the crowd of buyers. A wooden hammer clacks.
“Unsold,” rings through the air.
The tack, tack of the Beak’s shoes sound behind me and she grabs my arm, digging her talons into my soft muscle.
“Now see what you get,” she whispers maliciously. “Hold her still,” she commands the guards as she pulls a leather strap from the pockets of her skirt. She reaches her arms over my head and places it around my neck, buckling it at the back, locking it into place. “You’re at the bottom of the pile now girl,” she mocks.
A guard reaches up to the collar and slides his hand to the strap there and pulls. Pricks of pain shoot over my skin and I can do nothing but follow.
Chapter Five
‘Not pure’. ‘Unsold’. The words keep ringing in my ears. I am not ashamed. I am triumphant and hold my head high as the guards push me forward and down the steps.
The Captain strides forward and blocks my path.
“It would seem that you like to do things the hard way girl!” he seethes as he wipes at his bloodied face. He turns to the guard. “This one needs breaking. Take her to the Pit. Make sure she’s locked in.”
The guard nods and pushes me forward roughly. A murmur runs through the people gathered nearby, their eyes following as I’m walked past. Whatever the ‘Pit’ is, my being sent there seems to be creating a stir. I’m not going to let them, or the Captain, think I’m scared though and keep my head high, walk strong and keep pace with the guard so he has no excuse to shove or pull me.
We walk through the crowds and out of the sale room to one of the main streets that leads through the town. Although the town seems familiar, it is nothing like my village with its winding lanes and huddled cottages. The street is broad and the houses tower either side of the street, rooms stacked high, lined by rows of windows. Nothing can be seen beyond the blocks of gre
y and red bricks. It reminds me of walking through the overgrown lanes at home where the trees have become so tall that nothing can be seen beyond their trunks and leaves. Here though, there is no relief of beauty, no moss-covered stone walls leafed with ferns or wind-blown clouds flitting above dappled moors to soothe me.
The smell hits me first like a punch to the face, startling me with memories of mother crouching, smiling, gentling me with her sing-song, offering love in a hunk of newly baked, freshly cut, buttered bread, grabbed by my tiny, grasping hands. Captivated by the scene through the shop window, tears prick my eyes. The shelves are stacked with loaves of bread, swirled and sugared buns, and fruited loaves. The sweet smell wafts over me. I am heady with hunger and stare at the bread-laden, slanted shelves and breath in deeply through my nose, completely lost in the moment, my senses bombarded, my mouth watering. The shop door opens and a young boy, his head held high by a pleated ruff steps out and gawks for a moment then smirks. He reaches into the small box in his hand and picks out a large, swirled and glazed bun. He raises it to his lips, opens his mouth wide, pushes the cake in and bites fully down, keeping his eyes on mine for each agonising second. He smiles as he chews, the sugar gritty on his lips, his mouth crammed full. When half the bun has gone, he holds it high then drops it to the floor and squashes it into the pavement with his black boot. The guard yanks at me to move and I lurch forward with hate in my heart for the boy and his contempt. My stomach growls again in hunger.
The next window holds a seated girl, close to the glass, using the light to shine on her work. Like Jey she is slight and pretty, but this girl’s neatly braided hair is flaxen, not auburn, and a tattoo of ownership marks her cheek. She sits surrounded by stacks of wicker baskets and bundled lengths of willow. At home, we made our own baskets. Mine were always crooked, so in exasperation mother would exchange some of her raspberry and blackcurrant conserve with Judythe’s mother Aileen for the baskets they made. I would cut the willow and Judythe would weave her magic into the wood. The girl’s hands are busy weaving, yet she takes a moment and smiles to me. Behind her, at the counter, a thin, hard-faced woman looks up. Her face pinched above the ruff at her neck and colourless beneath the draining, grey bonnet. She mouths something, a weasel frown on her face, and the girl quickly bows her head low and continues with her craft.
In the shop next door, rabbits dangle by their tied feet and a pig’s carcass hangs belly-empty from a large metal hook under its jaw. Outside, a boy of about seventeen sweeps invisible dust from the empty path onto the street. His clothes are old and ill-fitting, jeans that sag at the knees and hang in folds at his side beneath a long waist-tied apron. A tattoo is scratched onto his cheek, still raw at the edges. Freshly collected produce. He looks to me and frowns. A flicker crosses his eyes and he nods like we share the same pain.
After the butcher, a shop stacked full of rectangular glass-like panels, tall and thin, and bunches of wires tied neatly in bundles, is lit bright. A man stands behind the serving counter with tools spread about and a panel laid across the top. Behind him are shelves from the floor to the ceiling. Each shelf divided into square sections and stacked with small boxes. As I pass, he reaches up and opens a small one, pulling out a glass bulb that he passes to a tall, balding man, his forehead shining in the electric lights. He holds the bulb up to the light and peers into the glass.
We turn and cross the road to a bank of red-bricked buildings and the guard leads me towards a large stone archway where the tarmac of the road gives way to cobbles. The archway is guarded by two massive wooden doors with a smaller one cut into the right side, a metal grille at its centre. He turns the coiled handle of the smaller door and we step into a passage through the centre of the buildings. It opens out into a large, busy courtyard where groups of boys and men stand about talking and laughing. The courtyard has a sunken round of sandy gravel at its middle, circled by a high dry-stone wall. Once inside, a single flight of narrow, gated steps is the only easy escape. Two men, both with shields and knives are fighting, or at least practising to fight. In one corner, a group of standing logs, with stuffed arms attached to their sides and grotesque cloth heads, make crude enemies. I watch as one is speared, its cloth head lolls on its squat neck and the wood around its heart cracks and splinters.
“So, this is the Pit?” I say to the guard. He responds with a monosyllabic ‘Yes,’ then pushes me forward, past the circle of fighting men to the building at the far end of the courtyard; solid in stone with rows of windows along its length. At the side is a metal staircase bolted to the rough grey stone.
“Up here,” he says gruffly and guides me towards the steps at the side of the building. They look rotten and dribbles of russet smear the grey where metal is drilled into stone. I hesitate.
“Get forward girl. Up!” the guard barks at me with irritation.
I put my foot on the first step and the honeycombed metal steps wobble beneath me.
“It won’t break. Move it!” he snaps, giving me a sharp prod in the back.
I have no choice, so step upwards until I reach the platform. With each step the staircase creaks against its stays and I step through the door into a narrow corridor with relief. The air is rich with the dry mustiness of soiled and threadbare carpets, the air heated by the sun streaming through the numerous windows that sit along the length of the corridor. To my left is a series of paint-chipped, white doors. We walk past the first and the second. At the third we stop. The guard clicks open the heavy latch, swings the door open and pushes me inside.
The room is dingy, colder than outside, and my breath dances white before me. A single, undressed window looks out to the bank of grey on the other side of the courtyard. The walls are mottled with damp, dark in the corners and around the window with the black spores of mould. Apart from a narrow bed, with a bare mattress and piss-pot half under the scratched metal frame, the room is empty and without blankets or pillows. There is nothing to make my sleep comfortable. If they let me sleep! Black soot has dropped to form a pile in the hearth of the long unused fireplace and the worn floorboards creak as I take my first steps across them. The whole place feels uncared for and dilapidated, as if it will start to give way beneath my feet at any minute. The floorboards are wide and black with age, but there is no sign of the tell-tale yellow dust of rot or the black pinholes of woodworms. I can only hope that the unseen beams beneath are clear too.
“What now?” I ask the guard. “What happens now?”
He bends in close to me. “I can stink the fear on you girl,” he says with a throaty hiss. “You’re going to be broken—that’s what.”
His breath is putrid on my cheek and I pull away.
“What does that mean? What are they going to do to me?” I ask, rising panic scratching up my throat.
He holds my gaze and, in a low voice, speaks four words that tell me nothing, but rip at my belly. “They have their ways.”
He turns away and walks out of the door.
The lock shuts me in with a dreadful clack. Another door opens and closes and his steps are gone. I move to the window, lean against the frame and watch for him, but he doesn’t reappear in the courtyard. Pain jabs at my finger and a drop of blood smears the frame, my skin nicked by the head of a nail. I look down. The frame has been nailed shut. Fear rises up in my belly again: the door is locked; the window is nailed shut; the chimney is too narrow for me to climb up. I am trapped and the only way out is to smash through the glass. The room gets smaller as my thoughts bounce from nailed frame to locked door and the grindingly dreadful words of the guard, ‘they have their ways’. Cold drenches me. I sway. Pascha calls my name and I stumble into blackness.
When I come to, cold is seeping into my bones, my body stiff, my face wet with tears and my head is full of Jey, Pascha and Mother. I push up against the floor and drag myself onto the bed. The mattress smells of stale urine and damp and sags as I curl up, staring into the greyed-out room, wiping my cheek dry with my sleeve. Where are you Pascha? I c
an’t let myself believe that he died in the fall. He is strong, stronger than me. He could have survived the fall and I know in my heart that he is alive. If you were dead, I would know. I would know because I’d be dying too. Exhaustion waves over me again and, as I sink back down into the blackness, Pascha walks towards me smiling, reaching out for me, calling for me to come to him.
Footsteps outside the door in the hallway wake me as the thin, grey light of morning filters through the window. The room looks haunted, sapped of life, and faces blur in and out of the shadowed corners. The footsteps get louder, pass by, and fade along the corridor. Pain in my bladder shouts at me and I am suddenly desperate to pee. I remember the piss pot beneath the bed. I sit up and slowly swing my legs over the side of the bed. My head throbs and I wait a moment, but the pressure in my bladder is urgent. I reach down and pull the enamel handle of the pot towards me. It is ringed with stain and the smell of stale urine is pungent, sharp inside my nose. I gag, stand and unzip my jeans and bend forward a little to pull them down over my thighs.
Footsteps. I stop still. Look towards the door. Wait.
They get louder, then pass. The pressure in my bladder is unbearable and I pull down my jeans and squat over the pot, pushing out my pee hard to get it over and done with. The muscles in my thighs burn as I squat, but I am thankful for the relief and slide the steaming pot under the bed when I finish. Unwashed yet relieved, I crawl back onto the bed. Sleep eludes me. My stomach is queasy and gnawing with hunger. Will they bring food or leave me to starve? Perhaps that’s how they’ll do it; starve me until I do what they tell me to do, think what they tell me to think.
The room brightens as the morning light gets stronger, but waves of anxiety and rage make me restless. I can’t sit still and constantly walk to the nailed window and then to the door, clutch the handle and push it down as if, somehow, it will miraculously be unlocked. The noise from outside is getting louder as the courtyard fills up with boys and men and by mid-morning the walls are alive with the ricochet of cracks and grunts and thuds.
Chosen (Dark Powers Rising Book 3) Page 3
