“Well, it’s easier for me to speak to you if I know your name,” she returned, sweetness carefully maintained.
“No need for talk.”
Surly oaf. At home, her father would have ordered him beaten for such impertinence. Here she could not afford to take offense. “Only listen for a moment, then,” she urged softly. “I’ll be brief. Do you know who I am?”
“You’re the Great Kneeser’s daughter,” he returned without hesitation.
“The Magnifico Aureste Belandor is my father,” she told him, containing the impulse to slap his face. “By this time, he has probably learned of my abduction. He’ll begin searching, and he’ll never rest until he finds me. When that day comes, those who have wronged us will be punished. They will pay dearly for this outrage.”
“That so?” inquired the sentry.
“Yes, that is so. My father will tear this place apart stone by stone. The guilty will perish by fire and sword. Those wretches who survive will be dragged in chains back to Vitrisi for execution. Painful, public, prolonged execution.”
“Big talk for a little girl. You get that out of some book?”
“It’s more than talk, you may be certain. My father is a man of rank and influence, trusted adviser of the Governor Uffrigo—”
The sentry spat eloquently.
“Possessing power to punish his enemies, and wealth to reward his friends,” Jianna instructed. “Be his friend now, and you’ll never regret it. Help me get away from this place, take me back to Belandor House, and my father will give you money—position—anything that you want. Take this opportunity, and be a prosperous man.”
Accustomed to having her own way, she did not anticipate refusal, and was taken by surprise when he vented an explosive exhalation, something between a grunt and a snort of derision.
“Good one,” he said.
“Do you not believe me?” she asked, frowning. “Truly, I am in earnest. Conduct me back to Vitrisi, and the Magnifico Aureste Belandor will pay you whatever you ask.”
“Then he won’t pay nothing. And the only place you’re going is back inside. Move it.”
“I don’t think you understand. I tell you, my father the Magnifico Aureste will set you up in comfort for the rest of your natural life.”
“Which won’t be good beyond sundown if I cross the Lady Yvenza.”
“You needn’t fear that woman. My father will protect you. My father—”
“Wouldn’t be no use to me. You don’t know our Lady Yvenza, that’s plain. I’d pit her against your kneeser any day.”
“She has no power in Vitrisi. My father—”
“The thing about our Lady Yvenza is, she’s not like other women,” the sentry continued appreciatively. “No softness, no nonsense about her. You bump that one, she’ll crack your nuts. She’s good as a man, that way. You know what she did once to some fool servant caught pilfering salt pork from the stores?”
“It doesn’t matter. My father—”
“Had the thief’s hand cut off, for starters. Then what do you suppose she does?”
“I don’t want to know. Listen, you can be a rich man, or else a dead one when my father—”
“She has that cut-off hand salted down and stowed away in the larder. Says that she’s just replacing the pig meat that was stole. Now, there’s real wit for you.”
“That’s disgusting. You’re making it up.”
“That’s what you think. So I ask you, what kind of fool would I be to go thumbing my nose at our Lady Yvenza?”
“Bah, you’d be perfectly safe, my father would see to it. I give you my word.”
“Your word?” He blasted another snort. “You’re funny as a dancing dwarf. Who are you to be throwing your word around so large when you can’t even best a dog, much less the dog’s mistress? Yes, I saw it all, and a rare sight it was. Thought I’d die laughing when Grumper took you down. He’s a right lad, Grumper is. Aren’t you, boy?” He clicked his tongue approvingly. “Good lad!”
Grumper wagged his tail.
Jianna’s cheeks warmed, and she knew she must be blushing like an idiot. This insolent, unspeakable oaf was actually laughing at her. Insulting her. Drawing herself up, she assumed the expression of cold displeasure that she had so often seen her father use to such potent effect on others—never on her.
“You have made a poor decision,” she informed the sentry ominously. “You will discover your error when you come face-to-face with the Magnifico Aureste Belandor.”
“Face-to-face, eh? Heh. Will he get up off his knees for that, or will I have to get down on mine?”
Jianna’s jaw clamped on a furious reply. She would not lose her temper or her dignity; she would not. Head up and spine straight, she turned and swept away in regal silence, closely trailed by Grumper. Behind her swelled the sentry’s unrestrained guffaws.
He’d be sorry, so sorry one day. Soon. They all would.
Nothing for it but to go back inside. At the moment there was nowhere else to go, and surely they would feed her now.
The surrounding atmosphere dimmed but did not warm as she reentered Ironheart. She made her grim way along the ground-floor rear hallway. She was not alone, there were servants here and there, but they scarcely heeded her. All of them human, she noted. Not a Sishmindri in sight, which was regrettable, for at least the amphibians demonstrated proper respect. They never laughed. Come to think of it, she did not know if they could laugh.
Nor did she know where to find Yvenza Belandor. She paused to inquire and was directed to a closet adjoining the kitchen. Jianna rarely if ever set foot in the kitchen at home, but she was ready to change her habits now. There was, after all, food to be found in a kitchen.
She went in, and the perfume of baking bread drew growls from her stomach. Beside her, Grumper shifted weight. She glanced down and followed his devoted gaze to an arched doorway. She went to it, knocked, heard a woman’s voice answer, and entered a humid old stillroom furnished with floor-to-ceiling wooden shelving. The shelves were crammed with urns, vials, flasks, bottles, boxes, sacks, and casks. A fire burned on a small hearth. An iron pot hung above the blaze, and Yvenza Belandor stood stirring the contents with a withered stick. The ruddy light from below threw every facial crag and furrow into cruel relief.
Witch, thought Jianna. Wordlessly she extended the basket.
“You took your time.” Yvenza made no move to accept the offering.
“Well? Is it all right?” Jianna felt like a fool standing there with the little basket dangling from the end of her stiffly outstretched arm.
“It will do. Dump those kalkrios into the pot.”
Jianna obeyed. The warm aromatic vapor rising from the cauldron bathed her face, not unpleasantly. For a moment, her eyes misted and her head swam.
“Take care,” Yvenza advised with amusement. “Else those fumes will lay you out senseless on the floor for the rest of the afternoon.”
“I may be a trifle weak with hunger,” Jianna suggested. “I’ve not eaten today.”
“Nor will you, before your work is complete.”
My hands look as if I’d stuck them into a beehive, thanks to those miserable thornbushes of yours. What more do you want? Jianna stifled her indignation.
“Simmer the kalkriole broth until it’s reduced by half. Strain it three times through gauze, funnel what’s left into a dark jug, stopper it tightly, wrap it in a towel, then report to me for orders.”
Orders. As if she were speaking to a kitchen maid.
Jianna refused to react, allowing herself only the neutral query, “Anything more?”
“Yes. Here.” Yvenza handed her the stick. “Stir. Often.”
The stick was too flimsy to serve as a weapon.
“You might try breaking off a jagged end and going for the eyes,” Yvenza offered pleasantly.
Jianna repressed a guilty start. Evidently her face had given her away again. “I couldn’t do anything so vicious and pointless,” she murmured, keeping her o
wn too-revealing eyes earnestly downcast. “I know I can’t escape this stronghouse.”
“But it would entertain me to watch you try. I trust you won’t deprive me of that pleasure.” Yvenza exited, trailed by Grumper.
“And it would entertain me to see you brought to Vitrisi in chains,” Jianna answered, alone in the stillroom with no one to hear. And she would see it, she would see that woman and her detestable brood handed over to the Taerleezi authorities for trial and execution. Soon.
In the meantime there was stirring, straining, and funneling. Jianna hurried competently through the work. When she had finished, she took up the stoppered earthenware jug, stepped toward the door, and hesitated. Her eyes traveled the surrounding shelves, skimming flasks and casks, lingering on handwritten labels. Most of the names were unfamiliar. Nothing useful there, or at least nothing that she knew how to use.
She went out into the kitchen, and Yvenza was not there. A pock-faced potboy toiled at a washtub. He sneaked a quick glance at her, then looked away. Ignoring him, she surveyed the kitchen table, upon which half a dozen big loaves of new bread stood cooling. Beside them, a bowl of pears. Food. Setting the jug aside, she grabbed a loaf, ripped off a chunk, and wolfed it down. And another. As hunger subsided, she became aware that the potboy was staring. Well, he could goggle all he liked, but if he dared to interfere, she would dig new craters in that pocky face of his.
The potboy attempted no interference, merely stood watching openmouthed as she seized a pear and tore into it. The fruit was green and granular, but she devoured three pears in quick succession before the pace of her chewing slowed. Only then did she pause to consider consequences. She had disobeyed Yvenza. There could be disciplinary action.
A queasy little qualm rippled through her, and she was instantly furious with herself. These homespun criminals would not intimidate her. She was her father’s daughter. Squaring her shoulders, she took up the jug and marched off in search of Yvenza. As she went her eyes ranged, taking in the ground-floor fenestration, completely unguarded and completely useless. The stronghouse architecture of Ironheart dictated narrow, deep windows armored in iron grillwork. No exit there.
On she went, and now she knew where she was, back in the front ground-floor gallery. Ironheart was not so difficult to learn. It wasn’t nearly the size of Belandor House. Even so, she had to ask directions that sent her up to the second story with its tiny chambers and its puzzling absence of corridors; through the warren to the northern corner of the building, where a cramped old stairway wound its narrow way up to a square room at the top of a tower. The deep slits piercing all four walls suggested defensive intention, but the place was currently serving another function.
Infirmary, Jianna realized.
The room was furnished with cots and pallets, four of them occupied. A quartet of bandaged young men lay there and she eyed them with interest, for it was the first time to her knowledge that she had ever come face-to-face with authentic Ghosts of the resistance. They did not meet her expectations, which involved hulking hirsute ruffians of burningly fanatical demeanor. These lads appeared neither crazed nor vicious. They looked quite ordinary, surprisingly young, even appealing in a sad and sickly sort of way. One of them was white and still, either asleep or comatose. One tossed and muttered in the throes of delirium. Two were awake and aware, their faces pinched with pain. Yvenza was present as well, on her knees beside a cot, feeding soup to one of the wakeful tenants. She turned as Jianna entered and rose to her full height.
Yes, I already know you’re bigger than I. Jianna met the other’s eyes straightly.
“Give me the kalkriole. You take over feeding.”
Take over feeding? Jianna stared. This woman expected her to come within smelling distance of an ailing male stranger, an outlaw Ghost no less, dangerous, possibly diseased, probably dirty—and feed him? With her own hands?
“Now,” Yvenza commanded.
No help for it. Approaching with reluctance, she handed the jug to Yvenza, received a soup bowl in exchange, and knelt beside the cot, too close to the criminal invalid, far closer than she wanted to be. Yes, he was dirty, her eyes and nose registered. Grubby, smelly, and unkempt, with a sandy stubble of beard prickling his chin.
“New girl. Fetching.” He inspected her appreciatively. “What’s your name, honey lips?”
Insolent lout. Wordlessly she extended a spoonful of soup.
“Shy one, eh?” He gulped the soup. “Don’t be afraid. It’s all right, I’m friendly.”
Far too friendly. Glowering, she offered another spoonful.
“Come, you can tell me your name, can’t you? Or d’you want me to guess? Let me see—is it Netta? Zeev? Kitzi?”
She kept her eyes down and her lips compressed.
“Ho, this beauty is a mute. Maybe not such a bad thing. Most girls talk too much.”
He was the one talking too much.
“All right, sweet Silence, if you won’t give me words, at least give me soup. Let’s have it.”
She offered the spoon and as he leaned forward he grasped her wrist, ostensibly to steady it, although there was no need. The unwelcome, unnecessary contact took her by surprise. She started and dropped the spoon. The hand holding the bowl jerked, sloshing soup across the bed and its occupant. A sharp curse escaped him.
Yvenza turned at the sound of it. “What are you yowling about?” she inquired.
“This sullen slattern of yours is trying to drown me,” the invalid complained. “Or maybe starve me.”
Outraged, Jianna cast about for a suitably crushing retort.
“She’s new,” Yvenza observed with amusement. “A little awkwardness is only to be expected. I’ve no doubt that she’ll strive hard to improve herself.”
Jianna felt the angry color mount uncontrollably to her cheeks.
“In the meantime, do we all wallow in spilled soup?” the Ghost demanded. “Is there no able body about? Where’s Rione? He knows what he’s doing.”
“Off in the hills, tending to your comrades. He’ll be back within a few days.”
“It can’t be too soon.”
“I agree.”
Their discourse mystified Jianna. Rione? The name was unfamiliar. One of the servants? She would have assumed so, but for a certain fleeting alteration in the quality of Yvenza’s voice. There was something present for an instant—approval? Satisfaction? Esteem? And in that moment as well, a change in expression, a brief softening or corrosion of the customary iron.
“Because Rione has got a kind of native wit about him,” the Ghost expanded. “Like he was almost born knowing just what to do and how to do it. It’s something just there in him.”
“You have the good sense to see it.” Yvenza nodded.
Still that indefinable note in her voice. Respect?
“And if it isn’t there to begin with, chances are it never will be,” the Ghost continued. “Like this one.” He jerked a thumb at Jianna. “Born clumsy, that’s clear, and nothing will change nature, I always say. Born a clumsy calf, grows into a clumsy cow, clumsy from start to finish—”
“That’s enough!” Jianna finally found her voice. “You hairy, smelly, lying piece of garbage, how dare you blame me for an accident that you caused all by yourself?”
“So she can talk,” the Ghost approved.
“Yes, I can talk and, unlike you, I can tell the truth. You made me spill the soup because you couldn’t keep your hands to yourself.”
“What? Me? Have you forgotten that you’re talking to an invalid?”
“Nothing would’ve happened if you hadn’t been pawing me.”
“Girl’s confused,” opined the Ghost.
“I am not. Are you going to deny that you grabbed my wrist?”
“Grabbed? You say grabbed? The smallest touch, meant only in kindness, and you dare say grabbed? I can’t believe my ears. Aren’t you ashamed, girl?”
She considered dumping the remainder of the soup over his head. Before she had made up
her mind, Yvenza reentered the discussion.
“Even the smallest touch, meant only in kindness, can be a tricky business,” she observed drily. “Our little neophyte here is promised to Onartino. I’d consider that, my lad.”
“Promised? You mean—”
“I mean that my son plans to marry this girl at the first opportunity. She’ll be his wife and my daughter.”
“I didn’t know, lady.” The Ghost appeared to dwindle in size. “No offense meant, I vow and swear.”
“If I thought otherwise, I’d take appropriate action,” Yvenza assured him serenely. “So, too, no doubt, would Onartino. My boy is touchingly devoted to his betrothed. Their mutual affection is a rare treasure, an example and an inspiration to us all.”
“A treasure.” The Ghost nodded vigorously. “I can respect that. I hope the young lady took no offense, for none was meant.”
Jianna replied with a distant nod, hardly noting him, for the allusion to Onartino had recalled her to the reality of her position in this household. Sometimes it was possible almost to forget for minutes or even longer at a time. Since the morning she had consented to wed Yvenza’s oldest son, her circumstances had altered, much for the better. She had been liberated from her cellar closet and given a modest room of her own near the top of Ironheart’s southwest turret. True, the chamber door was bolted from the outside every night from sundown until dawn. True, the two windows were barred. The furnishings were rudimentary, and cold drafts swept the bare floor. But the place offered an illusion of privacy. There she slept alone and unmolested. Occasionally she was even permitted to dine in blessed solitude. More often, however, she was obliged to take her meals with the family, as befit her new status.
The company of her captors was always distasteful, but at table she suffered no greater degree of abuse than they habitually inflicted upon one another. Beneath Yvenza’s watchful eye, no one attempted outright indecency. So long as she labored to the matriarch’s satisfaction, she was fed. She was permitted to bathe occasionally, unobserved so far as she knew, and she was allowed to wash out her own garments. Not that she had many. The boxes containing her massive, exquisite trousseau had been left with the carriage and carnage at the site of the attack. But she had been given a length of linen, needle, and thread with which to fashion a serviceable set of spare undergarments, and thus equipped she contrived to keep herself reasonably clean.
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