Vessel

by Lisa T. Cresswell

  No one had ever asked me that before. This week had brought so much newness. It was as if I’d been walking around asleep all these years and suddenly awakened to find myself in strange circumstances.

  “My master requires it.”

  “Tow?”

  “No, my master is Dine.”

  “Why would he make you wear such a ridiculous contraption?”

  “So others cannot see my ugliness.”

  “You aren’t ugly.”

  “Oh, but I am Master Recks.”

  “Don’t! Don’t call me that. I’m no one’s master. I’m certainly not yours. If I were, I’d order you to remove that thing at once.”

  I smiled underneath my cover.

  “How could anyone be so ugly that they couldn’t let Mother Sun look upon them?”

  “It was my own fault.”

  “What? How could that be?”

  “I angered Master’s wives, so they punished me.”

  “Punished you? How?”

  “They poured hot fat over my face while I slept. I was burned.” I felt my voice break off, unable to say more. I touched the right side of my face with my fingertips, feeling the taut, ruined skin there.

  “Kinder’s right, these people are wretched.”

  “They mean to kill you, Recks. I heard them talking about the Reticents, what they plan to do.”

  “For stealing food?”

  “Food is all we have. It’s our wealth. It’s a man’s most prized possession, before wives, before all else.”

  “And Kinder? What will they do to him?”

  “They said he’s a heretic. That he made machines. Is it true?”

  “He studies the things people left behind from the Time of Darkness, their machines. He even makes some of them work again, but he’s no heretic. He’s just a broken old man.”

  “The Reticents won’t stand for machine-building, Recks. It’s forbidden.”

  “But why?”

  Such a silly question. Everyone knew they were not to build machines. Machines had made man soft, which angered Mother Sun. She shot fire at the world, killing all of man’s machines and plunging them into darkness. In those days, men couldn’t survive without their machines. Everyone knew the tale … didn’t they?

  “Mother Sun … ” I began.

  “Has never stopped Kinder from learning. He’s been studying and building things since before we were born, Alana. The stories people tell, these Reticents, they’re all lies.”

  I was silent. My stick burned close to my fingers now, a glowing ember cutting through the night. I didn’t feel the cold around us.

  “Did I shock you?” he asked.

  “I want to believe you,” I said without thinking. “What can I do?”

  “How long until the Reticents get here?”

  “Only a few days at the most.”

  “Come back tomorrow. I’ll talk to Kinder when he wakes, and we’ll make a plan.”

  “To escape? Even if you could, where would you possibly go?”

  “You mean, where will we go? You’re coming with us.” His smile in the glowing firelight was the most brilliant thing I’d ever seen, brighter than Mother Sun herself.

  In the morning, I found some eggs behind the house where a chicken carelessly left them. No one would miss them. I promised the hen she wouldn’t be next on the dinner table if I could help it. I chewed my sumasara bark as I walked, hoping I’d had enough breakfast to keep it from making me sick. The bark could cause discomfort if one wasn’t careful.

  In the makeshift prison, Recks and Kinder were already awake. They’d hidden the blanket so well I almost forgot they had one. Without a word, I stuffed the eggs and some bread crusts through the feeding slot.

  “Kinder has a plan, Alana, if you’ll help us … ” Recks searched my billa for some sign I was listening.

  I’d lain awake half the night after I left Recks, thinking about what he’d said to me—about the Reticents being liars and about escaping. My heart sang with the idea of freedom, but my head told me it was folly to try. I’d never heard of anyone escaping.

  “You’ll help us, won’t you?”

  It wasn’t in my nature to resist anyone. It’d been beaten out of me years ago. I wasn’t normally given choices in anything. I knew I should say ‘no’ but I said, “Yes.”

  Recks broke into a smile of relief and took a deep breath.

  “We need you to find the key to this lock. Can you?” asked Kinder, pointing to the door.

  “I think so.” I’d seen several keys on Master Tow’s belt during supper the night before. It had to be one of them.

  “Get it and bring it here.”

  “Here?”

  “To unlock the door, of course,” said Kinder, his voice growing angrier. “This is a stupid idea, Recks. The girl can’t do it—”

  “No!” I surprised myself and everyone else. “I can get it. I clean his house sometimes. I’ll find it somehow.”

  “That’s good,” said Recks.

  “Then what?” I asked.

  “Is there a horse in the village? I won’t be able to run,” said Kinder.

  “A horse? No, no horses.”

  “A donkey? Anything?” Kinder’s frown grew deeper.

  “No, nothing like that.”

  “Then there’s no point. They would hunt us down on foot in no time.”

  I wracked my brain for the answer, a place to hide them. Nothing came to mind. Recks paced back and forth, thinking too. When had I even seen a horse?

  “The Reticents … ” I said.

  “What?”

  “The Reticents. They have horses. Carriages even. They always travel that way.”

  “I’d hoped to be gone before they arrived,” said Kinder, considering it.

  “We’ll have to wait until they come. Alana can meet us after nightfall, and we’ll leave then,” said Recks.

  “I suppose it’s our only choice, but it’s not a good one,” said Kinder.

  I sat down on my usual rock outside their cell.

  “Alana? Are you all right?”

  I didn’t answer because I didn’t know the answer. I felt happiness that they would be free and sadness at the thought of them leaving.

  “You’re coming with us, aren’t you?” asked Recks.

  “Where will you go?”

  “We were on our way to Lhasayushu when we were caught. We still have time to get there for the Entry.”

  “Where’s that? How far? Could Dine find us there?”

  “Oh, Alana, it’s far, far away, across mountains and the sea. No one would ever find you there.”

  “What’s the sea?”

  “What’s the sea?” asked Recks, incredulous.

  “I told you, Recks, the people of this region are ignorant in every way,” said Kinder. He might’ve meant to hurt me with his words, but I was used to it. It didn’t faze me.

  “Yes, what’s that? I want to know. I want to learn, to not be ignorant anymore.”

  Recks laughed. “You see, Kinder? There’s hope for them yet.”

  “Your first convert,” he replied dryly. Recks ignored him.

  “A sea is like a river, Alana, like a river so big you can’t see the other side of it.”

  “How do you cross such a thing?”

  “In a ship. A … a carriage that floats on water and uses the power of the wind to move.”

  “A machine?”

  “No, just an enormous cloth that catches the wind.”

  “Your stories sound like fantasy.”

  “There are places in this world much richer than this one, places where they grow miles of cotton to make such things. We’ll see those places on our journey.”

  A pain formed in the pit of my stomach. It was either the sumasara or the idea of leaving the only place I’d ever lived.

  “I can’t go.”

  “But … you just said you wanted to l
earn new things!”

  “I do, but … ”

  “You must come. This could be your best chance at freedom. Why won’t you take it?”

  “But if we’re caught?”

  “We lose our lives, yes, but they’re already lost, are they not?”

  “You’re already dead, Alana. You just don’t know it yet,” said Kinder, not unkindly. “You’ll get old or hurt, unable to work, and you’ll be disposed of.”

  I knew what he said was true. I’d almost been tossed out once before, when I was burned, but Dine wouldn’t allow it for some reason. It made his wives secretly furious, but they couldn’t cross him. It would be wrong to say I felt safe with Dine as my master, but I knew he would keep me as long as he could.

  “You might as well try for something better. You’ve got nothing to lose. You could even go to the Entry. That’s where I’m going,” said Recks. “Kinder’s already a citizen of Lhasayushu, but I want to get in.”

  “Can’t you just go there?”

  “They only admit a few, some years none.”

  “How do you get accepted?”

  “That’s the Entry, a competition to find the most enlightened thinkers, the most talented artists, the best storytellers … ”

  “They’d never accept me,” I said. “I’m none of those things.”

  Recks gave up trying to convince me as I stood up. Terrible pity appeared on his face. I felt shame for disappointing him.

  “I will see if I can find the key and let you know when the Reticents arrive,” I promised, as I turned to go. “That’s all I can do.”

  ***

  I went straight to Master Tow’s house before I lost my nerve. I’d never been good at lying. I was thankful for the billa while I did it. I knocked softly on the door, my hand shaking.

  Please be here …

  Tow answered the door still chewing his breakfast. The sight of me brought a smile to his face.

  “Hello, chit.” The insult didn’t sting as much the way he said it. He stepped back from the doorway and ushered me inside. His house was a bachelor’s—spare on furniture and clutter, heavy on dirt.

  “Master Dine sent me to see if you needed your house cleaned. He thought you could stay with us and let the Envoy stay here.”

  Tow closed the door behind me. A jingle of keys focused my attention on his belt. I let him stand closer to me than I normally would for a better look at them. He enjoyed looking down on me, from what I saw of his expression, trying to see me through the drape.

  “Did he offer any of your other services?” Tow asked, reaching a tender hand through a gap in the side of my billa to touch the hair I carefully brushed every day even though no one saw it. I didn’t look at him, only his keys, and ignored his caresses down my breasts. I trembled, knowing what I might have to do to get those keys. He probably thought it was excitement from his touch and not that I intended to steal from him. His eyes betrayed nothing.

  The largest iron key, black with age and rust, had to be the one I was looking for. It was tied separate from the others with a thin cotton string.

  “I’m not sure. You would have to talk to Master Dine,” I said, leaning closer to him, hoping he didn’t change his mind. Dine had approved Tow to be with me before.

  “He probably wouldn’t mind,” said Tow, pulling me to him with a meaty arm around my waist. It was what I’d hoped for. A gentle twist on the knot, a tug on the string, and the key was mine. His musky odor would’ve knocked me down had he not held me up while he struggled with the billa, desperate to touch me underneath it.

  The whinny of a horse outside stopped him.

  “The Envoy,” he whispered as he released me and ran outside.

  I followed him to the doorway to see a carriage accompanied by several riders on horseback in bright scarlet robes, the colors screaming against the dark backdrop of the forest. Tiny metal bells on their saddles and bridles jingled, an eerie sound in our quiet valley. The carriage driver, the only man not in bright colors, was Weevil, a slaver I knew all too well.

  Weevil wasn’t a tall man, but he was thick like the trunk of an elm with fists as hard as rocks. When he hit you, you knew it. He wasn’t a Reticent but most likely their hired guide. The sight of him terrified me more than any Reticent. His presence made Recks’s and Kinder’s escape even more unlikely. Weevil had been chasing and capturing slaves since before my birth. He showed little signs of age, except his long, coarse, gray hair and yellowing teeth, which he filed to points to look even more frightening. A blue snake tattoo slithered across his chest.

  I hung back in Tow’s doorway, hoping I’d become invisible as the streets filled with people coming out of their homes. Panic threatened to overtake me as I realized it was midmorning. If the Reticents wanted to see the prisoners today, Tow would discover the key was missing from his belt. Without the cover of darkness, Recks and Kinder wouldn’t get far. Stealing a horse would be even less likely.

  I pushed down my fear and stepped into the crowd forming around the travelers. I had to find out what the Reticents would do. I could leave the key in Tow’s house, make him think he’d dropped it, if I had to. I gripped the key in my sweaty hand. Helping my prisoners escape served no purpose now that Weevil was here. It might be more merciful to leave them locked in their cage.

  I twisted my fingers together around the key and wished with all my heart for nightfall. The village men met the Envoy first while the women watched from the roadside. They held their horses’ reigns while the men in colorful robes dismounted. Being an elder and a village leader, Dine greeted them first. He and the oldest man spoke in low voices. I couldn’t hear them over the murmur of the crowd.

  Master Dine called to Tow and after a brief conversation, Tow led the entire Envoy back to the house. I tried to back further into the crowd, but no one else wore a black tent like I did. It was impossible not to stand out. The Envoy members filed into Tow’s house followed by Dine, who spotted me.

  “Chit! Come make some tea,” Dine ordered me.

  Heart in my throat, I hurried into the house behind him. Inside, Tow pulled out chairs for his guests. I went to the fireplace with Tow’s empty teapot and started some water heating, lit a fire with some kindling and a flint stone. The four Reticent priests and Weevil ignored me as I worked in the next room, but their voices were easily loud enough to hear.

  “Thank you for your hospitality, Master Tow. Mother Sun will surely shine on you,” said one of them.

  “Master Dine, you’ve called on us and now we’re here. What’s happened?”

  Dine replied in a submissive voice I’d never heard him use before. “Thank you for coming so quickly, Your Grace. I must apologize. We thought you would be arriving tomorrow. Not all the preparations for your visit have been made. I am truly sorry.”

  “What preparations are those?” The voice was curious.

  “I planned to slaughter a calf and prepare a feast in your honor, Your Grace.”

  “A calf? That would be a most excellent feast indeed. Perhaps we could extend our visit Anders?”

  I silently entered the room with the teapot and cups. The steeping tea lightly perfumed the room, but it couldn’t replace the smell of the unwashed men entirely. I poured the first cup and offered it to the most senior of the Reticents, a man nearly as old as Kinder, but much healthier. He smiled at me as if I were an amusing fool in my billa. He took the customary first sip, eldest first. I waited by the teapot for his approval, hoping he wouldn’t taste the hippa in the tea.

  “Ah, lovely,” he said as he settled back into Tow’s best chair.

  Approval given, I filled the other cups and served the remaining men.

  “I hoped to be back to Gora early, but I suppose we could stay a spell. Could you prepare the calf tonight, Dine?”

  “Certainly, Master Anders. You can stay here, and I will have my servant wait on you.” Dine gestured toward me, hovering in the back of the room should I be
called on. Weevil spoke for the first time.

  “Why is she in that contraption, Dine?”

  “She’s monstrously hideous, but a loyal servant.”

  “Is that the girl from Asia I sold you years ago? Weren’t nothing wrong with her then.”

  He remembers me?

  Dine leveled a look at Weevil that would frighten most people, but Weevil was used to being hated.

  “As I recall, she was quite a pretty little chit, in fact,” Weevil continued. “Almost kept her for meself. Maybe I should’ve.”

  Anders looked at the ceiling and sighed.

  “Are we really discussing the welfare of an insignificant slave, Weevil?” he asked without interest in the answer.

  “You forget yourself,” another Envoy next to Weevil scolded under his breath.

  Weevil turned his bloodshot eyes away from Dine to look at Anders, who shook his head.

  “Don’t displease me again, Weevil.”

  The slaver, as frightening as he was, balked and swallowed hard.

  “I’ll go see about the horses,” said Weevil, moving toward the door. As he let himself out, I moved to collect his cup. My hand shook when I realized he hadn’t even drank half of the hippa. I pulled my hands inside the billa to hide my fear. Dine followed me to Tow’s kitchen.

  “Stay here and clean this place up. Then come home and help with the feast,” he ordered. “Hurry.”

  “Yes, Master Dine.”

  I heard him say goodbye to the Envoy and leave. Tow busied himself hauling in extra cots borrowed from the neighbors while I swept the leaves out of the house and listened hard for some idea of what they had planned. The three younger Envoy members sat around Anders chatting about this and that, never once mentioning prisoners. Finally, the hippa kicked in, and Tow and I were ushered out so the Envoy members could rest.

  Tow and I walked the short distance back to Dine’s house, me at my usual three steps behind. He hadn’t missed the key yet, and I prayed he wouldn’t need to look for it until morning. It sat safe in my pocket for now. My mind clicked. Maybe I could make it to the prison after the feast was served and they no longer needed me. Maybe I could slip off unnoticed. My hopes were rising again until I caught sight of Weevil sitting on the side of the road, sharpening a blade as long as my arm.