by Ford, Lizzy
The women fell silent and created an opening for George to walk through. He was accompanied by two Shield soldiers.
Aveline lifted her chin in mild defiance, not about to apologize when she had been the one attacked. Straightening, she dabbed at her bloody nose and mentally assessed her body as George stared at the damage she had done. By her count, two slaves at least were dead, another two unable to walk anytime soon and the final two unconscious. Jacque, who had started the fight, was one of those she knocked out.
“Check them and tell me who still lives,” he instructed the Shield soldiers. His gaze settled on Aveline. “You. Come with me.” He pointed at her.
She went, eyeing the crowd she walked through. No one lunged or lashed out at her, and she snatched her bundle from the ground near the door. Aveline did not start to relax until she was in the hallway. George continued walking quickly, down the opposite direction she had come, and turned a corner before confronting her.
“That cannot happen again,” he said.
“I didn’t start it.”
“Did I ask?” he snapped. “You are here for one reason only! If you are expelled or worse, burnt, by the end of the first day, who will protect my master’s sister?”
Aveline resisted the reaction of rolling her eyes. She dabbed at her bloodied nose. Bruises were forming on her torso and legs, and her nose was starting to hurt. The fight, however poorly timed, had the result of freeing some of the tension she had been carrying since she woke up in a brothel.
“Do you understand we cannot risk bringing anyone else in here? That you are the only hope?” he continued.
“I know how to do what I was hired to do. I don’t need you lecturing me,” she retorted. “That bitch came at me. What was I supposed to do? Let her beat me?”
“Yes. Because then, she would have left you alone, and no one else would be talking about how the new slave to Tiana fought off six slaves! I thought your ilk were supposed to be discreet! Is that not one of your primary directives? Do you have no concern for what is at stake?”
Rocky’s life.
George had a point, she ceded silently. Her indignation melted when she thought of her friend. His life depended upon her blending in. Assassins were never supposed to be seen and if they were, to leave no impression on the minds of others. Killing two slaves was not going to help her ability to move unnoticed among the slaves or earn her the trust of those she might need to help her at one point. By reacting instead of thinking, she had unwittingly endangered Rocky’s life.
“By your silence, you know you were in the wrong.” George was calming down. “For now, you will sleep on Tiana’s floor, until I can find a way to smooth over the murder of the family’s slaves and ensure you are not likewise murdered in your sleep.”
As much as she hated being lectured by someone whose hands had never known a callous, Aveline nodded. “I apologize,” she forced herself to say. “It was not my intention to cause a mess.”
“I appreciate your humility,” he said. “Do not do anything like this again!”
She said nothing.
“Come. We will fetch your bed linens.” George turned away and began walking.
“Hey, George. Why is Tiana locked away?” Aveline asked, at his heels.
“It is not for me to say.”
“Try not to be too helpful!”
“You are fortunate I am willing to hide the bodies and not force you to face Matilda for your crimes.” He gave her a pointed look. “If preventing you from being burnt is not helpful, I am uncertain what is.”
“Point taken,” she grumbled. “I am trying to understand what I’m doing here.”
“It was my master’s belief the threat to her life comes from inside the family,” George replied quietly.
“They already treat her worse than a slave.”
He glanced at her. “I have heard this rumor many times before. No slave has ever seen Tiana or accessed her quarters. Matilda takes her food and prepares her for events where her presence is required.”
“She lives worse than I did in the streets, and Matilda starves her.”
George frowned. “Then you will obtain her food directly from the kitchens from now on. My master is permitted to see her monthly. He has no way of knowing how his sister is treated daily.”
“He thinks Matilda will try to kill her?”
“He believes the threat comes from within the family, which extends to the cousins and extended family on the floor below the Hanover’s,” George replied carefully. “To speculate who is behind it without proof is irresponsible.”
“What I can’t figure out is why?” she asked again, perplexed by what value there was in spending the money Karl’s benefactor had pledged in order to kill a girl who never left her room.
“It is not for me to speculate.” George said and entered a massive laundry and linen room filled with pools of steaming water and red-faced slaves scrubbing clothing and bedding.
Aveline’s nose wrinkled at the pungent scents of cleaners. The open bay was more humid than the hallway. Within seconds of entering, her clothing was sticking to her skin. George went to a shelf extending all the way to the thirty foot ceiling stacked with folded linens. He plucked a blanket from one shelf, sheets from another and a pillow from the third and piled them into her arms.
His gaze lingered on her before he strode down another aisle and pulled a cotton bag from a shelf then filled it with soft bandages and clean rags. He piled the bag on top of her other linens, blocking much of her vision, and motioned for her to follow him.
Aveline trailed him through the underground maze. Accustomed to learning and adapting to the ever-changing streets, she instinctively chose random landmarks and recorded them so she could find her way back. They passed several bays filled with metal, pottery, and cotton spinning artisans hard at work before reaching the kitchens located next to the stairs for easy access.
George stopped walking when he reached the stairs. “Return to Tiana,” he ordered. “No more trouble.”
Aveline snorted and started up the stairs, balancing the heavy armful of linens.
Ten minutes later, she passed the guards outside the Hanover’s apartment and teetered through the opulent rooms and hallways to Tiana’s door. Aveline dropped the bedding on the ground and straightened, checking her nose once more. The bleeding had stopped, but she was going to have a black eye in the morning.
Unlocking Tiana’s door, she nudged it open with her hip while bending down to retrieve the linens. She entered and pushed the door closed and crossed to the table to deposit the armful.
Tiana had eaten everything except for one strawberry, which sat in the middle of her plate.
Aveline glanced from it to the bed, where the girl was curled up in a fetal position, her back to the center of the room. The defensive position drew Aveline’s thoughts once more to the bizarre statement Tiana had made about her father.
Aveline’s father, an assassin leader, had mourned the loss of his wife so much, he lost all control of himself and went on a rampage, the Devil’s Blood Massacre, to try to soothe his pain. Their time on the streets had been rough, but he had always doted over Aveline, always spoken warmly of her mother and ensured none of Aveline’s native past and history was lost.
Unable to imagine a scenario where her father hurt her mother, Aveline grappled with the idea of being abandoned by the only family she had. Was this why Tiana crumpled every time someone spoke harshly to her? Refused to look at anyone and curled up on her bed as if waiting for someone to hit her?
“You didn’t finish your strawberries,” Aveline said awkwardly.
“I saved it for you,” came the soft response. “As an apology for angering you. I should not have spoken out of turn.”
The words punctured the veneer of control Aveline had over her emotions. She imagined Tiana expressing the same exact sentiment to Matilda, after her unstable stepmother had hit or screamed at her. After George’s explanation about no one
being allowed to see Tiana except Matilda, Aveline did not doubt at all that Tiana’s bruises and fear came from Matilda’s wrath.
Not only that, but Matilda had given Tiana the most bruised of the bowl of strawberries sitting on her table. Tiana was already waifish and had admitted to loving strawberries. That she saved one, when she had to have been hungry, bothered Aveline.
Rarely did Aveline feel unable to adapt to her circumstances. This situation, which called for a level of empathy she was unaccustomed to receiving or sharing, stumped her. Kindness was not among her tools for surviving the streets, and she did not quite grasp how to express it to someone who appeared to need it.
Aveline returned her gaze to the berry then to the linens. Tiana’s bedding consisted of rags sewn together, though she possessed three flat pillows.
“I brought you new bedding,” Aveline said. “I need to strip your bed.”
There was a pause and then Tiana shifted. She sat up and twisted, away from Aveline, and left her bed. Her eyes remained trained on the floor, and the lighting of the room was too weak for Aveline to tell their color.
She pulled the rags off Tiana’s bed. The slaves had better bedding than the Hanover daughter, and Aveline puzzled over this as she moved. At first, she had thought Tiana’s childlike fascination with strawberries indicative of madness. As she made the bed, a second possibility emerged.
Tiana never looked up. Was she blind? Or was it a combination of factors the wealthy Hanover’s were ashamed of? A little madness and complete blindness certain to make Tiana clumsy in public?
Aveline reached for the pillow at the end of the bed and paused.
Was it just her, or was it floating?
She blinked, and the pillow was where it belonged on the bed. Chalking the incident up to her swelling eye, which was blurry, she grabbed and tossed the pillow at the head of the bed before stooping down to gather up the old bedding.
Without an explanation to Tiana, she left and traversed through the apartment quickly one more time, down the lift and to the basement. Using the landmarks she had memorized, she found her way back to the washroom and deposited the dirty linens into a random bin without caring what it contained. She followed George’s initial footsteps through the aisles, invisible among the other bustling slaves, and collected her own bedding.
On her way back, she paused in the wide doorway of the kitchens. Massive stone ovens lined one wall while the far wall contained an entrance to a pantry whose entrance featured bundles of herbs hanging from the top of the doorway. Rows of counters stretched between the two walls along with a line of ten spits.
Aveline juggled her bedding and made a mental note of where slaves wearing different sashes were lining up to pick up trays of food. In the morning, she would join them and ensure Tiana was fed a full meal instead of scraps.
She returned to the top floor and to Tiana’s room. The blonde girl was lying down again, hugging the fluffy pillow.
Aveline made her bed in the middle of the floor, where she would be alerted if anyone entered. She stretched out on the floor with a grimace, her body beginning to stiffen after her fight. The sunset edged the boarded up window, and she watched the orange-pink colors splattered across the ceiling.
Tiana’s breathing was deep and regular. She was asleep at an early hour, though Aveline was accustomed to staying up much later. Bored, she stood and went to the books on Tiana’s vanity. She picked up one. It was much heavier than it appeared to be, and she opened the cover. Reading was not an essential trait for an assassin, and she had never learned. The squiggles inside had no meaning to her, though she stopped to study the drawings and pictures when she reached them.
Her interest waned, and she replaced the book. Tiana’s belongings consisted of the tomes, the empty perfume bottle, a brush and a few pins for her hair, an armoire filled with fancy clothing and shoes, a trunk of nothing but brightly colored threads and other sewing supplies, and a closet containing a dozen more of the plain sleeping gowns. Aveline assumed the drawer full of vials was not Tiana’s but Matilda’s. She examined one of them before replacing it.
Was this how Tiana had spent every day since she was born? Trapped in the most restrictive place Aveline was able to imagine?
As soon as the sun set, the poor lighting in the room became even more evident. It was downright gloomy. Aveline lay down and forced herself to stay still when she wanted to do anything else. She placed two knives under her pillow and another under Tiana’s bed. The room was utterly silent, as if the walls had been soundproofed. Nothing was unusual or out of place, except for the strange charge that seemed to exist solely in Tiana’s room.
Aveline’s mind went again to her father and then to Rocky, and she stared at the ceiling, doubting she was going to sleep at all this night. Too much was depending on her success. Of everything to be concerned about, why was she hoping the kitchens had a bowl of strawberries for her to grab for Tiana in the morning?
Chapter Six
Arthur and his closest friend, Warner, sat on one side of a bonfire at the edge of their encampment, their native tracker opposite them. Dressed similarly in layers of cotton, leather and fur, the native was distinguished from the Shield members by the three feathers in his long hair and the lack of sash anywhere on his body. Arthur wore his around his bicep and Warner around his waist.
Arthur gazed into the dancing flames, pensive. The night was cold enough that he wore a fur-lined hat with flaps to protect his ears in addition to thick clothing, winter boots and a scarf made by his sister he kept wrapped tightly around his neck.
“You have determined our path tomorrow?” Leaping Deer, the native tracker, one of the few surviving members of the Comanche Nation, asked quietly.
Arthur glanced up at him then around to ensure they were not being observed by the other Shield soldiers. Withdrawing a steel knife from the satchel at his side, he placed it on the ground before him, rested his hand on it, and closed his eyes.
Show me where we will find game, he willed the weapon.
It began to move beneath his fingers, and he lifted his hand and opened his eyes.
The tip of the blade pointed northwest.
“Then northwest we will go,” Leaping Deer said with a half-smile.
Arthur replaced the weapon. His unusual gift, while saving the city many winters from starvation, was likewise forbidden. If anyone discovered exactly how his family was so successful finding food, he would be burnt at the stake, alongside his father and sister. His stepmother, he guessed, would probably lie her way out of everything. She had a survivor’s instinct he would have admired, if not for the accompanying ambition he suspected would drive her to turn on her husband at a moment’s notice.
Leery of one of the Shield soldiers noticing his magic, Arthur twisted all the way around to survey his surroundings.
“No one saw,” Warner assured him.
“I would claim it to be native magic if they did,” Leaping Deer added. A friend of the family for two decades, the native living in a village near the city was permitted to claim he used magic where those inside the city were not.
“Thank you.” Arthur smiled at his companions.
“You are normally more eager for the annual hunt. Your father would not allow his heir apparent to leave the city otherwise,” Leaping Deer observed.
“I am thrilled to be out of the city but also worried,” Arthur assured him. “My father and his advisors have been at odds, and I suspect a shift in the alliances of the families around us, which makes this year’s hunt ill timed.”
“How is this different than any other year?” Warner retorted with a small laugh. “They are at odds when food is scarce and lovers when we return victorious laden with meat enough for three winters.”
“True,” Arthur said. He hesitated to speak of something far more private, even though he trusted these two men with his life. After a moment of internal debate, he charged ahead. “I have been plagued by a dream for the past month. It makes m
e believe it is not a dream but a … vision. I have them from time to time.” He glanced at both men, waiting for one of them to judge him and relaxing when neither did. If anything, Warner was studying him in concern while Leaping Deer appeared curious. They were more comfortable with him discussing his strange abilities than he was.
“Please tell me you do not see your death,” Warner whispered.
“No,” Arthur said quickly and reached over to squeeze the hand of his longtime guardian and lover. “Nothing of the sort. This dream is so bizarre, I have feared revealing it even to you. There is little sense to it, and I have tried to decipher it through reading and seeking general counsel from the clairvoyants Father permits entrance into the city. But the meaning of this dream eludes me, and I cannot speak to anyone else about the specifics.”
Warner waited, his blue eyes glued to Arthur’s face.
“Perhaps, Leaping Deer, you can help me interpret it,” Arthur said.
“Me?” The native lifted his eyes from the fire. “I am not the one possessing magic.”
“You make my deformity sound pleasant.”
“You deny the gift your gods have given you. In the Free Lands, you would be beyond the wrath of your father,” Leaping Deer reminded him.
Free Lands. The mention of the legendary place earlier by his sister made Arthur pause. How she overheard the slaves talking, he did not know, but she often picked up on information he wished she had not. The existence of the Free Lands was one of those trinkets of knowledge he did not wish her to possess. At least, not yet, not until he had verified they existed. She was too frail to be led on and then disappointed if he discovered they were not real. He would rather wait until he knew with certainty.
“I hear talk of the Free Lands but have never met anyone who has visited them,” Arthur said.
“If they are as wonderful as we hear, who would leave?” Warner asked.
“True,” Arthur agreed. “But then how would we know they existed in the first place?”
Warner turned his attention to Leaping Deer. “Have the people of your village visited the Free Lands?”
