“Yes, master.” The woodbox beside the hearth held kindling, and pieces of straw braided together into twists, as well as logs. She made a small pile of kindling wood, then put three of the straw twists under it. Those she ignited with the tinderbox he handed to her. When little flames smoked upward she laid the three smallest logs across the irons; when those had caught fire, and burned, she laid fatter logs upon them. As the flames cradled the logs she sat back on her heels before the hearthstone. She wasn’t dreaming, she wasn’t thinking, she wasn’t remembering—as long as her eyes stayed on the flames, the darkness that threatened to overwhelm her was kept at bay.
“You must eat,” the master’s voice spoke gently.
Birle rose to sit at the table, where he had set out a round loaf of bread, a round of cheese, a knife, and three metal tankards of wine. Yul ate hungrily and drank thirstily, with little murmuring grunts. Birle could not swallow bread, nor cheese. At her second mouthful of wine, her belly closed up. Her hands, as she watched them, lay still on the table. The flickering firelight flowed over her hands like water.
The master rose from the table, to open a broad cupboard beside the fireplace. “You’ll sleep here,” he said.
A bed had been built into the thick wall. Birle climbed up into it. She turned her back to the room and fell into sleep.
+ + +
Distant bells roused her. She awoke to fear, and grief, and hunger, and the tangled notes of the distant bells. The room she slept in was empty and dark. The fire had burned out, but the morning wasn’t cold. Birle climbed down from her bed and went outside to the privy.
Here, in this southern country, it was full spring. The air glowed with the gentle light of the rising sun. The ground was soft with young grass. Birle’s hand went up to the band at her neck. Already she was accustomed to finding it there, to its meaning.
This house had its own well. A low, circular stone wall had a bucket at its side. She dipped the bucket into the well, then drank from it. Clear, cold, clean—the water refreshed her. Was she such a creature to become so quickly accustomed even to this ill fortune?
At the question, grief swept over her again, bringing not tears but a darkening of the morning and a weight on her shoulders she couldn’t lift them against. Already the day seemed long to her. She lifted handfuls of water to her face. She washed her hands and as much of her arms as she could reach, then her legs, hiking her skirt up, and finally her feet. She emptied the brown water from the bucket onto the ground and watched it soak in among the tender shoots. She had to go back into the house, she knew it, and that she did not wish to meant nothing. Her wishes meant nothing.
Her master was sitting at the table when she entered. She didn’t speak a word to him. She built a fire, then opened the shutters that closed over the windows of the house, to let light in. She brought down the remainder of the bread and cheese, to place before him. She filled a tankard with wine from the jug. Then she stood by the fire.
He was not so old as she had thought at first, Master Joaquim. He was a man ripe in years, but not old. What had given her the false impression was his stooping shoulders, the odd, distracted manner of him, and the lack of care he took for his hair and clothing. Now Birle noticed that his hair, though gray, was thick, and his skin, though faded, was not spotted with age.
“Have you eaten?”
Birle shook her head.
“Drunk?”
“There’s a well,” she told him.
“Sit down, eat. I have to warn you. Corbel will come back, and if he isn’t pleased with what he finds he’ll sell you. For all that he is my father’s son, I wouldn’t be able to stop him. Sit and eat, please.”
Birle obeyed.
“This”—her master waved his arm around vaguely—“all of it is Corbel’s.” He wore the same shirt he had the day before, and the same baggy leggings, as if he slept in his clothes.
“The house.” Birle wanted to be sure she understood him aright.
“Yes, and other houses, and the city, and the lands around it, and all that they contain. The mines particularly, because of the gold. Corbel has installed me here, in this house, because he has a use for me. I am,” he explained, “a philosopher.”
“I don’t—” Birle started to say, then stopped. It didn’t matter whether she knew the word or not. He was her master, which was all that must concern her.
Her unfinished question made him smile, a quiet turning up of the ends of his mouth that made him look as sad and wise as the moon. “Nobody does know what that word means. It means nothing, except that I can claim some understanding, some knowledge of things. Corbel hopes—he’s heard tales of a stone that turns base metals into gold.”
“Is there such a thing?” Birle asked.
He looked thoughtfully at her, but not as if he saw her. “Men have dreamed of it, although none has ever held it in his hand, not to my knowledge. I cannot say that there is such a thing, no. But equally I cannot say there is not. Why should a man be able to dream of it if it cannot be? If it is so impossible, then what puts it into a man’s mind? Greed puts many things into men’s mind, and fear does too. But men dream of other things, as well—of justice, of the lost golden age, of an order to their world such as that which orders the tides and seasons, of medicine to cure all sickness. . . . ” His voice drifted off into silence, and he sat unseeing, lot in his own thoughts.
Birle waited to be told what she must do. She heard the hooves of horses and voices of people in the street, muffled by the thick walls and closed door. She wondered what had happened to Yul, where he was. She had forgotten him, and remembering, she interrupted her master’s silence. “Where is Yul?”
“Who?” he asked. “I don’t know your name. Have you a name?”
“Birle.”
“Is Yul the man? I sent him to sleep in a storeroom. Is he still sleeping?”
“He might be.” She spoke cautiously. “He’s a simple.”
“I thought those two seemed too pleased with themselves. When he’s told what to do, can he then do it?”
“I think so. I’m not sure of it. He rowed, and ate. He’s not as simple as they thought, the men who—”
“But we must get to work!” Joaquim rose suddenly, purposefully. “The stables need to be taken down, and—there’s much that must be done before the wagons get here, if I’m to do Corbel’s will.”
“What about me?”
“You’ve your work in the house. I don’t know how it’s done but there’s the house to keep. Although you might be unhappy, I do hope—he will return, Corbel, and he’ll make good his word. His displeasure is a thing for all of us to fear.”
Birle didn’t need reminding. The taste of fear, bitter as steel, had not left her mouth since Ker had first spoken to them. She ought to get accustomed to it, since, she thought—grief lowering over her—she had grown accustomed to so much else strange and terrible and sorrowful. “Master?”
“What is it?”
“I wonder—in my own land, there’s a servant’s fair, and some are hired while some are purchased.” He didn’t seem to be listening but she made herself go on and ask the question. “Those that are purchased give six years of service, after which . . . ” Birle wasn’t sure she had the courage to hear his answer, if his answer was what she feared it might be. “I wonder, in this country, for how long . . . ?”
“How long? Why, for your life.”
She was a slave, then. Orien was a slave.
“Unless Corbel sets you free. Sometimes, in return for extraordinary service, a man will do that. Or if it’s a woman who has borne children, because a man doesn’t want his own children to be slaves and they must be if their mother is, so he might in that instance give her freedom. Otherwise, no.” Her master hesitated, thought. “You mustn’t mind, Birle.”
If she was a slave, then what was the reason to keep the house, to obey? At the Inn, at least, she served the Inn’s prosperity, from which they all benefited. Here there was no reason,
no necessity—except fear.
THIRTEEN
Fear was sufficient reason, given sufficient fear. Birle would have sat on by the fire all day, not for warmth but for lack of spirit; but fear of what Corbel might do—should he unexpectedly arrive, and arriving unexpected find her unoccupied—ran along her bones. Fear kept her on the move—hauling water to sweep clean wooden floors and scrub clean plates and tankards.
At midday the street door burst open and Corbel himself entered. A soldier followed, carrying a fowl by its neck; he bore also a round loaf and a stoppered jug. He dropped his burdens on the table and went back to the street, where the horses stamped their feet. Corbel stood in the center of the room, hands behind his back and feet wide apart, looking around him. If he was pleased with what he saw, Birle did not know it.
“Is your master out back?”
Birle nodded.
“The monster works with him?”
She nodded.
“I hope for your sake that you can cook.”
Birle nodded.
Although he had no more to say, Corbel kept looking at her. Then—abruptly—he left. Birle’s legs were so weak that she would have sat down, except for the fear that Corbel might return, to catch her out. After a few moments, she tiptoed to the door he had left open, and closed it. How Nan would laugh to see her so meek, she thought, and the thought was bitter to her. Yet it was Nan who made her learn how to pluck and stew a fowl, or roast it. She had never thought she would be grateful to Nan.
Sorrow and fear were what Birle knew of that day—sorrow, fear, and toil. She singed and plucked the fowl, then set it in a large pot to stew. One fowl to feed three—and one of the three Yul—meant that the broth would be welcome. While the dinner cooked, she went up the narrow staircase and found a low attic room, where Joaquim had his bed. This room too she washed clean, and then the narrow staircase. By late afternoon the fowl was ready, so she called Joaquim and Yul to the table. Birle had little appetite. Fear and sorrow filled her stomach. As soon as the meal was done, she climbed into her cupboard bed and fell eagerly into sleep.
A pounding on the door awoke her. It sounded as if someone were beating on the door with two fists. Birle stood beside the door but didn’t dare to open it. From behind her, Joaquim spoke, “Open it, Birle.”
He had come as far as the lowest step, wearing a long white shirt that fell around his ankles. In the dim light of the banked fire, he didn’t look frightened. Neither did he sound alarmed. She obeyed him.
As soon as she had turned the key in the lock, the door pushed against her, and Corbel entered the room, from the dark, empty street. He took his place at the center of the room, looking past Birle as if she were invisible, speaking to his brother. “This place smells like a barnyard,” he said. The rich smell of wine came from him, and he swayed slightly as he stood. “You must bathe.”
“Yes. Yes of course,” Joaquim answered. “I’m sorry.”
“Have you a bath?” Corbel demanded.
Joaquim looked to Birle to answer. At the Inn, they bathed in a half-barrel, and she had seen nothing like that in the house. She didn’t know if the building where Yul and Joaquim had spent the day contained such a barrel. She didn’t know which would anger Corbel more, that they did not know or that they had none. “No, master.”
She had guessed correctly, she thought, since Corbel left the house at that answer. By the time she had shut the door, and turned the big key in the lock, Joaquim had gone back to his bed.
In the morning, after they had eaten the last of the bread and cheese, her master turned to her. “Clothing,” he said. “You’ll want clothing. And I’m not as clean as I might be, nor are my clothes.”
“Aye,” she said. The morning was fine—the sky clear, the air warm. She could lay his washed clothing out to dry in the sunlight.
“Yul,” Joaquim said. “Upstairs, you’ll find two trunks. Bring down the one that has a leather strap around it.”
He must be as simple as the monster, Birle thought, if he thought he’d be understood. She watched Yul’s misshapen mouth twist, to form a word.
“Up?”
“The staircase is behind you.”
Yul turned, looked, turned back, nodded clumsily. “Up. D-runk.”
“It’s the one with the leather strap I want, not the other.”
Yul shook his head, concentrating on his master’s face.
“Ah. Let me see. Leather—what boots are made of. The strap is wrapped around the trunk. The other trunk has no leather strap.”
Yul understood. He waited.
“Could you bring that trunk, with the leather strap, down here, for Birle?” Joaquim asked. He didn’t seem impatient.
“Yes!” Yul cried, and got up.
“He understands you,” Birle said.
“Of course. He’s not deaf. Once I’ve made him understand what needs doing, he does it. It’s simple, really—he won’t do anything until he understands, that’s all. I know learned men who haven’t acquired that wisdom. The trunk has my wife’s clothing in it. You can take what you need from it.”
A wife? But he had the small, narrow bed, and there was no evidence of a wife in the house. “She won’t be angry?”
“No. She’s dead—last fall, in another city. She took the summer fevers, and I couldn’t find any physic to make her well. Her garments may do for you, but as to Yul I don’t know.”
Yul came down the stairs, the trunk on his back, bent over not for its weight but for the low ceiling over the stairs. He set it in the middle of the room.
“Good,” Joaquim said. “Now, let’s get to the morning’s work.” Yul followed, as if he understood every word that his master spoke.
Without warning, sorrow rose up in Birle, and beat against her like waves against rocks. Her head fell down onto the table and she had no will to move. It was a dark, darkening, shapeless thing, this sorrow, and she knew its name.
Aye, it would be more bearable if Orien were dead.
But she couldn’t sit there, weeping. If Corbel should come—and catch her out—and the soldiers would arrive with provisions and she had no idea how long she had sat there. . . . Birle got up, afraid.”
She brushed crumbs from the table and rinsed the tankards clean. She swept the floor, then the stairs, and straightened the bedclothes upstairs. She remembered that she was to open the trunk.
When she lifted the wooden lid, a breath of sweet air came out. Not freshly sweet, as flowers, but old, dry, as if it were the memory of flowers, somehow caught in the dead air of the trunk. She lifted the clothing out carefully: three skirts, one red, one blue, one yellow; six shirts of the same colors; underskirts and chemises of some light fabric; a blue cloak with a worked-silver clasp; and a pair of boots, too narrow for her feet, the leather too dainty for use. Birle lifted the folded clothing out of the trunk and laid it gently on the floor beside her. His wife must have been a fine lady. There were bolts of uncut cloth, some in simple colors, some with several colors woven together, and at the bottom, tucked into a corner, a package wrapped around in a piece of old linen. The cloths, Birle saw, for a woman’s monthly time—but these were softer than any she had ever before used, as soft as moss.
Birle held one of the skirts in front of her. She had been almost Birle’s height, this wife, and only a little plumper. But Birle had never worn such colors. Her clothing had always been brown, dyed with the barks the weavers knew. In the Kingdom, only the Lords could spare the cost of such richly colored fabrics. She wouldn’t dress in them until she had washed—and now that she thought of it, she would welcome a bath.
All that day, one after the other, three wagons drew up before the house. The horses waited patient hours while soldiers unloaded crates and tables. The tables, and some of the crates, were too large to carry through the doorways, so they lifted them over the wall, with Yul’s help. He would stand, holding a long table as it rested against the top of the wall while three soldiers hurried through the house to take up
the other end; then Yul would join them, to carry it to the building at the rear. Four such tables went into that building, and the afternoon was filled with the pounding sounds of shelves being set into the walls. The crates, too, went into that building, carried by two men, or by Yul alone. The soldiers sweated at their work, grunted and cursed. The last wagon brought also a chair, with back and arms, and the promised bath.
Birle stood staring at this when the soldiers had at last gone. A man might sit in this metal tub, to bathe at his ease. This was the kind of bath Orien had spoken of, in the Earl’s house. She was still staring at it when Corbel himself entered, the door flung wide before him. He moved past her without a word. Birle busied herself drawing water from the well, to heat in the cooking pot over the fire. When he returned, Corbel had little to say, no more than, “You’ll see that he bathes.”
“Yes,” Birle said.
“All three of you. There’s soap, somewhere, he’ll never have thought of it. But I did.”
He seemed to want some response to that, so Birle repeated herself. “Yes.”
“In two days’ time I’ll dine here. Unlike the rest of the world, I take my meal after sunset, not to waste the daylight hours. You can expect me then.” He reached out his hand and with just a gloved fingertip lifted her chin, until she had to look at him. His eyes frightened her, but she made herself keep looking at him, and it was like making herself hold her hand in fire. Whatever he saw—and he could have seen little more than fear, naked—satisfied him, and he was gone.
Birle closed the door, and leaned against it.
They bathed that evening, in the privacy of the walled yard behind the house. Joaquim washed first. When he reentered the house, his long hair damp, dressed in the clean leggings and shirt she had put out for him, Birle and Yul emptied the bath, then refilled it with fresh water that had been heating while Joaquim washed.
When Birle climbed into the bath, and sat down in the warm water, and the water rose up to cover her, tears as warm as the bath slid out of her eyes and down over her cheeks. The air had turned purple, changing to night darkness. A single star burned over the roof of the house. There was no purpose to thinking of Orien, yet he hung on in her mind, like the star hung in the night sky.