If Mula refused an important customer, Orlín would beat her, then make her sleep outside, tied up in the sheep pen. Still, she was slow about lifting her hand.
“Mula, do as the lord commands, hear?” Orlín growled.
“Hear.” She lifted her forefinger toward the sorcerer. It hovered in the air before him, fragile and trembling like a baby bird.
The sorcerer grabbed her hand, shoved the needle deep into the flesh of her fingertip. Pain zinged all through her hand and up her arm.
“Now we shall see,” the sorcerer said. He angled her hand downward. Blood welled around the needle, which throbbed so badly it felt like her heart had departed her chest and taken up residence in her fingertip.
A single fat drop of crimson slipped down the needle and fell to the floor.
The sorcerer grabbed his staff, closed his eyes, muttered something. The gem in the staff’s tip began to glow. The tingling in Mula’s limbs became a maelstrom of sensation, like a thousand black flies were buzzing around inside her, trying to break free of her skin.
“Oh,” the sorcerer breathed. “Oh, yes. God lovesss your blood, mule girl. Yours in particular.”
His lake-water blue eyes flew open. “Look how my anima-lapis responds! It is ssso eager to do magic.” To Orlín he said, “Where did you acquire this creature?”
“From the glassblower. She has a booth in the market, if you want to speak to her.”
The sorcerer yanked the needle out of the girl’s fingertip. Two large drops of blood followed, splatting onto the stone floor. The sparkle stone flared brighter. Mula was about to see magic done, for true.
But then the sorcerer set the staff against the table and leaned back in his chair. The light in the gemstone faded. Mula remembered how to breathe.
He said, “I’ll pay you five coppers for a jar of her blood.”
“Seven coppers,” said the innkeeper.
The sorcerer frowned. “Six.”
“Done.”
The sorcerer’s red-haired companion removed a glass jar from his rucksack. It wasn’t a large jar; it would barely hold a mugful of ale. “I don’t have a hollow needle or a bleeding tube,” the sorcerer said to no one in particular. “So we’ll have to cut her thumb.”
“No . . .” Mula tried to step back, but Orlín was in the way. He grabbed her shoulders and held her fast as the copper-haired man pulled out a dagger and a whetstone. He spat on the stone, rubbed the blade across it. Swick, swick. Then he reached forward and slipped the blade’s edge across the fleshiest part of Mula’s thumb.
Blood welled immediately, and the pain came a split second after. The redheaded man held the jar beneath her thumb and caught the blood as it fell; he had cut deep enough to provide a steady drip-plop. The blood slipped down the inside edge of the glass, coating it in thick scarlet. The room began to spin.
“Let her sit,” the sorcerer said. “She’s going to faint.”
They guided her to the bench and she sank onto it gratefully.
“It helps to look away from the blood,” the copper-haired man said. “Think about something else.”
Mula didn’t want to cry in front of all these awful men, but she hardly knew up from down and her life’s blood was leaving her body and she had just seen a sparkle stone go bright with power. Her lips trembled; her eyes filled with liquid.
So she thought hard about the other side of the world. What it must be like. She imagined a desert, the sun shining on snowless mountains of orange sand. Warmth blanketing her skin. More sky than a single person ever knew existed. If she got to see the great desert for true, she’d know she was lucky after all.
“There we go,” said the copper-haired man. “That wasn’t so bad, yes?” He wrapped her finger in a strip of cloth and tied it off. “Put pressure on that for a few minutes until the bleeding stops,” he said.
She cradled her thumb in her hand. It throbbed so badly she could hardly stand it.
The red-haired man stoppered the jar and slipped it into the rucksack. The sorcerer counted out six coppers and handed them to Orlín. “You’ve got a good bleeder here. My countrymen will be coming through soon, and they’ll pay you decent money to bleed her so long as you keep her well fed and watered.”
Orlín was staring at the coppers in his palm. “I will. Thank you, my lord.” To Mula he said, “Go back to the kitchen. Cook needs your help.”
The girl was weak and dizzy, distant from her own body, and her thumb throbbed like a drum. But she wanted more than anything to get away from the sorcerer, so she turned and fled, careening into tables and chairs as she went.
16
Now
ALL day long, at every meal, at every pause in training, Iván insists that we must do something to reach Rosario immediately. He seems certain that I can conjure some secret passageway to take us directly to the prince.
And I keep telling him that we must have patience. Rosario is no fool. He will reach out to us again.
I hope I am right.
By the end of the day, Iván is so frustrated with me, I’m worried that he’s going to sneak off to try something stupid on his own.
But as I head to the arena for informal practice, I’m hoping that if he does do something stupid, he will succeed.
Pedrón and the other former army recruits are already in the sand when Aldo and I arrive. We are soon joined by Itzal. Finally Iván comes, looking sullen and worried. I’m both relieved and disappointed.
“Is this everybody?” he asks.
“It appears so,” I reply. Only seven recruits in total, but a low number of students makes for a manageable class. The moon is high, and torches are sconced at the entrance to the barracks, casting pools of orange onto the sand. It’s plenty enough light to see by. “Let’s get started.”
Aldo grabs a wooden sword from the rack, and we all follow his lead.
“So, what do we do?” Pedrón says.
Aldo shrugs. I say, “Er . . . I guess we should line up the way Master Santiago showed us?”
Everyone shifts around in the sand until we’re in two staggered lines of four and three.
“Now what?” Pedrón says.
Everyone is looking to me for guidance. Little do they know that I’ve never taught anyone anything before. But I had Hector, and Hector was a great teacher. “Go through the forms Santiago has shown us so far. Keep an eye on Aldo for a reference if you forget what comes next. I’m going to watch you all and see if I can figure out what’s made Santiago so surly.”
Aldo says, “Let’s start with Bulwark!” and he clicks his heels together, striking the pose. Everyone follows his lead, and I weave among them, eyeing their stance, posture, and grip.
“Now Eastern Wind,” Aldo says.
The recruits go through them all, holding each pose for several seconds, which allows me to evaluate. Pedrón is all power and no finesse, as though he’s trying to pummel the sky to death. Itzal has little body awareness and tends to move in the wrong direction. Iván is near perfect, and I have no idea why he decided to join us.
Once everyone settles back into Bulwark, Pedrón says, “So, can you fix us?”