‘Shut up, Dot,’ snapped Szilvie.
‘Dorottya,’ corrected the girl. ‘Dot makes me sound like a stain. What’s your name?’
It was a good sign, I decided, that she cared enough to ask. ‘Lillai.’
‘Will “Lil” do?’
‘If Dot will.’
‘Deal. And does she speak?’ She looked at Kizzy. ‘Or is she like poor Mira?’
‘She speaks when she wants to. Who’s Mira?’
Dot lowered her voice and jerked her head to another table nearby, where a girl stood alone, sorting herbs. It was the smoke-eyed girl with the dropped sage and necklace of bruises.
‘They crushed her throat. She hasn’t spoken in days. It’s unusual for them to shave our heads or punish us like that; usually it’s only the—’
‘Travellers?’ I said, sharply. ‘That’s all right, is it?’
Dot had the grace to look ashamed. ‘Of course not. I only meant it’s not usual. For them to hurt someone that badly, especially a server.’
I shuddered, my own throat closing in protest. ‘She is a serving girl?’
‘Was. Not good for much right now, is she?’
‘Is she completely mute?’
‘So far,’ said Szilvie. ‘But should heal up all right.’
‘Szilvie’s a good healer,’ said Dot. ‘She’s the one to go to for all your Malovski-inflicted needs.’
‘Malovski did that?’
‘She ordered it,’ said Szilvie. ‘Which is much the same.’
I looked at the tall, sour-faced girl with new eyes. If she was helping the grey-eyed girl then perhaps kindness was buried beneath her frosty exterior.
‘What did she do?’
‘Something stupid,’ said Szilvie, giving Dot a warning glance. I realised I was not going to get more.
‘So,’ said Dot to Kizzy. ‘Do you speak or not?’
Kizzy sucked in her cheeks. ‘Not to you.’
Dot raised an eyebrow. ‘It’s like that, eh? Maybe it’s good you can hold your tongue if you’re to be a serving girl. The men are beasts.’
‘Not that they’re much interested in talking,’ said Szilvie. ‘But you look like you know all about that.’
Kizzy jutted out her chin and put her hands on her hips. She looked so like MamÄ I wanted to weep, or punch something. ‘You don’t know anything about me.’
Dot stepped between them. ‘That’s enough. Cook’s looking, and we’ve got this whole barrel to finish.’ She looked at me. ‘Have you prepared fish before?’
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘But never without a knife.’
‘They’re already gutted, see?’ She indicated the barrel of glistening, slit-bellied bodies. ‘We’re just taking out the bones.’
She clicked the wooden tweezers together. I frowned. ‘Why don’t you just serve them on the bone?’
‘Boyar Valcar likes smooth food, easy food. Food that slips down without protest. Same as his girls,’ smirked Szilvie, and I caught hold of Kizzy’s wrist, forgetting for a moment her raw skin, slick with salve. Dot looked down too.
‘What happened there?’
Kizzy put her hands behind her back. ‘Nothing.’
‘Doesn’t look like nothing,’ said Szilvie, but the taunt in her voice was gone. ‘Show me.’
Kizzy wrinkled her nose like the stench of the burning butter had finally got to her. ‘Not a chance.’
‘Show her,’ said Dot. ‘She’s good.’
‘Malovski already salved it.’
‘I am better than Malovski,’ said Szilvie, holding out her hand. To my surprise, Kizzy put her own out too.
The bandages were already seeping, and Dot flinched a little at the sight of the exposed skin of Kizzy’s forearms, but Szilvie only examined her with an interested look on her dour face.
‘Witch hazel?’
Kizzy nodded. ‘And willow bark under the bandages.’
Szilvie tutted. ‘That will dry it out. It’ll heal faster, but it will hurt more. You need a poultice on that, to soothe it.’
‘I thought we were the witches,’ said Kizzy.
‘Nothing witchy about knowing your herbs,’ snapped Szilvie, crossing her fingers against the accusation. ‘I’ll beg some oats off Cook.’
Szilvie stalked off in the direction of the one-eyed woman, and Kizzy watched her go with an air of distaste. ‘Doesn’t it smart someone like that, taking orders from a Traveller?’
‘Cook’s not a Traveller any more,’ said Dot, returning to her fish. ‘She’s Cook.’
Kizzy raised her eyebrows at me. I could hear her thoughts in my own head. You’re never not a Traveller. Who and what we are is blood thick, bone deep. I raised mine back, grateful for the moment of connection between us.
‘You’re not going to be much use with those hands,’ said Dot. ‘But you can help me. We’ve already lost time talking.’
It was mainly she who was talking, but I took up Szilvie’s tweezers, and Kizzy came to stand behind my shoulder to watch. Her closeness was a comfort, the sound and heat of her breath in my ear centring me.
‘So you open it like this, like a butterfly, see?’ said Dot. ‘And then you spread it, and hold it, like this. And then you feel with your thumb, and they’re sort of like ridges, the bones, if you bend the skin up you can feel more easily, and with these kind of fish, trout they are …’
I let her chatter wash over me. It was a simple task I could have worked out on my own, but she obviously enjoyed explaining it. I wondered if she had younger sisters or brothers at home that she liked to boss about. Her story about Mira, the girl with no voice, was fresh as a wound in my head and I cast a quick look over my shoulder at the herb table.
Mira was staring back. The bruises around her throat had new significance now I knew what had been taken from her, and I noticed for the first time some swelling about her cheeks and jaw. What monstrous hands had held her and stolen her voice? I gave her a quick smile. She went back to her herbs.
‘Are you listening?’ Dot nudged me with her elbow, a huffy tone in her voice. Definitely an older sister. ‘Show me, go on.’
Szilvie returned with some oats and a glass jar of something that looked like tree sap.
‘Cook let me have the last of the honey,’ she said, flushed with success. ‘Can you believe it? This stuff is like salt, or silk. I was thinking she’d palm me off with some potato water or something.’
‘Oh, let me have a dab,’ said Dot, reaching out for the jar with a small moan of longing. ‘I’ve had nothing sweet for months.’
‘I know full well it was you at the brandy raisins last week,’ said Szilvie, tucking the jar under her armpit so it was safe from Dot, and she had her hands free to unwrap Kizzy’s bandages. ‘And I know Gheorghe brings you treats in exchange for kisses.’
‘And more,’ said Dot, waggling her eyebrows.
I knew Settled girls were more relaxed about such things, and Dot’s boldness was too entertaining to be off-putting. At least she was free to kiss who she liked. Malovski’s hands on my thighs, her words about serving the boyar … it was something I could not think about, or I would go mad. I thought on the death cap. It was something. Not for now, but maybe …