“I was broken. I just couldn’t do it again.”
“And you didn’t use it to kill your father.”
“A mistake.”
“You despised the pilgrimage, and yet you tried to take it honestly.”
“Turns out I’m none too bright,” Gavin said.
“Did you find your answer?”
Gavin spluttered a half laugh. “Ha. That would be no. And it would also be plural. Answers. Not just one. A million questions, and no one even here to listen to me whinging.”
“No. There’s only the one question.”
“Really? And that would be . . . ?” Gavin asked.
“Can I show you something?”
“Uh . . . is that the question? Because I’m pretty sure that wasn’t my question. Nope. Not just ‘pretty sure.’ Sure. Sure, sure.”
“Can I show you something?” Orholam repeated, insistent.
“Only if it looks good in black and white,” Gavin said. “Maybe with some red thrown in for flavor?”
The old man reached out a gnarled hand, still nearly as callused as it had been when they’d pulled an oar together.
Gavin hesitated for a moment, then took it. How was the old guy going to—
Chapter 118
~How the Simple Confound~
(One year ago.)
“You think you’re special, don’t you?” Overseer Ysabel says.
“No, Mistress.”
“Do you know why you think you’re special, Alvaro?”
I’ve only heard you ask this of half the mirror slaves in the tower. “I don’t think I’m special, Mistress. I only wanted to watch the execution. I’ll stay out of the way, I promise.”
Of any of us, the overseer is the only one who thinks she’s special. She claims she was taken into slavery illegally, and maybe it’s true. You have to be smart, dextrous, and lucky to get assigned to the big mirrors in the Chromeria’s towers. Ysabel isn’t smart or dextrous, so we’ve all decided she must be very, very lucky. Some say she was really pretty when she first arrived. I can’t see it. Maybe she’s just a good bluffer: Ysabel pretends to be from the lower nobility. She claims her name’s Ysabel Elos, and her big brother Gaspar is going to come save her from this life. Any day now.
Any day. Right.
She’s been saying that since before my parents sold me into this life after their brewery burned down and they lost everything. It was arson, but good luck convincing a magistrate of that on Big Jasper. Tyreans don’t win lawsuits against their Ruthgari competitors. Not here. So my parents signed the forged documents saying I’d been taken in war, and took the meager sum. They figured slavery for one of us was better than starvation for all of us.
I was the smartest and quickest of my siblings, already able to read and good with an abacus. They could get twice as much for me as for any of the others, and I’m the big brother. It’s my job to protect the others. I volunteered.
We’re all slaves here. Everyone’s got a tale of woe. But even slaves look down on liars like Ysabel ‘Elos.’ She’s a petty tyrant. Our work is good and necessary. We bring light into darkness. But Ysabel is a bloody stain on her office, besmirching what should be pure.
She sees it on my face: how I despise her.
She picks up her small cat-o’-nine-tails.
All the other overseers use only unbraided, uncured leather in their cats. It has been decreed by the master of the Chromeria’s lands and properties High Lord Carver Black himself, that we not be whipped like common slaves. We’re slaves, but we’re precious ones. Privileged. We work alongside our manumitted older brothers and sisters who’ve bought their papers, and came back to work, now paid triple. We’ve all been educated in optics and angles and even enough magic to understand our drafters’ needs and operations. We’re highly trained so as to keep all the mechanisms in perfect repair, from clearing lightwells to greasing the gears, and ordering new ones fit to exacting specifications, inspecting, and then replacing them. Most of all, we’re the keepers of the precious Great Mirrors themselves, which we polish with vinegar and water and special heavy silk cloths up to eight times every day.
Other lesser slaves are given certain holy days off. They pity us because we take none. They don’t understand. Our duty is holy, and it is most important at the holiest times. With the heat and light these mirrors endure, a dirty mirror could shatter on any day, but the risk is doubled on hot, sunny days, and doubled again during executions, such as today, where all the minor mirrors add their full intensity to the sun’s own.
Lowly as we are, we direct Orholam’s Eye.
Slaves we are, but we’re star-keepers. We’re not to be beaten like common field hands.
A smack with nine loose, soft cords is allowed to rouse anyone whose attention is wandering. But Carver Black gets furious when anyone damages valuable property, and we are surely some of the Chromeria’s most valuable property of all.
But Overseer Ysabel doesn’t care. She’s boiled her cat-o’-nine-tails hard, and to one of those tails, she’s tied an old piece of broken mirror. You might get hit half a dozen times and never get caught with that shard. Or it might get you every time, slashing or even sticking into your flesh before being torn free.
“Execution’s starting, Mistress,” one of the older men says quickly. Amadis pretends not to even be aware of me, but I know it’s an attempted rescue.
The overseer steps toward the edge of the tower, and I’m tempted to charge her back and push her out of the tower. Amadis glances at me and shakes his head.
He’s right. I’m no Guile, to get away with such things. They’d put me up on Orholam’s Glare myself if I murdered an overseer.
In fact, I might not be the only one to die. Slave rebellions always meet brutal ends.
The overseer comes back. “They’re jabbering, like they do. We’ll have to be quick. Tunic.”
The others go silent. Overseer Ysabel whips a slave’s buttocks when she intends to draw blood and doesn’t want Carver Black to see it on our bodies afterward. The humiliation is merely a bonus for her.
I do her one better, though. I hitch up my tunic and pull down not just my trousers but also my underclothes. I stick my rear end out at her to let her know my opinion of her.
Gasps go up.
I’m a damned fool.
I know she’s going to beat me terribly. Some brighter part of me is shrieking about the stupidity of presenting one’s naked underside to a savage woman intent on humiliating me. I will my stones to pull up into my body. Orholam have mercy on the stupid and insane.
“No disrespect, Overseer,” I say. It’s much too late, though. “You said we were in a hurry. Just wanted to make it easier for you to give me the beating I deserve quickly. And I want to keep my underthings from getting shredded. They’re my only pair, and I’m a clumsy hand with stitchery.”
Even as I lie, I know it’s not very convincing. I can’t put my heart into it.
My attitude’ll get me killed someday. They’ve all told me that.
Please not today.
I don’t dare turn around to see her face, but my heart is straining with hope that she’ll run out of time and that the execution will call her to deal with me later—Maybe I can run away!—when the cat-o’-nine-tails falls.