So yes, it was luxurious, but no, not restful and after some time attempting sleep in the soft red bed she had all to herself, Lan pulled the blankets and one cushion onto the floor and slept there instead, facing into the shadows beneath the bed where all she could see was black. She tried to make herself see pictures, the way she’d done as a child, but all she conjured up was a headache and a few indistinct blurs pulsing in the rhythm of sex.
Could she fuck him? Probably. Shapes in the dark lose power in the light; she’d had his cock in her hand and tasted its deadalive taste. She thought she could probably fuck him just fine. Could she be his dolly? That, she didn’t know.
Lan, a dollygirl. Not just a quick one now and then to buy her meals (or end the Eaters, her brain stubbornly supplied), but a true dolly. It wasn’t unheard of, even in a small village like Norwood. The mayor had a dolly for a few years, when Lan was still too young to really be aware of it. Lisah Tuttle. She had her own house and everything. Often, little Lan would hang over the top of the fence and watch her do her washing—all fine clothes and frilly knickers, and herself pinning them up with her hair in ringlets and ribbons, smiling over her shoulder at Lan until Lan’s mother hauled her away.
“What does she sell?” she’d asked once, because even then, she’d known there was barter in it somewhere. Lisah Tuttle didn’t work in the greenhouses or chase pigs around the sty. Lisah Tuttle’s hands were soft and white as curd and her shoes were always clean. Lan didn’t know what Lisah’s trade was in, but she knew, even at that young age, that she wanted it.
Her mother had looked up from the lunch they were sharing during their brief respite before they got back in the rows, cocking her head so she could aim her good eye through the dirty glass at the blur that was Lisah swishing through the streets. “Everything,” she said. “All she has.”
“Do you reckon I could sell it, too?” asked Little Lan, wistfully. “If I ever get some?”
“I won’t tell you not to,” her mother told her after a moment’s hard stare. “This isn’t the world for that. But I will say, once you start selling, you never really stop. So when the time comes, trade hard and sell in pieces. A dolly wears the nicest dresses and has the prettiest face, but when she’s done being played with, she goes up on the shelf or into the box and she doesn’t get to complain. A dolly’s owned, her whole self. Understand?”
And Little Lan had nodded, because who didn’t know what a dolly was? Most of the girls in Norwood played dollies, even though only a few had real ones with painted porcelain faces and fancy dresses with ribbons and lace. Elvie Peters had a dolly like that. Lan had a clothy with the hair drawn on, or rather, she used to have one. One of the mayor’s boys, Eithon, had snatched it away and when they were fighting for it, it had ripped up the middle between her legs, which made all the boys hoot and poke at it, so Lan had run home in tears with no dolly at all. Her mother might have scrounged up another if she’d asked, but she never did. Her reasons had something to do with the sight of those boys, jeering and stabbing their fingers at her torn dolly, but it was a queer, hot-faced reason that didn’t come with words. Anyway, she understood all about dollies and how they were owned. Lan’s dolly had been split and poked and then dropped in the mud where it had probably been picked up by one of the mayor’s dogs and carried off for a gnaw toy, and Dolly did not complain. What all this had to do with Lisah Tuttle, she had no idea, but dollies, she understood very well.
She understood them even better now. Little Lan had grown up and if there were bits she’d sold over the years, at least she’d sold them dear. She was no man’s dolly and never would be.
But she couldn’t sleep.
And after all, it was a silly thing to stick to, wasn’t it? Hadn’t she come to Haven accepting—hell, expecting—to die? What sense did it make to put a higher price-tag on her body than her life?
Lan caught herself drumming her fingers on the floor and made herself stop. She’d never drummed her fingers on anything in her life. That was him, creeping into her. He didn’t get to do that. She wasn’t his dolly yet.
Or at all. Or ever.
Maybe.
Unpleasant, he’d said. It will be unpleasant, but she’d be compensated. How unpleasant, exactly? About the most oddjob thing Lan had ever agreed to was to take a cold bath and lie perfectly still so the fella could pretend she was dead while he was crawling on her. That was unpleasant, but Azrael certainly didn’t lack for dead women, if he wanted one. What did he want?
Her. For whatever reason, he wanted her. The only question was, how much was she selling?
All, she realized. For the Eaters, she’d sell it all.
So decided, she shut her eyes against the darkness and forced herself to sleep.
She dreamed in tangles, never quite knowing whether she was awake or not, but whenever she thought she was out, she found herself again in Norwood, hearing screams and choking on the smell of smoke and peaches. If there was more to the dreams than that, she didn’t know it. She never remembered her dreams anymore.
She was awakened by the heavy stride of boots on the landing outside her room and keys scraping in an old lock. As she uncurled her stiff body, the door opened to reveal one of Azrael’s guards, interchangeable with the one who had brought her here. He looked down at her without emotion, without even a hint of curiosity as to why she should be on the floor with an empty bed right next to her. “Our lord commands you join him for breakfast.”
So soon? By habit, she looked out to gauge the time from the sun’s position in the sky, but it hardly seemed to have moved. She supposed she was decided and a few hours more or less made no difference, but she wished she’d had at least a chance to sleep on it.
Pushing herself slowly into a sitting position, Lan rubbed at those of her joints that had come out the worst for being pressed to the floor, aware only of the cold and her many hurts, not the least of which was her bladder. Glancing at the chamberpot, she said, “Can you give me a minute?”
If the disdainful look he gave her was not reply enough, his cool tone as he said, “Our lord’s subjects do not chose the hour at which they obey him,” would have surely withered anyone else who had dared the question.
Lan got up. “Unless your lord doesn’t mind if his subjects piss themselves at the table, give me a damn minute.”
The guard recoiled, his pretty mouth pursing into a moue of aristocratic distaste. “Vulgar, gutter-crawling quim,” he muttered (a rather loud mutter) and slammed the door on her.
Lan used the facilities, such as they were, finger-combed her hair and shook out her clothes so they looked a little less slept in. She wished she had some way to check her reflection—a windowpane or even a polished bit of metal—but there was nothing here. In some desperation, she spat into her palm and scrubbed at her face, hoping to take away some of the grime or at least put some color in her cheeks.
When the door opened again, she was ready, although she could see by her guard’s expression her appearance was not much improved. Never mind. It was Azrael whose opinion mattered.
They descended the narrow, winding stairs in a silence broken only by her breath and the dual tromping of their boots. His were nicer and made a crisp, soldierly sound; hers, patched leather with soles made from strips of old tires, clumped along out of rhythm. Here on the cramped, dingy stairs, it wasn’t so bad, but soon they were out again in the oppressive grandeur of his palace, where her footsteps were small and awkward and even the air felt too clean for her to use.