‘Perhaps you shouldn’t tell him,’ Pryn said.
Yrnik frowned. He turned back to melt more figures to ghosts. ‘What…?’
Pryn took a breath. ‘I must have made a mistake. Yes. I meant to write “twelve.” Only the earl’s cart came for me just then and — ’
‘Oh,’ Yrnik said. ‘Twelve. That sounds better, certainly. “Twelve”—and while we’re at it, “forty-nine” is a little high for the main cave. We’ll make that “forty” and start over again, all right? And no more mistakes.’
‘Yes,’ Pryn said.
Yrnik pursed his lips, setting the lamp on the shelf below the cleared board. ‘They were looking for you earlier, you know. When you weren’t in the barracks.’
Pryn’s eyes widened. She tried to relax her whole face. She opened her hands.
‘His Lordship and Old Rorkar, this morning. You must have had quite an evening at his Lordship’s. I said you’d probably gotten up early and gone walking.’
Pryn moved dry lip on dry lip. ‘Yes…I went walking — earlier.’ Had the dream, she wondered, begun at the earl’s? Suddenly she said: ‘I’m going to the eating hall to catch Tetya on his way up. For his writing session.’
‘Oh, I don’t think — ’
But Pryn turned and sprinted away among staves, pots, leaning tools, hanging baskets and out flapping hide.
More workers stood in front of the eating hall than usual. Many were climbing into a large, open wagon. Ahead on the road, another wagon full of men and women was just rolling off north. Everybody was in a good mood. Half a dozen men stood at the road side, bending and hooting with laughter at a story from a heavy woman at the wagon’s edge. She gestured and grimaced, making strange growls and grunts — in the narrative, Pryn caught the passing nivu, the casual har’, but understood none of the barbaric comedy.
She crossed the cool, yellow dirt and turned from the door when a bunch of jabbering men came out followed by several silent women.
‘There you are!’ Juni ducked from the door-hanging, drying her hands on her work apron. She wore a dress that was very blue.
Juni hurried over to her. ‘What in the world happened to you last night?’ (Pryn thought it might be reassuring to take out her knife. But wouldn’t it look odd to Juni…?)’ His Lordship drove down here this morning, woke up Old Rorkar, and the two of them were in the hall soon as we opened, asking if anyone had seen you.’ Juni’s dress had none of the metallic glitter of the earl’s cloak, but it was definitely the same color.
Pryn put her palm against the knife and felt it through the doubled cloth.
‘The earl said you’d decided to come home by yourself…? He said he’d offered to have you driven back, but there was some misunderstanding…?’
Pryn blinked. ‘Yes.’ She thought: I’ll just say ‘yes’ to everything anyone asks until a dragon plucks me up and away and I’m gone…
‘It’s an awfully long walk back from his Lordship’s estate; Juni said. ‘But then, the moon was full last night. It was still out when I got up to come here this morning. I just wish it hadn’t rained, though…Well, when they went to the barracks, you weren’t there!’
Pryn nodded.
Juni took a large breath. ‘Finally they went and got Bruka anyway. And took her out back! It was awful! Afterwards, when his Lordship had driven off, Rorkar came in and sat in the empty hall and kept on saying this wasn’t the way he wanted to begin the Labor Festival. I felt so sorry for him…!’
‘Bruka?’ Pryn frowned.
‘They should have waited to find you,’ Juni said. ‘That’s what Rorkar told his Lordship. I mean, even a slave has some rights — and there’s supposed to be a witness. But his Lordship got very angry and said I’m sorry, my man, but for all he knew the silly girl — which was you — wouldn’t be back! He said they’d looked for you several hours before they decided you must have made your own way home. And besides, he said, when Bruka was confronted with it, she’d confess.’ Juni tossed her apron hem down. ‘They went and got her and took her out in the back…’ Her dark eyes widened. ‘They used to do it here in front, you know, for everybody to see. Two big logs, sticking out of the ground right there by the road, with manacles hanging on them! I remember, because when I was six or seven, my cousin drove me by and we saw them doing it. It bothered me for days, weeks — oh, it still bothers me…Where are you going?’
Pryn walked away along the wall.
She heard Juni come up behind her, stopped when Juni put her hand on her shoulder. ‘Don’t go back there…’
Pryn glanced over her shoulder.
‘There’s nothing you can do. I mean there was nothing you could have done, even if they’d found you — since they didn’t wait. They’ll cut her loose when everyone comes back this evening — ’
Pryn walked again.
‘Well, don’t stay there too long, then!’ Juni called. ‘I’m going to get in the wagon…I wish you’d come, too; and tell me all the wonderful things that happened last night at his Lordship’s…’
Pryn turned the back corner of the hall.
There were some barrels on the eating hall’s back porch. That’s all. It didn’t feel particularly like morning. She looked across the stone benches stretching to the forest.
She’d expected a stake driven into the ground somewhere and the old woman dangling, chained to it.
She saw nothing.
Out in front she heard another wagon pull up. Someone was shouting for someone else to hurry, hurry up! Someone else was laughing very hard about it — or something else entirely.
Pryn walked out between the benches.
Reaching the aisle, she crossed over dandelions and sedge. Weeds tufted gravel and fallen leaves. She walked between the next seats. The tarred staples left rusted halos on the stone. In various chipped indentations, water had gathered. A third of the staples had broken off. Many were only nubs.
At the bench’s end, Pryn walked around the weedy dirt piled against it.
Five, or six, or seven benches away, a rope was tied round one of the staples. It went over the stone’s edge and down.
It was moving.
Pryn frowned.
She climbed up to stand on the bench nearest. With a long step and a jump, she got to the next; and the next; and the next —
The woman lay on her side, face against the rock. The vine was lashed half a dozen times around her bony forearms, from her wrists halfway up to her elbows, which were pressed together. The skin above the rope was red. Her dress had been stripped to her waist. She was breathing very quietly.
As Pryn stood looking down, Bruka opened her eyes. She didn’t look particularly surprised. But after a few moments, she closed her eyes again and shifted her bound arms. The vine rope slid an inch along the stone.
The first thing Pryn thought was that it wasn’t as horrible as she’d expected.
It was only rope, not chain; and only along two of the welts on her back had the skin broken enough to bleed — though as Pryn climbed down, she saw a splatter of red on the weeds. And there was a brown smear on the bench’s side.
Pryn squatted, looking about. There was no one — though later she told herself it wouldn’t have mattered if there were. She would have done the same. She took the knife from her sash under the fold, grabbed one of the lengths of vine rope tied to the staple, and began to saw at it. Getting through it took about two minutes — it was much better rope than she’d been able to make for her dragon bridle.