Reclamation(57)

She thought about Raking Coals, who brought his sledge in every tenth day and kept asking her what price she set her own hands at with a broad wink and a happy leer. And the Oilbrake sisters, who carried fifty-pound sacks of grain on their backs when their pair of oxen went lame and still whistled at the stable boys who crossed the courtyards. And the Notouch daughters who scrambled this way and that in the courtyard, grabbing up the feathers that came down like snow when the house’s Bonded sat on the roof and plucked chickens.

It was a filthy, hard, stupid life, and if the Vitae got hold of them, it would vanish.

And if the Family gets hold of them? Cor dropped onto the bench and stuck her fingers into her bowl, shoving the food into her mouth before it went cold.

She’d been sent down with the team when the Unifiers still thought these people were Family. She’d hunkered down and learned the language and the customs and made friends as fast as she could. She learned to tell jokes and to laugh at them. She learned to pitch in with the work of the Bondless and to defer to the Teachers and the Nobility. She could recite the Words of the Nameless in the Temple on the tenth day and navigate using nothing but the walls around her. She’d deliberately set out to find anything and everything she could admire and respect about the culture. It was her job. She’d trained for it specially for years.

Then the word came down. These weren’t Family. These people were artificially created. Nothing like this had ever been found before. New policy would have to be formulated as soon as the extent of the engineering could be understood.

Policy? She scowled at her bowl and her porridge-spattered fingers. Jay’s voice had been flat and unquestioning when he delivered the message. As if there could be any policy for this world except getting them some decent food and a way to keep warm and dry through a twenty-year winter. These people who worked and starved and slaved and still sang and loved and told really, really obscene jokes.

Behold the noble savage, she thought grimly. Cor, Cor, Cor. They’re dirty and ignorant and so enslaved to their superstition that they don’t even know what they’re standing on top of. Come out of it, woman. It’s a raw deal, of course, but the worst the Family does’ll be better than the best the Vitae’ll do.

Cor scooped up another mouthful of porridge.

Of course it will.

A sharp ringing in her ear made her jerk and Cor nearly sent her bowl crashing to the floor. After a moment she realized it was her translation disk. She balanced her bowl in her dirty hand and tapped the disk twice.

“Cor, Jay,” said Lu’s voice. “Get yourself back here and move it like you mean it.”

Cor shot up straight and shoved the heel of her hand against the torque. “What is it?” she demanded, forgetting to whisper like they usually did over the e-comm links.

“We hit diamond. I think. I … look, just get back here.”

“On our way,” came Jay’s voice.

Cor sucked the last of the porridge off her fingers and deposited her bowl on the table for the Bonded to find later. She hurried through the halls and across the walks of the High House, shouldering past anyone who didn’t get out of the way fast enough, barely pausing to raise her hands to them. Something could have happened down in the smooth shadowy tunnels under the shelter. Maybe something finally switched on or came alive. Something real and comprehensible. That idea shone like a freshly lit lantern.

“Jay.” Cor slapped his threshold and pulled the door-curtain back at the same time. He was sitting on his bed, shoving his right foot into his boot.

“Where’s your gear?” he demanded. “Come on, we’ve got to get moving. We’ve only got a couple of hours until nightfall.”

“Have you got us leave from the King?”

A spasm of distaste crossed Jay’s features. “I’ll get it, I’ll get it. You get the sledge ready. We need to move it!”

“All right, all right. I’ll bring everything round to the main courtyard.” She let the curtain drop. She was halfway down the corridor before she was able to put a name to the strained, stark expression on Jay’s face. He was scared. No, he wasn’t just scared, he was so panicked that he didn’t care what she saw.

What in any hell could panic a Vitae? Even an ex-Vitae?

Her throat tightened but she didn’t let it slow her down. Jay needed to get back to the shelter. They needed to find out what was going on and get that information back home. That was her other job. She was to learn everything, immerse herself in everything, and at the very end, it was her absolute responsibility to get out with what she knew.

In the back of her mind a voice said Jay was not going to make that easy. She gave a mental shrug to silence it and concentrated on not skidding on the slick flagstones of the open walkway that led to the stables.