The Silence of Numikès: Book Six of The Shattered Moon

Chapter One: The Chime of Six

For the first time in the history of the Known Lands, the house of Apstone presents a novel written by a slave…

This celebratory edition (to be published in your world on the 8th of August) includes a new Introduction and an interview with the author, Vireddi, but here we simply present the first chapter of Vireddi’s text.

Numikès woke at the first chime of six. To be truthful, she always thought she heard that first chime, and that must mean she was awake an instant before… but how could she, asleep, know? If you stood close by the clock you could hear it stirring just before it began to strike, but surely you could not hear that soft sound from the far end of the passage and through a closed door.

She flung back the covers, pushed feet into slippers, and hurried to the bathroom. One good thing about being an early riser, you could be sure that there were still plenty of jugs, and that the water within was still decently hot. Numikès grabbed one whose felted jacket looked less threadbare than most, decanted it into a basin, and washed with brisk efficiency. She padded towel-wrapped back to the bedroom, finished drying, and got into her clothes, the plain plum-coloured dress that all the housemaids wore.

Being early meant, too, that there was no great queue for the shaving-room. She leaned against the wall, but kept an eye out; you could catch it if one of the overseers came by and you weren’t stood straight, specially if it was Varwen. And woe betide you if it were Lordship or one of his daughters, though it would be rare indeed to see any of them down here, especially at this hour.

The clock was striking the half-hour as barber Berravoe called her to the chair. And who shaves the barber? she wondered suddenly; but she wondered something else too: I wonder if I’ll see Gethren? He was a gardener, but commonly took his shave, and his breakfast, with the household slaves. A big dark man with huge hands that could completely enclose hers, powerful but unfailingly gentle.

As if on cue, as she emerged clean-headed into the kitchen passage, there he was; but instead of his usual white wide grin, his face was twisted as if in grief.

"Geth, what is it?"

He sighed. "I come lookin’ for yow, Numi; only right I tell yow soon as ever I could."

'Tell me what?"

"I’m to be sold away."

He grabbed her arms; else, she thought, she might have dropped to the floor. She couldn’t breathe, felt as if her whole chest was empty. "Oh, Geth…" was all she could say.

"And there was I just yesterday, tellin’ myself to get my courage up and ask yow to set troth wi’ me… and now I see I left it too late."

"Yow know Lordship don’t always set store by slaves bein’ married anyways. Remember Cleulow? How they had to drag Criset off him when they took him? E’en after they’d threated her wi’ a whippin’."

"Aye," he said, "Wept for a week, they say." It was poor consolation, but if it stopped him blaming himself quite so much…

I’ll weep for yow, she thought, and hoped her eyes carried the message, but there were others about them now, a line forming for shaving, and she could not say it. They stepped away a yard or two and he wrapped his hands around hers. He could crush her fingers if he chose, but she had not the least fear he ever would. "When?" she asked, though she dreaded the answer.

"Today, around mid-day. Lordship’s sellin’ me to some gentleman as wants a good man wi’ herbs."

"Yow’re that, all right," she said. He smiled a little, but sadly.

And then there was a harsh voice behind her. Course, she thought, it had to be Varwen. “None of your loitering about. You shaved, trull?” She knew all the slaves’ names, but it was beneath her to actually use them, save when reporting some infraction to the Steward, or occasionally Lordship himself. “Then get to your breakfast, I’ll not have you flopping around half way through your work and claiming you’re hungry. You—" She turned her little black eyes on Gethren. “Get yourself shaved and tell Berravoe to make it good. We’ll not have you make a poor impression on your new owner.”

This was a slur on Berravoe, who always took pride in his work, but that was the least of it. There was nothing to be done but to do as they were bidden, and nothing they could say in front of the watchful chatelaine. A moment’s look into each other’s eyes had to stand in for all the words they might have said.

There was nothing to do but eat what breakfast she could, though she hadn’t half her usual appetite, and then go about her duties. Varwen would be on watch, she was sure; though, in truth, when ever was she not? The woman had a nose for 'idleness', it seemed, or perhaps ears that would not just hear a clock preparing to strike, but fix on the momentary silence when a duster was not being wielded, a grate not being raked over.

If she could have changed anything, or if it would make anything an ounce easier for Gethren, she would have risked Varwen’s watchfulness, risked whatever punishment would follow. If you could say one thing for Varwen, she wielded the whip herself, and she did not have the weight of arm of the male overseers.

She’d heard, that in former days, Lordship had sometimes taken a fancy to delivering the beatings himself, but she’d not heard of that in recent years. He could hardly be too feeble for the task; he was still upright, still strode about the place at a great rate, and still took after pleasuring himself with his female slaves now and again.

That might be one small mercy, she thought. She knew that, seventeen going on eighteen, she was just at the age he liked above all. And if she had married Gethren, that would be the surest way to draw his eye upon herself.

There were six or seven she could name, with a minute’s thought, who knew full well what it meant, how it felt, to be bedded by your lord before you could ever know the pleasure of your own private chamber with your own lawful husband.

As mercy went, it was small indeed.

Numikès wiped her eyes with her sleeve and kept the polishing rag moving. What else was there to do?

She was numb for days, if not weeks; she hardly knew how much time had passed. She rose at six, washed, dressed, sat to be shaved, breakfasted, did her work, ate dinner, dived into the welcome oblivion of sleep. Next day, the same, and the day after. She spoke little; some days, she thought, she might not have said twenty words to anyone. Maybe some days there were none.

And then there was a day that was different. It started like every other, but somewhere around mid-morning, she was in the ballroom, polishing the floor, big sheepskin slippers on her feet, shuffling to and fro and thinking of nothing but making sure not to miss an inch.

Then there was a voice to one side and behind, a voice she knew at once was no slave, nor Varwen or any of the free servants. "You might do."

She turned, surprised and yet not surprised to recognise the youngest of Lordship’s nieces. Lady Telfrid, she recalled. She had seen her many times, of course, but did not think the girl had ever spoken to her before… girl? She was a young lady, paler than the others of the Family. Her face had a fair strewing of freckles and her light hair was tinged with red, so as you’d almost call it pink.

Numikès made a low courtesy, held it a moment, then rose, keeping her eyes fixed on the floor by the lady’s feet. "M’lady."

"One question, girl. Can you read?"

Numi, surprised, glanced up, saw that the lady’s pale skin was a little flushed about the cheeks. She dropped her gaze again as she answered, "No, m’lady."

A fuller answer would have been that she knew her letters. Thrymer, who’d been taken in to pay off debts—voluntary enslavement, they called it—taught those who cared to learn. Numi could puzzle out a word or two, could scratch out her own name, but to say she could read was saying too much, even if it wouldn’t have been seen as getting above herself.

Lady Telfrid gave a satisfied nod. "Excellent. Very well. Do you know the herb-garden?"

"I know where it is, m’lady," said Numi cautiously. It was true, but not all the truth.

"That’ll do. Can you go there, now? There’s a shelter against the North wall; you should find a young man there. Tall, dark, in a green coat. Can you take this note to him?"

Lady Telfrid held out a folded piece of paper, and as she did she added one word that surprised Numi more than anything she’d heard in a long time. "Please."

There were a few words, perhaps a name, on the outside of the paper, but Lady Telfrid’s scrawl was nothing like Thrymer’s neat script, or even the letters of Numi’s name as she’d laid them out one by one. She could make nothing of it. Asides, she didn’t ought to even try. It was one thing to carry a message when one of the Quality bade you do it; that was nothing more than due and proper. It wasn’t her place to enquire what the message was.

And she could tell, pretty well, that it was something Lady Telfrid didn’t want known; she had been glad to hear Numi couldn’t read. The last thing Numi wanted to do, even if she could’ve, was make herself a liar by reading the words.

She knew the way to the herb-garden, of course; Gethren had taken her there often in the free hours of Highday afternoon. She smiled to herself, sadly, as she recalled the first time, his pride in the place, in his work. She’d been a little envious; it was hard to feel the same pride as a housemaid. A neatly-dusted room or a well-laid fire were well and fine enough, but didn’t quite compare with the colour and scent of the herbs he tended.

It all came back to her as she passed through the gate in the wall, a sudden rush of scent, lavender and mint and a dozen others whose names he’d told her but she couldn’t recall, all those aromas almost fierce in the warmth of the Floreander afternoon. The thought that she would never again walk here with Gethren, never again see him crush a leaf or a bloom and hold his hands to her face so she could surround herself with the smell, was almost unbearable.

And then the young man, when she found him… 'tall, dark', Lady Telfrid had said; and he was close on as tall as Geth, and far too close to the same kind of dark. Numikès was thankful he was slender, shoulders seemingly no more’n half as broad as Geth’s had been (are, she thought with a kind of rage); and thankful that he had the look of Quality, the fine green coat with its gilt buttons, the smooth face. His jaw looked as if he didn’t even need to shave very often.

She made a swift courtesy; not knowing his rank, a good one, but not so deep as you would for a great Lord or Lady. "Beggin’ yowr pardon. sir, but Lady Telfrid bade me bring you this."

Soft eyes regarded her; a soft mouth turned down in obvious disappointment. "She couldn’t come herself?" a soft voice asked.

"M'lady din’t 'xactly say, sir. P’raps she says…" But was that presumptuous? Surely he could think for himself that she might’ve said in the note.

She supposed he had the same thought. He unfolded the paper. His lips moved slightly as he read. Numi knew she did the same, when she tried to read words, but she hadn’t reckoned on gentry doing it. She would’ve thought they all learned their letters almost afore they were out of their cradles.

She wondered how old he was, and her mind jumped to wondering how old Lady Telfrid was. When you saw her passing by, and you held your place and didn’t stare, as was right and proper, she always seemed a proper lady, her frocks as fine, her hair as elaborately curled and coiled and whatever as her sisters; but when Numi thought on, it couldn’t be so many years since Lady Telfrid had been just a girl.

Thinking now, as the young gentleman read his letter and Numi politely looked away, over the… 'part airs', it had sounded like, when Geth had talked her around the garden, she recalled times she’d broken off her work as they passed. She hadn’t watched, as good slaves didn’t, but she’d seen, and even once or twice heard, the girl being chided for skipping or breaking into a trot. The more she thought on it, the more she thought Lady Telfrid prob’ly no older than herself.

She could ask around, no doubt, at dinner or in the hour after that was all the time they had for relaxation six days of every seven; but then she thought, maybe better not. It might be better not to let on she had any more reason for wondering about Lady Telfrid than she’d had last week.

The gentleman sighed. "Well, it can’t be helped, I suppose. Better luck next time… Can you take a reply, if I scribble a few lines?"

Numi thought a moment. "I can carry somethin’, sir, but I can’t promise when I’ll see her… see her when it’s fit to pass yowr words on, I mean."

"I see… you’re not her maid, then?"

"Me sir; no, sir, I’m just a housemaid."

"Hm. I wonder why she didn’t use her own maid…?"

Having no answer to that, Numi thought it best merely to stay silent. It seemed like the question had been addressed to the air, to anyone or no one; it wasn’t aimed directly at herself. And it was nearly always best, as a slave, to say nothing unless one of the free folk addressed you directly.

"I’d better not risk it," he said. "But will you do this for me—and for your lady? Next time you see her, next time you can speak, tell her I was very sorry not to see her but I understand how careful she must be. And I will be here again at the same time on Downsday."

"I can do that, sir, and I’ll not forget… only I can’t promise when I’ll see her."

"Maybe now she’ll find you."

"Was there any message?"

"The gen’l’man thought it best not to say anythin’ in writing, m’lady. Only he gave me some words for yow." Numi repeated the gentleman’s message; near enough the 'xact words, she thought. She’d repeated them to herself, over and over, as she walked back to the house, to be sure she’d remember them aright, and because it was better than thinking how the herb-garden reminded her so much of Gethren.

Lady Telfrid listened, and then stood a moment longer, thinking it out. "Day after tomorrow, then," she said at last. "Don’t know if I’ll have any more luck getting free to see him. If not—" She broke off and Numi felt the gaze on her. In the usual way of things, looking a free person, specially Quality, in the eye was counted insolence; but if that free person wanted you to meet their gaze, then that must make it right… didn’t it? She lifted her eyes and saw just how much feeling there was in the lady’s own. Brown with a touch of green, they were; and the eyes of a young person, even a girl. More and more Numi thought herself right in her impression that Lady Telfrid was no older than she was.

"Do you know where you’ll be working on Downsday afternoon?"

"I’m sorry, m'lady. They near as never tell us afore the same mornin'."

Lady Telfrid frowned. "That makes it difficult… and I probably won’t know till that morning either." She gnawed at her own bottom lip. Her gaze slipped away, then came back to Numi. "Did anyone see you?"

"Not as I know of, m’lady. Or only in the passage by here. Not outside." Outside, where I’ve no call to be. She s’posed the lady would know that.

"Would you be willing to take a message again, if the need arose?"

"I hope as I’m always willin’ to do as I’m bidden, m’lady."

"Even though this is taking you away from your regular duty."

"If it’s service to yow, m’lady, I reckon it is my duty."

Lady Telfrid made a soft hmmming sound. "I’m not sure everyone would agree. But I need help; if not this Downsday, I’m sure there’ll be other occasions. Well, if you get caught and they ask you what you’re doing out of your place, you must just tell them that I sent you."

She hadn’t been asked, this time, but Numi could not keep herself from meeting the lady’s gaze anyway. Lady Telfrid shrugged, sighing. "If they catch you carrying a note in my hand, it’s all up for me and Chayben anyway. No reason you should suffer too."

That was a consideration you wouldn’t always get from Quality. Numi was beginning to feel that she liked this Lady Telfrid.

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