The Slave — Chapter 2

Continuing the third of three novellas from the world of The Shattered Moon.

For the full background to these novellas see the Introduction to Three Kinds of Now.

Previous Chapter… Next Chapter…

"Jerya," said Skelber, "This is my daughter, Sumyra."

"Honoured to meet you, Miss Sumyra."

The girl was close to becoming a young woman; fifteen or sixteen, Jerya guessed. She was clearly her father’s daughter, though distinctly darker, her hair almost black. Jerya's own hair had once been a similar colour, she thought, though she could barely remember. It was almost as if she had always been bald; never, since the early days after her first shaving, had she really missed her hair.

Sumyra smiled. "I'm pleased to meet you, Jerya." That was a handsome greeting, from a free person to a slave. It promised well, but Jerya had no intention of letting down her guard until she knew Sumyra a great deal better.

"We wondered, Jerya, if you would give Sumyra a tour of the town this afternoon," said Railu. "If we can achieve what we need now, then we can have the whole evening together."

"Of course, Mistress." Railu's face tightened, as it always did when Jerya called her Mistress; but Jerya was punctilious about it whenever they were in public, or even in earshot of the other slaves. It was the safe and sensible course, but she also had to admit that part of her did strangely relish reminding Railu of their situation. "Should I put on my better dress?"

"I suppose that would be best."

Yes, thought Jerya, must keep up appearances.

"I don't know what you'd most like to see, Miss," she said as they stepped out into the street. "But if you've lived in Denvirran I don't suppose our shops and inns are likely to impress you. So… might I make a suggestion?"

"Yes, do."

"Well, Miss, it seems to me what is interesting is the port."

Sumyra frowned. "Did you say 'port'? Are we not two hundred miles inland?"

"About that as the messenger-bird flies, Miss, but considerably more by river. But there's a good deal of trade goes by water, and where there's trade there are ports. May I suggest we go to the Overlook first, so you may see?"

"Whatever you think best."

They crossed the Garslet road, Jerya dutifully staying a pace behind, offering directions when necessary in a voice pitched for Sumyra alone. The rumble of carriage-wheels faded behind them as they turned down the final lane to the Overlook. As they reached the terrace, and the view began to unfold, Sumyra almost ran the last few steps to the railing. Jerya followed more slowly and stopped alongside. "It's something, isn't it, Miss?"

"How high are we?"

"Almost two hundred feet above the river. And now you see how Upper Drumlenn is only half of the whole."

Sumyra stepped up onto the low plinth that supported the railings, the better to lean out. Jerya noted that she did not shrink in the least from the drop. "The staithe extends some way upstream beyond what we can see, almost to the Cataract; and if you look that way, Miss, you can see one of the river-ships there, in the distance."

"Will we see it come in?"

"It'll be a while yet, I should think; you can see how much the river wanders. But you can see the masts of one at the staithe, there. And you can see how the road winds to and fro across the slope—but even so, it's hard for laden beasts or waggon-teams to tackle. So they found an ingenious solution… look, there, Miss."

She pointed out one of the cargo-carriages beginning its descent. Sumyra stared. "Oh my, what's that?"

"They call it a vertical tramway. Though you can see it isn't truly vertical." The second carriage appeared from below and they watched the two pass each other. Jerya explained to the attentive girl about the endless cable, and the skill of the loadmasters. "Sometimes they can simply match the weight of ascending and descending cargo, but there are tanks in the base of each carriage which can be filled with water for ballast."

Presently the ascending carriage came to rest at the top station, close enough to hear a dull thud as it reached the buffers, then a distinct clank as the brake was applied. "That's wonderful," said Sumyra, watching as several brawny slaves began unloading. "I do like to know how things work."

"Is that so, Miss?"

The girl looked around, lowered her voice, even though there was no one else on the terrace. "I had a clockwork mouse when I was little. When I got bigger I took it apart to see how it worked."

Jerya smiled. "And did you put it back together again?"

"I tried, but it was held together with lots of little metal tabs that were folded over. I could pry them open with my pencil-sharpening knife, but I couldn't flatten them down again, not tightly enough."

"It sounds to me like you just needed the right tools, Miss."

"That's what I think, also." She gave a quick, almost shy, smile. "Does the vertical tramway also carry passengers?"

"It does, Miss; there are three for goods, of differing sizes, and one for passengers."

"Do you think we could take a ride?"

"It's for you to say, Miss."

By chance, there were no other passengers in the descending car. The ticket-seller had warned Sumyra there might be a wait, but within a couple of minutes a signal from the lower station informed him there was a party wishing to ascend.

As soon as they left the station, Sumyra was darting about the carriage, peering out of the side windows, then skipping down the steps to the front. After a moment she beckoned Jerya to join her.

"Oh," she said as Jerya arrived. "I hadn't thought… this would scare some people."

"It doesn't worry me, Miss, but thank you kindly for the consideration."

"Jerya, would you sit down, please? I'd like to talk to you and this may be the most private…" Jerya took the seat across the aisle. "I believe I'm right in thinking you've known my stepmother a long time?"

"That's right, Miss. Nearly eighteen years."

"And you were slaves together?"

"We were, for a few years." By itself, that would have been innocuous, but impulse made her add, "But I knew her before that…"

Sumyra gave her a sharp look. "Before you were slaves? You were freeborn?"

"In a manner of speaking, Miss."

"I'm not sure what you mean."

Jerya had learned, in their very earliest days in the Five Principalities, not to mention their origins West of the mountains. Duncal had treated the suggestion as preposterous, even insulting… but things were different now. Eight years since the Duke of Selton had made the crossing, and brought back the explosive news that there was life, and civilisation, beyond the Dividing Range; six years or so since she had begun to read Selton's book, in snatched moments and odd half-hours when she was confident of not being caught in the act. When she came to his descriptions of the Dawnsingers… there had been names she knew among them.

And with that recollection it came to her. "Miss Sumyra, may I ask you a question?"

"By all means."

"Have you read the Duke of Selton's The First Crossing?"

"Hasn't everyone?" the girl said, and then stopped, bronze cheeks turning a shade darker. "Oh, I'm sorry…"

A girl who would apologise because she thought she had embarrassed a slave… I think I may trust you, thought Jerya. "No need to apologise, Miss. As it happens, I have read it."

"Oh, of course, you said you were freeborn." Sumyra would surely now be wondering what had led to the enslavement of two young women, not many years older than herself: punitive enslavement, or voluntary submission?

Jerya saw that either of those possibilities might be disturbing for Sumyra. She would be wondering which had applied to her new stepmother, and how. Now she felt the need to reassure her, though there were risks attached.

"We were freeborn," she said slowly, carefully, "But we had never heard the word until we were older than you are. Where we came from, there were no slaves, so we had no need to label some people as free either." No doubt it was debatable: how free was anyone really? How free was a girl Chosen at ten to be a Dawnsinger?

She was watching Sumyra closely, and saw the puzzlement. "If you have read Selton's book, then you know of one place where slavery does not exist." It was a long speech without saying 'Miss', but where would she have found a place for it?

"The Sung Lands," the girl said at once. "But… you've been here more than eight years. I know you have; my stepmother told me. She's been freed longer than that."

"It seems to me, Miss, I may have said more than I ought. I'm not sure my Mistress'll be pleased."

"I'll tell her I wheedled it out of you. Or that I commanded you to tell me. Because you can't stop there and leave me in suspense…" But they were slowing, entering the lower station, and they had to leave the conversation for a while.

Sumyra was not satisfied, though, and Jerya could not blame her. If their positions had been reversed she would have been just the same at sixteen. Even at thirty-seven, after all that had happened, curiosity had not deserted her. They walked along by the staithes and Sumyra observed the barges and wherries with a distracted air, surely boiling with questions.

Just beyond the last of the ships, as the sound of the cataracts began to supplant the noises of the port, there was a tea-garden. Sumyra turned unhesitatingly through the entrance, and Jerya dutifully followed. She had no real experience of such places and saw no other slaves there, but she had accompanied her former Mistress into the tea-shop in Drumlenn on occasion. She supposed this would be similar.

The tables at one end, with the best view of the falls, were mostly in use, but at the other end of the terrace they found one which set them a fair distance from anyone else.

"We won't be overheard here," said Sumyra. "No, Jerya, don’t keep standing. I can talk to you much better if you’ll sit."

This was distinctly not normal, and she had never sat in the tea-shop, but it was Sumyra’s command, her mistress-of-the-moment, and her responsibility. Still, she only dared perch on the edge of the chair, ill at ease and inclined to wish Sumyra had allowed her to remain standing.

"Now," said Sumyra, "Before the waitress gets here, what would you like to drink?"

"I don't know what they serve in these places, Miss."

"Well, it's a hot day; do you like lemonade?"

"I can't say, Miss." In truth she was thinking that a good strong ale would be very welcome at this moment.

"Oh, I see; well, I recommend it." She looked up as a young woman in puffed sleeves reached their table. Jerya felt herself being studiously ignored, a feeling of invisibility that every slave knew all too well. "Do you have pink lemonade?" asked Sumyra.

"I'm sorry, Madam, we only have the regular kind."

"Oh. Well, two glasses of that, if you please."

"Very good, Madam."

As soon as the waitress was a few paces away, Sumyra turned to Jerya with a gaze that was almost fierce. "I said I'd tell my stepmother I'd wheedled or commanded, but I'd rather not command you. I can see she doesn't like giving you orders, and if you were free together once, I can understand that."

"If I may, Miss, I'd say it's more because we were slaves together." And for much longer than we knew each other before.

Sumyra gave her a sharp look, then shook her head. "Oh, I see; she knows what it feels like."

"Exactly so, Miss."

They broke off as the waitress returned to deliver their drinks. Jerya had seen lemons, and knew something of their origins; they grew only in the extreme South, where Buscanya met Velyadero, or sometimes under glass, and were very much a luxury. She had imagined that a drink made from the fruit would be a brighter yellow, but it was more of a pale greenish grey. She sipped, and was a little taken aback by the sharpness, but then saw how it was balanced with sweetness; the addition of honey or beet-sugar, no doubt.

"Now," said Sumyra, "I won't command you, so I have to beg. You've created a great mystery and I… well, I won't say I hate mysteries, because I don't, but only if I know there's a solution."

Jerya remembered feeling exactly the same when she was a similar age. She hadn’t entirely lost that curiosity, but it was buried deep. She found herself hoping that Sumyra would never feel the same way. "I really don't know how your father or your stepmother will feel, Miss, but I reckon I've gone too far to turn back now. I asked if you'd read The First Crossing. I think that puzzled you, but if you've read it you'll have heard about Dawnsingers."

"Of course." The girl sat up straighter, eager. "I can hardly tell how I felt. A land where women are natural philosophers! How strange… but how thrilling. I'm sure many of us felt the same. And now… now there are Dawnsingers here."

It was Jerya's turn to sit up. "Here? In the Five Principalities?"

"Here in Drumlenn."

Jerya went cold all over, and then hot. She felt as if she were floating, found herself gripping the edge of the table as if to anchor herself. Dawnsingers? In Drumlenn? Somehow she managed to find words. "Right now?"

"I believe so."

I might even know some of them… She put that thought aside and forced herself to focus on the girl before her. "If I'm making a mystery of it, Miss, I apologise, but this story… well, when we first tried to tell our Master, Squire Duncal, he dismissed it as nonsense. Either we were lying, or we had some completely erroneous notions of geography. Perhaps we should have tried again when we heard the news of the Selton Expedition." She smiled. "I always saw the papers a day late, when they found their way into the box for lighting fires…" Sumyra nodded slowly, perhaps seeing a first glimpse of the life of that rare creature, a literate slave. "Well, the Duke can only really claim the first crossing of the particular route he discovered. Or, as he himself acknowledges, the first crossing in this age of the world."

The reaction was exactly what Jerya had expected; if not outright disbelief, something very close. Wide eyes, a shake of the head that sent Sumyra's braids swishing across the brocaded front of her bodice. "I know it's a lot to swallow, Miss. But at least now you know the Sung Lands exist, and you've heard of Dawnsingers…"

"Wait," said Sumyra sharply, leaning forward. "Is that why you were taken for slaves?"

She's quick, thought Jerya. "We were bald, yes." And we still are, though for different reasons.

"You were Dawnsingers? But what were you doing… did the, the what is it? the Guild of Dawnsingers send you as explorers?"

"I like that idea, Miss, but no. I'm afraid the Guild will see us as renegades. And everyone here saw us as runaways."

A new question was forming on Sumyra's lips, but she clamped down on it as the waitress approached again. "Beggin' your pardon, Madam, but the lady over there asked me to bring yow a message."

Sumyra frowned slightly. "Is there a reason she cannot speak to me herself?"

"She says she don't want to embarrass yow, Madam, any more than… than yow're embarrassin' yowrself a'ready. Beggin' yowr pardon, Madam, but them's her exact words."

"Embarrassing myself?" Sumyra's tone had turned frosty. "And precisely how does she suppose I'm doing that?"

"I s'pose it's talkin' so close-like with a slave, Madam. Says it's settin' a poor example for her daughter."

Sumyra thought for just a moment, then drew herself up very straight in her seat. "I'm sorry for you," she said. "It's quite unfair making you traipse to and fro with messages for a private dispute some old harridan has conjured from thin air. You may tell her those are my exact words, if you like; I'll leave that to you. But I would ask you to convey this to her: If she believes anything in my conduct transgresses the bounds of law, I should be very grateful to be enlightened on the matter. If not, then please inform her that if I require advice on matters of etiquette and deportment I will gladly seek it… from those I deem best qualified to give it."

"Very good, Madam."

As soon as the young woman had left, Sumyra let out a long breath. She caught Jerya's eye and for a moment they were both struggling not to laugh. When she trusted herself to speak again, she said, almost to herself, "I hope I judged that about right."

"If I may, Miss… I think the waitress spoke truly when she said 'very good'."

Sumyra glanced across to where the waitress was now speaking to the occupants of a table under a spreading linden. The older of the two was looking their way, but as soon as she saw the direction of Sumyra's gaze she jerked her head away and raised a fan.

"Hm." said Sumyra, "Not such a very old harridan after all. That daughter might be no older than I am."

"If I may, Miss, R—your stepmother—did say to me that their position, hers and your father's, is, well, delicate. The former head of the hospital was hardly without supporters, or friends, and even those who knew change was necessary may think they are taking things too fast. And it's particularly sensitive for your stepmother, as a female and a former slave."

"As a female in the world of medicine, you mean?"

"Exactly, Miss."

Sumyra frowned. "But that's exactly what I admire about her."

"You're hardly alone in admiring her, Miss, but I'm sure you know a woman cannot practise as a doctor anywhere in the Five Principalities. Any time she might appear to be doing so, she's always had to act clandestinely."

"I want to hear all about that too."

"I think that should be her tale to tell, Miss. But did your father say nothing of it? It was how they met…"

Sumyra nodded. "Of course… and there's still so much more I want to hear from you. You said renegades…?"

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