Nadya yawned and stretched and looked down at her work, a page of dark black letters laid out in a grid. Along the top she’d written Anya’s key words: “Sudras boil chickpeas in rootwater”, then she’d put the whole alphabet down the left side and filled the cells one by one—‘A’ plus ‘A’ made ‘B’, ‘C’ and ‘G’ made ‘K’, ‘M’ and ‘N’ made ‘V’, and so on. Nine-hundred sixty squares took a long time, and Nadya had started over more than once. She wondered if there was a trick to do this faster, and wished she could ask Veronica for help.
Either way, Nadya had the key to her sister’s notes, now she just needed something to use it on. She pulled up the corner of her mattress and slipped the paper into the gap, then she crawled to the windowsill. The irrigators were still out on the cobbles near the old servant’s quarters; three men of several ages standing around a gray-haired woman, all dressed in the same plain robes as Anya, sandy brown with blue trim. They’d come at first light with hammer and chisel, cracking up mortar to loosen the stones below, then probing the ground with metal rods and vessels of strange liquid. Anya had stepped out to greet them, milled about for a while, then trailed of and vanished.
Nadya opened her dresser to set out clean robes. She hesitated between a drab, ratty trainer which she’d kept mother from tossing—only Veronica’s needlework had saved it—and one of the new lady’s robes she’d gotten as an early birthday gift, blood purple with proper trim and tie-ups. Anya was home, meaning Nadya would have to entertain, but she’d also need to cook: easier in the first outfit but more polite in the second; and of course, mother might order her back upstairs whichever outfit she chose. Nadya took up a brush and sat by the window as she thought it through.
Someone new had arrived, a man, thick in the chest with wiry arms and a soft gut, a shock of dark gray hair framing his rough, tired face. He stood in the center with clasped hands, rocking back on his heels and laughing. The others laughed back with a unity which struck Nadya as insincere, then trickled away, gesturing towards some unseen task as they slipped around the corner. The newcomer leaned against the bunkhouse, patting his elbows as he fidgeted and looked around the square. He seemed to be checking windows, and when he turned towards Nadya, she dropped flat on her mattress; but then she looked twice and found him staring at the sky, idle. By the time Nadya fixed her hair, the man was stretching up to leave. As he turned, a wooden rod swung into view: long and black and polished, with silver wire curling up the shaft.
Memories of Anya flooded Nadya’s mind, of watching the woman twirl her baton and talk of the traditions it came with. In a moment, she knew the tubby old man and saw a chance she’d not get again. Nadya jumped into the threadbare trainer fast as a swaddled doll, then she was downstairs and out the kitchen door, chasing Datra’s shadow as it vanished past the far edge of the square. She crept to where he’d been and peeked the corner: nothing, just the long bare path which hugged the canal. The border fence—chest-high brick with pikes on top—wound off into the distance, making a slow, wavering arc toward clade center. This made it hard to see through the metal bars, so Nadya crouched against the bottom and scurried upstream, poking her head out every few dozen paces. Eventually, she glimpsed a set of soft, square shoulders bobbing along the path.
Nadya slowed and kept her distance, but the path straightened out and forced her into the open, standing between the canal and a strip of waterfront houses, thin and tall, crammed up to the big hill behind them. Nadya walked tall and looked over Datra’s head, focusing on the spires of Menora’s palace—this was just another trip to get Danica for study group. Nothing more.
However, Datra kept stopping to stretch his ankle or stare at the hill or wave to an old man on a stoop; and the gap between them shrank. Worse, they were coming up on a bridge, the shadow of two praetor halberds sticking up near the guardhouse door, stark black against the sunrise. Datra slowed further, and Nadya veered off into the narrow space between two homes, stalking Datra from the ribbon of fenceless yard behind them, carved into the base of the slope. Nadya stumbled over planters and patios as she snaked from corner to corner, crouching to check each alley before rushing the gap. A few houses on, she found him.
He looked bigger up close, and meaner, with muscle in his back and shoulders, more like an over-the-hill laborer than the sagging grandfathers who gardened in Nadya’s neighborhood. She watched with one eye until he moved out of view, then Nadya dashed to the next corner and watched him again. He turned towards the alley, and she pulled back to hide, holding her breath as his footsteps grew closer. “Worthless children,” Datra muttered, and Nadya braced for impact, but the blow didn’t come. Instead, she heard a metallic crunch followed by the tinny sound of brass hitting stone, then the footsteps resumed in the other direction. Nadya stuck her head out and saw a shiny brown disk leaned up on the nearest door, a crushed vessel of some kind, serial number faced out in the soft morning light. Nadya sighed and steadied herself, emboldened—after all the warnings about Irrigation and water laws and the horrors which awaited those who broke them, she was almost disappointed.
Nadya got back to her stalking, pushing her luck a little more each time: running faster, watching longer, sticking her head farther out. There were a few close calls, but Datra never quit moving, and neither did she. Then, as they neared the end of the row, she looked out and saw Datra facing the alley with crossed arms, staring right at her. Caught, Nadya stumbled out from the corner, pretending she’d tripped. “S’morro, Don!” she called out. “S’morro,” said Datra, unmoving. Nadya walked to the next house, taking the time to look up at the windows, as though she were just getting home and checking to see who was asleep; then she got up on the rear stoop, just out of Datra’s sight—she listened; his feet did not move.
Heart in her throat, Nadya opened the door, putting weight on the handle to make a nice, loud squeal. Inside, she saw a narrow hall with a galley kitchen, where a young man stood at the range in nothing but his subungula, holding manuscripts in one hand and a pot in the other, one of those cheap spike-bottomed ones which tipped over unless you held them. The boy was a few years older, with sandy hair and slim shoulders. “Hey,” he said, glancing over, then looking twice with bugged eyes. For a long moment, they stared at each other, Nadya held in place by the need to trick Datra; him, by the scalding water which would spill if he let go. Something about his face made her uncomfortable, so Nadya’s eyes flitted down to his chest and legs—her cheeks grew warm. The youth cleared his throat and said “can I help…”, but Nadya slammed the door. She took three breaths and peeked the corner.
Datra had fallen for it. He was gone.
Nadya ran back the way she’d come, jumping over rakes and chickens as she followed the retaining wall back towards home. With each step, the face of the boy with the pot kept coming back, a growing tension tinged with dread. She reached a crossroads and turned inland, towards the wrought iron arch marking the hilltop trail, then she realized: he must be one of Veronica’s clients, sure to mention the intrusion next time he was tutored. Nadya shook it from her mind and sprinted up the weed-eaten stairs, a line of crumbling cyclopean blocks which seemed older than the city itself. She burst out on top with sweat beading her brow, panting as she staggered through knolls of wild grass. She looked round and saw her home and the peninsula, Menora’s palace, the rest of her clade and all the others, a patchwork of brown and gray carved up by twisted streaks of blue, with The Maine cleaving the city in half as it wound from one gate to the other. To the North, just over the wall, she made out a sliver of sea.
Nadya filled her lungs and walked to the crest, where a great stone idol stuck up from the Earth, a square slab with a salmon carved into the face. Nadya put a hand on the rain-worn carvings and looked out at the streets below, trying to make out where Datra was and would be. At this point, she needed to keep her distance, but if she got a sense of where he was going, she could get ahead and find a good watching place, maybe even ask cousin Menander to let her out on his balcony…
A heavy hand swung out and slammed Nadya’s scalp, dragging her to the other side of the idol. “Stand straight. Tiptoes, tiptoes.” The hand pulled upwards, and Nadya obeyed, craning up towards the pain. “This way, this way,” Datra said, walking her in a circle. “Back to the stone.” He set her flat on the slab and gave a small kick to her instep. “Feet apart, heels a foot from the wall. Slide them out.” After some wrangling, Nadya was where Datra wanted: hips on the rock, legs straight in a slight ‘V’. She wondered why he did this, then she wriggled against the stone and realized: her feet were too far out to support her; if she tried to run, she’d fall. Datra bent in with red eyes and sour breath. “You will not move without permission, understand?” he asked. Nadya nodded, and Datra said “use your words.”
“Y-yes, patre.”
Datra unclenched his fist and a handful of red-brown locks fell across Nadya’s face.
“May I fix my hair?” she asked.
“You may.”
Datra slid back and crossed his arms as Nadya settled herself. “First things first,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“Nadya.”
“Nadya what?”
“Nadya Pentacost.”
A spark of recognition passed over his face, then Datra leaned back and wiped the sweat from his brow—Nadya noticed a few copper strands stuck between his knuckles. “That sounds familiar…”
Nadya burned with shame. She’d never considered that her choices might get back to her relatives. “Alderman Menora is my mother’s cousin,” she said.
“Does she know you’re following me?”
“No.”
“Good. Next question: why are you following me?”
“I just saw you and though it would be fun.”
Datra leaned in. Nadya saw the delicate veins in his sallow, bagged eyes. “You know that’s not good enough,” he said.
“It’s the truth.”
“One more try, miss.”
Nadya tensed up, thinking. After a long pause she said “my sister is friends with an Irrigator.”
Stolen story; please report.
Datra’s face brightened. “Friends with an Irrigator?” he asked, voice high, as though walking back a false step.
“Yes, Sergeant Anya. They’re doing work at my house, so she’s staying with us while she supervises.”
Datra stroked his chin. “Okay, now we’re getting somewhere. But miss…”
“Nadya.”
“Nadya, how did that lead to you following me?”
“Well they…” Nadya fumbled as she stared up at Datra, now looking more concerned than angry. “They don’t like it when I’m around, and my sister tries to get rid of me.” The words stuck in her mouth, then burst out on their own. “They’re nice on their own, but when they’re together it’s like I’m an outsider.”
Datra wagged his fingers, coaxing her onwards.
“And I wanted to meet you first, without them.”
Datra laughed, belly shaking as his face grew redder. “Ha, is that all? I can’t condone your behavior, but it makes sense to me. Use your sister’s minnow to go sharking?”
Nadya smiled. Put that way, it sounded so petty. “I was just curious, too.”
“You were curious?”
“I was. I’ve been really bored.”
“You’ve been bored?”
“Yeah!”
Nadya talked about her sister never being home, and mother never leaving; about how much she missed Clive, and how even the servants had vanished—more chores as well. Then she told him about Danica and study group and how much she hated lessons, of how pointless it all was when she could just go work for Menora. It went on and on, and a little voice in the back of Nadya’s head wondered why she was telling him so much, but each time she slowed down Datra hmm’d and asked another question, then the words just kept coming. By the end, Nadya had forgotten why she started talking in the first place.
“Well, I believe you,” Datra said. “Doesn’t seem like you meant any harm. Just a touch of youthful rebellion; normal and healthy, in the right dose. Happy to put it behind us, so long as you take responsibility and promise not to do it again.”
“I promise, patre. Sorry,” she said, giggling with relief.
“That leaves just one thing.”
“Huh?”
Datra slid out his baton and held it between them, silver threads flashing as he twirled the tip in a little circle and pointed to the idol. “Turn around, miss; hands on the wall.”
----------------------------------------
“What do you mean, nothing?!” Anya hissed, stooping forward with crossed arms.
Lyre glowered upwards, the tip of her long, sharp nose hovering near Anya’s chin. “Exactly as I said, Sergeant. The people in this house are shitting out the most normal parasites I’ve ever seen. Usual number of larvae, pupal pods stable with jitters every fifteen seconds. Zero emerged or semi-emerged adults; none, nothing, oude.”
“You’re sure?”
Lyre furrowed her brow and crossed her arms. The Sudress’s breasts bunched up between her elbows, and Anya tried not to look down her collar. Anya failed.
“I’ve been pushing shit through sieves all night, sergeant; and other than one massive turd which smelled like quine, all had immature ansels matching G’s profile. We even floated some pods in water to measure hatch time: eighty-eight minutes on the dot, dead average for this strain. If you want to hear Barlow say the same thing, call him down; or you could quite wasting time and take my word for it.”
Anya broke away and paced around the bunkhouse. The interior was stark, with few decorations, little furniture, and no interior walls. One end was lined with frayed bunkbeds, the other by a wooden bench with a hole in the middle, crowded up to a curtainless bathing stall. The center had a sink and simple cooktop, the only luxury being an antique water clock mounted near the door.
“So what now, are we done?” asked Anya.
“You tell me. I’m not leaving until boss says so, but you’re the one here and running things. Personally, I’d focus on getting all the samples, but maybe you know something I don’t.”
“You just said it’s all normal.”
“The sewage is, but I can’t speak for the people, not until you get me confirmed samples. I looked at your notes. You marked a flush for “Nadya” at two-thirteen, but you didn’t have eyes on her; you didn’t have eyes on anyone.”
“Jenya was lying down. I know that. I heard the springs in her bed. Veronica was upstairs too, but I heard her footsteps just before the flush. I sat by the stairs all night, Lyre. I know what I heard.”
“Sergeant, I don’t doubt your methods, but I dare you to put that in your report. Boss’d pit you for that garbage, assuming Birch didn’t catch you first.
“Come on, Lyre. Who shits three times in one day?”
“I agree that this is probably a bust, and I’ll make that official the moment you get me a sure-thing sample from each daughter—seeing is believing.”
“I should have a better chance tonight. Jenya takes her dinners seriously.”
Lyre reached into one of her pockets and pulled out a vial of clear liquid. She dropped it into Anya’s hand. “In case you need a little help.”
“Poison?”
Lyre sighed. “Laxative, sergeant,” she said, stepping out of the bunkhouse.
Anya shuddered and let herself drop onto the bench, besides the open hole. She’d stayed awake until Jenya quit pacing a few hours before sunup, flopping onto the couch just in time to hear Nadya slip downstairs, trying to be stealthy as she brewed a carafe of rootwater. Anya had pulled a pillow over her ears and rolled over, but then came Veronica, getting a head start on the promised breakfast. Not long after, the rankless started hammering just outside the window, and Anya had given up, going upstairs to wash and seeing something in the mirror as red-eyed and puffy as Datra.
Now, she slouched against the bunkhouse wall, eyes drooping as she thought of Lyre and the girls and all the work left to do, then something moved at the edge of her vision. She looked and saw a thread-thin worm crawl out from the hole, walking end-over-end along the dark, stained rim. The glass-white creature squirmed up on the planks, then leeched towards Anya’s hand. Too tired to care, she let it latch onto her knuckle, then Anya lifted it near her face, twisting her fist as she watched the larvae squirm over her skin. She put her other hand on her stomach, rubbing the pinch of fat above her sash, then pushing in against her abs, feeling the stillness of her guts—no sliding, no jitters, none of the liveliness she’d felt all her life before getting cleansed and moving to the bureaus; such a strange thing to miss.
The Anselworm’s free end clamped down over a vein on the back of Anya’s hand, and the pain snapped her back. She leaned over to the stove and took a match, twisting it alight as she crooked her arm for a better angle. Anya held the fire to her knuckle, ignoring the heat as the larvae began to sizzle. The worm’s hot head let go just before it burst into a ball of flame which crept along the fatty body, leaving a curly thread of ash as it worked towards the other end. The creature let go just before the last bit of flesh was consumed, falling to the ground as a smear of light gray soot.
Anya smiled, rested her head on the bricks behind her, and closed her eyes.
----------------------------------------
“But you said you believed me,” Nadya said.
“I do. Now face the wall.”
A spreading coldness in her gut, Nadya turned toward the stone idol. She leaned forwards and lifted the skirt of her robe, but Datra took his baton to her knuckles then prodded her between the shoulders. She caught herself on the stone as the fabric fell back to her ankles. “None of that,” Datra said. “Do I look like your mother? Is this a wooden spoon? You made adult choices and you’re getting an adult beating, the dignity along with the pain. Spread your feet a step. Keep your palms where they are.”
Nadya did as he said, staring down at the dirt and grass in the idol’s cracked foundation. She watched two tears run down her nose and land between her toes, making little starbursts of mud. Datra cleared his throat. “First, you are charged with petty insubordination, a simple infraction which can be prosecuted on-site. Given your motives, I feel this charge is appropriate, but if you disagree, we can go to the bureaus and sort through the many, many crimes which stalking a bureaucrat might fall under. Do you accept the charge? Note: this is not an admission of guilt.”
“Yes.”
“Wonderful. Second, do you accept current conditions as an improvised courtroom? Sadly, I seem to have misplaced my tablet, so there will only be a verbal record of these events. Do you waive your right to a formal record, and to your own personal copy?”
“Yes.”
“Also, I do not have my hat. Are you comfortable being tried by a hatless man?’
“Yes.”
“Time for your plea: innocent or not?—Before you answer, I have one final courtesy. If you plea ‘innocent’, I will pause the proceedings and allow you to summon one member of your family to assist in your defense.”
“What if I don’t plea ‘innocent’?”
“Don’t stall, miss.”
Nadya cried and breathed and stared at the wet patch below her, thinking of home and her sister and Anya; then of Danica and Menander and all the others who’d learn about the beating, or see it, or see something worse.
“Guilty,” she said through a film of snot.
“I agree, but how do you plea?”
Nadya almost repeated herself, but remembered the grueling hours spent picking at The Principles of Republican Government. “Not innocent,” she said.
Datra squared up besides her, feet planted, holding the baton like a sword.
“I, Datra Gaelo T’nay, sentence Nadya… can I get your full name?”
“Nadya Natasha Pentacost.”
“To ten lashes in the name of our Lord City Father, performed without delay by consent of the convicted. Any questions, comments, concerns?”
Nadya forced herself to take long, slow breaths. “Is ten a lot?” she asked, looking back.
Datra was moving the baton back and forth between her butt and his ear, going through the motions without actually striking. “Don’t worry,” he chuckled, “you won’t really get ten.”
“I won’t?”
“Not a chance, most men pass out after three.”
Nadya’s poise broke, arms and legs buckling as rivers of mucus ran down her chin. “I was joking, I was joking!” Datra said, as though juggling something hot and slippery. Nadya’s blubbering slowed, but didn’t stop—staying on her feet took all she had. She looked down and saw Datra’s shadow wind up to strike. Nadya closed her eyes, teeth clenched, waiting.
She felt a light slap on the buttocks, just hard enough to sting. “One,” Datra said, then he struck her again, a little harder. “Two.” The third was harder still, and Nadya tensed up, ready for a trick, but “four” was the lightest yet—less than the slap from mother. “Five, sixseveneight okay get up.”
Nadya pushed off the idol and turned to face Datra. He grinned down with soft shoulders, cool and relaxed, as he’d been a few minutes before. He pulled out a red handkerchief and dabbed her face, then dropped it into Nadya’s hands. “You’ll blow your own nose, I’m afraid.” She did and went to give it back, but Datra pulled away. “Keep it,” he said, reaching into his satchel.
Nadya caressed the slip of fabric, admiring the dense, silver embroidery which ran around the soiled center. “I could wash it for you?” she asked.
“It’s your aunt’s, don’t bother.”
“Thank you, patre.” Nadya tucked it into her sash and looked back to Datra, who was rubbing his hands together, as though washing. “What happens now?” she asked.
“You tell me. I didn’t follow you.”
“I just wanted to see what you were doing.”
“Sorry to disappoint, but not much at all. Really, I’m just trying to avoid your relatives.”
“Why”
“Your cousin slipped into my bed last night, and I’m not much of a morning person.”
Nadya felt a strange lightness in her chest, like when she snuck a sip while fetching a bottle, or looked through the drawer where Veronica hid her notes—she fought to keep a straight face.
“Which one?” she asked.
Datra pursed his lips and snorted, walking to the grassy ridge on the edge of the hilltop. He shielded his eyes with an open hand, craning towards Menora’s palace. “Look for yourself, on the balcony,” he said, pulling a brass tube from his sash and putting one end to his eye. “But who is that strange man…”
Nadya rushed to his side, scrambling atop a loose boulder to get above the grass. She cupped her brow and squinted at the distant battlements, scanning for movement or signs of this unknown person; but a splitting pain slashed down her left buttcheek, then another on the right, too close for her to flinch or cover. Nadya dropped to a squat and held her hips, hissing through clenched teeth. “You didn’t warn me!”
“Learn to count,” Datra said. Lifting her chin with the baton. “I did you a kindness. The hard part is knowing the blow is coming. Don’t you agree?”
“No.”
“You say that, but no tears this time.”
“I’m not sad. I’m angry.”
“Well, you can be mad on your feet, get up.” Datra pressed her chin up further. Nadya braced herself and stood, trying to hold in a curse as her hips creaked upright. “Can you really see Menora’s balcony with that? Enough to make out the faces?”
“And count their teeth, if I set it right. I’d let you try it, if you hadn’t just groped your bug factory.”
Nadya scowled and took her hands from the bruises.
“Is that bakery still open?” Datra asked. “Downhill on that side?”
“The owner quit, but his son runs it now. Why?”
“Come on.”
“Huh?”
“I missed breakfast, remember?”
“Yeah, but why am I coming?”
“You wanted this, didn’t you?” He asked, and when Nadya only stared back, Datra shrugged and said “truth is, I’m bored too.”