Chapter 36:
They took him to a village in Woodheart. For the first diurnal, Sukren did nothing but sleep. He wasn’t even aware which grandmother hut they placed him in or who the village head was. The few times he ventured outside the darkness of the grandmother hut, it was to go to the cookfires to swallow a meal. He was vaguely aware that he couldn’t – shouldn’t – keep leeching off the other villagers but for the most part his craving for sleep blocked out his worries. Besides, Sukren knew he could always make it up to them later with free medical care.
His intuition proved correct. Most of his new patients didn’t even seem to care that Sukren had slept the diurnal away; they were excited by his mere presence. A doctor-priest? From a castle? Living with them? It didn’t take long for Sukren to be summoned by the village head. “Fourin-ra wants to see you!”
Sukren at once followed the little girl sent to him; she led him to the mats on the other side of the cookfires. As an interloper, as a guest, it was important to him to show respect. Already Sukren could feel himself falling back into the rhythms that had governed his life for the ten years he’d lived in a village. Ask, don’t assume, don’t act like you’re better, don’t accept any special privileges from anyone without paying them back a hundredfold. Humble gratitude, that was what had made village life good for Sukren and Mayah all those years.
And Sarana, was it good to be back! It was a different village, of course, no Dastist to joke with or Pleen to help him care for Mayah when he needed it, but Sukren had never found it easy to connect beyond the surface with anyone so he hadn’t missed them much. It was village life itself that he missed. The sun shining through the colored bioplastic walls – red, here – and the greenhouse gate standing open so you could see the fields outside – or forest, in this village’s case – and even the layout was the same, a path leading in through the gate and grandmother huts clustered up against each other on either side of the path, which led to the yard where the cookfires burned day and night, and then beyond them the rows of green growing things – because this village was Vegetable Post #6 – and yes, the labor was as hard as in the castles, but it was done together, and –
“Too important to sit?”
“I’m sorry,” Sukren said. He immediately sat down on the mat in front of him. “I was lost in thought.”
The village head sniffed. He had a sour look on his face. “Mnidi,” he said, glancing at the little girl still hovering nearby. “Get our doctor-priest something to eat from a cookfire.”
Sukren shifted uneasily. Mnidi was placing many more dishes on the mat than was customary for a single person’s meal. There was also a sharpness to the way Fourin-ra had told Mnidi to set up the meal. Why emphasize the fact that Sukren was a doctor-priest? Sukren wasn’t even wearing his robes. He was still stuffed into the too-small servie uniform from the clinic, for crying out loud!
Sensing he had an audience, or that something at any rate, was going on, Sukren made sure not to eat all the food placed in front of him. When Fourin-ra pressed him to do so, he shook his head. Mnidi was standing at the edge of the mat, while behind Fourin-ra were several village serfs seated and eating rather slowly and unenthusiastically at their own mats. Sukren would have bet several credits that behind him there were more village serfs also seated at their mats, also pretending to be doing nothing but eating.
“I know how hard it can get in the villages,” Sukren said loudly. “There’s no need to entertain me.”
Fourin-ra leaned forward. His legs were crossed, a position Sukren was finding difficult to imitate. It had been a long time, actually, since Sukren had eaten village-style.
“So you remember what it’s like to be a serf, do you?” Fourin-ra almost purred the words, his beard wagging below his chin. “Sometimes I think doctor-priests and regents have forgotten what the villages are like. Living in the castles, as you do. Well-fed. Why would you leave such a life?”
“I’m on a mission from Lady Nari,” Sukren replied simply. Inwardly he grimaced. He was beginning to dislike Fourin-ra. Of all the village heads he had to meet, it had to be someone who thought doctor-priests and regents had it better? Yes, that was right, being stolen from your family at the age of four and forced into a regime of indoctrination designed to teach you to hate everything serf about you, yes, that was better.
“Lady Nari? You’re one of her agents?” Fourin-ra sounded surprised. “I thought you were just an escaped doctor-priest.”
Sukren felt stupid. He had assumed upon his arrival that Fourin-ra would know Sukren was in the Free Serfs when there was really no reason Sukren should have had such an expectation. It wasn’t like Zed had bothered to explain anything to the villagers after dropping Sukren off at the greenhouse gates. He started to apologize but stopped at the look on Fourin-ra’s face. There was something in his eyes, a keenness that was a bit too keen.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
And now some of the other villagers were starting to cluster around Sukren and Fourin-ra. “How do we know he’s telling the truth?” one of them called out, sneering.
Belatedly, Sukren realized that he had perhaps not read the other villagers all that well. He was relieved when a woman standing by Fourin-ra replied. “He’s Chenta and he’s in hiding. That’s enough for me. And he probably has news from the castle about…”
Her voice trailed off. She looked at Sukren, hope written all over her face. Another woman spoke up. “What’s his name?”
“My name is Sukren RockSpire,” Sukren replied, giving his village name. “By the cotton field greenhouses near LakeCentral Castle.”
Fourin-ra raised his hands. “Everyone get back to work. I need to talk to this man privately.” He got to his feet, pointed at Sukren, and jerked his thumb in the direction of the grandmother huts. “You, come with me.”
There was some muttering, but nobody protested out loud. The woman who had defended Sukren, though, had a fierce, unhappy look on her face. Sukren felt bad for her. But what could he do? Now was clearly not the time to defy Fourin-ra. Sukren got up and followed the village head into a nearby grandmother hut. As soon as they were both inside it, Fourin-ra leaned forward, whispering so rapidly that if it weren’t for the intensity in his tone, Sukren would have had trouble understanding what he was saying.
“My village is a last resort as a place of refuge. Lady Nari wouldn’t have allowed you to come here unless you had nowhere else to go. I have a vital operation going on, but obviously you were valuable enough to risk that. So tell me, who are you?”
“The less you know, the better,” Sukren replied, unable to suppress his now growing distaste for the man. Fourin-ra’s entire demeanor demonstrated that he considered himself to be someone of importance, enough to claim a private place for his conversations. Taking up a whole grandmother hut in the middle of the day? Who did that? Even napping babies had to share a hut between them!
Thankfully, there wasn’t much light in the hut. Sukren hoped the dimness would help mask his body language. Fourin-ra, on the other hand, didn’t seem to feel a need to hide his feelings at all. He scoffed at Sukren’s attempt to dissuade him. “Aren’t we almost ready to overthrow the Rajas? I bet in a few diurnals we’ll be walking freely through the forest. There’s scant need for secrecy.”
Sukren refrained from pointing out that Fourin-ra had just forced Sukren away from everyone else and into a grandmother hut, presumably in order to hear and keep to himself whatever secrets Sukren had to share. After a few minutes, when it became clear that Sukren was not going to offer any information on his own, Fourin-ra pressed him again. “So tell me – is the Promised Daughter born?”
The question made Sukren’s heart sink. He had been dreading it from the moment the woman had looked at him with hope written all over her face.
Sukren looked down at his hands. He thought of the woman, the hope on her face, the deference in her voice. Is that why I don’t like Fourin-ra? he wondered suddenly. Because he doesn’t treat me with the respect I prefer? I criticize him for acting like he’s important, but am I any different? Didn’t I walk in here expecting everything to go my way? Humble gratitude. That only works when you have a status everyone’s already aware of. And that’s what I assumed, didn’t I? That I could come in and be the big fish in the little pond and be polite, I could condescend, and oh, the villagers would love me, of course they would, why wouldn’t they? You treat them so well, with such restraint, when both you and they know you could throw your weight around – hah! – and make their lives that much harder.
Maybe Lady Nari was right to send me off to become a servie. Maybe she knew that was what I needed.
“Yes,” Sukren whispered. “Yes, she is.”
“Perfect,” Fourin-ra murmured, closing his eyes. “Perfect.”
His heart twisting, Sukren thought of Mayah. Of poor, foolish, frightened Mayah who had no idea what Sukren had done to her.
“She’s not ready yet,” said Sukren. “Not yet.”
Fourin-ra frowned at Sukren. “She’s done her part by being born, hasn’t she?”
Sukren froze. Fourin-ra’s words hit him close, much too close. His mind flashed to the journal he’d been forced to write, no, that he’d written, he’d written every word of it, lying not just to Mayah but to himself about how he was doing nothing wrong when Sukren knew, he knew, that the very assignment was proof-positive that the Free Serfs didn’t care about Mayah’s well-being in the slightest. All she was to them was a tool, a key, an object to be used – and it was Fourin-ra’s naked words that were the closest to the truth.
He couldn’t bear it. He couldn’t bear to sit and accept the role he’d played in her life. Sarana, what had he done, what had he done to her?
Unable to control the self-hate coursing through him, Sukren felt it spill out. “What, and so the Promised Daughter only matters to you if she’s born?” he spat at Fourin-ra. “The rest of her life is insignificant? Serfhead, do you think she was born just for your benefit?”
Fourin-ra stared at him, open mouthed.
“I’m sorry,” Sukren immediately said. His chest was heaving. Oh Sarana, I should not have called him a serfhead. That was the worst thing I could have called him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.”
“Really?” Fourin-ra sneered. “Well, you are a doctor-priest.”
“I’m of RockSpire,” Sukren responded. He forced himself to take a deep breath. “I’m a Chenta, just as you are.”
Fourin-ra sniffed. “Well, you speak Chenmay well enough. I’m surprised you didn’t forget it, living in the castle with the Rajas, speaking Rajim all the time.”
Sukren swallowed, took another breath. “It was difficult, but I would never forget my Chenta roots. Lady Nari knew this, and she knew you were a loyal serf to the cause. That’s why she allowed me to come here.”
The speech did not appear to mollify Fourin-ra. His lips were still tight. “Try not to wander out into the forest and bring punishment down on the whole village. And next time I hope Lady Nari sends someone reasonable.”
“Thank you,” Sukren replied, exhaling.
He stood when Fourin-ra did, then winced at the difference between their heights. Sukren was bigger than a serf had any right to be. No wonder that sneering serf earlier had been suspicious of him!