Genny Hargrave scraped the silver coin across the stone floor. She paused frequently to check the sharpness of the edge, and to listen.
She didn’t hear anyone outside the door or walls. No one to see, either. The door to the little cell, while solid enough to keep her imprisoned, had gaps aplenty. She’d found a handful of spy holes, and at that moment they all agreed: Her captors had left, and she was alone. Genny made the best use of her time by sharpening the edge of the coin, but each scrape chilled her.
What if he comes back while she’s gone? What if he discovers what I’m doing?
He was Villar, and although a last name had been mentioned, it wasn’t clear enough to catch. She was a significant improvement over the mad dog that was Villar. Mad, that’s how Genny thought about him, like a snarling rabid animal. He had a kind of caustic hatred doled out to everyone, for any reason.
Genny knew the type. She hadn’t transformed from illegally distilling and distributing liquor on the black market to a key player in Winter’s Whiskey of Colnora by attending cordial dinners with dignified aristocrats. In the same way, this wasn’t the first cold, filthy bucket Genny had sat on. Men like Villar were mean, unpredictable, dangerous, and sadly plentiful. Her father had been one. She liked to think she’d tamed the madness out of the man, that the money, power, and respect had quieted the demons unchained by his wife’s death. But she knew quieted wasn’t gone and the mania would always be there, watchful and looking for a reason to return.
What if neither comes back at all?
Genny still didn’t know where she was, couldn’t even be positive how long she’d been there. More than two but less than three weeks was her best estimation. Early on, she hadn’t bothered keeping track of the days. She had expected to die, and that one thought filled her mind to the exclusion of all else. Then, as time went on she had been forced to reevaluate. No sense keeping me alive just to kill me later, she reasoned, but had to admit a bias in her conclusion. The same could be said about her expectation of rescue. Her husband was the duke, and he controlled a full contingent of city guards. With such resources, could a rescue be far away? Apparently it could. As the days dragged on, she began to wonder if something had happened to Leo.
In all that time, Genny learned little about her prison. Didn’t even know what sort of place it was. The stone was marred with pockmarks, lichen, and ivy, which made her suspect she was outside the main gates. She hadn’t seen much beyond the Estate and the Merchant District since her arrival in the city. Parts of Rochelle might be deep in jungles—how would she know? There might even be a ruined quarter that she had yet to discover. Still, her little square of the world was unusually quiet. All she ever heard was birdsong. No sound of carriages, barkers, blows of hammers, or cries of babies. She’d never found a part of her new city—or any city—that was this quiet. Most important, she never heard the chimes of Grom Galimus.
They took me to the surrounding countryside, but where and why?
She tried to remember the night Villar grabbed her. So much of it remained muddled, like a nightmare recalled hours after waking. She’d witnessed Devon’s death. Villar had wanted her to see, but it wasn’t a matter of pride. The man wasn’t a professional, no expertly slit throat or precisely inserted blade. It’d been brutal and bloody. Villar had stabbed Devon repeatedly with a small knife. The violence and gore paralyzed her. Genny was no pampered debutante, and before becoming the newest member of the nobility, she often enjoyed gambling at cards and impressing men with her capacity for holding hard liquor, but she’d never been exposed to anything like that. Watching a man butchered close enough to feel the spray of his blood was more than enough to horrify. She couldn’t move, couldn’t think. The hood came next, a bag placed over her head and cinched tightly. Then she was shoved into a cart, covered with rough blankets, and off they went.
Too afraid to scream or cry, she cowered, something she hadn’t done since she was eight. At any moment, she was certain she’d be killed. If she’d been thinking, she might have taken note of the trip’s length, turns, bumps, or accompanying sounds, but all she could think of was the way the knife had sounded when plunging over and over into Devon’s chest. That and the gasping gurgle that came from his mouth. He’d been trying to say something, and Genny thought it might have been please stop, but she couldn’t be sure. When the cart had finally halted, she was carried quite a distance before being dropped into the cell. A metal collar was fastened around her neck, and a chain secured her to a wall. A door slammed, and she heard a lock click. A lock, not a bolt. She took note of that. While lying on cold stone with the bag still over her head, she heard her assailants talking, their voices muffled by the door. The memory of the quarrel was so vivid because it had provided hope. Genny could recall it word for word.
“Where did the blood come from?” the woman had asked, her tone full of fear.
“She wasn’t alone,” Villar replied.
“Who did you kill?” The woman’s tone had changed to anger.
“I have no idea, a courtier of some kind.”
“No one was supposed to get hurt!” she shouted.
“No one was supposed to be with her, either. He saw me. Did you want a witness?”
“This is bad.”
“It’s what it is. Deal with it.”
Genny clung to the most important line from that argument: No one was supposed to get hurt. If that was true, her death wasn’t inevitable; it might even be unlikely.
That first night, she had waited for hours, until certain she was alone, before finding the knots, untying the string, and pulling the hood off. She found herself in the small stone room, no window and only one door. Light from a small fire on the far side seeped underneath and around it, as did an awful vinegar odor. The door was new and very sturdy. The freshly cut wood still smelled of the forest, and sap dripped from knotholes. The collar around Genny’s neck was closed and fastened to the chain by a large iron padlock that hung on her chest like the gaudy pendant of a horrid necklace. The other end of the chain was bolted to the wall opposite the door. The restraint granted her full range of the room, but nothing more. There had been a pile of straw, which she assumed was meant to serve as her bed, but it had since been scattered and matted. She scooped it into a pile each night, but each morning it was strewn about, which made her wonder about her dreams. She couldn’t recall them, but was sure they weren’t pleasant. She had the bucket, the straw, and two surprisingly thick wool blankets. She lay on one; the other she wrapped around herself, tucking the corners down under her legs and shoulders. The cell was cold but, thanks to the blankets, not unbearable. She was able to sleep, and that was something.
She hadn’t been hurt, and nothing was taken from her. Not that Genny had much when pulled from the carriage, just the dress she wore, her shoes, and a tiny wrist bag. She was surprised they hadn’t taken the purse. Not that it had much money in it, only a few silver—emergency coins—she called them, but why had they abducted her if not for money? The purse also had one other item, the key to her traveling trunk. She’d used the big sea chest as luggage when she moved to Rochelle and continued to keep it in her room as the one personal space she reserved for herself. It held nothing of value to anyone but her. The trunk was filled only with memories and mementos. She had a bottle of whiskey from “the old days,” and a diary, and her mother’s rings that were too small for Genny, and letters from her father. She kept those in the chest because she didn’t want Leo reading how much Gabriel hated him for “stealing” his daughter. The trunk couldn’t help her now, nor could her dress or shoes, but the coins and key were treasures. She had long since hidden them in her cell, in the stone’s cracks, fearful her captors would finally notice the purse and take it. She couldn’t afford to lose her treasures.
Most of the time, Genny was left alone in her cell. She was pleased that Villar was rarely there. When he did appear, his visits were mercifully brief. Erratic and berating, he would argue with the woman, insult Genny, or rant about the misdeeds of others. He usually left in a huff. Genny preferred the other warden. She was quiet, reserved, and respectful.
A noise outside the door caused Genny to stop in mid-stroke. She stashed the coin, went to the door, and quickly pressed her cheek to peer through the crack in the slats. She was relieved it wasn’t Villar. Standing near the entrance and shaking the rain out of her soaked shawl was the woman, the one Villar called Mercator Sikara.
----------------------------------------
Mercator pulled off her soaked dress and dropped it on the floor. Long ago she’d given up trying to save her kirtle. Surrendering to the inevitable, she’d dyed the whole thing, but it didn’t help. The front and sleeves were darker by several shades. Still, the garment fared better than her skin. The creamy white cloth had turned blue, but Mercator’s brown skin became a blackish purple. Standing naked in the faint light, she looked like one great bruise.
On the bright side, I have to be the safest person in Rochelle.
She dried off and wrapped up in one of her blankets. Soft, thick, and warm, it ought to sell for close to a gold tenent, considering the ridiculous amounts nobles paid for anything blue. Mercator bought raw material from Calian weavers who either didn’t know or, like Erasmus, didn’t care she was a mir. Mercator had an excellent eye for quality, and made good deals buying cloth for five to eight copper. When able, she sold the blankets to merchants like Erasmus for double. The blue dye made all the difference. After more than a century, Mercator knew how to cultivate and harvest woad, a genial flowering plant that produced a less-than-effective blue dye. To compensate, she had to soak and dry each woven cloth or bolt of yarn, then repeat the process a dozen times. The process was time consuming, but she couldn’t possibly afford to purchase indigo, a rare imported plant that was exceedingly expensive. The source of the dye wasn’t what mattered; the only thing people cared about was the deep-blue color. Her process, while time consuming, produced the desired result. If she weren’t mir, she would’ve been rich.
Mercator put the kettle on, stoked the fire, and then checked her work. Popping the lid on a clay pot marked with the blue handprint, she fished out the cloth, held it up, and let it drip while she studied the shade. It looked perfect, which meant it would be too light when dry—once the excess dye was removed.
With a disappointed sigh, Mercator submerged the cloth in the pot again. She had close to a dozen of the old clay vessels, which were found in the belly of the ruined church. At least she thought it was a church, but from the outside it was hard to tell it was even a building. Tall grass and bushes grew all around. If not for the arched doorway, the place could easily be mistaken for a stony hill.
The pots were huge old urns, a good three feet in height and beautifully crafted. Mercator almost hated employing them. Still, she had to use something, and these were ideal for her purposes. Mercator spent the late summer and fall gathering woad. She fermented the leaves in a tub of water mixed with a bit of lime. In the spring, she planted seeds that she’d meticulously salvaged, only a fraction of which would take root.
In winter, she spent most of her days dunking cloth in the blue dye just as she would do that day. She wrung out her soaked dress as best she could, dressed, and went back to work. Crossing to the last pot, the one she’d been working on the longest, she submerged her arms up to her elbows. Mercator held the wool under as if drowning a small animal, squeezing the material as hard as she could, wringing the cloth below the surface to help infuse the dye more completely into the material.
Dye! Dye, you miserable woolly lamb! She tried to smile, amazed at the insanity she indulged in to keep from going mad.
It wasn’t working.
Not-thinking was her best hope. Work kept her mind occupied, but she was running out of cloth, and after speaking to Erasmus Nym, it was becoming impossible not to—
“Any chance you’re thinking of feeding me in the near future?” The duchess’s voice came from the other room. Even muffled by the only door in the ruin, the duchess was loud. And she talked a lot. “I know I could stand to eat a bit less, but there is a difference between a diet and starvation.”
Mercator pulled up the cloth, let it drip, and studied it carefully.
This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.
Good enough.
Once upon a time, good enough was never acceptable. Mercator used to fuss about such things, but once upon a time she’d been younger. Age, she realized with some regret, had diluted her need for perfection. Passion, they called it. Everyone placed such high value on an intensity of spirit, but it was like the dye: valuable when focused, limited, and used properly. She looked down at herself—but what good is anything when randomly splattered? The young were fountains of energy and vigor, running blind sprints into imagined lands. Mercator was done with races.
I’m also done with this cloth.
She dropped it into a vinegar bath.
One more thing that makes this place smell so grand.
“In case you forgot, food is a plant or animal that can be consumed,” the woman bellowed through the locked door. “It’s required to live. Did you know that? Some people even enjoy the process of eating. They do it every day. More than once, even.”
“Salt,” Mercator said.
“What? What did you say? Did you say salt?”
“Yes, salt. It’s a rock, a mineral. Neither plant nor animal and it must be consumed to live. It’s the only rock you can eat, and you have to consume it in order to survive.”
“True enough, but it doesn’t quite fill the belly like a good roasted leg of lamb, now does it? People eat all kinds of things that aren’t filling. You can eat gold, too.”
“Gold is a metal and definitely not required to sustain life. No one would ever eat that.”
“I have.”
Mercator was wiping her hands and arms on the blue-stained towel she kept near the pots. She stopped and stared at the closed door that separated the outer room from the little chamber where they kept the woman. She had tried to refrain from speaking to the prisoner. At first, it was important that the duchess know as little about them as possible. As the days dragged into weeks, trying to avoid the woman was just pointless. “You’re joking, right?”
“No, I’m not. Chefs make it very thin and lay it on top of chocolate cakes.”
“You disgust me.”
“Well, I can’t say it’s my favorite, but when it’s served at the dinner of an important potential partner, one shouldn’t insult the host by turning up one’s nose, now should one?”
“People are starving all over the world, and rich people eat gold?”
“I know, I know! It’s a ridiculous thing to do. I can assure you it wouldn’t be my first choice. I’d much rather dine on a fine steak or perhaps a goose. Oh yes, what I wouldn’t give for a roasted goose, one where the skin has been crisped to a caramel brown. Perhaps some oysters and mussels in a butter-wine sauce. You know, there are easier ways to kill me than starvation.”
“You’re not starving. It takes more than a month to die from lack of food. Being a person who consumes gold, I would expect you to be more learned.”
Mercator took the cloth out of the vinegar rinse and hung it up on the line that ran the length of the area under the dome. A curious choice for a roof, it was the dome that made Mercator assume the little ruin had once been a church because the only other dome she’d seen was the one over the altar of the grand cathedral of Rochelle. This little dome above Mercator’s dye industry was made of crude interlocking stones the same as the walls. While the ruins were ideal as a hidden workshop, the site also dripped with ancient mystery. All of Alburn was that way, and Rochelle was its graveyard of inconvenient secrets.
The duchess was one of those, and becoming more inconvenient by the minute. “And why do such a thing?” Mercator asked. “Why eat gold at all? What’s the point? It doesn’t benefit you, and it can’t taste good. So why?”
“Same reason people live in houses with too many rooms, have more clothes than they can wear, and ride down the block in a horse-drawn carriage rather than walk. Only the very rich can afford such things, so they use these extravagances to demonstrate to others the height of their status.”
“But everyone already knows you’re rich.”
“You’d think that, but there is one very important person that everyone wishes to impress. Someone who rarely gets the message of a person’s true worth. People will go to any lengths, like eating gold, to convince this person that they have value.”
“And who is that?”
“Why, ourselves, dear.”
Such an odd woman.
They had abducted her in a desperate gamble to change things. But it didn’t seem to be working. And if something didn’t happen soon, everything would fall apart. So many depended on Mercator, and she felt like she was letting them all down.
Things will improve. I’m going to make it better. That’s my responsibility as matriarch of the Sikara. I owe that to my grandfather and his father before him.
She had told Seton that spring was coming, but Mercator had failed to explain what that could mean. Villar will have his way, all because I . . . because I . . .
This isn’t helping.
She took a deep breath and tried to calm down. She felt weak, even a little dizzy. Her stomach ached. She looked at the duchess’s door and frowned. Maybe it was time to eat.
----------------------------------------
At first, Genny believed the poor quality and extremely small portions of food had been a tool to weaken her, make her more pliable and easier to control. She had since revised that theory. They’re doing it out of spite.
They had a noble duchess at their mercy, and they were torturing her for entertainment. They fed her gruel as humiliation. That was their plan, to beat her down, starve, degrade, and intimidate her. When she was desperate, perhaps they would give her dead rats and laugh, goading her to eat them. It was possible that the poor treatment was part of some clever plan, but Genny had come to believe that it was merely for sport. How grand it must be to embarrass her, what hoots, what laughs they must share. How wonderful to finally make one of them suffer.
Only I’m not one of them. Not really. She grimaced at the worn wooden bowl and remembered a similar one she had eaten from as a child. I’m not one of anything. The masses see me as privileged, and the nobles see me as the unwashed.
If Duchess Dederia, Duke Floret’s wife, had been abducted, she wouldn’t have survived the first hour. The moment they stuffed Dederia’s head into that smelly bag, she would have dropped dead.
They’re fortunate they got me instead. Lucky on the one hand, not so fortunate on the other.
Genny was done playing nice.
No one got anywhere by being timid. No one advanced through whispers. This was a lesson she’d learned early.
Genny had observed that successful men were bold and acted confident, even when they weren’t. They declared they were right, insisted it was so, and, amazingly, people who ought to know better, believed. Even if they were wrong half of the time, they were right the other half. After a while, the mistakes were forgotten, but the victories never were—the men made a point of reminding everyone of those. Genny had seen this, learned from it, and practiced what she had dubbed the Art of Bluster. She’d always had a big mouth, literally and metaphorically. And she was smarter than she looked, which at first was a hindrance, but later had become a weapon.
Peering out through one of the cracks in the door, Genny wanted to make certain there was an audience for the tirade she was about to unleash. Mercator was at the cook fire, dishing out her own meal. She poured the same dismal slop into an identical wooden bowl. Not a bit of fruit, nut, syrup, or berry was added. There was no meat, no bread, no cider or beer. Genny watched, baffled. She’d been certain her captives served themselves a different meal. Who would willingly eat such miserable food?
She stared as Mercator drained the last of the porridge into a bowl. That’s when Genny realized the most remarkable thing of all. After pouring out the remnants, Mercator had significantly less in her bowl than what Genny had been served.
Is this really what she lives on?
Mercator sat down on the floor, crossed her legs, and ate that half serving of porridge, lifting the bowl to her mouth and drinking it in like soup. Even at their poorest, the Winter family never ate this badly.
Genny knelt at the reach of her chain, staring out the gap in the door, studying her captor. Mercator was a miserable sight. She was thin and ragged, her skin dark—reddish brown like an acorn—except her arms, of course. She was small and more than lithe. Mercator looked like a deer in late winter. Stick-like legs, a long slender neck, high, hollow cheeks, and the infamous oblong ears that declared the woman’s elven heritage. Mercator was a mir, and all the mir Genny had ever seen were thin.
Are all mir in want of food?
Genny had already identified the need to empower the Calians and dwarves, but it turned out she had a blind spot—the mir. They were, as always, invisible. That was before Genny came to know one. Before she was forced to watch Mercator struggle to survive. Before she saw her eat the mouse’s share of the porridge. Before she saw a person where there wasn’t supposed to be one.
Mercator stopped eating. Her head bowed over the remains of her miserable meal, and with raised knees, she rocked in a regular rhythm. Try as she might to be quiet, Genny could still hear the sobs.
“What’s wrong?” the duchess asked.
After a gasp and sniffle, the mir lifted her head, brushed her hair back, and surprised Genny with an answer. “Your husband isn’t doing anything. He’s not trying to save you.”
“Leo? What do you mean?”
Mercator shook her damp hair. “When Villar grabbed you, he left our demands in the carriage—a simple set of instructions. Once they were followed, you’d be set free.” Her lower lip shook as her mouth pulled into a deep frown, the sort attempted in the hope of restraining emotion—an effort that never worked. “We didn’t even ask for much. Hardly anything at all. But rather than agree, or even make a counterproposal, he’s refused to bargain.”
“Demands?” Genny said mostly to herself. “You asked for money? A ransom? Is that what this is about?”
Mercator made a loud disgusted sound. “We aren’t thieves. We just want . . . a chance to live.” She sniffled again. “All we ask is to have the same opportunities as everyone else. For no known reason, Calians are denied the privilege to open their own shops. Dwarves are forbidden to engage in any trading, why is anyone’s guess. And my people, the mir, are banned from everything, labeled outlaws at birth. Our crime is existing.”
“Surely you exaggerate. You make and sell dyed cloth.”
“Illegally. And if I’m caught, or if those who risk doing business with me are apprehended, we both face mutilation or death depending on the whims of the city guard who discovers the offense. The punishments are capricious and subjective.” She shook her head and toggled a finger between them. “This right here, my talking to you, is against the law.”
“What do you mean?”
“A mir isn’t allowed to speak to a citizen of the city. Doing so will result in a beating. Technically, I can’t even look you in the eye. That, too, is forbidden, although rarely enforced. We can’t take water from wells or fountains, can’t fish or hunt for food. We can’t beg. Renting property is prohibited; so is sleeping on the streets or in alleys. We are banned from the bathhouses and denied the ability to clean ourselves in the river or bay. We mustn’t start fires to warm ourselves, have to speak in whispers so as to not disturb the better folk, and are forbidden to teach our children to read, write, or learn numbers.”
“How do you live?”
“That’s just it, we aren’t supposed to.”
“What did you ask of my husband? What did you demand.”
“We begged for the privilege to work, to buy and sell, and to rent land the same as anyone else. We asked to be made citizens of the city and be granted the same privileges, opportunities, and security granted to everyone else.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes. Your husband could fix everything with a signature, but when it comes to granting even basic dignity to the Pitifuls, even the life of his new wife isn’t enough to make him do what is right.”
“I can’t believe that.”
“Neither can I, but here we are.”
----------------------------------------
Mercator hated crying. Knowing the duchess was peering out, seeing her moment of weakness, made it worse. At this point, all she had was her dignity, and the duchess was stripping away even that.
“You know you’re being foolish,” the duchess said. “Kidnapping me was about as stupid a thing as a person could do.”
“So is calling me stupid if you ever want to eat again.”
“You don’t understand. I was trying to help you.”
“By calling me stupid?”
“Don’t be silly.”
“Silly and stupid, I guess you really don’t like food, do you?” Mercator picked up a rag and wiped her face.
“You misunderstand. Let me explain. The night you abducted me, do you know what I was doing? Where I was coming from?”
“I heard you were on a shopping spree. Checking out a blue vest to give to your husband.”
“That was a momentary stop on my way back from a meeting with the Merchants’ Guild.”
“Merchants’ Guild?” Mercator stared at the closed door. She couldn’t see the duchess but guessed the woman was peering through the slats the way Mercator often did when trying to tell if the duchess was asleep. “What business does a duchess have with the guild? Are they not importing the fashions you desire?”
“I was trying to persuade them to grant membership to the Calians.”
Mercator let out an absurd laugh. “Why would you do that? Because you anticipated being kidnapped and thought it might be a good way to—”
“Because this city is a financial mess!” the duchess burst out with enough indignation to overpower the bells of Grom Galimus.
She sounded so sincere that Mercator forgot her sarcasm. She forgot her indifference as well, her shield against sympathy. Instead, she listened.
“An absolute disaster and I’m just the woman to fix it. I wasn’t always a duchess, you understand. Before coming here, I was a merchant. I helped run one of the most profitable businesses in the most successful mercantile city in the world. I may not know why the sun circles Elan, but I know how to make money. When you look like I do, it’s a necessity. Believe me when I say I love Leo, but the man knows nothing about finances. I asked to see his books and he showed me his library of poetry! Ha! Can you believe it? This city possesses tremendous untapped potential. Most people don’t see the downtrodden as valuable, but then they don’t think much of me, either, and I helped turn an illegal moonshine operation into a respected distillery. Other people’s ignorance is always a moneymaker, remember that.”
Mercator wasn’t certain she’d be capable of accurately remembering any of the duchess’s ramblings but didn’t doubt the truth of what she said.
“We are a port city with unique access to the exotic eastern trade routes, but we refuse to embrace our best resources. Instead, we force them to deal illegally, which not only denies the duchy tax on their profits, but it also lowers the income of legitimate businesses, depriving us of even more income.”
Genny’s blood was obviously up; Mercator could hear her walking back and forth in her little cell. “The situation is even more dire with the dwarves. Their neighborhood of Littleton should be a gold mine for this city. Raw goods arriving from Calis and Galeannon should be shaped into works of art by their hands. The results would be triple the profit when those finished goods are exported. With its wealth of natural talent and geographic position, Rochelle should be the crown jewel of the east, the powerhouse producer of Alburn. Instead, we flounder in debt.”
She paused, perhaps to catch her breath, then went on, “This is why I screamed at all those pasty-faced shopkeepers who were too locked in their traditions and too blinded by intolerance and idiocy to see that they would stand to double their profit as well. A rising sea lifts all boats. I demanded they grant acceptance to all Calians interested in doing business in our city, or I would triple their taxes—for the good of the people, you understand.”
“That’s why De Luda was with you.”
“Yes. While he didn’t agree with my ideas, he was obligated to make the introductions. Ironically, he was murdered by the very people who would have benefited from his continued assistance.”