It’s well after dark when Lark returns, treading silently into the workroom. Through half-lidded eyes, I watch her stand in the doorway, looking over the rest of us bedded down on the floor in an array of quilts, woolen blankets, and old grain sacks—Soe is nearly at the end of all available cloth in the house. Lark’s gaze lingers on Veran, who’s crammed as close as possible to the large press, leaving a generous space with the nicest of the three quilts empty for her. If she had come back twenty minutes ago, she’d have found him awake, his head lifting at every creak and sigh of the house, but now he’s still and silent, his head pillowed on his arm.
Lark steps quietly past me, gathers up the blanket left for her, and disappears back into the kitchen. I hear the front door drift open and closed again.
Gently, I ease Iano’s arm off my waist, pick up my blanket, slate, and the bundle I’d wrapped up earlier, and follow her out to the porch.
Her head snaps up when I open the door. She pauses for half a breath, and then goes back to determinedly arranging the quilt on the wooden slats of the porch.
“I cannot sleep in there,” she mumbles in her rough Moquoian.
“Uah.” I smooth a corner of her blanket for her and then sit down an arm’s length away, leaning against the boards of the house. Her coydog Rat comes to me with his nose in the air—I scratch him behind his giant ears and then open the bundle in my lap. I toss him one of the meat pies that Soe put together with the last of the stew, and then pass the rest of the bundle to Lark.
She takes it hesitantly, looking at the lumpy pies inside. Slowly she removes one and then hands the bundle back to me. I shake my head.
“For you,” I say.
“Lu’étci?” She lapses into Eastern—all of them?
“Uah.”
“What about tomorrow?”
I touch my chalk to the slate. WE’VE PLANNED A MARKET RUN. THERE WILL BE MORE FOOD
She peers at it, her gaze moving slowly at the letters. Her lips silently form a few of the words.
“Market . . . ,” she says. “Who? I and you, we are both wanted. Bounties. This is a stupid idea.”
I write again, trying to keep it as neat as possible so it will be easier to read. SOE, IANO & VERAN WILL GO. SOE IS LOCAL & THERE’S NO BOUNTY FOR IANO OR VERAN
“It is still very stupid.”
I shrug. IT’S A RISK, BUT WE NEED FOOD. GIANTESS IS SMALL. NO SOLDIERS, NO SHERIFFS
She huffs her disapproval and sets the bundle of meat pies down next to her, looking away from me. I hold back a sigh. Maybe this was a bad idea. This would be a difficult conversation to have even if I had a mouth that worked and we could easily speak each other’s native language. I begin to wipe the chalk off my slate.
“You are all so stupid,” she says.
I pause, looking up at her, surprised that rather than sounding angry, she sounds frustrated. She sighs, scrubs her face with her palm, and then lifts the meat pie and takes a bite.
She waves between us. “We are funny,” she says without any trace of humor. “One girl who cannot talk in Moquoian and another who cannot talk at all.”
“Your Moquoia’ okay,” I say. Better than my Eastern—now more than ever, since it has so many quick, tipped consonants.
“My reading is bad.” She finishes the pie in another few bites and brushes crumbs from her fingers, but she doesn’t take a second from the bundle. She rests her wrists on her knees, gazing out at the rain.
I squint into the darkness, where I can just make out the glint of a wet horse’s back. Did a horse get out? And why are there so many s’s, d’s, and t’s in that simple question?
I scribble the question on my slate instead.
“I build a hitching post,” she says. “The girl horse is making the other bad. Mad.” She waves over her head. “I try to tie together the branches so she is not wet, but it is not so good.”
THAT WAS A LOT OF WORK, I write. THANK YOU
She shrugs. “It is good to work—it makes me forget for a small time.”
I nod. That I can understand. ME TOO
She glances at my words, and then looks away. Rat creeps on his belly toward the bundle of pies, his nose twitching. She pets him absently, still staring off into the dark.
“When were you a slaver?” she asks.
“A few year’ ago,” I say. My th’s are still thick and spitty, but I go on anyway. “Three year. For three mo’th.”
“What did you do?”
I tap my slate, and she reluctantly looks back at my letters. SCRIBED. HEALTH RECORDS
“Yes? Does it pay you good?”
She means it to be hurtful, and I can’t blame her. I shake my head. NO PAY—THEY BROKE CONTRACT
This surprises her. She studies my letters, probably trying to be sure she has the meaning right. “T’oit . . . you are under bond?”
WAS, I write. I’ve noticed that the most common errors for Eastern speakers is saying everything in the present tense.
“You have this?” She pulls back her right sleeve to show the scarred concentric circle brand—only hers doesn’t have the usual release line down the middle.
I shake my head. BLACK MARKET RING—NO BRAND. I wipe the slate. SOE & I WERE LOCKED INSIDE
She looks from my slate to me. “For three months?”
I nod.
She turns back to gaze out at the rain. In a furtive movement, as if thieving, she reaches into the bag of meat pies and pulls out another. The corner of my mouth lifts—I’m glad she’s eating.
“Why do you not try to protect yourself?” she asks, then waves a hand. “I mean—ä puirle . . . defend. You are not saying things to defend yourself. Everyone else is fast to defend you.”
I shrug. THEY’RE MY MISTAKES. I HAVE TO OWN THEM. I wipe the slate. CAN’T DO BETTER IF I DON’T ADMIT TO THEM
She stares at my words, and then up at me. Then, as if realizing what she’s doing, she turns back to her meat pie and takes a too-big bite. Rat slurps up the crumbs that fall.
I rotate my wrist—already it’s starting to twinge. I clear the slate again. VERAN TOLD ME ABOUT THE FIRE AT TELLMAN’S
She swallows the bite of pie. “He did?”
ONLY ME. NOT THE OTHERS. He pulled me aside as they were cleaning up dinner—I got the sense he wanted me to be aware of the possible consequences while not casting Lark in too bad a light to Iano and Soe. I let her see my grin.
WISH I COULD HAVE SEEN KOBOK’S FACE, I write.
The corner of her mouth flickers, but she smothers it. “I probably should have not.” She rubs the back of her neck uneasily. “I do not . . . think of all the things . . . I do not know of all the things I am supposed to know.”
YOU MEAN AS PRINCESS?
She glances at the slate and then flings her gaze away, as if the word hurts to look at. She leans against the wall of the house and sighs.
“What in the damn,” she says.
I smile.
She frowns. “Swearing is not so fun in another language.”
“Mm,” I commiserate. I write on the slate. NOT AS FUN IN WRITING, EITHER
Another brief grin, and then another sigh. “I do not know what to do.” She waves her hands in her lap. “I think I . . . know myself, understand myself, and then . . . nothing. I know, I understand nothing. Inside of me, there is nothing.” She touches her chest, and then pauses with her fingers pressing her shirt. She puzzles at the rain, and then looks sideways to me.
“Maybe you know how that is feeling?”
I nod. “Uah.”
“This thing you were, you are not anymore? And cannot get it back?”
“Uah.”
She purses her lips.
BUT THAT’S NOT ALL THERE IS, I write. WE’RE ALIVE. YOU HAVE A FAMILY
“I did not want a family,” she says—wearily, not angrily. “I do not know how to be in a family. Veran is telling me things about this family, and I—how do I be with them? What are they thinking about me?”
THEY’LL PROBABLY BE SO HAPPY, SO RELIEVED
“Maybe outside. Maybe at first. But after time . . .” She spreads her hands helplessly. “My camp is my family because we understand each other. We have the same history, the same experience. But, lu’tuw, we are all breaking apart now. And my . . . new family, blood family . . . I do not understand them—they do not understand me. I have . . . done things.” She turns to face me. “I kill people. I attack people—I have attack my own family. I have run away from my family. I have steal things. How am I to be in a good, good, royal family?”
I purse my lips in thought, holding her gaze. I turn my chalk in my fingers, and then set it to the slate.
DO YOU PLAN TO KEEP DOING THOSE THINGS ONCE YOU DON’T NEED TO?
She reads my question, slowly. “No. But I still worry. I have still done this things. I cannot change them.”
No, that’s true. And I’d be naive to argue that a person’s past is of no import to their present.
HAVE YOU TALKED TO VERAN ABOUT IT? HE KNOWS THEM
She looks away. “Veran . . . I do not think he understands. Not all the way.”
MAYBE NOT. BUT HE CARES ABOUT YOU
She glances at my letters, and then sighs and rubs her eyes, muttering something in Eastern that I don’t quite catch.
I flex my wrist again—the fire is starting to flicker up my forearm, needling my elbow. But I have something else I want to say. I just wish I wasn’t limited to eight inches of slate to convey it.
HERE IS SOMETHING I’VE LEARNED, FROM MY TIME WITH THE SLAVERS, AND IN COURT:
I let her read, and then wipe it clean.
NOBODY CAN BE FAULTED FOR NOT KNOWING SOMETHING, I write, then erase. IT’S NOT A CRIME TO NOT KNOW EVERYTHING. Erase. THE CRIME COMES WHEN YOU KNOW, BUT DON’T ACT
VERAN DOESN’T KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU—HE CAN’T
YOU DON’T KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT HIM OR HIS WORLD
I DIDN’T KNOW HOW MY EARLY LIFE BENEFITED FROM SLAVERY
IANO DIDN’T KNOW HOW THE SYSTEM EXPLOITS BOND LABOR
THAT’S OK. IT’S OK NOT TO KNOW
IT JUST MEANS THAT ONCE WE LEARN, WE DO BETTER
WE WORK TO RIGHT WRONGS WE’VE PROFITED FROM
WE WORK TO BUILD A WORLD THAT’S BETTER FOR EVERYONE
THAT COMES FROM GENUINE LOVE
AND I THINK YOUR FAMILY WILL UNDERSTAND
I set down my aching hand, my wrist coated in chalk dust. Lark stares at my slate, transfixed. I realize I probably used some words she doesn’t know, but I didn’t have time to refine them.
She leans back, her face not exactly lighter, but quieter—less anguished. “You are very smart, Tamsin.”
“No’alwaysh,” I say.
“Maybe not. But I am thinking a lot of people could be good to hear those words. Might help some change its minds.”
“Hm.” I allow a chuckle. “I have a bad mouth an’ a bad wris’. You thell everyone for me.”
“Bad wrist?”
I roll my right wrist, grimacing at the pain.
“You cannot write a lot?”
I shake my head. “From bon’ work.”
“Oh. That is too bad. I am sorry.” She gives a dark, humorless laugh. “I am wishing we could trade—you take my talking and go be princess.”
“Pff,” I snort, picking up my chalk. AND YOU CAN JUST BE A SILENT HERMIT IN THE WOODS?
“It is sounding like a good idea, uah.”
I laugh, and she does, too. She digs in the cloth for another meat pie. Rat lifts his head. She breaks it in half and gives him a piece. We go quiet, listening to the rain hushing through the soaring boughs and the peeping of frogs down in the ferns. She savors the meat pie, eating it more slowly than the others and licking her fingers once she’s done.
“I am sorry I run away,” she says.
I don’t know if she means tonight, or last week. IT’S OKAY. THERE’S BEEN A LOT OF BIG CHANGES
“Uah.” She sighs. “Veran is okay?”
“Uah.” HE SAT UP FOR YOU FOR A WHILE. FELL ASLEEP JUST BEFORE YOU CAME BACK
“I wish he is sleeping good. When he is tired it makes him worse—his thing I tell you about, the fast shaking. Lu’tuw, I don’t know how your word is.”
SEIZURE, I write. I’VE READ ABOUT THEM
“Oh?” She raises her eyebrows. “Anything to make them better?”
I scrunch my lips. NOT THAT I’VE SEEN
She goes silent again, a more profound silence than the easy quiet a moment ago. Her gaze is unfocused, neither here nor there.
“I am tired,” she finally says.
I nod. Wrapping my blanket back around my shoulders, I stand. She hands me my slate.
“Tamsin—thank you,” she says. “For talking with me. I am not so angry as I am before. I am only . . .” Her lips move soundlessly, as if searching for a word, in either language, and finding none appropriate. “Tired,” she finishes. “I am very, very tired.”
“Uah.” More tired than just a late night’s tired. More tired than just a day’s ride tired. Life tired. World tired. I understand. I reach down and squeeze her shoulder.
“Have a goo’ nigh,” I say.
“Uah, you, too.” She kicks off her boots and lies down on the quilt with the air of someone used to sleeping on hard ground. Rat wriggles until he’s sprawled against her legs.
Quietly, I pass back into the house, tiptoeing among the others sleeping in the workshop. I slither back down against Iano, who curls against me but doesn’t wake.
Veran shifts in sleep, nudging the big press. I stare at its silhouette in the darkness, its big arm and stained clamp. I listen to Iano’s soft breathing, to Veran’s quiet snores, to the rain and frogs outside.
I’m glad Lark and I could ease the tension between us. But I’m not as relieved as I should be. Following me from the porch is the realization that I’ve finally put into concrete words what exactly my future consists of.
A silent hermit in the woods.
I wrote the words to make her laugh, but they crowd in on me now. I can’t lie to myself. If Lark wanted to trade, I would happily switch fates with her. The title of princess may terrify her, but I would take it in a heartbeat—not for the gilded society she’s worried about, but for the platform it comes with. A position of influence, with the power to change.
A position with a voice.