The watchman with the singed face calls over a younger colleague, pulls back the latch, and lets all three of them into the interior courtyard, which is laid out around a well with a pump. The little square patch of sky above feels as distant as if Anna Stina were viewing it from the bottom of a shaft. Behind the windows in the wings, each one fitted with bars, shadowy figures can be glimpsed, bent over their work. The far side of the yard is taken up by an older building, akin to the manor houses that Anna Stina has seen on the outskirts of the Southern Isle, constructed more than a century ago for the enjoyment of the wealthy. It must have been here first and become a part of the workhouse with the construction of the rest. The watchmen come to a stop on the gravel. Here they must wait for the custodian.
He is in no hurry. If the Dragon is feeling the same anxiety as Anna Stina, she doesn’t show it. Instead she is nagging one of the watchmen who have been set to guard them. She is jumping up and down and asking for the latrine. He shrugs his shoulders.
“You’ll keep silent, if you have any sense at all between your ears. Petter Pettersson will be here shortly and you’d do best not to anger him.”
The Dragon gives him a look of fury and makes a face behind his back as soon as he turns away. They wait.
The custodian is an enormous man, his shoulders wider than Anna Stina could reach with both arms stretched out. The blue uniform does not fit him. He wears his jacket open and she doubts he would be able to button it even if he wanted to. Sweat pours off him in the heat. His face is large and round, split by a mouth spanning from ear to ear, with a nose that is wide and upturned so it looks like a snout and peering eyes set deep in bloated flesh. His thick head of hair is bound at the neck into a tight knot. His skin is covered in old scars and his voice is a throaty bass.
“Welcome to our humble shed, my little chickens. Pettersson is my name and I am the custodian of this place along with my colleague, Hybinett. Your presence here has been requested in order to mend your sinful ways. Names?”
It is the young watchman who points and answers.
“Anna Stina Knapp. Karin Ersson.”
Pettersson inspects them both. Anna Stina lowers her gaze in the way she has learned that such men prefer. The Dragon stares back at him with defiance. She is swaying on the spot in order to relieve her pressing needs. Pettersson points at her with a hand that is as large as a smoked ham.
“What is the matter with Miss Ersson?”
“The girl says she needs to piss.”
“Is that so, Miss Ersson? You’re of course accustomed to running around and being able to tinkle at will, free as a beast in the wild.”
The Dragon waits before she answers. Anna Stina hears the unspoken challenge that Pettersson’s words carry, though he has made his voice mockingly gentle, and she prays quietly that Karin Ersson will have enough sense not to reach for the gauntlet that has been thrown. But she does. She tilts her chin and spits out her answer.
“I don’t see what anyone else has to do with me emptying my bladder.”
The corners of Petter Pettersson’s mouth turn up in a smile that makes Anna Stina shudder. A well-fed barn cat with a mouse in its claws. He slowly moistens his lips with the tip of his tongue as he walks closer.
“Let me have a look at you.”
He takes Karin Ersson’s chin between his thumb and forefinger and turns her face up to the light.
“Oh, I’ve known girls like Miss Ersson. They brighten the pubs and cathouses of the city. Do you like to dance?”
Anna Stina wants to tell her not to take the bait, to keep her mouth shut in the hopes that he will get tired of his game. But she can do nothing. The Dragon smiles with confidence.
“I can certainly take a couple of turns on the dance floor.”
Pettersson feigns admiration and turns to his colleague.
“Isn’t that what I thought? I know my workhouse girls all right. Are you a skilled dancer, Miss Ersson, or do you lean on your partner like a sack of potatoes and get tired after a polonaise or two?”
The Dragon gives a spiteful laugh.
“You’re looking at someone who can dance all night long while others wear out and fall to the floor!”
Pettersson nods.
“So you say! I’d like to take your word for it, but I’ve learned that people so often overestimate their abilities. Would you care to dance a little right here, just for me?”
The Dragon hesitates. After a while she doesn’t know what else to do except take a few jumping steps on the spot. Pettersson shakes his head.
“No, no. Around the well. That’s how we do it out here on the Scar. Why don’t you dance around it a couple of times so that we can see how good you are?”
He offers her his arm, bends one knee as he bows and scrapes his foot. She allows herself to be led to the well where the pump leans out over a stone basin to collect any spilled water. At first, the Dragon looks unsure of herself but then summons her resolve and with a grin places her arms around an invisible partner and starts to dance in a rapid three-beat that only she can hear. She circles the well once as she whirls around and around. Pettersson claps his hands and whistles.
“Well, how about that! It turns out Miss Ersson can dance after all. May we ask for another round, and with the same conviction?”
Her second round is much like the first. But when Pettersson asks for a third and fourth the novelty has worn off. The Dragon has tired of the game and lets her arms hang at her sides as her pace starts to drag. When Pettersson claps and asks for yet another turn around the well, she slows to a stop and folds her arms across her chest.
“Now that’s enough dancing. It’s no fun anymore and I still need to go to the latrine or to a bush if that’s all there is. Or just around the corner.”
Without his eyes leaving Karin Ersson, Pettersson snaps his fingers at the watchman who is standing next to Anna Stina. He traipses off across the courtyard and out through the front doors of one of the two wings without a word. All humor is gone from Pettersson’s voice when he speaks again.
“You can piss later. Now you dance. Come on, then, Miss Ersson, do another round. Soon Löf will be back and he’ll bring a little surprise for us. You have time for one more round before. Two, even, if you’re lucky.”
Her movements no longer resemble a dance, more like a half run with the occasional skip. When Löf, the watchman, returns he has a small sack over his shoulder and Pettersson takes a few steps closer to the Dragon. Löf hands him the sack and he holds it out to the Dragon with an arm as thick as a tree trunk.
“Master Erik is in here. In a moment, I’ll introduce the two of you.”
From the sack, he takes out a long, braided leather strap with a sturdy grip. It is about two ells in length and comes to a slender point at the other end.
“You may not have seen a lash before. We don’t need the help of Master Erik as long as you keep pace nicely. Do another round now and with a little more bounce, if you please.”
The Dragon does three and a half more rounds before Pettersson strikes his first blow. She has slowed down to the point where he can match her speed with his long boot-clad strides. The crack of his whip echoes between the walls of the yard and her yell follows. The slender leather at the end of the whip has caught her above her ankle and left a red welt. She bites her lip to keep the tears back but one can hear by her distressed breathing that Karin Ersson is on the verge of crying. Pettersson has also noticed.
“Oh, but that was nothing, Miss Ersson. Master Erik can do so much worse. Keep dancing and we shall see if he’ll be forced to partner you again.”
Faces have appeared in the windows around the yard, gaunt and pale. The Dragon dances five more rounds until he strikes again, now across her calf with a force that draws blood. After seven more rounds, the Dragon loses control of her bladder and dances on with a wet skirt. The salt stings her lacerations and the crying begins, at first almost imperceptibly, then with increasing volume. Soon one can barely distinguish the yowling sounds she makes when a blow strikes her from the rest of her noise. She pleads and wails, promises Pettersson one thing after another. He takes no notice. Finally she simply calls for her mother, in long drawn-out screams. All the toughness the Dragon has developed in her years on the streets of Maria parish is stripped from her by the whip, in layers, as if Pettersson is peeling one of the onions out of Anna Stina’s basket. Soon a terrorized child is all that remains. After two hours she can only crawl, as Pettersson lets the blows rain down over her thighs and back. When the sun is at its zenith, the bell in the tower begins to peal. The spinners shuffle out of their rooms to be fed. Some of them point and laugh at the Dragon’s dance. Most of them can’t even summon the energy to look at her. While Anna Stina stands there with her eyes closed, forgotten and on legs that tremble with the effort of simply bearing her weight for the duration, she feels something inside her take the opposite turn. A shell begins to form around her. She hears how a monster of a man torments a girl for his enjoyment and with the law at his back, without anyone moving so much as a finger in protest. Pettersson is of the same ilk as Anders Petter at Children’s Lea, as Lysander in his office, as the magistrate in the courts, as Fischer and Tyst with their cudgel, rope, and rapier. While the Dragon draws a circle of blood around the well, Anna Stina swears that she will never again be that defenseless girl, however she may look to the world. In thought and action, she must leave this despicable place and she must do so quickly before she loses herself and joins that shuffling flock of living dead that the spinners have become. For Karin Ersson, it is too late. Anna Stina knows that she will be a dragon no more.
Pettersson is panting so that his bellows of a chest heaves under his shirt, partly from the exertion but more, Anna Stina realizes with horror, out of arousal. He stops to wipe the sweat from his brow and catches sight of Anna Stina standing there next to Löf, who has started nodding off on his feet in the midday heat.
“Hey, Jonatan! Take that one and show her a bed, a place to eat, and her spinning wheel. Bring me a bottle when you come back. Discipline is thirsty work and I have a feeling that Ersson here still has a waltz or two in her, even if you wouldn’t believe it by looking at her.”