The Pearl Crucible - A Dardana Fenek Mystery - DARDANA FENEK (Part 2)
(Chapter 43 Part Two)
I opened my eyes to daylight.
Daylight, warmth. No handcuffs, no fetters, no rope. Just a soft bed. Covers on me.
I stared at the ceiling, sorting out where I was. Pretty frescoes painted decades ago: furies floating about, pursuing someone in a ship across the sea. An island full of nymphs. A hopper perched on a stony peak, its rotors atilt as a man and a woman poked around, exploring. Not Helioshad. Not the Palace of Justice, not the room behind my office, not Mama Solene’s …
Efan’s flat.
Efan’s flat. Ensign-Captain’s flat.
Sir’s flat.
Whoever he was to me.
And I—who was I?
I touched the collar around my neck, then looked at Barsina. It was late—it must be after midmorning, and yet there she still lay, asleep. Neither of our stingers had gone off, and neither one of us woke before dawn like we should. What kind of servants were we?
“Ishara,” I said, sitting up.
Barsina was buried in blankets, clutching her pillow. It was a bit warm in there now for that; the night chills long past.
I got out of bed. The women’s quarters. The bars were locked, the ladder removed from under the bed, and the door bolted. Prisoners, for now. Well, was I not a notorious runaway?
I looked in the mirror at myself, in my straight, plain night-chemise. The dermagen had done its magic, the dermaplasts had shriveled and blown away like petals, and there I was, whoever I was. Unwounded outside. Inside? In my mind? In my spirit? Ah, another question, that.
Even face, long black hair, locks thick and curled, brown skin, black eyes. No beauty, but proportioned. Straight nose. All my teeth (again.) Something citizenish in my expression, but I could relax my eyes and my mind if I wished and curtsey and kneel with the best of them.
But I didn’t want to, just then. Maybe for him, if he was there, like Barsina did for me.
“Sister doula.”
“Barsnjo.”
I went back to her and got back in bed, winding our arms together, knee to knee, brown to pale tan.
“We slept,” she said.
“Sure did.”
“Is the Sir here?”
“I don’t hear him, and the door’s locked.”
“That keeps us from working,” she said disapprovingly.
“I can hardly blame him.”
“It is sister doula who cannot be trusted. I do what I am told.”
“I’ve noticed that: except at inconvenient moments.”
I thought about my office. I had at least one case I needed to be working on. It was Fivesday, and I was four days late paying Narvi. Goddess bless you, Narvi. Probably end up working for Caruano Gatto you will.
Gatto. Caruano was a good egg, most days, when he wasn’t trying to stick a sack over my head and turn me over to Thelumene. He’d probably pay Narvi better than I did.
No, Miss Thelumene, I corrected myself. Get used to it … Io. Miss, Miss, Sir, Sir.
Io.
Throw my name away, let it melt like frost, like demaplasts. Io. Or whatever he chose to call me.
I hoped he wouldn’t call me Dardana. I didn’t want that. That was mine, my name for me. I didn’t want to have it turned into a name for another servant, a little bint on my knees with that on me like another collar. Everything I’d done made nothing. Let it go away with the me I’d made.
He’ll mark the back of my neck again, too, I thought. Make it all tidy and legal-like. Nice little lines and dots. Got my scars for nothing.
Better than hanging. Better than that other death.
“Are you all right, sister doula?”
“No,” I said. “Yes. And no again. Case is over and solved, and me without what’s left of my fifty drachms, and no more cases never.”
“Sister,” she said. “Are you crying?”
“No.” I pushed my face into my pillow. “Not at all,” I told it.
She made a clucking noise. “Everything is better,” she said. “We have a good Sir. A good position. A nice room. No one will hurt us.”
“Won’t he?”
“Not much, and if you get better about obeying, hardly at all.”
“I’ve been Dardana Fenek more than two and a half years, and I didn’t want to stop so fast.”
She kissed me and held me close. “I know. Miss. I know.”
“Dammit,” I said, and I was crying.
Well, she wasn’t wrong. Keep house, take a net bag to market, buy limorancios and potatoes and rosemary. Let the city go hang. Fuck off, Aulis, you old hag. The Sir would be on me at night, and there was comfort there. Unless he got bored of me. But there was Barsina too, so between the two of us, he could not get too bored—
Ah, but there was Barsina then and there, all blue eyes into my black eyes, nose to nose, lips to lips, so we will skip ahead a bit because, as I’ve said, that is between she and me only.
The amount of clothes we had left between us was limited, but we managed to look like two housegirls when he came home and let us out. He had a couple of parcels that he put on his desk by the street window, and a basket of food mostly prepared, which was pleasant because Barsina can cook but isn’t the best, and I have scarcely ever cooked at all except for those few months after I got my office and before I won Barsina. Trust me, you don’t want my cooking, and I worried that I’d be made second girl and have that as my first burden. Likely, though! I can’t say I’m first girl material compared to Barsnjo. Sir showered and emerged loosely dressed in white jerkin, trousers, and house shoes, and we served him and stood back, eyes down.
“Sit down and eat. You make me nervous, both of you like that.”
So we did, and he talked about what had happened: how the journals reported briefly on the interrupted executions and then about nothing at all. About Miss Orestia returning to Calypso with a panel-van full of new “students” for the Scyros school there. About the Fortunato palaco darkened and shuttered. About Thelumene—Miss Thelumene—flying back to Helioshad in disgrace. About Mama Solene, unrepentant and already, word had it, trying to order a new Barsina from the State Labor Facility.
I couldn’t help but give an un-servant-like snicker, feeling more myself as he talked to us. “That will take forever to pay off,” I said.
“Very true,” he said, looking at me with his boyish smile.
“So, Sir,” I asked, “does that sort of thing happen often?”
“What sort of thing?” he asked innocently.
“At the temeaeum,” I said. “Does the syndex run the city? Or do the syndeces run the world?”
“I am sure,” he said, spreading his hands, “that I have no idea what you are talking about.”
I wanted to ask more. I was sure that I would have difficulty being a servant. But hadn’t I always? Barsina looked at me warningly as I leaned forward, lips parting with questions. The old familiar itch crept on my calves and back and bum, and I sat back, biting them back. But he mostly looked amused.
He had us clear the table and pour him a cup of wine, and then I sat in a chair by him.
“Now, Io,” he said. “We are going to have to talk.”
“About what, Sir?”
“How long have they been calling you Nosy-panties?”
“From the first day militia knew I existed, Sir.”
“This is going to be a problem.”
“How so?” I asked slowly.
“Io, I can’t have you rattling around here all day pestering me about militia cases.”
“What! But—you were telling me, Sir—”
“And you were interested. Is that proper, Barsina?”
“No, Sir.”
“I don’t think, Io, that you are made to be a good servant. At all.”
He was very serious, and I sat there looking bleak while Barsina stood in the kitchen door and wrung her hands.
( … This way to Chapter Forty-three part 1 … ) ( … This way to Chapter Forty-three part 3 … )
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