21 Saun 722
Continued from here.
Maxine had developed a love-hate relationship with daylight. The rise of the sun was the last thing her hungover mind or body in withdrawal wanted to bear most mornings. Most trials she had slept through the brunt of it, crawling out from wherever she'd slept no earlier than mid afternoon. The development in her curse status had changed that. During the breaks of light were the only ones she wasn't outwardly hated, distrusted, and beholden to every stranger she met. For just a little while until night fell she was reminded what it was like to be a person. More importantly, it allowed her to further her other ambitions.
For now, Saun was her favorite season.
Alice jumped with a surprised shriek when she spied the shadow lurking in the archway to the courtyard. The laundry bin dropped to the ground, spilling soiled linens and clothes all over the swept wooden floors of the small little building. Maxine remained in the dark but offered a broad smirk that was rewarded with a tunic thrown in her direction. She had her shirt pulled over her face again, obscuring half her face from the woman.
"Very jumpy for someone who picked the time and place," The Rusalka observed mildly.
"I said the back courtyard!" Alice hissed her defense, kneeling down to re-gather the discarded clothing.
"Oops."
Alice lifted the laundry bin and huffed her displeasure. She shoved past the stranger she rendezvoused with and made for the small door just beyond the archway. When she felt the Rusalka behind her she raised a hand. Max rolled her eyes but stopped. She waited with folded arms while the woman entered the place, dropped the heap off to the washerwoman, and returned in short order.
"How's your face?"
"Feels like you broke it," Alice answered with a frown. "I've been hit far gentler by brutish men."
"You told me to sell it."
"Well they certainly bought it."
"It's not like I knocked your jaw or an eyeball loose."
"I suppose not," Alice rolled her eyes. "Thanks for that."
"Your gratitude might've been less sarcastic if you just came away with me."
Alice ignored the comment and turned swiftly on her heels, short black hair bouncing around her shoulders. She led Maxine back through the archway, past the washerwoman's door, into the back courtyard, and threw open a set of cellar doors laid into the patchy earth behind the building. Max watched with interest as the small woman scooped a lantern from the wall as she descended down the short stairs, lighting it to illuminate a small room below ground. She shook her head and glanced around. When she saw no eyes upon them she followed Alice down and closed the giant doors behind them.
The dim glow of the lantern illuminated the tiny storage cellar. Along the walls were handmade wooden shelves lined with canned foods, dried herbs, and stocks of lye and dyes the Rusalka imagined aided the wash work. Alice set the lantern down at a rickety little table in the center of the room. A couple of dirty chairs were unstacked and placed at either end of the table before Alice took her seat. Max raised an eyebrow, but when the whore didn't waver, she resigned to sit across from her.
"The washerwoman's husband is a scoundrel," Alice explained with a tinge of disgust coloring her words. "A married man with a paramour. He's a dull, stupid man and his harlot is a hopeless romantic. He has friends with my...employers. When he heard I used to write...before...he convinced them to loan me out every so often to help his wife with her duties. A favor." Alice gestured to a small section of shelving stocked with paper, quills, and ink. "A ruse. I get out of the wash if I pen poetry for his lover. I told him I couldn't think with all the scrubbing and cloth beating, so he gave me this space to work when I'm here. It's the only place I can ever be alone."
"So, what?" Max eyed the musty surroundings carefully. "Your slavers just let you run off alone? Not a care in the world whether you'll come back, like you're a cat or something?"
"I told you. I won't leave those girls."
"They're that sure?"
"They have collateral on all of us. Especially me."
"They must have something you really love."
"Don't we all have something like that?"
Maxine pressed her lips into a hard line at the rhetorical question. She disciplined her mind and didn't allow it to run down the path of the ask. Instead she adjusted herself in the noisy chair, leaning forward to rest her elbows on the equally unsteady table.
"So how do you want to do this?" the Rusalka asked. "You said you had a plan already to bust you and your little friends out. Details?"
"Not yet," the whore countered carefully. "We need to get to know each other first. Before we do anything else."
"Now there's a line I never hear."
"Seriously? Is this a joke to you?"
"I think you'd prefer me not to answer that, actually. My brain is fried and my humor is dark. Been a rough go. What do you want to know?"
"How did you do it? The Dorrick Lodge? How did you free Emily?"
"Easy. Thought we were taking this relationship slow?"
"We don't trust each other. That's going to have to change for either of us to get what we want, I should think." Alice pointed an accusing finger. "The problem first, I think, is that you know what I want but I don't know your motives. Let's start there."
"Fine."
Maxine ran her fingers through her hair. Alice had made a good point about the necessity of trust. It was odd to hear someone entertain that concept with her again. Part of her yearned not to ruin that. The whore had proven at least trustworthy enough not to tattletale immediately on her. That had to be worth something. Yet it wasn't enough to convince her to show all her cards.
"I knew someone who had a debt to the men at that lodge," she started. "I don't think I need to paint a picture for you about what went on, and they were never gonna let her go. She got into that trouble because of me. So I got her out." Max leaned back and tugged up a corner of her shirt, revealing the bright scar of the wound she'd suffered during the endeavor. "Drugs. That's what got her into it. You don't look like a junkie though. Neither did the other girl I saw them drag down to the street wherever you were supposed to go yesterday, after. So what do they have on you girls out here?"
"We're foreign," Alice admitted. She pulled down her shirt collar to reveal a brand, the letter "S" over the skin covering her heart. "Slaves, but not by name here. We came from the west. One way or another, each of our families fell into trouble with our Guardians, that's what we're supposed to call them, Guardians." She sighed and her blue eyes turned melancholy. "All of us pay our family's debts. They sold us, but it's a fucked up contract. The debts are paid when the Guardians decide. If we run or refuse to work, they send back word and our families die. That's the collateral. We all have it. We love our families, and so we have no choice."
"How do they get away with that here?"
"Think about it. They say we are free to go, but we will all choose to stay. How can you argue slavery when the slaves will fight you to stay with their masters, and will deny the arrangement for what it is?"
"Fucking diabolical."
"They're a bunch of assholes but the Guardians are not stupid."
"But you're not all here because of drugs?"
"No. Whoever you knew probably got into it with a branch, or someone new who operates locally. That's something new or on a creative whim. The Guardians are nomads. It would make sense though. They pay attention to ties that bind, and addiction can be as strong, even stronger, than love."
"And what? They just whore you out?"
"Yes and no. We do whatever work we're told. Whatever they ask."
Maxine's brow furrowed. This was much more complex than she ever expected. She thought she'd been staring at a brothel, a big filthy party house of sin like the Lodge. These women were not like Sabrina. They were not just drugged and whored out on a whim to pay a debt. Their binds of service ran far deeper, straight into their cores and into their darkest fears and loyalties. Their binds were of duty and love.
"Who are the Guardians?" Max shook her head incredulously. "What do they want?"
"Nuh uh," Alice stopped her with a waggle of a finger. "My turn."
Max sighed and leaned back in her chair. She bounced her foot for a moment and eyed the jars encircling them, trying not to gag on the scent of mold. Her hand waved to welcome Alice to take her turn.
"You said Emily is home?" the slave narrowed her eyes. "Elaborate."
"I don't know what more there is to say," Max admitted. "She's back on her farm with her father and brothers. Her old man patched me up and booted me out as soon as I could travel."
"What does the farm look like?"
"I don't fucking know."
"Come on. Indulge me."
"It's...a farm. Shitty. Old. It used to be beige but its so fallen apart I can hardly tell what it must've been like when there was a woman to make it a home. Big field. Big tree. Place was small. Her fathers a real asshole."
"Reevi Head."
"No," Max corrected her. "Powder. And alcohol."
"So you're not lying then."
"No. Her old man plans to hide her there for all eternity I guess. Figured that's maybe where I would take you."
"That bastard..."
"Fuck he do to you?"
"Emily never listened to me." Alice's eyes flared. "I tried to tell her. I know these people, how they work. Her father got into trouble with a new branch in Etzos, probably some of the same people your friend got into it with. She wasn't kidnapped at random. He owed a debt, and he couldn't bear her to know he sold her. Now he's trying to play dear old dad, like he didn't whore her out himself because he was selfish. Fiend."
Maxine tilted her head. It made sense. The Old Farmer was a real piece of shit, even if he did save her life in return for inadvertently returning his daughter. He had her pinned the moment he laid eyes on her, and she knew she saw him just the same. He might've wanted to believe himself the honorable soldier, the noble family man beneath his addictions and flaws. He was no different. In a pinch he sold his own flesh and blood. Whether he lost sleep over it didn't change it.
'When they find her they'll kill her," Alice warned with a tremble to her voice. "They don't let us go. Not for any price. It's the principle, the lesson. They are not to be trifled with or they will make you suffer."
"Well I think Emily was blessed with Luck," Max said thoughtfully. "They're all dead, them inside that lodge that night. Dead and the whole thing set to flame. Some of your lot too. I don't think there's anyone knowing her well enough to look, and I doubt they're sure who is who in that mess of char and bone. Second chance."
"Second chance? For who?" Alice scoffed. "Her father should burn for what he's done. I am glad for her safety though. Grateful, even."
"So her dad's a bastard but yours isn't?"
"No," Alice answered softly, expression falling. "No, he isn't."
"Back to me now?"
"I suppose."
The Rusalka drummed her fingers on the table. Her mind was racing ahead, trying to absorb the information she was given and apply it back to memories and details she'd picked up along her way. The connections were slow to come. She hadn't had her Ambrosia yet. Things were still stubbornly hazy.
"The Guardians," Maxine regathered her thoughts. "Who are they? What is their purpose?"
"That's a complicated thing to try to answer," Alice frowned. She brushed her hands together, knocking the rust she'd gathered from carrying the old lantern off her skin. "They keep us in the dark as much as they can. They only tell us enough that we can complete our tasks, and they try not to talk around us about their agendas. They loan shark. Sword for Hire. Kill. Pleasure. They travel gaining wealth and helping others gain influence in exchange for their own spheres of power."
"What's their business with the Dorricks?"
"Tristane Dorrick, you mean? The politician?" Alice waited for Max to nod before continuing. "Power. He wants it and so do they. They're helping him sway the public perception of him in his favor. Back door deals, campaign parties, killings even I'd bet. Right now I think they're using access to his jewel trade and family wealth to grow their own resources. Once they seat him, it'll become a partnership far more than he'd ever bargain for. They'll own him. That's the point."
"You're not even from here. The fuck they care about Etzos for?"
"I have no idea."
Alice got up abruptly enough that Maxine found herself standing as well, hand flashing toward her waist. The slave eyed her suspiciously before slowly backing toward the shelves. Just as slowly she procured the paper, an ink well, and a quill. She set the items down on the table and eased back into the chair. The Rusalka watched her dip the quill before she settled back down too.
"Poetry, remember?" Alice said with an arched brow. "Now who's jumpy?"
"Funny."
"Don't worry I can talk and write." The slave tapped the excess ink from the quill and smoothed out the paper. Her eyes went to the canvas, away from the armed stranger. "So, now that we've traded information...what is it you want specifically from me? Letting me go back was a risk. What do you suppose might be your reward?"
"You're inside somewhere I can't be," Max said, simply. "I need a spy. Someone who can warn me about what they're doing and when they're doing it, so I can act."
"Like?"
"I want to stop The Dorricks from gaining power in Etzos. I need you to snitch out your little Guardians, help me connect them to Tristane especially."
"How do you plan to stop them from seating him?"
"You let me worry about that."
"You're asking me to do something they might actually kill me and my family for if they discover me."
"Only if they discover you." Max watched the quill move expertly on the paper, making smooth and pretty letters she couldn't decipher. "Isn't the risk worth your freedom?"
"I hope. That depends on you."
The two women sat in silence for a couple bits while Alice wrote lines of poetry in the dim lantern light of the storage cellar. A couple times she balled up the paper and tossed it, but eventually she seemed satisfied with her work and smiled. She put the quill down.
"Shall I read it?" Alice's eyes danced with mirth.
"Knock yourself out." Max rolled her eyes but a smirk twitched at the corners of her lips.
"Okay, let's see," Alice mused as she pulled her expression into a sarcastically stoic visage with a pull of her hand. She cleared her throat and sat up straighter in her chair.
"Yellow blossoms
A lovely bosom
The place of comfort I lay mine head
I yearn for the cold place beside me
To warm with the return
Of your supple body to my bed
Your fingers on my skin
Drive my every whim
Command me to fill you
To your brim
Let your love spill over me
I am but a simple man
Oh my dear sweet, sweet Anne
I will one trial have your hand
And then I'll die a happy man"
"Oh, wow," Maxine guffawed. "That...that was..."
"Oh, shut up," Alice giggled, throwing one of the balled up papers at her audience and breaking her stern character. "She's an even bigger idiot than he is. Trust me. She'll love this rubbish, even if it makes me ill to scrawl it."
"What did that take you? All of five bits?"
"Not like he's paying for high quality. If he wanted a real woman's touch and some actual prose he'd at least get me a chair that's not bound to break beneath me."
"Mr. Washman is getting at least a sad handjob tonight. No doubt."
"You're the worst."
"Now that line I hear all the time."
The amusement shared between them existed for the time it took Alice to carefully dry, fold, and seal the stupid little "poem" in an envelope. She scrawled something on the front, passed the quill to her right hand, and then set the quill down on the table. Max grinned, noticing now that the woman had been writing in her non-dominant hand.
"I think I can help you," Alice decided finally. "I can dig. You get the information when the girls and I are freed though and not a moment before."
"Uh, no." Max laughed without enjoyment this time. "You will give me something I can use before I help you get out. I'm not risking exposing myself again unless you've proven it's worth my while too."
"Deal."
"Okay then."
"Ten trials from now you come back. Meet me in here. I'll have my plan ready by then for us to go over."
"Fair."
"Will you drop your shirt so I can see your face now?"
"No."
"A name at least?"
"I'll see you in ten trials, Alice."
Maxine rose from her seat and stomped up the cellar stairs. Alice watched as the stranger tossed the doors open and hastily exited. Then the doors fell back down, consuming the slave in the darkness save for her dim lantern.
Continued here.
