Tale of Birle (18 page)

Birle backed away from the soldier who came toward her, and Yul made a deep growling noise in his throat. Corbel drew his dagger. “You—girl. Unless you want to watch his heart cut out—”

Birle nodded, without a word. She understood. She looked up into Yul's sad monster face. “We have to,” she heard her voice say, and didn't recognize its sound. She made herself stand still while the soldier wrapped cold metal around her throat and pulled it tight. She felt his fingers at the back of her neck. Yul bent over so the taller soldier could reach up to place a gold band around his thick neck. The soldier closed the clasp and stepped quickly back.

Birle wondered how Orien was faring, with his two masters, and a collar around his neck.

“Now, girl—look at me.”

Corbel's eyes were yellowy brown, deep-lidded, and when she met them with her own, fear ran along her bones.

“You are to get the house in order, and keep it.”

Birle couldn't take in what he said; fear deafened her.

“This man will do heavy work.”

Birle nodded her head. She would have agreed to anything.

“All who see that collar will know you're of my house,” Corbel said. “Know you are under my protection. Thus, also, anyone who finds you will know whence you came. Joaquim is your master and he'll prove a soft one—but remember, you answer to me.”

Birle nodded her head. She couldn't move her eyes.

When Corbel turned his back to her, she thought her watery legs would collapse under her. But she held herself straight because the fear of what would happen if she fainted onto the floor—he might well cut her throat and throw her away, as more trouble than she would ever be worth; or take her back to market, and another purchaser—fear of that was greater than the fear she felt of Corbel. She looked at Yul, and could read confusion there. She reached out and put her hand on his heavy wrist, but it was as much to comfort herself as to comfort him.

“I know how you chose this one, Brother, so don't bother trying to explain. She's just like that other.”

“But she's not at all—” Joaquim protested.

“You deceive yourself, but that's no matter now. What did you pay for her?”

“A gold and five silvers,” Joaquim answered, meekly.

Corbel looked at Birle, then back to his brother. What he was thinking was clear to her.

“There was another man,” Joaquim explained. “He had paid as much for her. I offered him even more for her. He wouldn't have done it but that I mentioned your name. He would take only what he had paid.”

That statement seemed to satisfy Corbel. He laughed once, briefly and without gladness. “Well, she's young, and if no man has had her yet, she'll be clean. Maybe it wasn't so bad a bargain, Joaquim. And the man?”

“One gold.” Joaquim's voice had confidence now.

Corbel's silence burned in the room, but when he spoke his voice was cold. “Who cheats you cheats me. Who had the man?”

“Those same men who had the girl. They were two, with the look of pirates, and the smell, too. Bearded, well-fed men.”

Corbel lifted a hand and snapped his fingers. The two soldiers moved out into the street. Corbel turned at the doorway to throw a purse onto the floor and say, “I'll come back, to dine, tomorrow week. By then, the wagons from the south will have arrived and you can show me what you've accomplished, Brother, and I'll see if the girl can keep the house.”

He didn't take the time to pull the door shut behind him.

The three he left behind stood for a time in silence, in the shadowy room, lit by sunlight from the two open doors. As fear left her, grief rose up in Birle to take its place, covering her like a heavy hooded cloak. Her master, Joaquim, moved to close the door into the street and then turned, a shadowy figure now. “I expect you want to get started.”

Birle wanted nothing. Her chest was crushing her, so that every breath she drew must work to push her chest out, and even then she could not swallow enough air.

He came before her to look into her face. Birle didn't care what he thought. She hadn't the will to lift her head. “You're not ill, are you? Do you hear me?”

“Yes, my Lord,” Birle said.

“I'm no lord, child.”

“Yes, master,” Birle said.

He hovered in front of her for a little longer, then retreated from the room. Birle sank back down onto the floor. She pulled up her knees and wrapped her arms around them, and buried her face in the darkness of her skirt.

Hours later she heard him come back into the room. The odd whimpering noises Yul was making, she realized as she rose to her feet before her master, he had been making for some time. She recognized in Yul's eyes an expression she had seen in the eyes of her little sisters. “Where is the privy?” she asked the master.

The little building was outside, at the far end of a long, low building attached to the house. Yul went into it first, bowing his head at the low door. Behind the house, two shoulder-high walls ran back, as far as she could see, shadowed in the dim light of day's end. Her hand went up to touch the chain at her neck, a smooth band as cool as the grass under her bare feet. The sky behind the house flamed with sunset, and darkness crept toward her over the walled yard. Orien's name was a call she could cry out into the darkness, but it came from her lips as a whisper.

Yul waited while she used the privy, and they walked together back into the house, where her master had lit a candle. Birle sat down on a stool and watched him attempt to make a fire. He arranged and rearranged logs, and at each change patiently struck his flint under them. Finally, he turned to say, “I thought you might have built a fire.”

“Yes, master.” The woodbox beside the hearth held kindling, and pieces of straw braided together into twists, as well as logs. She made a small pile of kindling wood, then put three of the straw twists under it. Those she ignited with the tinderbox he handed to her. When little flames smoked upward she laid the three smallest logs across the irons; when those had caught fire, and burned, she laid fatter logs upon them. As the flames cradled the logs she sat back on her heels before the hearthstone. She wasn't dreaming, she wasn't thinking, she wasn't remembering—as long as her eyes stayed on the flames, the darkness that threatened to overwhelm her was kept at bay.

“You must eat,” the master's voice spoke gently.

Birle rose to sit at the table, where he had set out a round loaf of bread, a round of cheese, a knife, and three metal tankards of wine. Yul ate hungrily and drank thirstily, with little murmuring grunts. Birle could not swallow bread, nor cheese. At her second mouthful of wine, her belly closed up. Her hands, as she watched them, lay still on the table. The flickering firelight flowed over her hands like water.

The master rose from the table, to open a broad cupboard beside the fireplace. “You'll sleep here,” he said.

A bed had been built into the thick wall. Birle climbed up into it. She turned her back to the room and fell into sleep.

DISTANT BELLS ROUSED HER. SHE
awoke to fear, and grief, and hunger, and the tangled notes of the distant bells. The room she slept in was empty and dark. The fire had burned out, but the morning wasn't cold. Birle climbed down from her bed and went outside to the privy.

Here, in this southern country, it was full spring. The air glowed with the gentle light of the rising sun. The ground was soft with young grass. Birle's hand went up to the band at her neck. Already she was accustomed to finding it there, to its meaning.

This house had its own well. A low, circular stone wall had a bucket at its side. She dipped the bucket into the well, then drank from it. Clear, cold, clean—the water refreshed her. Was she such a creature to become so quickly accustomed even to this ill fortune?

At the question, grief swept over her again, bringing not tears but a darkening of the morning and a weight on her shoulders she couldn't lift them against. Already the day seemed long to her. She lifted handfuls of water to her face. She washed her hands and as much of her arms as she could reach, then her legs, hiking her skirt up, and finally her feet. She emptied the brown water from the bucket onto the ground and watched it soak in among the tender shoots. She had to go back into the house, she knew it, and that she did not wish to meant nothing. Her wishes meant nothing.

Her master was sitting at the table when she entered. She didn't speak a word to him. She built a fire, then opened the shutters that closed over the windows of the house, to let light in. She brought down the remainder of the bread and cheese, to place before him. She filled a tankard with wine from the jug. Then she stood by the fire.

He was not so old as she had thought at first, Master Joaquim. He was a man ripe in years, but not old. What had given her the false impression was his stooping shoulders, the odd, distracted manner of him, and the lack of care he took for his hair and clothing. Now Birle noticed that his hair, though gray, was thick, and his skin, though faded, was not spotted with age.

“Have you eaten?”

Birle shook her head.

“Drunk?”

“There's a well,” she told him.

“Sit down, eat. I have to warn you. Corbel will come back, and if he isn't pleased with what he finds he'll sell you. For all that he is my father's son, I wouldn't be able to stop him. Sit and eat, please.”

Birle obeyed.

“This”—her master waved his arm around vaguely—“all of it is Corbel's.” He wore the same shirt he had the day before, and the same baggy leggings, as if he slept in his clothes.

“The house.” Birle wanted to be sure she understood him aright.

“Yes, and other houses, and the city, and the lands around it, and all that they contain. The mines particularly, because of the gold. Corbel has installed me here, in this house, because he has a use for me. I am,” he explained, “a philosopher.”

“I don't—” Birle started to say, then stopped. It didn't matter whether she knew the word or not. He was her master, which was all that must concern her.

Her unfinished question made him smile, a quiet turning up of the ends of his mouth that made him look as sad and wise as the moon. “Nobody does know what that word means. It means nothing, except that I can claim some understanding, some knowledge of things. Corbel hopes—he's heard tales of a stone that turns base metals into gold.”

“Is there such a thing?” Birle asked.

He looked thoughtfully at her, but not as if he saw her. “Men have dreamed of it, although none has ever held it in his hand, not to my knowledge. I cannot say that there is such a thing, no. But equally I cannot say there is not. Why should a man be able to dream of it if it cannot be? If it is so impossible, then what puts it into a man's mind? Greed puts many things into men's mind, and fear does too. But men dream of other things, as well—of justice, of the lost golden age, of an order to their world such as that which orders the tides and seasons, of medicine to cure all sickness. . . .” His voice drifted off into silence, and he sat unseeing, lost in his own thoughts.

Birle waited to be told what she must do. She heard the hooves of horses and voices of people in the street, muffled by the thick walls and closed door. She wondered what had happened to Yul, where he was. She had forgotten him, and remembering, she interrupted her master's silence. “Where is Yul?”

“Who?” he asked. “I don't know your name. Have you a name?”

“Birle.”

“Is Yul the man? I sent him to sleep in a storeroom. Is he still sleeping?”

“He might be.” She spoke cautiously. “He's a simple.”

“I thought those two seemed too pleased with themselves. When he's told what to do, can he then do it?”

“I think so. I'm not sure of it. He rowed, and ate. He's not as simple as they thought, the men who—”

“But we must get to work!” Joaquim rose suddenly, purposefully. “The stables need to be taken down, and—there's much that must be done before the wagons get here, if I'm to do Corbel's will.”

“What about me?”

“You've your work in the house. I don't know how it's done but there's the house to keep. Although you might be unhappy, I do hope—he will return, Corbel, and he'll make good his word. His displeasure is a thing for all of us to fear.”

Birle didn't need reminding. The taste of fear, bitter as steel, had not left her mouth since Ker had first spoken to them. She ought to get accustomed to it, since, she thought—grief lowering over her—she had grown accustomed to so much else strange and terrible and sorrowful. “Master?”

“What is it?”

“I wonder—in my own land, there's a servant's fair, and some are hired while some are purchased.” He didn't seem to be listening but she made herself go on and ask the question. “Those that are purchased give six years of service, after which . . .” Birle wasn't sure she had the courage to hear his answer, if his answer was what she feared it might be. “I wonder, in this country, for how long . . . ?”