Day 13, Season of Summer, 513 AV, 19th Bell
Kit's possessions were meager; they were what the slavers taken out of her trunk when they dragged her north. Her father's Treval Codex was gone, and who knew where it could have escaped too? The curious gift of a pewter necklace that choked who wore it had been likewise tossed aside, disguised in a moment of illusion as a rusty, worthless keepsake. Her mizas had been, ah, acquired by the slavers, and her chest lifted and dragged off for whatever purposes slavers had for an empty chest.
What she did have was two sets of clothes, one for performing, one not. She had a worn out old hat, an old ally who had stood by her while she performed and collected her mizas. She had two chemises she liked to wear in private, when freedom of movement didn't matter as much as having something soft and comfortable against her skin. And all the little mundane treasures she still had left . . . She considered leaving what she wasn't wearing back at the Cripple's place. Abandoning them and quietly vanishing away, taking her day's earnings and leaving them no real chance of keeping her from walking out.
. . . No. They were hers. Hers. And she was going to walk out of that damnable place with everything she could get. What mizas Kit had earned that day she stashed just out of sight, on top of a barrel, so that they would be there when Kit came back, whether she obtained her things or had to bail.
When Kit walked into the Cripple's hole she found Jet, his favorite slave waiting at the door. Like an obedient puppy parked on a doorstep.
He held out his hands expectantly, and Kit understood without language. Hand in today's take. There was a mess of power and implication in that. Hand in your take, or bad things happen. Jet knew that Kit had no choice, which made it satisfying beyond all belief when she smiled a sunny smile at him, waved and walked right by.
"Red," he said, calling on the slave name he'd picked out for her. "Red! Your earnings!"
Kit looked over her shoulder at him, a wicked look in her eye. It felt good to bury Red, to be completely and utterly Kit. "There's plenty. But not for you." His expression was a gem.
Jet wasn't small. He probably could have held her down if he'd gotten hold of her, but taking initiative wasn't in his bones. He turned around and marched further into the Cripple's home. He'd find their master and his master would solve the problem. She had a few minutes before Jet found the Cripple.
Best use it well, then.
Kit took the moment to storm down the stairs into the slave's quarters, trying to shove down the rising panic in her throat. She rushed to her bedroll, opened the sack she'd left conveniently out front where it was easy to reach and began shoving her things inside one after another. Footsteps? Not important, keep stuffing, keep . . .
"Red," she heard the cripple say in his raspy, broken voice. And she stood up stiff, turned around to face him, a worm of fear trying to crawl up her throat and make her gag. His face was a thundercloud, and Kit remembered hours locked in a closet. I am alone and no one will save me.
"Hey Cripple," Kit said, like she was talking to a friend, propping a hand on her waist and tilting her head at a coy angle. "I've always wanted to ask . . . When they cut off your hand, did you know what was going to happen?"
His eyes narrowed to slits, while Jet's went wide with understanding. "What did you say to me, slave?"
"I am asking," Kit's mouth insisted while the rest of her watched from the inside in mute horror and fascination. "If you knew when they cut off your hand you were gonna slink away home and turn yourself into a venomous little shit. Did you decide before you came home to ruin your voice to complete the picture or are you just that petching stupid?"
Jet looked so startled a shove might kill him. The slaves that were there were staring at her, open-mouthed, like they'd just seen a fish sprout wings and fly. They couldn't badmouth the Cripple, they couldn't deal with him. Kit had been in chains for a season, and she knew the feeling. It was easier to believe something just wasn't possible than face the fact that you weren't strong enough to do it. That you weren't willing to pay the price.
Gods, how the cripple loomed then. He was a broken thing held together by spite and pointless malice, he was balding, his voice was ruined and one of his hands was just gone below the wrist but Kit remembered his orders and his threats and they crawled beneath her skin and told her obey, obey or he will break you! "I'll tie you outside the canals," he said, his anger almost serene. "Everyone who passes by, I'll give a copper to petch you, worst way they can think of, till you wish you were dead. And I'll watch."
"You really like that threat," Kit said, and this time she was scowling, because the only other choice was cowering. "But you missed your chance to follow through."
If he asked the slaves to pile on her, Kit didn't doubt they would. Jet would be the first. For a terrifying moment, she was afraid he might, but then she looked into his eyes. They were full of hate . . . She'd been more right than she knew. He was made of spite, a performer whose only joy was in memories, surrounded by slaves that could do what he could not. He would never ask for their help, not even demand it. Not when it really mattered, not now.
He surged forward, and Kit didn't have the wherewithal to stop blustering in time to get away. The Cripple dove forward and drove a fist into her face, sent her staggering back into the wall. She felt something wet on her face; blood.
He couldn't fight. He had one hand, and didn't know the first trick of combat. But he was bigger and older and stronger than her. As she gasped, holding hands over her stomach, he put a hand to her throat and shoved her against the wall hard enough. He pushed his thumb into the soft spot of her throat while Kit pushed and shoved and slapped and punched uselessly against him. Kit felt the instinctive panic of an animal seized by their most vulnerable point run through her, heard sounds coming from her mouth that she'd thought reserved for dying things. Kit knew that she was dead.
Kit struggled anyway, and in a moment of desperate clarity raised her hand up to the Cripple's face and shoved her thumb into his eye.
It didn't matter how strong or big he was, the human eye was always soft. He let go, screaming, holding a hand up to his face. Kit leaned against the wall, holding one hand against it for support and the other over her throat, gasping desperate breaths of air.
Kit recovered first. She pushed off the wall, drove her foot up between the Cripple's legs once, twice, three times and he fell over on his knees, her blows wild and unsteady, but the Cripple wasn't looking, didn't even try to defend himself. She didn't think he'd ever had too before. She wiped drool and snot from her face with a hand and stomped on his head, sent him sprawling across the floor.
There was no room for thought next to panic in Kit's mind, even when he was down. She kept kicking him until he stopped moving, and there was a silence that skittered through the air like ice cracking.
She wanted to fall back against the wall and rest. She wanted to fall over and cry and be glad. But she heard a gasp from someone who was not the Cripple and not her, and remembered she had an audience.
She looked around at them. The other slaves were staring, wide-eyed. Maybe some of them had wanted to do the same to him. More likely, they just didn't understand what to do with their master groaning on the floor.
Kit turned around and staggered toward what had been her bedroll, trying to keep appearances up, trying to stay strong. "Let me tell you what you're going to do," she said, and the calmness of her own voice startled her. "I am going to take my things, and I will walk out of here. You'll try to get someone to find me, if you're not too embarrassed to tell anyone. But it won't work."
She was finished packing. Kit strung her bag over her shoulder and turned around to see the Cripple looking up at her with glazed eyes. "You'll pay," he hissed. "I'll see you worse than dead."
"That again?" Kit's smile was more wicked than any scowl. Kit kicked him in the side, hard, and he groaned.
"I'll find you," the Cripple hissed. The slaves stared. Kit would have preferred to see a little rebellion in them. Mostly, she read a question in their eyes. What now? The Cripple wasn't giving them an answer this time. Had he instilled any real loyalty into them, they would have pinned Kit to the ground and gone for help. But the only thing he'd ever taught them was obedience. It was his downfall.
"No." Kit said, and with Ionu's help she knew what she said was true. The girl named Kit and the slave named Red could disappear without a trace. "You never will." She turned and began the trip up the stairs, feeling the uncomfortable lightness of everything she had to her name against her back. It took all the self-control she had to walk, not run, out the front door.
