It wouldn’t matter if she or they had, I thought sullenly to myself. It’s not like any of us slaves were ever going to keep anything we found, was it? I was so busy scowling at my cloth sandals that I didn’t realize that Abioye had walked in front of me until his shadow cut across the torchlight.
“You seem upset… Narissea.” He said my name awkwardly. Probably because he’d never talked to a slave before.
“Upset, sir?” I said, looking up at him. I was furious. Behind Abioye I could see Tamin’s eyes widen as he looked at me in alarm. Despite our time apart, he still knew me well enough to know that I could have a temper.
“You… like this place?” Abioye said, sounding a little surprised. He was probably wondering how an uneducated slave like me could ever appreciate why this place was built. I don’t need to know the numbers and the history, I thought. I don’t need to know which queen or king did what. But the thought of people – perhaps like me, using the same sorts of tools that I did, had painstakingly crept down here into the dark to carve this place out; probably months of back-breaking work, just to keep alive the memory of a woman who was so brave, and so inspiring that it would stay alive down here until the world ended.
Yeah, that I could appreciate. That passion and that dedication to what they loved.
But what would be the point of sharing all of this with the brother of my oppressor? I would never be able to make him see me as anything other than an ignorant ‘savage’ could I? So instead, I just nodded. “I do. It’s – it was, something special,” I managed to say.
There was a snigger from behind me from one of the mine guards. I felt myself blush and looked at the floor. It shamed me to be treated like this.
Abioye was silent in front of me for a second, before he abruptly cleared his throat. “Right! I think I’ve seen enough here, you may go.” He nodded to the mine guards. The two looked a little surprised but didn’t waste any time pushing Tamin first back through the tunnel, one of them turning to point his metal club at me.
“Oh, my man will see that she doesn’t get up to mischief,” Abioye said in a loud voice, flipping a hand towards his personal guard standing in quiet reserve to one side. The personal guard looked older than anyone else in our little group, save for Tamin, and had been completely expressionless throughout our entire descent into the mines.
“As you wish,” the guards muttered, leading the way ahead, before Abioye gestured for me to go first, to be followed by himself, and finally his man. We had barely walked a couple of meters into the small tunnel that joined the shrine to the rest of Western Tunnel Two, when one of the mine guards called back down the tunnel to Abioye.
“She not giving you trouble, is she, sir? Chief Dagan warned us this one likes to cause trouble! She’s a little rat, alright!”
I clenched my jaw so hard it hurt and had to steady myself against the wall for a moment until the wave of hatred had washed over me. As I hissed out a sigh, Abioye said in careful tones behind me.
“You know that Dagan Mar will never let you go free, don’t you? He will kill any of you before he lets you leave,” the lord said. “He doesn’t care about any of your lives at all.”
My foot caught on the uneven rock and I stumbled. I wasn’t surprised at the idea – it was something that I had pretty much realized myself. But I was surprised to hear it from Lord Abioye, of all people.
“None of your people care about us Daza,” I couldn’t stop myself from saying.
Abioye cleared his throat. “No – no, that’s not true,” he said, and his voice sounded hesitant.
What!? I shot a glance at him, to see that he had paused, and was fiddling with the laces of his shirt at his throat.
“Not all Three Kingdomers are like Chief Mar, you know,” he muttered.
Maybe, I thought sullenly. My face felt hot with anger, but I knew what this lordling said was technically true – there had been Western traders and merchants who had passed through our village who weren’t cruel. But from where I stood underground, with brands on my arm and the chafe marks of the heavy collars still on my ankles, it was easy to be angry.
“And yet you still provoke him,” Abioye continued. “I’ve heard Chief Mar complain to my sister about ‘the escaping Daza girl’ before. Why infuriate a man like that?”
Why do I try to escape? Are you kidding me? I could have bitten the tongue from my own mouth as I glared at Abioye – to see that his eyes were wide. He looked momentarily fearful for a moment. Of me? I thought. Maybe he should be, I grumbled inside my head.
“Dagan is,” Abioye whispered the words, his voice so low that I knew he meant them only for me. Why? “…volatile.” It was clear that the young lordling had chosen the word very carefully indeed.
“I know that, sir,” I muttered back.
We reached the entrance to Western Tunnel Two, and the guards and Tamin were waiting for us with their torches, the heavy look of prejudice and suspicion on the faces of the mine guards ahead of me. There was never any mercy or understanding in any of those faces. It made me think about my answer.
Why provoke Dagan Mar, and Toadie and the rest? One of these days one of them would lose their temper and do more than try to slap me or have me lashed. They might even throw me over the Drop.
But just what was the alternative? To give up? To bow my head like Rebec and become something smaller, lesser than what I was, even now?
To do that would be an insult to everything that had come before. A betrayal of my mother’s faith in me. A betrayal of the memory of what my life had used to be like – out there on the plains, riding ponies or hunting in the long grasses.
And it would be a betrayal of myself, most importantly. Of the four previous attempts that I had made to get out of here.
“I need to feel free, even if I am not,” I hissed under my breath.
“One day, I hope we can all be free,” Abioye murmured behind me, and it surprised me so much that I almost stumbled again. How are you not free? I would have asked him, but then his guard had rejoined us, glaring. We made our slow way back up the Western Tunnel. I felt worse now than I had before going down. My conversation with Abioye had just made me see what my situation was like from someone else’s eyes. Hopeless, I thought miserably.
We reached the mouth of the tunnel, where the rest of the work shift were still waiting in line. And, much to my dismay, Abioye chose to once again address me, this time in front of everyone else.
“Narissea, there is a position as a house servant in the keep. I think that you might be a good fit for the role,” Abioye said, already turning around as if that was that. I found myself staring at his back, and at the assembled queue of my fellow Daza people, all glaring at me. I could see in their eyes the questions: What had I done to deserve such a position? How had I wheedled and wooed my way to three meals a day, a fire, and maybe even a linen bed?
“No.” I said abruptly. I couldn’t abandon my people down here! How could Abioye ever believe that I would do that?
“I beg your pardon?” Abioye stopped and turned back around. He didn’t look angry, just puzzled.
It would have been easier if he was angry, I thought.
“I won’t do it. Sir.” I said, and even managed to hold my chin high as the first mine guard made a snarl of indignation and raised his metal club.