I realized that I had done nothing more than exchange one prison for another. This one was far less comfortable and more dangerous. My anger rose once more like a burning tide. I might be free of the Factor, but my choices continued not to be my own.
Why had Federo and the Dancing Mistress guided me toward a sense of my independence? I wondered. Would I have not been better off in ignorance? I could have grown into a lady and lived the life that had been bought for me.
They would have no satisfaction of me either, I resolved.
My rescuers came back that night with several sacks. I assumed these contained provisions. He was once more dressed like a common laborer, while she wore the same loose tunic as usual. The Dancing Mistress pushed their sacks to one side of the cleared space of floor that marked our area; then she and Federo made up a little table of two crates and three lengths of lumber. She produced a hooded lantern from one of the sacks while Federo found smaller boxes for us to sit on.
Soon we were gathered around a little table with knobby carrots, a string of sweet onions, and a handful of small brown rolls to share for our dinner. Both of them had been silent through this process. I was determined not to speak first.
“We are civilized,” Federo finally said. “People at table with food before them.”
“The shared feast is a tradition of my people,” the Dancing Mistress added.
Both of them spoke in the tone of someone desperate to return a bad moment to normal.
I said nothing. Instead I simply glared at them both.
They looked back, Federo seemingly puzzled, the Dancing Mistress with a blank-eyed indifference that I was not sure how to read upon her nonhuman face. We all stared awhile.
My resolve broke first.
“She was a cow,” I said in my language.
Federo rubbed his eyes. “Within two more years, we could have had you inside the Duke’s palace.” He suddenly sounded terribly exhausted.
The Dancing Mistress sighed. “We should have known.”
“Known what?” I demanded.
Federo stared at me. “Stop talking like a barbarian,” he snapped. “This is Copper Downs.”
“Barbarian?” I bit off a shout. “You are the… the…” I didn’t have a word for barbarian in my language. Certainly I’d no reason to know it when I was a tiny child. “Animals. You are animals.”
“That could have been changed,” he said. “With your help.”
The Dancing Mistress gave me one of her long, slow looks. “Please, speak so I can understand you. Or we won’t get far.”
I begrudged her the words, but I recalled that Petraean wasn’t her home language either. “Very well,” I muttered, knowing my own poor grace for what it was.
“Emerald,” Federo began.
“Green!” I slammed my fist into the planks of our table. “My name is not Emerald. You may call me Green.”
The Dancing Mistress waved toward Federo in a shushing motion. “Well, Green,” she said. “Federo had always thought you might have the heart-fire to hold your spirit true against the Factor’s training. You-”
“You did,” Federo interrupted. His voice had a note of pride, even now. I hated him for that. It was as if he’d made me who I was, merely by being clever enough to buy me in the market.
“Too much heart, perhaps,” the Dancing Mistress went on.
“What of it?” I demanded. “Was I to be your creature instead of the Factor’s? I am a person of my own, not some thing to be shaped by him or you or anyone else.”
The Dancing Mistress’ claws drummed on the raw wood of the table. They sent splinters flying. “We are all shaped by life.”
“Indeed,” said Federo. “And there is much you do not know. Am I correct in thinking you read nothing more recently published than Lacodemus’ Commentaries?”
“Yes.” What did this question signify? Lacodemus had been fascinated with men risen from the grave and people who lived on their heads, speaking by the motions of their feet. I hadn’t taken him seriously. The world obeyed a certain order. Just because a tale came from far away did not mean that common sense could be cast aside in judging it.
“Then know this little bit of recent history here in Copper Downs.” He leaned forward and pressed the palms of his hands flat on the rough wood. “There has not been a Ducal succession in four centuries.”
“Mistress Tirelle told me as much. She did not say it so clearly.” I thought of the Factor’s dead eye, sullen and fatal as that of the sea creature that had tried to take me so long ago. Lacodemus had been right, in a sense. “This city is ruled by immortals.”
The Dancing Mistress laughed, her voice soft and bitter. “Immortal, no. Undying? Well, yes… so far.”
“You meant for me to kill the Duke,” I breathed, barely lending sound to the words. Killing the Duke would cause the Factor to lose his power. Women… girls… would be safer. Even a new tyrant could hardly rebuild the power of this Duke’s long rule with any speed.
“That was one hope, yes,” Federo admitted. “There were other plans. We had played at a game of years here.”
I gave voice to his unspoken conclusion. “Until I tipped over the board and set fire to the rules.”
“Well, yes.” I could see a smile flirting with his face despite himself. “That spirit of yours rose up, I think.”
My fingers brushed at the itching scabs upon my cheek. “For all the good it has done me. What now of your plans?”
They both stared me down. Dust flecks and wood shavings floated between us. Eventually Federo’s face fell back to his recent dismay. “If you can escape detection by the patrols roaming the city right now, and survive the substantial bounty that has been placed upon your head, you are free to flee Copper Downs and find a life of your own elsewhere.”
The Dancing Mistress slipped a claw-tipped finger across her own furred cheek. “But you have made yourself too distinctive for safety, I fear. Easily recognized should there be a hue and cry.”
I thought of Endurance’s great brown eyes, and of my grandmother’s bells ringing for the last time beneath the hot sun. What would my grandmother have wanted from me? Or Papa? What did he want? Endurance, I knew, wished only to call me home.
What did I want?
To go home.
But even more than that, I realized, I wanted never to see a child sold to these terrible people again. Not to the Factor and his Mistresses, not to Federo and his charming ways. This trade in thinking, talking livestock must end.
I could not say then who was more guilty, Federo for having bought me or my father for having sold me to him. It did not matter. They were but pawns on a larger board. The Duke, and his procuring agent the Factor, had first set the machinery of guilt in motion. I realized my mistake in fleeing the Factor’s house, when all I had to do was stand my ground and keep my spirit inflamed in order to fight back with my beauty as my weapon.
The weapon I had thrown away in a moment of anguished passion before murdering a woman whose only real crime was to serve her masters.
A new thought dawned upon me. “There must be another way,” I said. “Or we would not be speaking now. You have some proposal. One of the ‘other plans’ you mentioned.”
Federo and the Dancing Mistress exchanged a long look. I saw fear in their faces, but I held my tongue.
He nodded slightly and began to speak in a rush, as if he did not quite believe his own words. “Allow yourself to be captured. Tell them of a plot against the Duke. Tell them of us. You will most likely be taken before him for a hearing, both for the sake of the accusation, and even more because you are his lost jewel. He will be jealous of you. Once in his presence, if you can…”
“If I can?” Once more laughter at these idiots bubbled up. “If I can what, kill him? I am a girl of twelve. I would be standing before him in his court. If I had been his bedmate, that might be one thing. But surrounded by men and their weapons? You are fools.” In my own language, I added, “I am but a girl.” My laughter slid into a snarl. “I can kick old women to death, but not a man on a throne surrounded by guards. He is beyond my reach.”