“Do you like your life?” I ask Ragnor. Janna walks on the other side of me, and she jerks her head in my direction after my comment.
Ragnor doesn’t answer, but I clearly see the tightening in his jaw. I have struck a nerve, and unfortunately I don’t know what else to say. We walk by the platform, and I am glad to see that the man who was beaten is gone. Either to his death, or to be cared for. Which would he prefer at this point?
The fire has burned down to embers, and a few men stand around it. They watch us as we pass and one utters something so gutturally filthy that I nearly stumble. Janna rushes from my side, draws a knife and has it at the rover’s throat before I can regain my footing. Ragnor takes my arm and we turn to watch.
“She is ah-worthy of yer respect,” she says, and the man nods and his eyes are wide as he holds out his hands in surrender. Janna holds her knife there for another moment and then backs away with a look of pure contempt on her face.
This is how they live, and we are to be their slaves. God help us.
We continue on over a narrow bridge that is nothing more than a plank and through the village until we come to a hut that is much better made than what I’ve seen so far. It sits apart from the rest, and a ring of stones circles round it as a boundary. The hut is much larger than the others and almost perfectly round. The holes are chinked with mud and thatch and a cylinder piece of metal rises out of the middle of it, scavenged from someplace. Smoke rises from the pipe and buckets of water are lined up around the hut, in case the roof catches on fire, would be my guess.
If they can find pipes for chimneys and buckets for water, then why can’t they build a better house? Or is this just another way for their leader to control them? Hopefully, I will soon find out.
Ragnor stops me at the rock boundary, and the three of us stand and wait until one of the guards from the platform sticks his head out of the door and waves us in. We walk through a line of torches. Janna stops at the door and Ragnor follows me in.
I am surprised. Thick rugs cover the ground, and I look again to make sure they are not the same ones I saw on the Quest. They are drab and dirty, old and frayed, and I almost sigh in relief. The rugs aboard the Quest could not have aged that much in a few weeks. There are rugs hanging on the walls, also frayed and old. Off to my right is a table with six chairs. It is covered with plates and mugs made of heavy pewter and more food than I’ve seen in a long time. My stomach actually growls as I look at it, so I turn away. To my right is a low sofa covered with pillows. One of the legs is broken off the sofa and it is propped up with a thick chunk of wood. Two women lounge on it and they are wearing … or perhaps it is they are not wearing, not much more than a piece of fabric as big as the shawl Jilly loaned me. Their legs are exposed and the top dips dangerously low over their breasts. One has the marks on her arms and more around her eyes. She stares at me lazily and licks her lips in a way that makes me think she is considering me as a meal. I wonder about the marks I’ve seen. About how they are made as they seem to be permanent. I don’t understand why anyone would want to do that to their skin.
Before me is a fire pit, and the pipe hovers four feet above it, capturing the smoke. Behind that is a large bed surrounded by heavy drapes. The two men who stood guard on the platform are there, along with two more. As Ragnor and I stand there, the leader rises from the bed and opens the curtain. A woman lies in plain view, naked, with her legs spread wide, and the leader smirks as he looks at me before slowly closing the curtain.
He sent me a message with that look and the display on the bed, and I know that I am in way over my head. Just like with my father.
He walks to me and puts his large hand on my jaw. He is bigger than any man I have ever seen. He is so close I can see the details of the marks on his face. They resemble the s’s I’d seen in the Bible. They always used fancier letters to start a new book or chapter. These are more ornate, with elaborate curlicues on the ends. They start on his forehead and curve around his eyes and then onto his cheeks before flaring out again as if to loop around his ears. His beard is trimmed differently than anything I’ve ever seen. Shaved on the sides, just hair on his chin where it is braided to a length of four or five inches. His eyes are a greenish gold, like Jonah’s, and there is something in them that makes me want to turn away, but I don’t. I know he wants to intimidate me. He wears his pants and a pair of boots made of hide and nothing else. There is so much skin, stretched tight over muscle, yet he is thick through the middle instead of having the lean torsos of Ragnor, Levi, and Pace.
He turns my head one way, and then the other, none too gently, studying my eyes and the wound on my temple. He puts two fingers in the strap of my goggles, pulls them up to look at them and then drops them back into place around my neck. Then he walks to the table and picks up a mug and drains it before turning back to me.
“Why did you ah-run for the others?”
I must not show my fear, but the scene on the bed makes me realize how vulnerable I am. I swallow deeply. “Because they would have died if they were made to run.”
“What is it to you if they ah-die?”
“I care for them,” I say. “I care for all of them that are with me,” I add with a bit more force to my voice.
He studies me again and then sits down at the head of the table. He motions to the chair at his right. I hesitate. “Eat,” Ragnor urges me in a quiet voice. It does not go unnoticed by the leader. I go to the table and take a seat. I am so hungry that I feel sick, and, combined with my head wound and the bruises covering my body, I know I am barely holding on. I do not make a move lest I do something to offend. The leader serves me after he serves himself. A large piece of venison, boiled potatoes and carrots, and something dark green and limp that looks like it came out of the water is placed on my plate.
“Ragnor,” the leader says after he takes a bite of meat. “Bring in your ah-wife and join us. Ah-give me the word from the ah-tower.”
I realize he wants to know what is going on inside the dome. I desperately need to know what has happened to our friends on the outside. But I dare not mention them, lest I give away the fact that I was with them and was part of the attacks. I do not want to end up beaten like the man we saw earlier, and I certainly don’t want it to happen to Levi or Pace, which I am certain it will if the rovers find out we killed some of them. I must tread carefully. But first I must eat, or I will not have the strength to keep my wits about me.
Ragnor fetches Janna and they both sit down at the table. I have no idea what to expect since all I’ve seen from the rovers is brutality. While they don’t have the manners of the Hatfields, they do have some civility in that they don’t act like barbarians at the table.
The leader punches his thumb into his chest while he holds a huge fork with the other. “I am Wulf,” he growls.
I bob my head. “Wren.”
“Why do yer ah-eyes shine?”
I almost cry in relief. I am the first shiner he has ever met. Which means he hasn’t been around my friends, or he is a very good liar. The curiosity that shows on his face makes me believe it is the former. “I lived underground,” I explain. “I gathered the coal for the dome … the tower.”
“Ah,” he nods his head in understanding. “Tell me ah-boot the battle.”
I shake my head in confusion. I will not admit to the fight with the rovers because I am certain it will lead to all our deaths.
“We seen the ah-smoke,” Ragnor explains. “And the ah-boat from the sky. They ah-tacked the tower?”