Delia of Vallia (14 page)

A totrix in the stables shook himself and stamped.

Four slaves staggered past under bundles of kindling, and more followed, dragging a lurching cart piled with logs.

“Can’t you steal a little for me, Alyss?”

Delia sighed. “I’ll try, Nath.”

The tubs were filled. She settled the yoke so that it rested on the least sore parts of her shoulders, and started back for the kitchens.

Looking down at herself she thought — she hoped — that her left leg was not quite as fat as it had been. Was it? The skin glistened where it stretched taut. Thin white lines showed cutting in under her kneecap. Perhaps the lumps were going down at last?

Fat left leg or no fat left leg, she could ride a totrix. She marked the beast, stamping and snuffling in his stall, pampered and fed. There were six altogether, and she hungered for this particular one. When she was astride his back she’d be out through the gate, clear away if it was open, bashing it open if it was closed. After that — well, as she carried the water she descended into scarlet images of what would happen to this place when she returned leading one or two of her regiments.

No. No, that wouldn’t do at all. That was quite silly.

Oh, no. She’d come back here leading one or two armies.

There would be very little left of this place by the time she and her people were finished with it.

On this mental fare she subsisted as the days passed. No one offered to molest her. The slaves slept higgledy-piggledy in dormitories above the kitchens. Facilities were primitive. From the yard looking back over the kitchen and superimposed dormitory a view could be obtained of a stone tower crowned by battlements and with a flagstaff. The pole raked up, bare.

A hint of more battlemented walls and towers beyond the first indicated that this place — wherever it was — had considerable defensive strength. Even the richest people looked twice before deciding to build castles in stone. They cost fabulous sums. This place probably consisted of a stone tower or two, and the rest of the fortifications would be of timber. Probably.

On the day that Nan the Bosom announced she was pregnant and the inevitable arguments started about who was the father, Delia really did think her left leg was just about its right size again. Nan the Bosom, outraged that the contraceptives she had paid for in kind had failed her, flailed about with her largest ladle. She was Soup Mistress, and her largest ladle was large. It cracked alongside three or four flea-bitten heads, and thwacked half a dozen grimy shins — and Nan had hardly begun.

“Not me, Nan!” and: “Musta been Nardo!”

And so on.

Delia waited outside until the water in her tubs stilled to mirrors. She had no wish to become involved. The tub-mirror showed her face as a nightmare to her, still, but not so much a nightmare as before. The lumps
were
going down. Her hair! To laugh in these circumstances could only indicate despair. It was just as well that she could view herself with some dispassionate analysis. Yes, she always tried to keep herself neat and tidy, that was true. But she did not think she was a vain woman. Just as well. The sight glaring back at her from the water mirror would have driven a vain woman past the verge.

With a savage thrust of her shoulders, she shattered the image in the water.

Putting the yoke back on, she went into the kitchens. The uproar continued. Nan, it was clear, didn’t care who the father was. She just wanted to hit everybody with her ladle.

When Delia turned back from the well, Silly Nath said: “Smells like ponsho today, Alyss. Will you steal me a bit?”

“I’ll try.”

She turned away toward the kitchens in the never-ending drudgery. A flag flew at the flagstaff.

Instantly she stopped.

The flag flapped, infuriatingly twirling itself from side to side and pointing away from her. She could make out only the colors, not the devices. The colors were white and ochre.

Well, and what else had she expected? White and ochre were the colors of Vindelka. And that was where she was.

She remained utterly convinced that the devices on the flag were not those of her half-brother Vomanus. He would never run a degenerate hell-hole like this. A touch around her waist, a fingering pressure, brought her back with a thump from the considerations of an empress to those of a slave.

“Give us a cuddle, Alyss—”

“What, with me, Nath?”

She was so startled that was all she could think of.

“I like you. You’re nice.”

“But—” She moved away. Silly Nath would not leave the well and the crank handle. He’d been flogged silly for doing that — twice. “Look at me!”

Silly Nath twisted his head on one side in his ecstasy of cleverness. “They call me Silly Nath. But I’ve seen you, Alyss. You’re different. You’re lovely.”

“I’m all lumpy.”

“Yes. You gimme a cuddle tonight.”

Because slaves lived in squalor perhaps anything only slightly less hideous than the ugliness around would appear lovely to them. Delia was aware of the incongruity of responding to an amorous advance by denigrating her appearance. That verged on the coy. Here she was, dressed in slave grey, carrying two damn great tubs of water, her hair a mess, her lumps making her grotesque, arguing with a simpleton about cuddling. It was enough to make a girl say a rude word.

And then, amazingly, vouchsafed from Dee Sheon herself, wonderfully, she realized what that last limping thought meant. She was coming back to life. Not because poor Silly Nath felt her attractive and wanted a cuddle, but because she could see the funny side of the situation.

“Nan the Bosom is pregnant, Nath.”

“’Twaren’t me.”

“Now’s your chance. I can’t cuddle you, Nath.” Then the limping humor changed, and the words whiplashed. “Stay away from me, Nath. For your own good.”

All the same, on the morrow the kitchen slaves kept asking Silly Nath where he got his black eye from. He didn’t say.

He looked more miserable than sullen when he filled the tubs. Delia had no need to harden her heart. Some things were done in her world and some things were not done. The question of soft or hard hearts did not enter the equation.

And the flag still flew.

When she reached the kitchen door a voice she did not know was saying: “...no concern. We expect some more in a few days. Until then you’ll have to manage as best you can.”

Greasy Nardo the Water Master wiped his forehead. He looked at once angry and chastened. The man speaking to him wore slave grey, but his tunic bore a white and ochre patch, and his switch was larger and thicker than Nardo’s. His face resembled that of a half-starved water rat, with pimples.

“Is this the woman?”

“Yes, Master Uldo. This is the woman.”

So, said Delia to herself, so this is the First Water Master, Uldo. He was doing a thorough job of frightening Nardo.

Uldo switched his stick at Delia.

“Alyss. Come with me.” As Delia instantly obeyed, the feel of the switch on her arm, he shouted: “Onker! Do not bring the water tubs.” Delia, acting as a slave would act, instantly put the tubs down and cowered away.

Surprisingly, Uldo said, “There are men in the treadmill to bring the water up. You will carry it from there.”

She nodded. She did not say anything. She knew how to act like slave. She wondered if she might let this Uldo live a little longer than the others when the time came...

The First Water Master strutted along importantly, slashing about with his switch, and Delia trailed along after. They went through the yard, where she gave her usual quick scrutiny of the totrix stables, and so through the open barred door beyond. Sentries looked down, mercenaries by their appearance, as the two walked into the shadows and began to climb wooden stairs into the interior of the building.

They went by flang-infested stairways and dusty corridors until they reached a panel, jutting from the wall. These back stairs and runnels were to be found in most of the palaces and castles of Kregen. Uldo pushed the door open and they went through.

The room was low-ceilinged and the walls were stone-faced. Very little could be seen, for the room was filled with steam. The sounds of rushing water mingled with the hoarse thump of a bellows. A blurred halo of reddish-yellow light and a wash of heat told of a furnace being stoked to greater output. A faint cloying taint of heavy scents hung on the steam-laden air.

Uldo pointed with his switch.

“When you are told, Alyss, you will take the hot water into the bathroom. You will make sure it is very hot.”

“Yes, master.”

Then, again surprisingly, Uldo said, “Ninki fell and scalded herself. You will do her work until she is well.”

“Yes, master.”

“And there is time for you to comb your hair. Velia!”

At this Delia started, and turned pale.

A gross form waddled on stumpy legs from the steam.

The woman was vast. Her arms were dripping wet. She wore only a grey slave breechclout. She would have made a middling-sized vosk look small. She ran with moisture. She shook. But her face with its multiple chins and piglike nose and small bright eyes smiled.

“Come on, dearie. I’ll make you look presentable.”

Uldo brushed moisture from his eyebrows. His expression remained that of a worried man run off his legs.

“We’re short-handed, Velia, and Ninki scalds herself. I wonder if she did it on purpose. Remember, Velia, you’ll have to see to it. You’re responsible.”

“Oh, that’s all right. My lady knows me.” Velia’s enormous body quivered with amusement. “She trusts me.”

“More than me—”

“That’s because I’m a woman.”

“So,” said Uldo, turning to leave the steam room, “I see.”

When he had gone, Velia drew Delia off to the side where curtains concealed an alcove where the steam coiled less thickly. A few shelves with unguents and scents, a truckle-bed, a chest, toilet articles, indicated the place where the Steam Mistress spent her entire life. Scraps of food drying on a plate would have fed a couple of the slaves down below. Delia repressed the growl from her stomach.

“Now, let’s have a look at you, dearie.”

The Steam Mistress produced a cheap but ornate comb and started to tear away at Delia’s scalp. Any protest would have been futile. Delia, perforce, allowed her hair to be dragged into some semblance of order. With that out of the way — “A start only, dearie, a start only, for it’s in a terrible mess!” — she was washed thoroughly. There was, in any event, a copious supply of hot water. The grey slave tunic and breechclout could only be brushed and the worst of the spots either got off or rubbed over with a grey chalk. The chalk slicked in the heated atmosphere. Delia touched her face.

She had been speaking normally. The lump at the side of her mouth had disappeared. She looked down. Her legs looked the same size — almost. She fancied the left was still a teeny weeny fraction fatter than the right. The lumps noticeable on her two days ago were now quite gone. She felt and looked all over. She could find not a single blotch.

“All right dearie, all right. You’re fine. There’ll be plenty of that, later on, I don’t doubt.”

Delia chose not to inquire what the Steam Mistress meant.

She could still feel the shock that had flashed through her when Uldo had called out the Steam Mistress’s name.

Suppose her little Velia should be slave here!

“Now, Alyss. You must be quick. My lady will have her bath hot. You must run. And don’t spill a drop.”

“Yes, Velia, no, Velia.”

“H’m,” said Velia the Steam Mistress, “you’ll do.”

After that they waited. The water boiled in the pans. Velia gave a series of thunderous strokes upon the bellows and the furnace roared and the steam spouted. Everything was drenched in moisture. Delia adjusted the yoke, a smaller and more refined version than the one used in the kitchens. She balanced the copper pans. If they splashed and the water hit her, she’d be scalded red. They waited until the very last moment, until a bell jangled, before the boiling water fumed into the copper pans. Then Delia ran.

The bathroom next door was hot. It smelled of exotic perfumes from the far corners of Kregen. Ceramic pots of Pandahem ware bulged with flowers. Drapes hung artistically.

The bath itself lay sunk into the marble flooring. Velia had given Delia a pair of wooden-soled slippers, for the floor heated by ducts was far too hot even for a slave to walk upon barefoot. A woman wearing a long white gown and carrying a silver rod beckoned imperiously. Delia poured the water into the bath and then raced off for more.

By the time she had completed four trips she was beginning to glow a trifle.

The water in the copper pans now bubbled all the way to the bath.

“Hurry, you ninny!” commanded the woman with the silver rod. She looked harassed. She darted to a curtained doorway and peered out, the door just cracked ajar. She turned back.

“One more, and hurry, girl!”

Delia flew.

When she returned, the water bubbling and steaming, the woman looked surprised. “Very well. One more.
Grak!
”

Delia grakked.

She was just pouring the last of the water into the bath when the flunkey woman opened the door, bowing, and a woman walked in who, immediately, took Delia’s attention. She stood back, holding her copper pans still, partially concealed by the fronds of a fern, and watched. As usual with many great ones of the world, they took no notice of a slave, the grey slave clothing blending with the background.

This woman walked with studied poise. She was attended by a handmaid clad in pearls and little else, a fashion Delia considered either offensive and decadent or just plain tasteless. Some people liked the fashion, though.

Clad in a draped white gown, the woman reminded Delia of a lazy cat, curled before the fire. The latent sensuality concealed by satisfaction in her face was perfectly complemented by the perfection of her form as she threw off the gown. Her hair was not chalk-white, not silver, but of that platinum luster that so often occurred in Vallian women. The blondeness sheened platinum in the overheated atmosphere.

Her face was not remarkable for beauty, and perhaps its own icy perfection marred any warmth that lack of external beauty might have lent it. She was, judged by almost any standards, a remarkable woman.