Page 7 of The Starving Saints
They’re clever creatures, rats; they avoided or even foiled her first attempts, years ago, when she was too desperate, too ashamed, to be clever herself. Now, though, she has snared another one with nothing more than some rags and a long-empty turnip box, and she dashes its skull against the floor before it squeals too loudly.
Half an hour later, Treila has found a buyer: a young mother with three small babes. It will hardly take the edge off, but it’s something, and she has the coin to pay. For her, Treila presents a veneer of calm concern; this is not a mercenary transaction but a kindness. A mother is more likely to pay for kindness.
Treila does not feel guilt as she slinks back into the keep, down the stairs, into the small space that was once her workroom, where she stitched gloves and other fine leathers for Leodegardis’s knights. Others used it too, of course, when there was handwork to be done; but even then it was cramped and poorly lit, and now it’s half-clogged with items made useless by their communal captivity. Empty barrels, empty flour sacks, empty looms.
She keeps her cache of food and money here, tucked safe so nobody can take it away from her again. She has been careful, careful for so many years, and since the gates closed six months ago, she has never once hoped for knights to ride in dragging salvation behind. She knows better than to depend on them. They were too late to save a single inhabitant of Carcabonne, even as they fought bitterly for the rocks that formed its walls.
Even before rations were cut, then cut again, she has not eaten her full allotment; she has hoarded and protected, and now her cache is fat and rich.
She has food for at least another month.
Which gives her one more month to save herself, so long as the castle continues to stand. So long as desperate people do not attack from within.
How changed her life has become, how different she is from the coddled, moneyed girl she was raised as. No fine slippers for her, no delicate undergarments. Her soft skin is long-since toughened, her nose grown blind to both the stench of refuse and the gentle waft of perfume.
It’s past midnight when she returns to her assigned sleeping area, if the murmurations of the nuns in the east tower are anything to go by (and they are—the nuns keep fastidious time even with their steadily dwindling supply of timekeeping candles). Though no oneperson enforces the division of space, nobody would think to go elsewhere. There are rules, spoken and unspoken, of how each role within Aymar relates to another.
Treila obeys them, even as she can see the fiction of them. Nothing physical makes the king more worthy of a cooler, more private sleeping space—just the loyalty of his guard, his servants, and his subjects. And that, she must concede, is power.
The castle has finally settled, all sleeping save for the night guard and two boys, playing at dice by the window. She joins them, ready to act younger than she is as she always does with them. It puts them more at ease, to think of her as a big sister and not another adult. They are freer with their chatter.
The room reeks of bodies, all of Ser Leodegardis’s household staff tucked in together to make room elsewhere for the farmers and the court. They keep their voices to whispers as they play.
“And then Ser Voyne,” breathes Simmonet, sandy-haired, son of one of the washerwomen, “came out of the keep, her armor shining, and she drew her sword.”
Treila’s shoulders tense. She catches her lip between her teeth, the better to keep herself from an angry snarl.
“No,” Edouart counters, “no, she couldn’t have. Da says nobody died, and if a knight draws her sword, she’s going to use it.”
“But Isawher.”
They both look to Treila as she reaches out for the dice. They pass them to her, hoping she’ll break their stalemate.
She rolls. It’s good. She wins the pot of pebbles, then redistributes half across the varied flags of the floor that count as specific wagers. “Depends on the knight, doesn’t it?” she whispers, instead of what she wants to say:This knight will spill as much blood as she pleases.
“And Ser Voyne is sogood,” Simmonet proclaims, because he knows nothing, loud enough that the sleepers nearby stir, send glares their way. He flinches, bows his head, continues in a whisper. “Kind and strong—I saw her spar with Ser Leodegardis last week. And she led the charge at Carcabonne.”
Treila says nothing, casts her dice again, and this time loses. She passes them to Edouart, just as she pushes aside the fleeting memory of Ser Voyne as she’d been justafterCarcabonne, bruised and bloodied, recovering in Treila’s father’s home. To remember would be foolish.
Edouart looks uncomfortable as he takes the dice. But he doesn’t speak until he’s lost, too, and they’ve gone around a full turn. “Nobody died,” he says at last, “but there were a lot of people hurt.”
“Then they shouldn’t have stolen food,” Simmonet returns.
“Genovefe had her nose cracked. I don’t think she stole anything.”
“But she was there at the riot, right? So...”
He is having trouble reconciling reality with his beliefs. She feels a pang of sympathy, followed swiftly by annoyance that he hasn’t crashed headlong into exactly this dilemma twenty times by now. He’s nearly ten. He should know better. He’s not going to see eleven.
But he is trying to be strong and good, the way they describe boys in stories. She can see Edouart is wary of him, and she’s glad; it’s the strong and good ones who cause the most damage, in her experience.
“I overheard,” Simmonet says, trying to change the subject to something that will earn him more approval and engagement, “that they’re going to pick another messenger soon.”
Treila perks up at that for just a moment, then recoils. She would make a fine messenger, but she knows the previous messengers have all sat with King Cardimir and his council before leaving, and Treila cannot risk that.
No, better to stay until a safer opportunity presents itself, or she is desperate enough to take the risk. After all, it’s been five years, and Treila is good at playing a role; maybe Ser Voyne won’t recognize her.
She hasn’t recognized her so far.
