The Vastness Read online

  I yanked the teeth out of the third, and tried to signal to the girls running the bad looms, but our overseer was too close.

  I could not keep the numbers together after that. The next pattern in the order book was complicated, and I could not keep it straight.

  Twenty number four teeth … twenty number three teeth, twenty number fours? Then twenty number ones? No. It’s forty. Or is it twenty number six teeth? I had to keep looking back at the pattern book as though it was my first day working the table.

  I finished the rod, only to have a girl snatch it from my hands. My table was empty of ready rods, and two of the looms were nearly done. It was getting dark out, and I had no good idea of the count against our quota. My supply of teeth was in disarray.

  The sound of ladles banging on kettles in the courtyard filled me with relief and dread.

  The girls hurried out and this time I hurried with them. I needed sleep—every moment of it that I could find. I needed to be out of the mill before someone noticed the bad patterns on the looms.

  We waited our turn for bread and broth. We were not first, or second. We were eighth. We’d barely made quota. I accepted the crust of bread and the tin of cold broth, gulped it down, and made for the bridge with the rest.

  Ash Row was packed with the workers from all the many different mills and workshops that night, and our boss did a lot of yelling to keep us together. He did not have to encourage us to move any faster.

  The girl walking next to me looked at me once and again. I worried she would hit me for getting the patterns wrong.

  “Hello,” she whispered. “Your name is Emilia?” Her voice was familiar. It was the girl I had choked. Her neck was a red and purple collar and her ear was torn and swollen from where the boss had caned her. She must recognize me.

  “My name is Pia,” she said, and I shrugged. I did not know what to say.

  “Why does everyone still have their cup?” she asked. “I left mine in the courtyard. Do I need it to get across the bridge?”

  She did need it. It was the toll. I nodded my head, and the girl began to tremble. “What do I do? Can I go back for mine?”

  I shook my head.

  “What can I do, Emi? Help me.”

  I could not look at her or her bruises. My face grew hot, and I could not swallow. I took her by the hand and hurried us forward to the foot of the bridge. Our row boss had already reached the spot. He had a tin cup in his hand—the dead overseer’s. Another boss from another row was already there by the rail. He had five extra cups. It had been a bad day for his girls. A group of men and women waited there by the rail, each desperate to take the place of someone who had died. Churls cannot spend the night on the east side of the river. The bailiffs sweep them out of the alleys and cart them off to Aderan. The Warrens was better than Aderan.

  Pia got wise, rushed in, and grabbed one of the five cups the man was offering. She did not wait in line, did not ask permission, and fell in behind her new boss before any of the rest could complain.

  I waved goodbye to her and kept walking while our row boss found his own replacement from the men in the crowd.

  I tried to count the bridge stones as I walked, but the smell of the dead man’s blood on my hands and arms wouldn’t let me. I trembled and walked on.

  Pia was there and took my arm. “I swapped,” she said and smiled.

  “No talking,” one of the overseers shouted, and Pia bit her lip and crouched down until the man had moved on.

  She whispered, “I’ve never met someone with brown skin before. You are from Kuet? My family is from Havish. Well my mother anyway. Father is from Dahar, but all us easterners look the same. I’ve seen a lot of eastern faces in the Warrens. Anyone else from Kuet on the row? You don’t smell like I expected. Does it wash off?”

  She was still shaking. I worried that she would keep talking until someone killed her.

  I put my finger to my lips and squeezed her hand.

  She walked along with me in the growing dark. Bailiffs along the center of the bridge were lighting the lantern boxes and collecting the bridge toll. Those who were paid in coin waited in long lines on the left side of the bridge to hand over the toll of two tin pennies. Those of us who worked a skilled trade walked along the right-hand side with our cups held high.

  When we were past, Pia let out a pent breath and couldn’t help but whisper some more at me. “That was okay, for my first day, yeah? Looking forward to dinner, and the holiday tomorrow. Do we get to watch the parade from Ash Row or out on the bridge?”

  I held her hand and walked on. Back inside the gates of Yellow Row, the girls from third shift had already made their way out. We hurried into the lodges. The air had picked up a bit of a chill, and everyone was eager to get onto the racks. They would still be warm.

  Our overseer took our cups as we entered, and we all made our way onto the warm dark shelves.

  Pia snuggled close to me and was the firstf asleep.

  3

  Emi

  Holiday

  “I love holidays,” Pia said to me as the rumble of morning movement began. “The food. The parades. And especially the horse races.”

  Some of the girls laughed at her, and Pia took hold of my arm after we’d climbed off our shelf. “We will get to see the parade, right?”

  I shook my head. She missed this and kept on. “We must. The Arilas of Havish will be in the procession. I’m from Havish. Did I tell you that? Do we make pennants for Kuet as well?”

  “Pennants?” one of the girls asked, and many of them came to a halt. Conversations did not occur in the lodge.

  “It’s what we are making at the mill. The bolts that come off the looms are cut, hemmed, and embroidered. I saw patterns for many of the provinces and noble houses. Most of the pennants that fly in Bessradi come from our mills. All the parade pennants, too, I would wager. You must see them all the time.”

  Faces soured and she slowed. “You didn’t know?”

  I had not, but no one got a chance to respond.

  “Someone coming,” a girl whispered.

  Pia tugged at my sleeve, “You weren’t born in the Warrens, were you?”

  I nodded, and she got ready to ask me another question.

  “Hush, there,” Dame Franni said as she stepped into the narrow hallway, “Mean business in store for all of you today. The boss is on the row. Now move along. Only one reward for being late today.”

  We were as relieved that it was Franni as we were that Pia had stopped talking. We washed, ate, and made our way out. The row boss was there with several of the overseers and most of their men—a band of churlish thugs with nothing to be said for them but their size. Each wore a sword or hammer, in addition to the club or cane they always carried. The girls from the other lodges continued along, but ours was held up.

  Had they come to find me? I hid behind Pia as the rest of first shift marched out into the street.

  The men were not questioning any of us, though, nor were they in any particular hurry. This made me worry more than anything.

  Out on Thorn Street, all the many first shift workers made their way toward the Warrens’ tithe towers and plazas.

  “Where are they going?” Pia asked. “The parade is the other way. Aren’t we going to see the parade?”

  She was lucky that none of the bosses had heard her. Franni took her by the arm, and whispered, “Holidays are only for those who live on the other side of the river. Our labor belongs to the church on holidays. Now hush, child.”

  “We won’t get to recite Bayen’s Creed?”

  “No,” Franni whispered, and tugged on her arm. “Quiet now, you foolish girl.”

  It was said that the rest of the city recited the creed twice a day, and I wanted to ask Pia whether it was true. The Warrens only heard it on holidays like today. I dreamed sometimes of hiding in a hedge along Copper Road, so that I could hear the creed sung by all the beautiful people in the beautiful park.

  We were still standin
g there when the deep sound of the city’s churls reciting the creed drifted over the Warrens. I closed my eyes. I’d not learned any of the words from the great mumblings, but the deep sound felt like God Himself speaking. I turned to the southeast and tipped my head back so that I could feel the warmth of His fiery eye. I folded my hands under my chin and wished for His forgiveness.

  Seventeen hundred ninety-nine days until I am free.

  “Make way,” the row boss yelled, and the moment was lost. The boys from second shift started trudging in. The overseers crammed the girls from my lodge into the center of the alley so that the boys could find their way to their racks.

  I could not stand still, and the rest of the girls chatted away. We rarely got to see the boys who slept on our shelves. The sound and extra motion in the tiny alley was as vigorous as the working looms.

  They were tired and dirty, but grinned at us. Their arms were stained from dyes and their skin was dark from time in the sun. Some of them were dark like me—boys from Kuet. One of them had thick curly hair, and his body was strong. He was missing two fingers, and I wished more than anything that he could have them back. He noticed me and smiled. I looked away, and lost track of my heart and my breath.

  The boys vanished into the lodges, and the bosses grumbled at us and clutched their swords and hammers. They were nervous and the feeling crept over us. Franni hushed us until the only sound was the coughing of a mule a few rows away and the persistent thumping of my heart.

  All I could think about was the boy from Kuet.

  I wondered whether we slept on the same shelf. My face got warm and I caught myself smiling.

  One of the girls thumped me. Everyone was moving, and I hurried to join them.

  One of the overseers had come out of the lodge at the back end of the alley.

  “Move on through,” the boss said to us, and his men hustled us down the alley and into the lodge. The troth inside was dry and the racks had been removed. The back wall of the place was torn open, and the wall of the lodge it had been built against was torn open as well. The boss’s men kept us moving on into the second building. It was a wreck. Two dead boys and a tall pile of shit blocked one of the rows of racks, and its troths were boarded over. The entire place leaned forward, and I worried from the creak of the boards that we’d bring it down on our heads. We exited into another alley that I’d not seen before. It was longer and dirtier than Yellow Row, and exited out onto one of the warehouse roads close to the river.

  “What’s going on?” Pia asked.

  Another girl whispered, “This is Chalk Row. The weaver is taking it over.”

  Our boss and his men charged down the row, and then the yelling started. A few overseers came out of the lodges and each was met with a sword or hammer. None of them got away.

  Some of the second shift boys sleeping in those lodges came out, too, but the boss’s men yelled them back inside. They were as exhausted as the boys asleep on Yellow Row and they did as they were told. A man with a sword stood in each doorway, in case any of them forgot. The dead were dragged out onto Gatehouse Road and dumped into the nearby sewer trench.

  “Tear ‘em down and seal it up,” the boss said, and the overseers yelled us all to tasks. The men with hammers tore into the lodges that divided the two rows and had the girls hurry the boards toward Gatehouse Road. They built a crude barricade there, and the men with the bloody swords gathered behind it. They watched the road and were nervous of every sound.

  “We are stealing an entire street?” Pia asked. I nodded and her expression rightly sank to worry.

  Down at the other end of the alley, a mule train loaded with bundles of bricks arrived outside the gates. The coughing mule turned out to be amongst them. The boss became even more agitated, and the overseers rushed this way and that, organizing us for new work.

  “Mind your fingers, girls,” Dame Franni said. “Mind your toes.”

  Pia was at a loss for what to do and stayed close enough to get in the way. She nearly lost a few toes, too, when it was my turn to take one of the heavy bricks. I carried it down the alley. The boss had organized a line of men with tubs and trowels behind the barricade. I put my brick down where I was told, and he slapped mortar around it.

  Pia got with it after that, and we put our heads down and did the work. I made sixty-five slow trips up and down the alley. Three hundred sixty girls. Twenty-three thousand four hundred bricks. The wall grew tall and thick, complete with an iron gate in an iron frame. The makeshift barricade on the other side had been torn down, and the men were all inside the locked gate.

  When the boss called us to a halt, I was tired and leaned on my knees.

  “Look at that,” Pia said. Heads came up.

  Yellow Row was twice as long—seventeen lodges instead of eight with a proper gate at the west end.

  “Much shorter walk to the bridge now,” Pia said, and this time everyone smiled.

  We did not get to enjoy the moment very long.

  The boss said to Dame Franni, “Get everyone watered before the shift change. Still plenty to do.”

  It was later than I’d thought—well into the afternoon. How could a day go so fast?

  Wait.

  I’d get to see the boy from Kuet again when the shift changed. I smiled.

  Pia tugged my arm. “What is it?”

  I shrugged and shook my head.

  “Come on,” she said and tugged me toward the rest of the girls. She continued to admire what the boss had done as we walked back toward our lodge. She looked up and down the alley as though it was all hers.

  The Dame and her girls brought buckets of water out of our lodge and everyone gathered around them.

  “What’s left to do?” Pia asked the boss.

  The rest of us shrank away from her, but the boss, his mood so good from his conquest, turned to her, and said, “Sewer. Chalk Row doesn’t have one. We need to dig up the alley and run a slit down to ours. We’ll be ankle deep in shit in no time if we don’t.”

  Then he laughed, and his men joined in. So did Pia. The rest of us didn’t dare.

  “Come on now,” Franni said to Pia. “Drink your fill.”

  Pia couldn’t talk while she was drinking and afterward stayed mercifully quiet.

  The boys from second shift started moving out into the alley, and I watched the entrance to ours.

  “Nothing but trouble, dear,” Dame Franni whispered to me and handed me the ladle. “Drink up and forget about him. No sense in you making another churl for the weaver.”

  I frowned at her, drank my water, and kept looking for him.

  The boys were energetic and hurried out. I worried that we would all be crushed underfoot until the overseers started growling at them. The procession slowed, and I finished my water while I searched.

  I saw his beautiful skin first, a dark arm swinging as he marched. I lost sight of him and stood on my tiptoes, until without warning there he was standing in front of me.

  “My name is Natan. What is yours?” he asked with a smile. His bright face was without a single whisker and his eyes shone bright. His curly hair was still wet from his bath—a great unruly tumble of black curls.

  “Your name?”

  I tried to say it. My mouth opened, I think, but no sound came out. The boys around him kept moving, and he was pushed along with the rest.

  “Good girl,” Dame Franni said and took the ladle from my trembling hands.

  A bell rang somewhere far away. Then a second. Then more—one after another until you could not tell one from the next. The boys came to a halt and Dame Franni dropped the ladle.

  “What’s this, then,” one of the overseers said. “Get moving.”

  We all looked at Franni and the boss. Both were frozen in place.

  “The Exaltier,” she said, and the overseers stopped their grumbling, too.

  “It can’t be,” the boss said.

  “They ring for our sovereign. He is dead. The bells ring for him.”

 
; The boss’s shoulders sagged and he nearly dropped his sword. He put a hand through his hair and handed his weapon to an overseer.

  “Get rid of it, all of them,” he whispered. The men looked scared. I didn’t understand, and I was afraid, too.

  We all stood and waited for him to do something. All he did was listen to the endless roll of the bells.

  The noise in the Warrens’ streets drowned out the bells. Third shift was on its way back. The boys from second shift needed to get out of the way.

  The boss had not thought his way to this yet. He started yelling. Stopped. Started moving up the alley. Stopped.

  One of the overseers ran in through the south gate. He was out of breath.

  “What has happened?” the boss asked.

  “There is a problem at the mill,” he said, and struggled to catch his breath.

  I shrank back, and looked for a place to hide. They had found my mistakes.

  “Speak up, man,” the boss yelled. “Was the mill seized by the church?”

  “No,” he replied, and I peeked around Pia at him. He looked like the weaver had been after him with his whip. Blood ran from his nose, down off his chin, and spattered his tunica and sandals.

  He wiped his face with his sleeve, got another breath, and said, “The cavalry have entered the city. They seized River Road … the weaver … he’s dead. I barely made it back before they took Tin Bridge.”

  “What? Why?”

  “They saw his blue tunica and thought him a loyalist. A captain stuck him with his spear. They were riding down anyone in their way.”

  The alley’s silence was surrounded by a sea of the Warrens’ noise. The boss shrank.

  “We’ve lost our petition,” he said.

  “What, boss?” the bloody man asked, as though he’d never seen the square of vellum tacked to the placard in front of the mill.

  “Our petition for churls, you idiot. With the weaver dead, everyone on Yellow Row will go back to the plazas for daily assignments. Where is the weaver’s brother?”

  “Who?”

  “The weaver’s brother!” he screamed, and shoved the man to the ground. “We need a new petition in place at once, or all of this is lost to us.”