twodrudges

“My brother is not stupid!” the slender drudge snaps. She nearly stamps, winces, glowers at her twisted foot.
/Crack/! Flesh meets flesh explosively, and the girl stumbles back against the table.
“Don’t sass your betters, girl,” snarls the cook, and glowers up at Medelhan’s towering frame. “And mind that dough.”
Angry tears burning in her eyes, the girl stops cradling the rising weal across her cheek. Flour dusts across her cheekbone, and her cap of tousled black hair is frosted gray with it. Her chapped hands work the dough furiously, the marble rolling board thumping rhythmically against the scarred tabletop.
Medelhan, his dark eyes narrowed in his sharp-angled face, begins to thump the butter churn. A stocky, middle-aged woman nudged him gently in the ribs. “Here, Medelhan, why don’t you let me do it? Aescha,” she gestures to the girl, “is going to need a pot of hot water. Fill the big pot with the copper handle with water, and when you’re done, start the stove. There’s already some good ‘starters in the fireplace.”
He frowns, eyebrows lowering thunderously, then shrugs and moves to comply. The heavy iron pot in one hand, he is nearly out the door when he turns back. Sorrowfully, Medelhan brushes his sister’s marred cheek, and bows his head. Then he is gone, striding tall and purposeful through the passages of the Hold.
Aescha’s eyes squeeze shut for a moment, and her breath catches. Her hands work the dough irritably, and her forceful kneading knots the muscles in her arms and shoulders.
“Aescha,” the stocky woman cautions, casting a wary eye on Illan Cook’s bare, paste-white back, “that dough’s going to get tough if you knead it much more.”
The dark girl’s face doesn’t show a blush as well as Illan’s does, but she does redden. “Thank you, Evista,” she mutters, embarrassed. The heavy marble pastry roller clicks against the matching board as she rolls out a thin sheet of dough, movements brisk and efficient. When any evidence of her fingerprints is gone, she takes up a thin, sharp little knife, and begins to cut out diamond-shapes. Methodically, she makes the slices, matching Evista’s steady rhythm at the churn. When her first sheet is done, she picks up the first diamond. Twisting deftly, she drops the shaped noodle into a huge bowl beside her.
Because she was listening, Aescha notices Medelhan’s arrival, the peculiar hitch-step caused by falling-apart footwear ringing clearly down the sloping corridor. She stops for a moment and uses a poker to bring the pot-hook close enough that no-one will have to stand with their head over the fire. Medelhan grins at her, and she smiles back, unwillingly, moisture tracking silvery down her flour-daubed cheeks.
*****
The kitchen is quiet, and finally clean, though the dinnertime glows are growing dim in their baskets. The coals in the great fire pit are banked, and those in the stove are deadened gray. Medelhan methodically lays out two narrow, straw-stuffed mattresses by the fire, and stands waiting, glowlight gleaming eerie green from his eyes. He is hardly more than a silhouette as the sound of labored breathing disturbs the past-midnight peace.
Aescha limps in, her halting steps dragging with exhaustion, shoulders slumped. She scowls at the accommodations, dark eyes venomous. “So nice of them,” she whispers harshly. “They think they’re being so compassionate, putting the cripple-girl with her bad health and the boy mute near the fire. I bet it just warms the cockles of their hearts.”
The drudge laughs, derisively. “If they were truly charitable, they’d find you the time to listen in when the Harper teaches reading and writing. I, I know that you’re brighter than half of them, Delhan. If they were truly charitable, they’d let me go and find real work—something that’s not just muscle-work. They’d have found a healer to set my wretched ankle when the thrice-scorched runner rolled over on it, so I still could have been a dancer. I could have brought in money, Delhan, and found a Healer or a Harper somewhere that could help you talk.”
She sighs, suddenly, and the fire goes out of her. “But they didn’t. Wishing doesn’t change a thing. I wish you could talk; I bet you’d know a good way to get us out of here. I’m sorry I’m not that bright.” Emberlight and glowlight illuminate her face, casting odd shadows up into her eyes, while Medelhan is shadowed and featureless, like a woodcut.
Darkness cradles them as they cover the glows.