The next several months passed swiftly. On one day, as I went about my daily duties, I passed Niroko no less than three times. At each instance I felt the rage build at the sight of him. I quelled it. It was a thing I was growing more and more accustomed to, living in the household.
He still showed no signs of recognizing me. And by the third time he passed me, I was, for the first time, able to contain my anger enough that I noticed the way the other slaves reacted to his passing. To my surprise, every single one of them either froze in fear or outright cowered as the overseer walked by.
It was strange to me, the way every house slave seemed to fear Niroko nearly as much as I did. The gods know I had more than ample reason, but, as much as I hated to admit it, I had never once seen him lay a hand on one of the other slaves--even as he raged at them for their mistakes. He bore no switch, wore no club. Certainly he was no joy to be around, but the fearful regard of the house slaves was a mystery to me.
So, as Niroko passed me by for the third time, I turned to the only other slave in the hallway, one who had practically curled into a ball as the former slave driver walked passed.
"Why is everyone so scared of the overseer?" I asked. "The field overseer was worse, and we didn't cower like that. This one doesn't even carry a switch."
The slave, an older man with a graying beard and a bent back, didn't look up from where he worked a spot on the floor with a rag, but snorted at my question.
"Because he's mad as a poked badger, that's why." He darted a quick glance up and down the hallway to see if anyone was coming, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of redgum, a narcotic many of the older slaves indulged in, when they could get it.
He stuck the wad in his mouth, sucked, and sighed contentedly. Then he continued, "They say the Count gave him a nasty whippin', once, back when he was just a driver. Almost beat a slave to death, and the Count didn't much care for his reasonings, seems. He don't make that kind of mistake no more though, oh no. Won't lay a hand to one of the Count's slaves, no matter what he done. Scream and holler at 'um, sure, but not so much as a cuff beyond that."
He spit a long crimson trail of redgum juice onto the clean hallway floor, then wiped it up with his rag. "No, now what he'll do is just buy up any slave as pisses him off proper. Maybe costs him a bit, sure, but most slaves ain't worth all that much when it gets down to it. And a man can do whatever he wants with his own slaves. I figure he takes his time cutting them to pieces, all slow like, legal as you please, and the Count don't never know." The man gave a shrug. "Doubt he'd care if he did."
He shook his head, a look of disgust on his face. "I heard tell of at least five slaves he bought up, and I tell you what, boy, nobody seen one hair of them never again. Now I ain't no scholar, but a fella' havta' be a good bit dumber'n me to want to see the bad side of a nasty sort like that." He paused, then, and looked at me, scratching the scraggly gray hair of his beard. "'Course, you being the young Lord's own slave, and not answering to the overseer at all, well, you ain't got yourself too much to worry ‘bout from the likes of him. But you stay away from him all the same, boy. No sense chancing chances."
I considered the old man's words as I started back down the hall. It made a sick kind of sense. After all, I hadn't really thought Niroko had undergone some sort of miraculous improvement just because I hadn't caught him actively beating slaves. No, I was quite thoroughly convinced the man was evil, regardless. Of course he still relished in the torment of it--he was just more cautious, now.
Hell, even if the man had turned into some sort of saint, I still would have hated him. I've never been the forgiving type.
But even so, to hear the cold-hearted calculation behind his current method of administering punishment was still something of a shock. From the sound of it, he wasn't just hurting people, he was killing people. In all likelihood right here under this roof. And no one cared.
My stomach clenched in disgust, but I went back to my duties. The idea of Niroko doing as he'd done to me--and worse--to other slaves made me more than a little sick. The thought galled like a fist in the kidneys.
I completed my chores and retreated back to my rooms. As I often did, I found some solace as I entered that cramped space. It was the smallest of rooms, more a closet than anything, really. But it had its own door, with a working lock, and Briar had been quite insistent that it was, in fact, mine--practically speaking, of course.
The only furniture was a tiny hard cot and a basket in the corner. The walls were bare of any adornment, the floor was cold stone. If I stretched out lengthwise and reached out an arm, I could span all the way across it. Truly, it was a sorry excuse for a living space.
I treasured it like a hoard of gold.
Tiny though it may have been, it offered me something I had never before experienced--sanctuary. A place where I might go to be alone. It was a thing I found to my liking.
But I was given little time to enjoy it that evening. Once more, duty called. It seemed Lord Briar had found himself a book on swordplay and was attempting to get a jump on his training, and didn't care to pull himself away to sit down to dinner.
So I was off to the kitchens to fetch my master's meal. This, at least, was no great chore. The kitchens were always a pleasant place. After I'd arrived and made my request on the lord's behalf, I had a little time to kill while Briar's meal was prepared. So I did what I always did when I found myself with a little free time around the household: I went Scratch hunting.
It's harder than you might think.
I'm not sure who hated him, but someone surely did. Inevitably, he was set about the worst jobs one could find in the household. Mucking out the jakes, collecting buckets of nightsoil, things like that. The meanest of the menial. Once I caught him hard at work scrubbing a fresh bloodstain from the stones of the dining room wall, though I never did hear the story of how the stain ended up there. But since it was an unpleasant task, it was no surprise to find him stuck with it.
The strangest part, though, is that he didn't really seem to care. He went about whatever work he was assigned with the same stoic indifference he always demonstrated. Whenever I asked him about it, he'd just shrug and say, "Beats the fields." I suppose it did at that.
Recently (after a few well-placed complaints to Briar on my part) he'd been kept mostly to the kitchens, where the work was easier, so I wasn't surprised to find him seated at that same small table where we had shared our first meal within the mansion walls. His back was to me. There was a huge pile of roughly chopped onions to one side of the table, and another pile still to be chopped to the other.
Chopping onions, I understand, is one of the worst jobs a servant can be given in the realm of the kitchens. It was boring, it made your eyes water, and you stank for hours afterwards. I dare say Scratch didn't mind it a bit.
He had a kitchen knife in his hands and was hard at work, clumsily hacking an onion into smaller chunks of onion. I noted he still wore the glove I had given him so long ago, back in the fields. I glanced down to my own glove and wriggled my fingers. I smiled. It always pleased me to see him still wearing it, just as I'm sure he was pleased to see me wearing mine.
It made us stand out a bit, sure, but neither of us ever took them off if we could help it. I imagine he was told to remove it from time to time, just as I was. And I'm sure as soon as he could manage he slipped it right back on again, just as I did. I suppose you could say it represented a bond of friendship between us, or a mark of surviving shared hardships, or something fine like that. But we never thought of it like that at all--it was just a thing we did. Just another game we played. And maybe just a little reminder that someone, somewhere, cared.
But for now Scratch was working intently, oblivious to the world. So, I did what any good friend would have done in my place; I crept up behind him, cupped my hands to my lips, and in my best imitation of the field overseer (which, I admit, wasn't very good) I hissed, "drop that knife you filthy little shit-eater."
Chop, chop, chop. He didn't miss a beat. After a moment he did turn from his onions, a look of disgust on his face. He didn't seem the least bit surprised to see me, and his eyes weren't even red from the work--he did stink, though. We’ll be generous and blame that on the onions.
He looked at me flatly for a moment, rolled his eyes, then went back to chopping.
"That pathetic attempt at the overseer 'sposed to impress me? Needs work, Telth. Lotta' work. Sloppy. Overseer'd never waste his time like that. I mean, think about it. 'Course I'm filthy, I'm a shiteater, ain't I? That ain't exactly clean living. And the overseer ain't one to go about saying that what's obvious." He shook his head. "No, he would'a recollected as how my parents were brother'n sister, or how I liked pigs a bit more than might be proper. Something worth saying like that. None of that half-assed trash you were spouting."
I pondered for a moment, then shrugged my acknowledgment. All valid points. Say one thing for our overseer, say the man knew how to form an insult. It seemed, in this, Scratch had been a more apt pupil than I. I took the chair next to him and sat, properly chastised.
Then I had a glance around the table, and noted something that set a grin on my face. "You're terrible wise, Scratch. Terrible wise. I'm sure knowing it was me there behind you was pure wisdom," I said, and gestured towards the shiny silver platter hanging on the wall, "and wouldn't have a thing to do with seeing me reflected in that."
He glanced up, looked at the platter, glanced back down. His lower lip quirked into a half smile. "Well, nobody ever said you had to be blind to be wise, did they?"
I sighed, picked up a chunk of onion, and threw it at him. It caught neatly in the curly rat's nest of his hair. He made no move to fish it out. I spent a moment absently wondering how long it might remain there. Not too long, I decided--his scratching would knock it loose long before it had a chance to rot. Probably.
"So," he began, as his chopping resumed, "I heard you got yourself a walloping last night."
"Wasn't a walloping," I said, shaking my head, "we were having a spar. That's what you call it when you're practicing with a sword. Sparring."
He snickered. "Well then I heard you got your ass sparred right onto the ground. ‘Bout twenty times."
I shrugged. "Wasn't one of my better moments, suppose that's true enough. It was fun, though. He's had lots of practice, so he's bound to be a good bit handier than me. Practice is important, you know." Then I grinned. "And maybe Briar makes me look like I ain't got a clue, but I damn sure could take you."
"Now don't go making claims you can't back up," he said, "I've a bit of practice with a blade myself." With that, he brandished his kitchen knife in front of me with an exaggerated flourish.
As I watched, dazzled, a chunk of onion flew from its precarious perch on the tip of the blade, sailed through the air, and hit me in the face. Juice splattered. I winced.
I wiped a bit of juice from just beneath an eye and flicked the chunk onto the ground. My eye was already starting to sting.
"Very impressive," I said, with just the slightest touch of sarcasm.
Scratch, of course, elected not to notice. "Damn right," he said, "and that's without me even tryin' proper." Then he bent down, picked up the wayward onion projectile off the floor, and popped it into his mouth.
I let out an exasperated sigh, unable to keep the smile from my lips.
I'm not sure what made me to turn, then. Perhaps it was some hint of movement caught out of the corner of my eye, or some unexpected sound. Or perhaps it was just the pin prickle touch of hostile eyes. Whatever the case, something caused me to look over my shoulder.
The smile melted from my face like wax from a candle. There was the overseer, Niroko, staring at me from across the bustle of the kitchen.
Our eyes locked. For one frozen moment I felt all the hatred and anger swelling inside me, fit to burst. Then I jerked away from that gaze as though burned. In half a heartbeat my eyes were glued to the stone floor, right where they belonged.
Too slow. Much too slow. I berated myself for a fool, for a thrice damned idiot. Why had I met eyes with the man? He knew me, now. Recognition had been written so clear on his face even an illiterate slave boy had been able to read it. I knew it with a cold certainty in the pit of my stomach.
After a few deep breaths, I chanced darting another look upward, only to have my fears confirmed. Those dark eyes still focused on me, still stared, but now they danced with a sort of satisfied malice. A slow ,ghastly smile came to his face. He took a step in my direction.
I wasted no time considering the proper course of action, or wondering if I might somehow be mistaken. No. I sprung to my feet and I fled.
I ran through the hallways as though the Dead God herself was half a step behind me, and it wasn't until I stood safe within my room, my back pressed firmly against the door, that the racing of my heart began to slow. As I gulped down deep, sobering breaths, I tried to consider all the horrible ways Niroko might harm me.
But it was with a great deal of relief that I realized I could think of very few. Though I was slave, and he a free man and an overseer besides, I was in a position of relative strength. I wasn't under his control, as the other house slaves were; Briar, and Briar alone, was my master. It must be presumed that anything done to me would incur his wrath...or at the very least his irritation. That should offer me some protection.
Abruptly I felt silly for rushing out of the kitchens as I had. I must have looked a sight. Likely, Scratch would never let me live it down.
Then an unpleasant thought crossed my mind, and I spent a few moments wondering if Briar might not be persuaded to sell me. If Niroko could simply buy me up as he had other slaves, I might as well give up now, for I was as good as dead.
I tapped my fingers on my chin, debating. Would Briar sell me? No, I decided. Perhaps we were not true friends, as Scratch and I were, but the young noble liked me well enough, that was clear. I didn't believe he would make such a sale--certainly not for any price Niroko could afford.
I kept thinking. A nervous laugh bubbled out of me. I scarcely believe I couldn't come up with a thousand ways the man might make my life a torment. But there was nothing, really. Not without a great deal of risk to himself, anyway.
As a slave driver, he might have--might have been willing to sacrifice his position for a chance to enact vengeance on someone he hated. But as an overseer? It didn’t seem likely. Overseer was a lofty, much sought after position, and he seemed to relish it. And so long as he did, he shouldn't be able to cause me the slightest harm. Hate me though he might, I just wasn't worth it.
So what could he do? Make faces at me? I leaned back against the door, slid down, and finally felt myself relax.
Later, I made my way back down to the kitchens to fetch Briar's dinner, where I had abandoned it in my wild flight. It was cold by the time I had it back to him, but he was so engrossed in his reading he didn't notice. After, I cleaned up the last remnants of dinner, bid my master goodnight, and retired to my bed.
No nightmares assaulted me, as they had so often in the past. No monsters crept upon me in the night. I fell asleep, as content as a slave could be, quite convinced of my safety.
Seldom in a very long life have I been so thoroughly mistaken.