Assassin’s Fate

She rose and I followed her. Her legs were neatly trousered in blue wool and she wore a short jacket a shade lighter than her trousers. All of her was immaculately groomed from her gleaming black boots to her braided and coiled brown hair. Her success was plain in her dangling earrings, rings and the jewelled comb in her hair. She walked with utter confidence and as we descended into the hold and then passed through the swinging hammocks and haze of smoke in the sleeping quarters, she reminded me of a sassy barn cat walking through a pack of dogs. She did not avoid meeting the gaze of the lesser merchants quartered there nor did she appear to hear any of the muttered comments as she passed. Her cabin was further forward in the ship and we went up a short flight of steps to it. She took out a key on a heavy fob and opened the locked door. ‘In,’ she told me, and I was happy to comply.

I was astonished. This chamber had a tiny round window and the room was as big as the one I’d been sharing with my captors. Her trunk was open on the lower bunk and her garments were arranged as precisely as tools set out for a task. Having seen Shun’s wardrobe, this was astonishing to me. But it was also plain that she had planned for this voyage. There was a blue-and-white quilt with tasselled edges on the upper bunk, and a matching rug on the floor. The little oil lamp that swung from the rafter had a rosy tint to its cover. Several sachets of cedar and pine hung about the room, though they could not entirely banish the tarry smell of the ship. There was a small stand under the porthole, with a fenced top. A tin pitcher and washbasin were corralled there. A damp cloth was folded neatly beside it.

‘Touch nothing,’ she warned me as she closed the door. She stood for a moment, considering me. Then she pointed at the washbasin. ‘Strip. Wash. Can you sew?’

‘A bit,’ I admitted. It had never been my favourite task, but my mother had insisted that I at least know how to hem and make basic embroidery stitches.

‘After you are clean, set your dirty clothes on the floor by the door.’ She went to her trunk and her fingers travelled down the folded and stacked garments. She pulled out a simple blue shirt. From a compartment, she took out scissors, thread and a needle. ‘Shorten the cuffs so this fits you. Cut a strip off the bottom and hem it. It should still be long enough to cover you decently. Take the bottom strip and make it into a belt. Then sit in that corner there until I return.’

With that, she turned and went out the door. I heard her lock it behind her. I waited a short time and then tried the latch. Yes. I was locked in. The surge of relief I felt astonished me. I was a slave, locked in my mistress’s cabin, and I felt happy? Yes, for the first time since I’d been taken. Yet as I stripped, carefully setting my broken candle to one side, I found myself weeping. By the time I had turned my mistress’s used washwater into a greyish soup, I was sobbing. I hugged my dirty, torn, smelly jerkin goodbye. It was my last link to Withywoods. No. Not quite. I had my mother’s candle.

I suddenly wanted nothing more than to curl up and sleep, even naked. But I made myself do as she had told me. The shirt was a good heavy one of wool tight woven and then washed and shrunk. It was a deep blue, and I wondered if that was her favourite colour. I hemmed it well, twice, to be sure it would not unravel, and did the same with the sash I made, turning the cut edges in to make all tidy. I hemmed the sleeves back and was clothed in something warm, soft and clean for the first time in months. From the cut cuff, I stitched a hasty pocket inside the front of the shirt. Regretfully, I folded my broken candle and hid it there. I folded the washcloth. Then, as my owner had bidden me, I sat down in the corner and soon fell fast asleep there.

I awoke when she returned. The porthole was black. I stood up as soon as she entered. She surveyed me, up and down, and then looked around the room. ‘It’s done well enough. You should have put the sewing tools away. You should have been smart enough to do that without being told.’

‘Yes, Trader Akriel.’ I had assumed she would want me to obey her exact orders only and I had hesitated to open any part of her travelling trunk. Now I knew. ‘Do you wish me to dispose of the washwater as well?’

‘Set it outside the door with the empty pitcher. It is another’s duty. I will tell you yours.’ She sat down on the edge of the lower bunk and held out a foot toward me. ‘Draw off my boots and rub my feet first.’

I was too well-born for that sort of work. Wasn’t I? Did I want to live and escape Dwalia? I did. I thought of my father. But for fate, he’d have been heir to the Six Duchies throne. But he’d been a stableboy and then an assassin. I might have been a princess. But now I was a slave. So be it.