Soul of the Fire

Morley pulled Fitch to a halt. "Fitch, where are we going to go? Do you got any idea about that part of it?"

This time it was Fitch who grinned.

CHAPTER 43

Beata squinted in the bright sun as she set down her bag. She wiped her windblown hair back from her eyes. Since she couldn't read she couldn't tell what the sign above the towering gate said, but there was a number before it: twenty-three. She knew numbers, so she knew she'd found the place.

She stared at the word after the number, trying to remember it so she might someday recognize it for the word it was, but trying to make sense of it was impossible. It just seemed incomprehensible marks carved in a piece of wood. Chicken scratchings made no less sense. She couldn't remember a chicken scratching; she couldn't understand how people remembered the seeming indecipherable marks that made up words, but they did.

Once again, she hoisted the cloth bag holding all her belongings. It had been an awkward load to lug along, what with it bouncing against her thigh, but it wasn't unbearably heavy and she often switched hands when her arm got tired.

She didn't really have all that much to carry with her: some clothes; her pair of cobbler-made shoes, which had belonged to her mother, and which Beata only wore for something special so she wouldn't wear them out; a comb carved out of horn; soap; some keepsakes a few friends had given her; some water; a gift of some lace; and sewing supplies.

Inger had given her a lot of food. She had a variety of sausages made from different meats, some as thick as her arm, some long and thin, some in coils. They were the heaviest things in her bag. Even though she had given several away to people she'd met who were hungry and one to a farmer and his wife who gave her a ride in their wagon for two days, she still had enough sausages to last a year, it seemed.

Inger had given her a letter, too. It was written on a fine piece of vellum and folded over twice. She couldn't read it, but he read it to her before she left so she'd know what it said.

Every time she stopped for a rest along the way, she'd taken out the letter, carefully unfolded it in her lap, and pretended to read it. She'd tried to remember just the way Inger told her the words so she could try to tell which word was which. She couldn't. Hen scratching was all it was to her.

Fitch made marks in the dust one time, and told her it meant "Truth." Fitch. She shook her head.

Inger hadn't wanted her to leave. He said he needed her. She said there were plenty of other people he could hire. He could hire a man with a back stronger than hers. He didn't need her.

Inger said she was good at the work he needed. He said he cared about her almost as if she were his daughter. He told her about when her mother and father first came to work for him, and she was still a toddler. Inger's eyes were red when he asked her to stay.

Beata almost cried again, but she held it in. She told him she loved him like a favorite uncle, and that was why she had to go-if she stayed, there would be trouble and he would only be hurt because of it. He said he could handle it. She said if she stayed she would be hurt or even killed, and she was afraid. He had no answer for that.

Inger had always made her work hard, but he was fair. He always made sure she was fed. He never beat her. Sometimes he'd backhand one of the boys if they talked back to him, but never the girls. But then, the girls didn't talk back to him in the first place.

Once or twice he'd gotten angry at her, but he never hit her. If she did something foolish enough to get him angry, he'd make her gut and debone pullets till well into the night. She didn't have to do that very often, though. She always tried her best to do right and not cause trouble.

If there was one thing Beata thought was important, it was doing as she was told and not causing trouble. She knew she'd been born with a vile Haken nature, just like all Hakens, and she wanted to try to act better than her nature.

Every once in a great while Inger would wink at her and tell her she'd done a good job. Beata would have done anything for those winks.

Before she left, he hugged her for a long time, and then sat her down while he wrote out the letter for her. When he read it to her, she thought he had tears in his eyes. It was all she could do to keep hers from erupting again.

Beata's mother and father had taught her not to cry in front of others, or they would think her weak and foolish. Beata was careful to only cry at night, when no one. would hear her. She could always hold it back until night, in the dark, alone.

Inger was a good man, and she would greatly miss him- even if he did work her fingers to the bone. She wasn't afraid of work.