fled? In my mind I tried to reconnect my spirit to my body. Why did I think my soul would return if my body was still not mine? It belonged to Commander Ambrose to be used as a tool for filtering and testing poisons. I turned away.
Pulling clumps of knotted hair out with the comb, I arranged the rest into a single long braid down my back.
Not long ago all I had hoped for was a clean prison robe before my execution, and now here I was sinking into the Commander’s famous hot baths.
“That’s long enough,” Margg barked, startling me out of a light doze. “Here are your uniforms. Get dressed.” Her stiff face radiated disapproval.
As I dried myself, I felt Margg’s impatience.
Along with some undergarments, the food taster’s uniform consisted of black pants, a wide red satin belt and a red satin shirt with a line of small black diamond-shapes connected end to end down each of the sleeves. The clothes were obviously sized for a man. Malnourished and measuring only four inches past five feet, I looked like a child playing pretend with her father’s clothes. I wrapped the belt three times around my waist and rolled up the sleeves and pant legs.
Margg snorted. “Valek only told me to feed you and show you to your room. But I think we’ll stop by the seamstress’s first.” Pausing at the open door, Margg pursed her lips and added, “You’ll need boots too.”
Obediently, I followed Margg like a lost puppy.
The seamstress, Dilana, laughed gaily at my appearance. Her heart-shaped face had a halo of curly blond hair. Honey-colored eyes and long eyelashes enhanced her beauty.
“The stable boys wear the same pants and the kitchen maids wear the red shirts,” Dilana said when she had stifled her giggles. She admonished Margg for not spending the time to find me better-size uniforms. Margg pushed her lips together tighter.
Fussing around me like a grandmother instead of a young woman, Dilana’s attentions warmed me, pulling me toward her. I envisioned us becoming friends. She probably had many acquaintances and suitors who came to bask in her attentions like cave dwellers drawn to a blazing hearth. I found myself aching to reach out to her.
After writing my measurements down, Dilana searched through the piles of red, black and white clothing stacked around the room.
Everyone who worked in Ixia wore a uniform. The Commander’s castle servants and guards wore a variation of black, white and red color clothes with vertical diamond-shapes either down the sleeves of the shirts or down the sides of the pants. Advisers and higher-ranking officers usually wore all black with small red diamonds stitched on the collars to show rank. The uniform system became mandatory when the Commander gained power so everyone knew at a glance who they were dealing with.
Black and red were Commander Ambrose’s colors. The Territory of Ixia had been separated into eight Military Districts each ruled by a General. The uniforms of the eight districts were identical to the Commander’s except for the color. A housekeeper wearing black with small purple diamond-shapes on her apron therefore worked in Military District 3 or MD–3.
“I think these should fit better.” She handed me some clothes, gesturing to the privacy screen at the far end of the room.
While I was changing, I heard Dilana say, “She’ll need boots.” Feeling less foolish in my new clothes, I picked up the old uniforms and gave them to Dilana.
“These must have belonged to Oscove, the old food taster,” Dilana said. A sad expression gripped her face for a moment before she shook her head as if to rid herself of an unwanted thought.
All my fantasies of friendship fled me as I realized that being friends with the Commander’s food taster was a big emotional risk. My stomach hollowed out while Dilana’s warmth leaked from me, leaving a cold bitterness behind.
A sharp stab of loneliness struck me as an unwanted image of May and Carra, who still lived at Brazell’s manor, flashed before my eyes. My fingers twitched to fix Carra’s crooked braids and to straighten May’s skirt.
Instead of Carra’s silky ginger hair in my hands, I held a stack of clothes. Dilana guided me to a chair. Kneeling on the floor, she put socks on my feet and then a pair of boots. The boots were made of soft black leather. They came up over my ankle to midcalf, where the leather folded down. Dilana tucked my pant legs into the boots and helped me stand.
I hadn’t worn shoes in seasons and I expected them to chafe. But the boots cushioned my feet and fit well. I smiled at Dilana, thoughts of May and Carra temporarily banished. These were the finest pair of boots I’d ever worn.
She smiled back and said, “I can always pick the right-size boots without having to measure.”
Margg harrumphed. “You didn’t get poor Rand’s boots right. He’s too smitten with you to complain. Now he limps around the kitchen.”
“Don’t pay any attention to her,” Dilana said to me. “Margg, don’t you have work to do? Get going or I’ll sneak into your room and shorten all your skirts.” Dilana shooed us good-naturedly out the door.
Margg took me to the servants’ dining room and served me small portions of soup and bread. The soup tasted divine. After devouring the food, I asked for more.
“No. Too much will make you sick,” was all she said. With reluctance I left my bowl on the table to follow Margg to my room.
“At sunrise be ready to work.”
Once again I watched her retreating back.
My small room contained a narrow bed with a single stained mattress on a stark metal frame, a plain wooden desk and chair, a chamber pot, an armoire, a lantern, a tiny woodstove and one window shuttered tight. The gray stone walls were unadorned. I tested the mattress; it barely yielded. A vast improvement over my dungeon cell, yet I found myself somewhat dissatisfied.
Nothing in the room suggested softness. With my mind and eyes filled with Valek’s metal face and Margg’s censure, and the harsh cut and colors of the uniforms, I longed for a pillow or blanket. I felt like a lost child looking for something to clutch, something supple that wouldn’t end up hurting me.
After hanging my extra uniforms in the armoire, I crossed to the window. There was a sill wide enough for me to sit on. The shutters were locked, but the latches were on the inside. Hands shaking, I unlocked and pushed the shutters wide, blinking in the sudden light. Shielding my eyes, I squinted beneath my hand, and stared at the scene in front of my window in disbelief. I was on the first floor of the castle! Five feet below was the ground.
Between my room and the stables were the Commander’s kennels and the exercise yard for the horses. The stable boys and dog trainers wouldn’t care if I escaped. I could drop down without any effort and be gone. Tempting, except for the fact that I would be dead in two days. Maybe another time, when two days of freedom might be worth the price.
I could hope.
3
REYAD’S WHIP CUT INTO my skin, slashing my flesh with a burning pain. “Move,” he ordered.
I dodged ineffectively, hampered by the rope tied to my wrist, which anchored me to a post in the center of the room.
“Move faster, keep moving!” Reyad shouted.
The
