Alien Chronicles 1 - The Golden One (38 page)

Ampris grabbed the article of clothing and pulled it on over her head. “My name is Ampris,” she said. “What is—”

“No time for chatter,” the Kelth broke in, glancing over her shoulder. She beckoned impatiently. “Quickly.”

Emerging from her tiny cell, Ampris was grabbed by her elbow and hastened into a spacious, low-ceilinged room that held the kitchen, stored casks of wine with import marks stamped on their sides, long worktables, and an accounts office.

It was from the latter that Kevarsh emerged scant seconds after the Kelth shoved Ampris into line with the other servants. Rowed in front of the ovens, they stood in silence for the Viis steward’s scowling inspection. Counting from the corner of her eye, Ampris saw six servants all together, including herself. There was a short Myal female, bowlegged and swathed in a cook’s apron. She stood at the head of the line, probably as servant of highest rank. Her red mane floated silkily about her face, and she endured Kevarsh’s inspection with her tail coiled tight against her leg. Kevarsh eyed her closely but said nothing to her. Next stood two Kelths, one the female who had fetched Ampris this morning, the other a half-grown lit male, thin and silver-furred. He reminded Ampris of Elrabin. Kevarsh reprimanded the female Kelth sharply for some ill-completed task, calling her Hama, and berating her until she stood with head bowed and ears flat. The youth’s tabard sat crooked on his shoulders. He took a scolding for that.

Standing at the end of the line next to Gur, Ampris surreptitiously straightened her own tabard. She caught the mute Aaroun watching her from the corner of his eye. He gave her a tiny, gentle smile that made her smile back.

By now Kevarsh stood before Faln. He and Gur were clearly used for outside, heavy work. “The master has need of you to unload the new spools of cloth that arrived in yesterday’s shipment,” Kevarsh said. He glanced at the timekeeper on the wall and extended his rill. “See that you work quickly and finish the task by midday. It will please the master if the cloth is ready for the dye vats by the time he returns. Also, the mistress still wants the nursery painted, and that must be finished by the time she returns today from the hatchery. You are fools, both of you, but surely you can accomplish these simple assignments.”

Faln bowed his head respectfully, and Kevarsh moved to stand before Ampris, his scathing old glare raking her up and down before he produced an ownership earring and fastened it through her ear.

Ampris held herself stiffly, not flinching despite his roughness. She thought of how proudly she had worn Israi’s pretty gold cartouche. This ring was made of plain iron, with her new master’s name inscribed on a tarnished tag. She knew, without being told, that this ring had been worn by other slaves before her. The thought of it made her nauseous, but she held herself under control.

“This is the new addition to our household,” Kevarsh announced. “Ampris, she is called. She is vain and a boastful liar. You are not to believe what she says.”

Backing her ears at his unjust charge, Ampris opened her mouth to protest, then remembered she was not permitted to speak unless directly addressed. Prickling with resentment, she held her tongue, but Kevarsh’s sharp eyes did not miss her inner struggle.

“Lazy and insolent as well,” he continued. “Hama, you will be in charge of her training.”

Hama’s head snapped up, and she bared her teeth. “If I may remind the steward—I am to be nursemaid to the new hatchling. My duties are—”

“There will be time for you to train her,” Kevarsh broke in, his rill flaming red at the interruption. “Jenai will be more than adequate to handle the new hatchling in addition to the other chunen.”

“But the mistress said that I should—”

“Silence!” Kevarsh shouted. He pulled out his baton and whipped her with it.

Watching, Ampris flinched in sympathy, but none of the others watched. When the whipping was over, silence hung thick in the kitchen. Hama stood with her gaze lowered and her ears flat. Only a ridge of hair standing erect on her neck betrayed her emotions.

“You will train Ampris in addition to your other duties,” Kevarsh said. “The family wishes her to serve at table, but start her on cleaning detail. She looks too clumsy to be entrusted with goblets and fine plates.” Swinging his baton through the air hard enough to make it whistle, he stepped back and glared at all of them. “Get to work.”

The servants dispersed, each heading to his or her assigned tasks. Hama gripped Ampris by the front of her tabard and pulled her over to a stone vat. She showed Ampris how to take a pail from the neat stack next to the vat; how to hold it beneath the spigot, which spewed water automatically; and how to use the pail to fill the floor-sweep, an antiquated, dented machine blackened with tarnish and soap scum. Switching it on, she clamped Ampris’s hands around the grips, and the heavy vibration shook Ampris all the way to her shoulders.

“Sweep it back and forth,” Hama instructed her. “Use steady strokes. Make sure you don’t miss any spots. Do the entire ground floor, except for the food storerooms. And don’t go into the hallway that leads to the courtyard. You are not permitted outside yet. When you are finished, we’ll see what’s next for you.”

Ampris stared at her in amazement, not at all certain she wanted to be turned loose with this heavy old machine that gurgled and churned internally as it heated the cleaning water. “But when will we have our breakfast? I—”

Hama’s eyes narrowed, and she bared her teeth. “Breakfast?” she repeated as though she didn’t know what the word meant. “You will be fed at midday, with the others. Truly did Kevarsh speak, in saying you are spoiled and lazy. Only the
family
eats breakfast. Now get to work, and make sure you don’t let the line feed too much water onto the floor at once.”

By midday, however, Ampris had not come close to being finished with her assignment. The kitchen floor was but half-done. Puddles dotted the pavers where she’d spilled too much water. She’d left haphazard streaks in the corners, and was still trying to get the machine to suck up a tangled pile of wet lint that it had unexpectedly belched out. Her hands were swelling from the heavy vibration of the machine, and her shoulders and back ached from the work. She was starving and sore, and when Kevarsh saw what she’d done, he flew into a rage and screamed at her in a tirade that left her shaken and trembling.

“Fool! Incompetent idiot! No food for you today until this is done properly.”

Red-rilled and swearing, he stamped away. Ampris stood there, feeling humiliated, while the other servants refused to look at her. Silence fell over the kitchen, broken only by Hama’s sigh as she wiped her hands on her tabard and came forward.

“Already you are causing us trouble,” she muttered. She took the floor-sweep from Ampris and demonstrated again how to use it. “Fill it with clean water and start over. Maybe while you watch us eat, you will be inspired to do your work properly.”

Ampris swallowed back her disappointment. She was so hungry she wanted to beg Hama to relent and slip her food against Kevarsh’s orders, but caution warned her to stay quiet. Still, there was no ignoring the delicious scents coming from the large ovens. And she was so tired she could not think.

“I’m sorry,” she said, knowing from her training at court that excuses could not be offered. “I will learn to do this, Hama.”

The Kelth barely glanced at her, but Ampris thought for a moment she detected a faint softening in Hama’s gaze. “You had better,” Hama said in warning. “There are worse jobs than cleaning floors. And I must go upstairs this afternoon to receive the new hatchling.”

Ampris smiled, thinking of the little one’s arrival. “Did the mistress lay many eggs during Festival?”

Hama’s eyes widened, and she nipped Ampris on the ear. “Hush, you fool! Never say anything about the mistress!”

Rubbing her smarting ear, Ampris stared at Hama in puzzlement. “But I—”

“She cannot lay eggs at all,” Hama said in a fierce whisper, her ears swiveling nervously as she glanced around to be sure Kevarsh was not in sight. “You will be flogged if anyone hears you refer to her tragedy.”

“Then the little one is adopted?” Ampris persisted.

Hama stared at her in astonishment. “All hatchlings are shared, without knowledge of who actually laid their egg. Where have you lived, that you do not know the custom?”

“In the palace of the Kaa, things are done differently.”

Hama’s ears flattened to her skull. “Keep such comments to yourself,” she said angrily. “We care nothing for how things are done in the palace of the Kaa.”

“Hama!” called the cook. “Come and eat your portion.”

Hama glared at Ampris. “Get back to work. Do not let me see you staring at us while we eat. And I warn you, if I am punished because you cannot perform a simple cleaning task, I will beat you worse than Kevarsh will beat me.”

It took Ampris until nightfall, but she finally finished the floors. By the time she swished water through the floor-sweep to clean it and put it in its place, she was trembling so from weariness that she could hardly stand upright. Her shoulders felt as though they’d been wired to a block of wood. She could barely lift her arms, and her hands were swollen and aching.

Without asking permission, she drank deeply from the spigot, earning herself an outraged swat from the cook’s ladle. When Hama handed her a plate of cold leftovers, she nearly dropped it.

“Eat quickly,” Hama said impatiently. “It is almost time for lights out.”

The Myal cook opened the oven doors to allow them to finish cooling, gave an order to the lit who was hanging up the freshly scrubbed pots, and came over to stand beside Ampris.

Coiling her tail against her leg, the cook glared at Ampris. “Eat faster,” she said. “I want that plate clean and shelved. My old feet are ready for their rest.”

Ampris choked down the rest of her food. She was still chewing the last morsel when the cook grabbed her plate and handed it to the lit to clean.

“Now get to your room,” the cook said to Ampris. “We’re too tired to wait for you all night.”

Ampris trudged out, too exhausted to argue, and Hama and the cook followed. The lights faded on the room—scrubbed, shining, and everything in perfect order. At the door to Ampris’s tiny cell, Hama paused beside her and put her hand on Ampris’s aching shoulder.

Appreciative of that small gesture of comfort, Ampris dragged out a smile for the Kelth. But Hama’s grip changed to a shove that pushed Ampris inside. Stumbling in surprise, Ampris turned back, only to see Hama grip the door and slam it closed. The lock turned, and Ampris was left alone and friendless in her quarters.

After that, her days passed in a weary blur. Buried in the constant learning of new tasks, Ampris scrubbed and fetched and carried and polished. She knew nothing about work, and Hama and the others grew increasingly annoyed with her for being so ignorant and untrained. Ampris learned to master her temper, to hold her tongue, and to do as she was told. She learned to ask no questions, to keep her gaze down submissively, to make no protests.

Yet she made constant mistakes, which brought her beatings and skipped meals. When she was fed, she never got enough. As a young, growing Aaroun, she required double the quotient an adult female would eat, and Kevarsh complained unceasingly about the expense of feeding her.

“The mistress wanted an Aaroun raised in the imperial palace,” Kevarsh would say shrilly, puffing out his air sacs. “The mistress must have an Aaroun from Vir. Never mind that it is a useless sack of flesh and fur, hopelessly stupid, endlessly hungry, and impossibly untrainable.”

Hama, bustling up and down the stairs between her double tasks as new nursemaid and Ampris’s keeper, grew thin and short-tempered during the passing days. She demanded all kinds of tempting delicacies from the cook to feed the hatchling, who was said to have a delicate stomach and fretful appetite.

“I will not let this one die, like the last new one put in Jenai’s care,” Hama declared. She was ambitious to succeed Jenai, who had been chief nursemaid since the arrival of the oldest daughter in the household.

“Make tiny civa cakes,” Ampris suggested. “Flavor them with nectar and honey instead of the usual spices. Make them only the size of your fingertip. That should tempt him to eat.”

Both Hama and the cook stared at Ampris in astonishment. Ampris bent her attention back to her scrubbing. As punishment for having broken a tray, she was doing scullion duty today. The lit, whose name was Ralvik, had been taken outside with the Aarouns to unload a new shipment of cloth for the master’s warehouse. Ampris expected Hama to scold her for speaking without permission, but, neither of them seemed to have much imagination and she was tired of listening to them dither over a problem that seemed so easily solved.

“Can you bake some, as Ampris suggests?” Hama asked.

The cook curled her broad lips down thoughtfully, hesitated, then slid her gaze over to Ampris. “They would be too moist without the usual spices.”

Ampris went on scrubbing, although inside she was pleased that for the first time she was being included in a conversation. “Bake them longer, keeping the heat low so they do not cook too fast and become tough. The extra moisture will make them tender, which is what the hatchling should like.”

“This I will attempt,” the cook said. Turning away on her short, bowed legs, she began rummaging for bowls and ingredients, humming to herself with her tail coiled happily.

Hama rubbed her muzzle and stared at Ampris a moment in silence. Finally she came over and stood beside the vat filled with steaming, soapy water and stacks of pots. Wielding her whirring scrubber with newly acquired skill, Ampris went on working, taking care not to splash Hama.

“How do you know to try this?” Hama asked, her tone grudging.

Ampris glanced at her, wondering if a truthful answer would bring more punishment for boasting.

“A trick of the palace?” Hama said.

Ampris nodded. “I saw it done in the imperial nursery. They also use kivini fruit, very ripe and mashed, to tempt the finicky ones.”

“Kivini is very expensive.”