Chapter Three ~ ITC Scroll
Duke Vahn rushed away, leaving Keedrina knelt with her head bowed. She was relieved that he didn’t expect her to ask for release. Kneeling at his feet felt so natural and so right. When he touched her face with those strong fingers, she thought she would melt into a puddle. She felt safe and welcome here. She had wanted to accept his offer, but she needed time to think. A distant memory of something Mother once said seemed to urge against this, but she couldn’t remember why. Her Mother’s voice echoed in her mind, admonishing caution. Keedrina didn’t have the strength to attempt a debate with the object of her bereavement.
Once the duke was out of sight, she stood and checked the guest cottage. The only evidence of her visit was all the food timna had left for tea. Though it was rightfully hers to eat or take home, Keedrina left it untouched. She knew it was ridiculous, but she felt her little rebellion against sensibility would somehow reprove her mother.
She stepped outside and reluctantly put her saggy socks and old, worn brogans back on. She would dream of life without repulsive footwear. Of course, shoes were necessary for protection if she were to be a chicken farmer. But did she have to be that? It occurred to her that there were more than two options.
She thanked the guards at the gate as they let her out, then stopped another moment to engrave the beautiful Rebono crests to her memory. What was it about the Elva and Duke Vahn in particular that had her so enraptured? Despite her grief, it was hard to stop thinking about him.
Keedrina took the road through the city toward the South Gate. She planned another stop—one which she couldn’t bring herself to ask some Castle Guard to accommodate nor admit to the duke. It was the real reason she had refused the offer of a ride, using time alone at the South Wall as an excuse. The Institute for Training and Correction, or simply ITC, was on the way, in the southeast section of Ny. She hoped to find a disinterested third party that could answer her questions about slavery.
The ITC fortress was larger than Rebono Keep. It lacked the fields, gardens, and landscape, but the building itself bespoke strength and timelessness. Keedrina was intimidated by the immense stone structure, but willfully swallowed her timidity and approached.
As she neared, she saw owners leading slaves in various levels of submission. One Elva male was particularly resistant. His owner yanked on the chain attached to the thick iron neck band, but the slave would not go where he was ordered. The owner yelled insults and eventually pulled a cat-o-nine tails from his belt and whipped him. Keedrina shuddered.
Two Elva dressed in purple silk trimmed in gold with embroidered ITC crests ran out to help. Keedrina saw that the obstinate slave had a letter “P” tattooed on his right forearm where timna’s 22 had been. The ITC workers dragged the slave, kicking and screaming, through the vestibule and into a room where they quickly shut the door.
The relieved master thanked the two aides and returned to the informal line where the other owners and slaves waited. Keedrina noticed one young girl in the line who was banded. Her eyelids and nose were red and swollen as if she had been crying, but she seemed resigned and passive. Her eyes looked blank and distant. There were no chains attached to her bands, though they had rings available for that purpose. Her bands were not thick iron like the “P” slave’s had been, but thinner steel ones, like moxi’s. Keedrina saw no fancy Unringed bands like timna’s.
The line formed outside a window marked “Check In”. All eyes followed Keedrina, making her self-conscious. She nearly gave up the whole idea, but running away seemed as embarrassing as going in, so she decided she may as well get what she came for: answers. A little further down the hall, she found a window marked “Information”. Keedrina smiled. This was exactly what she wanted.
When she arrived at the empty “Information” window, she noticed a sign: “Out to Tea”. Sighing deeply, she was just about to leave when she spied a large wooden rack sitting on the window counter. “Slavery: History, Laws, and Practices” was carved into the wood. She dashed for the rack and whisked a parchment scroll from it. The Itzi farmgirl grinned widely. This was better than asking—no one to be embarrassed in front of, no one to question her, no one to eye her suspiciously and possibly notice her rounded ears. Thank the Nymphs for teatime! She drew the scroll close and hastened out.
Keedrina stopped only a few moments by the four piked heads. She had hoped that the sight would evoke some sense of triumph, but it merely brought closure to a nightmare. Victory was hollow; the grotesque globes imparted no comfort, no balm to her heartache. She wouldn’t have given them more than a passing glance if she hadn’t used the stop as an excuse to decline the ride. People exchanged whispers behind her back as she stood there. A few patted her shoulder and offered condolences. She nodded numbly and thanked them.
The suns hung low in the late autumn sky when she arrived at her henhouse. The lad whom Lord Patkus assigned to care (not Botlop, to her relief) had done well. Keedrina noticed several blankets in the corner where the bedding straw was kept. There was also an oil lamp and a large iron skillet. She reminded the lad to gather his things, but he insisted they were not his. Her neighbors must have left them as charity.
The chickens were as healthy as could be expected. Smoke had finally cleared enough to calm them into laying eggs again. Before he left, the farmhand delivered a small basket of eggs—a fraction of what was normally produced, but enough for one meal.
Scouting out the rubble of her house, Keedrina found her family woodstove, ruined. The clay had cracked under the weight of the falling roof. Not that anything else had fared better. She recognized a pattern in charred fabric—a tunic belonging to her youngest sister. Keedrina choked back tears and ceased rummaging except to recover fuel.
She gathered enough half-burned wood to make a cooking fire in the open. Felton berries from near the stream complemented her egg supper. After eating, she reckoned it two hours before suns-set. The chickens would need watering. Keedrina scrutinized the two small water pails. Five trips to the stream would take nearly an hour. A hand pump would be nice with all these chickens needing water.
She stared at the ITC scroll longingly. If she started reading, she would not want to stop to water the chickens, and they had to be priority. Already, she resented them and hoped to rationalize a way to be rid of them. It was difficult to appreciate the henhouse after staying at the duke’s guest cottage.
Did she have this notion to join the duke’s house just for the conveniences? Was this about inhouses and hand pumps? Was it the crisp chintz dresses and deliverance from clunky brogans? How much of her yearning for Duke Vahn’s caressing hand would be moot if her family were still alive? Was it even reasonable to hope that she would be treated the same as timna?
Alone with the chickens, she should have been content. Grown Itzi weren’t supposed to need families or help of any kind. Yet, that was exactly what she yearned for—a place to belong, others to care about her, some purpose beyond a chicken farm and the inevitable dull Itzi compact-seekers she’d be forced to choose from.
Depressed and confused, Keedrina walked to the woods where she was supposed to be when she had her reading lessons. It was time to address the Wood Nymphs she had slighted. She knelt and repented her deceit, then asked for guidance in the present. No answers came, but she felt compelled to postpone any decisions concerning slavery. She would read, ask questions, and plan. To be certain of her motives, she would force herself to wait until the end of the mourning period—three months. She vowed beneath a tall pine.
Keedrina hurried to get the chickens watered while light lingered. She barely finished as the suns dipped into the Great Sea. She headed to her corner of the henhouse and arranged the blankets on the straw. Again, she thought of the ITC scroll, but she was reluctant to waste any lamp oil. In the dark, she lay awake for a long while, alternately thinking about the duke’s house and crying over her losses before she drifted off to sleep.
Nightmares woke her twice. She cowered in the dark, paralyzed by the sure feeling that more marauders would come. The sounds of nature had never frightened her before, but now the distant howling of wolves struck terror in her heart. Mother had always been the one to protect the chickens against attack. Keedrina didn’t think she’d have the courage. Let the wolves have them, she thought.
The next morning, she was up before the roosters crowed. She shivered in her thin bloomers and muslin chemise. She quickly donned her tunic and built a fire. If she sold the henhouse, she could move to Ny for the next three months. She’d be warmer and safer there, not to mention closer to Rebono Keep.
Keedrina fed and watered the chickens, gathered eggs, and then cleaned up the accumulated droppings. She supposed that timna would be along in the afternoon. If nothing else, Keedrina wanted to have tea to offer her special guest. She bartered with a neighbor, gaining a loaf of bread and a bit of tea for a dozen surplus eggs.
Finally, she had time to read her scroll from the ITC. Her reading would be slow, but she determined to read until timna arrived, or until she finished. She settled to the straw and rolled the parchment out. The top had “ITC” in large purple letters with gold embossed filigree, then smaller letters beneath. She read them in a whisper, “The Institution of Slavery in the Twelve Kingdoms: History, Law, and Practice, Latoph Edition.” Taking a deep breath, she pored over the text with great concentration, her lips moving as she sounded out the words.
She was surprised there were so many protective laws concerning slavery: treaties of non-capture with several kingdoms; debtors had the right to choose any owner who could pay the debt; children under ten could not be enslaved; youth slaves automatically gained freedom at age sixteen; slaves could not be indiscriminately maimed or mistreated. So many protections. The scroll went on and on about how civilized the practice was over the Ancient Times.
She read about the different types of slaves and the tattooed symbols that accompanied them. The “P” was for Permanent Slaves, for those that were sentenced to slavery for crimes. Prisoners of war might also be designated Permanent, but if they escaped to their home kingdom, it was expected that their king would order the “P” fashioned into an “R” and name them “Royal Protectorates”. Royal Protectorates were safe from extradition as long as they carried documents. All Twelve Kingdoms would otherwise uphold the universal convention of bands or the “P” mark and return runaways to their owners.
Keedrina devoured the information. Even the old edition of the Ny Gazette Botlop had once brought paled in comparison. She read on about customs, traditions, and the many ways the ITC was there to help. One passage in particular caught her attention—Freewill Slaves are by far the least common. One can recognize them by bands accompanied by “expired” numbers, Owner’s Marks, or no marks whatsoever. It gave her a warm, tingly feel to read it.
Suddenly, she had a flash of remembrance. Mother had opposed the profit-mongering aspect of slavery. timna had said there was no disgrace in service and Keedrina was sure that her mother would agree. Keedrina didn’t have to accept any money. That would prove to everyone, including herself, that her motives were honorable. Deep within, she yearned to serve Duke Vahn Rebono, to discard her shoes, wear his colors, and belong to his house. This Freewill Slave classification was written proof that her desires were acceptable. She felt profound satisfaction at her self-revelation. She would be a Freewill Slave.
She cursed the vow she had made the night before to wait three months. So deep was her desire, it would be hard to wait that long, but wait she would, if for no other reason but to prove to her mother and herself that this was no passing fancy or impulsive reaction to the murders.
