Django Wexler - The Shadow Throne

With a happy shout, she grabbed Winter and hugged her roughly, and after a stunned moment Winter hugged her back.

“God,” Jane said, “and here I was pretending I was the tough one, when you’ve been marching around fucking Khandar and eating monkey brains.”

“No monkeys in Khandar,” Winter said, a bit muffled. “Beetles, though. They like to eat beetles. And there’s these sort of snakes that live in the canals. They pack them in mud and bake them-”

“Please stop,” Jane said. “I’ve just worked up a healthy appetite and I’d hate to ruin it. Does your diet still extend to cows and pigs?”

“Not often enough,” Winter said. “Mostly we ate mutton. I never want to see another sheep as long as I live, alive or boiled.”

“Come on, then. You can sample the unique Vordanai delicacy I call ‘pork roast pretty rare on one side and fucking black on the other,’ because Nellie in the kitchen is still learning and tries her best.” Jane shook her head. “I can’t wait to tell the girls you were in Khandar . They’re going to have fits.”

“ No! ”

The word came out of Winter with such force that it surprised both of them. Jane went quiet.

“You can’t tell anyone,” Winter said, only now becoming aware of the risk she was taking. If word gets out that there’s a girl-in-boy’s-clothing in the Colonials, I’ll never be able to go back. The thought of wearing dresses for the rest of her life brought her close to the edge of panic, and her collar suddenly felt tight and hot. It hadn’t even occurred to her that she might not be able to trust Jane. “Please.” The word was all she could manage.

There was another strained silence. Jane coughed.

“Well,” she said. “It’s your story.”

“Thank you.” Winter felt her throat unclench. “I’m sorry. I should have. . said something. I’ll explain-”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jane said. “In here we don’t ask about what happened to anybody if they don’t want to talk about it. Saves a lot of tears.” She smiled. “I guess we’ll have to entertain the girls with the story of how you saved my life from little Jim Bellows.”

Winter’s smile was weak, but grateful. “I don’t know if he could have hit you, to be honest. Except maybe by accident.”

“You’re probably right,” Jane said. “But we don’t have to tell them that.”

Supper was a drawn-out affair in Jane’s- Apartments? Barracks? Commune? Winter wasn’t really sure what to call it. The knocked-together kitchen and dining room weren’t big enough to hold all the girls at once, so they turned up in shifts, while a relay of cooks came and went in the kitchen under the uncertain supervision of Nellie-who-tries-her-best.

The dining room-fashioned from several adjacent offices by knocking down any inconvenient walls-was a churning flock of eating, talking, laughing young women, dressed in a bewildering variety of clothes that had all come from the bottom of someone’s ragbag. They ate off a menagerie of clay and wooden crockery, with flatware gathered from a thousand junk shops and rubbish bins. As far as Winter could tell, small groups turned up whenever they liked and ate their fill, then left to make room for others.

Jane presided over it all like a medieval baron, sitting at an especially tall table with a small group of the older girls. Winter had a seat to one side of her, which got her a few uncomfortable looks from some of the others, but Jane immediately launched into the story of what had happened at Crooked Sal’s, and that broke the ice. Abby, who seemed to serve as a kind of second-in-command, sat on Jane’s other side. Among the others, Winter recognized Becca and Chris from when she’d been captured, and was introduced to a short, soft-spoken girl named Min and a ramrod-thin woman closer to her own age called Winnie. These four, with Abby, seemed to serve as Jane’s lieutenants, and Winter’s presence at the high table apparently meant that she’d been added to their number.

The food was everything Jane had promised or threatened. It was plain and plentiful, with more meat and fish than Winter had seen in her years at Mrs. Wilmore’s or her time in the army. There was plenty of bread, too, great piles of steaming round loaves.

Winter ate her fill, and more. Her army time had taught her that the availability of food was always touch-and-go, so it was always best to stock up when one had the chance. Jane also attacked her plate with gusto, though she carried on a whispered conversation with Abby throughout the meal. Winter restrained her curiosity, though she couldn’t help noticing that Abby left in the middle of dinner, leaving behind a half-full plate.

Once she’d taken the edge off her hunger, certain questions presented themselves irresistibly to Winter. Jane was fully occupied in her role as master of the house, shouting across the room to this girl or that and occasionally roaring with laughter at the responses. Min reported on the day’s activities-her responsibilities seemed to focus on the care and feeding of the younger girls-and Jane listened and gave occasional instructions.

Where does it all come from? These girls ate better than she ever had in the army, and the food was certainly better than the gray slop produced by Mrs. Wilmore’s kitchen. How does she pay for all this? For that matter, where had the girls themselves come from? Abby said she’d been taking in orphans and strays, but that can’t be all of them.

As supper wore on, Winter started to worry. Janus sent me here for a reason, after all, and he’s Minister of Justice now. Maybe Jane’s running a gang of thieves. A gang of thieves that included a cadre of chattering, happy twelve-year-olds seemed unlikely, but Winter’s experience was limited. The feral children of Ashe-Katarion had certainly included their share of thieves, but she couldn’t picture them sitting around a table like this.

Another thought occurred to her, and Winter bit her lip. There was always one way for a group of young women to earn a living, after all. Surely not. Jane would never be involved in something like that. Her friend’s morality had always been a bit selective, but surely there were some lines she would never cross. Never.

By the end of the meal, she was feeling decidedly uncomfortable. The conversation flowed all around her, but she was no part of it, like a rock sticking out of a smoothly flowing stream. It felt all too much like being back in Davis’ company, as the “Saint,” collecting her meager ration and wolfing it down in silence while the men around her joked and boasted about their drinking and whoring. The jokes were different, of course, but the feeling of camaraderie-from which she was excluded-was the same. She poked morosely at the congealing bits of fat and vegetable left on her plate.

A hand descended on her shoulder, and she looked up to find Jane smiling down at her.

“I’m about done,” she said. “Let’s go upstairs.”

“I’ve got-” Winter began.

“Some questions.” Jane gave a little sigh, and her smile faded. “I know.”

Jane’s room was on the top floor, in one corner of the building, where windows caught the sun from two sides. They arrived to find Abby tugging the door closed with one finger, awkward because she was carrying a thick wad of clothing in her arms.

“Sorry,” she said, edging to the side of the passage to let them pass.

Winter got the feeling that Jane’s room had been enlarged from its original state in the same way the dining room had, by pulling out interior walls, but here some effort had been made to disguise the fact. A half dozen rugs of different fabrics and vintages overlapped on the floor, and a heavy oak table in one corner was strewn with papers. The walls were hung with colorful fabric to disguise the crumbling plaster. A couple of heavy trunks, lids open, comprised Jane’s wardrobe, and an enormous mattress meant for a four-poster bed simply lay on the floor, covered by a clean but threadbare sheet.