Морган Райс - A Court for Thieves

“Formally,” Sister O’Venn said, “we are required to ask you, before we sell on your indenture, if you have the means to repay your debt to the goddess. The amount is here. Come, you worthless thing, and find out what you’re actually worth.”

Sophia didn’t get a choice; they took her to the table and she looked down at it. She wasn’t surprised to find every meal, every night of lodging annotated. It came to so much that Sophia recoiled from it instinctively.

“Do you have the means to pay this debt?” the nun repeated.

Sophia stared up at her. “You know I don’t.”

There was a stool in the middle of the floor, carved from hard wood and completely at odds with the rest of the room. Sister O’Venn pointed to it.

“Then you will sit there, and do so demurely. You will not speak unless required to. You will obey any instruction instantly. Fail, and there will be punishment.”

Sophia hurt too much to disobey. She went to the low stool and sat, keeping her eyes downcast enough that she wouldn’t attract the attention of the nuns. Even so, she watched as figures came into the room, men and women, all with the sense of wealth around them. Sophia couldn’t see much more of them than that, though, because they wore veils not unlike those of the nuns, obviously so no one would see who was interested in buying her like chattel.

“Thank you for coming in at such short notice,” Sister O’Venn said, and now her voice held the smoothness of a merchant extolling the virtues of some fine silk or perfume. “I hope that you will find it worthwhile. Please take a moment to examine the girl, and then make your bids with me.”

They surrounded Sophia then, staring at her the way a cook might have examined a cut of meat at the market, wondering what it would be good for, trying to see any trace of rot or excessive sinew. A woman ordered Sophia to look at her, and Sophia did her best to obey.

“Her coloring is good,” the woman said, “and I suppose she might be pretty enough.”

“A pity they won’t let us see her with a boy,” a fat man said with a trace of an accent that said he’d come from across the Knifewater. His expensive silks were stained with old sweat, the stink of it disguised by a perfume probably better suited to a woman. He glanced over to the nuns as if Sophia wasn’t there. “Unless your opinion on that has changed, sisters?”

“This is still a place of the Goddess,” Sister O’Venn said, and Sophia could pick out the genuine disapproval in her voice. Strange that she would balk at that, when she didn’t at so much else, Sophia thought.

She reached out with her talent, trying to pick out what she could from the minds of those there. She didn’t know what she hoped to accomplish, though, because there was no way she could think of to influence their opinions of her one way or another. Instead, it just gave her an opportunity to see the same cruelties, the same harsh ends, again and again. The best she could hope for was servitude. The worst made her shiver with fear.

“Hmm, she does quiver beautifully when she’s afraid,” one man said. “Too fine for the mines, I guess, but I’ll put in my bid.”

He walked to Sister O’Venn, whispering a figure to her. One by one, the others did the same. When they were done, she looked around the room.

“Currently, Meister Karg has the highest bid,” Sister O’Venn said. “Does anyone wish to raise their offer?”

A couple seemed to consider it. The woman who had wanted to look into Sophia’s eyes walked over to the masked nun, presumably whispering another figure.

“Thank you, all of you,” Sister O’Venn said at last. “Our business is concluded. Meister Karg, the contract of indenture now belongs to you. I am required to remind you that should it be repaid, this girl will be free to go.”

The fat man snorted beneath his veil, pulling it away to reveal a ruddy face with too many chins and not improved by the presence of a bushy moustache.

“And when has that ever happened with my girls?” he shot back. He held out a pudgy hand. Sister O’Venn took the contract, placing it in his grip.

The others there made small sounds of irritation, although Sophia could sense that several of them were already thinking about other possibilities. The woman who had raised her bid was thinking that it was a pity she had lost, but only in the way it irritated her when one of her horses lost a race against those of her neighbors.

All the while, Sophia sat there, unable to move at the thought of having her entire life handed over to someone so easily. A few days ago, she’d been about to marry a prince, and now… now she was about to become this man’s property?

“There is just the matter of the money,” Sister O’Venn said.

The fat man, Meister Karg, nodded. “I will deal with it now. It is better to pay in coin than bankers’ promises when there is a ship to catch.”

A ship? What ship? Where did this man plan to take her? What was he going to do with her? The answers to that were easy enough to snatch from his thoughts, and just the idea of it was enough to make Sophia half rise, ready to run.

Strong hands caught her, the nuns clamping their grips around her arms once more. Meister Karg looked over at her with casual contempt.

“Have her taken to my wagon, would you? I will settle things here, and then…”

And then, Sophia could see that her life would become a thing of even worse horror. She wanted to fight, but there was nothing she could do as the others led her away. Nothing at all. In the privacy of her head, she screamed for her sister’s help.

Yet it seemed that Kate either hadn’t heard – or didn’t care.

Again and again, Kate died.

Or “died” at least. Illusory weapons slid into her flesh, ghostly hands strangled her into unconsciousness. Arrows flickered into existence and shot through her. The weapons were only things formed from smoke, pulled into existence by Siobhan’s magic, but every one of them hurt as much as a real weapon would have.

They didn’t kill Kate, though. Instead, each moment of pain merely brought a sound of disappointment from Siobhan, who watched from the sidelines with what seemed to be a combination of amusement and exasperation at the slowness with which Kate was learning.

“Pay attention, Kate,” Siobhan said. “Do you think I’m summoning these dream fragments for my entertainment?”

The figure of a swordsman appeared in front of Kate, dressed for a duel rather than an all-out battle. He saluted her, leveling a rapier.

“This is the Finnochi derobement,” he said in the same flat monotone the others seemed to have. He thrust at her and Kate went to parry with her wooden practice sword, because she’d learned to do that much, at least. She was fast enough to see the moment when the fragment changed direction, but the move still caught her off guard, the ephemeral blade slipping through her heart.

“Again,” Siobhan said. “There is little time.”

In spite of what she said, there seemed to be more time than Kate could have imagined. The minutes seemed to stretch out in the wood, filled with opponents trying to kill her, and as they tried, Kate learned.

She learned to fight them, cutting them down with her practice sword because Siobhan had insisted that she set her real blade aside to avoid the risk of real injury. She learned to thrust and cut, parry and feint, because every time she made a mistake, the ghostly outline of a blade slid into her with a pain that felt all too real.

After the ones with swords were the ones with sticks or mauls, bows or muskets. Kate learned to kill a dozen ways with her hands, and to read the moment when a foe would fire a weapon, throwing herself flat. She learned to run through the forest, jumping from branch to branch, fleeing from foes as she dodged and hid.