MARKS - Chapter 4

Chapter Four

I stumble back, the insignia on the guard’s tunic blurring in my vision. A strong hand grabs my arm and yanks me forward. I fly toward him, planting my foot to keep from smacking into him again. Then I glance up.

Fluffer Butt.

His brown eyes betray nothing - if he recognizes me. If he smells the stench of fish on me now. My hand is still coated in fish gut slime, and I loop my basket over that arm. Then I dip my head. “Excuse me.”

He makes no move to leave. My heart picks up rhythm. The urge to run from him builds inside me, but running would make him more suspicious. Plus, his hand is tight on my arm.

Still he says nothing. He’s tall and big and fills up the entire space in front of me - no shrinking back from me. Never mind that he’s making me late or scaring the mess out of me. There is no law for guards. Just endless freedom as long as what they do doesn’t go against the King or upset him. Some guards do only what they’re told. This one doesn’t delight in evil like some; after all, he did keep Beady Eyes from touching me. But I wonder if he enjoys the perks of his job a little too much.

Probably so, as evidenced by the extra weight he carries around his middle. He’s meaty while others in the city nearly starve to death. I bite my lip, wanting to scream and throw my weight into him and maybe beat his face with a raw fish. I need to do something against the King, and as this flabby fellow in front of me is a guard, he is my closest target. Curse the King and all who -

“What are you so mad at?”

I jump as if his voice were a slap and curse myself for letting my anger show. My fair complexion betrays my blush, so I dip my head. “Nothing.”

“You look like you’re about to go to war.”

War. Oh Saints. What if he knows I’m Lyran? What if he saw me get rid of the paper and searches the fish vendor’s things and finds it? I swallow as sweat breaks out on my forehead.

The hand on my arm tightens. “Who are you going to war against?”

You. The King. Every wretched person who sits and does nothing while innocent people die. I lift my head and the guard’s brown eyes stare back at me. Piercing, in a hardened face. A Royal Guard has hold of me and all I am doing is egging him on with my silence. He could do whatever he wanted to me. Just as the King can. Use me, hurt me, kill me. I can’t fight anyone. Who am I at war with?

I exhale and stare at the guard. His brows are drawn down, creating a furrow that I could plant worry or suspicion in. But I don’t. “No one,” I say. “I’m not going to war against anyone.”

He tilts his head slightly. Maybe he doesn’t believe me. Maybe he saw me stick that paper in the barrel and will come for me later. I bite the inside of my cheek to keep my lips from trembling.

 The guard drops his hand. I hug the basket with both arms, as if it is my greatest weapon of defense and not evidence of my crimes this morning.

He doesn’t move. He’s let me go. But I can’t keep from looking up at him. I hate this boy. I don’t care if he did get forced to do this. He clearly enjoys his power. Well, he can bully me all he likes as long as he doesn’t find the words I’ve written. In that way, I’ve beaten him soundly. My bravado ricochets through me, and I lift my face.

The guard stares at me for two seconds. I turn on my heel to leave just as he speaks. “Hope your fish is good.”

Heat leaves my face in an instant, and an eerie coolness washes over me. I keep walking and make myself breathe, listening for his footsteps behind me. For the sound of metal as he unsheathes his sword.

Those sounds never come. He could have seen. But no. If he had, he would have confronted me on the spot. Anyone even suspected of having my power is immediately brought to the castle for questioning. He couldn’t have seen. He’s just trying to scare me.

My hands shake, and I grip the basket harder and rush home. When I open the door, I shove the basket in Mera’s hands without a word, then grab my things and scurry down the street.

I’m late by the time I push through the door at Houghman’s. Scarlett’s scowl is fantastic. The grooves in her forehead as she glares at me are so deep I bet I could hide a small fortune or a baby goat in them. She plants both hands on her hips. “Work starts at seven.”

“I know. I’m sorry. My aunt sent me to the docks and it took longer than I thought.”

A statement closest to the truth is the best lie. That’s something I know all too well. I tie my apron around my waist and knot my kerchief at the nape of my neck. I step beside Scarlett, who is still scowling. “Blues today, then?”

She doesn’t answer, but after watching me crush woad leaves for two minutes she finally moves to her table and does her favorite thing, which is ignoring me.

The sounds of morning shoppers waft in through the open doors: chatter and laughter and the shrill ringing of the bell above the door. The smell of crushed leaves and dye coils up through the air around me. Dyeing is easier in the winter months when the cooler air makes the large pots of dye easier for us to bear. The blues today take a lot of time to darken, depending on their shade. My encounter with the guard this morning has left me rattled; my hands shake as I flip out the first bolts of linen. But as always, I can lose myself in my work. Lose my mind. Lose my fears.

I stretch my hand over the linen fabric in front of me, white and fresh, then plunge it into the pot of blue dye. One by one I dunk the white pieces in the pots, and pull them out a whole new color. Light blue like the sky in summer. Deep cobalt like my brother Lucas’s eyes. Dark blue, almost black, like a lake in the evening when the sun is almost gone.

It’s always such a wonder to take colorless fabric and bring it out of the pots a whole new thing. I wish we could do that with people. Put the King in something to make him a better man. I wonder what sort of pot we’d need to dunk Scarlett in to sweeten her sourness. I peer over to where she works. She doesn’t glare at the pots or the fabric, and I wonder if it’s their silence that makes them tolerable to her. Scarlett isn’t married, though she’s a good ten years or so older than I. Perhaps a man would make her happier. Though I can’t imagine Scarlett’s scowl softening for anyone. Maybe she needs to marry a blind man.

“What are you dawdling for?”

Scarlett’s voice snaps across the room like a bolt of lightning. I don’t even look at her or mumble an apology, just bend over my work of blues once more.

By afternoon my hands are coated with blue dye. It stains the worst, which is where our name comes from. My nails indeed are rimmed in blue today. Ink stains get lost easily in dye. I could write a thousand words today, and only the words themselves and the things they do would be visible to stand against me.

The words I crammed in the fish bucket will get tossed in a sewer or alley somewhere, I hope. Maybe dumped for the dogs to pilfer through. Or even better, used as bait. Then they’d end up mucked and at the bottom of the river. If I could find a good hiding place for my words, I could write more. Do more things. Change baby boys to girls. Give a job to a good man over an evil one. Maybe write a bad case of boils or warts to overtake that flabby guard from this morning.

I heave the blue linen out of its pot and onto the line to drip dry. Usually I stretch the fabric out gently, but there is no tenderness in my movements today. Instead I snap it tight across the line, yanking it over when it doesn’t want to go.

I hate that guard. Hate him and everyone in the city like him. I loathe bullies. Cowards who get their power from preying on the weak. For all he knows I’m just a girl out shopping for fish. And he knows I’m a plague orphan, and about that guard who would have raped me in the alley last week. Evidently Fluffer Butt has a limited supply of mercy. And he knows where I live! Blast him, he’ll probably loiter around my house now, waiting to pick on me. I’ll use my words against him then. I’ll write him foot fungus and stomach woes and maybe that all his thick wavy brown-blond hair will fall out.

If only I knew his name.

I blow out a sigh and slam the fresh linen in the pot, sloshing the blue water over the edge.

 “Careful,” Scarlett warns from her stove beside mine. “This linen is for the King’s festival on Friday.”

 I snap my eyes to hers. “Festival?”

 “Aye.”

 “To celebrate what?”

 “Who knows? My sister works at Mavery’s and says invitations went out two weeks ago.”

 I know John Mavery. He prints a newspaper. A bland one telling of store openings and remodelings. Deaths and births. The King hires him to handwrite invitations and menus for his guests, which is probably the only reason his shop still stands and hasn’t been rendered to ash yet.

 “He’s inviting all sorts of nobles,” Scarlett continues.

Dear Saints in heaven. When the woman does talk, it’s only to gab about royal events and parties, which thankfully don’t happen that often. I stir the linen and wish Scarlett were mute.

“Food’s been ordered,” she says, “and already they’re dragging every gold and silver thing out into the courtyard to decorate. The King’s statues are lining the perimeter.”

Oh, how gaudy. The King commissions a new statue of himself every year he’s in power. There are nineteen of them now, the new ones bigger and more outlandish than the last. He could line them all up and have a party with himself.

“My sister says hundreds of invitations have gone out.”

I don’t know why Scarlett won’t stop talking. I don’t care about the King and his stupid party. Or about the hundreds coming who will gorge themselves with food and wine bought with the taxes of people who can’t afford both to pay them and feed their children. I bet you could feed all the children in this city with what the King will serve at just one banquet. Or with what that guard eats in just one week.

I wish I could poison every person at this stupid celebration. Lace all the wine with arsenic, or set the entire castle on fire while they all sleep off their drunkenness. I ball up the linen in my hand. Curse my stupid anger. Wasteful wishing; I can’t do a thing. It’s not as if I can actually sneak into the castle to do any of the horrid things I wish.

“The party’s to be outside,” Scarlett says. “So the King’s having the priests pray for sunshine.”

I halt over my pot. Then smile and ease the linen into the water. “Oh really?”