“Master Campbell, I’m sure she wouldn’t—”
“Inger paid me a visit a little earlier.”
Fitch lost a little color. “She told Inger?”
“No. She told him only that she refused to deliver here to the estate. But Inger is a smart man. He figures he knows the reason. He wants what he figures to be justice. If he forces this girl, Beata, to charge a man, the Minister could be unjustly subjected to ugly accusations.”
Dalton stood. “You know this girl. It may be necessary for you to handle her in the same way you dealt with Claudine Winthrop. She knows you. She would let you get close to her.”
Fitch lost the rest of his color. “Master Campbell… sir, I…”
“You what, Fitch? You have lost your interest in earning a sir name? You have lost your interest in your new work as a messenger? You have lost your interest in your new uniform?”
“No sir, it’s not that.”
“Then what is it, Fitch?”
“Nothing, sir. I guess… like I said, anything that happened is no more than what she asked for. I can see that it wouldn’t be right for her to be accusing the Minister of something wrong when he didn’t do nothing wrong.”
“No more than it was right for Claudine to do the same.”
Fitch swallowed. “No, sir. No more right than that.”
Dalton returned to his chair. “I’m glad we understand each other. I’ll call you if she becomes a problem. Hopefully, that won’t be necessary.
“Who knows, perhaps she will think better of such hateful accusations. Perhaps someone will talk some sense into her before it becomes necessary to protect the Minister from her wrongful charges. Perhaps she will even decide that butchering work is not for her, and she will go off to work on a farm, or something.”
Dalton idly sucked on the end of the pen as he watched Fitch pull the door closed behind himself. He thought it would be interesting to see how the boy handled it. If he didn’t, then Rowley surely would.
But if Fitch handled it, then all the pieces would fall together into a masterful mosaic.
40
Master Spink’s boots thunked on the plank floor as he strode among the benches, hands clasped behind his back. People were still sobbing about the Ander women. Sobbing about what was done to them by the Haken army. Fitch thought he’d known what the lesson was going to be, but he was wrong. It was more horrible than he could have imagined.
He could feel his face glowing as red as his hair. Master Spink had filled in a lot of the sketchy parts of Fitch’s understanding of the act of sex. It had not been the pleasurable learning experience he had always anticipated. What he had always viewed with longing was now turned to repugnance by the stories of those Ander women.
It was made all the worse by the fact that there was a woman to each side of him on the bench. Knowing what the lesson was going to be, all the women had tried to sit together to one side of the room and all the men had tried to sit on the other side. Master Spink never much cared where they sat.
But when they’d filed in, Master Spink made them sit where he told them. Man, woman, man, woman. He knew everyone in the penance assembly, and knew where they lived and worked. He made them sit all mixed up, next to people from somewhere else, so they wouldn’t know the person next to them so well.
He did that to make it more embarrassing for them when he told the stories of each woman and what was done to her. He described the acts in detail. There wasn’t a lot of sobbing for most of it. People were too shocked by what they heard to cry, and too embarrassed to want to call attention to themselves.
Fitch, for one, had never heard such things about a man and a woman, and he’d heard a lot of things from some of the other scullions and messengers. Of course, the men were Haken overlords, and naturally they weren’t at all kind or gentle. They meant to hurt the Ander women. To humiliate them. That was how hateful the Hakens were.
“No doubt you all are thinking,” Master Spink went on, “‘that was so long ago. That was ages ago. That was the Haken overlords. We are better than that, now,’ you are thinking.”
Master Spink’s boots stopped in front of Fitch. “Is that what you are thinking, Fitch? Is that what you are thinking in your fine uniform? Are you thinking you are better than the Haken overlords? That the Hakens have learned to be better?”
“No, sir,” Fitch said. “We are no better, sir.”
Master Spink grunted and then moved on. “Do any of you think the Hakens nowadays are outgrowing their hateful ways? Do you think you are better people than in the past?”
Fitch stole a glance to each side. About half the people tentatively raised their hands.
Master Spink exploded in rage. “So! You think Hakens are nowadays better? You arrogant people think you are better?”
The hands all quickly dropped back into laps.
“You are no better! Your hateful ways continue to this day!”
His boots started their slow thump, thump, thump as he walked among the silent assembly.
“You are no better,” he repeated, but this time in a quiet voice. “You are the same.”
Fitch didn’t recall the man’s voice ever sounding so defeated. He sounded as if he was about to cry himself.
“Claudine Winthrop was a most respected and renowned woman. While she was alive, she worked for all people, Hakens as well as Anders. One of her last works was to help change outdated laws so starving people, mostly Hakens, were able to find work.
“Before she died, she came to know that you are no different than those Haken overlords, that you are the same.”
His boots thumped on across the room.
“Claudine Winthrop shared something with those women of long ago—those women I’ve taught you about today. She shared the same fate.”
Fitch was frowning to himself. He knew Claudine didn’t share the same fate. She died quick.
“Just like those women, Claudine Winthrop was raped by a gang of Hakens.”
Fitch looked up, his frown growing. As soon as he realized he was frowning, he changed the expression on his face. Fortunately, Master Spink was on the other side of the room, looking into the eyes of Haken boys over there, and didn’t see Fitch’s startled reaction.
“We can only guess how many hours poor Claudine Winthrop had to endure the laughing, taunting, jeering men who raped her. We can only guess at the number of cruel heartless Hakens who put her through such an ordeal out there in that field but, by the way the wheat was trampled, the authorities say it must have been between thirty and forty men.”
The class gasped in horror. Fitch gasped, too. There hadn’t been half that number. He wanted to stand up and say it was wrong, that they didn’t do such vile things to Claudine, and that she’d deserved killing for wanting to harm the Minister and future Sovereign and that it was his duty. Fitch wanted to say they’d done a good thing for the Minister and for Anderith. Instead, he hung his head.
“But it wasn’t thirty to forty men,” Master Spink said. He pointed his finger out at the room, sweeping it slowly from one side to the other. “It was all of you. All you Hakens raped and murdered her. Because of the hate you still harbor in your hearts, you all took part in that rape and murder.”
He turned his back to the room. “Now, get out of here. I’ve had all I can stand of your hate-filled Haken eyes for one day. I can endure your crimes no longer. Go. Go, until next assembly and think on how you might be better people.”
Fitch bolted for the door. He didn’t want to miss her. He didn’t want her to get out into the street. He lost track of her in the shuffle of others hurrying to get out, but he did manage to squeeze to near the head of the line.
Once out in the cool night air, Fitch moved off to the side. He checked those who’d left before him and rushed out to the street, but he didn’t see her. He waited in the shadows and watched the rest of the people coming out.
When he saw her, he called her name in a loud whisper.
Beat
a halted and looked over. She peered into the shadows trying to tell who it was calling her name. People pushed past to get down the path, so she stepped off it, closer to him.
She no longer wore the dusky blue dress he liked so well, the dress she had worn that day she went up to meet the Minister. She now had a wheat-colored dress with a dark brown bodice above the long flare of skirt.
“Beata, I have to talk to you.”
“Fitch?” She put her hands on her hips. “Fitch, is that you?”
“Yes,” he whispered.
She turned to leave. He snatched her wrist and yanked her into the shadows. The last of the people hurried off down the path, eager to go home and not interested in two young people meeting after assembly. Beata tried to wrench her arm free, but he kept a grip on it as he dragged her farther into the black shadows of the trees and bushes to the side of the assembly hall.
“Let go! Let go, Fitch, or I’ll scream.”
“I have to talk to you,” he whispered urgently. “Come along!”
She instead fought him. He dragged and pulled until he at last reached a place deeper in the brush where they wouldn’t be seen. If they were quiet, no one would hear them, either. Moonlight fell across them in the gap of brush and trees.
“Fitch! I’ll not have your filthy Haken hands on me!”
He turned to her as he let go of her wrist. Immediately, her other arm came around to strike him. He’d been expecting it and caught her wrist. She slapped him hard with her other hand.
He slapped her right back. He hadn’t hit her very hard at all, but the shock of it stunned her. A Haken man striking anyone was a crime. But he hadn’t hit her hard at all. It wasn’t his intent to hurt her, only to surprise her and make her pay attention.