Theirs To Claim

01

Whack!

The striking palm flashes swift as lightning crackling on the side of my head, just above my ear —hard, sudden, and with an open palm. Tears of surprise spring to my eyes but I will them still with a clenched jaw, and focus my glazing stare to focus on the damp moldy wall.

Elias, the servant's keeper, leans forward, crowding into the menial space that separates us until the moist decaying smell of the alley mixes with his tobacco breath. “Look at me, girl.”

A sharp ring echoes through my ear, the skin which he struck throbs like a pulse just beneath my temple. I feel hot everywhere, and dizzy. Lin’s mewling cries are a thread that holds me on the precipice of unconsciousness.

Swallowing a mouthful of saliva, I unclench my jaw and slowly tilt my face back to his. It takes a moment to fully focus on the face poised before mine; his image obscured by my tears; grotesque hawk-like nose, full dirty beard, and dark eyes pressed into a doughy face, Elias is far from handsome. Perhaps for some maids, they find his gruesome looks attractive — a diamond in the rough, they’d say.

Elias’ gaze roams my face, lingering at a spot where he hit, and a slight spark of satisfaction lights in his eyes before dimming. “Where is it?”

Lin’s cries had grown muffled, perhaps he had realized that his cries would bring no mercy.

My countenance is imperturbable despite the guilty bulging weight in my pocket. Chin slightly tilted, I begin to speak; “I don’t-”

He hits me again.

This time harder. His open calloused palm struck my left cheek with enough force to send me spiraling in a short circle right before crashing into the cold wall. I gasp upon impact, barely recovering when something loops into my hair, winding it like a vine around his closed fist and using it as leverage to tilt my head moonward.

The sky is metallic, bruised over with autumn clouds that bulge low threatening to drown the earth in its rain.

Elias’ face presses on mine, the fetid stench of his breath fanning heat over my cheek which throbs like a heart of its own. “Lie to me once more, girl,” he threatens while reaching past his cloak to brush the hilt of a leather whip, “and I will have both of you tied and flogged in the town’s square.”

My pulse quickens— a flutter, like little bird wings trapped between my lungs. His threats were often promised, and I had witnessed the results of his anger physically marred on slaves. Their skins ragged with whip marks and sizzling dark brands, their bodies ambling from castrations, women with chests flat as planks from the removal of breasts — every punishment meted out was monstrous, brutal, and unforgiving.

Yet here I stand in his grip, skin prickling with phantom aches of a public whipping, fear clouding my chest, and a lie ready on my tongue.

“I do not know.” The words are flat and hopefully innocent. To lie to a slave keeper was the height of treason, worthy of my tongue getting cut, but to be caught… oh the damnation for such actions eclipsed all lies.

I pray he does not see past the slate of nothingness on my face. I pray the keen flame of defiance that burns within does not spill past the shallow waters of my green eyes and flicker its deception at him.

For a moment there is only silence broken intermittently by Elias’ haggard breathing, my staccato one and Lin’s soft sobs stifled within the cup of his palm.

Elias searches my face once more, sees nothing, then shoves me away from him as if I am plagued with disease. He pulls a face of disgust whilst darting a look between Lin and me. “If I ever see you two near the marketplace again, I will not hesitate to rip you apart limb by limb.” He pauses to take me in; a quick scan of my body hidden beneath layers of tattered grimy clothes, then Lin, all the while another twitch plays at his lips, “right after I share you both with my men.”

Head lowered in deference, I mutter something of assurance that he will never see us, then once more fall silent beneath his scrutiny right before it lifts as he walks away.

I watch his retreating figure from my periphery then c***k a smile at Lin, vindicated just enough.

The boy’s wretched expression falls blank as he sees my outright grin right before erupting into a fit of anger. “Are you mad?” He yells then quiets down with a sharp look past my shoulder at the alley’s mouth. “Are you mad?” Lin hisses.

“Mad is a subjective term,” I say while rolling my sore shoulders back and tilting my stiff neck this way and that. My cheek hurts but the throbbing had simmered to slight stinging which pulses when I lift my fingertips to it. “I prefer defiant.”

His disapproving stare unwavering, “You mean suicidal.”

“What’s life without a little dance of death?” I challenge him while approaching and crouching low to place both hands on his shoulders. Though we are the same age, Lin is smaller in mass and size. Partly due to genetics, but starvation is what stunts his growth. His shoulders are timid under my touch, the sharpness of his collarbones jutting into my skin.

“Are you okay?” I ask, drinking him in with multiple sweeps of my eyes. His face is untouched and as is; grime-stained, teeth faded yellow, slanted eyes smeared with something brown on the lower lids. The front of his shirt is ripped open from Elias’ steel grip, revealing the bony stature beneath. I scan his torso for bruises outside the ordinary ones then let out a sigh of relief at the sight of none.

“I’m fine,” Lin swats at my hands but focuses on me, my cheek specifically. “Are you okay? The way he hit you…”

I grimace and touch my cheek, feeling the swollen ridges of Elias’ hand imprint begin to surface. “I’ll be fine.”

We linger on the floor crouched before each other, wild hearts yet to slow to a healthy gallop, and sweating. The shock of nearly being caught is yet to wear off and despite my facade of bravado, I am still shaken within, my hands trembling like leaves stirred in an autumn wind.

A small gust of air slips into the alley and lets out a solemn mourn as it winds up and over us. The coolness of its touch offers reprieve to the heat of my skin. I begin to rise and hold out a hand; “Shall we?”

Lin glances between the outstretched hand and me, his gaze is wary. “I never understand why I still stay with you,” he grumbles, begrudgingly taking my hand.

I haul him off the floor and begin to walk in the opposite direction, “I’m irresistible.”

“You’re dangerous,” he corrects, “and reckless.” The space between us widens with each lengthy stride I take, forcing him to jog on. “And one day you will get caught—“

“Fools are the only ones that get caught,” Casting him a glance over my shoulder while blindly stepping over a rotting cat carcass, I arch an eyebrow at him, my smile creeping like the edging rays of daylight. “We may be idiots once in a while, Lin, but we are no fools.”

Whatever retort he throws at me deviates once I step out into the bustling world. Though the light is gray, I squint into it, suddenly conscious of the world wrapping me in an embrace of disconsolate noises.

Like a cluster of old wives, the village sits just outside the town with its open shacks and wooden carts. The air is heady with the smell of ripe seasonal fruits and freshly baked bread just pulled from blazing ovens. Donkeys and horses are drawn to the sides and vendors are shouting prices amongst competitors and buyers alike.

I weave through the vendors and stalls easily, conscious of keeping my head low and shoulders hitched up as if walking against the wind. Few notice our scrawny presence, their eyes flickering to our bodies then away within a single breath. Their interest in orphans, squandering servants and the lowest class in the town is non-existent.

They walk past us as though we are grazing cows. Their dull eyes fleeting over us like the shadow of an eagle overhead, fleeting and cold. I help them in this by taking on a muted bovine expression to avoid any undue attention.

We pass an open store with wooden tables stained red with wine and bowls of curdled soup overflows. I watch the men throw their heads back, jaws yawning wide with guffaws of laughter, hands slapping the wooden tables with open palms or mugs brimming with ale. One servant girl with a freshly bruised eye leans past a man to pour him ale when the man turns and slips a hand beneath her skirt, groping up her thighs as if seeking the purchase of something valuable.

I tear my gaze away from the scene and focus on the ground; the bare yellow earth, cracked into the pattern of a turtle’s shell. The scent of rain is a faint afterimage in the clouding air that curls past us coolly as I step through the market’s edge and pick a familiar winding path up a small hill.

“This should be fine.” Drawing to a standstill, I search the vast land before us; drying grass undulating in the wind and around our ankles. I glance over my shoulder at Lin, a s***h of red crosses his pale cheeks almost comically, as if a child had painted him. “Cold?”

Lin nods and sinks further into the coat he wears, arms wrapped around himself in a weary hug.

I gesture at a random spot, “Sit.” Then I begin to pace a few feet from him while keenly tracking the ground. Behind, I hear the grass stir as he slumps onto it with a pained groan.

“What are you doing?”

“Finding our dinner,” I mutter, kicking aside stones and gravel until a familiar path unfurls from under. The trail is not long, barely ten strides past Lin’s flopping body. Had it been someone else, they would have mistaken the meticulously placed dried grass for nature, but upon closer inspection, one could tell it was too artificial; too unnatural to look natural.

And beneath lay my trap.

Satisfaction thrums through me as I lift the trap, increasing in vibrancy as I weigh it in my hand.

“What’d you get?”

I glanced over my shoulder at Lin who had rolled onto his belly, chin resting atop his flattened hands on the earth. Despite the distance, he sees the trap in my hand and smiles warily.

The basket had been weaved by Arya in her free time. It was not a gift, merely a method for her to have me silent and my presence gone for my whining and frolicking behavior was fraying at her patience.

That, and hunting for myself would make it easier on us.

One less mouth to feed.

Lifting the trap’s door, I peer inside and make a noise akin to happiness— or so I thought, it was hard to properly construct a sentence at the sight of the lizard, long as my forearm, resting at the base of the trap with its serpentine tongue flickering in and out delicately.

Lowering the lid, I turn to Lin with a pleased smile. “Start a fire.”

As he got to collecting twigs, building a fire, and creating a spit atop it, I beat the lizard against the jagged end of a rock. Its limbs convulsed with each pounding of the head but soon grew still and limp in my hold. Drawing out a pocket knife, I skin the animal shallowly, conscious of not chipping away its flesh in the process. The blade’s gleaming edge enters smooth and clean only to resurface red and wet and with the tangy scent of iron.

“You don’t have to.” Lin interrupts as I begin to slice the animal in half. He speaks with the slight intonation of guilt, a thin flimsy layer that lifts just briefly every time for me to notice his sunken temples, hollowed cheeks, and dark eyes flickering anxiously between the animal and me as if I would eat it any moment without him.

It was my kill, after all.

I tear out its guts and toss them aside for whichever stray dog would wander through these parts. “I know.” It had never been an option to eat alone. Slicing the lizard down the center into two equal portions, I hand one to him, grinning lopsidedly. “But I still do.”

Lin takes his piece gratefully then meticulously pierces it with his stick and lifts it to the fire, slowly turning it over with each hiss and spit.

We eat in silence; the taste of smoke and charred tough meat saturating my taste buds. Lizards had never been my favorite of animals. I glance sideways at Lin who was well into the last quarter of his piece, sucking the thin bones that toothpicks and tossing them into the dead fire.

I focus on my own, willing my mind to conjure thoughts of roasted chicken or a bowl of millet porridge filled past the lip, liquid quivering high within a taut skin, and as I bite into another tough piece of meat, I contemplate with a voluptuous, anxious dreaminess of how I might take the first spoonful without losing a drop.

 Once I overheard a servant say that the mind is a powerful thing and if you’re desperate enough, it can bend to your will.

But today it did not or maybe there were limits to our imagination because the lizard still tasted like a lizard and not chicken.

The hunger pangs had subsided to a comforting silence by the time I sucked the last bone and tossed it into the heap of ashes. Beside me Lin had rolled onto his belly, cheek resting on the earth, his gaze fixed but unseeing on me.

The silence is comfortable. I pluck a blade of grass and roll it between my thumb and index finger whilst gazing out into the town before us. Spring had passed into summer not long ago, and summer’s dying light had begun to mesh into autumn.

There are mists now in the morning and sometimes storms at night that batter the roofs of our quarters, dripping coldly through the wearing spaces. Winter would come soon with its beauty and malice, the green hellebore leaves drowned out in white, and the bare cypress trees tall and needle-pointed against the metal sky.

Lin stirs to an upright position with another soft groan. “What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing,” I hum, feeling the gentle palm of the wind against my back, “Everything.”

Daylight was beginning to edge just along the horizon, the marketplace was closing down, people slowly returning to their homes while those that work at night begin to slink through the alleys and bars.

“Your birthday’s in a week,” Lin mutters to fill the void with a sliver of glee.

“Is it?” I reply dismissively, the thought sparking a murmur of bile up my throat.

His blurred face nods vigorously along my periphery. “I have a gift for you.”

The corner of my mouth twitches upwards, “Let me guess—“

“You will not know it.”

“— food?”

Lin shakes his head. His smooth bare scalp gives his facial structure a wide mandibular look, like a grasshopper.

I flick the blade of grass away and begin to rise, “Then I don’t want it.” He scrambles to rise and catch up with my downhill stride.

“You don’t even know what it is!” He yells after me.

I shrug nonchalantly, “I don’t need to. If it’s not food, it’s not a worthy gift.”

Though I cannot see him, I know his chin juts up an inch in prideful defiance, the swallowing darkness of his eyes deepening to depths of accepted competition. Before he takes the next turn and disappears in the swirl of moving bodies to find his shelter for the night, I hear his parting words.

 “We’ll see about that, Ariadne.”

He takes the next turn and disappears in the swirl of moving bodies to find his shelter for the night.

The town bell tolls heavily indicating that seven had arrived.

Darkness falls and lamp lights glow a murky yellow in the night. Listlessly, I wander the streets and alleys in search of nothing, breathing in the biting cold that feels like tiny knives scraping my throat. But the pain is a welcome reprieve to take my mind off the edging date.

My eighteenth birthday.

A day scarcely celebrated by the females of those below the upper class, and perhaps even the daughters born of wealth lament their eighteenth birthday for it was the day when their lives would no longer be theirs.

Those from poor families are either married off for dowry, sold into s*****y to pay off debts or given to the brothels and bars.

Those from the rich are paraded before suitors like cattle; prodded and touched, the finer the female the finer the heirs.

Diligent, sad women who are bent on a lifelong course of quiet servitude, forever in fear of showing, saying or doing the wrong thing.

A muscle in my jaw ticks in discontentment just as the darkness shifts by my side.

“Why the long face?” An arm slides over the breadth of my shoulders with familiar ease, drawing me closer to his side.

The heat of Jarres’s skin and staunch smell of coal is welcoming like another coat to ward off autumn’s cold. I crane my neck to get a better look at my brother; he is taller than I am, every sinew taut from labor and hidden beneath a thin sooty shirt.

Feeling my scrutiny, Jarres shifts his eyes to mine. Brown and warm as summer earth, hardened along the edges with fine lines of stress despite his age only being twenty two. He c***s a dark brow, “What is it?”

“Everything.” Shifting my attention back to the path, I kick a stone and watch it skitter off to the side. “How was work?”

“Fun.” He says dryly, then gives my shoulder a squeeze. “How was your day?”

“Fun.” I mimic.

“What did you do?” A pause, “Other than get beaten.”

Heat flares through me, rising up my neck and spreading beneath my cheeks. The ache of Elias’ palm returns stinging. “In my defense,” I start, desperately searching for a lie but coming up with none.

Jarres leans into me heavily, his face pressing into my hair. “In your defense?” He mocks earning a scowl from my downturned face. “What did you do?”

Shoving my hands deep into my pockets, I kick another stone. “I stole.”

The warmth of Jarres’s eyes cools ever so slowly, “Ari--”

“It was only bread.” I retort, shoving my hands deep into my pockets in search of something to hold. “Besides,” nocking an eyebrow, I turn to him, “it’s not like they ever notice.”

Jarres’s dark gaze lingers on my cheek pointedly.

I flush, “Okay. But it was just this time--”

“You need to stop--”

“And I will,” the urge to shrug off his hand from my shoulder grows steadily, “when I start earning enough to buy us all hot meals.”

He does not reply, evidently irritated by my actions but far too worn out to speak on it.

I opt to soothe the sharpened atmosphere. “Arya should have made dinner by now.” If dinner could be classified as a handful of beans boiled in clear water and a slice of bread split in two, never three.

Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday were the nights I skipped meals. Dinner would never be enough if all three of us sat to eat, it scarcely fed Arya and Jarres. Arya skipped dinner on Tuesday and Saturday while Jarres did not. He worked at the mines which demanded more energy than either of us, and his wages were higher.

Jarres grunts noncommittally and a silence ensues thinly as we cross a small bridge into the servants' part of the town where wooden shacks with caving roofs sat hunched on the mud.

The next question lingers beneath my skin. I had been asking him of it since I turned fourteen and watched him leave for the mines. The answer had always been the same, yet still I dared to ask with each passing day, month, year.

And now that my eighteenth birthday was approaching, the desperation was beginning to clog like a hot bone in my throat. I try to work the words around it while keeping my eyes fixated on the ground. 

“Did you ask your employer?”

I wish I could look at Jarres; sift his expression for the lie and truth as I had in the past, but time had drawn a line through the sand between us. And I found it easier to not look at him when he replied. It was easier, I found, to hide your shattering self from the naked eye.

“He didn’t come into work today.” The lie leaves his lips smooth as a polished knife, drawn to my chest like metal to magnet. “I’ll try next time.”

Next time.

He’s sick… he’s out of town… next time… next time… next time…

Eighteen was days away. There would be no next time.

Which female had ever worked in the mines to begin with?