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It wasn’t like Orana hadn’t known that Serah Hawke was too good a master to be real.
Life in the Hawke estate was an easy dream. Bodahn and Sandal handled a great deal between them, and there was another girl who came in to help with the cleaning – a nice human woman named Alimony who had never been anything but friendly to Orana, if a little condescending sometimes. Orana didn’t need to be told she was mousy; it had kept her safe for twenty-odd years, and she wasn’t ready to change it yet.
And then Hawke said, “Orana, I’ll pay you triple this week if you do one thing for me.”
“Yes, master?” Orana asked, linking her hands behind her back. Hawke was leaning against the fireplace, wiping spatters of red off the bridge of her nose. Orana knew what blood looked like, and she didn’t ask any questions about what her new master did out there in the world all day and half the night. Even if she still crept closer whenever when people were telling stories.
“You’ll have to go out,” Hawke said. “Can you do that? You’re allowed to say no. This isn’t anything in your contract.” Orana had a contract now, instead of a deed of sale, even if she’d had to ask Bodahn to read it out loud to her. He taught her to read – Hawke had offered, but it frightened Orana to spend so much time with her master – and every night Orana pulled out her folded copy and poured over it, picking out the words she knew. Her name. A set wage. Free.
“I can do that,” Orana promised. It would be easier to go out with a task in front of her, a duty that she could focus on and offer up as explanation if anyone asked her any questions. I’m about Serah Hawke’s business. Maybe, if she went on a few errands and no one challenged her presence on the street, she’d be able to go to the market on her own, or at least pick up a few things for herself while she was there. “Where do you want me to go?”
“I have a friend who lives in the old mansion at the end of the cul-de-sac, first left in the nobles’ square,” Hawke said. “I’d like you to go down to the kitchen and pack up a bag of food – I mean, things that are already cooked. I don’t know if he can or not, but I don’t trust him to do it.”
“I can do that,” Orana said. “How much?”
“Enough for a few days of good meals, at least,” Hawke said. “I mean, not so much that it’ll spoil, there’s only one of him, but – I don’t know. Use your judgment.”
“Er. How much money’s worth?”
Hawke blinked at her. “I don’t care.”
“…Oh,” Orana said faintly, wondering. She could pick up some for herself, if she wanted. Eat anything out of the kitchen she chose and say it was for this basket.
“I’m rich,” Hawke said with a shrug, gesturing to encompass her modest little southern mansion. Orana politely didn’t snort. “What’s the point of it if I can’t feed my friends?”
“You’re very generous, master,” Orana said. She could have one of those strange bright dried fruits, even – or make off with a bottle of wine, although that would be silly, since she didn’t really like wine –
“One of these days I’ll get you to call me Hawke, I suppose,” Hawke sighed.
“Whatever you wish, Master Hawke,” Orana said, flushing. Hadriana would have had her flogged for even thinking of it, and besides, Orana had seen how other elves were treated in the streets of Kirkwall. Elves didn’t call wealthy humans by familiar names here either, not normally. Not if they wanted to be safe.
“Close enough,” Hawke said. “There’s more to the task, I’m afraid. Although there’ll still be a bonus – half again, say – if you can bring him the food and get him to eat some of it.”
“I’ll try, Master Hawke,” Orana promised. “What’s the rest of it?”
“Do… something about his house,” Hawke said, throwing up her hands. “Just… something. At least the rooms he lives in. Get the damned broken glass off the floor, at least. Sooner or later he’s going to cut his foot open, and he probably won’t let me heal it. Don’t worry about any your duties here, we can handle them. And it’s all right if it takes more than a day, or even more than the week. I’ll pay you extra for as long as you’re there.”
“All right, Master Hawke.” Orana bit her lip. “You must care very much about this person.”
“Maker help me, I do,” Hawke sighed. “You should be warned in advance, he’s not going to be happy about this. He’ll probably yell at you, and he may not want to take any of it. But he won’t hurt you, and right now I don’t really care how angry you make him.”
“I… see.” Orana paused. “Is there any particular kind of food he likes?”
“I heard him say he likes apples, once,” Hawke said. “And… I would stay away from any recipe you or your father cooked very often for Hadriana, unless you only made it in the last year or so. Bad memories.”
Orana’s eyes widened. “Is this… the man who was Danarius’s bodyguard?” Sweet Maker, but he was frightening.
“It is,” Hawke said, grimacing. “It is at that.” She sighed again, rubbing a hand over her eyes. “Thank you for doing this, Orana. I really do appreciate it.”
“Of course, Master Hawke,” Orana said, ducking her head, and scurried off to the kitchen.
In the end, she didn’t lay claim to much for herself. Bodahn served the same food to staff and family, which Orana supposed was the kind of thing you did in the Free Marches. In Tevinter she had taken great pride in serving a magister as wealthy as Hadriana, and would have looked down by proxy at the Hawkes, but she had to admit the roasts were delicious.
She might have leaned over-much on the advice about apples. Hadriana’s last days were a blur now, one that woke her shaking in the night, but she vaguely remembered an elven man snarling with blood drying on his face, and the gleam of lyrium-silver. He was not a man she wanted to anger, even if by now she had a reasonable faith that Hawke wouldn’t send her into danger lightly. She was valuable, and Leandra enjoyed her music.
The basket she’d chosen had a cover, and she’d tied the lid down with strips of leather. Sandal trotted next to her, carrying the cleaning supplies. The broom stuck out over his head like a peculiar flag. She hurried, but she didn’t run – never run in public, it makes you look like you’re up to something – and she didn’t look up too far from the street until they fetched up on the grimy doorstep.
“Broken,” Sandal said, looking up at the house.
“Yes, it is, isn’t it? And provincial,” Orana said, nodding. “Still, I imagine it was nice enough, when it was kept properly.” She rapped at the door, steeling herself to make it brisk and loud.
“Come in!” a voice bellowed distantly. Orana glanced at Sandal, shrugged, and pushed it open.
“Oh, dear,” she said, looking at the stretch of ruined tile. “Oh, and it must have been such a nice house once, almost like home. Just put those down inside the door, dear,” she said to Sandal, who nodded and settled the cleaning basket and bucket of water painstakingly onto a clear flat space. Orana glanced down at the food in her arms, then at the filthy floor, and decided to hold on to it. “Thank you, you can run along back home.”
“Yes,” he said solemnly, nodding, and left, the door thunking shut behind him. On the echo of its creak, Orana heard footsteps.
“You know, Aveline, you’re the only person I know who bothers to –” The door above the stairs creaked open, and the mysterious Fenris came to an abrupt halt, cutting himself off. Orana dropped her gaze hurriedly, but even from the edges of her sight, she could see corded muscle and a warrior’s leather, and a bottle of wine in his hand. And those tattoos! One of her friends knew someone who competed for those tattoos. From what Hawke said, Fenris hadn’t even wanted them; he must have been very frightening indeed, to be chosen over those who longed for it.
“You’re not Aveline,” he said.
“No, ser,” Orana said, bowing over her bundle of food. “I’m Orana. Master Hawke took me in service.”
“Master Hawke,” Fenris – Ser Fenris? Serah Fenris? – said, as if tasting the words and finding them bitter. “Does she have a message for me? Usually she comes herself.”
“No message, ser,” Orana said. It was possible she was a message, but she doubted that was the kind he’d meant.
“I see.” He paused, staring down at the bottle. “Probably wise. I’m not going to be much good to her today.” A thump: he’d placed the bottle on the railing, precariously balanced. Orana bit back a wince; it looked large, and wine was dreadful to clean up – not that there was much beneath it to stain. “I don’t usually drink this early in the morning, but… it doesn’t matter.”
“I’m very sorry for whatever troubles you, ser,” Orana said. Some of the magisters claimed that without slavery, people like her and her father wouldn’t be able to survive on their own; that they would devolve into drink and degeneracy without duty to structure their days. She had never really believed it: Hadriana left the running of her household almost entirely to her slaves, caring only that conveniences appeared before her when she wished, and they’d run the household magnificently. And in the course of her own freedom she hadn’t noticed any stirring desire to quit her job and drink herself to death in a ditch. But Fenris seemed to be the sort of person that got those stories started. On the other hand, Master Hawke thought highly of him, and Master Hawke didn’t seem easily impressed with anyone, even the Viscount.
“Are you.” He made his way down the steps, eying her bundles with suspicion. “What’s all this supposed to be?”
“Those are soaps, and cloths, and a bucket and broom,” Orana said. “And I have apples, and bottles of cider, and some turnovers – lamb-with-rosemary and apple-and-pork, and sliced beef, and a loaf of good bread, and a good hard cheese, and what’s left of a pie – that was apple too – and –”
“Enough,” he burst in, cutting her off with a quick chopping gesture of his hand. “What’s it all for?”
She blinked. Well, she’d never heard Hadriana imply that her teacher liked smart slaves, though she clearly hadn’t lied that he liked pretty ones. “You, ser.”
“I don’t want it.”
“Oh.” Hadriana glanced down at her bundle and took a deep breath. She could do this. “I don’t think Master Hawke cares.”
“Hawke’s not here.” He took another step closer, glowering down.
“No, ser.” She lifted her head, meeting his eyes for the first time. “She sent me instead.”
That threw him; he took a step back, blinking. “And why would she do that?”
“I’m not sure, ser,” Orana said. She wasn’t brave, and she could clean well but not better than anyone else, and she was an excellent cook but she doubted she’d be willing to serve anything that had touched a surface in this house. “But she did.” Another deep breath. “She said she didn’t care if I made you angry, and that you weren’t going to hurt me.”
“Oh, didn’t she?” Fenris blurred, a glow shining through him –magic? He wasn’t a mage, couldn’t be – surely Master Hawke would have mentioned – it would explain why Danarius chose him – and then something ripped the basket out of her hands and a grip like freezing metal clamped around her waist. She screamed.
The shining blur stilled. Fenris stood in front of her; the basket landed on the floor with a thud and bounced. The lid held. She wasn’t hurt. Blood rushed in her ears, a thundering roar.
“I’m sorry,” Fenris said. “That was unworthy of me.” He took a long step back from her; then another short step, another, stumbling over the tiles. One hand clutched at the air; then he caught himself and stood, swaying. Orana glanced down at his feet, then at his hands, then up through her eyelashes at him. He caught her looking and winced, grinding the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Maker,” he said. “Yes, you’re right, I’m drunk. And being a terrifying brute. Look what glories I make of my freedom.”
His freedom. Orana had known a number of Danarius’s slaves; Hadriana brought her favorites to stay with Danarius, and she really had loved Papa’s soup. In another life, Orana might have known Fenris in Tevinter; the man in front of her might have been a near-equal, maybe more valuable or more favored but still another elven slave working below stairs.
They were both runaways, now, by the standards of Tevinter; or, here, the Marchers’ equivalent of the liberati. Fenris had a home of his own – sort of – and the friendship of the great and mighty, but Orana had reading lessons, and a job with a contract that she could leave if she chose or keep if she worked, and a purse under her mattress that could maybe buy her a tiny cottage someday if she wanted one, especially after she cleaned his house.
Orana bent and gathered up the basket, brushing off the grime. “You’ll have bruised the apples,” she said.
The corner of his mouth twitched up. “So Hadriana didn’t crush all your spirit after all,” he said.
“Ser is very kind to say so,” she said, by habit, and he flinched. So he didn’t like her subservience – well, that made sense, if he too remembered they might have been equals in Tevinter. If he had never caught Danarius’s eye, if they had met in the kitchen gardens by the rosemary patch.
She had been sent to clean his house whether he liked it or not. Also, he was enormous, and leaning against the wall was an immense sword. It might be useful, to be able to very politely make him a little uncomfortable.
She took a deep breath. “Was wine all of ser’s breakfast today?” she asked, in the same tone she would use to ask Hadriana’s shyest kitchen boy if he had gotten all the dishes clean yet.
“I didn’t have wine for breakfast,” Fenris snapped. “Technically speaking.” She raised her eyebrows. “I started drinking a few hours after the midnight bells. Half the city is drinking at that hour.”
“I’m sure, ser,” Oranna said. She braced the basket on one hip and began untying the cords. “Have you taken any breakfast at all? Or slept?”
“I’m fine.” Fenris turned away. “Leave the baskets if you must. Perhaps I can use them. I’ve been meaning to clean up around here.”
“Mmm-hm.” Orana knew years’ worth of dust when she saw it, and this was a large mansion. Master Hawke had set her a formidable task, even if she was only to clean the parts of it in use. And was that blood dried on the floor? “Is there a clean table where I might set this down?”
“What – oh.” Fenris sighed. “Somewhere, I suppose. I’ll clear something off.”
“How do you eat?” Orana asked, horrified. “Surely not in this? You might have –” She broke off. Somehow, she did not think this man would take kindly to suggesting he might have lived better back in Tevinter. Still, she’d seen Danarius’s kitchens; at least they were clean.
(Unbidden, she recalled Hadriana and the smallest of the kitchen boys, out in the courtyard – thick with mud and full of bright sunlight after a sudden thunderstorm had cleared away. Hadriana had plucked his hunk of bread and cheese out of the boy’s hands and turned it over like a mildly interesting artifact, holding it up to the light; then she had dropped it in the spreading puddle and laughed. “Go on,” she’d said. “You need your dinner, don’t you?”)
“I don’t eat here,” Fenris snapped. “I buy dinner at the Hanged Man or turnovers from the stall in the stairway to Lowtown. What does it matter to you?”
“It matters to Hawke, and she wants it to matter to me,” Orana said, and then corrected herself: “She’s paying me for it to matter to me.”
“I see.” Fenris eyed her sidelong. “There’s a table back here. It’s clean… enough.”
Orana would be the judge of that, thank you very much. “Of course, ser.”
He led her to a room which offered some explanation for how he lived here – badly, and alongside filth, but it at least looked habitable. There was a bed, and a table layered in the grime of use rather than the dust of years. It looked, Orana suspected, like a table in a very disreputable bar – not that she had ever visited a disreputable bar, or any kind of bar. Her father had served Hadriana’s mother; she’d been born just a few months after the young mistress, and lived her whole life in the estate until she came to Kirkwall. Still, she listened when people spoke, and disreputable bars had dirty tables. Master Hawke and her friends often spent time at the Hanged Man, which didn’t sound reputable at all. Perhaps they were all used to things like this.
“It’ll do for now, I suppose,” she said, and set down the basket. “Would ser like an apple?”
“Don’t call me ser,” Fenris grumbled. “I’m not your master, and I don’t need to be fed.”
“Some bread, then,” Orana said. She doubted there was a bread knife in this house; she bit her lip and broke off a piece. “It’s fresh this morning, you know, and still warm.”
“I just said I don’t need –” He came up short as she stepped closer, holding the bread up to him, a few inches away from his chest. Hadriana had liked to be fed by hand, sometimes, when she was particularly wearied or particularly cross; this was how they had offered that service. “Stop that,” he snarled, taking another uneven step back.
“Of course, ser,” Orana said, breathing deeply: in through the nose, out through the mouth, and keep it quiet and keep your hands still; another slave might see you’re scared, but the masters won’t look closely enough to notice. She lowered her hands, still holding the bread out for him to take. “Here.”
“I’ve frightened you again,” Fenris said, all bitter resignation. “Oh, damn it all, fine, I’ll take the bread. I don’t need to be served.” His tone suggested that he’d sooner be eviscerated. He grabbed the bread from her hand, keeping their fingers carefully apart.
“Ser can serve himself, then?” Orana asked, and turned back to the basket, carefully spreading out one of the wrappings to cover the grime of the table. “A turnover, perhaps?”
“No,” he said, faintly muffled. When she looked over her shoulder, he was chewing, and a significant chunk of the bread gone. He swallowed, looking away. “I suspect if I eat too much this morning, it won’t stay in my stomach till nightfall.” He took another bite of the bread, still not meeting her eyes.
“Of course,” Orana said, “I understand.” Master Hawke hadn’t asked her to report back, but if he was that drunk, maybe she should? Bodahn would know what to do, and would be happy to tell her. “Well, if that should come to pass, I brought plenty of rags.”
Fenris choked, but recovered before she had to try and save him from suffocation on Bodahn’s best bread. “You are not cleaning up my mess.”
Orana had been well trained and did not roll her eyes. “Master Hawke’s orders were very clear, ser,” she said. “How is the bread?”
“What?” He blinked. “Delicious – that isn’t the point!”
“I’ll bring some butter next time,” she said. “Or preserves.” She bit her lip. He wasn’t her master, however useful it might be to treat him as one. “I thought this morning’s bread came out very well too.”
“Had you a hand in making it?”
“Only starting it in the evening,” she said. “Bodahn handles the rest. I’ve offered to do more, but he says he likes to get up early.”
“I see,” he said, around another mouthful. “And I don’t need any…” He paused.
“We have some very nice blackberry preserves,” Orana said. “And Master Hawke doesn’t appreciate them.”
“She did say she hates blackberries,” Fenris said, sounding distant, lost. A few weeks ago Bodahn had told Orana, very quietly, that he thought Master Hawke might be entertaining a visitor late at night – a gentleman of sorts! he’d said, and then paused. Well, of one sort or another, I suppose. Well. A friend, anyway. If Fenris were the gentleman caller – well, perhaps Master Hawke had suffered some sort of injury to her nose, and could not easily smell? And if the caller was somebody else, then Orana suspected that Fenris ought not to meet him. Ever, and especially not down some dark alley.
“Blackberry preserves tomorrow, then,” Orana said, “unless you hate them too.” She nodded to herself and, while he was busy chewing and looking lost, went to fetch the basket and bucket.
“Now,” she said, burdened down in the doorway to Fenris’s room, “Master Hawke told me to pay special attention to the rooms you live in, so I suppose I’ll start cleaning in here.” She set everything down and put her hands on her hips. “I’ll need to boil some water at some point, I imagine, but I may as well get started.”
“I already said you aren’t cleaning my house,” he said.
“It’s Master Hawke’s orders, ser,” Orana said, and began carefully extracting the broom from the basket. “I’ll be happy to start in another room if you like.”
“Go back to Hawke’s house.”
“I will when I’m done, ser,” she said, and took up the broom.
“Give me that.”
“I am terribly sorry to inconvenience you, ser, but I’m afraid my master commands otherwise,” she said, and kept the line of her shoulders even and smooth.
He didn’t hit her, only sighed. “Leave the basket. I’ll clean it. I’ve been meaning to straighten things up a bit.”
Even in here, he’d been meaning since the solstice at least, if Orana was any judge. “I’m pleased to spare ser the trouble,” she said, and began work on the grime accumulated in the corners by the door. Several generations of spider had built their own little arachnid city in the corner, piling filmy white layers at least three inches thick.
“Oh, for –” In three terrifying strides he crossed the room and twisted the broom out of her hands. She didn’t resist; there was no point. The two of them stared at each other, Fenris’s face suffusing with the awareness that he had just made an ass of himself.
“I’ll just go and get another broom, then, ser,” Orana said, once he looked thoroughly ashamed. And then, taking a deep breath: “It’s what I did when Hadriana took my tools. I’m used to it.”
“Oh, shit on my tongue,” Fenris said in Tevene, slumping. He returned to Common to say, “I am not Hadriana. I’m trying to stop you from serving me, damn it!”
“I’m not serving you, ser,” Orana said, and took the broom from his slackening grip. “I’m serving my master – my employer.”
Fenris sighed, scrubbing his hands through his hair. “She can’t possibly be paying you enough.”
“She’s offered to triple my salary while I do this,” Orana said. “You aren’t so dreadful, really.” He hadn’t hit her, only grabbed her – very innocently, really – and there was nothing else he could do to her. He couldn’t withhold food, or sell her, or sell her family, or whip her father, or set her to work all night. She might not need to be afraid of him at all.
Thoughtfully, she started on the spiderwebs and began to hum. Fenris stared at her and then left, door slamming shut behind him.
“Hey, hey, the stars and the wind, hey, hey, the moon on the sea,” she sang in Tevene.
She had handled most of the spiderwebs and had given up and started rinsing the broom in the bucket – imperfect, perhaps, but otherwise she’d be going in and out all day – when the door slammed open again. She nearly overset the bucket, jumping away, but it was only Fenris back. His hair was plastered to his head and dripping; he had a bucket in his other hand.
“Oh, ser, you needn’t –” she started. He ignored her and rooted around in the cleaning basket, extracting a rag and the bar of soap. “You can’t!”
“Can’t I?” he snapped, pushing past her to start scrubbing the area she’d swept clean of debris. “It’s my house. I’m sure Hawke would be happy to lend me a rag. Am I no longer allowed to clean my own home?”
“Well, but – well –” she sputtered, and he glared and crouched to the floor, to start washing at the… base? “Well, ser was never a house slave,” she said.
“What?” He frowned up at her. “I don’t know if I was or I wasn’t. I don’t remember much of my early life, if you must know. What does it matter? A slave is a slave.”
“If you start by scrubbing the floor, it will only get dirty again when I have to wash the walls,” Orana said. Fenris opened his mouth, closed it, and glanced back down to the floor.
“I see,” he said, and stood. “Should I start at the ceiling, then?”
“There’s no need to clean anywhere, ser,” she said.
“Are you going to start at the ceiling?”
“I am,” she admitted.
He glanced from her – barely five feet tall – to the ceiling to the rag in his hands. “Did you perhaps neglect to bring a box? A stepladder, maybe?”
“I’ll tie the rags to the end of the broom,” she said. Of course, Danarius had kept him as a personal body slave. He would have never needed to know how; likely never even seen any more cleaning than the simple day-to-day maintenance. Still, she rather thought he could have figured out enough to keep the house from getting this bad.
“I see. Well, I can reach well enough.” He was tall enough to stand even beside a number of human men; he might in fact be able to reach, though Orana suspected he’d have to stand on the tips of his toes and stretch. Resolutely cleaning his house was one thing, though; correcting him about his own height was another.
“I’m more than capable of it, ser,” she protested, but he reached up – yes, on his toes – and began with the molding.
“Don’t worry too much about the crevices,” she suggested, giving up. “Start with getting the worst off, and we can dig out the depths once the rest of the house is a bit better.” Except – though they might balance out somewhere like equals, she certainly didn’t outrank him. “At least, ser, that’s what I was planning to do.”
“Thank you.” He turned away; she worried her lip for a moment and then sighed, gave up, and kept sweeping. After a few minutes of silence, she began to sing again:
“My mother gave me a golden seed, a golden seed, a golden seed, my mother gave me a golden seed, for to grow a gar-den!” Her voice shook, a little, but Fenris didn’t say anything, and so she continued: “My mother gave me a silver pail, a silver pail, a silver pail, my mother gave me a silver pail…”
“You sing very well,” he said, when she finished. He’d cleared a stretch of wall, which had apparently at one point in its life been white. The wine stains were never going to come out, but perhaps Orana could move one of the wardrobes over them.
“Thank you, ser,” she said. “Master Hawke likes it. She says I could become a minstrel, if I ever get tired of working for her!” The first time she’d said it, Orana had been terrified Master Hawke was weary of her, that the master intended to throw her out. Bodahn had found her crying and stroked her hair, and then – frightening her even more – he’d fetched Master Hawke down to the kitchen to promise her she could always have a place. Still, once her fear had eased, she’d lingered over the thought of herself with her lute and a cloak and a feather in her hat.
“Will you do that, then?”
“Oh, no, ser, I never could!” It was lovely, to imagine being adventurous and brave, travelling all over the Marches, down into Ferelden and Orlais, but Orana knew what she was and wasn’t, and she wasn’t brave. She’d never gone anywhere on her own in all her life, and she couldn’t imagine singing to the rowdy crowds that appeared in Master Tethras’s books or Bodahn’s stories. “But Master Hawke is very kind to say so.”
“You could, you know,” he said. “Go wherever you wanted. Do whatever you chose.”
“Maybe, ser,” she said, eradicating a spiderweb-hamlet. “But then, couldn’t you say the same of yourself?”
“I did,” he said, scrubbing at a stubborn patch at the wall. “I stayed with Hawke.” He paused; there was a faint thunk, and when she looked up from the spiderwebs, he had gone still, his forehead pressed against his upraised arm.
“Ser?” she asked. “Are you all right?”
“No,” he said, rough. “I’m a wreck and a damned fool, and I don’t know how to fix any of it.”
Orana opened her mouth, closed it again. “I’m sure that isn’t true, ser,” she lied.
“Oh, don’t,” he said. “Don’t tell me otherwise.” He shook his head; Orana watched the way the wet strands of his hair tangled and wondered if she should advise Hawke to send over a comb. “Hawke’s a better friend than I deserve.”
“She’s a great lady,” Orana agreed. “Would you like me to tell her you said so?”
“Maker, please don’t tell her any of this,” Fenris said. “Better yet, forget it all. Take this bucket; I’ll go refill yours.”
“Thank you, ser,” she said. “You’re very kind.”
“Not in the slightest,” he said, and left.
He was back soon enough, hair dripping again, and when the next bucket was black, he left for another one. She inspected his work while he was gone. It was clean enough, in fact; the deepest ingrained grime was still there, in the crevices of the molding, but that was only as she’d ordered – suggested! – and the rest was as clean as she herself could have gotten it.
She’d lost count of the rounds of buckets and they had a solid stretch of wall clean when he set both buckets down with a thump and said, “It’s near noon out there.”
“If ser is wearied –”
“Did Hawke send you with instructions for a noon meal?”
“She –” Orana paused. “She didn’t. I… suppose I could go buy something? I’d have to go back to the estate and get my purse…”
“You left your… ah. Of course.” Slaves weren’t permitted coin of their own, and didn’t carry their master’s purse without a special note of dispensation enclosed. To be found with even a few copper and no note was to be flogged. Orana had left the Hawke estate with her own purse twice, both times trying to buy her lute; the first time she had run back inside, clutching the purse to her stomach to muffle the jingling coins.
Fenris had been a slave, after all; he asked her no questions, only crossed to the table. “No need. Have some of this.”
“Ser, that’s for you,” she protested.
“Which makes it mine, doesn’t it? And you’re a… guest, of sorts. Eat, damn it; there’s no reason for you to go halfway across Hightown.”
It wasn’t proper, but then, none of this was – “If ser eats too,” she said, setting down her bucket.
“If I ask you to stop calling me ser, will it work any better than asking you to stop any of the rest of this absurdity?” he asked. “I’d scold Hawke for forgetting her servants’ needs, but she never remembers her midday meals either. Aveline hounds her about it.” He reached for the bread; she bit back a gasp, and he stopped, glaring at her. “I washed my hands at the well,” he said. “Wash yours; I’ve a dipper somewhere around here.”
“It’s next to you, ser,” she said, and took it. It wasn’t anything like clean enough for a house under her purview, and tarnished besides, but she supposed it would do well enough.
Once her hands wouldn’t leave streaks of grime on the bread, she dealt out the lamb-and-rosemary turnovers, which she knew to be exceptionally good: one to Fenris and one to herself. “Surely,” she said, “ser can eat lunch. The effects of the wine must be leaving you by now.”
“Regrettably, they are,” he said, accepting the turnover. He took a bite; his eyes widened, and he took another. “Mmm.” Orana buried a smug smile in her own turnover.
She was halfway through hers, and Fenris making sheepish inroads on a second, when he clapped a hand over his mouth too late to cover a jaw-cracking yawn.
“Oh, you’ve been up since…” He’d never answered her before. “Did you sleep at all last night, ser?”
“At least you’re addressing me directly,” he grumbled around a mouthful of lamb. “And no.”
“Oh, but shouldn’t you?” She glanced over at the bed. “I’m sure I can find you some fresh sheets…”
“My sheets are fine,” he said, in defiance of any logic whatsoever. Orana used to keep her pallet cleaner than those sheets. “Are you going to stop cleaning my house?”
“When it’s clean, ser, of course,” she said.
“Maker take you,” he grumbled, with no real conviction.
“The Maker takes us all in his time, ser,” Orana replied, and bit her lip in consideration. “Perhaps if ser simply lies down for a moment? Just until I need the buckets refilled again, perhaps?”
“And you’ll wake me? No.” He scoffed, picking at the turnover.
“I’m sure I could manage, ser,” she said.
“Do you actually intend to try?” he asked.
“Ser!” Orana almost dropped her pastry in a stab of guilty panic. “What reason have I given you to doubt me?” She had absolutely intended to leave him sleeping.
“Doubt you how?” he asked. “You haven’t the slightest interest in doing what I say.” Orana held back a flinch, but he didn’t sound angry, or at least, not any angrier than he ever seemed to sound. Almost amused, actually.
“That’s…” Orana tried to protest, and abruptly choked on the lie. “You know, I suppose that’s true.” It was obvious enough, most like.
“Does it frighten you?” he asked, staring down at the turnover as he pulled pieces from the crust. “Defiance?” Quietly he added, “It frightened me.”
“It’s… not that defiant, I don’t think,” she said. “Not really. I mean, a favored slave under orders could always defy their masters’ subordinates – I’ve seen, er, other magisters’ cooks turn Hadriana out of their kitchens before.”
“You can mention Danarius in front of me,” Fenris said. “It’s not as if we don’t both know he exists.” He swallowed a broken-off piece of crust, still not meeting her eyes. “Is that what you think I am, then?” he asked. “Hawke’s subordinate?”
“Not… really, no,” Orana said thoughtfully, looking down at the basket. “If you were, she could simply order you to clean this place. She wouldn’t need to bother with me.”
“What do you think I am – no. It’s an unfair question to ask of you, and a cowardly question to ask of anyone but her. If she wished me to know, she’d tell me.” He sighed, rubbing at his eyes.
Orana hid a smile behind years of practiced self-control and her pastry. “She doesn’t speak to me about personal matters much,” she said. “So I don’t really know. She seemed… very frustrated, when she sent me here.”
“Well deserved,” he said, sighing. “The frustration, I mean.” Another crumb of pastry ripped off and eaten. He’d bitten into the first pastry like an ordinary person.
“If you know you frustrate her, why not stop doing it?” she asked.
“It’s not that simple.” He licked a line of grease off his fingers, an image which clarified for Orana a large part of why Hawke cared for him. “Hawke mentioned you were afraid to go outside. Why not simply go? Why not simply be unafraid?”
“If… that’s the way it is, I suppose,” she said doubtfully, tugging at a strand of her hair. “What frightens you?”
“More things than you might imagine,” he said wearily, and picked up the turnover to finish it off. “You said Hawke was paying you gold for this foolishness. What will you buy with it?”
“I… don’t know,” she admitted, caught off guard. “I didn’t really want to say no to her. I mean, I could do it. And, well… it’s not like she could leave me to her children, even if she had any. If anything happens to her, I’ll have nowhere to go. I’ll need the money.”
“Is that how you see freedom?” he asked. “Truly? Aimlessness and risk?”
She took a deep breath. “No,” she said. “I don’t. I don’t think so, anyway. I mean, it is a risk, but it is… I don’t know what to do with any of it, but I don’t want to give it back.”
“Good,” he said, soft and rough. “Good.” He cleared his throat. “You should spend a few silver, at least. Have something of your own.”
“I did buy a lute,” she said. “Almost right away. I missed mine so badly, and I felt so guilty for wanting to go home – I mean, it was so awful, at the end! All the blood! And Master Hawke was so kind. How could I be ungrateful? And then I thought – well, Bodahn said – I could just buy a lute. I could have one that was mine. And I was so frightened even to have the money, because, you know –”
“You’d be beaten,” he said. “I remember.”
“How did you get past it?”
“I killed a number of slave-catchers,” he said. “It got easier not to be afraid of beatings.” He shrugged one shoulder. “You don’t seem to have that option. I suppose you could ask Hawke to bring you a selection, but it might not have the same impact.”
She blanched. “Oh, but I don’t want to kill anyone!”
“Don’t you?” he asked. “Not even someone who wants to drag you back to Hadriana?”
“Oh, I don’t know!” She covered her face with my hands. “You talk as if it was so awful, and I can’t even tell if it was anymore. Some days I think things are hardly any different at all – I mean, it’s not as if I’m spending my money, and I don’t have any idea what I’d do if I ever left. Where would I go? And then I go to bed and I pick up my copy of the contract again, or she thanks me for my work and pays me for the week, and I just – it changes everything. And then it doesn’t! I don’t even know what I feel.” She sniffed, rooting out her handkerchief. “I’m sorry, you asked – no, I don’t want to kill anyone. I’ve only seen someone die when Hadriana – it was awful. I don’t want to be like her, I don’t ever want to be like her –” She took a deep, shuddering breath and blew her nose. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get so emotional.”
“Ah. Well.” Fenris coughed; Orana glanced up and lost control of a damp and shaky laugh. He looked as comfortable as a soaked cat.
“I’m sorry, ser,” she said. “I just – you…”
“I’m ill-suited for this,” he admitted. “I can offer you wine.”
“No, thank you.” She smiled a little. “I don’t like the taste, and I’ve cleaning yet to do.”
He grimaced. “You needn’t. And I should – I need to sleep.” As if to illustrate his point, he yawned, jaw-splittingly wide.
“I can stop singing?” she offered.
“The obstacle is your presence, I’m afraid,” he said, muffling another yawn.
“What if I start sweeping your hall?” she asked. “At least I won’t be, you know, right next to you.”
“That may work,” he granted. “Keep the door shut. And, ah… sing if you wish.”
Orana covered a smile. “Is there any particular song you would like me to sing?”
“It wasn’t an order,” he said, looking self-conscious. “I only meant that you needn’t restrain yourself. If you were inclined to.”
“You could give me some copper,” she offered, half-joking. “If there was something you wanted me to sing. Then I would almost be a minstrel after all.”
He snorted, but something thoughtful crossed his face, and he reached into a purse at his side. “Why not,” he said, and dropped a few coins with a clink on the table. “No lullabies. I’m not a child.”
“Of course, ser!” she said, smiling. “But if you’re paying me – are you sure you don’t want anything in particular?”
“I don’t know a great many songs,” he said, nudging the coins into a stack. “Nor what you might know.” He paused. “I don’t suppose you know any sea shanties?”
“Sea shanties?” she asked, startled. “Not really, no, but – I know some miner’s songs. They’re similar, I think. And I guess I know one or two, from the passage here, but they’re, um… they’re very lewd. I don’t know if I want to be that kind of minstrel.”
“There’s no need for that,” he assured her, and pushed the coins to her. “The miner’s songs will do, I suppose. Thank you.”
She blinked. “There’s silver here – I mean, did you –”
“I’m not hard up for coin,” he said. “However matters may look. Take it.”
“It’s not like I need any of it, really,” she protested. “And honestly, I’d be singing anyway…”
“It’s not about the money,” he said. “You’re free. You ought to get something out of it.” He muffled another yawn. “Damn it. I haven’t slept enough for this. Take the stinking coins.”
“Very well, ser,” she said, and folded them into her pocket with her handkerchief. “Maybe I’ll buy… I don’t know. Maybe some flowers. I like flowers.” She paused. “May I ask you a question?”
“I won’t promise to answer.” He began packing up the food, folding the napkins around the bread again. She’d expected him to leave it all over the table; she wasn’t sure how to fit the tidiness into the derelict grime of the house. “What is it?”
“You said I should buy something. What was the first thing you bought?”
“Passage on a ship,” he said. “And some food – I’d stolen some before, but I was running out. The first thing I bought for reasons beyond survival… a deck of cards. I suspected Varric of marking his.”
“Oh, I’m sure Master Tethras would never –” She paused. “Oh, what am I saying? It doesn’t surprise me at all.”
“Perhaps he doesn’t,” Fenris said. “I lose just as often with my own cards. Still, I have them.”
“That’s good.” She stood, folding her napkin back over the turnovers, and blurted: “Are you in love with Master Hawke?”
He froze more still than she had ever seen a person go. “Maker help me,” he said, so low that she could barely hear it. “Are you asking for her sake? Will you tell her what I answer?”
“No,” Orana said. “She didn’t say anything about asking you. I think – I’m not sure she’d want me to. I just want to know.”
He sighed, closing his eyes. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know what to do with her – with how I feel about her – any more than you know what to do with your freedom. She is more bright than I know how to bear.”
And thus much of Hawke’s fondness for the man was explained, Orana supposed, if he’d said any such thing to her. Handsomeness and devotion might make up for a great deal of sullenness and grime, and Master Hawke came home covered in ichor and blood three nights out of seven at least. The grime might not register.
“She’s a special lady,” Orana offered, knowing it a thin and inadequate answer. “You know, after – after everything, she came and spoke to me specially. She said she wanted to know I was all right – ‘doing as well as could be expected,’ I think is how she said it. I still think about her, about hearing all that screaming, and then there she was giving me some idea what to do, how to be safe – I mean, I don’t like to think about it, but she. She made an impression.”
“She has a gift for that,” Fenris said, yawning again.
“Sleep well, ser,” Orana said, and started gathering up the cloths. “I’ll start with the mining songs, then, and see if I can remember some of the – politer sea shanties.”
“Thank you,” he said. “Leave the door just a crack open?”
She did. Out in the horrors of his entrance hall, she hefted the broom in her hands and ran over the songs she remembered. Miners’ songs weren’t meant for masters’ ears – but for a fellow freedman paying her silver for a song?
“My soul flies up to the great wide sky, I won’t be here forever. My soul will wander the Fade all night, I won’t be here forever!” The song fell into the rhythm of her sweeping, as it was meant to do, and by the time it was over she could hear a faint snoring from the far side of the door.
She leaned against her broom for a moment and smiled, just a little. And on her way home in the dark of the evening, she stopped by the Hightown Market and bought a sprig of flowers and a pastry covered in thick-glazed honey. Her fingers shook as she handed her coin over, but the flowers were beautiful, and she licked the honey from her fingers and smiled.