Chapter 3: Chapter 3

There was nothing in the whole of Faidyre that could have prepared me for the following morning. In my life I had undertaken difficult tasks, from military training, to the art of swordsmanship, but it was, perhaps, that I had never labored as the common man, or woman. The previous day with its travel and with its introductions to my new life had taken their toll both mentally and physically, so much so that when the glow-globes were lit overhead and the girls around me began to rise from their bunks, I barely managed to tilt myself into an upright position and set myself on the edge of the straw-stuffed mattress. Other girls were making their way to the showers, or at least I presumed. Some were engaging in idle conversation, and some were even exercising. I sat there, inert, not even willing my body to move as I stared off into the room, a mass of white-clothed bodies rushing to and fro. 

“You reek,” A voice said to me suddenly. I somehow managed to tilt my head upright and saw pale-faced blonde girl standing over me. She was so pale in fact, that she may as well have been a piece of bleached parchment. If one were to take a glow-globe to her, she might just amplify the light a thousand times over. Apart from that she was thin, far smaller than Sheena, maybe more so than Kayla. Still, I found myself completely intimidated. 

“I’m sorry?” I offered the only response that I could think of and she shook her head while curling the right side of her mouth in a barely averted expression of amusement. 

“You are drenched, from head to foot,” She informed me. “and you cried out, during the night, this is sweat, yes?”

I inspected myself, raising my arms and sniffing beneath them.

“Yes,” I said groggily.

“Except for that,” She pointed to a glaring yellow stain on the mattress beside me. My face went red in contrast. “You should be nice to the linen girls, they’ll have it out for you now.”

“Does anyone else smell that?” A red-headed girl nearby pinched her nose and another followed suit. I contemplated burying myself in the blankets and hoping that they would go away. Or that I would.

“Come, come,” The blonde girl said urgently. She reached downward and snatched my hand, practically dragging me from the bed, much to my disdain.

“Who…are you?” I asked her timidly as she rushed forward to the back of the room.

“You may call me Jen,” She said quickly. “We haven’t had a new servant in some time, but the new ones, they have someone assigned to them, a guide. I am to be your guide for these next few days.”

“Jen,” I muttered as she rushed me through the locker room, past the rows of cubbies and finally to the one that Sheena had assigned me the night before. “I need…I can’t…”

“How is it then you’ve got so little stamina?” She reached into the cubby and pulled out two small glass bottles filled with green and blue liquids respectively. “You’re a male, no? Surely this isn’t so hard on you.”

“I’m sorry,” I apologized. “This is just so…” The fatigue was beginning to subside but my body still screamed for more rest. It was getting better, I had to admit, but I couldn’t tell why I was so exhausted.

“Pardon,” A dark-skinned girl said as she brushed past us and disappeared into the shower room. 

“This way,” Jen gestured toward the open door. I hesitated, but then it occurred to me, why should I be nervous? Was I not nobility? Were these people not beneath me? According to the High Lady I was no longer nobility but she could not deny the blood that ran through my veins and she could certainly not dilute it. A girl, I was, but nobility I also was. I straightened my back and walked straight, preceding Jen who did not attempt to overtake me. The moment I stepped through the threshold I was assaulted by a wall of scalding steam and the scent of body odor unlike anything I’d ever experienced. I couldn’t help but gag and choke as I inhaled the steam. Jen finally overtook me and took me by the arm, leading me across the shower chamber. 

The floor in here was different than the bed chamber; it was a sleek green that sloped gently downward to accommodate the trickle of water rushing toward the center drains. This section of the chamber seemed to be small, but I could tell that it was one of many; it was comprised of stone shower cubbies, each large enough to fit a single person which ran the length of the room from left to right, save for the set on the right which appeared to terminate several feet from the rear wall; perhaps it led to another section precisely like this one. Along the rear wall, four casement windows were set high up near the ceiling, each one still dark but would no doubt begin to stream morning light onto the space within the hour. 

I recognized the shower apparatuses. Powered by steam but still primitive; somewhere within the manse, deep underground I supposed, would be the hot water tank connected to dozens of pipes, valves, heating elements, and other apparatuses to carry the water upward. A feat of science that I had always taken for granted.

“Jen!” A dark-haired girl, older than me probably strode naked from the shower without giving me so much as a second glance. “This one’s broken, you see?”

Jen craned her neck to see the shower head within the stone cubby spurting water sporadically instead of providing a steady stream. The water splatted against the floor in imprecise intervals, causing Jen to roll her eyes.

“I do so like it here,” Jen said. “But times come when I miss the simplicity of home.”

“You aren’t wrong,” The girl grinned. “What was the matter with a basin and a bar of home-grown soap?”

“Running water!” Jen spat the words in a joking manner. “The pinnacle of Klocby advancement! Doesn’t even work!” 

The girls laughed for a moment, fully amused with themselves before the new girl finally looked to me.

“And what’s with this one?” She raised an eyebrow at me. “she soil herself, then?”

“Night terrors, I’d imagine,” Jen shrugged. “Many of the new girls go through them I’d say.”

“True speak,” She nodded. “But how many yellow their gown?”

“Well,” Jen said. “I would bear to thought that most of us chose to be here. In fact, s’far as I know, Lyra’s the only one compelled to stay.”

“This is a respectable place,” The girl scowled at me. “t’aint the room for beggars and thieves. Y’do well to mind yourself here, then?”

I nodded, at a loss for words; no one had ever spoken to me in such a brash, disrespectful tone. Even my trainers had shown a modicum of respect. Here, there was no respect to be found.

The girl turned and walked off toward the locker room, leaving me to stand there with Jen. 

“Come, off we go,” She took me by the arm suddenly, before I could ask any questions and led me past a red-laqured bench, toward an empty stall where the water was already running. Jen practically pulled me out of my shift and disappeared for a moment, presumably disposing of it. “Go on, wash yourself,” She indicated the two bottles I was holding.

Warm water seeped into my hair, dripped down my brow and over my shoulders as she looked at me expectantly. 

“Well?”

“Uh,” I tried to speak but found my voice to quiver as the bottle clinked together in my hand. A look of recognition passed over her face. 

“Have you never used washing fluids then? Take the blue one and use it on your hair, the green one, tis for your body,” She explained to me.

With her instruction and occasional interference I managed to finish the shower and then walked, naked back to the locker room. I could feel at least a few of the girls watching me, a few of them giggled as I passed through the threshold, suddenly wishing I were anywhere else. This was nowhere close to what I’d imagined when I’d made my request of the Lady Jenwald. I didn’t know exactly what I’d expected, perhaps not even that she would grant my request, but she had, and I found myself thrown into the midst of a veritable whirlwind of emotions and experiences unfolding in front of my eyes, assaulting my every weakness and ensuring that each passing moment was pure emotional agony. 

I stood there in front of my locker, looking desperately for Jen, then realized that she had likely stayed behind to shower, assuming that I could get dressed on my own. I turned the clothes over in my hands, looking at undergarments I didn’t recognize. Underwear, but they were thin and they definitely didn’t look like they would hold anything in. There was a brassiere, but of course I was familiar with that. Yet another item that looked as if it were a piece of swimwear but it was far too thin and wouldn’t cover the breasts. 

“It’s a shaper,” The girl across from me said suddenly. I turned in surprise to see her and other girl, the two of them had been engaged in conversation earlier. “You put it on under your clothes.”

“Let me help you,” The second girl said, stepping forward and taking it from me. “There’s no shame in needing help.”

“There is shame in putting yourself in this situation willingly,” The first girl said. I regarded her warily before dropping my eyes to the floor. The second girl unclasped the garment at the crotch and asked me to step into it. “My name is Sophia, this is Miah. Obviously, you would be Lyra.”

I nodded silently as Miah clasped the garment and then proceeded to help me into the brassier. 

“Here,” Miah took my hands and pulled them gently behind my back. “try to feel the clasp, you want to connect these two, oh, here let me show you.”

She quickly removed the brassier from my body and held it out in front of me. 

“Here, see these clasps? You need to pull them together, you have to put tension on the strap until it’s in, then let go. Strange, I know.”

“Not so strange,” Sophia scoffed. “Be lucky you’re low born. Imagine if you had to deal with petticoats and corsets!”

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“Peasant perks, we ought call them,” Miah laughed. “Here then, pull this over your head.”

“What of the hair, then?” Sophia took a tuft of my shoulder-length brown hair in her hand and looked to Miah. “The shape is entirely bland.”

“Take heat to it, when time permits,” Miah tilted her head as if inspecting me. “though they say there’s to be a shortage of gemstones, we’ll have to find aught to do about heat.”

“Another reason there, to appreciate our low born status,” Sophia nodded. “the upstairs is all in an uproar over the Mockreet.”

“And who would have thought we’d live to see Hybra fall?” Miah suddenly looked concerned. The concern on my own face was probably visible as well. What did she mean Hybra had fallen?

“How…how did Hybra fall?” I asked in complete disbelief. “That’s not-”

“I wondered where you’d gotten off to!” Jen’s voice roared over the others. She walked quickly toward me, her hair still wet and glistening. I turned to Miah and Sophia.

“The Mockreet,” I said quickly. “Tell me what-”

“You ought not dabble in politics,” Jen said, taking my arm and pulling me down the row of lockers and toward the exit. “nothing good can come of them!”

I wanted to protest but before I could say anything further we were in the hall and barreling through doors, taking turns, and crossing through rooms that I didn’t recognize. We burst through a set of double doors and my heart sank into my stomach as I found myself in a large room filled with long tables, and most importantly, people. Beneath a high raftered ceiling servants, male and female alike carried trays of food, leaned against tables, conversed, laughed, and ate. My immediate instinct was to flee the room before anyone saw me; I was acutely aware of how ridiculous I must look and here I was, standing in a room before hundreds of people! Jen must have anticipated my intention and tightened her grip on my arm as my body tensed. Had I fantasized about wearing dresses? More than once, but I’d never had the chance to do it; these were the wishes that nested deep within my dreams and fantasies as I lay in my royal bed at night, and in the quiet moments between arms training and education. But to wear one and to be where other people could see me? Not just one, but hundreds? It wasn’t a scenario that had occurred to me the night before, but only because I was busy tossing and turning in a sweat drenched bed of hay. 

I attracted more than a few stares from male and female servants alike as Jen pulled me along through the middle of the crowd. One boy stared at me for a little too long, a girl stifled a giggle, and a few pointed at me, not so subtly. Past one, table, past a supporting pillar, around to the left, the entire way my cheeks burned and my eyes began to water over the shame that was building up inside me. I didn’t look like a girl, I looked like a slim seventeen year old boy with laughably long hair. What had I done? Why had I done this? I’d made a terrible mistake and no one could help me.

“Sit,” Jen instructed me, pointing to a bench. I looked up and realized we’d arrived at a smaller table off to the side occupied by Kayla, Sheena, and the man from the other night, Elric. The dark skinned man with the red hair, nearly as long as mine. I slid obediently into the bench across from Sheena who barely gave me a second glance. She was busy inspecting a ledger in front of her, quietly flipping through pages as she nibbled on a roll. 

“Have you heard the news?” Elric said in a thick Eplosian accent to Jen as she sat down. “A man named Pontifer, an inventor made a clockwork man, it can walk and talk, well, the talking is debatable.”

“Some people talk a lot and say very little,” Jen smirked. “I doubt a clockwork man could say much of interest.”

“A clockwork man that could think, could put us all out of a job,” Elric mused. “Imagine, a hundred automatons skittering around this place, each one doing the job of ten men!”

Pontifer Jellic. Making automatons. I knew of the man; he’d once been in my father’s employ, charged with deploying his massive steam powered cannons on the wall. Brass monstrosities that replaced the iron canons from decades before; unlike those, these could be operated by a single man seated in a cockpit just behind the barrel. Highly efficient killing machines, but Pontifer had spoken of making them even more efficient by getting rid of the gunner altogether and giving them complete automation. Maybe he was a step closer. I could have told Elric that his job wasn’t in danger as Pontifer’s automatons would sooner carry rifles than serving trays but my pre-occupation with my attire and our location kept my mind from wandering.

“Enough speculation,” Sheena said. “Jenisa?”

“My name, is Jen,” Jen said. She reached toward the middle of the table and grabbed a plate full of food, then placed it in front of me. I gawked at the selection and then realized just how hungry I had been. Bright red Rukon eggs, biscuits slathered with lamb-butter, a slab of pink hogsmeat; it was all smashed together on a small off-white plate, flavors and juices mixing together in a way I’d never seen before. Food touching? Such a thing would never have been allowed in my father’s kitchens, but despite my underlying disgust, my hunger won out and I began to dig into the food, shoving hogsmeat into my mouth and garnering an annoyed look from Sheena who glared in my direction until I stopped and set the meat back down on the plate.

“Straighten your back,” She snapped at me. “eat with your utensils. Goddess, I’ll have to teach you how to eat. Jen, report, please.”

“I showed her the showers,” Jen said. “and then I abandoned her to her own devices. Luckily she managed to dress herself.”

“Clearly,” Sheena eyed me, looking me over as I sat there frozen with a three-pronged fork in my hand. “I heard she soiled the bed?”

“Night terrors, I think,” Jen confirmed. 

“Pippa complained,” Sheena said to Jen. “She said they can wash the straw but they’d prefer it didn’t happen. If it happens again maybe lay down a mat.”

Lay down a mat? Part of me wanted to be angry; I was a noble and they were speaking of methods to keep me from wetting the bed? The anger suddenly melted into embarrassment and then outright humiliation; I couldn’t imagine myself sinking any lower than that point, but as with many things lately, I would find that assessment to be incorrect.

“Finish your food,” Sheena instructed me as she observed my facial expression. “None of this is meant to hurt you, no one is angry with you.”

“Quite the opposite,” Elric added. “Even those who come here of their own accord-”

“Which is about ninety percent,” Sheena interjected. 

“-have difficulty acclimating. Sleeping in a strange place, with strange people, anyone would have trouble. I did, once.”

“Find that hard to believe,” Kayla spoke up from beside Sheena.

“Oh, you’re here,” Elric leaned forward and peeked past Sheena. “How unfortunate.”

Sheena plucked a stiff piece of paper from her stack and handed it across the table to Jen who took it between bites of food. She gave it a cursory glance and then looked to Sheena.

“Latrines I understand, it wouldn’t hurt her to scrub some floors, but the kitchen?” Jen gestured at the sheet.

“Do you know how we use gemstones to clean the dishes, with vibration?” 

“Common knowledge, ‘tis,” Jen nodded.

“Gemstones are in short supply thanks to the situation in Hybra. They want more people to wash, but I’m short on staff as it is.”

What. Situation. In. Hybra?!

“Finish eating,” Jen told me. “We have work to do.”

I barely managed to finish my plate when Jen dragged me from the table without so much as a word from Sheena. As we left, I made brief eye contact with a girl who greeted me with a highly suppressed scowl. I almost wanted to dismiss it but in my current state every glare, every comment, every wayward glance weighed heavily on my soul. The veil of judgement was thick. Instead of simply shoving past me, she shoved something into my hand; a piece of paper. A note? Before I could question her she was gone, disappeared through the doors behind me. I wanted to look at it, but instead I rushed to the predictable cadence of Jen telling me to ‘hurry it up’. Instead, I stuffed the note into the pocket of my uniform. 

We crossed a steel and glass bridge that overlooked the estate; from my vantage point I could see dozens of buildings jutting from the ground, many just tall enough to peek over the walls and into the city proper. To the left, central to the courtyard, an exposed gear three stories tall, rotating quickly, the latter half of it deep underground, presumably interacting with a series of cogs that served to provide power to the estate. I had learned from my father’s intelligence reports that the system was powered by a geothermal vent deep underground, pushing hundreds of tons of brass and steel. None of that knowledge was of any consequence to me now; as this fantasy of mine was indulged further and further, I wondered if I could ever return to who I was. Would I even want to? If my father discovered what I’d done here, would he accept me back with open arms?

We reached a latrine and Jen showed me how to use the various cleaning chemicals. The chemicals for the waste receptacles, or toilets, as they were called, were similar to the brass wash basins, but the inside of the bowl had to be wiped by hand with a solution-soaked cloth. Scrub around the base, scrub the grout, wipe the stalls, clean the mirrors, make the room sparkle, so much as a latrine laden with brown walls and a black slate floor could sparkle. By the time I finished, my knees were raw and bruised, my hands on the verge of blistering, and my uniform was soaked through with sweat. My hair clung to my face and I breathed heavily as I sat with my back against the brown-brick wall. 

“Don’t get comfortable,” Jen said as I struggled to keep myself from dozing off to sleep. “We have four more on this floor, then we go to the kitchens.”

Four more. I could barely handle just one. As I sat there, trying to force my mind to reconnect with my body, I began to realize just what I’d agreed to when I stood before the High Lady Jenwise. This was the life of a servant; something I had completely dismissed in my former life. I had ordered my own servants to do menial tasks such as cleaning latrines, preparing food, making my bed, things I’d considered to be below me. They had done so without complaint either out of loyalty or fear, but now it was me, and now I understood the weight of my commands. I was trapped in a nightmare that would never end, and one that I had no control over. 

“Are you crying?” Jen demanded, standing over me. I wiped my eye and shook my head; she suppressed a laugh. “Meet me in the hall, when you’re done feeling sorry for yourself. Oh, and pick up your trash, you’re making a mess already.”

She left, and I looked to the spot on the floor where she had pointed; it was the piece of paper that the girl had slipped to me. Slowly and painfully I leaned forward, taking it between my fingers and holding it up to read what had been scrawled there. Five words. Five words that would change everything. 

I know who you are.

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