an estate sale

[namesthesky]

Damn the old lady. Damn her into whatever creative torments have ever been invented for priests to wish on their theological opponents, all simultaneously, for ever and always, let it be done.

Aya is quite aware that she'd revise this opinion if her opinions had any power over the fate of the old lady. Since they do not, she will stand here and silently call down curses.

She was supposed to be willed to herself. She had plans. She was going to sleep in the temple attic and work for the post office and save up enough to go to Carthapane. She was pretty sure she could be enrolled in a college by twenty-five, doing something useful by thirty - she was undecided pending her more formal education between illegal human export and working within the system for debt relief or purchase-to-manumit programs -

And now she'll just count herself lucky if she gets bought by someone with loose enough security that she can flee over the border without falling into a magic, attempt to teach herself Tsopixi, and do - she doesn't have a plan after that, now. Her plan went up in smoke when the old lady's will was read and she was left to the idiot grandson and the idiot grandson traded her to a reseller for enough to cover his bad investments. She can't go work for the post office with marked heel and no papers.

And she is keenly aware that she is sixteen going on seventeen, which is a much different situation than she faced when she was on the block a decade ago being advertised for her literacy, assessed for her ability to take dictation.

She shifts position. The chain between her collar and the wall jangles. She watches people going by, browsing, reading the sign posted in front of her.

"Ayabel" - 125 seo
16 yrs, healthy
Reads & writes (Esevi, some Ancient Sudre)
10 yrs housegirl experience, previously farming
No history of rebelliousness

Yeah. No history of rebelliousness, because the old lady was old and coming up on the end of her life, the old lady let her read books and left her enough free time to think and draw, the old lady was going to will her to herself and then she could get started on her life.

This history won't last long, Aya doesn't think.

Most especially if anyone looks at the second line and brings her home for the obvious thing.

Comments

[namesthesky]

Aya stays put. She eats the bread, two rolls fast and the others slower, and inspects the parts of the kitchen that she hasn't been able to spot from the corner in case she's going to be taking a more active role here later.

[makeyourselfuseful]

It is large, clean, well supplied, and very organized.

After a little while, Berete comes back.

"And now," she says, "I have to figure out what to do with you until tomorrow morning."

[namesthesky]

"Tomorrow morning, ma'am?" hazards Aya.

[makeyourselfuseful]

She sighs.

"His grace decided, what with his son turning seventeen, that he should get a suitable present. Maybe if he'd ever talked to the boy for more than five minutes at a stretch, he would have known better. Anyway, here you are. And you're to be a surprise, so I have to keep you out of Hal's way until his grace sends for you tomorrow."

[namesthesky]

Aya... digests this information.

She gives Berete an assessing look, and risks a little more:

"Known better, ma'am?"

[makeyourselfuseful]

"I think we both know what most people would expect a seventeen-year-old boy to do with a pretty girl he got as a birthday present, and I think the chance of Hal going that way is somewhat less than the chance of him running into a magic to see if he sprouts wings. Not that I have the faintest idea what he'll do with you instead."

[namesthesky]

Aya contemplates a response to this, then settles on: "Thank you for telling me, ma'am."

[makeyourselfuseful]

Berete shrugs. "C'mon. You can stay in some corner of the servants' quarters nobody's used in twenty years."

It does prove to be the case, when she leads Aya there, that the servants' quarters have about twice as many empty rooms as occupied ones. There are plenty of available corners. She installs Aya in a tiny room just about big enough to contain a bed and a lamp, and leaves her there with the instructions, "Don't go anywhere. I'll collect you in the morning."

[namesthesky]

"Yes ma'am."

Aya inspects the room in case there are any contents besides a bed and a lamp, concludes that there are not, wonders whether she's going to get the spare supplies to do any drawing - the old lady used to think her doodles of embroidered animals and exotic plants were cute and encouraged them. The new household might not.

She sighs, flops onto the bed, and decides to catch sleep until collected.

[makeyourselfuseful]

True to her word, Berete returns the next morning.

"You awake?" she inquires through the door. "If so, come have breakfast."

[namesthesky]

Aya wakes up as soon as she hears Berete's voice. She stands up - she didn't have anything to change into, and is still in her shapeless beige outfit, perfectly decent - and opens the door. "Yes ma'am, thank you."

[makeyourselfuseful]

"Mhm. His grace demands you get a bath before his son sees you, so don't dawdle."

But breakfast first. Extremely delicious breakfast.

[namesthesky]

Aya doesn't dawdle, but she does appreciate.

[makeyourselfuseful]

And then Berete shows her to the bath, gives her something less beige and shapeless to wear, and leaves her to wash and change by herself.

[namesthesky]

Which Aya does, briskly, in case they're on a nearer deadline than she expects.

She wears the less shapeless thing, but does nothing else to render herself - "a pretty girl" for the duke's son's birthday present.

[makeyourselfuseful]

She's finished in plenty of time for Berete to collect her again. Off they go, out of the servants' area and into much nicer parts of the house - a meaningful comparison, because the servants' area was already pretty nice.

It's a big house. They take a few minutes to get where they're going.

Then: "Here she is, your grace," she reports as she brings Aya into a small sitting room. There are three people seated inside: the duke, a beautiful woman with long hair who is presumably his wife...

[anotherbreeze]

...and a boy of about Aya's age, presumably their son. And every bit as beautiful as his mother.

He looks blankly at Aya.

"...Thank you, Father?"

[pythbox]

"What touching gratitude," says the duke, sarcastically. "Keep her in your rooms, I don't want her getting underfoot. Don't forget to feed her."

[anotherbreeze]

"Yes, Father," says Hal, still without much tone or expression.

[namesthesky]

Aya shifts her weight a little, glancing around the room, noting doors, loose objects, trying to look purely curious and not ready to sneak out under cover of night if anything should happen. She waits for someone to tell her where to go next.

[anotherbreeze]

The duke's son glances from Aya to his father.

"May I go now, Father?" he says.

[pythbox]

"Fine," he dismisses. "Take the girl with you."

[anotherbreeze]

He hesitates, then nods.

Picking up an ornate jeweled mirror - perhaps another birthday present - he beckons to Aya and sets off through the house at a measured walk.

[namesthesky]

Aya follows him, stepping carefully.

She's going to keep her mouth shut until he says something.

[anotherbreeze]

Hal remains silent all the way to his rooms - in another wing of the house, up a long flight of stairs, at the end of a series of halls. There is a small front room containing a couple of soft couches and several haphazardly organized bookshelves, and two doors beyond that, one open and one closed.

He opens the closed one and says, still evenly but with a hint of tightly controlled emotion, "This can be your room. Do whatever you want with it, I don't care if you move things or break things or - whatever. I'm gonna go have a tantrum and then come back and talk to you."

Then he stalks over to the open door - which presumably leads to his bedroom - and closes it very carefully behind him, very much with the attitude of someone who would really, really like to slam a few doors and is refraining with effort.