Page 3 of The Starving Saints

Aymar Castle does not quiet with the setting of the sun. Soon, moans of hunger will echo through the halls, and even now people

are restless. Few are sleeping, though there is little to do for those not on guard duty, no candles to see by. Some attend

the evening Priory service. More sit and talk in window niches, looking nervously toward the walls, half expecting another

night assault, though Etrebia has not moved in a fortnight. They argue about trivial things enlarged by the growling of their

stomachs. They search for scraps of food in the empty dirt.

Treila prowls.

There is an art to catching rats. It is not one she learned in childhood, but she has become quite proficient. So proficient,

in fact, that what little money changes hands inside these walls eventually makes its way to her, in exchange for one, three,

five cooling bodies. Most think that rat-catching requires bait, and that would be the easiest option by far, but this is

not the first time Treila has faced down starvation and survived it. She knows how to entice when she has nothing left to

give.

Or, more accurately, how to spot something a rat would want and set a trap to waylay it.

They’re clever creatures, rats; they avoided or even foiled her first attempts, years ago, when she was too desperate, too

ashamed, to be clever herself. Now, though, she has snared another one with nothing more than some rags and a long-empty turnip

box, and she dashes its skull against the floor before it squeals too loudly.

Half an hour later, Treila has found a buyer: a young mother with three small babes. It will hardly take the edge off, but it’s something, and she has the coin to pay. For her, Treila presents a veneer of calm concern; this is not a mercenary transaction but a kindness. A mother is more likely to pay for kindness.

Treila does not feel guilt as she slinks back into the keep, down the stairs, into the small space that was once her workroom,

where she stitched gloves and other fine leathers for Leodegardis’s knights. Others used it too, of course, when there was

handwork to be done; but even then it was cramped and poorly lit, and now it’s half-clogged with items made useless by their

communal captivity. Empty barrels, empty flour sacks, empty looms.

She keeps her cache of food and money here, tucked safe so nobody can take it away from her again. She has been careful, careful

for so many years, and since the gates closed six months ago, she has never once hoped for knights to ride in dragging salvation

behind. She knows better than to depend on them. They were too late to save a single inhabitant of Carcabonne, even as they

fought bitterly for the rocks that formed its walls.

Even before rations were cut, then cut again, she has not eaten her full allotment; she has hoarded and protected, and now

her cache is fat and rich.

She has food for at least another month.

Which gives her one more month to save herself, so long as the castle continues to stand. So long as desperate people do not

attack from within.

How changed her life has become, how different she is from the coddled, moneyed girl she was raised as. No fine slippers for

her, no delicate undergarments. Her soft skin is long-since toughened, her nose grown blind to both the stench of refuse and

the gentle waft of perfume.

It’s past midnight when she returns to her assigned sleeping area, if the murmurations of the nuns in the east tower are anything to go by (and they are—the nuns keep fastidious time even with their steadily dwindling supply of timekeeping candles). Though no one person enforces the division of space, nobody would think to go elsewhere. There are rules, spoken and unspoken, of how each role within Aymar relates to another.

Treila obeys them, even as she can see the fiction of them. Nothing physical makes the king more worthy of a cooler, more

private sleeping space—just the loyalty of his guard, his servants, and his subjects. And that, she must concede, is power.

The castle has finally settled, all sleeping save for the night guard and two boys, playing at dice by the window. She joins

them, ready to act younger than she is as she always does with them. It puts them more at ease, to think of her as a big sister

and not another adult. They are freer with their chatter.

The room reeks of bodies, all of Ser Leodegardis’s household staff tucked in together to make room elsewhere for the farmers

and the court. They keep their voices to whispers as they play.

“And then Ser Voyne,” breathes Simmonet, sandy-haired, son of one of the washerwomen, “came out of the keep, her armor shining,

and she drew her sword.”

Treila’s shoulders tense. She catches her lip between her teeth, the better to keep herself from an angry snarl.

“No,” Edouart counters, “no, she couldn’t have. Da says nobody died, and if a knight draws her sword, she’s going to use it.”

“But I saw her.”

They both look to Treila as she reaches out for the dice. They pass them to her, hoping she’ll break their stalemate.

She rolls. It’s good. She wins the pot of pebbles, then redistributes half across the varied flags of the floor that count

as specific wagers. “Depends on the knight, doesn’t it?” she whispers, instead of what she wants to say: This knight will spill as much blood as she pleases .

“And Ser Voyne is so good ,” Simmonet proclaims, because he knows nothing, loud enough that the sleepers nearby stir, send glares their way. He flinches,

bows his head, continues in a whisper. “Kind and strong—I saw her spar with Ser Leodegardis last week. And she led the charge

at Carcabonne.”

Treila says nothing, casts her dice again, and this time loses. She passes them to Edouart, just as she pushes aside the fleeting mem ory of Ser Voyne as she’d been just after Carcabonne, bruised and bloodied, recovering in Treila’s father’s home. To remember would be foolish.

Edouart looks uncomfortable as he takes the dice. But he doesn’t speak until he’s lost, too, and they’ve gone around a full

turn. “Nobody died,” he says at last, “but there were a lot of people hurt.”

“Then they shouldn’t have stolen food,” Simmonet returns.

“Genovefe had her nose cracked. I don’t think she stole anything.”

“But she was there at the riot, right? So...”

He is having trouble reconciling reality with his beliefs. She feels a pang of sympathy, followed swiftly by annoyance that

he hasn’t crashed headlong into exactly this dilemma twenty times by now. He’s nearly ten. He should know better. He’s not

going to see eleven.

But he is trying to be strong and good, the way they describe boys in stories. She can see Edouart is wary of him, and she’s

glad; it’s the strong and good ones who cause the most damage, in her experience.

“I overheard,” Simmonet says, trying to change the subject to something that will earn him more approval and engagement, “that

they’re going to pick another messenger soon.”

Treila perks up at that for just a moment, then recoils. She would make a fine messenger, but she knows the previous messengers

have all sat with King Cardimir and his council before leaving, and Treila cannot risk that.

No, better to stay until a safer opportunity presents itself, or she is desperate enough to take the risk. After all, it’s

been five years, and Treila is good at playing a role; maybe Ser Voyne won’t recognize her.

She hasn’t recognized her so far.

“Treila, would you go? Over the wall?” Simmonet asks, scooting closer.

“No, she wouldn’t,” Edouart says, and Treila keeps her expression steady, not scowling like she wants to. What does he know

of her? Nothing. Nobody here knows anything of her. “They all die,” he adds.

She cants her head, surprised.

Simmonet stares. “What do you mean, die?” he asks.

“If they don’t die,” Edouart replies, shrugging and casting his dice again, “then why don’t they come back? With help?”

Treila nods, slowly, thoughtful. He’s right, of course; she figured out long ago the messengers were likely dying, but she

hasn’t heard anybody else voice as much until now. Morale is truly cracking, then. The riot was just the beginning.

Things are going to get ugly. She can feel it.

“It’s a hard climb,” she says. “But I would risk it,” she lies.

Edouart looks at her dubiously, like she’s mad. Simmonet stares in awe. “Yeah,” he says. “Me too.”

They play for maybe twenty minutes more, silent now except for the clatter of dice, and then she leaves them, so that they

may finally admit their exhaustion, yawn, crawl off to bed.

She lies on her little pallet and tries to sleep, but sleep refuses to come. It’s a learned frustration; she should know how

to sleep like the dead when she has the chance, and instead she knows how to survive on so little sleep she might as well

be dead. She lies there, motionless, for as long as she can stand it, but her mind is on fire, thinking of the riot, of the

dwindling number of rats, of the dead messengers. The buzzing of summer insects fills the room and adds to the chorus in her

mind.

And then she’s up and headed down the stairs again, toward her workroom, because maybe, maybe, the coolness down there and

the thick stone will shield her enough, the touch of her fingers to her heap of food will still her soul.

It doesn’t, of course. She’s still restless. She hides the cache once more and paces around the tight confines of the not-really-a-room,

wondering how long before somebody finds her, raises questions she doesn’t want to answer.

Nobody appears. Treila eventually sits, legs tired from a long day, scrubbing at her face. It’s not a space amenable to sleep;

there’s not much floorspace and the windows are nearly level with the ground outside, there only for air and a bit of light.

But its depth makes it quiet and cool. Perhaps she should move down here, stack up a barrel or two to make a nook, except

that would draw attention to her cache. Not safe in the long run.

But a little rest...

She lies down on the floor, curled up tightly to fit between a loom and a heap of sacking.

Her brain settles, just a little, just enough, and soon she’s drifting on the edge of sleep. Flickers of forest greenery and

split wood spark across her mind, eager for her to dream again, dream of home and shame and rage.

She smells water.

And that is new, and unexpected, and it rouses her just a little. She opens her eyes. She rises onto her hands and knees.

She inhales, deeply.

She smells growing things, algae and muck, and damp stone, and shit: the same smells that rise from the well. But the well

is several hundred yards away, through so much stone. This is something else. Something different.

Treila presses her palm to one of the flagstones. It does not budge. But the one up and to the left of it does, just a little,

rocking in its seat, and the one beyond that a little more. Treila crawls to where the floor meets the wall, shoving detritus

out of the way, and wedges her fingertips into the mortar, wiggling just a little.

It crumbles. The smell thickens.

By dawn, when she’s forced to retreat and dress for work, she’s made a little hole, barely large enough for even a small rat

to squeeze through.

But it is something.

It is salvation.