Page 4

Asha

Asha woke with the bitter taste of blood and metal in his mouth, as he often did after a good scourging. When he sat up, he spied yet another bead, a silver to add to his collection. He hurt, as he always did, but the bleeding had stopped.

“Lyss?” Asha called out.

No answer.

They must have let her out to start breakfast or clean.

So much for punishment when help is low.

About all the earldom had were slaves, if one was honest. The paid servants had left over the years and months prior, and the merchants supposedly took his mother with them, shortly after he was born.

Tippin was a novelty sort of land that one only visited if they had relations there or nowhere else they could be.

Asha would rather have been anywhere else, but anywhere else he would have been a nobody.

At least there, he was the bastard of a noble, of some note, and destined for a trade or apprenticeship.

He’d be nineteen and free soon. If the earl allowed.

If. That was the future that lay in wait for Asha, and it suited him.

He’d seen the noble life since he was little, and while he maneuvered through it with effortless grace, he had responsibilities that were other, unique to the mistake of his father’s loins.

He knew things about the estate that in ten generations, none else would.

If the earldom made it that long, that is.

At the rate his father lost those silver beads on his scourge whipping him, it wouldn’t make it another generation.

Asha plucked the beads and silver shards from the floor.

He had a feeling that his father would sell the whole thing for half a stake in a merchant’s galley.

“Boy!” His father’s reedy growl broke the monotonous silence and, as he was programmed, Asha stood straight as he could and held his head high.

“Yes, my lord?”

“You’ve work to do.” The clanging of keys in the cell door rattled and Asha waited to be invited to step out.

He rarely made assumptions anymore. “Well?” Earl Tippin gestured for Asha to step out and received a cuff on the back of his head for the trouble.

The loose button of his sleeve caught his hair and jerked.

Asha, unused to that sort of pain, hissed, and Earl Tippin grinned with satisfaction.

“The cludgies are jammed up, and the midden wants for shoveling. Come on, then!”

Asha fought the urge to sigh in distaste. Of course , his father would have him mucking.

He’d become remarkably efficient at dislodging foulness from the household toilets. He’d never share his secret, but a good wood ash boil dumped into the line and a willow branch twisted could clear a jam like nothing else.

At midday when his stomach growled in protest, saying he should work no more until fed, he bade the sensation away for want of being clean.

Lyss might bring him something later, or the girls may try to tempt him with confections pilfered from his father’s secret stash.

What he wouldn’t give for a honeyed sticky bun?

By teatime, he trudged across the grounds, his stomach twisted with hunger as he laid eyes upon the countess.

She was so fair and pretty, gorgeous eyes so blue that it hurt.

They always seemed sad when trained on him.

Despite his father’s mistake, she treated him kindly, in her own fashion.

She’d lay a coin on his workbench at times or when doing her knitting, make sure a fine pair of socks she claimed weren’t fit for the earl or her sons, ended up in his quarters.

And today, sitting in her finest, her oft-sad gaze followed him.

“Oh, methinks the countess has realized what a fine lad you’ve become. Perhaps you’ll be summoned to her chambers like the earl summons the chambermaids.” One of the estate’s many ruffian stable boys jeered him, displaying his gap-toothed smile.

“Gillian, please. I wouldn’t know what to do amid that many skirts. With so many layers, do you think she even has feet?” Asha chuckled and turned his attention away.

“Ahh, so that’s why you’ve been so close with Lyss! You’re smitten with feet. She does have the biggest of them. I hear if you suckle a woman’s toes, she’ll melt for you.” Gillian, all muscle and meat in the place of brains, grabbed Asha’s shoulders and squeezed jovially.

“Lyss and I are friends because we end up being disciplined together so often. Where we go, so does trouble. She is like a sister to me, and her adopted mother my wet nurse.”

“Lucky you ’avin a wet nurse. My mum let me suckle off a sow and she went right back to lifting her skirts.

” Gillian’s indecent grin made Asha file a mental note to avoid the man for a while.

Much like the sticky bun Asha wanted, Gillian always left one with a certain residue.

It was no longer only the muck that made Asha want to bathe.

“Oh, she’s calling for you. Go on, sir. Mayhaps you’ll rustle her skirts.” Gillian gestured toward the countess.

Asha stumbled and turned, gazing on as the countess waved her handkerchief, the earl at her side, a sour expression twisting his face.

“Boy!” The earl’s reedy voice drew Asha’s attention.

Yes, yes. I grow so weary of you, Father. Asha jogged up, mindful to keep his expression respectful and neutral.

“Wipe that smirk off your face, boy.” Earl Tippin scowled, and Asha cast his eyes down. People often thought he smiled, even when he didn’t. He had a bright face, a glow in his eyes where a smile might be welcome.

“Apologies, my lord. The day is so fine and your grounds so lovely that it was a shame not to smile.” Asha offered his most somber expression directed away, which did nothing to alleviate Earl Tippin’s anger.

He seemed at a loss for words and snarled, grabbing for Asha’s ear between thumb and index finger, tightly twisted in his grasp.

“Who have you been conversing with?” Earl Tippin hissed, and the countess averted her gaze, eyes wet with worry. She hated seeing her husband act so rash.

“You, sir. Lyss, the stable keep. If it’s about the kitchen staff, I collect the vegetable scraps for the chickens, my lord, so they lay better.” Asha winced and sank under the twist and pull.

“I swear to Baltheir that if I find out you’re lying to me, boy, you’ll never see the light of day again.

” Earl Tippin jerked hard against his ear, and twenty long years of frustration came to a pinnacle.

A total aura of calm overtook him, a boiling peace that nestled in his belly as he reached for his father’s wrist.

Asha’s careful grasp squeezed tight, his hand far stronger than his father’s, bolstered by years of hard work. Earl Tippin released Asha’s ear and drew his hand back, bloody, and the remaining sting told Asha he’d torn skin this time, not for the first time.

“Do you know why the lion tamer keeps a whip?” Asha’s mind wandered, his lips moving on their own.

The earl bleated in terror, his pupils constricting to pinpricks.

He jerked his arm, a frail attempt at escaping Asha’s grip, trembling as he made eye contact.

Whatever he saw on Asha’s face sent pure terror through his veins.

In a flash, it was over, and Asha released him, as stoic and quiet as he ever was, when the earl chided him.

A tickling sensation trailed his neck and Asha touched it, enamored with the view of his own blood on his fingers.

“A lion tamer keeps a whip because he fears the lion. Yes?” Asha turned his head and froze. In the earl’s trembling hand was a knife, poised to strike. Rage boiled, but Asha bade himself calm.

“Get to the dungeon, boy. Now.” His voice lacked conviction, but Asha had no real reason to disobey him again.

Asha walked, a doomed man, as he suspected, feet shuffling. He’d never done more than a few nights at a time in the dungeons, usually only a scourging and a night or two to heal, so the earl could hide the damage done. He stumbled into the cell and the door clanged behind him.

“Pretend to be a lion and you’ll remember who has the keys to your cage, whelp!” The earl spat at him and turned, stalking off.

The great thing about dungeons in an impoverished kingdom was that they had few places to store hay for the winter, no new funds to build silos or barns.

The sharp pain in his ear aside, Asha had little to worry about as he flopped onto a pile of straw and snuggled in, making a nice little depression for himself to curl onto his side, childlike and comfortable.

He’d barely sought sleep before a tapping at the bars drew his drowsy eye. Sweet blue eyes and pursed lips met his gaze.

“Lyss?”

She grinned, her plain hair all a tangle, tossed about on her head messily. She held up a length of waxed thread and a needle, and the glassine clink of a bottle of rum settled at her feet. He didn’t know if he’d rather it heal naturally. Frowning, Asha touched his ear, and it stung fiercely.

“Rather might want to clean you up.” Her sad eyes made him concede, approaching the bars to allow her access.

He leaned his head to let the cool iron sink into his flesh.

As often after a scourging, the fever set in, and he welcomed the cool relief and the hope that he’d not catch gangrene.

He’d near lost a toe to it one winter, but he always came out fine.

Sitting next to the cold bars, Lyss’s comforting fingers turned his head ever so gently.

Her rum-soaked rag laved his face, drawing blood away.

And as one knew, rum soured, never spoiled, so it stood to reason that his skin wouldn’t either.

He bit through the pain, hissing gently as the fiery liquid cleansed his lobe.