Читать книгу Red Sister онлайн | страница 30

The gerants had no such choice to make, their size argued their case without need for demonstration. Though in Saida’s place Nona thought she might have agreed with Partnis when he accused her of being fifteen.

Partnis took them in exchange for ten crowns and two.

‘Be good.’ Giljohn, a father to them all for three long months, had no other words for them, climbing up behind Four-Foot without ceremony.

‘Goodbye.’ Saida was the only one to speak.

Giljohn glanced her way, stick half-raised for the off. ‘Goodbye,’ he said.

‘She meant the mule.’ Tooram didn’t turn his head, but he spoke loud enough for the words to reach.

A grin slanted across Giljohn’s face and, shaking his head, he flicked at Four-Foot’s haunches, encouraging him through the doors that Partnis’s man had set open once more.

Nona watched the wagon rattle off, Hessa, Markus, Willum and Chara staring back at her through the bars. She would miss Hessa and her stories. She wondered who Giljohn would sell her to and how a girl unable to walk would make her way in the world. She might miss Markus too, perhaps. The miles had worn away his sharp edges, the wheels had gone round and round … somehow turning him into someone she liked. In the next moment they were all gone.

‘And now you’re mine,’ Partnis said. He summoned the young man mending the net, lean but well-muscled under his woollen vest, hair dark, skin pale, but not so dark or so pale as Nona. ‘This is Jaymes. He’ll take you to Maya who is your mother now. The slapping kind.’ Partnis offered them a heavy smile. ‘I don’t expect to notice any of you until you’re this high.’ He held his hand to his chest. ‘And if I do, it will probably be bad news for you. Do what you’re told and you’ll be fine. You’re Caltess now. Bought and paid for.’

Maya stood more than a foot taller than Partnis, arms thick as a man’s thighs, her face red and blotched as if a constant rage held her in its jaws. To compensate for her complexion the Ancestor had given her thick blonde hair that she braided into heavy ropes. She stood on the attic ladder after shepherding the new arrivals up it, only her head and shoulders emerging into the gloom.