Читать книгу Red Sister онлайн | страница 36

Sometimes groups of the older children were hired outside the Caltess to pick fruit, and dig ditches, but mostly, as Regol had said, their main task was to grow and to show the promise for which they had been purchased. Maya confided that none of them would be sold on for at least a year, probably two or three.

‘Sometimes the promise won’t show properly until a girl bleeds. I wasn’t half my height at thirteen. Ain’t no point Partnis putting you in training until he knows what you’ll be. Training costs. And it’s wasted on most. Nobody ain’t never going to make ring-fighter without the old blood showing in them. And even when he’s sure you’ve got the gift for it Partnis likes to wait – says best training’s done when you’re mostly grown into your size and speed, so you don’t have to be adjusting all the time.’

Twice a day Maya had the whole attic out in the yard for an hour, first clearing the fighters’ weights back into their chests in the storeroom, then running endless laps, regardless of rain or wind. Nona looked forward to these daily escapes from the closed-in boredom of the attic and the routine of indoor chores. She worked with Saida and Tooram, who had been the last of Giljohn’s acquisitions, to lift the smaller dumbbells abandoned in the yard and return them to the equipment room. In truth, she and Tooram were probably more hindrance than help to Saida. Denam would pass them as they struggled up the steps, one of the heavier dumbbells in each hand, just the sweat plastering the red flame of his hair to his forehead to let them know the effort he was hiding.

They stopped to let him pass, then Saida led them on. ‘Heave!’

Nona didn’t mind that she wasn’t helping much, or that her arms ached, her back hurt and her eyes stung with sweat. She liked to feel part of something. Saida was her friend and whilst she might not need Nona’s help with the weights, she appreciated it.

In their friendship Nona found something absent in the faith of the village, or her mother’s Hope, absent in Nana Even’s moral instruction, or in the bonds of family she had seen break. Something she considered holy and worthy of sacrifice. Making friends came hard to Nona – she didn’t see how it worked, only that sometimes it happened. She had had just one friend, only briefly, and lost him, she wouldn’t lose another.