“So, you see, I will need to travel to Ultrup and make connections with the local merchants. You said I could have the help of a seamstress here, but this idea won’t work if I don’t have a place to sell these,” I say, tapping the sheet of paper on the desk.
My courses have almost ended. After four days of lying around in my bed, I’m well rested and eager to restart my duties, and especially to get this plan underway.
Gorvor looks up at me from his seat, his brow furrowed. He’s been listening to me explain my business idea about the padded underwear for women, and so far, he has been nothing but supportive. My chest glows with pride and enthusiasm, because I honestly think this will be an absolute hit among human women. And with the orc clan’s resources, I’ll be able to produce my wares much faster than I could have if I’d set out to do this on my own.
But now the king frowns at me, his mouth a grim line. “No.”
I draw back. “What do you mean, no?”
“I cannot allow you to travel to Ultrup,” he says. “It is too dangerous for you.”
Smoothing my hand over his black hair, I try again. “But you could send Vark and Steagor with me. They don’t have other duties right now, do they? It would take me a week or two at the most, and I’d be back at your side.”
Gorvor shakes his head, unyielding.
I chew on my lip, considering the issue. I hadn’t counted on him rejecting my plan. Then it occurs to me. “Oh, do you want to come with me? We could travel together. Surely, Mara and the rest can hold down the fort for such a short trip.”
“You are not listening to me, mate,” he rumbles. “It is too dangerous for either you or me to leave the Black Bear Hill.”
“But why?” I ask, my frustration rising. “Is it because of the Boar Clan orcs? Because they haven’t done anything, not that I can see. And you can’t keep me underground all the time, Gorvor. I’m not a mushroom.”
The corner of his mouth twitches up. “No?”
I smack his shoulder none too gently. “You think this is a joke, but it’s not. You go on your hunts all the time but leave me here under heavy guard. I feel protected, but if you insist on keeping me here, I’ll start feeling like a prisoner.”
“You are not a prisoner,” he barks. “I am not keeping you here. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
There’s worry in his voice, and I know we’re at the brink of something, a past issue so deep it’s now affecting his present. My present. I step between his legs and bring my hands to his cheeks.
“Nothing will happen to me,” I tell him. “But I’m serious. Humans need fresh air and sunshine to survive. If I remain in here all the time, I will grow sick and die.”
Alarm flashes in his eyes. “What?”
I offer him a small smile. “Maybe you need a course on keeping humans, my lord?”
He gives my ass a swat. “Cheeky mate.”
My smile grows into a grin. “So you’ll let me go to Ultrup?”
“No. But I’ll make sure you get some sunshine.” Gorvor stands, picks up the paper with my plan written on it, and hands it back to me. “This is good. Just make an adjustment that will allow you to fulfill everything without having to travel.”
With that, he strides out of the room, leaving me staring after him. It takes me a moment to realize he never answered my question about the strangers. And knowing Gorvor, that wasn’t an accident. He’s deliberately avoiding the issue, and I have no idea why.
But I intend to find out.
Over the next couple of days, I try to watch both the king and the Boar Clan orcs. Their movements are nothing out of the ordinary, apart from the fact that everyone seems to be avoiding the strangers, going out of their way to not have to interact with them. If they’re so unwanted, why does Gorvor allow them to remain here? Our warriors are strong, and the strangers are outnumbered severely, since there are only four of them.
Something is wrong, and tensions are rising with each passing day, each meal eaten in the presence of the four smirking orcs who seem to delight in being a disruptive presence in our great hall. I dislike them on principle, even though I’ve never spoken to them, because they leer at the women and follow them with greedy, insolent gazes. I notice that the orc males from the Black Bear Clan are becoming increasingly protective of women of all ages, and I feel like it’s only a matter of time before this blows up.
I don’t want that to happen, not when it’s most likely to be a vicious fight smack in the middle of a crowded communal space, filled with families, children, and the elderly. I try to pry information from Mara, as well as from Vark and Steagor, but they’re all tight-lipped about it and don’t hesitate to show their frustration with my continued questioning.
Gorvor listens to me, however, and organizes a picnic for the two of us in a sunny clearing not far from the Black Bear Hill’s main gate. We walk there under the green canopies of the spring-lush trees and sit in a meadow studded with fragrant wildflowers. At the same time, a full contingent of guards take their posts in a wide perimeter, their watchful dark eyes darting this way and that, searching for some unseen threat. One of the males, Bogur, is even sent to scout farther afield to make sure nothing can surprise us.
It’s a nice gesture, and I enjoy my time in the sun, lying on my back on the blanket until I’m hot and sweaty in my dress, but it’s not the relaxing, intimate outing I’d envisioned for the two of us. Maybe I’m delusional, thinking the king can leave whenever he wishes, without guards, with just his mate by his side, and yet that’s what I wanted. Then we return to the Hill, to the darkness of its corridors, and the bright, warm sunshine is replaced by the feeble glow of my lantern.
I don’t want to complain to Mara during my visit to her room when her courses come, so I throw myself into work, helping her by answering letters, ordering supplies, and communicating with the kitchen staff to settle on the menus for the following weeks. She records everything in a large, leather-bound ledger, her pen strokes assured and neat.
“I’ll be right back,” she says, stretching. “I think I’m ready for a quick bath, and then we can work on those farming reports.”
She places the ledger on the bed and walks to the bathroom niche, closing the tapestry behind her. I finish scribbling out a list of supplies we’ll need for a hunting trip that Gorvor and his men are planning for next week—they’ll be hunting wild sheep higher up in the mountains and will be gone for three days at least. I try not to chafe at the fact that the king is allowed to leave the Hill while I must remain here, but I don’t want to bring Mara into the argument, so I haven’t said anything to her yet.
Still, I need to know how much money we’ll need to put aside for the provisions, so I reach for the ledger. If I search through Mara’s detailed notes, I can figure out the cost of items on my own without even having to ask.
I place the heavy book in my lap and leaf a couple of pages back, searching for the right entries. This is a running list of all the clan’s expenses and income, a record of all the trading we do with both humans and orcs from other clans. Most are for small sums, six gold marks for thirty-five wolverine pelts sold, a handful of coppers for a hundred pounds of rye. I note down the prices for aged cheese and apples, wondering if there’s a stream nearby where we could catch any fish, because buying and salting our own is costing us a fortune…
I skim over a line with my finger and pause.
The sum is what stalls me, five hundred gold marks paid. It’s larger than any other note in the ledger by a factor of ten, and the subject of the trade is only marked by five vertical lines.
What…?
Then it hits me. Five lines. Five hundred marks.
Five people.
I scan the date quickly, wondering if it corresponds to the date when I arrived at the Black Bear Hill. It doesn’t. It’s an earlier entry, and paging through the ledger, I find another line from around the time I was bought at auction. Three hundred and eighty marks, with four lines marking our souls.
I wonder how much they paid for me, for a young, relatively attractive woman of good health, and how much for the boy they eventually returned to his family. How much was I worth? And have I earned out their investment yet?
Nothing you’ve done here so far is worth that much money.
They’re ugly thoughts I shouldn’t be thinking. I knew my release from the slave pens in Ultrup was the result of a simple transaction, but it hurts so much to see it on paper, a cold number attached to living, thinking beings.
I glance over my shoulder to where the bathroom tapestry is still closed, hiding Mara from view. I turn the pages faster now, searching for more purchases of human slaves. In my time here, I’ve only met the gloomy human healer in the infirmary, and the warriors who brought me here haven’t departed on any new trips to town yet. Still, I wonder where all these humans have ended up—because I count seventeen more inky strikes, representing seventeen people, noted in the past two and a half years.
But as I leaf through pages and pages of Mara’s diligent notes, a niggling thought enters my mind. The sums paid for humans all revolve in the hundreds, which is a lot of money. With so many people bought, the tally I do in my head quickly brings me to several thousand gold marks.
And yet, the money coming in from the trade of fur, mead, weapons, and other small items that orcs provide for the humans is not nearly enough to pay for such exorbitant purchases.
The numbers don’t add up.
“Oh!”
An exclamation from behind me has me jumping in place, and I curl my fingers protectively around the ledger’s leather cover. Then I turn and face Mara, who stands in the middle of her room, her usually bright-green face now ashen.
“You shouldn’t be looking through that,” she says, and her voice trembles a little.
She extends her hand, motioning for me to hand over the book, but I tuck it against my chest.
“Why not?” I challenge. “Is it because you’re worried I might see how much you paid for me?”
Her face crumples, and she sinks heavily on the bed beside me. “I’m sorry,” she croaks. “I didn’t want you to know. It’s… It’s so ugly.”
Her brown eyes are shiny with unshed tears, and she gazes at me imploringly. But that shell around my heart is hardening again, working to protect me.
“I guess I should be grateful,” I say, the words hollow. “That someone thought I was worth all that money.”
She grabs my arm, her fingers digging into my muscles. “That number has nothing to do with your worth, Dawn. Nothing.”
I shrug her off, unable to bear her touch, and jump to my feet. “Yes, but if the price for me was set higher, at two hundred marks. Maybe three hundred? Would the warriors who came to town still have purchased me?” I pace, the heels of my boots scuffing on the hard-packed earth. “Or would it be a matter of cold, simple math to determine who they can buy for the least amount of money? How many slaves are left in those barracks every time? I got out because I’m young and able-bodied, but there were people in there who are going to horrible places.”
Tears run down my face, but I don’t care, because this hurts so much. It’s all the old hurt from my parents’ decision to sell me for profit, combined with the horrors I’ve seen—and avoided by some strange stroke of luck—at the auction house.
“Let me call Gorvor,” Mara pleads. “He’ll tell you it’s not like that. He’s been working so hard to make any progress with the slavery laws.”
I let out a harsh laugh, but it turns into a sob halfway. “Gorvor won’t tell me anything. He never does.”
She falls silent, biting her lip, and some inner part of me twinges with guilt. She’s not to blame for this, for any of this. Mara is not responsible for the abhorrent slave trade that plagues the land of Styria, nor is she the one who buys humans at auction in town. No, she just records the numbers in her ledger, detached from it all.
I turn on her and wave the ledger in her direction. “Why don’t the numbers add up?” I demand.
She blinks. “What?”
I tap the cover impatiently. “The numbers. They don’t add up. Where is the money for the slaves coming from?”
If possible, she pales even more—or turns gray, which passes for the same thing with orcs. “I don’t know.”
She’s lying. I haven’t known her for long, but Mara hasn’t lied to me up until now. She has refused to tell me things, yes, and she is adept at changing the subject whenever I get too close to something she’s not supposed to discuss with me, but this denial is a flat-out lie.
I take another step toward her. I’m shorter than her by several inches, but with her sitting on the bed, I glower down at her. “Mara, where is the money coming from?”
She presses her lips together and hangs her head.
“Fine.” I throw the ledger on her bed, where it bounces and comes to rest on top of some crumpled correspondence. “I’ll find out somehow.”
With that, I twist around and stride for the door.
“Dawn,” she calls, her voice pleading.
But I don’t listen. I stomp into the corridor, where Vark and Steagor come to attention on either side of me. I look from one to the other. “Take me to your king.”
