Chapter 3

They were still about an hour away from the capital. Taran had her hands tied behind her, sitting next to the driver in the cab. She saw the large shotgun under their feet. Seriously? she thought. How fast can he even take that thing off the floor? There was no way you can fend off a sudden assault with something so unwieldy. She could not see any other weapon in the cab or on the man.

“You’re not telling me who you are, son?” She understood enough of what the man was saying. The imperial capital was a melting pot, and Ozhanese was one of the many tongues spoken. Trawitz himself spoke it a lot, and Athos and her picked it up from him. “The marines from the Treverorian fleet were at Lilan last week. Might as well hold you in town somewhere till they’re back.”

They were not heading to town, however. Balkha was about fifty miles from Port Lilan, away from the highway that led straight to the city. Lilan was never the intended destination, anyway. Somebody else from there will pick up the timber at his place within the week, and as soon as his truck is empty, the man shall return to the veldt to purchase some other commodity for cheap. There were power outages in the capital lately. Maybe he should add some firewood to the haul.

“I am Benson, by the way,” he said, not without a bit of awkwardness. Why was he polite enough to introduce himself to some rogue who blasted his tire? He must be a little too much in the habit of showing goodwill every single time.

To his surprise…

“Taran.”

Mr. Benson glanced sideways at her. The urchin actually returned the favor. However, it seems that that would be all he will get from the kid, who was still sulky. Shall he apologize for tying up those hands? Nah, not going that far. “Fine name…” was all he could mumble.

They arrived at Balkha, or rather the outskirts of whatever loose collection of homesteads that went by that moniker, at around ten. Benson’s house was the timber-frame bungalow, which made up for its lack of another tier by its extra sprawl, which it got by absorbing two or three old worksheds. The newest one was some way to the south.

His wife was on the tarmac, raising the cumbersome gas lamp over her head against the wind. He pulled over next to her, and then assisted Taran off the truck as he alighted.

“You still up?” he said to her. “Told you I had the jumbo lunchbox.”

“And you left the ham behind. You couldn’t have lasted the trip.”

“Welp. I did clean out everything by lunch. I’m fine skipping dinner, gunna go bed anyways.”

“No you don’t. I got the whole thing grilled. All of it. It’s at the table.” She inspected the newcomer with the lamp. “Is he sleeping with us?” Seeing the hands, “What in the world—?”

“You wanted to hire some help. This one’s free.”

Mrs. Benson could only stare at her husband.

“Busted my tire, is all. Not sure what kind of thug he is, so I just erred on the safe side.”

With that, he pushed Taran along as they went into the house, trailed by a missus who wanted a little more elaboration, as every missus was wont to do.

“Where is he from? Who are his folks, his family? Was he in the army? I gotta have the details, seriously!” Her husband did not hear as he was already well ahead of her at the door with the captive.

As soon as they were inside, he gave Taran an unwelcome inspection. He tried to lift her shirt, but she kept turning away. The kid was still troublesome even when tied up. But he was able to check her trouser pockets and found one knife. There was nothing else of concern. He checked her eyes and her tongue. The kid seem to have been worn out being out in the elements for a couple days, but was otherwise fit as a fiddle.

After dinner Benson replaced the cloth binds with handcuffs and led Taran to a spare bed where he made her lie on her side, and then attached the cuffs to the bedside with a lock. “I’ll feed you in the morning, after I get the chains.”

Taran, however, woke up so late that next morning it was already brunch, ten-twenty to be precise. Both Bensons already met with the timber buyer who had arrived at breakfast, so by the time they got back to her, it was practically lunch.

They let Taran’s hands return to her front with a longer chain so she can pick up the bread by herself. She was starved. After wolfing down the meal, she promptly planted her face on the table and went back to sleep.

In the afternoon, Mr. Benson had her feet in chains as well, leading her to an unfinished pit which was meant to be a well. Handing her the shovel, “You better not try any funny moves on me, Taran boy, or you will be digging with your teeth. I got tons more chains in the outhouse.”

Taran only stared at the shovel in her hands, much to Mr. Benson’s frustration. “I won’t let ‘ya have a bite of supper until five of you fit in that hole.” And he left. Pfft. Is the kid going to escape? Well then, it won’t hurt him to lose a random troublemaker, it’s the kid who will have to put up running around in the bush before he could have unchained those feet.

The sunset was occluded by a sudden overcast, so evening came rather early and Mrs. Benson began cutting up the pork for tonight’s meal, and double portions for the lunchbox as her husband was to return to the veldt early tomorrow.

“Get the greasy boy in here before dinner,” she told him. “He needs a hot bath tonight. Desperately.”

Benson took a while to find his way to the well in the low light. Man, they must have fenced a little too much land, he mused, can’t possibly know every last square inch of the property at this age. As soon as he could make out the pit in the half-darkness, he called out. “Taran! Still there?” He approached closer. “Still alive?” When he got there, he almost stepped into the pit; he was shocked to find that the hole had grown much bigger, and that the earth was still puking out dirt. He should have seen her earlier; it was as though a machine was throwing up a veritable fountain of soil, all the while she kept muttering “Athos… Athos…” on and off. That fountain has now slowed into burps, but the digging did not let up one bit.

Taran was shin-deep in groundwater, breaking down the wall of the excavation. The depth she had achieved so far was not quite five of her, but she was entirely inside the pit. And she just went on digging.

“Taran! That’s quite enough!” He tried to clamber down to her, but his footing was unsure in the dark. “Did you just keep at it the whole time? You digging your own grave, son?”

Taran, having realized that someone was actually talking to her, stopped and turned to look up, but shortly became dizzy as her body finally remembered to be tired, and she fell to her knees onto the water, much to Benson’s alarm. He climbed out and hurried back to the house to get his wife.

With the help of the lamp and a rope, the man dragged Taran up by the scruff of her shirt and her armpit. As soon as she was back in the house, Mrs. Benson sat her on the tiled floor and doused her with a cold bath from a bucket, two of them, in fact.

“Jeanie, he’s tired!”

“He’s knocked out. Gotta wake him first.”

And wake up she did. She scrambled to get away to the corner and stared down the couple. Looking herself over, she realized what they meant to do. “I… I can shower myself. Thank you.”

Mrs. Benson did get her two buckets of hot water and one of cold. The husband undid the handcuffs for the bath, and hung around on a stool talking to his charge on the other side of the curtain.

“Here in my farm, you should only remember a one-two schedule: one, day, two, night. You don’t work your tail off here till dusk… and you don’t snooze around by dawn. Daylight is for work; when night falls, you fall onto bed, too, OK?”

“I’m not a hard worker.”

Chuckle. “Bein’ out in that veld is a tough job already. And that wello you scraped out today is a marvel.” Stretch. “If you don’t like it here, maybe I shoulda take ‘ya with me on another drive.”

“In these chains… sir?”

“Well. You want your freedom? Earn my trust. You’re getting there.”

“No, I mean… I can just stay here.”

“Worry not, I know I will have to unchain ‘ya at some point, but you must learn what it’s like to live under my roof, learn all of my trades. You look bright as a bulb to me. You can do it.”

He got a towel and a fresh change of clothes and handed it to her through the curtain. As soon as they have all eaten, he redid the handcuffs and led Taran to the end, locking her to the bedside as he did last night.

Early the next day Benson went to her bedside and shook her by the shoulders, trying to wake her up. When she failed to stir, he got a mugful of ice and touched her cheek with it.

“Wah!” she yelled with a jolt. Benson couldn’t help but snicker. And Taran couldn’t help but pout.

“Quit doing that, you,” he said of the pout, undoing the cuff from the bedside. “Only wee lasses do that.”

Well…

He led her out to a fenced plot which had been tilled but without anything grown on it yet. Much of the fence was in disrepair. “Well son, get a good look. I think you should know what to do.” He put down a basket full of stuff to plant, potatoes, radish, carrot. “Don’t ‘ya worry now, I got no trip today, we work this together.”

They started the day’s farm work with the planting. This took over half the morning.

After that, as the sun grew hotter in the cobalt sky, they turned to fixing the fence. Benson did most of the fixing, and Taran largely carried the timbers and other tools to him. It was not even an hour into this chore when Benson found his supposed helper slumped on the ground against a post. He dragged her to her feet with the chain. “What d’ya think you’re up to, hah?! You gunna make me do everything while you snooze? You own this place, kid?”

“…”

“Speak up!” he said, annoyed at her listlessness. “Quitting so soon, are we? This ain’t half of half the workload we do in here. You are the young one, you shoulda be taking the lion’s share of the work. Where was the unstopabble pit-digger from yesterday?”

Well, Taran was indeed young, and not a little strong, she was an adventurer, after all, but she was built for fighting, not slaving. Hauling her partner across the veldt was enough of an ordeal. Yesterday saw her work off most of her despair over Athos, and today there was not enough to push her into a fit of labor. But then, she had the presence of mind to remember what she had told herself about deserving this. So she went back to helping him with the timbers.

Mrs. Benson brought them lunch outside. They all ate next to the repaired part of the fence, after which Taran promptly fell asleep, much to their frustration. “Maybe we should just nap while it’s too hot, don’t you think, Jeanie?” he said, trying to make something of this annoyance.

Sure enough, the two of them resumed work when the sunshine began to fade at around four. Refreshed by the rest, Taran threw herself into the task with vigor and even did some hammering whilst chained. By sundown, they had finished the whole fence and were now returning to the house for supper.

As soon as they have all eaten, he redid the handcuffs and led Taran to the end, locking her to the bedside as he did last night, and turned the lights out.

In their own bed, the Bensons could not quite sleep just yet.

“You should unfasten him, Denz,” chided Mrs. Benson. “Didn’t you see those eyes?”

“They stare out for a thousand miles, I must say.”

“No, no, no! It’s not that. Look again! I can tell he is a sharp axe. Don’t make him dig another ditch.”

“He’s ours now. We should make use of him as much as we can instead of letting him bust another tire.”

“Ain’t that well more than enough compensation for your tire?”

“…”

“The lad needs a better job. Like, at a desk. Take him to Lilan. The government’s out of staff, I hear.”

“You said you wanted help.”

“I did. Maybe the pay he’ll get will go a longer way than if he farmed our whole property.”

“Tush. The money they print may lose its worth the minute the war blows over to them. There’s a reason we take Four-Leaf’s coins. Them, too.”

“Then ask them to pay him in coin. Who knows how much more of them the lad can get in a month than in the same with your trucking?”

“So you want to swap a trucking husband with a desking one, huh?”

“Silly you.”

Mr. Benson decided he would accompany Taran on Tuesday, after he had earned enough to restock the cellar with jerky and get a new lathe. After that, he could start sowing the rye.

In the meantime, Taran was to do more chores outside the house, fixing the outhouse, putting up a new fence, weeding the soil and tilling a bit—all whilst chained. Mrs. Benson wanted to set her free, but her husband always brought the keys with him on the road. Silly man, she thought, should have just left them in the cabinet or somewhere, what if he loses those out on the veldt?

On the morning of the trip to the capital, Mr. Benson undid all chains, hands and feet, and gave Taran a change of faded clothes—the most formal he could get—and told her to dress in her room. She received the attire with trembling fingers, and just stared at the clothes in front of a perplexed Benson.

“Come on, kid, I can’t give ‘ya a better dress. If you haven’t noted already, me and my missus ain’t that moneyed.”

“Is it… Is it alright… sir?”

“Stop calling me ‘sir,’ it feels weird, I’m just a trucker, you know.”

“Is it alright… for me to be unchained?”

“Huh…?”

“Is it… sir?”

Sigh. “You’re the first one I heard who don’t want to be free. Are you OK up there, lad?”

“…”

“All you ever dealt me was a flat tire, kid. I shoulda be the one worked up over tying you down for so long, you know.”

“…”

Taran had her first breakfast with the Bensons with her hands free. She was still as subdued as ever, but it seems the unchaining had a marked effect on her. Her expression was much lighter and she even showed a little smile a few times. Some color had even returned to her cheeks. Overall, she looked much more… relieved without those binds. Mr. Benson thought it was her body returning to normal after being rid of all that extra weight, but there were other things that came to mind, descriptions, comparisons. Taran was like someone who just got well, as though the chains were a literal ailment. Or perhaps more like a prisoner who had just finished serving time in jail. Did the kid take the chains a little too seriously? Did popping one tire deserve that much guilt? he wondered. Doings that were tons more terrible happened practically everyday out on the veldt.

After the meal, Mrs. Benson took her to a chair by the window and combed her hair, put some pomade, tried a new coat on her. She was a dressmaker in her youth and even did a stint as a singer, so she was particular about appearances.

Benson waited for Taran at the cab. When his wife finally appeared with her, he started the engine. “I gave him the shoes you hated, Denz. You should hand over half of your wardrobe, to be frank.”

Taran allowed herself a little smirk. The man was choosy for someone not so moneyed.

The woman gave them a large picnic basket. “That will be all you need for the trip. Don’t you eat out now, I know them restos charge triple over there. Really. They act like everyone are troopers and bounty hunters.”

They drove over miles of veldt and it was not so obvious they will be heading for what should be the biggest city in the country. “You be grateful to my woman,” said Benson. “She’s the one who thought you should stay at an office. Don’t look forward to a large pay, though. The government is in trouble more than half the time. And you will help out at home on the weekends.”

Taran was always looking out the window when he was not talking to her. It was clear the urchin enjoyed the drive, the sights of the prairie. The change he had observed in her earlier at breakfast became more pronounced out here on the road. Taran loved the wilds, he could tell, and for a moment he wondered if sitting at a desk would really suit the kid.

As soon as they approached the capital, the countryside began to be dotted with houses under construction. They came to a section of road with one lane that was being paved. From there, the rough grassland track began to give way to a concrete highway.

Port Lilan was not too impressive, certainly not in the same league as Four-Leaf’s city on the coast. Houses scattered over the landscape simply gathered closer as they entered the city, and marketplaces began to appear here and there, as well as slowing traffic on streets thronged with pickups that carried both merchandise and passengers. It took a while of Benson driving through backstreets and detours before they found the exact government house he was looking for, a drab affair of gray concrete and sooty brick against a background of open veldt. The grassland and its scents were never far away, even here.

“I’m not good at numbers, sir,” muttered Taran as they went up the stairs to the Census Bureau.

“Benson.”

“Uh, Benson… sir.”

“It won’t be all numbers, lad. You mostly shuffle papers and carry boxes, I hear. It is the same as the work back home, only the loads are not heavy.”

They entered the office of the census master. The man was young, probably someone who was only a few years out of college. He offered them seats. “I hope for good news from the frontier, Mr. Benson sir.”

“The veld is the same forsaken place as always. You should know from your newswires from Treverorum, Mr. Dovay. But good news I do have.” He showed him Taran. “This one.”

The master looked her over. “Can he read? Write?”

“Tsh. Everybody in the country knows you are strapped for labor. All of the young ones have ridden off with the Sisters. Why, Four-Leaf alone is richer than your whole city!”

He winced. “That may be true. Well! If this boy can’t do either, we will have him do a refresher for one week. That won’t count towards his wages.”

“Wait up, a little consideration, please…”

“But he will be fed and lodged here all the same. You should have brought a duffel sack.”

“No,” cut in Taran. “I… I can wear what I am in right now… the whole week.”

The officer chuckled. “Are you an adventurer, boy? You look a wee bit young for that.”

“Yes I am!” reacted Taran, flustered. “I’m an adventurer, I was shipped from Treverorum to Four-Leaf!” She caught herself. “I, um…” She bowed low to a shocked Mr. Benson. “I-I’m sorry I never told you, Benson, sir…”

The man only huffed. “Well, I never did ask…”

The census master only smirked at this information. “So you were part of the deal with Treverorum, eh?” Snort. “Four-Leaf alone gets a better deal from the emperor than from our own armed forces. How much did she pay you, son?”

Taran could not answer. Much of the war trauma was already behind her by now, though enough remained to elicit unpleasant memories when invoked, such as now. “I… um…”

“So you could not share some of your spoils with this country? Why should you even work here? Son, do you realize the hardships a common soldier from here face in the field? Worn-out boots, worn-out gear, spoiled rations sometimes. You have never known what it was like to be in the infantry, son.”

“I have been with the soldiers!” she yelled standing up. “We rode in the truck together, we were thrown together with the rest of the cannon fodder on that blasted highway, Athos and I—!” She caught herself. The two men were equally stunned, confounded by the sudden outburst, but then sighed in relief as Taran sat back down in seething embarrassment, thinking it was simply over losing her cool instead of over mentioning a name she wanted to keep to herself.

Karl collected himself and took out a waiver from the drawer. “Sign this, both of you. The boy shall stay here over the weekdays after which, you, Mr. Benson, shall pick him up Friday evenings. He shall be paid every end of the month.” To Taran, “I am sorry for earlier. You can just call me Karl. I always thought you bounty hunters have extravagant tastes, but then, practically none of you get to taste them for real half the time, anyway. Ahem. You will have clothing in your lodgings, but they are all used and some might be tattered.

“You shall attend to the files in the morning, have a short nap after lunch, and afterwards shall brush up on your letters until sunset. Pay especially close attention to that. I will have you do something in the coming days.”

He was unsettled by the hurtful stare Taran gave him. He had just touched a raw nerve. But why was he so intimidated by this random kid? Was it because that stare came from deep within? Did the new hire actually hate him? He felt a gulp in his throat in spite of himself. What kind of face was he making at this moment? he wondered.

“Taran!” snapped Benson. “It is not polite to look at anyone like that!”

“Nonono, Mr. Benson, sir,” the census master stammered. He ended up sounding more pathetic than expected. Did he the boss just fold in front of an employee before even the first day of work? But… he had it coming. He drew a long breath to hide what would have been a hugely apologetic tone of voice.

“Please forget what I have said.”

But Taran knew. At that moment she sensed the faintest contrition in his speech and her face began to warm. Karl was struck by this change. The kid became… pretty. He felt her forgiveness wash over him. What had just happened?

What would he not pay to see such a face again?

He coughed.

“And… as I have already mentioned, you can just call me Karl.”