Blood on the Loom

The steam in the lower laundry vaults did not rise; it hung in yellow curtains between the stone pillars, trapped by the weight of boiling vinegar and lye. Every breath carried the sharp, stinging reek of treated wash-water and old sweat scalded out of wool.

Pela kept her left heel pressed against the flagstones, using the ache in her instep to steady the tremor in her hands. The bone shard in her boot stayed warm against her ankle, pulsing with the rhythmic, needle-sharp thrum of the rot she had coaxed out of Coran’s rib. Her skin burned with the sympathetic fever of the Rua, a dry, marrow-deep heat that made her collar stick to the hollow of her throat. If she sat down on the drainage bench, she knew she would not stand back up before the fifth bell.

Across the brick-lined trench, Tali worked the copper vats alone.

He was stripped to a salt-crusted linen vest, his bare shoulders glistening in the dull orange flare of the under-floor firebox. With a five-foot ash pole, he stirred three hundred pounds of tangled northern tunics, plunging the blunt head into the suds with a rhythmic, mechanical plunge. Most orderlies dragged the wash-poles across their chests with rounded backs, letting their bellies bear the leverage. Tali stood with his weight centered between wide-set knees, his hips stationary, his left heel anchored two inches deeper than his right to brace against a lateral pull that never came.

It was the stance of a pikeman holding against cavalry on loose scree.

Pela stepped through the puddle of gray scum that pooled around the drain grate. Her sandals made a wet slap against the limestone.

Tali did not turn his head, but his elbows locked against the pole. The wood ceased its circular churning. "Shift change is at five bells," he said. His voice was raspy from steam, flat and dry as cured hide. "Hamper drop belongs in the rear bin. Put the rags down and get clear before the lye eats through your sole leather."

"I did not bring the ward hamper," Pela said.

"Then you are standing in my drain water for the pleasure of the smell." He gave the ash pole another hard, circular twist, dragging gray foam to the surface. "Move along, Pela. Chirurgeon Kiri’s apprentices dropped twelve baskets of wet bandages from the amputations three hours ago. If the blood sets in the fibers before the boiler boils over, Warden Bato docks three days of broth from everyone in the lower tier."

"The northern transport from two nights back," Pela said, taking three measured steps along the edge of the brick channel. "The ten litters from the Osta crossing. You have the sealed intake bundle set aside in the rear bin."

Tali’s shoulders tightened, a subtle knotting of sinew beneath grease-stained skin. "Men die on the carts. If they want to live long enough to see a bed, they should learn how to keep their guts inside their belts."

"The man in Bed Fourteen had a southern broadhead scar across his left collarbone that closed two seasons ago," Pela said, her tone level and unhurried. "The second knuckle of his left hand was swollen thick from a cavalry saber strike that split the tendon sheath. He fought at the Sula River crossing under the banner of the third division."

Tali did not look up from the swirling vat. "Half the bastards in the lower straw were at the river crossing. The Order washes the blood out of their coats just the same. Sula linen does not take sides once it hits the copper."

"You did not learn to handle that ash pole in a washhouse, Tali."

The pole came to a dead halt. The surface of the boiling lye rippled, spitting tiny, milky beads of scum against the rim of the vat.

Tali turned his torso slowly, keeping the pole balanced vertically between both palms. His face was narrow, hollowed out by months of breathing boiler smoke, his cheekbones sharp as split flint. A jagged, puckered furrow ran from the base of his left ear down into his collar, the silvered track of a spear-graze that had narrowly missed the jugular.

"I have been boiling ward rags since the rains started," he said. His grip on the ash pole was relaxed, fingers loose, but his thumb was tucked over the top grain, ready to drive the blunt butt forward like a lance.

"You have been an orderly for five months," Pela countered. "And every time you lift a seventy-pound wet hamper, you lift with your right hip flared out to spare a severed adductor tendon in your groin. An orderly who ruins his hip hauling tubs gets thrown out to the ditch within a fortnight. A sergeant who survives a sabre thrust to the groin learns how to walk without letting his commander see the limp."

Tali’s eyes narrowed, the pale hazel pupils reflecting the red coals below the vat. "You speak very boldly for a girl who smells like the mortuary pit."

"You were with the Northern Second Cohort," Pela continued, stepping closer until the heat from the vat baked against her face. "The third division’s vanguard. When the river redoubt fell in the autumn, four hundred men were driven into the marsh. Forty surrendered. Three hundred and fifty were put to the sword. Ten broke the perimeter and ran south into neutral territory."

"Stories," Tali muttered, though his fingers tightened slightly on the wood. "Camp gossip from dying conscripts."

"The men who ran south were branded on the inner thigh with the deserter’s wedge," Pela said quietly. "If Warden Bato sees that brand, he does not dock your broth, Tali. He hangs you from the central courtyard crane as a treaty violator and sends your ears to the northern garrison to collect the bounty."

The air between them went completely still, save for the dull, heavy thudding of the water boiling in the belly of the copper vat. A drop of sweat ran down Tali’s temple, carving a pale streak through the soot on his jaw.

"You have sharp eyes, Pela," he said softly. The rasp had left his voice; what remained was the cold, clipped cadence of a veteran non-commissioned officer who had spent ten years ordering men into barbed barricades. "Too sharp for someone who sweeps vomit off stone flags. People who look that close at other men’s bones usually end up in the lime pits with their tongues pulled out."

"I am not here to sell your ears to Bato," Pela said.

"Then what are you doing in my boiler room before the dawn horn?"

"The boy in Bed Fourteen did not die of gangrene," she said.

Tali snorted, a dry, humorless sound that puffed out of his nostrils. "They never do. They die of bad water, bad broth, or Chirurgeon Kiri’s bone saws. The Order calls it all the great peace."

"He was cut open in the annex before he ever reached the straw," Pela said. "Someone used an ivory trocar to drill through his fifth rib, straight into the marrow space. They pumped rot into his center while he was still breathing."