Chapter 21
The cool season brought in people to over winter in the caverns.
"Being unhardy types" said Petrilla with some scorn, having slept outside in the very much colder conditions of High Reaches herself.
The children wanted to know all about her experiences of course; and she managed to teach them plenty of survival lore and techniques in amongst the stories.
Tales had filtered back that Thella and her people had gone to Southern and met a sticky end there, so Petrilla felt no more need to worry about the Lady Holdless as a threat; but Felerel had needed to forcibly eject a couple of ruffians looking for a quieter corner to winter than caverns off the main passageways. Petrilla had helped, and Piaz and Chorlo had stood, knives drawn, in case they were needed. Felerel, trained in the weyr as all dragonmen were, in hopes of never needing the training, had been teaching both the boys and Syeira how to fight properly with knife and unarmed.
It turned out that it was Syeira who needed the training for real first; she came pelting back through both jangling curtains to throw herself sobbing on Petrilla.
Petrilla soothed her, gave her klah, and bade her tell her story. Syeira gulped.
"This old woman – she's one of the new comers – said to me did I want to earn a few marks? So I said I didn't mind if I did, what was the job? And she said come along with her and she'd show me. So I went and it was quite a ways in she was taking me, and I didn't like it, so I said I'd changed my mind and I'd not go any further. Then she grabbed my arm hard! Real hard, it hurt! So I broke the hold like Felerel showed us and ran outa there like a man with the shits runs for the necessary!"
"Well done, you're a good brave girl!" praised Petrilla. "Are you brave enough to take Felerel and me to see this old woman?"
Syeira nodded.
"Can Piaz come?" she asked
"She's my sister" said Piaz.
Petrilla glanced at Felerel.
"I don't like to leave the cavern and the little ones unguarded."
He nodded.
"Reckon those two big boys of yours and you can handle most things if you'd like me to stay here" he said, adding in a low voice "I don't need to prove myself; these younglings do."
Petrilla nodded.
Syeira led them through a complex web of passages and as they approached the point at which Syeira had run, they intercepted a middle-aged woman, manhandling a little girl about Dessi's age.
Syeira went for the woman, headbutting her in the midriff and latching her strong young teeth into the wrist that held the child!
With a cry of pain the woman let go.
The child froze, terrified.
"If you've parents to go to, run to them: or wait and follow us and we'll see you're all right" said Petrilla.
"Hey, whaddya mean letting that brat attack me? Can't I chastise me own daughter wivvout being attacked?"
"I ain't your daughter!" shouted the girl.
"You tried to kidnap my fosterling in the same way" said Petrilla, taking the woman by the arm firmly "You're under arrest."
"Garn" said the woman "You ain't a guard, you can't arrest me!"
"I'm better than" said Petrilla, directing Griss to go to J'ton. "Now you old hag, you got any more young girls in your den? Boys, bring her along" she thrust her towards Piaz and Chorlo who frogmarched the woman between them with a competence that seemed quite military!
Six young girls were manacled naked to beds, the chain just long enough to allow them to use the necessary bucket by the side.
They were, naturally, terrified.
One of them had manacle sores that looked old.
"How long has she had you?" asked Petrilla, gently.
"Two…three turns, I reckon" said the girl dully. She was almost fourteen. "I'm a cripple…. I can't run away like some do when travelling."
She had a club foot, Petrilla noticed.
"And the rest?"
The girl shrugged.
"Them two, Shawna and Kaisa she picked up on the way in, treated 'em good 'til she got 'em here."
"You didn't warn them?"
"She say, if I did, she'd find a man what liked back passage sex for me. She would of too."
"I see. What's your name?"
"Leealla."
"Very well. We'll release you all as soon as this affront has been witnessed."
"I am here; I witness" said J'ton's voice "So does G'narish."
"I planned to visit you some time" said the stocky man grimly "And your little firelizard gave pictures of abduction to J'ton very clearly; so I came."
"My thanks, Weyrleader" said Petrilla "Am I likely to cause a political stink? If so, I'm sorry but it won't stop me."
G'narish shrugged.
"Laudey's flexible" he said "Suppose we hear all the stories while you release those girls – she'll have keys somewhere surely? Then I'll take HER to Lord Laudey. Can you sort out getting children back to parents?"
"Not a problem – if they're here" assured Petrilla "If they've been taken from elsewhere, dragon transport would be appreciated. Where's the little one she was dragging in?"
"Here, Lady" said the child "Please, if I go back to my parents, won't they sell them again?"
Petrilla was rocked back by that.
"Your PARENTS sold you?" she gasped. "They must have know what she was at!"
"I don't know" the child's lip trembled.
"What's your name?"
"Sadya. My pa's Sadim."
"Shall Piaz and me go and find out if they knew?" volunteered Chorlo.
"They can't have, surely!" said Piaz "Pa might not have CARED for us but he'd not have sold us to….."
"MY mother would have sold me to anyone who paid the marks" said Chorlo. "Give us marks, mother Petrilla?"
"In case of others?"
He nodded.
She dug her hand in her pouch.
"Find out what the old hag paid them too" she said "If they knew, we'll find a way to get it off them for Sadya."
Piaz grinned fiercely.
"Are we going to quarrel over your weyr or mine?" asked G'narish quietly.
"That, Weyrleader, depends on whether those who have retained any spirit will get fair chance at Impressing a Green when they're older" said Petrilla "If they should wish to do so."
He shrugged.
"It seems to work at High Reaches; T'bor showed me more than one piece of evidence that suggests it's a lost custom anyhow. I have girls already who've applied. They'll get the same chance as any boy."
"Then it is better not to take them to a hostile climate like the High Reaches; this time of turn there's four feet of snow on the ground."
G'narish shuddered.
"Of course; I keep forgetting" he said. "Very well; I'll get a lower cavern weyrwoman to come with decent clothing for them once we know how many will be going."
Leealla had been orphaned by Threadfall; her mother had thrust her into the barely adequate cover because with her club foot Lealla had not been able to run for better shelter.
"Their calculations were wrong; the tinkers who told us we could easily reach the next shelter before Threafall" she said, dully "And mother went back out in it, not to bring Thread close to me, growing in her body…." She shuddered and retched.
She, poor child, had received too many blows in her short life; her mother and she on the road because her mother had left her cotholder husband rather than have him kill her daughter when it became apparent she would never walk straight; then her mother lost, then to become the slave of this evil woman for several turns. That she had the resilience to stay alive was remarkable; whether she would ever have the spirit to be a weyrwoman or whether it had all been crushed out of her remained to be seen. At least she showed no fear at the concept of being taken to the weyr!
"Dragons are better than people" she said.
Shawna and Kaisa were sisters, thirteen and twelve turns.
They were loudly indignant against the old woman's perfidy, and her insistence that they call her 'mother' added insult to injury. They were orphans too, evicted from a cothold after disease had claimed the rest of their family, pushed out by one of the local Holder's underlings who wanted a nice little cot for himself and who told them they could get out or drudge for him and satisfy him when they were old enough.
They were not complete innocents; and Shawna at least had a fair idea what he meant. They left.
"Laudey isn't going to like that" said G'narish grimly. "He's a good man – for a Lord Holder – and the Holder they were Beholden to has a duty of care. Which does NOT mean making them drudges and loving wenches as an alternative."
"It's a duty ignored all over Pern" said Petrilla "I think it's well enough documented that this happens in the High Reaches logicators' records."
"Well maybe Laudey's enough of a man to get off his backside to call a conclave to discuss the matter. It's disgusting the way some of these Holders flout their duties and still whine about their rights."
"It's a common human complaint" said Petrilla dryly "Not solely confined to Holders, nor holderfolk."
G'narish gave her a sharp look; then a curt nod.
"Well, happen you're right" he said.
The other three girls had been seized within the Holdless caverns since the woman had arrived; they had not found out her name because she was still screaming imprecations so foul G'narish had gagged her with one of her own socks.
The oldest of these three was twelve, named Ileane.
"My parents died last turn; you know me, Lady Petrilla, I mudlark for you" she said.
"You told me you had family" said Petrilla.
"I do. I've an older brother; he does sailing trips to fish. She got me when he was away."
Petrilla nodded.
"Is he back yet, do you think?"
"Dunno" said Ileane.
"You can stay with me until he is, if he's still away" decided Petrilla.
The youngest two were no more than nine turns old; Lissa had been offered work like Syeira, to make her go, but had not had the same misgiving for being too innocent. It had all been a great shock to her and she sobbed for her mother.
Merrina was the child of an itinerant glasscrafter who did not get on with the Master Glasscrafter in the main Hold and so stayed in the holdless caverns here instead.
Petrilla waited for the boys to return before seeking out other parents.
Piaz and Chorlo were angry when they turned up.
"They knew all right" said Piaz "For all they hedged around. She's only a girl, it's all she's good for. Porcines! I'm going to ruin them!"
"Other children?"
"We bought the baby girl – she's two; they hadn't tried to sell her body yet for being too young to make anything – and we took her to Felerel on the way back" said Chorlo. "Did we do right?"
"You did; but Sadya's going to want her baby sister to go with her to the weyr. You can take her to get the babe while the others are being dressed and soothed by the weyrwoman."
The weyrwoman was a down to earth woman called Nadeena, who looked enough like G'narish's Weyrwoman Nadira, that with the similar name suggested a relationship. She wore Headwoman's knots; an important woman, and Petrilla was duly respectful in her tone towards her.
More so than she was to G'narish.
Petrilla was like that sometimes.
Ileane's brother had returned scant hours previously; and was starting to get worried about his sister when Syeira dragged him off to collect her. Petrilla told him what had happened.
Illas was furious.
"WHAT? Evil baggage! I'm going to KILL her!" he roared.
"No, actually you're not" said Petrilla "You are going to let Lord Laudey make an example of her to deter others to show that the Holdless have rights too."
"He won't though" said Illas cynically.
"Oh but he will. I've some powerful friends, my friend, and even if I didn't care about other kids – which I do – Ileane is an employee of mine and that makes me take it personally so I throw more of my resources into the matter. Now come and collect her and keep your hands to yourself."
On returning, Petrilla noted two men who had not been there when she left. One was unconscious; the other sported a black eye and was bound. J'ton was massaging his fists with grim satisfaction.
"Clients of hers" he explained unnecessarily.
"You can kick THEM a little if you like" said Petrilla conversationally to Illas.
He did not need much invitation to avail himself of that offer!
Lissa's parents, traders were horrified at what had happened; angry; and determined to do anything they could to help her get over the terrible experience. They had been going frantic, searching high and low for the child and Petrilla was happy to return Lissa to the bosom of a loving family.
The Glasscrafter and his wife were equally shocked, angered and horrified.
"She'll have to stay here I suppose" said the glasscrafter "Obviously we can't call her our daughter any longer. She's been devalued. A girl who lets herself be used is just a slut."
Petrilla stared, scarcely able to believe her ears.
"Excuse me?" she said "The child is nine turns old! She was chained up and raped! How is that in any wise 'letting herself be used'?"
He shrugged.
"She's spoiled. It's unfortunate; but we can't let her stay with us. What would people think?"
Petrilla boiled over; and she cold-cocked him. She turned to the wife, who was shrieking, and slapped her. Hard.
"Tell that ovine-witted husband of yours when he regains the few senses that he has" she said coldly "That people would think better of parents who cared for their children than they would of cruel tunnel snakes who discard them because they've been attacked and hurt! Great shells, what kind of a mother are you? I despise you and I'll see your husband has no work anywhere I have influence!"
"He's very strict" sobbed the woman.
"Then grow a backbone for the sake of your children and either tell him where his duties lie or leave him, you daft bovine!" said Petrilla.
"Oh, but he's my man, I couldn't leave him, think of the shame to leave your husband!"
"Twat" said Petrilla contemptuously; and turned on her heel before she did anything more violent.
She dreaded breaking it to Merrina; but the child just listened and nodded sadly.
"I had a sister once, and she was hurt by men at a Gather; and father made her stay there with nothing but the clothes she had on, all ripped and torn as they were" she said "I did think it was because she was grown up, and able to fight back, 'cos she was thirteen turns; but I guess not."
"You'll tell J'ton where that was, and he'll go looking" said Petrilla.
"Too fardling right I will!" said J'ton "Reckon I can put out word about THAT glasscrafter too!"
"Good man!" said Petrilla.
At last it was all sorted out.
G'narish reported that the woman was to be chained out during Fall; and the clients to be executed.
Petrilla thought it all quite meet.
Even Illas, Ileane's brother, was approving of that as a result!
"Fancy, he do care beyond feeding us enough to keep us from stealing too much!" he said.
The sequel to the tale of Merana, Merrina's sister was good news.
The young girl, weeping and desolate, had attracted the attention of a recently widowed cotholder, with daughters of his own, who asked if she had lost her parents; and on hearing the whole story had whisked her back to his cot to take employment as housekeeper and nursemaid to his younger children – his oldest being Merrina's age – and he had agreed to adopt the child conceived of the rape and was to wed Merana as soon as the babe was born so she might look fine in a red wedding gown. He had seen that the entire cot community knew the tale, that Merana should have no false rumours spread, and was glad to have confirmation from a dragonman of what some neighbours had murmured was a little far fetched a tale. The cotholder, Sekinder, invited Merrina to join his family too, promising she and his daughters should go on Search if they so wanted in the future.
It seemed an ideal solution; and J'ton was relieved to agree when Merrina was so pleased to be with her sister again.