Book 6, Chapter 7: Digging Up
The shovel hit rocks again, shaking my arms. I paused, planted it under the rocks, slammed my foot on top of the metal, hefted it up, then tossed the lot into a nearby bucket. Some boy – bucket boy, unironically – would be picking those up soon. I wiped sweat off my brow, cursed myself for an idiot as I likely just put dirt across my forehead, then dug some more, hefted another load into the bucket.
Soldiers were digging to my left. Not to my right, as I was at the corner. Every now and again, one looked at me.
They tried talking to me when I started, with the usual, ‘Diggin’ is for men, lass’ and, if they were nicer, ‘You really don’t need to shovel, we’ve got this,’ plus a bunch of other comments. One said, ‘Prettiest soldier here.’
I ignored them. A slight smile, then another shovel of dirt into the bucket. And another. Eventually, they stopped speaking to me.
It was tough, at first, to break through the grass. Untilled prairie is thick. The tangled roots were more than a foot deep. You could make a house out of the sod, were you so inclined. Settlers did, when moving across the plague-emptied plains of North America in the 16th and 17th centuries, even the 18th in some locales. It might even be nice, living on a prairie in a house you built yourself.
But this was not that planet and I was not digging to build a house, but a mass grave. Penance, I told myself, this was my penance. For the countless I killed and could not bury. Yet, no, not for these corpses. They died trying to rid their world of me, so much they feared me – and wisely so!
I owed them nothing. They’d stolen my divinity, left me a powerless little girl. My digging was for others.
I stamped on the shovel, hefted the dirt up, dropped it into the bucket, dirt spilling over, and yelled, “Boy!” Eventually, he’d run over, drop a new one, take this one to a growing mound of dirt. That was about the extent of our interaction.
On that battlefield, where the huge Laemacian army came to conquer my kingdom, countless, countless men and boys screamed as I melted the metal they were holding, wearing. It was easy enough to toss hot swords, but how many died writhing as their armor burned into their flesh?
I dumped more dirt onto the full bucket.
Not a thing I could know. The mages captured me before I could see the results of my rage. And, a small voice inside said, one I had been ignoring until now to embrace the guilt, those men and boys had come as an invading army. War. They brought war and not innocence. If not for me, they’d have destroyed my army, killed or enslaved my friends, taken my adopted kingdom.
It felt like a lifetime ago, though it was only a few weeks.
“Ma’am,” said the boy, replacing my bucket.
I hefted more dirt into it, then slammed the shovel back into the earth. Ignoring my thirst, I filled another bucket, called the boy to replace it, too. The sun rose high in the sky and I filled more buckets. Ignored the stares of the men, the anger of the boy when I yelled for him to take the dirt away. No end of dirt here.
From up above, on the grass, the captain’s voice, “Lady Sarah, what are you doing?”
Before answering, I dumped another load into another full bucket. “Digging.”
“We have plenty of soldiers to dig these graves. You needn’t trouble yourself.” His voice took a low tone as he leaned toward me, “Did my wife do something untoward that drove you here?”
Resting on the shovel, I looked up. My hands were dirty. Arms, dirty, sleeves. Much of the dress she’d leant me, probably. My mouth was dry, and I had to pause before speaking, before lying. “I stole a dress from a wizardess. I figured I owed them this much.”
He nodded, “That is truly commendable. You do your family proud. But you may take a break now. The men are taking their rest.” He looked around, “Has no one . . . explained that it was time for ale?”
I finally looked up at him, into his brown eyes, “Maybe. I haven’t been paying attention. Rest.” Pushed the shovel into the dirt, “Good idea.”
The captain stood up, yelled at nearby men, “You there! Fetch a bucket of water and a cloth and bring Lady Sarah some ale.”
“Sir!”
“Sir!”
“My wife will take this as an affront. She’ll be angry, thinking you are trying to upstage her.” He extended his hand to me, to help me up, and I took it.
“Ah. That wasn’t my intention.”
After getting me out of the large pit we’d dug, he didn’t let go of my arm, but turned it over, odd look on his face. He pushed the sleeve up, exposing the gold and charcoal bracelet, then looked into my eyes before brushing the dirt off the bracelet. He rubbed it again, but still the metal remained dark in areas, and not because of the soil. “Where did you get this?”
“My, uh, father. A birthday present.” Crap! I should have tossed these away, buried them. I was awful at lying but needed this to be believable. “When I was twelve. He had a whole set made for me.” I pushed hair away from the perseidian iron dangling from my ears, dropped my hands to my neckline, pulling the fabric down, exposing my necklace.
“What an odd gift for a child.” He touched the iron of the necklace, eyes never leaving it, “Do you know what this metal is?”
“No, sir. It’s light and sometimes pretty in the sun.”
“It’s the most expensive metal in the world, for it alone can stop the powers of a mage.” Letting go of the necklace, he looked into my eyes. “How did your father come by it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, he must love you very much to give you such a gift.”
I did my best to look helpless and lost, batted my eyes a bit, shifted my weight on my feet, and said, “I would very much like to return home.”
“We don’t yet have the manpower to see you safely home. After we,” he looked over to the newly dug earth, “bury the mages, I expect we shall. Now, my wife. I’ll talk to her. Still,” he put his hand on my back, lightly directing me toward a nearby table, “if matters between you two deteriorate, if she makes things tense, please let me know.”
“I can’t imagine why she’d be upset.” Of all the issues facing me, an angry wife was of least concern. Though she did leave me to empty the damn chamber pot. That was a bit annoying.
“Here,” he pulled out a stool for me.
“Uhm, I’ll stand. Until I wash myself off.” He was still holding the stool and looking at me, so I added, “Thank you.” He had to be thinking through the implications of me having perseidian iron but at least he hadn’t made me a prisoner. So, he hadn’t fully worked it out.
“Certainly. I’ll have a new dress prepared for you as you’ll want to change out of this one.”
“Ok.”
“Have you had dinner?”
Dinner was what they called lunch here, I reminded myself. Supper was the late-night meal. “No, not yet.” That’s when I noticed, the shadows were small and just beginning to grow again. It was therefore past noon. Yeah, I’d ignored my human body too long and it was just now becoming hungry. Huh.
He narrowed his eyes, looking a touch angry, but not at me, “Why hadn’t the men stopped you for dinner?”
I cocked my head at him, wondering if that was a rhetorical question. “That’s, uh, not a thing I could know.” Yeah, I very much preferred being the one in charge. These odd conversations never cropped up then.
“You just sit here. I’m going to see what’s taking them so long.”
He left in such a way that I knew someone was getting yelled at. I also knew they probably had tried to tell me and I’d likely – very likely – just ignored them. Great. Now I was ‘that strange girl who wouldn’t stop digging.’ I really, really didn’t need to be known by the common soldiers, but now they’d be talking. And knowing who I was would make escape all the more difficult. But that wasn’t the worrisome part of it. I slumped against the table, letting my forehead hit it.
Assuming he saw through my attempted deception, he knew I didn’t get the iron from the mages. They couldn’t wear it and use magic. This metal was their jailer, binds to safely contain them. So, it was almost never made into jewelry – only the very wealthy and very powerful would do so.
The emperor of Laemacia wore it to prevent mages from attacking him. I wore it to contain my own magic, before I knew the truth about my person and history. And the good captain’s army found me in a circle of dead wizards, whom he was sworn to defend.
If he believed my story, then he must think my pretend father an idiot. But if he didn’t, if the captain was competent, then he must be considering two options about my person: either a very powerful and competent mage-killer or a princess, probably to Laemacia, because of my olive skin and light purple eyes. Neither option seemed like a good outcome for me.
Though being taken to Laemacia was preferable to being hanged. Not by much, not by much at all. For they would know who I am, and they were likely still miffed about the loss of their army and emperor.
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