oooooooooooooooooooooohhhh shit
Here, though. Here they were at the worksite, here at the top tip of Sourcherry District and the bottom swathe of Yïlián's. First street in along the rhuván from Waneside, and here, at the skeletal framing of what would've been the Rhuvi showhouse.
And that was a shit-smelling scrap of ill-favour its ownself. Rhuvi! Here, in her city! Bad enough to be paid pittance wage on work that would house roses and Houselings - buildings built up with funds that could be used to better the city, but no! No, instead we have to hoard them in and kept them for those chance-happy top-tier Houses already living in comfort, but who for some Nassa-blown reason always needed another house, another shop, another bank, another lawspeak's office. Weren't nothing ever enough for those? Little Peshe kings, those were, so many rings on there was no room for money.
But to be working for Rhuvi?
Ah, and there was an ugly thing. Out-city barbarians who bought and sold people like they were meat on the rack or clay on the block. Rhuvi didn't have no respect for any life but their own Houses'. They lived in those tiny, twisting corridors, like rats, and bred like rats, huge families of owners who counted the worth of the people below them in rings and coin. Páhi escaped, and they told stories, and those stories spread - did the Rhuvi not think of that? Did they not know their inhumane behavior was known about? Did they not know that the people in other cities wouldn't stand for such treatment, nor such barbarism among them? Did they truly think they were welcome?
She'd seen a few of them, the day before they'd all stopped work - those ones who'd come to gawp at the house and the building, the one pointing out the plans and pontificating, the others standing there all audacious, lined up beside the Sorrovers they were with. The Sorrovers were well enough, nothing out of the main there. The Rhuvi were all decked out, arrogating little jewelboxes to a one of 'em, hair all hung with gold and gems, since clearly they had enough to do that. They hadn't brought any páhi with them - probably didn't let them out of the house, like she'd heard happened back in Rhuvacai. Probably didn't want to show their shame to the Olïnscarri. Like as if they could hide what they were!
And that! That was what they were forced to work for! That was what was paying them, those uppathers who thought so low of people that they thought they could be owned! Of course when they'd heard that, Mäcci and the others had stopped working. They talked with Harcasi - a good boy, for all he was a hireman - and tried to make him understand that, while money was money, this money was going too far. And maybe if they didn't build, the Rhuvi would take the hint and leave.
In that quietest little corner of her ses, Mäcci hoped, too, that Ländri could help them. Perhaps he could. Perhaps he would see the problem and wake up, think of some great and daring and clever provocation that would be perfect to give the fig to those out-city shitdrafts, something to make her laugh like he always used to be able to. This was Ländri. He'd have to see something he could do.
So she was pleased to see the ruck of folk all gathered round the front of the worksite. An Audience. Ländri always had liked an Audience.
But Shinsa frowned. "Mäcci," he said. "This mightn't be all's-well, here."
"Balls to that," Mäcci said, grabbing Ländri by the shoulder and shoving her way through the crowd.
She came up to the front, up by where the work-crew was. Some were standing; some squatted and talked. A pastry-seller was doing light business, weaving through the folk. Harcasi stood by the wallgate, just before the entrance to the worksite, and his arms were knotted across each other.
"Eh, Mäcci," he said, as she came up.
Mäcci let Ländri go. Ländri looked at the ground. Shinsa finally emerged from the crowd - without having elbowed a single person - gave Mäcci a sour look, and took Ländri back in hand. Mäcci let him.
"Eiya, Harcasi," Mäcci said, coming up closer so they could speak quiet. "What's all this here? There's a parcel more folk than I thought to see-"
"Ai, well Mäcci, it won't gladden you to hear," Harcasi said, looking over the crowd distractedly. "Ah, I ought to be telling you before you mishear it. There's a Jackal to come."
Mäcci frowned. "But why?"
"They've heard," Harcasi said.
"What's it they've heard?"
"I've blabbed my mouth out, Mäcci, or mayhap it's the matter of what I told 'em." Harcasi finally glanced at her, then dipped his eyes away and kept scanning the crowd. "It's that Sorrover Head. She's told me she'd sell us all to the Rhuvi if we didn't get this house done in the tenday."
Mäcci turned full-on facing him. "You'll explain that."
"I will. You'd hear it. She had me in a room of hers, and she told it to me like it was the price of eggs tomorrow. Mácci, I don't know if she can, but she said, she said she'll hauc us all páhi to the Rhuvi. She said she would. The other Sorrovers said she couldn't, but I was in a fear over it, you understand, and I talked..."
* And that was that, of course. You might be as careful as you might, but ugly news ran through Waneside like water through a dog's hair. Of course, of course someone'd decided that a Jackal needed to hear about this - and mayn't be that they were so wrong.
"Which one?" Mäcci asked.
Harcasi shook his head. "They said one would come. One's coming."
Mäcci frowned. "Then how d'you kn-"
But Harcasi wasn't listening. He was looking over her shoulder, wide-eyed.
"Mäcci!" Shinsa hissed, drawing close with Ländri. "This is bad, Mäcci, let's out of it soonest, come on-"
But Mäcci turned from him, and looked herself.
And there, the crowd a-mutter and a-shuffle around her, came the Jackal. People before her backed and dipped away; the Jackal paid them no attention, striding forward, eyes up on the worksite. Such queer eyes! Pale as pale, in a swarthy, immobile face; she was tall and built like a brawler, with corded arms and scarred hands. At her belt were two pick-hammers of scratched and solid steel.
She stopped before the gate. Her eyes came down from the worksite, and came to rest of Harcasi.
"So," she said. "This is the place."
Her voice was deep, resonant. Harcasi looked up at her from under his hair.
"Tell me what the Sorrover said."
Harcasi looked down at the pickhammers. "Ressáni, she sai-"
"No," that voice commanded. "Do not call me that. I am a Wanesider, as you are, and we do not bow to each other."
Harcasi hesitated.
"Chaccáli," Mäcci said, stepping forward and hearing Shinsa hiss behind her. "This one would be my friend. He's told me the Sorrover would sell us for our work."
The Jackal's eyes slid from Harcasi over to Mäcci. They pinned her, unmoving.
"Chaccáli, it's as I've said. He -" she didn't look at Harcasi, "told me that Sorrover said she would hauc us all páhi to the Rhuvi if the work's not done within the tenday."
"Did he." The Jackal kept her eyes on Mäcci. "Well, Harcasi? Tell me more."
Perhaps it was those eyes that had discomfited Harcasi, for now he spoke. "It's as Mäcci's told you, re- chaccáli, it is. She called me in that day, she sat me down and had me to tell her why it might be we've not been working, and I did tell her. And sh-"
The eyes swung back to him. "What did you tell her?"
Harcasi faltered, looked down, kept speaking. "I t- I told her, chaccáli, I told her it's refusal for work for that the Rhuvi would own this house, as they ow- as they own their páhi..."
He petered out, eyes flickering along the ground. The Jackal watched him a few counts longer, then nodded.
"You did well." She turned those eyes back on Mäcci. "Mäcci, your name is. Tell me. How long have you refused to work?"
Mäcci met the Jackal's eyes. "Half a tenday, chaccáli."
"And?"
"And nothing. It's been no pay, na but that first tenday's. Then silence from the outcity flock, na nothing heard til this."
"And?" the Jackal asked again. "Would you work?"
"Mish's own eyes we would," Mäcci told her. "This is Olïnscarr. A threat made on free folk na could induce us, it'll turn us righten against her, that will."
The Jackal watched her a moment longer, too, then nodded. "That's as it should be," she said, and turned to the crowd, that all went hush in anticipation.
The Jackal looked out into the moil. She unsnapped one of the leather straps at her side, and freed one of the pickhammers and held it up. She spoke, and each word was like a blow.
"I am the Jackal Of the Hammer. I've come to subtantitiate this rumour passed on to me of free folk being worked by outcitiers, and being threatened to be sold. To Rhuvi."
Mutters. Shifting, but still fair quiet.
"This rumour is true," the Jackal said. "This, that the Sorrovers said. A Ycaiiy House themselves, so they mought know nothing theirselves of us. Foreigners sell us to foreigners, and our own city watches."
She stopped, and looked the crowd over.
"This you all have seen. This of the other districts turning blind to us. This you know they do, and that nought would come of twelve of your own neighborfolk being hauc away from their lives, to be given to the Rhuvi, no better than animals. No better than animals."
She stopped again. Then started, again:
"You know what the Rhuvi do to páhi. There is no choice, there. They work páhi as they mought, til that one is close to death, then hold back from food and drink as they call it waste to feed one who might die. They fuck páhi as a dogs do, forcefully, from behind, and kill them if they say a word against. They kill the ones who grow too old to work, because as they see it, all páhi would be good for is work. They buy and sell adults, children, women, men, like as I would sell a glove or a cart. Those páhi have no freedoms, nothing legal. They are nothing in the eyes of their owners. And they would turn you into that!"
The crowd, already hot, began to simmer.
"You'd know that!" the Jackal Of the Hammer told them. "You'd know that, and remember it! These outcitiers want to take us, and turn is into nothing, and our own upper districts allow it. But Wanesiders na never nothing! You who are here, you listen it, and well - that Sorrover. She might make threats. But she needs to me shown that we will not bend. And those foreigners, those outcity shit-crusted dogbegotten Rhuvi that think to take us and make us theirs?" Those eyes stared out; that hammer came up again. "They will know! They will know that Waneside will not take them! Nor be taken!"
She turned from them as they began to roil. And Mäcci, who had an idea, stepped into her path.
"Chaccáli. I've a thought how we might show them."
"You do," the Jackal looked down at Mäcci. "Show me."
Mäcci stepped back and grabbed Ländri's shoulder. "This friend's a provocationist, chaccáli. He's able with provocations. He'll find a way with the worksite to show them -"
"Do it," the Jackal said, and stepped past her, through the worksite gate.
Mäcci, afire, went to follow, but got restrained. She went to shake off the hand, but - it was Shinsa, and he gripped her hard.
"Mäcci! What is it you think you're doing?"
Mäcci frowned at him and tugged at Ländri. Ländri shuffled forward numbly. Shinsa grabbed his arm too. Ländri stopped.
"Give him here, Shinsa. I'm helping her. I'm helping him, at that. Ländri. Ländri, there's a provocation here -"
"You're helping what, Mäcci? Her? Did you even listen to her? Half what she said isn't true! Does she even read? Rhuvi's had páhi policies for the last two eder that -"
"Mäcci!" that voice boomed.
Mäcci scowled, shrugged Shinsa off, gripped Ländri's arm, and pulled him forward into the worksite.
The mill of folk had shuffled in here from the street. The work crew stood about; the dkfld.
The Hackal rose shoudlers-tall above the folk about her. She caught Mäcci's eye; Mäcci made for her, tugging Ländri behind. "This one," she said, as she arrived. "He's my friend. He's a provocation, the best I've known."
The Jackal turned those chalk-grey eyes to Ländri. "He's ill."
"He's in grief."
"And you thought to give him a provocation to pull him out of it," the Jackal of the Hammer nodded approvingly. "Smart woman."
Mäcci glowed. She felt herself glow. She turned back from the Jackal to Ländri, and turned Ländri bodily toward the site, and said, "now, see that? Ländri. I need you to do something to that to show we won't work on it no more."
~:~:~:~
The worksite rose above them: scaffolding
what does it look like shaped like (central gallery; arch?
this is only natural
has she even read anything? macci, half of that isn't true!
äáï
~:~:~:~
♥!!!!!!!
And that was a shit-smelling scrap of ill-favour its ownself. Rhuvi! Here, in her city! Bad enough to be paid pittance wage on work that would house roses and Houselings - buildings built up with funds that could be used to better the city, but no! No, instead we have to hoard them in and kept them for those chance-happy top-tier Houses already living in comfort, but who for some Nassa-blown reason always needed another house, another shop, another bank, another lawspeak's office. Weren't nothing ever enough for those? Little Peshe kings, those were, so many rings on there was no room for money.
But to be working for Rhuvi?
Ah, and there was an ugly thing. Out-city barbarians who bought and sold people like they were meat on the rack or clay on the block. Rhuvi didn't have no respect for any life but their own Houses'. They lived in those tiny, twisting corridors, like rats, and bred like rats, huge families of owners who counted the worth of the people below them in rings and coin. Páhi escaped, and they told stories, and those stories spread - did the Rhuvi not think of that? Did they not know their inhumane behavior was known about? Did they not know that the people in other cities wouldn't stand for such treatment, nor such barbarism among them? Did they truly think they were welcome?
She'd seen a few of them, the day before they'd all stopped work - those ones who'd come to gawp at the house and the building, the one pointing out the plans and pontificating, the others standing there all audacious, lined up beside the Sorrovers they were with. The Sorrovers were well enough, nothing out of the main there. The Rhuvi were all decked out, arrogating little jewelboxes to a one of 'em, hair all hung with gold and gems, since clearly they had enough to do that. They hadn't brought any páhi with them - probably didn't let them out of the house, like she'd heard happened back in Rhuvacai. Probably didn't want to show their shame to the Olïnscarri. Like as if they could hide what they were!
And that! That was what they were forced to work for! That was what was paying them, those uppathers who thought so low of people that they thought they could be owned! Of course when they'd heard that, Mäcci and the others had stopped working. They talked with Harcasi - a good boy, for all he was a hireman - and tried to make him understand that, while money was money, this money was going too far. And maybe if they didn't build, the Rhuvi would take the hint and leave.
In that quietest little corner of her ses, Mäcci hoped, too, that Ländri could help them. Perhaps he could. Perhaps he would see the problem and wake up, think of some great and daring and clever provocation that would be perfect to give the fig to those out-city shitdrafts, something to make her laugh like he always used to be able to. This was Ländri. He'd have to see something he could do.
So she was pleased to see the ruck of folk all gathered round the front of the worksite. An Audience. Ländri always had liked an Audience.
But Shinsa frowned. "Mäcci," he said. "This mightn't be all's-well, here."
"Balls to that," Mäcci said, grabbing Ländri by the shoulder and shoving her way through the crowd.
She came up to the front, up by where the work-crew was. Some were standing; some squatted and talked. A pastry-seller was doing light business, weaving through the folk. Harcasi stood by the wallgate, just before the entrance to the worksite, and his arms were knotted across each other.
"Eh, Mäcci," he said, as she came up.
Mäcci let Ländri go. Ländri looked at the ground. Shinsa finally emerged from the crowd - without having elbowed a single person - gave Mäcci a sour look, and took Ländri back in hand. Mäcci let him.
"Eiya, Harcasi," Mäcci said, coming up closer so they could speak quiet. "What's all this here? There's a parcel more folk than I thought to see-"
"Ai, well Mäcci, it won't gladden you to hear," Harcasi said, looking over the crowd distractedly. "Ah, I ought to be telling you before you mishear it. There's a Jackal to come."
Mäcci frowned. "But why?"
"They've heard," Harcasi said.
"What's it they've heard?"
"I've blabbed my mouth out, Mäcci, or mayhap it's the matter of what I told 'em." Harcasi finally glanced at her, then dipped his eyes away and kept scanning the crowd. "It's that Sorrover Head. She's told me she'd sell us all to the Rhuvi if we didn't get this house done in the tenday."
Mäcci turned full-on facing him. "You'll explain that."
"I will. You'd hear it. She had me in a room of hers, and she told it to me like it was the price of eggs tomorrow. Mácci, I don't know if she can, but she said, she said she'll hauc us all páhi to the Rhuvi. She said she would. The other Sorrovers said she couldn't, but I was in a fear over it, you understand, and I talked..."
* And that was that, of course. You might be as careful as you might, but ugly news ran through Waneside like water through a dog's hair. Of course, of course someone'd decided that a Jackal needed to hear about this - and mayn't be that they were so wrong.
"Which one?" Mäcci asked.
Harcasi shook his head. "They said one would come. One's coming."
Mäcci frowned. "Then how d'you kn-"
But Harcasi wasn't listening. He was looking over her shoulder, wide-eyed.
"Mäcci!" Shinsa hissed, drawing close with Ländri. "This is bad, Mäcci, let's out of it soonest, come on-"
But Mäcci turned from him, and looked herself.
And there, the crowd a-mutter and a-shuffle around her, came the Jackal. People before her backed and dipped away; the Jackal paid them no attention, striding forward, eyes up on the worksite. Such queer eyes! Pale as pale, in a swarthy, immobile face; she was tall and built like a brawler, with corded arms and scarred hands. At her belt were two pick-hammers of scratched and solid steel.
She stopped before the gate. Her eyes came down from the worksite, and came to rest of Harcasi.
"So," she said. "This is the place."
Her voice was deep, resonant. Harcasi looked up at her from under his hair.
"Tell me what the Sorrover said."
Harcasi looked down at the pickhammers. "Ressáni, she sai-"
"No," that voice commanded. "Do not call me that. I am a Wanesider, as you are, and we do not bow to each other."
Harcasi hesitated.
"Chaccáli," Mäcci said, stepping forward and hearing Shinsa hiss behind her. "This one would be my friend. He's told me the Sorrover would sell us for our work."
The Jackal's eyes slid from Harcasi over to Mäcci. They pinned her, unmoving.
"Chaccáli, it's as I've said. He -" she didn't look at Harcasi, "told me that Sorrover said she would hauc us all páhi to the Rhuvi if the work's not done within the tenday."
"Did he." The Jackal kept her eyes on Mäcci. "Well, Harcasi? Tell me more."
Perhaps it was those eyes that had discomfited Harcasi, for now he spoke. "It's as Mäcci's told you, re- chaccáli, it is. She called me in that day, she sat me down and had me to tell her why it might be we've not been working, and I did tell her. And sh-"
The eyes swung back to him. "What did you tell her?"
Harcasi faltered, looked down, kept speaking. "I t- I told her, chaccáli, I told her it's refusal for work for that the Rhuvi would own this house, as they ow- as they own their páhi..."
He petered out, eyes flickering along the ground. The Jackal watched him a few counts longer, then nodded.
"You did well." She turned those eyes back on Mäcci. "Mäcci, your name is. Tell me. How long have you refused to work?"
Mäcci met the Jackal's eyes. "Half a tenday, chaccáli."
"And?"
"And nothing. It's been no pay, na but that first tenday's. Then silence from the outcity flock, na nothing heard til this."
"And?" the Jackal asked again. "Would you work?"
"Mish's own eyes we would," Mäcci told her. "This is Olïnscarr. A threat made on free folk na could induce us, it'll turn us righten against her, that will."
The Jackal watched her a moment longer, too, then nodded. "That's as it should be," she said, and turned to the crowd, that all went hush in anticipation.
The Jackal looked out into the moil. She unsnapped one of the leather straps at her side, and freed one of the pickhammers and held it up. She spoke, and each word was like a blow.
"I am the Jackal Of the Hammer. I've come to subtantitiate this rumour passed on to me of free folk being worked by outcitiers, and being threatened to be sold. To Rhuvi."
Mutters. Shifting, but still fair quiet.
"This rumour is true," the Jackal said. "This, that the Sorrovers said. A Ycaiiy House themselves, so they mought know nothing theirselves of us. Foreigners sell us to foreigners, and our own city watches."
She stopped, and looked the crowd over.
"This you all have seen. This of the other districts turning blind to us. This you know they do, and that nought would come of twelve of your own neighborfolk being hauc away from their lives, to be given to the Rhuvi, no better than animals. No better than animals."
She stopped again. Then started, again:
"You know what the Rhuvi do to páhi. There is no choice, there. They work páhi as they mought, til that one is close to death, then hold back from food and drink as they call it waste to feed one who might die. They fuck páhi as a dogs do, forcefully, from behind, and kill them if they say a word against. They kill the ones who grow too old to work, because as they see it, all páhi would be good for is work. They buy and sell adults, children, women, men, like as I would sell a glove or a cart. Those páhi have no freedoms, nothing legal. They are nothing in the eyes of their owners. And they would turn you into that!"
The crowd, already hot, began to simmer.
"You'd know that!" the Jackal Of the Hammer told them. "You'd know that, and remember it! These outcitiers want to take us, and turn is into nothing, and our own upper districts allow it. But Wanesiders na never nothing! You who are here, you listen it, and well - that Sorrover. She might make threats. But she needs to me shown that we will not bend. And those foreigners, those outcity shit-crusted dogbegotten Rhuvi that think to take us and make us theirs?" Those eyes stared out; that hammer came up again. "They will know! They will know that Waneside will not take them! Nor be taken!"
She turned from them as they began to roil. And Mäcci, who had an idea, stepped into her path.
"Chaccáli. I've a thought how we might show them."
"You do," the Jackal looked down at Mäcci. "Show me."
Mäcci stepped back and grabbed Ländri's shoulder. "This friend's a provocationist, chaccáli. He's able with provocations. He'll find a way with the worksite to show them -"
"Do it," the Jackal said, and stepped past her, through the worksite gate.
Mäcci, afire, went to follow, but got restrained. She went to shake off the hand, but - it was Shinsa, and he gripped her hard.
"Mäcci! What is it you think you're doing?"
Mäcci frowned at him and tugged at Ländri. Ländri shuffled forward numbly. Shinsa grabbed his arm too. Ländri stopped.
"Give him here, Shinsa. I'm helping her. I'm helping him, at that. Ländri. Ländri, there's a provocation here -"
"You're helping what, Mäcci? Her? Did you even listen to her? Half what she said isn't true! Does she even read? Rhuvi's had páhi policies for the last two eder that -"
"Mäcci!" that voice boomed.
Mäcci scowled, shrugged Shinsa off, gripped Ländri's arm, and pulled him forward into the worksite.
The mill of folk had shuffled in here from the street. The work crew stood about; the dkfld.
The Hackal rose shoudlers-tall above the folk about her. She caught Mäcci's eye; Mäcci made for her, tugging Ländri behind. "This one," she said, as she arrived. "He's my friend. He's a provocation, the best I've known."
The Jackal turned those chalk-grey eyes to Ländri. "He's ill."
"He's in grief."
"And you thought to give him a provocation to pull him out of it," the Jackal of the Hammer nodded approvingly. "Smart woman."
Mäcci glowed. She felt herself glow. She turned back from the Jackal to Ländri, and turned Ländri bodily toward the site, and said, "now, see that? Ländri. I need you to do something to that to show we won't work on it no more."
~:~:~:~
The worksite rose above them: scaffolding
what does it look like shaped like (central gallery; arch?
this is only natural
has she even read anything? macci, half of that isn't true!
äáï
~:~:~:~
♥!!!!!!!