Just Visiting by Fiona Glass

Author:Fiona Glass
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Vitreous Press
Published: 2020-05-23T04:00:00+00:00

∞

‛No.’

Madoc stood at Oates’s side again, head down, hands by his side. Hands that had just betrayed him, possibly one last time. Clumsy from lack of sleep—the dormitory extracting its heavy toll—he’d dropped a traveller’s bag and broken something valuable. He tried to make amends. ‛Sorry, Mr Oates, sir, I’ll pay for the damage of course.’ Even though that would take months on his new and limited wage.

But Oates was in a surly mood, and showing off to a couple of his bully-boy pals. He threw the whip to the nearest non-caste and barked, ‛Give him a thrashing, then. At least ten strokes.’

A hundred times out of a hundred before now the non-caste would have done as he was told. Madoc had been forced to comply often enough. You simply couldn’t disobey when the orders came from a caste. But not this time. This time the non-caste stepped back, crossed his arms over his chest, and, echoing Madoc himself from a few days back, said ‛No.’

Oates looked as though someone had smacked him in the face. ‛What the hell’s got into you? Fine, someone else, then. Take the whip.’

No one did. They stood, heads a little bowed, apparently deferent, but nobody moved. Madoc held his breath, waiting for the end. Whatever Oates threw at them, it would not be good. In the end, though, the overseer just grabbed his whip back and sneered at them. ‛Insolent puppies. Just you wait. Well? Don’t just stand there. Back to work.’

Madoc waited until he was out of earshot along the dock before approaching the non-caste, who had hair the colour of carrots and a freckle-strewn face. ‛Thank you. That means a lot.’

‛No problem. You’re Madoc, aren’t you? I’m Carl.’

‛Nice to meet you, Carl.’ They shook hands, briefly, then Madoc frowned. ‛Look, I appreciate it, really I do, but don’t go getting yourself into trouble on my behalf.’

Carl just grinned. ‛Don’t worry, I won’t. It isn’t all about you, anyway. It’s everyone else. We saw what you did the other day. Made some of us feel bad that we hadn’t stepped in sooner, that’s all.’

‛Well, yeah, me too but it’s hard when there’s a beating at the end of every bad decision you make. Aren’t you scared Oates will just take it out on you?’

‛He can’t. He’s got targets set by the authorities. He won’t meet those targets if he gets rid of all of us, or beats us into the hospital or starves us so we can’t work. It’s a fine line, of course, but...’

Madoc felt his first real glimmer of hope since Josh had left. ‛You think we can start to push back? Even with just the two of us?’

‛You’d be surprised. And it might not just be us. There’s a lot of bad feeling amongst the workers.’ Carl clapped him on the back. ‛Gotta be worth a try.’

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