The Eika spoke again, this time in recognizable if broken Wendish. “How soon these is ready?”
“I will have to look them over.” The man enunciated each word carefully. “Most likely all are ready if they’ve been here since—” He broke off, then took a shuddering breath. Had he witnessed that killing just now, or only listened to it, as they had? “Since spring.”
“I count, these,” said the Eika. “Before you come, I count these skins. Less than I count come to me when they ready, I kill one slave for each skin less than I count. I start with you.”
“I understand,” said the man, but the children could not see him, could only hear, and what emotion they heard in his voice they could not interpret.
“You bring to me when ready,” said the Eika. The ladder creaked, and this time they recognized the slight chime of mail as the Eika left the loft and climbed back down, away, to wherever Eika went when they were not hunting and killing.
Still the children clung there, praying the man would go away.
But instead he moved slowly through the loft, jostling the hides, rubbing them, testing them. Counting them. A loose plank creaked under his foot. The quiet rustle of a hide sliding against another marked his progress, and the huff and stir of leather-sodden air in the dim room, spreading outward from his movements, shifted and swirled about them like the exhalation of approaching death, for discovery would indeed mean death.
Finally it was too much for Anna, who was three winters younger than Matthias. The sound got out of her throat, like a puppy’s whimper, before she could gulp it back. The man’s slow quiet movement ceased, but they still heard his breathing, ragged in the gloom.
“Who’s there?” the man whispered, then muttered a Lady’s Blessing.
Anna set her lips together, squeezed her eyes shut, and wept silently, free hand clutching the Circle. Matthias groped for the knife at his belt, but he was afraid to pull it out of its sheath, for even that slight noise would surely give them away.
“Who’s there?” the man said again, and his voice shook as if he, too, were afraid.
Neither child dared answer. Finally, thank the Lady, he went away.
They waited a while and climbed down from the beam.
“I have to pee,” whimpered Anna as she wiped her nose. But they dared not leave the loft and yet, sooner or later, they would have to leave the loft or starve. She peed in the farthest darkest corner and hoped it would dry before anyone came back up. There were other chores for the new slaves in the tannery—hides to be washed and hair and flesh scraped from them, new pits to be filled for puering or drenching, hides to be layered in with oak bark, saturated in the tannic acid, or, tanning completed, rinsed off and smoothed before drying. There were other lofts where hides waited, drying, in silent darkness, until they were ready for the currier. No reason anyone should come up here again this day.
But that evening they heard steps on the ladder. No time, this time, to scramble up on the beam. They huddled behind the far wall, wrapping themselves in a cow hide.
They heard, instead of words, the soft tap of something set down on wood. Then the trap closed and footsteps thumped down the ladder. After a bit Matthias ventured out.
“Anna! Quietly!” he whispered.
She crept out and found him weighing a hunk of goat’s cheese in one hand and a dark, small, misshapen loaf of bread in the other. A rough-hewn wooden bowl sat empty beside the trap. She stared at these treasures fearfully. “If we eat it, then he’ll know we’re here.”
Matthias broke off a piece of cheese, sniffed it, and popped it in his mouth. “We’ll eat a bit now,” he said. “What difference does it make? If we don’t get out of here tonight, then they’ll discover us sooner or later. We’ll save the rest for after we’ve escaped.”
She nodded. She knew when to argue, now, and when to remain silent because argument was pointless. He gave her a corner of cheese; it tasted salty and pungent. The bread was dry as plain oats, and its coarse texture made her thirsty. He divided the rest of the food into two portions and gave half to her. Both carried leather pouches, tied to their belts, for such gleanings as this. Such necessities the ruined city provided in plenty, taken from empty houses and shops or—if valuable enough—pried from the dead. Water, clothing, knives or spoons or even an entire timbered house furnished with fine painted furniture and good linen, none of this they lacked; only food and safety.
They waited until no crack of light gleamed through the plank walls onto the warped floorboards, until gray shadow became indistinguishable from black. Then Matthias eased open the trap and slid over the edge as quietly as he could.