Her father was supposed to be caring for these people, but all of them were suffering. While the duke hosted lavish dinner parties and made damning statements about the inferior nature of Virians, people died of thirst, watering crops with their blood while companies bought up the fruits of their labor for a fraction of their worth.
One elderly man invited Hasan and Poppy to his home for lunch. At first, Hasan tried to decline, insisting that they had to be on their way, but the old man persisted. His home was a small, two-story farmhouse that looked as though it had stood for the last century, though Poppy wasn’t sure if it would make it to the end of the decade. The paint was chipped and faded, and the storm shutters on the windows hung crookedly or were missing altogether.
The old man introduced himself as Kanav. His elderly wife, Mishika, showed them to their dining room. Three children, aged four, six, and seven, sat around a low wooden table, where six plates of food had already been laid out. Beside them, a man sat in a flimsy wheelchair, his right pant leg tied in a knot just below the stump of his thigh.
“These are my grandchildren,” Mishika said proudly. “And that is my son, Ganak. He’s one of the village schoolmasters.”
“Pleasure to meet you.” Poppy smiled at them all and settled onto a stout wooden stool. In front of her, a plate of rice, dhal, potato bhaji, and spinach steamed, the fragrant scent eliciting a rumble in her stomach. She looked around, surreptitiously counting the number of seats. There were eight of them, and yet only six plates had been fixed. Were Mishika and Kanav going to serve them now?
Misunderstanding her searching gaze, Ganak whispered in Welkish, “Their parents won’t be joining us. My brother and his wife are no longer with us.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Poppy glanced at the children again. A bitter thread of kinship tugged at her heart as she beheld the other orphans, chattering among themselves in rapid-fire Virian. “Was it some time ago? If you don’t mind my asking.”
“Their mother passed a few years ago,” Ganak said. “She was a seamstress, and the workshop she worked in collapsed. They’d moved to Andhra for the opportunity, but the cost of living there was too high for my brother after she’d passed. Without her income, my brother took to stealing to make ends meet. Not long after her death, he was shot by a policeman.”
Once, the news that a police officer had all but executed a man without a trial would have shocked Poppy. Now, she barely blinked at the fact.
At that moment, the two seniors returned. “Why is no one eating?” Mishika asked. “Come on, eat.”
“What about you?” Poppy asked. “Aren’t you joining us?”
Kanav waved a hand. “Oh, we are not hungry. At our age, our appetites are hardly there.”
“Not like a growing child,” Mishika crooned, sitting beside her youngest grandchild so she could pick up a small ball of rice and stuff it in his mouth.
Poppy observed the interaction between grandmother and grandchild longingly, another tender moment that her privileged upbringing had not afforded her. The Imperial Family had rejected her. Demetria had been raised in Welkland, and her parents rarely visited. But then Poppy observed details in the tableau that she hadn’t noticed before: the gaunt, jagged angles of Kanav’s and Mishika’s bodies, carved by hunger; the undersized, delicate bodies of the children, shrunken from lack of nourishment.
Guilt filled any space that jealousy might have once held. The viceroy?—her own father?—was responsible for the deaths of these children’s parents. His failure to enact labor laws, and his empowerment of a corrupt law-enforcement system, had created three forgotten orphans. And now, with his current export laws, there wasn’t even enough food for everyone to eat.
Poppy took the edge of her plate in hand, ready to insist that either the grandparents or the children eat her meal, but Hasan caught her wrist.
“Don’t,” he whispered in Welkish. “Hospitality is essential in our culture. If you refuse to eat their food, you will insult their honor.”
“Honor won’t feed them,” she hissed.
“You can, once you’re vicereine,” he shot back. “Offending them does not inspire support, however.”
Fuming, Poppy pulled her plate to herself and took a reluctant bite.
Intrigued by their exchange, Ganak asked, in Virian, “Do you intend to succeed the duke, then, Miss Sutherland?”
Poppy and Hasan exchanged startled looks. She hadn’t been aware that Ganak had been eavesdropping.
“She does,” Kanav answered when neither of them spoke. “She was in the village all morning, listening to our problems.”
“I’m here to help,” Poppy said, recovering herself. “People are struggling to survive here. If I can learn more about what challenges you’re facing, I can address the problems at the root.”
“Oh, but we aren’t staying,” Mishika said.
“You’re selling?” Hasan asked, incredulous. “But where will you go?”
“Marnapur, or maybe Indrabad up north,” Kanav said. “Wherever we can find the best schooling for the lowest cost.”
“Why?” Poppy asked. “Forgive me, but both your son and daughter-in-law died as a result of moving to the city. Wouldn’t it be best to stay here?”
“An education is the most important thing,” Ganak declared. “If I had a certificate from one of the Welkish schools, I would not have had to work in the factory. I’d still have my leg.”
Poppy bit her lip, her next question on her tongue, but she wasn’t sure if Ganak would be offended if she asked.
