Page 26 of Given to the Black King

“Line by the windows. Not that one. It sags.”

The wash house is the warmest room in the hold. Sheets boil in copper vats, and heated flues run beneath the drying lines by the high windows. Two girls scrub shirts at the far table and whisper until Sera tells them to scrub harder if they have breath left for gossip.

I carry the basket to the taut line. Sera follows with a bucket of pegs.

“You came for something,” she says.

“Clean linen.”

“No, you didn’t.”

I pin up a sheet. She watches me do it wrong, takes it down, and makes me start again.

“The king cracked his throne the day I arrived,” I say.

“Aye.”

“He cut himself after the audience.”

“Aye.”

“His fangs hurt.”

Sera stops handing me pegs.

At the far table, the two girls go very quiet. Sera turns. “Out.” They leave with wet sleeves and disappointed faces.

When the door shuts, Sera looks me over.

“Who told you?”

“No one. Not properly.”

“Then how do you know?”

“I have eyes.”

“And no sense with them, from what I hear.” She shoves another peg at me. “Walking up to him. Touching his hand.”

The whole hold knows that already.

“Was I in danger?”

“Yes.”

“From him?”

Sera makes a face. “You want simple answers, ask a priest. I wash sheets.”

She plunges both hands into the basket and pulls out a shirt large enough to cover a dining table.

His shirt.

Four fresh slits cut one sleeve. Sera clicks her tongue. “Another one.”

“What is happening to him?”

She lowers the shirt.