Page 52 of Elvenbred

Triana started to speak, but Aelford just ignored her and kept going. “T’ain’t the first highborn I seen what took a fall. Used to giving orders … hain’t used to taking ’em. Highborn gels cain’t remember what they ’sposed to learn, and cain’t forget what they think they was.”

She gave Triana a long look, sizing her up. Literally. “Yar, you’re a tall one, aincha? Ugly as a hog’s ass, but you’ll make your ration bread with your hands, not yer face.” She set her hands on her hips. “Got a name, beanpole?”

Triana wasn’t sure what to make of Aelford, though was a bit relieved to be able to understand her more clearly than the higher-born elves.

“My name is Triana,” she replied. “I come from ….” She tried, and failed, to find the words to describe how she had come here, and settled for concluding lamely, “a land far away.”

“Lor’.” Aelford laughed. “Lookit the mouth on this gel! Noble? My ass she’s noble!”

Triana started to recite her degrees of quality, but Aelford cut her off before she could start, first raising to forestall her, then crooking a finger Aelford for Triana to follow her. “Highborn or no, you’re still as ugly as a hog’s ass, though.”

Aelford looked at the two guards following Triana. “Shoo. Go stick your swords in something.” She frowned as they traded a glance. “The two of you to manage one scrawny girl? Lor!” She gave one a reassuring pat, and met Triana’s eyes. “If this one tries to scarper off, I’ll have a collar on her, and put her cleaning cess pits.” Her voice went cold and she held Triana’s gaze, her falcon’s eyes merciless. “Try me.”

The guards made it a point to have Aelford sign some kind of chit, and control of Triana passed to the older woman. Aelford looked at Triana’s knees and scraped hands. “Wash those good, get the scrapes cleaned out, otherwise they’ll fester. Lor’ Haldeen don’t care if you’re sick or whatnot. No work. No eat.” she gestured to a bucket where Triana could wash her hands and scraped knees.

“Make sure you check the bucket ’afore you drink,” Aelford warned her.

“Why?” answered Triana, as she worked soap into her knees. She let out a hiss as the lye and ash bit into the scrapes.

“’Cause sometimes ’t’ain’t water. Jakes are a far walk, and walkin’ ’t’ain’t workin’. The lads sometimes piss in a bucket to save time.”

“Good to know,” Triana responded.

Aelford led her down another level, to a room well lit with mage-lights. This room seemed cleaner than the others she had passed, whitewashed and filled with about thirty single tables. A woman sat at each table, deeply focused on what looked like a rectangular wooden form with several partitions in it. The size and shape of those partitions looked vaguely familiar, but Triana couldn’t place them. Triana looked a question at Aelford.

“Making food,” Aelford answered, pointing with her chin at a young woman. “See her. The gel takes a paddle full of paste from that bucket there … it’s a mix of fats, ash, and algae we grow in vats a coupla floors down. She fills the form so that the paste is level with the top. She puts a seed in it … a little bit of another ration bar, then uses her magic to change the paste so that it’s like the seed.”

“How …?” Triana started to ask.

Aelford interrupted. “Principle of Contagion,” she said. “The gel uses her magic to make the bits of paste next to the ration into more ration. Cain’t create what hain’t there, and cain’t destroy what is … but you can take one thing and make it into something else like it. In this case, it’s all the bits needed to make food, it just hain’t food. Understand?”

Triana shook her head. “No.”

“I’ll explain in more detail,” Aelford replied. “Everyone has their own way. I do mine the same as most of Haldeen’s Makers. I start by casting the Contagion spell, and continue to recite its mantras while I work. Then, touching the seed … that’s the small bit of finished ration brick I put on top of the paste I’m trying to convert. The Contagion spell causes the paste next to the seed to become like the seed, and I continue until the brick is done. I don’t have to think about what I’m making. I just need the seed, the raw materials for what I’m Making, and the Contagion spell. I use that to make the paste take on the character of the ration.”

Triana tried to follow. Aelford could read her confusion.

“Hain’t no matter, gel,” Aelford responded, waving away Triana’s confusion. “Here’s what you do care about. What you need to understand is that every gel has a quota. Twenty-five rations.” She gestured back to the young woman, sitting silently, her lips barely moving as she recited some kind of incantation. Her fingertips just brushed the top of the wooden form. One hand worked, making repetitive swirls in time to her quietly repeated words.

“She does it twenty-five times a day, and meets her quota. She fills a box, five bars deep and five wide.”

“Why twenty-five?” Triana asked, still a bit overwhelmed.

Aelford counted off using her fingers. “Six to the king for his tax. Twelve goes to the estate to feed the workers, pay the guards, and buy what cain’t be made here. Four to the Lord Haldeen hisself. The Master Overseer gets his brick. One brick pays for your bed, clothes, water, necessities. Last brick, drawn at random from your box, you eat. Now that yer down here with us, you don’t get no common vittles the way the guards an’ servants does. You eat what you make.”

“What happens … ?” Triana started, but again Aelford interrupted.

“… if you don’t make your quota? First two comes out of you. No food, and you go in debt for your night’s lodging. The king, the estate, Haldeen, and the Overseer don’t care … that’s all your problem. Go any shorter and it hits the Overseer first. You will get his undivided attention, gel, the moment he doesn’t get his cut. If that hain’t enough trouble then go shorter, less than twenty-two, and it’s food out of Haldeen’s mouth, which will right piss him off. Our good lord likes his vittles, he does. Go any shorter than eighteen, and someone else here has to work extra to make up the difference.”

Aelford glanced around the room. “We have to deliver eighteen bricks per food worker per day to the king and the city. Make sixteen and the last two will either come out of Haldeen’s stockpile or the gels will get squeezed to make up the difference. Haldeen puts the bite on us when a gel goes short.” She looked at Triana seriously, and focused on minimizing her accent. “I have seen girls get knifed by their coworkers after missing quotas.”

She led Triana to an empty table, with its own forms, paddles, and bucket of paste. Up close, the whitish mess had an unsavory smell, something a bit like cooking oil gone rancid. She sat where Aelford gestured, and picked up the paddle uncertainly.

“Dip it in the bucket, and use the paddle to fill the form.” Triana did her best to follow Aelford’s instructions, sneaking glances left and right to see how the other women did it. Aelford intervened once or twice, taking her hand with the paddle and showing her how to smooth the paste so that it was level with the top of the form. Aelford took a small sliver of ration bar from a box and held it up where Triana could see it, then pressed it down into the paste.

“Now, do a Making spell. Remember, you can’t create, you can’t destroy, you can only Make one thing into another. Alorahen’s Incantation is a good one … helps the mind shape the task, and is easy to repeat while you are gathering and releasing the ambient magic.”

“I … don’t know what that is,” Triana stammered, completely taken aback. “That’s nothing I’ve ever heard of.”