Do I make him feel the same?
Maggot took Mia into a long room at the rear of the keep, set with four sandstone slabs. The stone was the same burned ochre as the cliffs about them, but it was stained a deeper red, spatter-mad patterns on the surface.
Bloodstains, Mia realized.
“You can sit,” Maggot said in a small, shy voice.
Mia did as she was bid, holding her throbbing hand to her chest. Maggot toddled across the room, fishing about in a series of chests. She returned with a handful of wooden splints and a ball of woven brown cotton.
“Hold out your hand,” the girl commanded.
Mia’s shadow swelled, Mister Kindly drinking her fear at the thought of what was to come. Maggot looked her digits over, stroking her chin. And gentle as falling leaves, she took hold of Mia’s smallest finger.
“It won’t hurt,” she promised. “I’m very good at this.”
“All riiiiiaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAGHH!” Mia howled as Maggot popped her finger back into place, quick as silver. She rose from the slab and bent double, clutching her hand.
“That HURT!” she yelled.
Maggot gave a solemn nod. “Yes.”
“You promised it wouldn’t!”
“And you believed me.” The girl smiled sweet as sugar-floss. “I told you, I’m very good at this.” She motioned to the slab again. “Sit back down.”
Mia blinked back hot tears, hand throbbing in agony. But looking at her finger, she could see Maggot had worked it right, popping the dislocated joint back into place neat as could be. Breathing deep, she sat back down and dutifully proffered her hand.
The little girl took hold of Mia’s ring finger, looked up at her with big, dark eyes.
“I’m going to count three,” she said.
“All riiiiiaaaaaaaaaaaaFUCK!” Mia roared as Maggot snapped the joint back into place. She rose and half-danced, half-hopped about the room, wounded hand between her legs. “Shit cock twat fucking fuckitall!”
“You swear an awful lot,” Maggot frowned.
“You said you were going to count three!”
Maggot nodded sadly. “You believed me again, didn’t you?”
Mia winced, teeth gritted, looking the girl up and down.
“… You are very good at this,” she realized.
Maggot smiled, patted the bench. “Last one.”
Sighing, Mia sat back down, hand shaking with pain as Maggot gently took hold of her middle finger. She looked at Mia solemnly.
“Now this one is really going to hurt,” she warned.
“Wa—” The Blade flinched as Maggot popped the finger back in.
Mia blinked.
“Ow?” she said.
“All done,” Maggot smiled.
“But that was the easiest of the lot?” Mia protested.
“I know,” Maggot replied. “I’m—”
“—very good at this,” they both finished.
Maggot began splinting Mia’s fingers, binding them tight to limit their movement. The three circles branded into the little girl’s cheek weren’t so much of a mystery anymore …
“Why do they call you Crow?” she asked as she worked.
Mia looked at the girl carefully, trying to ignore the warm, throbbing pain in her hand. Maggot was Liisian; tanned skin and dark, tangled hair, big dark eyes. She was skinny, thin dress hugging her thinner frame.
Not a turn over twelve, Mia guessed.
Perhaps it was seeing her in the keep where she’d grown up. Perhaps it was the mischievous intelligence glittering in those dark eyes, or the way she spoke so brazenly to her elders. But truth told, the little girl reminded Mia a little of herself …
“Why do they call you Maggot?” Mia replied.
“I asked first.”
“Crow is a nickname.”
Mia thought back to the first turn anyone had called her by it. Her first meeting with Old Mercurio. The old man had beaten seven shades of shit out of some alley thugs who’d stolen Mia’s brooch. The very turn after her father was hanged. She was the daughter of a traitor, wanted by the most powerful men in the Republic. And Mercurio had thought nothing of taking her in, giving her a roof, saving her life.
Black Mother, the things he risked for me …
Mia shook her head, thinking about this insane plan of hers.
The things he still risks for me.
“A friend gave it to me,” Mia said. “When I was a little girl. I had a piece of jewelry with a crow on it. He named me for it.”
“I’ve never owned jewelry,” Maggot mused.
“I’ve not owned any since. That one was a gift from my mother.”
“Where is your mother now?”
The dona looked at her daughter, wide eyes and a broken yellow smile, far, far too wide. Mister Kindly materialized on the cell floor beside Mia, and the Dona Corvere hissed like she’d been scalded, shrinking back from the bars, teeth bared in a snarl.
“He’s in you,” she’d whispered. “O, Daughters, he’s in you.”
Mia stared at the stone floor. The old blood, spattered and brown.
“She’s gone,” Mia said.
Maggot looked at Mia, nodded sadly as she tied off the bandage.
“Mine, too,” she said. “But she taught me all she knew. And so, whenever I stitch a wound or set a bone or mend a fever, she’s still with me.”
A fine thought, Mia mused. One no doubt sung to orphans across the world since the beginning of time. But even if there were some semblance of her father in the way she fought, her mother in the way she spoke, they were still dead and gone. If they were with her at all, it was as ghosts upon her shoulder, whispering in the nevernight of all that might have been.
If not for them …
Mia turned her wounded hand this way and that. It was still sore, but the pain had eased. In a week or so, it’d be as new.
“You still haven’t told me why they call you Maggot,” she said.
The little girl looked deep into Mia’s eyes.
“Pray you never find out,” she said.
The girl walked out of the infirmary, Mia behind her. Maggot retreated to her seat in the shade as Executus limped over to Mia, taking a small pull from the flask at his hip as he came. Grabbing her wrist, he scowled at her wounded hand.
“You’ll not be sparring with that for a few—”
“Executus,” came a soft call.
Arkades looked up to the balcony. Dona Leona stood there, auburn hair in long flowing ringlets, her silken dress as blue as the sky above. Beside her stood a rather dapper-looking Liisian man in a frock coat far too fine for the surroundings and far too warm for the weather. He was flanked by two heavyset bodyguards in leather jerkins.
“Attend!” Arkades barked.
The yard fell still at the call, the gladiatii turning toward their mistress.
“Executus, see to Matilius.” The dona glanced to a big Itreyan man, sparring with a Liisian named Otho. “He is to accompany these men to the home of his new master.”
Arkades’s gray brows drew together in a frown. “New master, Mi Dona?”
“He has been sold to Varro Caito.”
The gladiatii shared uneasy glances, Mia noting the sudden fall in mood. Matilius set aside his practice blades, brow creased as he looked up at Leona.
“Domina,” the Itreyan said. “Have … I displeased you?”