Page 2 of Wed to the Orc Captive

I fidgeted with the handle of my basket, the basket that was now so much lighter. More than anything, more than food, or safety, or freedom from the image of my father’s eyes as they glazed over and his guts slid out, I needed people like Tenithin to see me as someone who did things they needed. I needed to be needed more than I needed water and bread. I could survive being hungry a few days or weeks, but if they decided I was a thing to be traded instead of a person to keep, I wouldn’t want to survive long. “I could take a look at him, if you’d like.”

Jarreth groaned again, and Tenithin looked up, and maybe there was something like interest in his eyes. “Go ahead then.”

Jarreth’s broad face was shiny with sweat. The bandages looked dry, but too tight, and stained with brown. “Hey there, Jarreth.” I eased my basket onto the floor, and crouched beside him. “It’s just me. Bogdanna will come see you when Magdala and her babe are safe.”

Jarreth didn’t respond. I knelt by his leg and started untangling the bandages.

This had been the trajectory of my life before, tying men’s bandages and waiting vigil with the women who brought life into the world. When my mother passed and that purpose had been stripped from me, when my father’s demands kept me captive in her place, I’d thought maybe dying might be better. Maybe even marriage.

I’d been very naive.

Jarreth groaned again, and I pulled back the fabric to reveal a nasty gash over his knee.

Tenithin clucked. “I told him he ought to put spirits on it,” the old tax collector called from behind his table. “Spirits or salt or something, to keep the ill-humors at bay.”

“Did you wash this, Jarreth?”

He mumbled something. It did not look particularly washed.

Blood sickness was the greatest danger of wounds, festering and fever, rotting and death. Once evil got into the blood, you could watch a strong man waste away. I steeled myself. It had been sitting too many hours for stitching it up to be reasonable, now that the bleeding had already stopped. I dug through my basket for a bottle of vinegar and poured a bit over the top to cure it, ignoring his hissing curse. “You’ll want to take yarrow, to make a fever,” I said, “so you don’t let it turn. Valerian will help you sleep. Bogdanna will have it for you when she gets here.” I cast about for clean bandaging, but the guard house was more tax office than sick room, and I certainly couldn’t go tearing up my only clothing. Looking more impoverished or needy would not work in my favor if the Overseer’s eyes fell on me. A single young woman was already a problem to be solved, and I needed everyone to forget about solving me. I sorted through the rags from before. Maybe I could turn them so the old blood was on the other side.

Jarreth— he was a large man— mumbled, sweat beading on his pale brow.

I leaned in. “What⁠—"

“Sing,” he said. “I know…you took the power, from your mum n’em. Sing. For my leg.” He reached into his pocket, to hold out two coppers, in a shaking hand.

Bile rose in my throat.

I looked over at Tenithin, the closest thing here to a hand of the law. It wasn’t illegal. It wasn’t strictly illegal. But how many times had censor come down on something that wasn’t really within the law?

Tenithin continued scribbling in his ledger, waved a thick hand. “You won’t trouble me. Folk customs are what they are. The magisters will hardly fault you for giving a man a little comfort, hmm?” he winked. He winked, like every moment now wasn’t taking my life in my hands. I shook myself. I’d just given the man mustard greens. He had no reason to wish me ill.

“Alright, ” I said, hoarse, to the man on the dirty cot. And then, “Apologies. I’m rusty at this.” I held my hands over his knee, and I started a song.

It wasn’t the common tongue. What trembled out of me wasn’t a language I knew. It came out of some place in me that my mind couldn’t reach. The mages with their inspections usually left the singers alone, scoffing at it as a folk magic. We were only safe from their prodding because we were weak. But even weak magic had a little value.

I held my hands over the injured knee, this wound that needed someone better than I was, a real healer, a real surgeon, and I willed that the heat flowing into my hands could help some way, pleading with whatever power gave me the voice to ease the swelling, to beat back the blood sickness, to spare him from the butcher’s saw. And as my song trebled out, quiet and simple like a nursery rhyme, I wondered if it also sounded to everyone else in that room like I was wretched and begging.

Jarreth relaxed back against the cot, his breathing more even. If I was useless, maybe I’d still done something about the pain. Bogdanna used to say that medicine helped, even if it was only oak leaves in water. Being cared for soothed the body with the soul. We hadn’t realized then that I'd have to leave her side, that the rest of my life oak leaves in water might be the best I could give.

I sat back, drained, and the orc was staring at me again, more intently than before, the smirk gone from his face. Orcs hated the witching ways more than anyone, I’d heard. They were crushed under the mages in the east, and then hated our folk gifts and blessings. I turned back to bid Tenithin goodbye.

“Aren’t you going to help him too?” The orc’s voice, low and acid, bade me pause.

Tenithin waved a hand at the bars. “Ach, who are you heckling? Do you know what this girl's been through today because of the likes of you? Shut your maw.”

The orc wasn’t silenced. “You didn’t go through the trouble to capture us because you needed us dead.” There was a second shape laid out at the back of the cell, past him, a hulking figure. It didn't move. “You let us die, this is worthless.”

Tenithin turned at that. “And maybe we only need one of you, eh? Shut your flapping maw.” He bristled, but I could hear it, in the snap of his voice, the crackle. Tenithin was bluffing. The orc had struck home. The overseer wanted them alive.

“I could look at them,” I said. I could exploit this fear, this need. If I could wedge myself into the places others would fear to tread, I could force them to need me.

And if I forced them to need me, they wouldn’t sell me away.

Tenithin’s hand twitched on the table. “Well, then, they’re certainly…if you think…” His tone was apologetic, but his eyes roved my face, sizing me up, weighing the risk.

I picked up my basket. “I’ll do it.” Best not to think. Maybe I’d never think again. “Do you have the key?”