A gallfly slammed its body against the window, clamoring to find an exit. Keda little knew how the thing had erupted from the oak galls that she was crushing into pigment, somehow escaping the blunt weight of her pestle. It was late enough in the season for frost to gather at the edges of the pane, far too late for gallflies. Keda wiped her finger through the frozen grime. To see one in deep autumn was a dangerous portent, she was certain. The insect rested on the window ledge, its brown body blending with the wood. Keda lifted her hand to swat it but was an instant too slow. The kettle at her back began to hiss.
Keda resumed pulverizing the oak galls in her mortar, pounding with intent to kill. The sound of stone striking stone echoed throughout the scullery, nearly masking the rapid knock from the entry door. Keda paused to listen. Her mother was at market, and her father had taken the goats to pasture. As far as she knew, they were not expecting company. Keda rocked her sister's bassinet absently, then wiped her hands and smoothed her crinkled hair back from her face, hoping to hear her father’s arrival at the entry. Her brother Jemec glided by the open arch to the scullery on his way to answer the knock. The door opened, colliding with the wall.
“Salute the day, boy.” It was a man's voice, one that she did not recognize. Keda leaned towards the arch to get a better look.
Three bodies crowded her doorstep, two in uniform. The man at the front was tall and fine. He eclipsed the other two to the point where Keda could only make out only a wisp of hair here, a leather-clad shoulder there.
“Salute the day." Her brother was barely audible. The kettle began to shake with force of its boiling contents. Keda looked away just long enough to miss the instant where the three men shoved Jemec aside and entered.
They were like stepping stones, each slightly lower than the one that came before. The second man was shorter than the first but older, skeletal. There was something menacing in the hunch of his shoulders, like a dog with its fur raised. At the sight of him, Keda backed farther away from the entrance. He cast his eye around the perimeter. The third and smallest came up behind him, obscured behind a bright cascade of hair. His expression was blank, difficult to discern. Keda thought to go into hallway but some unspecific dread kept her sealed off behind the scullery wall. The tall man turned to face Keda's brother. There was a dagger belted at his waist.
“You're late. It's damn near winter." The tall one had a low drone that put Keda in the mind of an angry swarm. Jemec nervously buried his hands beneath his armpits. Something was very wrong.
“My apologies, lordship."
“I haven't asked for your apologies, only what's owing." Jemec said nothing but nodded in comprehension. Keda reflexively tilted her head toward the lower cabinets. These men were Lord Maran Sholde's muscle, and all that she had to defend her home were the skillets.
No one told her that they had fallen behind on their defense tariff. She doubted even that their mother knew. Summer wildfires had taken a section of their pasture. Production was low, and rents in Udlan were high. Jemec was a skilled tinker but he never billed enough. It was only a matter of time before the family defaulted somewhere. Jemec stepped towards the thin man.
“You'll have double the portion by Breaking Day. My word is my bond." With that, the thin man tossed Jemec against the wall and pinned him there. The tall man stepped forward to face Jemec, their noses nearly pressing.
“Not good enough," he said placidly. The youngest member of the group shifted his weight uneasily but hung back while the tall man drew a knife. Panicked, Keda stepped into the hallway.
“We have it. I can get it." This was a bold lie for a young girl whose insides were turning to water. The neighbors were all out to market. If she screamed, there would be no one to hear. In Center Court, their mother was trading cheese for linens, sandalwood and spices. Keda prayed to keep her mother away, and to purge these devils from her door.
Jemec was choking. His tawny skin blossomed sickeningly as he struggled. Keda kept her stance while the tall one stepped in closer. The thin man dragged Jemec down from the wall by his collar. Keda locked eyes with the tall one, who bit his lip at her lasciviously.
“Hang me here, gentlemen! Have you ever seen such a face?” he laughed. The tall man reached out to touch her hair, and Jemec began to thrash. Keda drew her shoulders upward, shrinking away.
“Don't touch her!" Jemec's toes were scraping the floor, futilely stretching for solid ground. The young man flitted his gaze between Keda and Jemec, then stepped forward between them.
“Alright! This has gone far enough," he said. The thin man snatched the younger one by the breast of his jacket with his free hand.
“Do we have a problem here, boy?” the thin man asked. He was amused. The young man gritted his teeth defiantly but said nothing. The thin man tossed him aside as though to prove what consequence he lacked. Something fell from the young man's coat and hit the floor with a muted thunk. “If you don't have the stomach for this, then there's the door." The tall man was looming over Keda. She craned her neck around him to send a pleading glance to the younger man, whose indecision was causing him to falter.
“I think he got the message, Nadd. Breaking Day is not so far off. Let's go," the boy said. The tall man raised a hand to interject, never taking his eyes off of Keda.
“Not so fast. You say that you have it?" Keda swallowed hard, not knowing her plan but wanting to get this man, the apparent leader, away from her brother. She nodded in silence. “Show me."
“Keda--" Jemec was slammed against the wall once more. Keda tried to ignore it as best she could to keep her composure. In the scullery, the baby began to wail.
“Let him go, and I'll take you," she whispered.
“You are not in a position to negotiate," the tall one said. All eyes were on her. Jemec had his hands around the thin man's wrists, clawing. Keda was out of options. She headed into the scullery, and the tall one followed. There, Keda bent down to open the lower cabinets. She slid her fingers around the handle of a skillet. The tall man would allow her one opportunity to strike and failing that, there would be no others. Either she took him down with the first blow or not at all.
Keda swung and before the blow landed, she was on her back with the tall man mounted upon her chest. The skillet hit the edge of the table as it fell, and the impact brought a bowl of black pigment down. The dust continued rain long after the bowl had settled, staining the pair of them on one side.
The thin man and the youngest rushed in, with Jemec forced roughly in tow. Keda had some distant awareness that the tall man was insulting her, calling curses down upon her home but she was not listening. She was a third of his size but she was fighting, writhing, howling like a trapped animal. There was a break in the fray just quiet enough for Keda to hear Jemec plead.
“My lord, I beg your indulgence but request only more time.”
“How might you even form your lips to ask for time when you have so wasted ours?” the tall man shouted over his shoulder. Keda’s hands were shaking now. Her heart was in her throat. She threw her weight behind her shoulders and tried to break from the tall man's grip. His knees dug into her chest.
“We have food! Enough oil in this house to last the winter. Take what you want and go,” Jemec offered. The tall man slid in closer, edging the crook of Keda's shoulder up against a barrel of grain.
“An excellent suggestion. Nadd!” The tall man undid his belt, and tossed it toward the thin man, who caught it by the buckle. There was an instant where Keda glimpsed the skylight reflected upon the blade of the tall man's dagger. If only she had thought to reach that skylight, to strap the baby to her back and climb out. Frantic, Jemec flitted his gaze between the assembled men.
“She’s a child!” The desperation in her brother’s voice was so pointed that he could have only known the futility of the suggestion. “She's a child!" It was no longer a plea for mercy but a prayer for intervention. Nadd the Thin Man bore Jemec away even as he fought. “She’s a child!” The tall man loosened his tunic. He grabbed Keda by the hair, forcing the crown of her head toward the flagstone floor. The young man crouched down to push the taller one aside.The silver buttons on his jacket brushed her face. They were etched with the bodies of tigers.
“What are you doing? Get out of here!" The tall man had the younger one by the hair. They began to struggle, the weight of both men coming down upon Keda's chest, crushing the breath out of her. At the rear of the house, her brother was screaming. Bile rose to Keda's throat and no higher. She wanted to shout for her father, for the cordwainer next door, for Jemec whose screams were the only sign that he was not yet beyond all hearing, but she was incapable of making a noise sufficient enough to carry. At the sound of Jemec's voice, the young man was startled into letting go. The tall one kicked him into the cabinets, where he stammered, dumbfounded. He locked eyes with Keda for an instant before scrambling to his feet.
“I-I can't be apart of this." The boy's words were airy, shame-ridden. Keda tried to slide from beneath her captor. He responded by pressing her harder. The young man tread backwards out of the room as the tall one pulled her arm behind her back by the wrist. Keda heard the front door slam. She began to stammer, unable to form words but begging forgiveness just the same. This was her fault, her fault. Whatever was happening to Jemec, all her fault. The tall man pried her knees apart with the heel of his boot. Keda focused her attention on the world above, as he tightened his grip.
Keda closed her eyes, attempting to divorce herself from what was happening. The real and the unreal were merging. The tigers that had been on the young man's coat were growling in the courtyard, Jemec was not screaming by the hearth. The tigers were preening, there was no hand upon her breast slick with sweat. The tall man tore at her clothes until he found her bare thighs, and she tried to think of the buttons. The buttons. There was no world, only silver gleaming.
A gallfly, above this scene and wholly disinterested, beat its paper wings against the skylight.
