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light from a high window

At the corner of the window, a waxen spider spun.

Rien's trained eye noticed the spider, the way her spinning caught the light. But Rien did not move her rag to break the threads and sweep the cobweb down. She pressed to the wall between that window and the door and held her breath, praying like the spider that no eye would fall on her, as Lady Ariane Conn and her knights brought in the naked prisoner from Engine.

Rien knew the prisoner was of noble blood by her chains. They writhed at her wrists, quicksilver loops of nanotech. An ancient colony, costlier than rubies and more rare, but forestalling any untoward transformations.

Nobody would waste chains like that on a Mean when cheap extruded would serve. And then there was the way the prisoner bore herself, strong shameless steps that swept the nanotech across the floor behind like silken swags, and there was the buttermilk blue of her complexion.

The girl was tall, almost sexless in her slenderness and anything but sensual, though she was naked except for streaks of indigo blood, and dirt, and manacles. Her bony face was square, and tired sweat stuck her dirt-brown hair to her cheeks and shoulders. The only breadth on her, other than across the jaw and cheekbones, was in the wiry muscles of her shoulders and her chest. Even her bare feet were narrow and elegant.

Rien could not see the prisoner's hands through the twisting chains, but judged they must be the same. Furthermore, she was escorted in by a half-dozen of Ariane's knights, beam weapons slung across ablative armor carapaces, faces concealed under closed and tinted helms. The girl—no older than Rien, though far more imposing—was Family.

Rien drew back among the other upstairs maids, twisting her polishing cloth between her hands, but started when Head's hand fell on her. Rien craned her neck around, catching a comforting glimpse of Head's craggy profile, the long furrows beside hir nose, and whispered. "Will there be war?"

Head squeezed. The pain was a comfort. "When isn't there? Don't worry, girl. We're beneath soldiers. It never touches us."

Rien's mouth made an O. "Who's she then?"

Head's hand slid down Rien's sloping shoulder and brushed her elbow when it dropped. "That's Sir Perceval. They'll want her well fed once she's in her cell."

The chained girl's eyes swept the room like searchlights. Rien lowered her gaze when the stare seared over her.

Head cleared hir throat. "You can do it."

Care for the prisoner. Not a job for an upstairs maid. Not a job for a mere girl. "But—"

"Hush," said Head.

And Rien had run clear of words anyway. For when the girl knight, Sir Perceval, passed—back still straight as a dangled rope, chin lifted and eyes wide—Rien saw what she had not before.

From long gashes between her shoulder blades, two azure ropes of blood groped down her back, across her spine. They writhed when they touched each other, like columns of searching ants.

Fruitlessly. The wings they sought had been severed at the root. And if Rien were to judge by the Lord's daughter Ariane striding beside the captive, her unblade bumping her thigh, the maiming would be permanent.

That sword's name was Innocence, and it was very old.

Rien raised her hand to her mouth and bit at the skin across the bones as the mangled demon of Engine was led through the hall, down the stair, and away.

Copyright © 2007 by Elizabeth Bear.