4 of course she fell
Rien awoke to the pulse of her coffin, surprised to find that she had slept at all. She released the catch and fumbled her way upright—still before her roommates— stripped down in one awkward elbowy motion and so was the first into the cleanser. It polished the dirt and dead skin away while the sonics made her teeth rattle, and then she stepped out and rubbed herself down with an astringent cloth.
She took her time dressing, dawdling really, hoping that by the time she came into the kitchen, the execution would be over. Then she would have the cold comfort of nothing-she-could-have-done.
Then she could tell herself, as orphans do, that she was a forgotten princess, that it was all a case of mistaken identity, and her real parents would be along momentarily to rescue her.
But Head was looking for her, and there was a tray waiting, eggs and toast and coffee cooling by the door. 'You're late,' Head said, and thrust the tray into her hands.
Rien balanced it, practiced and deft. 'Must we feed her today?'
'We must,' Head said. 'The execution is postponed. Lady Ariane has been called away.' Sie hesitated, which was unlike hir, and scrubbed broad-palmed hands over the legs of hir white kitchen coveralls. Sie lowered hir voice and glanced over hir shoulder, stalling just long enough that Rien wondered
Rien lowered her voice as well, and ducked her chin so her hair and shoulder would hide the shapes her mouth made. 'So she'll let Perceval go.'
But Head's mouth was a hard line. 'I do not think so. I think she'll... when she comes back, I think she'll do what she always meant to do. She means to rule, Rule, but more. She means to try to conquer the world, to become Captain as well as Commodore, if you ask me. And her brothers and sisters won't like that either, once they see what she's up to.'
Rien's mouth made an O, like her eyes. She felt them, felt the tissue stretch and shape itself, felt her lungs stretch around the deepness of her breath. 'You said a war wouldn't touch us here. You said we were beneath it.'
'I might have been wrong,' Head admitted. Sie patted Rien on the shoulder. 'Now go. Feed the prisoner. She has to live until—'
Until Lady Ariane wanted her.
'Head,' Rien said, before she turned away with the tray, 'the chains have her in great pain. She can't sit down, or move from where she stands.'
Head—because Head was like that—thought about it carefully. Then sie nodded and reached into hir pocket and pulled out a control box and a key. Sie put the key into the box, and held it close enough to Rien that it could get a sniff. Then sie took the key out again and held the box over the tray.
'Leave it outside the door,' Head said. 'Then even if she gets ahold of you, she can't make you release her.'
'Yes, Head,' Rien answered.
Head put the box down beside the coffee and the eggs.
The dungeon had begun to stink, and Rien was at a loss, at first, on how to proceed. She left the tray by the door, of course, but if she just lengthened Perceval's chains, the Engineer would fall in her own filth, and with the un-healed wounds, Rien did not want to risk being able to scrub them clean enough. She did not think that even Head in hir kindness would waste antibiotics or intravenous fluids on the enemy.
Rien closed her eyes. She was thinking, she realized, as if Perceval would live out the week.
But by the way Perceval hung in her chains, Rien did not think she would live out the day. And if Rien could not come close to her while holding the key, Rien could not cushion her fall.
She would clean the cell first, she decided, and bring in bedding. If it meant leaving Perceval in suspension a little longer ... well, Rien wasn't entirely certain that she was conscious.
Perceval did lift her head while Rien was cleaning, and tried to stand straight. She wept, though, when she got her feet under her and straightened, and the weight came off her shoulders. 'I am fortunate I am, I was a flyer,' she said, licking the tears from her mouth. 'I am not as heavy as some. Have you come with my last supper, Rien?'
'Just your breakfast,' Rien answered. She had to go back up two levels to get bedding when the floor was clean, but that would give it a chance to dry and it wasn't as if the food could get any colder.
Still, she hurried.
Perceval watched with a faintly puzzled expression as Rien laid an open-celled foam pad and fiber-filled comforters at her feet, but seemed either willing to trust, or too befuddled by pain and exhaustion to question Rien's action. 'I'm going to put you down,' Rien said, returning to the door for the key. 'Try to fall on the mattress.'
Perceval spread her feet as wide as the chains would allow and centered herself. 'I won't fall,' she said.
But of course she did. The nanotech relaxed, the chains stretched, and Perceval went down like a sack of wet laundry. She fell across the mattress, and got her hands before her to break her fall, though Rien didn't think the joints were working as they should.
Blue blood and yellow pus, leaking from under the clipped white blanket, had matted its edge to Perceval's skin, and Rien flinched to see it. But she came to her and carefully lifted the blanket away, though Perceval moaned and stirred. The bandages under were saturated with seepage, and when she peeled them back, all the scab and tender proud flesh was torn.
'Your bones keep moving,' she said. 'This hasn't healed at all.' But at least if it was infected it was open, and not abscessing. And once she got the bandages off and the wounds aired, the smell was less awful.
She disinfected the wounds and irrigated them, thinking it was useless if they wouldn't scab. And Perceval bore it all stolidly. Or perhaps she was lost in some hallucinatory fever-dream, her arms stretched uselessly, awkwardly at her sides. The chains trailed like swags of drapery now, rather than stretching taut with her weight.
Rien had brought clean bandages, too, and with Perceval's muscles soft she could do a better job of it this time. By the time she had finished, Perceval was strong enough to sit, and with Rien's help to steady the spoon she managed her breakfast half by herself.
'I am surprised to be alive,' she said at last, between sips of cold coffee. She rubbed her lips together, as if working the fat from the creamer into the chapped skin. 'Why are you wasting food on the condemned?'
Rien didn't know, exactly. And she could have lied, to comfort Perceval, and told her it wasn't certain that she would be condemned. But after she thought of that, she shook her head and said, 'Because Head is softhearted.'
'So I see she is,' Perceval answered, and after setting the molded cup aside, stretched out on her side on the pallet.
'Sie,' Rien said. 'Head is a kant. Ungendered.' 'Sie,' Perceval echoed. 'Softhearted. And so is Rien.' 'Rien is known for it,' Rien said. Her own stomach grumbled; she would have missed breakfast by now, but she could probably beg something from Head, or—if Head were not in the kitchen—from Roger, or whoever was. Rien stood, just as Perceval reached out, as if by accident, and brushed fragile fingertips across her knee. 'Come back, Sister?' Perceval asked, very softly. Rien bit her lip until she thought she could speak without her voice cracking, but it turned out she was wrong. 'If you live to suppertime,' she said, 'I'll be back to care for you.'
