Daughter of Ice and Fire

Thirteen

"Tell me about the deliveries," Lihleih demanded, although she kept her voice low.

Hoci's hands stilled and then she chuckled and resumed trimming Lihleih's hair. Lihleih had just endured another dying session and her nostrils burned. Unlike Setara, Hoci never handed her anything to wash it with after the dye had set. She was forced to deal with the smell for days after. The odor today seemed particularly bad, and she stifled the urge to pull away.

"I see you've been thinking," Hoci replied approvingly. "What do you want to know?"

"Everything. How many there are, how often they come, and what the wagons look like. Every detail, no matter how small."

Hoci's smile grew wider, but her voice turned serious. "Food deliveries come once every seven days. Deliveries of other items, such as fabrics for clothes, wood for furniture, trays, and such, come twice a year. Metal goods, like replacements for the pickaxe heads, once a year."

"New prisoners?"

"No set schedule. But it's rare they send only one as they did with you. Usually, when a new group arrives, the prison wagon is full."

Lihleih went silent for several minutes as she digested the information. Hoci remained silent as well and the only sound was the snipping of the scissors as she continued with the haircut.

"What about replacement guards?"

Hoci laughed but there was no humor in it. "The guards sent here never leave. Why do you think they're so cruel? For them, being tasked with guarding prisoners in Harrowvale is almost as bad as being a prisoner themselves."

Lihleih turned slightly, her eyes wide with surprise. "They don't? Then why would anyone agree to be a guard here?"

"None of them agree, my dear. The King, as you well know, doesn't ask anyone what they want. He tells them what to do. The guards here were handpicked by the King and had no choice but to obey."

Lihleih thought about this. Hoci's explanation explained a lot. She had noticed the guards seemed to take pleasure in watching the fights that often broke out between the men. In addition, they seemed to enjoy inflicting creative punishments on the prisoners, often over the slightest thing. She had suffered a multitude of punishments that seemed both petty and unusual. Bruises covered her upper arms, courtesy of hard pinches, gashes covered her lower arms and hands as well as both cheeks, thanks to the tips of knife blades being drawn across her skin, and she had suffered several broken toes from having her feet stomped on. The one thing she hadn't been forced to endure was the whip. For some reason, it had not been laid on her after that one time.

She suspected it was by the King's order as she had seen the other prisoners whipped on a regular basis. Since they were always required to remove their shirt beforehand, she concluded King Vesterfahl didn't want her sex revealed, at least not like that. The sentence had been clear. She needed to keep everyone convinced she was a man and having the guard force her to remove her shirt took that control away from her. The King, she was sure, wanted her to be found out. But he wanted it to be because she slipped up, not because she was forced into it. Despite her hatred of him, she was grateful. Being subjected to the lash wasn't something she wanted to endure ever again.

"What about the dead bodies? Do they have some sort of system for getting the word out when someone dies?"

Hoci barked another sharp laugh. "No bodies ever leave here, my dear. Whether it be a guard or a prisoner, once here, you never leave, dead or alive."

"Then what do they do when someone dies?" She had seen several prisoners die already. Two had simply collapsed while inside the mine. She had been appalled at what happened after they passed. The guards had simply left them where they fell, still shackled to the prisoner on either side. When the men finally filed out of the mine, the person to the right of the dead man was required to carry the body out. It wasn't until they reached their cells that the prisoner was relieved of their burden. The body was left in the corridor until two servants came and retrieved it. But she had no idea where it went after that.