Chapter 57 - Cards (Leaf's POV)

Leaf sat in the corner of her strange metallic cell. A tiny room inside another larger room in the depths of a floating hunk of crafted wood. Far removed from the shore, there was no way to escape even if she were to slip through the metallic bars. Locked doors beyond lock doors, floor between floor, then the water itself. She could not swim even if she had made it back to the deck. These tiny arm and leg iron shackles were excessive, but her jailer knew that and yet they still always had two guards in the room at all times. The conditions in the jail cell were better than anything she had in the warren, an actual bed, an iron pot for relieving herself, and three meals of delicious food and clean water. The bars on the jail were no more than hand length apart, meaning that she would either have to go through the iron plate on the floor, the back wall and through the side of the ship or through the iron plate on the ceiling. Metal on all sides with three walls of bars to look out at her new source of entertainment, the jailers who played cards all day long.

They changed shifts, but it was always the same six guards, four of them being young looking Mahn who did not have beards that wore the same uniform with a shoulder strap indicating their rank. A simple red tunic and brown pants lined with black stripes; simple yellow cordage decorated the ends of the arms and legs. They wore a simple hat with a stout leather brim that framed their long hair. For some reason the young ones had long hair, but the older males had short haircuts and a mix of different beards.

The jailers had a sparse amount of decorations in the room, a handful of restraining rods with cord loops for ensnaring, some thick batons for banging on the cells or beating the prisoner, and a few chairs and a large table upon which they played their cards. She had seen them use those rods and batons on a prisoner that shared a night in the cell next to her. A strange fellow who yelled and hollered at nothing who got beaten a handful of times before falling asleep and snoring throughout the night. Aside from a few instances of the guards inspecting her and handing over her food and water, she had been content to watch them.

She rubbed her hands over her new brown slacks and tunic; the fabric felt wonderful on her skin and kept her warm. They had even given her these small underclothes that a female had been brought into instruct, and then put on her, in her confusion. Despite having a lack of privacy, she had even been instructed on how to usher them out with a simple utterance to use the iron pot in peace. To use a perfectly good cookpot for waste was baffling to her, but then again these Mahn lived so well that they seemed to think this cell was a punishment. Compared to living in a nook underground, this was better than the chief had.

She understood almost nothing of their language, but it was not hard to understand when being directed and threatened with a baton. She still learned enough from the interactions and from watching them playing cards to know that they smiled without being malicious, they were relaxed and not fearful of one another. Officers who came in from time to time were the exception, when rigid formality and bowing occurred. Yet, even after superiors left they would do whatever seemed to have been conveyed before relaxing. She understood that Mahn had a social order not unlike Gobbos, but that clothing and formality went hand in hand.

The night shift came in, Paolo and Jules, two young males who had barely any facial hair at all. The two had fuzzy mustaches that were so sparse that even calling it a mustache would be over selling it. Their skin was greasy and the little red splotches on their face with white pus-filled caps seemed to be a sign of those on the verge of their coming of age in society. If they were Gobbos, both would be sixteen, maybe seventeen years of age. It was hard for her to discern, because males grew facial hair and the few females she had seen of similar appearance did not.

Paolo strode in and waved to her with a cheery smile and took her empty water cup and her food bowl. She smiled back at him, something which would have been provoking in the warren, so her imitation was still a bit unsettling. He gave a little nervous laugh and pointed to her chamberpot. She shook her head no and he relaxed at not having to deal with it. To have the guards handle this was work that V or other queds would have handled. Perhaps they were bad fighters or were being punished, but they smiled and laughed too much to appear so.

Jules broke out the cards and looked at her, he said something and dealt out a handful of cards in front of her cell. Paolo shook his head, and they went back and forth, before the two of them sat in front of her cell and each had a fistful of cards with numbers and strange little people on them. Jules took a few minutes to explain the game that they had played on the table so many times. Numbered cards were easy to understand, the more marks that made up the number the better. The people were different with the small chubby cheeked person being the lowest ranked, then a military man as the next, a woman in white robes the next highest, and then a floral crowned woman being higher still. After that it became easier, with the size of the hat determining rank from small black hatted man through four different versions that ended with a golden crowned Emperor. The lavish, but small crown was another difference of course, but the red and gold robes of elderly man wore said he was Chief of Chiefs to her. The final card, and the highest of all of them, was a card with no figure, but a simple A drawn on it. The only words she understood to describe the card involved a bunch of long and complicated names, save for one: Belos. The card represented a divine god. It is why it had no set form or appearance.

With three players, Jules established an order as they went about. Each player would pick a card and play it face up in the middle. Once that is done, two more cards would be drawn from the deck. If a played card matched one of the drawn cards, the player would score those cards. From there the highest played card would collect the leftovers. Play continued until everyone’s cards were exhausted and the score would be tallied. ‘Face’ cards were worth five except the Emperor and the Divine cards being worth 10. If you got lucky and matched an Emperor or Divine card you could get 20 points, but if you did not match it was possible to take all five cards by having the highest card and scoring up to 50 at best, but in the mid 30s seemed fairly common in their rounds.

It did not have a lot of strategy at first, but an established set of fights would happen with Jules and Paolo having their played cards matching one another which would trigger a conflict where two more cards were taken from the deck for each player, increasing the stakes. Once it was resolved, the two could favorably secure a win over the other. How they knew what the other would play she did not know.

This game called ‘Society’ was useful for one particular reason, it explained how they counted and what the structure of their castes was to some extent. The lower numbers, the faceless masses, were important as there were many more of them than the face cards. The deck of a hundred cards offered a lot of variables and no two games went in the same way.

“No way,” Jules said after Leaf won her first game, “I got beat by a Gobbo.”

“Just luck!” Paolo laughed.

As they continued to play, Leaf proved to be a shrewd tactician, reading into the two guards moves and deciding to play low cards when she saw them readying their skirmishes. She kept her high cards towards the end of some games, and other times she used them in the beginning. She was unpredictable and crafty, and won a majority of the games after learning.

“Not again…” Jules counted Leaf’s score up, “She got 340.”

Paolo laughed and laughed at that. Leaf decided to utter what they said when finishing, particularly when Jules crushed Paolo in the past, “Good games!”

Jules nodded and repeated, rather hollowly, “Good games.”

Paolo stood up and started to leave, “Got to take a leak.”

As the other guard left, Jules picked up the cards and looked at Leaf with a smile, “You are surprising. How’d a girl like you ever get locked up here?”

She did not understand his words, but his face got closer to hers and she saw his expression change. She knew that look and she moved away from the bars, unsure why he was looking at her with pity.

Jules continued, “I heard you were trying to steal medicine. Gobbos always steal things.”

Knowing only the words for ‘steal’ and ‘medicine’ she knew what he was talking about now. She looked at him with a bit of curiosity. Jules wiped his eyes and looked at her with that same stupid expression on his face.

“Was it for your mother? Your father? There is no point in stealing medicine when you can’t even sell it! You wanted to help someone. Why couldn’t they let you take it?” Jules clenched his fists, “Gobbos steal only what they need, right!?”

“Not always,” came a familiar feminine voice from the far end of the room, “Gobbos are no different than us. This one wanted power; not to save a life.”

Lady Hilda entered the room, her thin robes draping over the curves of her body like a thin blanket. Jules’ eyes locked onto her chest as she approached and stood over him, the smaller man almost eye level with what he shamelessly found himself engrossed in.

“Up here,” Lady Hilda’s smooth voice guided his eyes up to her face, “How is the prisoner doing?”

“She is fine.” Jules’ eyes started to drift back down.

“You were not sympathizing with a Gobbo, now were you?” Lady Hilda asked, “Where is the other one?”

Realizing she was referring to Paolo, Jules simply said, “Taking a leak.”

“Oh, so was it you or the prisoner who started whatever this is?” Lady Hilda shifted her attention between the two of them, and Leaf’s eyes went wide as that woman’s hand went to caress Jules’ cheek. The young man stumbled backwards, but he was not quick enough to escape as her hand dipped through his flesh and into his skull, slipping in without injury or notice. As graceful as dipping a hand into a still lake, she tapped his mind with her fingers as he groaned and shuddered, convulsing as she invaded his mind.

“That’s right,” Her left hand came up to stroke his cheek while his eyes rolled back in his head, “Tell me everything.”

Leaf shuddered and stepped back as the color and life went out of Jules, the young man slipping into unconsciousness and she simply pushed him backwards into the chair. Her hand pulled from his skull with a strange sticky goo coating her hand. Before his body slouched and his head lolled backwards, she had flicked her hand and sent the splatter of goo against the far wall.

Lady Hilda ushered in a familiar face, wrapped in red silk and looking much like the Emperor on those cards except green and bald. She recognized Chief Mudohoon by his long and thick nose, those beady yellow eyes and his wide jaw. He was hunched over, his back high and his green claws affixed out in front of him as if he still gripped his throne, suspended awkwardly and draped out in front of his body. The long green ears swept back and flicked with excitement as he took in the sight of Leaf. She whimpered as he approached and grabbed the bars.

“Leaf. I’ve come to help you.” Chief Mudohoon began. “Tell me the truth and I’ll do what I can to make sure you are free.”

How was he here? Why was he here? Who was in charge of the warren? Leaf looked to Lady Hilda and then back to Chief Mudohoon. They were working together? Just exactly what was happening here?