“They’re fine,” Vur laughed. “The sweetest pair of hands in the factory. Now let’s stop wasting time. There are cocoons to boil.”
Sighing, Larten reached into his bucket. He took out a few cocoons, steadied himself, then drove his hands deep into the heart of the bubbling vat. The pain was fierce to begin with, but after a few seconds his toughened flesh adjusted and he worked without complaint for the rest of the morning.
CHAPTER THREE
The hours passed slowly and quietly. Dunking cocoons wasn’t a demanding job and boredom quickly set in. Larten would have loved to chat with Vur and the others on his team. But Traz prowled the factory relentlessly, and although he was a large man, he could move as lithely as a cat. If the foreman caught you talking, he would whip you until he drew blood. There was a rumour that he’d once cut out a girl’s tongue and kept it in his wallet. So all of them went about their business in silence, only talking if it was work-related.
The fires beneath the vats were kept burning around the clock – slaves worked throughout the night – and the room was forever smoke-filled. It wasn’t long before the children were coughing and spitting, rubbing grit from their eyes. Larten could never get the taste of smoke out of his mouth. Even in dreams his tongue was heavy with soot.
His clothes stank too, as did Vur’s. Some nights, when Larten’s mother was in a foul mood, she would scream at the boys and force them to undress. She’d toss their clothes into the yard and they’d have to go to bed early to hide their naked bodies from Larten’s jeering brothers and sisters.
Larten’s father hadn’t wanted to send the boys to the factory. He hated the place as much as they did, even though he’d escaped and now laboured elsewhere. He had managed to find work in other areas for the older children, but jobs were scarce when it came time for Larten and Vur to earn a living. The silk factory had recently won a lucrative contract and Traz was offering halfway decent wages. There was nowhere else for the unlucky pair to go.
Larten had to keep the fire beneath his vat at a constant heat. As soon as he felt the temperature of the water dropping, he fed the flames with an armful of logs from a mound at the back of the room.
Across from him, Vur finished dunking another batch of cocoons, then set off at a jog for the pit out back. Traz reluctantly accepted the need for toilet breaks, but if he caught you walking instead of running, you were guaranteed a whipping.
Larten grinned. Vur had a weak bladder and most days he had to go to the pit three times to Larten’s once. Vur tried drinking less, but it made no difference. Traz had beaten him in the early days, when he thought the boy was making excuses. But eventually he realised that Vur’s complaint was genuine, and though he still cuffed Vur occasionally, he let the wretch go as often as he needed to.
Vur looked worried when he returned this time.
“What’s wrong?” Larten whispered.
“One of the owners was with Traz,” Vur panted. “They were on their way to inspect the room of baby worms.”
Word spread and everyone upped the tempo. It was bad news whenever one of the owners came to visit. Traz got nervous in the presence of his employers. He would meekly lead his boss around, a false smile plastered in place, sweating like a pig. As soon as the visitor departed, Traz would take a few swigs from a bottle of rum that he kept in his office, then storm furiously through the factory, finding fault wherever he looked.
They were hard days when Traz was on the warpath. No matter what you did, he could turn on you. Even the most skilful workers on the looms – normally the best treated in the factory – had suffered lashings at times like this.
Larten prayed while he worked, begging a variety of gods to keep Traz away from their vats. Though Larten wasn’t religious, he figured there was no harm in covering all the angles when trouble was in the air.
They heard a roar and every child lowered their head and dunked cocoons as fast as they could. The problem was, they had to leave them in the water until the cocoons had softened properly. If Traz found hard cocoons in their baskets it would be far worse than if he thought they were going slow.
Traz entered like a bear, growling and glaring, hoping someone would glance up at him. But all the children stared fixedly into their vats. He was pleased to see that most of them were trembling. That sapped some of the fire from his rage, but he needed to hand out three or four more beatings before he’d really start to calm down.
A girl lost her grip on a couple of cocoons as Traz was passing and they bobbed to the surface. He was on her like a hawk. “Keep them down!” he bellowed, swatting the back of her head. She winced and drove the cocoons to the base of the vat, soaking the sleeves of her dress.
“Sorry, sir,” the girl gasped.
Traz grabbed her hair – she was new to the team and had made the mistake of not cutting it short – and jerked her face up to his. “If you ever do that again,” he snarled, “I’ll bite off your nose.”
It would have been funny if anyone else had made such a ludicrous threat. But Traz had bitten off more than one nose in his time – a good number of ears too – and they all knew that he meant it. Nobody snickered.
Traz released the girl. He wasn’t interested in newcomers. He knew the younger children were terrified of him and probably dreamt about him when they went to bed every night. They were too easy to scare. He wanted to work on some of the more experienced hands, remind a few of the older lot of his power, make sure they didn’t start taking him for granted.
He cast his gaze around. There was a tall boy in one corner, a lazy piece of work. Traz started to move in on him, but then he caught sight of Vur Horston and changed direction.
Traz slowly strolled past Vur, giving him the impression that he’d escaped the foreman’s wrath. But when he was about four strides past he stopped, turned and stepped up behind the boy.
Vur knew he was in trouble, but he worked on, not giving any sign that he was aware of Traz’s presence. Larten could see that his cousin was in for a beating, and although he risked drawing attention to himself, he raised his head slightly to watch. He felt sick and hateful, but there was nothing he could do.
For a while Traz didn’t say anything, just studied Vur as he dunked cocoons and held them beneath the surface of the water. Then he stuck a thick, dirty finger into the vat and held it there for a couple of seconds.
“Lukewarm,” he said, withdrawing the finger and sucking it dry.
Vur gulped, but didn’t move. He wanted to throw more sticks on the fire – even though the heat was fine – but he had to keep the cocoons down. If he released them early, he’d be in an even worse situation than he was now.
Behind Vur’s back, Traz scowled. He’d hoped the boy would panic, release the cocoons and give the foreman an excuse to batter him.
“You’re a vile, useless piece of work,” Traz said. He tried to think of something more cutting, then recalled someone telling him that the boy was an orphan. “An insult to the memory of your mother,” Traz added, and was delighted to note the boy’s back stiffen with surprise and anger.
“You didn’t know that I knew your mother, did you?” Traz said slyly, walking around the vat, cracking his knuckles, warming to the game.
“No, sir,” Vur croaked.
“She didn’t work here, did she?”
“No.”
“So where do you think I knew her from?”
Vur shook his head. Across from him, Larten guessed what the foreman was up to, but there was no way he could warn Vur. He just hoped that Vur was reading Traz’s intentions too. Usually Vur was a better judge of people than Larten was, but fear had a way of shaking up a person’s thoughts.
“Well?”