It was a strange kindness. They could have just blindfolded her, of course, but blindfolds slip. But most captors would have painted the wagon black and made her live in darkness. This was just as effective, but a lot more work. If a drafter couldn’t see her color, or didn’t have lenses and white light, she couldn’t draft. Karris was about as close to helpless as she got. She hated the feeling with a passion.
She threw on the slip and the shapeless violet dress, and immediately scratched the paint. It had been heat-dried by a sub-red. She would be able to chip it eventually, but with the only light coming in through the violet curtains and violet glass, it wasn’t going to matter anyway. Still, she tried. She couldn’t help herself. Under the layer of violet paint was a layer of black. Under that, the wood was a dark mahogany. No luck.
The wagon began rolling within minutes.
That night, after she was fed a hunk of black bread and given water in a blackened iron cup, two drafters came in, their skin already full of red and blue luxin respectively. Behind them came, of all things, a tailor. She was a tiny woman who barely came up to Karris’s shoulder. She took Karris’s measurements rapidly, never writing them down, just committing them to memory. Then she stared at Karris’s body for a long time, studying her like a farmer studying a rocky sidehill that he needed to plow. She double-checked her measurement of Karris’s hips, and then left without a word.
Over the next five days, Karris learned little. Apparently her wagon was close to the cooking wagons, because all she heard all day was the rattle of pots at every bump in the road. The shadowy figures of horsemen, maybe Mirrormen, sometimes passed close enough to her covered windows for her to see their silhouettes. If they spoke, though, she could never make out the words. At night, she was given food in a blackened iron bowl, with a blackened iron spoon and black bread and water, never wine—damn them, they even thought of the red of wine. A Mirrorman accompanied by a drafter took her chamber pot, bowl, spoon, and cup each night after sunset. When she kept the spoon one night, hiding it under a pillow, they didn’t say a word. Neither did they give her water the next day. When she surrendered the spoon, she was given water again.
The boredom was the worst. There were only so many push-ups you could do in a day, and anything more strenuous was impossible. There were no musical instruments, no books, and certainly no weapons or drafting to practice.
On the sixth night, two blues came in. “Choose a position that’s comfortable,” one of them said. Karris sat on her little pallet, hands folded in her lap, ankles crossed, and they bound her arms and legs in about five times the amount of luxin necessary. Then they put violet spectacles over her eyes and left.
King Garadul entered the wagon, carrying a folding camp chair. He wore a loose black shirt over his shirt, which Karris could barely see, and voluminous black pants over his pants. Karris understood being careful around her, but this was ridiculous. The king settled into the camp chair. He stared at her wordlessly.
“I don’t suppose you remember me,” he said. “I met you once, before the war. Of course, I was just a boy, three years younger than you, and you were already head over heels for… well, one of the Guile boys, I can’t remember which. Maybe you can’t either. There seemed to be some confusion for a time, wasn’t there?”
“You’re a real charmer, aren’t you?” Karris asked.
“You might be surprised,” he said. He shook his head. “I always thought you were a beautiful girl, but the stories of you took on a life of their own. A tragic love triangle between the two most powerful men in the world sort of demands a beautiful girl, doesn’t it? I mean, otherwise, why would two men tear the world apart? For her insights about history? Her witty repartee? No. You were a pretty girl made beautiful by the bards’ need to make some sense of what you wrought. Don’t get me wrong,” he said, “I was so in love with you it kept me up nights. You were my first great unrequited love.”