Of Soot And Cinders

I

SOOT

The ache of my body was nothing I wasn't used to nor was the fact that I was trapped in the fireplace. But neither of those pains of life were lessened as time went by.

I gripped at the iron grate that locked me into the hearth.
"Please, young masters. Let me out."

The boys, identical, smiled at each other. "We're just starting to have fun. Why would we stop now?"

One came closer while his brother walked over to the little lever that closed the flue. The one now left in front of me kicked at the grate. I flinched back as again he kicked, this time aiming for my fingers.
I fell backwards clutching my throbbing hands and knocking over the bucket of sooty water I had been using to scrub the hearth. Water flowed everywhere and started to soak into the rags I called clothes.
They laughed and each kicked the grate again for good measure before darting out of the room through the double doors on the left wall. I saw briefly two soldiers waiting outside to escort the little dukes wherever they went but got no reaction when I made eye contact with them. Silently pleading for help.
The doors closed before I got out even a small cry for help and I was locked in the room, in the hearth, by myself.  I'd surely get punished for it too. All my other chores for the day would be left undone and I would be unaccounted for. Both breaking some rule.
There was a list that was checked by the head slave driver as to who got what done at the end of each day. But the list was checked when everyone was back at the quarters by curfew. Violations of either of those rules usually coincided with each other, something I knew well.
It wasn't always this specific fireplace I was trapped in, with the two hundred plus of them in the castle there were many to choose from. All of which were built with a safety grate to keep anyone from falling into an open fire, or to give devilish children, or spiteful adults, the joy of licking me in.
When guests of the palace arrived, which was often, I was called beforehand to clean the respective fireplace out while other slaves and maids cleaned the rest of the room. The only trouble now was that I moved much slower than a team of three others who swept and changed the blankets on the bed. And with the stream where I got my water from being at the east end of the castle grounds it took me much more time to clean.

I looked out into the room and began to call. "Hello? Can anyone help me? Hello? Please let me out of here! Please help me!" But there was no response.

I slouched against one wall of the fireplace and took the time I had to rest. It wasn't often I got the chance to stop moving for long enough to relax. But though I was locked behind an iron grate I was given that little piece of time.
I couldn't have been sure how much time exactly passed but I saw the sun setting out the window when the fire started. It wasn't in my fireplace, I wasn't daft enough to set a fire while I was in the hearth myself. But if I knew anything it was the fireplace system running through the castle.
The fireplaces in the guest wing were stacked atop each other and had linking chimneys allowing soak to rise out of the palace without smelling up the rooms. Only the rooms on the top floor had flues though to keep out the wind. But the flues also kept in the smoke and forced it into the room.
In short if the room below was burning a fire the smoke would rise and if the flue was closed the smoke would fill the room... and the fireplace.
I flung myself at the grate away from the rising smoke from the room below. I could feel its heat as slowly it grew thicker. Whoever was below was very cold and very good at making fires.
The window in the room I was in was sadly closed so when the smoke passed me and the grate it floated to the ceiling and began to below like a cloud.

I was getting scared. "Someone please help!"

I was coughing against the grate trying to breathe whatever fresh air I could when a servants door opened on the other side of the room. My heart fluttered in hope.

"Hello?" I croaked. "Please help me."

"By the goddess—" I heard before the full form of a woman came through the hidden door. She rushed first to the window which she threw wide and then hurried mercifully over to me.
Sara was a portly woman in her thirties with hairs already going gray. She was one of the head chambermaids for castle visitors and always was in charge of preparing rooms. And was usually the one to find me in positions like this.

"Where are the keys child?" She asked looking first up on the mantel.

"I think they were thrown under the chest." I coughed but managed to point to the heavyweight chest of blankets at the foot of the bed. I remembered the young dukes wrestling over them before they were tossed under.

Sara went over to the chest and reached her arm under. She struggled for a moment before drawing her arm back with a clinking ring of keys clutched in her fist. I sighed in relief and grabbed my bucket and the rag I had been using to scrub while Sara unlocked the grate.
I placed the bucket out first and then crawled wobbly out onto the stone floor. I crawled then to the wall and began my climb to my feet. Quickly as I could manage I lifted my body off the floor with the support of the wall and stood straight on my feet. Or relatively straight that was.

My feet and legs were mangled sticks of flesh and bone. Barely recognizable as legs they had been deformed and mostly useless since I was nine.
I took a few tentative steps which had the sound of shuffle drag shuffle drag. Once I got to my bucket I smiled at my savior.

"Thank you Sara. I would have been stuck there all night if you hadn't come to rescue me."

"Would 'ave passed out from the smoke too I wager. Well no use cursing at the goddess for this it's over and done and I dare say you'd not be bothered much by it anyway."

"I am just glad I'm out now rather than in the morning." I smiled but Sara just huffed. I often got the impression she wanted me to be angry about my own treatment but I couldn't bring up the emotion. It always felt deserved.

We began our walk back to the slave quarters. Ducking through the secret door and closing it behind us after Sara had done a final check on the room.
"I'll let the hearth go this time on account of what just 'appened." She said. And I could feel a weight lifted off my shoulders.

"Thank you Sara."

"Aye Soot. Just remember it."

The passage ways were long and dark and went up and down and sideways without rhythm or reason. They were narrow too and made entirely of stone, making my walk slower than in an open hall where I could do my shuffle-stumble a little quicker.
Soon the slave passageway lead outside and we were walking on grass. My feet and back sang in joy at the change from hard stone to soft earth. I walked a little slower as to enjoy it and Sara looked back from where she had gotten ahead and looked pitifully at my legs.
When she met my eyes I smiled and she smiled a little back. She had children at home, and sometimes it felt as though she looked at me the way she might look at her own offspring. I enjoyed the thought often. Wondering if one day her family, though poor, might buy me off the kingdom and keep me as their own. But on a maids wages and her husband only earning what he could harvest from their small farm that was more a dream than the visions that bothered me by night.

Sara left for home then, still having to walk back to her little cottage and I began to walk to the slave quarters. When I got there I was checked for anything stolen, questioned about my days work, and then chined by the wrist to my bed like all the other slaves in the hall.

Soon sleep took me and the goddess gave me dreams of walking through open fields without pain.