Free The Surrogate by Ann Somerville

roused himself a little over lunch, informing me that if I cared to, I could accompany him while he visited other parts of the temple to collect food, his laundry and so forth.
    “ Oh, I thought you had things brought and taken away for you.”
    He gave me a hard look, but I didn’t think it was more than habit. “No one fetches and carries for me. I’m not asking you to either, if you don’t wish to.”
    “ No, I’d like that.” The temple was a frightening place, but anything was better than being trapped for a week in this small apartment. “Once the fortnight is up, can I really come and go as I wish? Wouldn’t it be easy for me to just run off and sell this thing?” I asked, flicking the collar.
    He gave me a humourless smile. “You’re welcome to try. The last person who did so is still feeding the plants in the garden. In several parts of the garden. And they didn’t wait for him to die before spreading him about.”
    I gaped at him. I’d come to realise that his own threats of violence were empty, though the emotions which prompted them were real enough. But when he spoke of the temple, I felt he was entirely serious—and I wondered how it avoided the king’s justice so thoroughly. The temple and the priests, according at least to the book I was reading, were certainly not above the law. How could they get away with this?
    He finished his meal—or rather watched me eat—and left his own hardly touched, and took the plates away.
    “ You know, you’ll get sick if you don’t eat properly. I know that for certain.”
    “ My health is not your concern.”
    “ I never said it was. Can’t a man give another simple advice?”
    “ Not when the man is you, and not to me, no. If you’re determined to come, then the night soil can needs emptying.”
    Figured. But I’d done worse tasks, and the thing had a lid so there was no smell. I had only to carry it while he brought our dirty clothes. He insisted on us wearing the concealing cloaks again, and I had to wonder why, but it wasn’t worth a battle over. As we walked along a route I had not yet taken, I was surprised to hear the distant sound of women’s laughter. “I thought there were no females in the temple.”
    “ There aren’t. We’re not actually in the temple itself, but in a side wing. There are separate kitchens and laundries for we who are unsanctified. Only the priests and acolytes live and eat in the temple proper. The guards, other staff, you and me, we live here. Women are permitted in this wing, but in no other part.”
    “ So the women who...?”
    I thought he was going to tell me I talked too much again, but he only sighed. “They come from the temple of Neku which adjoins this.”
    There had to be more to it, but we were in a public area so I didn’t push. After depositing the nightsoil can in what was clearly a collecting point for such things, and handing the clothes into a communal laundry, we came to the kitchens, identifiable from the smells coming from behind the wooden doors. I didn’t know what to expect, but it was in fact a perfectly ordinary, if very large and busy, kitchen, with a dozen or more people, mostly women, with a couple of young boys working by the open range. Jaime was greeted politely but without much enthusiasm, I noticed. He took me to a large, busty woman who was pounding dough into shape. “Mia, this is Nikolas. Josia’s replacement.”
    “ Hmmm. Is this one going to stick around this time, or should I just call him ‘hey boy’ to save time?”
    “ Whatever you wish,” he said coldly. “Do you have my provisions?”
    “ In the cold room.”
    He looked at me. “Just wait here, I won’t be long.”
    That left me the subject of a lot of curious scrutiny which I met with a deliberately cool demeanour. Finally Mia barked out a laugh. “This one’s got balls of steel, I think,” which made the others giggle. “Where are you from, boy?”
    “ My name’s Nikolas, not ‘boy’, and I’m