Free Black Spring by Alison Croggon Page A

frustrate her deepest desires. Even her father’s disapproval, which could cast her into a pit of despair for days, did little to make the necessity of staying indoors to study verbs and history palatable, even with Damek for company. However, when I joined the morning lessons, her natural competitiveness was fired, since she couldn’t bear to be outshone by a mere servant. I enjoyed the classes and even earned the tutor’s praise on occasion, and this made her turn furiously to her work.
    Thus it was that I learned my letters and was given one of the great consolations and pleasures of my life. It is no boast to say that I am probably as well read as any on the Plateau, since Master had collected an excellent library and permitted me to read freely in my spare time. Like many things in my life, it altered me and made me different from my kin. My mother disapproved of my education: she would never dare to gainsay the master and did his will as always, but I think no decision of his angered her more. She said it would give me ideas above my station and would take me away from my roots. In this, her instincts were correct: although I can’t say I have suffered from it, I have always been a little outside things. I was fated, it seems, to be between: neither northern nor southern, neither an illiterate servant nor a noble. Once, when I was young and foolish, I did wish that I was the same as everyone else and could fit in more easily, but I was lucky enough to marry a good man who saw my virtues with a straight eye, and I have led a decent and hardworking life, which is more than can be said for some of my kin.
    But forgive me; I am wandering from the story.
    After that day, Damek was Lina’s slave. I watched them suspiciously, unable to believe that it was more than a passing fad on her part, but all I saw was sweetness and light. Certainly, their friendship made a great deal of difference to Damek. I think it likely that he had never had a friend before. As in everything she did, Lina approached the friendship with all the force of her fierce passion, and any resistance he may have felt quickly melted. At the time I was surprised by his instant capitulation — given those bruises, I would have coddled my resentment for much longer. But now I suspect that they might not have become so close if Lina hadn’t behaved so cruelly to begin with, and that part of his respect for her stemmed from his initial experience of her demonic temper.
    Patiently, with her rare gentleness, she coaxed him out of his sullen silence, and he began to seem more like any boy of ten; she drew him into her games and pranks, and although he never quite lost his wariness, for the first time we saw his face animated with laughter. I know you will not believe me, but I began to like Damek myself then; he was a handsome boy and could be an amiable playmate. I am sorry for what he became. Perhaps he would have become what he is in any case, but I think he could have been a different man had things turned out otherwise.
    Lina and Damek would disappear for hours on end, returning with their clothes torn and filthy with mud and their eyes shining with secret mischief. Their antics were the despair of my mother, who felt both their impropriety and their inconvenience, since they doubled her laundry and darning. I was moved by less pragmatic considerations: to put it baldly, I was jealous. The pair stole away on their excursions without telling anybody and after they returned home, would whisper together like conspirators. I was locked out of Lina’s private world, and I felt my exile keenly.
    I caught them leaving the house one day when I knew they had been expressly forbidden to do so and demanded that I should come too, or I would tell my mother. Lina stared at me impatiently, biting her lip.
    “Why would you want to come with us, Anna? You know you wouldn’t enjoy it.”
    “I would so,” I said.
    “You wouldn’t,” she said. “We don’t do