Dishonor (Book 1 of the In Search of Honor series)
Chapter 4: Which Way to Yesterday

After dressing, I went straight to Kevin’s room to begin mychores. When I got there, he was sittingon his bed, waiting for me.

“Are you doing okay? I know you’ve gotten beaten before, but italways hurts to see you in pain.” He stood up and came toward me. “Have youdecided on Reese?”

I thought about what Rachel said, and I couldn’t think of areason to distrust Reese. There was nothing wrong with her. “Yes, we can useher. We should bring her in tomorrow.”

“What’s wrong? You sound rushed. I’ve never known you to berushed.”

I looked out his window at the small horse pasture. It was sopeaceful and serene. Nothing like the lives of the Dishonored.

“I’m not rushed. I want to get out of this life. They think I’malmost eighteen.”

His forehead creased with worry. “We’ll get you out of there.We’ll destroy the structure and you won’t be Dishonored anymore.”

“There is no other future now.” My voice almost failed me. Ididn’t want to be dishonored. But I saw nothing else. There was no other pathfor me now.

“We’ll bring Reese in tomorrow. I need to go. Are you sure youwill be alright? I can stay if you need me to…”

I gave him a faint smile. “No, go. I’ve been through far worse.Out of curiosity, what are you going to?”

He cleared his throat and looked out the window. “I am going tomeet up with a girl that I am eligible to marry, and whose family wants analliance with my own. I hate these social events, but they are a necessaryevil.” He gave me a crooked smile and then shrugged his shoulders and rolledhis eyes at the same time. I laughed.

“Now look at you. Hurting a girl by forcing her to laugh.” Iwanted to say more, to say he should stay with me. I didn’t want him to marrysome girl out of ‘allegiance’, but he saw me more like a sister. I would haveto bite my tongue and watch him fall in love with another girl.

I walked closer and kissed him on the cheek, surprising him.“For luck. Now go to your boring parties and let me get back to my work.” Iwanted to say so much more. I wanted to kiss him on the lips.

“Alright, if you’re sure you’re fine I will go.”

“I’m fine, now go!” I laughed and shooed him out, ignoring thepain in my back and the ache in my heart.

After he left I went downstairs. Mistress Lianne found me andyelled, “Useless good for nothing creature. You whine about your backs so nowthe master says you don’t have to finish the only thing you’re good for? Thedishes need doing so get in there and do them! What are you standing around forlooking like a fish? They aren’t going to clean themselves!”

I hurried over to piles of dishes; I was only rarely allowed touse the plumbing in this house. Before I started, I reminded myself I must be carefulwith dishes because every crack or chip equaled a lashing, and that wassomething Kevin couldn’t prevent.

I rubbed the bar of soap next to the sink onto the cotton dishcloth and carefully picked up the first dish, turning on the faucet. Normallythis was a chore for the normal servants, but they must have been doing otherjobs today.

As I finished each dish I carefully dried it and stacked it inthe cabinet it belonged in. I sometimes forgot how many dishes people could usewhen they ate well. One set of plates reminded me of a set my family used touse. Each plate had a white unicorn in the center of the plate with its horntouching a spring surrounded by the tangled vines of a forest. It had goldalong the outside and the rim had unicorns leaping amongst vines tanglingaround the rim. They were beautiful works of art. But they weren’t exactly thesame as my father’s plates.

Where these plates were serene and spoke of peace, my father’sset had two unicorns battling. Each rearing up at the other with their hornslocked like swords and their hooves striking against the other’s chest. I hadloved the fierce beauty of the creatures in my father’s plates just as theserenity in this plate was stunning.

Unicorns were such stunning creatures, and I wondered if anyexisted outside the wall still, or if they were all killed off in the blast thatthe dome and the Wall protected us from.

“Work faster!”

I jumped at mistress Lianne’s voice and almost dropped the plateI was holding. Thank God I didn’t.

I scrubbed and cleaned each dish carefully and placed them inthe cabinet. Maybe I worked slower than a normal servant, but a normal servantdidn’t face a whipping for breaking a dish.

“Finally you’re finishedyou lazy, slacking creature. The walls in the great hall are looking dirty andneed scrubbing. If the master Kevin brings a Lady home we want this placespotless so she sees how nice it would be to be the mistress of this house,” MistressLianne screeched from behind me.

I grabbed a cloth from the pile of cleaning rags and went to thewell for water. A brush was too hard on the walls and would cause the murals toflake. Touch up was done on the murals, but it was best to treat them gently.

I carried the bucket inside the manor house. Reese was alreadyworking on one of the walls. “Where have you gotten so far?”

“From the door up to here, so a little less than half. If youstart on the other side of the door we can meet in the middle.”

“Sounds good.” Gently I started cleaning the wall moving my armin circles. The layer of dirt and soot came off and the mural became vibrantonce again. The mural was of ancient cities from before the blast with theirtall buildings.

“Ready to replace out our next assignment?” I asked Reese as wecollected our buckets.

“Does your back always hurt this much on a day of work after awhipping?” She winced as she picked up the bucket.

“Eventually you stop noticing it.” We walked to the yard and emptied our buckets before heading to the well.

“Can we take a break? We only have to do half our chores today.”

“I'd prefer to get as much done as possible. I don’t want toanger mistress Lianne anymore than she already is.”

“You go on ahead,” Reese said, plunking herself down on the wellsteps. “You got to start late, so I geta small break.”

"Okay, I won’t tell mistress Lianne, but if she replaces youshe won’t be happy.”

Reese waved me off. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

I worried about her, but I had to worry about myself too. I lefther there at the well and went back to the kitchen to replace mistress Lianne formy next chore. “Why doesn’t the master just get a good cook? I’m a housekeeper,not a cook!” She roughly stuffed some herbs up and into a raw turkey.

“Mistress Lianne?” I said, keeping my tone soft.

“The furniture needs dusting. And where’s that good for nothingnew girl? Damn her. What are you waiting for, get to work!”

I scurried off before she could insist on an answer to whereReese was. Reese was going to get chewed out when she came in, and if anyonefound her slacking even on a half work day… I would not envy her the punishmentshe would receive. Her funeral.

I grabbed the feather duster and scurried away to dust thefurniture around the house. Just as I was finishing the hallway, Rachel came outof the public bathroom with a bucket, scrub brush and cloth. She gave me aslight smile. “How are you doing, my dear?”

“Fine, thanks. What about you?” No matter how bad off she was,she was always checking on Annie and I. I guess, she was checking on Reese andme now.

She shook her head. “I’ll be fine.”

I went back toward the kitchen and Rachel went out to dump thedirty water. Mistress Lianne looked upas I entered the kitchen, “You’re so slow. Kevin will be bringing that girl andher family to the house any minute now. Sweep the floors in the public rooms.Go! Now!”

I dumped the duster, grabbed the broom and dustpan, and got outof there as quickly as I could. From the light coming through the windows Icould tell that mistress Lianne was right: the day was almost done. Maybe anhour or so left of work before we were lined up and taken back to the prisonfor more watery soup and maybe a piece of old stale bread if we were lucky.

I swept the floor in the great hall until the mistress camerunning in. “Out! Out, you bloody fool! They’re coming now. No guest of the master should see that thisfamily stoops so low as to use dishonored as house servants. Hurry to thekitchen. The other two are already there.”

I grabbed my cleaningequipment and ran into the kitchen where Rachel and Reese were already waiting.

“What’s happening?” Reese’s eyes were wide with fright.

I smiled. “Nothing to be scared of. When other nobles come tovisit we get kicked out of the house. The Lord Konjack is bringing a girl andher family here for supper with hopes of marrying his son to her.”

It was the future I was supposed to have that was stolen fromme. My smile slipped away.

“Why are you suddenly so upset?”

I looked at Reese and shook my head. I didn’t feel like talkingright now. My heart felt heavy in my chest, and I felt hate for my fatherrising in my gut. It left a bitter taste in the back of my mouth. Why did hehave to try and kill the king and leave his family to such a terrible fate? Hehad a good life; why did he have to want to improve other people’s lives?

And then I felt self-loathing. How could I hate my father fortrying to help people who were in the shoes I was currently in? How could Ihate my father when Kevin was trying to do the same thing my father was?

It was all such a big mess. I wished Kevin had never met meafter I was dishonored. That he could have lived blissfully without ever seeingme again. He probably wouldn’t have gotten involved in any traitorous plot ifit wasn’t for me.

“Snap out of it, dear!” Rachel said, waving her hand in front ofmy face. “No self-pitying attacks, remember?”

And I did. When I first became dishonored I had tried to killmyself by jumping out a window on the third floor. Rachel talked me down andforced me to swear I would face each day without feeling self-pity or turningmy hate against those who didn’t deserve it. She taught me to save it for thosewho did. I focused my hate on the king instead. The king deserved my hate.

If I focused on that I could live with myself. Luckily mistressLianne came in after the episode. She looked at the three of us and then shooedus out. “Well what are you still doing here? Leave the dresses by the well.You’ll be washing them tomorrow.”

We hurried out of the kitchen and toward the well being carefulto use servant hallways so we wouldn’t be seen. It wasn’t fashionable to have Dishonoredas house servants.

We were each able to clean the sweat off our bodies beforeputting the disgusting sacks back on and leaving the dresses next to the welllike we were asked to. I was glad that the blood hadn’t clung to the dress. Iwouldn’t have wanted to put the sack on open wounds.

“So what was that whole self-pity thing about back there?”

Why was Reese always asking questions? I didn’t plan on everanswering her.

“We all have a backstory, Reese, and sometimes Liv’s just…overwhelms her.” Thank God for Rachel. He must have put her gentle soul amongthe Dishonored to give us hope and kindness in our lives.

People said God had turned his back from us, and that was why wewere Dishonored, but I chose to think of it as God gave us hardships so that wemight turn to him for help. I might not be allowed to go to church because I wasDishonored, but I found that I believed in him more now than when I was Honored.

When I was Honored I took everything for granted, and now I sawthe way Honored hid behind masks of kindness. Dishonored had nothing to hideanymore, and so their true personalities were brought out in the harshness ofour lives. It was honorable to hide one's true self, but dishonorable to actlike one's true self.

Or that was what I had come to realize. They made up the rulesand played games with people’s lives like they were God. They pretended to be the most respectablepeople in the city, and then tortured innocent people and labeled them as Dishonoredso they had a reason to have slaves. The whole thing just disgusted me.

“Come on, we need to get moving or we’ll get a whipping forbeing late,” I told the others, throwing on my sack and tagging onto the end ofthe lineup. It was time to head back for that dim, dark, and dank place.

I looked toward the house. Through the window I could see Kevin laughingwith a beautiful, golden-haired girl. She was smiling so perfectly, her blondecurls framing her heart shaped face. I wanted to run close enough to see ifKevin reciprocated her smile, but instead I followed the other dishonored likean animal being herded to slaughter.

I didn’t want to go back. I didn’t want to face that guard that hadrequested that I sleep with him. I was scared shitless just at the thought, butI was more scared of ending up like Annie. If I ever did something wrong Ithink I would choose exile into the Bad Lands so at least I could die free andon my own terms.