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The first Asmodean orphanages were bad even by modern Asmodean standards. They didn't know, fifty years ago, that if you tie a baby to a post for three years, only coming by to feed it and to wipe away the puddle it ends up standing in much of the time, the baby is not merely miserable. A large majority of children die in such places. Many are taken by known diseases, probably a result of standing in their own waste for so long. But some of them simply give up. They don't kill themselves, no. The soul itself rebels, unwilling to sustain the body in such conditions. No one knows why this happens to children, and not to adults. But the modern orphanages have a harder job, because the people running them know, now. Hold the babies. Speak to them. Or else smother them, and be done with it.
But there's knowing a thing, and being able to put it into practice. The orphanages were not given more funding, when the caregivers noticed what they were creating. They try, now, even most of the evil ones. But with twenty infants to a worker in some places, it takes heroic effort merely not to let the babies starve.
Purificació was raised in such an orphanage. She didn't die, but she wasn't quite right, either. Late to walk. Late to speak. Early to bladder control, as there was great incentive (the trick was to hold it until you saw the washing child come by). She did, at six, go to school, but her performance was so poor that by eight she was given an exemption. Mentally incompetent. No point in burdening the school system with such a child, not even to teach the child the faith. She stayed at the orphanage during the day. She washed the floors and fed the toddlers.
At eleven, Purificació signed an indenturement contract with her own name. Nine years of service in a domestic kitchen, and Purificació would be free, a paid servant with a useful skill. She was excited. She did not care if the caustic soaps scrubbed her hands red and raw. Three, maybe five years as a scullery maid, the head cook told her, and she would begin learning to cook. Nine years, and she would be paid.
But Purificació was not told the other laws. In the county where she now resided, time spent pregnant did not count towards an indenturement, since it was presumed a woman could not work at full strength while with child. Time spent sick or badly injured did not count, either, for the same reason.
There was no corresponding requirement that the employer actually grant any time off work.
The first time her employer raped her, Purificació literally didn't understand what was happening. It hurt, but no more than lots of other things. It was deeply confusing, but no more than lots of other things. It was not so very much worse than school, or scrubbing dishes, or standing in her own piss.
A year later, Purificació would have sex with anyone. Sometimes because they forced her, and what on earth was the point of preventing people from hurting you if it would only mean they hurt you worse? Sometimes because men bribed her, and she liked the bribes well enough. A sweet, a ribbon, a shiny piece of silver. There was a boy in the stables who knew how to make it nice, and Purificació went to see him regularly, just because she liked it. He said nice things to her. He told her she was pretty.
Purificació did not realize that any of this was related to her pregnancies. She accepted them as random acts of nature. Three children in six years. Purificació did not smother one of them. She tied them to her bedpost in the kitchen girls’ quarters. The first one she fed only at night, and wept bitterly when the kitchen maid, Vinyet, explained that the child had starved. The second and third, she sneaked out to feed, in stolen moments. Whether the feedings were not long enough, or they died of teething pain, or one of the other servants had smothered them to end the incessant crying, or they had simply given up, Vinyet could not say. None of them survived.
Purificació was seventeen, when she learned what had been taken from her. A conversation about how long the indentured servants had left to serve. I have three years left, she said. Vinyet had waved her hand, telling the newer girls to ignore that.
“She has six. She keeps getting pregnant. If you want to get out, keep your legs shut. Avoid the masters knowing you exist, if you can help it.”
Purificació was confused, not insulted. She knew how to count. “I have three. I’ve been here six years.”
“Look, every time you have a baby, they take a year off your time served,” explained Vinyet. “It’s some stupid legal thing about not being able to do your duties with a baby, not that they give you time to feed the damned things because of it.”
Purificació shook her head. “I’ve worked here for six years. It’s not fair to say I didn’t.”
“Fair? No man cares about fair when there’s fucking to be done. And little enough when there isn’t.”
Purificació knew what fucking was. “What does fucking have to do with babies?”
Vinyet had laughed, and then stopped, and made a sound of deep frustration. “Fucking is what makes babies. Gods above, you’re stupid.”
The others had taken a moment to make fun of her, after, but Purificació had not heard. A ribbon. A tart. A coin. The fear of being struck. A pleasant hour with her closest friend. These things, weighed against a year? Against an infant sobbing for help until it gave up, and dying a shadow of itself?
“Alfonso,” she said, interrupting the others. Her voice shook. “From the stables. Does he know?”
“That fucking makes babies?” Purificació nodded. Vinyet sighed, exasperated. “Purificació, everyone knows that.”
Purificació had wept. She had screamed. She had clawed and bitten her coworkers like a thing possessed, overturning half the dinner they were making and burning herself severely in the process. Purificació knew the truth, and could not bear it. There was no humanity in men. Devils, all of them, with human faces.
The other girls had wrestled her to the servants’ quarters, and forced her to drink until she passed out. Purificació refused to leave the kitchens, after that, but she had another baby anyway. It was a boy, born looking like the devil it was - a horrible, misshapen, inhuman thing. She did not know to smother it. She smashed its head in on the stairs to the servants' entrance, and the head cook made her clean up the mess after.
It had happened only once again. The son of the lord of the house. Purificació had fought, that time, and bitten off her assailant’s ear. Her rapist had pulled out his hunting knife.
Her master had given one day off work, after. Purificació did not regain sight in her left eye. Vinyet had comforted her: men will not want to look at you, now. Maybe now, you will be safe.
She had given birth again. This time, it was a girl.
