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III
Grand City Debtors’ Jail
Fortunately the route from the registry office to Grand City Debtor’s Jail was not that far; somebody in their foresight had decided to build the debtor’s jail next to the Shacks. However, it still took us down Main Shacks Road, bristling and busy. People parted for the wagon. I couldn’t have told you if I saw anyone I knew; I merely closed my wet eyes, not believing that my sex was being paraded down my main street.
Eventually the wagon pulled into the courtyard of Grand City Debtor’s Jail. I at last dared to open my tear-filled eyes. I had expected to be let off immediately, but instead the guards did not seem to be rushing. There were three wagons in the yard identical to ours, and out of each one the guards were releasing prisoners one-by-one, with a gap of about ten minutes between each release. I cursed my position at the far end of the wagon.
Eventually, well over an hour and a half since I had been arrested, the door to my cage opened. My ankle was released, and then – blissful relief – my arms were released from above my head. My shoulders hurt, but there was no time for resting, for my wrists were restrained behind my back again with a tie wrap. Still naked, I was escorted from the prison wagon and into the imposing and utilitarian building of Grand City Debtor’s Jail.
It transpired that the gap between prisoners being released was because they were seeing their ‘debt supervisor’. Once I was in the building, I was sat on a seat outside the office of my supervisor.
Within a couple of minutes, I was made to stand up again. The guards escorting me knocked on the door and when a voice beckoned entry, they ushered me inside alone.
I stared in absolute shock.
He stared back in equal shock.
When I was a child, when my mother was still alive, I, like all children in Illakia, attended Sunday School. Sunday Schools were primarily concerned with teaching the values of the Illakian Cult and how to be a good citizen, rather than literacy and numeracy, but were compulsory to all children in the Empire. It was the only formal education I had received in my life.
So I attended Grand City Shacks Sunday School up until my fourteenth birthday, every Sunday in my best rags (Mother always saved the best clothes and food for me when she was alive). My best friend at Sunday School was a boy named Isaac Hartman. We both turned 14 in the same month. At that point, I was legally a woman and became saddled with the poll tax. Isaac had excelled at Sunday School and was offered an apprenticeship course with the Imperial Guard. On Shacks Beach that summer we had said goodbye, and we had kissed, my first kiss.
Isaac returned the next summer, after a year’s training with the IG. He was fitter, stronger and more intelligent, and could now read and write. My mother had just died and I was having to fend for myself as a 15-year-old. We had met up in the shack I was using at the time, my late mother’s, and the romance blossomed. We made hot sweaty clumsy adolescent love, and he took my virginity and my heart.
Isaac returned to the IG. He never returned to the Shacks again; his parents had found fortune and had moved out, and I think he was self-conscious of his beginnings. We lost touch and I never saw him again.
“Isaac?” I said, not sure whether I believed my eyes.
“Is that you Holly?” he asked back quizzically. Isaac Hartman was now a proud and fit man, sat behind a desk with the insignia of a lieutenant of the Imperial Guard. His green eyes looked up puzzled, while his chiselled jaw was open.
I was momentarily overjoyed.
“It’s great to see you, Isaac,” I exclaimed as I ran into the room. I then stopped. I remembered that while I was meeting my childhood sweetheart, I was naked and handcuffed, unable to hide my shame. I blushed. Isaac sensed my embarrassment.
“How have you managed to find yourself here, Holly,” he said sympathetically, as he stood. He picked up a box. “Put some clothes on for goodness sake; here, this is your uniform,” he said as he picked out of the box and simple yellow cotton dress. He moved behind me and cut the plastic handcuffs and gave me the uniform. I gladly put it on. The fabric was rough and uncomfortable. The hemline was extremely high on my thighs, almost revealing some ass cheek, and it was equally low cut at the breasts, with a spaghetti strap. On the left breast, the words ‘GRAND CITY DEBTOR’S JAIL’ were printed underneath the IG logo. Across the chest the word ‘DEBTOR’ was printed in large letters right across. I was merely glad to have it on.
“Isaac,” I said a bit more excitedly now, “I can’t believe it’s you.”
“I can’t believe it’s you either,” he replied. “How did you get yourself in this mess? I thought you would have made it out of the Shacks years ago.”
“It’s so hard, Isaac. The taxes keep going up but we don’t get paid more for the shitty jobs. I’ve been working flat out just to keep cloth on my back!”
“But what went wrong this month?”
So I told him my story, of the Cauldron shutting down, and of Black putting rent up, and the mad dash to pay tax.
“Black really is a bastard,” he said. “He always makes sure that rent day is the day before tax day, so he can get the first claim. And those legalistic contracts!”
“When we signed up a year ago it was only twenty lira a month. It’s trebled now!”
“How long are you locked in for?”
“Three years.”
“They’ll have you into three figures by then!”
Isaac allowed me to sit and we chatted a bit more, mostly about old times. After a while he looked at the clock and was suddenly serious.
“Listen Holly, we haven’t much time left. I think it will be easier for both of us if you don’t mention that we know each other.”
“Okay.”
“And I must tell you the details of your imprisonment; that’s why you’re here anyway.”
“Okay.”
“Do you want hard labour or menial work? Hard labour isn’t too bad and pays more so will probably get you back out in a week.”
“Sounds okay.”
“Okay; I have a space for you on the human dynamo.”
I shrugged, not knowing what that was.
“Your debt will be reduced in accordance with your productivity at work,” he continued. “Two lira a day will be added to your debt to cover clothing, food and other costs of housing you. If you have not repaid your debt in two weeks, whatever you owe will be doubled. You have no exemption from next month’s poll tax.”
I nodded my head.
“Okay, on you go, Holly. Remember; we don’t know each other.”
“Yes. Thank you Isaac.” I got up and left.
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