‘Whoring rutters!’ Brexan Carderic cursed as she examined the fresh burn across her palm. ‘How anyone can survive working in a kitchen is a gods-rutting mystery to me.’ The erstwhile Malakasian soldier shoved chunks of wood into the belly of Nedra Daubert’s old stove, then kicked the cast-iron door shut with a noisy clang. ‘Demonpiss,’ she swore, ‘that’ll bring her running.’
It was still early, before dawn, and Brexan had hoped that Nedra would sleep another half an aven at least, but her crashing about the kitchen was bound to have Nedra investigating what drunken louts had invaded the Topgallant Boarding House.
After her failed attempt to kill Jacrys, Brexan had limped back to the Topgallant, cold, wet with blood, and utterly distraught over the death of Sallax Farro. She had cried herself to sleep in her old room, that same room in which she and Sallax had interrogated the traitor Carpello Jax, the same man who had raped Sallax’s sister Brynne… until Nedra had clubbed him with a piece of this very same firewood.
Brexan had slept the sleep of the truly exhausted, out cold all that night and the whole of the following day. When she finally came to, she had remained in her bed, staring hopelessly up at the smoke-stained ceiling. She had no idea what to do next. With Sallax gone, Brexan had expected vivid visions of her dead lover Versen to return – those near-tangible memories had kept her company during her time alone in Orindale, but they had vanished when she found Sallax and they began planning their revenge on Carpello and the spy Jacrys.
Lying in bed, she had waited for Versen, attractively dishevelled and smelling of woodsmoke and wild herbs, to appear in her mind’s eye
… but he never returned. Instead, Nedra Daubert came to her. She had not needed to ask where Sallax had gone. The bloodstains on Brexan’s tunic and cloak and the clanging alarm bells were evidence enough that their foray into the Malakasian fortress had not been successful.
Nedra had sat on the edge of Brexan’s bed, stared out across the salt marsh, and said, ‘You ought to stay on here a while.’
Brexan rolled over to face the wall. She didn’t want Nedra to see her come apart. ‘They’ll be looking for me,’ she whispered.
‘You’ve been on the marsh?’ Brexan had nodded slightly and Nedra patted her on the shoulder and said, ‘You’ll slip out there when they come; no one would look for you out there.’
‘But they-’
‘We’ll know when they’re coming.’ Nedra rubbed a hand gently over Brexan’s back. ‘There’s nothing happens in this area that goes unnoticed. You’ve seen how quickly the board fills when word gets out that we’re planning a bisque aven. We’ll know when they’re coming, so don’t you worry about that.’
‘I’ll be worried about you.’
‘Nonsense,’ Nedra had said with a little laugh. ‘I’m three hundred and ninety-nine Twinmoons old, give or take a Twinmoon… I’ve been around longer than the mud in the marsh. I don’t need anyone worrying about me. Besides, I could use some help around here.’
Brexan had rolled over, wiped her eyes and said, ‘You don’t need any help.’
‘Well then, maybe I need the company.’
Brexan had felt her throat close, and she had pressed her lips together hard to keep the tears at bay. Finally, she had whispered, ‘I need it too.’ And that was sorted.
Now Brexan grabbed a potholder and lifted the lid off a bubbling pan of seafood stew – her own recipe. Sadly, it smelled like something left outside to die. Grimacing, she scattered a large pinch of dried herbs into the mixture. She sniffed again and, still not satisfied, dumped in a great spoonful of seasoning and stirred the contents hopefully. There was no noticeable improvement and Brexan wondered if perhaps she had been sold bad fish. Granted, she’d seen it pulled from the sea, but as she wrinkled her nose, she wondered if it were possible for fish to contract some sort of pernicious infection that made them stink mercilessly when cooked up with winter vegetables.
Her efforts to cast blame on anything other than her own ineptitude were interrupted by the smell of something burning. She had forgotten the pastry. Nedra’s desserts were as pleasant on the eye as they were on the palate. Brexan’s vision for her own sweetmeats had included a highly polished serving tray, a stately procession from the kitchen into the dining room, a smattering of applause as she unveiled her creation and a chorus of congratulations from patrons witnessing the advent of her career as a culinary master. Now Brexan was afraid to open the stove, from which smoke was seeping, in case the air caused what was left of her melt-in-the-mouth masterpiece to burst into flames. That would surely awaken Nedra, if not the entire neighbourhood.
Brexan sighed, then jumped as a voice behind her said, ‘Mmm! What smells so good?’
She whirled around, using her body to hide as much of the disaster area as possible. ‘You’re not supposed to be awake yet.’
‘I might have slept a little later, but with all the shattering and banging, I thought for certain we were under attack,’ Nedra said merrily.
‘I’m… cooking.’ Brexan looked at the stinky stew on the stovetop, the smoking remains of her tart in the oven and the butcher’s block, littered with flour, fish-blood and the remnants of what appeared to be an entire basket of winter vegetables. She smiled nervously and added, ‘A few things.’
‘I see,’ Nedra said dryly. ‘Do you need any help?’
No, no,’ she said as she clumsily tried to move the iron pot, burning her hand once again. ‘I’m fine, I’ve got it.’
‘Are you sure? Because from the subtle aroma creeping through the rest of the house, it smells more like a serious case of something very nasty indeed!’ Nedra grinned.
Brexan gave up. ‘I’m just no good at this! I was trying to work out a few things that I could make for your four-hundredth Twinmoon party.’
Nedra looked surprised. ‘Am I having a four-hundredth Twinmoon party?’
‘You weren’t supposed to know,’ Brexan confessed. ‘Some of the regulars are helping me plan it, but I figured I had to get some practice in, otherwise I might ruin everything, and we’d be stuck eating-’ she cast the stove a look of disgust, ‘-well, something foul.’
Nedra laughed. ‘I have an idea. For the next Twinmoon, which I might, grudgingly, admit might possibly be my four-hundredth, gods-rut-a-whore, if you collect the ingredients, I will take care of the cooking.’
‘But Nedra-’
She went on, ignoring Brexan’s protest, ‘I’ll get everything started and you can spend all day in here stirring the pot. Come the dinner aven, I will be genuinely surprised that you have cooked, that I have friends in this city, and especially, that I have lived this long. Deal?’
Brexan frowned. Given the smoke-filled room and the increasingly smelly pot, she would most likely not get a better offer in the next few days. ‘All right,’ she said, plainly dejected, ‘but I’m choosing the wine, and I’ll not hear another word on the subject.’
Nedra snorted with laughter – which helped keep her from smelling the noxious brew. ‘For now, please, draw a bucket of water and extinguish whatever it is you’ve set aflame in my oven.’
Brexan spun back to the stove, as if remembering her pastry shells for the first time that morning. ‘Rutting dogs,’ she spat, ‘I’ll be setting the whole house on fire.’
‘And Brexan, take whatever it is in that pot and dump it below the high water mark, please. I don’t want the occupation forces thinking we’re burning dead bodies.’
‘They won’t,’ Brexan giggled. ‘Burning bodies don’t smell this bad.’
Later that day a fogbank crept over the marsh. The icy cloud swallowed everything in its path as it rolled up over the Falkan shoreline and froze solid. Brexan sat outside the Topgallant, watching as the waterline disappeared into the grey haze. The whole of the northern district was wrapped in a heavy, grey blanket and no one ventured out save for the few neighbourhood strays sniffing through the streets for scraps of food. The city was nearly silent.
Brexan breathed deep, tasting the tang of salt and low tide at the back of her throat. She listened. From somewhere on the harbour, bells began to ring. The fishing boats were still out on the water, bringing in the day’s catch, and they rang bells or shouted, or whistled, each distinctive noise alerting others to their whereabouts, so the harbourmaster could pinpoint exactly where they were and what anchorage they had chosen to weather the fog.
It was the bells that Brexan found unsettling.
Searching the fogbank for any visible sign of the fishing fleet, she felt an invisible fist close over her heart. Wondering if this was what one felt in the moments before a heart seizure, she took another deep breath and tried to calm down. It’s just nerves, she thought. You need to get hold of yourself, relax.
The bells rang again, some high-pitched and clear, others clanking like cast-iron pots. Brexan shuddered, recalling Jacrys and the bell rope. He had stared at it, though he was bleeding like a stuck pig, spitting vermilion bubbles through blue lips; that horsecock had seen the bell rope and had somehow – how? – dragged himself across the room to it. She and Sallax had left him for dead, stabbed in the heart, one lung punctured – and yet still he had managed to pull that gods-be-damned bell rope, and as she had escaped from the barracks, Brexan had heard it clanging above the din, rousing an entire platoon and reminding her that Jacrys, despite being so badly wounded, was still alive.
The fog was a swirling cauldron of milky-white stew. Just one boat, for all the gods’ sake; let me see one whoring boat.
She could see nothing through the gloom.
Brexan knew the bells were some distance away. She had sat here coaxing Sallax back to sanity, morning after morning, watching the fishermen come and go, from the deep waters offshore to the harbour, headed for the southern wharf, if they were heavy vessels with big hauls, or to the northern wharf if they were smaller boats hoping to offload their catches to the locals. Today they seemed closer, just off the marsh where she had discovered the cleanly picked remains of Brynne Farro. They rang out more clearly in the fog; they had to, of course. They were never normally this loud, this intrusive, never usually so reminiscent of so many painful things.
It’s fishermen, Brexan told herself, just fishermen. Jacrys is dead. He couldn’t possibly have survived. Let it all go now. Plan the party; get refocused. It’s all right for you to let it go. Nedra’s party; what a time everyone will have. Forgive yourself and move on.
She was lost. Forsaking Malakasia and her commitment – her oath – to the army had been a decision made in a moment of anger. Jacrys was a cold-blooded murderer; he had killed those people in Estrad and he had murdered Lieutenant Bronfio outside Riverend Palace, and for those acts, he needed to be brought to justice. But she had deserted. She had stripped off her uniform and left her platoon without permission. She had fallen in love with the enemy, a partisan, and taken up arms against Malakasia – she had erased nearly two hundred Twinmoons of her life. She had no home to go back to now, no proud parents to boast of her army career. She had no skills, save perhaps for espionage; she couldn’t even make a decent stew. What did she have to show for two hundred Twinmoons of life? Nedra Daubert and the Topgallant Boarding House. Versen’s memory – sometimes, not when she truly needed him. The Eastern Resistance? Try as she might, Brexan was embarrassed to admit that she still couldn’t find them, no matter how hard she looked. She laughed, if only to keep from crying.
Out on the harbour, voices exchanged their melodic foreign cries and bells rang out, alerting any captain brave enough or idiotic enough to attempt navigation under such conditions.
Brexan buried her face in her hands.
Jacrys was alive.
You need to be the one to kill him.
She wiped her eyes on her sleeve, pulled her cloak tight around herself and went back inside.
On the harbour, the bells continued ringing.
Inside, Nedra was pouring out tecan. ‘Drink,’ she said. ‘You’ll get sick sitting out there, and I’ll be left to plan my own old-lady party.’
‘You’re not an old lady, Nedra.’ Brexan blew across the top of the goblet and sipped.
‘Then why are we celebrating my getting older? I don’t need a party.’
Brexan started crying again. ‘I guess I do,’ she murmured through her tears.
Nedra wrapped an arm around her shoulders. ‘Then we’ll organise a great, drunken, sloppy Twinmoon fest for an old woman as she clings to life by a greying hair.’
‘A grey hair,’ Brexan corrected, a sob turning into a hiccough. ‘There’s no greying about them. I want to have music.’
‘Yes, of course, bring in the occupation army band; those old imperial songs always help me move my bowels – and at my age, a good bowel movement can mean the difference between a fine day and a rutting waste of sunshine.’
Brexan couldn’t help but laugh through her tears. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do.’
‘You don’t need to know, Brexan. You’ll learn, hopefully earlier than I ever did, that if you go a few Twinmoons without a compass, eh, it’s no great loss. I’m telling you that my worst days, my toughest struggles were invariably what led to the next wonderful turn in my life. But you can’t force anything. So you’re not a spy, or a killer. Who cares? I certainly don’t. I like you better knowing you’re not a killer. I sleep better at night.’
‘But what Jacrys did was-’
‘Jacrys will pay for his actions one day, and maybe you’ll be there to see it happen and maybe you won’t.’
‘I would like-’
‘And maybe you won’t,’ Nedra repeated. ‘I would like that even more. Don’t allow a wicked man to dictate who you become. Pursuing him across Eldarn is not a healthy undertaking for anyone, not even for the best of reasons.’
‘But I have to tell them what I know. I have to tell someone about Carpello and his shipments.’
Nedra sighed deeply. ‘That’s true; you do.’
‘But I don’t know where to find the Falkan Resistance; it’s as if anyone who knows anything about them has been sworn to secrecy, or has no idea where they’ve gone. I can’t even find a pocket of disgruntled old men.’
‘Tell me about it,’ Nedra said. ‘Finding a pocket of old men in this city, disgruntled or not, has been my goal for quite a while.’
Brexan laughed. ‘You old slut.’
‘Ageing slut, my dear. I’m an ageing slut; I’m not old yet.’ Nedra finished her tecan. ‘You’ll find them. There’s a wonderful vein of gossip running right along our street, as reliable as the tides. Some of it is nonsense, pure grettan shit, but you’ll hear something, catch a word here or a gesture there, and you’ll reconnect with your friends; I’m sure of it. But you can’t make it happen.’
‘You sound like-’
‘Like your mother? Good. I think I would like your mother.’ Nedra started towards the stairs. ‘There’s tecan on the stove. Try not to set it on fire. I’m going to rest for an aven or two while you plan my surprise party.’
Hannah watched through the window of the Wayfarer Inn as the young Ronan pissed in the street. He was a South Coaster (she thought there must be something pejorative about that term), and couldn’t have been more than four years old – twenty-eight Twinmoons, younger than Milla – but there he was, leggings down, tunic pulled up over his stomach, leaning back dramatically as he splashed the cobblestones. A pair of elderly Malakasian women hurried past, silver-haired clones, cloaks flapping, carrying canvas bags of vegetables, flour and smoked meat. They scurried behind the boy, all but snarling their disgust, but he didn’t care. He finished relieving himself with a flourish, adjusted his clothing and watched them move away.
Hannah poked her head out the front room door. ‘Hey, cheeky, you ought to do that inside; you’re going to catch pneumonia.’ She deliberately used English, and loudly enough to be heard by the frowning women. Don’t like foreigners, girls? Well, I’ll show you foreign.
The boy, confused, took off down the road, disappearing into the crowded marketplace.
Hannah smirked. Lingering a moment with the door open, she watched her breath cloud in the wintry air. It was a perfect day in Pellia, with cobalt-blue skies and a breeze from the north, cold but fresh. The sun didn’t hang around long during this Twinmoon, but there was something about the northern air that made sunny days brilliant. From their new base – Alen insisted they change inns periodically – she could see right into the waterfront market, a bustling hive of stores and wooden carts used as stalls. The market was convenient for supplies and, even better, for information.
Hannah hoped they might stay on at this inn for a while. The rooms were comfortable, the food good and plentiful, and the proximity to the sea a refreshing change from the forests, swamps and fields they had called home for the past two Twinmoons. She silently promised to get Hoyt out today; some fresh air would do him good.
‘You shouldn’t hold the door open like that,’ a curt voice interrupted Hannah’s thoughts.
‘Oh, right, sorry,’ she said, allowing it to close softly behind her. ‘Sorry.’ She turned to see a teenage girl in an apron carrying a tray loaded with dirty trenchers and goblets. The girl was rail-thin; her dirty-blonde hair was tied in a ponytail and tucked inside her tunic.
‘It’s just that you were letting in a draught,’ the girl explained. ‘My father complains all the time about how hard it is to keep this place warm. I thought-’
‘No, no,’ Hannah interrupted, holding up her hands in surrender. ‘You’re right; my mother says exactly the same thing back home.’
The girl adjusted her tray, holding it now with two hands. ‘I’m Erynn. My father calls me Rinny.’ She scowled.
Hannah smiled. ‘It’s nice to meet you, Erynn – but shouldn’t you be in school today?’
‘Yes, but I’ve got to work. My mother had to go to Treven – my grandda’s sick; he’s old. I’m only ninety-three Twinmoons, seven more to go before I’m done with school, but I think my father’s going to pay to send me back for another fifteen Twinmoons. But what’s the point? I mean, I’m just going to end up working here, right? What do I need all that schooling for, anyway?’ She glanced disdainfully at the dirty trenchers.
‘Erynn, you should go to school for as long as they’ll let you stay. If your father’s prepared to pay for you to stay on, then do, for as long as possible,’ Hannah said emphatically.
‘But why would I? All my friends-’
Hannah interrupted again, saying, ‘Trust me, Erynn, this is absolutely the right thing to do.’
Erynn had dull hazel eyes, and bags were forming beneath them; Twinmoons working in the smoky front room had not been kind. She tilted her head to one side, considering Hannah. ‘You’re not from Pellia, are you?’
‘No,’ Hannah said. ‘And, sorry, I’m rude. My name is Hannah Sorenson. I’m from Praga.’
‘What’s that language you speak?’
Hannah hesitated. ‘Oh, that’s… well, that’s a dialect from- Well, from Southwest Praga, pretty far from here.’
‘I’d like to go there,’ Erynn said dreamily, ‘and to Rona, too, someplace warm – but I have to finish school first.’
‘That’s the really smart thing to do,’ Hannah repeated. ‘We’ve been travelling a long time to get here.’
‘I know,’ Erynn smiled, shifting the tray again, obviously wanting to stay and chat with the woman. She was attractive, even though she was old. ‘I heard you talking with that man over there. I didn’t mean to listen in; my father gets angry, but sometimes you can’t help overhearing things.’ She nodded to where Hoyt and Alen were sitting together, watching Milla finishing her meal. She whispered, ‘He’s cute; don’t you think so?’
Hannah laughed. Erynn had to be talking about Hoyt. ‘Uh, I hadn’t really thought about it, but yes, I suppose he is cute.’
‘How old is he? You two haven’t stood the tides together, have you? Uh, I mean, he’s not-’
‘No, he’s not,’ Hannah assured. Calculating quickly, she figured Erynn was about thirteen. She wasn’t surprised that Hoyt’s wiry frame and ruddy, unkempt good looks had captured the girl’s attention.
‘I want to stand the tides with someone someday. And I’ll wear a shorter dress. I’ve seen some of the women when they stand the tides and their dresses are all wet for the rest of the day. Lots of couples stand the tides over on the little beach across the inlet; we see them sometimes. The women wear long dresses, and the bottom bits get all soaked. I’m not going to do it that way.’
Hannah guessed standing the tides was the Eldarni equivalent of marriage. She wasn’t surprised that a thirteen-year-old was preoccupied with the details; she recalled, with some embarrassment, paging through bridal magazines when she was that age – after all, it was never too early to find the perfect dress.
‘I need to get back to work,’ Erynn said, struggling with the tray. She blushed. ‘You won’t say anything to him, will you?’
‘Of course not,’ Hannah promised. ‘I was thirteen once, too.’
‘Thirteen?’ The girl sounded aghast. ‘I’m ninety-three last Twin-moon!’
‘Right, sorry, ninety-three,’ Hannah said. ‘Don’t worry, Erynn, I won’t say a word.’
‘It has to be that bark,’ Hoyt said, scooping up a fingerful of potato.
‘Mine,’ Milla said, wrapping a protective arm around her trencher.
‘Then try to get more in your mouth, and less on your face, your tunic and, great lords, in your hair!’ Hoyt chided her with a laugh.
Milla giggled. ‘Like p’tatoes.’
‘I can see that, Pepperweed.’ Hoyt brushed the girl’s hair away from her face. He turned to Alen and asked, ‘What else, in your experience, could turn an ordinary soldier, or even one of those Seron things, into whatever that was we saw outside Welstar Palace? Can you think of anything? Alen, those were monsters! Blind, horrible creatures, able to ignore obvious pain – they were diseased, they had open sores, pox, fever – rutters, I saw evidence of four or five serious pandemics eating away at that group. Normal solders don’t just stand around and fester like that, no matter how disciplined. It has to be the bark.’
Alen looked around the front room. The young girl who had been serving them was talking with Hannah. ‘I think you’re right, Hoyt. Why else would Nerak need so much of it? But given the dreams or visions that we experienced, I don’t know how he’s controlling them. With you the bark responded a bit differently, didn’t it… you were able to take orders, and you appeared to hear what we were asking you to do.’
Hoyt remembered waking from his dream of Ramella, the sexy thief from Landry and finding that he had stacked several days’ worth of firewood. ‘That’s right, but with the rest of you, in the forest of ghosts, you were inconsolable, certainly uncontrollable. It was all I could do to get you moving. The army outside Welstar Palace is different; they’re staring into space, waiting. They don’t appear to be hungry or thirsty. Gods, I’d wager some of them die right there on their feet.’
‘And the others eat the cadavers,’ Alen interjected, watching Milla devour a mountain of potatoes covered in gravy. ‘There must be more to it,’ he said finally. ‘The spell must harness the raw power of that bark, or…’ He drifted off.
‘Or what?’
‘Or he’s mixing it with something else. Either way, I think you’re right. He’s harvesting so much of the bark and leaves that it must be for that army.’
‘We can’t just sit here knowing this. We have to do something,’ Hoyt said.
‘What we have to do is to take Milla home,’ Alen countered.
‘Hurray!’ Milla shouted, a bit of potato falling from her lips. ‘On a boat?’
‘On a big boat, Pepperweed.’ Hoyt smiled and wiped her face with a cloth, then checked over his shoulder to make sure they were still alone. He whispered, ‘Think about it, Alen. We haven’t heard anything from Gilmour in how long? Almost a Moon? He was on his way to the Blackstones to find the spell table – well, where is he? What if he failed and Nerak killed him and everyone with him? He told you himself that Nerak was in the Eastlands.’ He didn’t want to upset Hannah with talk of Steven’s death, but that possibility remained very real. Perhaps surprisingly, there had been no awkwardness between them since their morning together, but Hoyt worried she would misunderstand or get angry if she heard him talking about Steven being lost.
Alen said, ‘I should try to contact him again, but if Fantus is dead, I will have to return to Falkan.’
‘Why? We’re here. Think of what we can do here.’
‘And think of what we cannot do,’ Alen said. ‘The city is overrun with Palace Guardsmen, all of them looking to retrieve our little friend, and you saw that army. What are we going to do? Shoot arrows at them? Call them nasty names? No, if Gilmour is dead, we’ll have to find the spell table and Lessek’s key. It’s the only way. Gods, but I wish Pikan was here; she knew how to operate that thing.’
Hoyt smiled. ‘You’ve come a long way from the man who wanted to march into Welstar Palace and commit suicide.’
Alen elbowed Milla playfully in the ribs. ‘Well, I’ve been entrusted with something important. I’ve waited a long time for this charge; now the least I can do is see it through.’
‘I’ll offer you a deal, my friend.’ Hoyt leaned back in his chair. ‘You attempt to contact Gilmour, and I will find us passage to Orindale. The Twinmoon is coming and everything that floats will be making a run for the Northeast Channel. If he has the spell table, we’ll take young Milla home, or to Sandcliff, or wherever it is you plan to take her, and I will come along quietly. If he doesn’t have the spell table, we’ll stay here and pick off a few of the Guard, or maybe disrupt the shipping industry a bit. Churn and I were top-notch at disrupting the shipping industry. I got good marks in school for disrupting things.’
‘You still don’t understand, Hoyt,’ Alen said, ‘without the spell table, we’re lost, and with the spell table, there’s no need for us to be here.’
‘But you said yourself, the Palace Home Guard have come into the city and the prince’s army is stationed up there along the river. Why would we be anyplace else?’ Hoyt argued.
‘With the spell table, we can bring a firestorm down on them. Rutters, Hoyt, with the spell table, we could tear open the foundation of the hillside and drop the lot of them into an abyss.’
Hoyt nodded. ‘All right, then. Sign me up for that.’
Hannah rejoined them, sliding into her chair. ‘Holy shit, boysUm, sorry Milla, that’s not a nice word, I shouldn’t use such words. But have you two been sleeping?’
‘What?’ Alen raised an eyebrow.
‘Look at her; she’s a mess.’ She picked bits of potato from Milla’s hair and head. Hannah couldn’t imagine how she managed to get potato behind her ear.
‘Pepperweed?’ Hoyt shrugged and tweaked the girl’s nose. ‘It’s just a bit of potato.’
‘Love p’tatoes!’ Milla shrieked.
‘See? She loves potatoes.’
Erynn appeared with an empty tray, cleared the trenchers and wiped down the table. ‘Can I get you anything else?’ she asked, trying not to stare at Hoyt.
‘Yes, thank you, Erynn,’ Hannah said. ‘This one needs a bath.’
‘It’s three Mareks,’ she said. ‘There’s a big tub at the back of the scullery. You can pull the curtain across. I’ll let my father know he needs to heat the water for you.’
‘Three Mareks?’ Hoyt was incredulous. ‘For three Mareks, I’m getting in, too.’
‘Age before beauty,’ Alen said, ‘and I want the warm water.’
‘Not fair,’ Hoyt said, ‘you could heat it your-’ He cut himself off, suddenly aware that Erynn was still at the table. Hoyt didn’t notice that the girl was blushing too furiously to make sense of anything she might have overheard. He smiled at her and said, ‘Thanks. Please do ask your father to fill the tub for us. We’ll be down shortly.’
Almost ready to expire from embarrassment, Erynn croaked a weak, ‘Yes, sir,’ and hurried back to the kitchen.
The Wayfarer’s scullery didn’t have a stone foundation like the rest of the building; it had been added onto the back of the kitchen, a long rectangular room with a sloped ceiling. The flagstone floor was littered with stacks of firewood, rusty serving trays and stewpots, even a rickety wheelbarrow laden with old tools. There were several massive tubs, two of which were affixed to the wall on either side of the kitchen door. One, Hannah guessed, would be filled with hot soapy water – a hole had been cut in the kitchen wall big enough to accommodate buckets. The second tub was for clean water, after every trencher, bowl and goblet had at least a token dunking before returning to general circulation. A third tub, easily as large as the other two combined, rested against the back wall, doubling as laundry and bath; one hot bucketful for every two cold buckets, and the water would stay warm long enough for dirty travellers to dive in, scrub briefly, and then dash, shivering and swaddled in blankets, to the fireplace in the front room.
Two empty braziers meant the scullery was clear of smoke, but freezing cold. The tub, filled for three Mareks by the innkeeper, steamed like a volcanic fissure.
‘Holy gods, but it’s cold in here,’ Hannah said, shivering as she helped Milla out of her tunic. ‘Come on, sweetie, we’ll be really fast.’
‘But I want to swim,’ Milla said, ignoring the cold and climbing over the side of the washtub. ‘Oooh,’ she said, crouching low in the water, ‘it’s warm.’
‘Grand,’ Hannah said, ‘but when you come out, you’re going to freeze solid. So let’s get you clean and out of here.’
Milla sighed impatiently and glanced at the twin braziers. In an instant, both burst into cheery, crackling flame.
‘Yikes!’ Hannah said, smiling. ‘That’s a good one.’
‘Uh huh,’ Milla dunked her head beneath the water, ‘but wait until you see me swim.’ She backed to one side of the trough, curled like a spring and then kicked hard for the other side, paddling her hands and kicking her feet all the way. The entire journey took less than two seconds, but for Milla, the washtub was a snake-infested jungle pool and the journey took hours. “Did you see that, Hannah?’ she cried excitedly, ‘did you see me swim?’
‘I did, sweetie.’ Hannah was trying to wash whatever parts of the little girl would stay still for more than a moment at a time. ‘What do you call that?’
‘Mama calls it the scramble; she taught me before I went to live with Rabeth and Prince Nerak.’ Milla kicked off the wall again, splashing water over the side of the tub.
‘Whoa, easy there!’ Hannah laughed. ‘You know, my mom taught me that one too, but we call it the doggie paddle. And it works better if you cup your hands.’
‘Like this?’ Milla held up one hand, fingers splayed.
‘No, sweetie, like this.’ Hannah demonstrated. ‘You see how I can pull the water along? That makes you go faster, with less effort.’
‘I’m already fast.’
‘And I’m cold, so we need to hustle a bit if we-’ Hannah took advantage of Milla’s momentary stillness to scrub her face and neck.
‘I’ll fix it,’ Milla said and gestured again at the braziers. The flames in both leaped a bit higher, growing more intense. ‘That should make it warmer.’
Bemused, Hannah shook her head. ‘Where did you learn that?’
‘Rabeth thinks he taught me, but I could just do it for ever. I used to make fires for Mama all the time.’ Milla returned to her laps. ‘Watch this.’
‘That’s better!’ Hannah said. ‘Good, just like I showed you, the scramble.’
‘I like doggie paddle better.’ Milla kicked her way across the washtub. ‘I like dogs.’
Thinking back on how surprised she was to discover that Branag’s poor wolfhound had tracked her – on Milla’s orders – all the way from Southport, Hannah sighed. ‘I remember, sweetie.’
Later, all clean and dry, her bare feet dancing on the scullery flagstones, Milla shivered. ‘It’s cold now.’
‘Let’s get you out to the front room and you can get warm by the fire while I get your dry clothes.’
‘Should I heat the water for Hoyt?’ Milla asked. ‘He’s been sad since Churn fell. Maybe the bath will be fun for him, too.’
Hannah swallowed hard. ‘I’m sure he’d like that.’
Staring down at the washtub, Milla pressed her lips together and knitted her brow. She looked like a child who was angry with her doll and was about to give it a thorough scolding.
Hannah watched in mute amazement as the water started bubbling, then cried, ‘Oh, Milla, sweetie, stop now – you don’t want to cook him, do you?’ She hugged the enchanting little magician close.
‘Do you think it’s too hot?’
‘Nah,’ Hannah laughed. ‘Hoyt will figure it out.’
‘Someone call my name?’ Hoyt appeared through the kitchen door; like Milla, he started dancing as soon as his bare feet hit the flagstones. ‘Yeow! It’s cold in here. At least you lit the braziers – thanks for that.’
‘Don’t mention it,’ Hannah said, collecting Milla and her blankets. ‘Enjoy your bath.’
The two women were barely through the kitchen doorway, smiling conspiratorially, when they heard Hoyt cry, ‘Gods of the Northern Forest, that’s hot!’ And then a moment later, ‘Hannah!’
That night, Hannah lay in bed, waiting for Hoyt. A candle burned by the bedside; she watched its shadow flicker and dance on the ceiling.
Alen had found the Wayfarer and paid for two rooms, one for him and Milla and one for Hoyt and Hannah. They hadn’t told Alen about their lovemaking; neither wanted it to be a source of discomfort between them, nor did they feel the cathartic encounter merited mentioning to the Larion Senator. Yet Hannah was beginning to worry. When alone, Hoyt avoided making eye contact with her, and their conversations had grown strained. Hannah wanted to say something, to clear the air. It might be weeks before they reached Orindale, weeks before she was reunited with Steven, and she didn’t want to spend her last few weeks in Eldarn enduring awkward moments of strained silence with Hoyt, someone she thought of as a true friend.
Hannah waited, trying out different icebreakers in her mind, but when Hoyt finally joined her, she was so surprised to find the young thief dressed, still in his boots, and carrying a small canvas pack that she forgot all her prepared speeches and blurted, ‘Well, I know things have been a bit awkward between us, but a pack? You aren’t moving out on me, are you?’
Hoyt grinned. ‘Awkward? Between us? Since when?’ He set the pack on the edge of the bed. ‘You mean since you fell off that cliff, and I had to put your busted head back together?’
‘No,’ Hannah giggled, then, embarrassed, pulled her blankets up to hide her face. ‘And it wasn’t my head; it was my shoulder.’
‘Oh, yes, right. Well, then, you must mean it’s been awkward since I taught you that song about the sailor’s wife with the wooden leg, and you sang it until that barman told you to be quiet.’
Hannah pointed at him defiantly, but, still grinning, said, ‘Hey, I taught you that song, cousin. And as for that night, well, I blame Malakasian beer. Good lord, but what do they put in that stuff? Seaweed?’
‘Then you must mean that things have been awkward since you made me keep my head beneath the blankets in that pine grove so you could pee beside the fire, because it was too cold to go and look for someplace private?’
Hannah buried her face in the pillows and howled. ‘All right! All right! I give up. Sanctuary! Sanctuary!’
Hoyt kneeled beside her bed and, suddenly serious, said, ‘Are we all right?’
‘All right? Hoyt, I’d be dead six or seven times over without you. I’d be dead and mad and raving like a lunatic on bad fennaroot.’
‘So, you’re not angry about… well, that morning?’
Hannah took his face in her hands. ‘No, Hoyt. I’m not angry, and I’m not sorry, and if I ever find Steven again, I’ll find some way to
… oh, fuck it, to let it go, Hoyt. Look where we are. I have no regrets.’
‘Neither do I.’
‘Good,’ Hannah laughed again, then stopped herself short. ‘But where are you going?’
‘Alen says we’re short of silver. I’m going out for some. I’ll be back before dawn.’
‘Do you think that’s smart? I mean- Well, that could be dangerous. We have enough, surely – we can cut back on our expenses. Is it really that much to make the trip to Orindale?’ She sat up in bed and lectured him like a concerned spouse.
‘Hannah, Hannah, Hannah,’ Hoyt said, his face reddening again. ‘Please, Hannah, one sympathy jump for a depressed friend does not make you my keeper.’ He tried to keep a straight face, but cracked a smile when Hannah’s mouth fell open.
‘Why, you miserable-’ The rest of Hannah’s rebuke was lost as she shouted obscenities into her pillow.
‘Nice talk,’ Hoyt said, ‘do you kiss your mother with that foul mouth?’ Laughing, he started towards the door. ‘I’ll be back.’
Hannah collected herself long enough to say, ‘If you insist on going to work tonight, remember the jewellery rule.’
Hoyt grimaced. ‘I shudder to ask.’
Holding one bare arm above the blankets, Hannah said, ‘If I can lift my wrist, it is not large enough.’
‘It?’
‘My diamonds.’
‘Diamonds?’
‘Well, whatever passes for precious stones here in Eldarn. God, you do have precious stones, don’t you?’
‘All right.’ Hoyt smiled, opening the hallway door. ‘If you can lift your wrist, it isn’t large enough. Got it.’
‘Be careful,’ Hannah said.
‘Always. See you in the morning.’