by Sandra Elsa
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Pink swept and dusted Johann’s house daily and cooked supper every night. It amazed her how little dirt there was to clean. Even when she knew she’d just tracked mud in from the gardens, the house seemed to polish itself.
She tended the herb gardens fervently, cutting and drying those that had survived the early frosts, working hard to prove her value to her benefactor. By the end of her third week, all the herbs were gathered or dead. Johann made a couple of trips to the village during these first weeks but he never stayed long.
Pink found other work to do. She was so determined to be useful, she blistered her hands splitting and stacking wood for the winter, though there were plentiful stacks already, placed there over the summer by Jolyn’s fiancé.
When the herbs were all packaged and bundled, Johann asked her to take them to the market to trade for supplies. She couldn’t come up with any reasonable sounding arguments to not go into the village. Most of her bruises and scrapes were completely healed. Only the rips in her forearm from the jaws of the hound were still tender. Johann had dug some of his wife’s clothing out of storage so the excuse of nothing to wear was gone. She offered to show him what herbs were what, and how valuable they were, but he was insistent that she would go.
Pink packed some of the herbs in a basket and with a trembling hand, picked it up to walk out the door.
Johann stopped her. Lips in a tight line, eyes narrow and considering, he stared at her. “You’d rather go to the village than admit to me what you’re running from.”
She backed away from him, eyes wide, unable to say anything. He had never asked, or even indicated he was curious as to where she had appeared from.
“Stay there,” he ordered.
Pink was torn between fleeing and obeying. She opted to do as he said. If he knew what she was, he could have betrayed her at any time before now.
He went into the room he slept in, and returned with a bulky winter coat and a brown and gold headscarf. “Put these on. You won’t be as noticeable. A girl your age shouldn‘t spend all her days with a tired old man.”
She put the outer clothes on and picked up the basket, turning toward the door. He stopped her yet again as she was about to step over the threshold. “I’ve told them your name is Velune.”
Nodding her acceptance of the new name, she carried the herbs up to the market. The villagers eyed her curiously but nobody questioned her. Some muttered behind her back about the magicker’s apprentice. She wondered if they had come up with that on their own, or if Johann started the rumor. The most important thing she garnered from the gossips was that their suppositions told her they had not figured out where she came from. When she returned to Johann, she had a ham, some fresh bread, potatoes, and a lighter mind
Johann had told the young woman who had cleaned and cooked for him that she did not need to come out anymore. When Pink showed up, at the butcher’s market stall where Jolyn worked for her father, using Johann’s herbs as payment, Jolyn tried to strike up a conversation.
Pink answered as shortly as she could while still being tolerably polite, fear kept her from lingering.
Each week Jolyn tried to draw Pink out of her shell and by the fourth trip to market, Pink dared to stay and talk to her for a short while, conscious at all times when anybody cast a glance her way. Jolyn attempted to get the answers the villagers desired. It was a matter of extreme curiosity to them that a young woman had showed up at the old man’s house. Not all of the rumors were as benign as the one that claimed she was his apprentice. Some said she was his mistress, some claimed she was a distant relative; some even had her as Johann’s grandson’s fiancée awaiting his return from Relante.
To every attempt to dig for information Pink curtly replied with some form of, “It’s my life, if I wished it to be public I'd tell everyone.”
Jolyn grinned, “It’s only human nature to be curious. I know Johann well enough that I don’t believe for a minute you’re his mistress. But he keeps his distance from most folks, especially since Mari died and Trace left.”
The gaze burned as Jolyn scrutinized Pink’s reaction to Trace’s name, with a sigh Pink said, “You don’t have to stare so hard. I’ve never even met Trace, I’m not going to swoon with anxiety because you said his name.”
Jolyn crossed her arms and tapped her toes. “You’re not going to help me out at all here are you? I guess I‘ll just have to tell people you're his apprentice.”
The corner of Pink’s lip twitched. “You tell them whatever you wish. You know Johann is very private; my relationship with him is nobody’s business but ours. Could I please get that roast I needed?”
Jolyn glanced at her father who was leaning against the baker’s canvas, three market stalls away. He caught her looking and came back. Jolyn met him at the back entrance and told him she needed a roast. Gordun searched through his stock. When he also failed, he shook his head promising to hold one the following week. When he left again, Jolyn turned back to Pink. “How about some sausage then.”
“What kind have you got?”
Jolyn pointed to the various sausages and when she pointed out a spiced beef sausage, Pink uttered a cry of delight. “I haven’t had that in months.”
Jolyn gave her another appraising stare and then smiled. “You’d be from Swadan then?”
“I’ve lived in Ronan half my life,” Pink admitted. It was technically true but the people of Temn claimed neither Ronan nor Swadan as their home country. They bought items on both sides of the mountains. Supplied food and lodging to all those who wandered through and paid taxes to no one. A fact that was occasionally contested by one king or the other, but they were a long way from either kingdom and did much toward keeping the mountain road clear and safe. Since it was easily demonstrated that there was no need for the roads to remain safe, the idea of taxes was usually dropped, almost before it was brought up.
Jolyn wrapped the sausage and handed it to Pink accepting a packet of coriander, and another of sage that her father would grind into the next batch of sausage, as payment. A tall blond man approached the stall and Jolyn beamed at him. “Velune, have you met Willem yet?”
It was the first time anybody had called her by the name Johann had given to her and she almost failed to respond. With a start she said, “No. No I haven’t. Though if I remember correctly that would be the name Johann gave me as your fiancé.”
The newcomer smiled and wrapped an arm around Jolyn’s waist, kissing her lightly on the lips. He turned to Pink and said, “That would be me. And that makes me the luckiest man alive.” He turned to Jolyn and said, “I’m off with Samlin to look for some lost cattle. I won’t be late.”
“You be careful, the wolves are getting hungry with winter on us. Don’t be staying out there after dark looking for senseless creatures.” She pulled him down and kissed him back, glancing around in time to catch her father’s scowl.
Pink watched this interchange wordlessly and after Willem moved off she said, “Your father doesn’t seem to like Willem.”
Jolyn scowled back at her father then turned to Pink with a grin. “Why do you think I'm still unmarried at twenty-two years old? He wouldn’t be happy unless I was marrying Lorun, the crown prince, but since the prince is already married and has a daughter I guess I’ll have to settle for Willem.”
There was no ‘settling’ in her tone or in the longing gaze she cast at Willem’s disappearing back. If the crown prince had asked her to be his wife, Jolyn would have turned him down in favor of Willem. Jealousy twisted Pink’s gut as she recalled her promise to her father and thought to herself, someday.
Jolyn looked at her and then turned to the soapmaker’s stall down close to the end of the row. “Since you claim you’re not engaged to Trace, I could introduce you to a couple of the young men around here, Harlin for one.”
Pink had already noticed the soapmaker’s son on an earlier visit, medium height with wide muscular shoulders, high cheekbones, an aquiline nose, s
trong chin, blue eyes and raven hair. He was good looking but he held no interest for Pink, nonetheless her copper skin reddened at Jolyn’s suggestion. She shook her head, collected her sausage and left, absolutely certain that within the hour everyone in the village would know everything that had just been said.
The first, soft white flakes of snow drifted to the ground a month and a half after Pink stopped running. The ground had remained frozen for weeks barely thawing at all in the noonday sun. The snow accumulated rather than melting away, and by the end of the second month, Johann and Pink spent many days barricaded into the cottage.
Johann was a never-ending source of tales, he kept her entertained throughout the long winter days. He had traveled a lot, and told tales from many places she’d never even heard of in the Four Lands. Sometimes he even told fanciful tales of elves and unicorns. He always prefaced these tales with, ‘Once upon a time’, so she knew it was not one he expected her to believe. She never volunteered to be the storyteller and he seemed content to simply have a listener.
After two weeks of being snowed in, Pink made it out to the market and occasionally she still heard whispers behind her back as folk gossiped about her living with the magicker. She had never seen proof that Johann was a magicker, and she knew for certain she was not his apprentice. Pink ignored the gossips and went about her business, only too glad to retreat to the security of the small white cottage, in the valley.
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Standing in the market in Aldan one early spring afternoon, haggling with Jolyn’s father over the cost of a chicken, a familiar voice sent a shiver down Pink’s spine.
Chapter 4