Wench
Page 13
When Tanya turned the corner, she was greeted with hollers, whistles, and whoops.
Apparently, the corpsmen had been serving themselves until her arrival. Greer and Darrow seemed to have joined an even rowdier crew for their second stab at soldiering. She couldn’t blame the duchess’s genuine housemaids for wanting nothing to do with the two dozen or so men and boys currently littering the grass with pork bones, chicken wings, ash, singed paper, peanut shells, corks, and empty jugs.
She was surrounded in a matter of seconds. Tanya moved through the throng, refilling mugs and holding out her tray for soiled napkins, at least to those who had deigned to employ them. Tanya felt herself smiling, heard herself asking, “More, sir?” saw out of the corner of her eyes whenever another supplicant tried to catch her eye, mindlessly shuffled them into a queue, and, for the first time, wondered what it was about her that made her so good at this. It wasn’t something she had ever questioned. If anything, she had prided herself on her efficiency, her adaptability, her practicality. She had never thought about how that meant she was always serving. She had never wondered what in her face made people instinctively give her their dirty dishes.
Eventually, she had placated the men and found herself standing next to Riley. He was looking at the corpsmen with as much disdain as Tanya felt. Jana had already pounded a beer and challenged a baby-faced giant to an arm-wrestling contest.
The light from the duchess’s carriage grew brighter and brighter as it traveled across the White. A black stallion came into view and it was soon apparent that it was the largest horse Tanya had ever seen—not just the tallest, but the thickest, too, its flanks bursting with muscle. When the stallion detoured away from the carriage, turning the corner into the yard, and its rider dismounted, Tanya could understand why. The man was enormous! He was easily closer to seven feet than six, with a chest like the prow of a ship.
These observations skittered across her brain and then froze, sinking to her rib cage and hanging there, suspended like ice in whiskey.
A giant of a man, riding the biggest horse in the corps, wearing the gold stripe of a corps commander. A man who had taken a bribe, the type of libertine who had been sent to distract a flighty duchess. A man, his face still in shadow, who seemed not at all displeased to find that his men had ransacked a host’s wine cellar, and in fact who was filling a cup full of liquor before his horse’s pants had even slowed.
Tanya grabbed Riley’s shoulder. “We have to go,” she whispered. “We have to go now.”
Riley raised an eyebrow. “Now? The commander just showed up. We won’t be able to get away undetected for hours!”
“We can’t risk him recognizing me or Jana.”
“Who are you talking about? I barely recognize Jana in that getup. And who would you know in this part of the world?”
“Kitchen maid!” His voice carried. Tanya froze.
The commander stepped forward, raising his voice. “I’m calling you, wench! I need a little service.”
Laughter rippled through the men. The commander took a few steps closer, moving into the lamplight—Tanya was sure it was him now.
“Wench—now.”
Rees.
Tanya swallowed and looked at Riley. “You see?” she asked quietly.
He looked at her, understanding in his face. He nodded briefly and walked away. She waited until she saw him lean into Jana’s ear before pulling her kerchief low over her brow and heading toward the commander.
She picked up various items for her tray on her way to him—a half-eaten meat pie, a flask of cider, a packet of tobacco—and kept her eyes down.
He had found himself a seat, an elegant wicker lawn chair. She offered him the tray. “Anything else I can get for you, sir?” she asked, her voice as demure as she could manage.
“I wouldn’t mind a pretty little thing to sit on my lap,” he said lazily, snaking an arm around her waist. She deftly spun out of his grasp.
Rees chortled. “Although this one’s got such a plump backside, I don’t know if I could take the weight. Oh, don’t be embarrassed, wench, no need to turn your face! Just a little joke—a real man likes a girl with curves. Here”—he twisted his hand around her apron strings and yanked—“give us a smile, and I’ll give you a silk—”
His voice cut off as he saw Tanya’s face. Her kerchief had loosened in the brief struggle.
“You,” he said wonderingly. “The wench from Griffin’s Port. I would have thought you’d run along home to the Port Cities by now. What are you doing . . . ?”
The question faded on his lips. He was looking at her chest, and not because of her personal attributes. Tanya didn’t even have to look down to know what he was looking at. By now, somehow, she could feel it.
There was a warm, golden glow emanating over her heart, articulated into the shape of a perfect feather quill.
She took advantage of his moment of surprise, pulled her apron back, and, in a moment of inspiration, reached behind her to grab an empty wine bottle and smashed it over his head. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him go down, but by then she was running.
Chapter
12
She didn’t look back, not even to see if Riley and Jana were behind her. She heard footsteps at her sides, took it on faith that it was them, and the trio ran headlong into the White, with only the light of the quill illuminating their path.
Tanya didn’t know how far they had run before she ran out of breath, only that it wasn’t far enough. She stopped and bent over her cramping stomach, wheezing.
Jana and Riley ran ahead, until they realized that they had left their only light source behind them. There was as much chalk in front of her as there was behind and she could hear men shouting and warhorses neighing behind her.
Jana leapt at Tanya and shook her. “Move, damn it,” she said sternly. “Rees is coming—I can see him. He’s saddling that monster of his and—yep, now he’s on the White. Move!”
“I can’t,” Tanya said helplessly, hiccupping with the effort of breathing and talking. “You have the tiara, just go. He’s a commander of the Queen’s Corps. He’s a thug, but he won’t hurt me.”
“He will to get that thing,” said Riley, pointing at her chest. “Anyone would.”
“Oh?” Tanya straightened up. “Go ahead, then. Take it.” She pulled out her map and thrust out her chest. “Take it!” she furiously dared him.
Jana looked at Riley, who seemed to shake his head slightly. The girl thief shrugged and took a step toward Tanya with her arm out, but the quill suddenly went dark.
It was still glittering, but the glitter was the pitchiest of pitch blacks.
“Why’d it do that?” asked Jana, sounding calmer than seemed entirely warranted to Tanya with the hoofbeats drawing nearer.
“Because it likes me, and it doesn’t like you,” she said tartly, stamping her foot a little. Her boot kicked up a cloud of chalk.
Mostly chalk here, she thought. Tanya kicked again and pulled out her map. She quickly licked the edge of the quill and scrawled, I am X—detail the ground.
All packed chalk in a ten-foot radius. No salt. No dirt.
Riley and Jana stared as Tanya bent to a crouch and laid the map on the ground. She, very carefully, began tracing a circle.
“Tanya . . .”
She didn’t answer, just waved a hand at Riley and started working on a second circle, on a different section of the map.
The horses were nearly on them, Rees out in front. Jana threw off the stolen corpsman’s cap and pulled her sword out of her belt. She changed her stance, turning to the side and bending her back leg. Riley drew a breath and pulled out his own knife.
Tanya ignored it all. Eyes squarely on her work, she drew an arrow going one way from the first circle to the second, then an arrow going the other way from the second to the first.
The arrows lit up like embers—the quill seemed to understand. But nothing happened. Tanya bit her lip. How did this thing work?
The arrows were pulsing now, the light fading and strengthening in what Tanya suddenly realized was the exact rhythm of her breathing.
She held her next breath in. The pulsing stopped. She exhaled. The pulsing resumed.
Tanya smiled. Her blood, her breath: her rules.
The horses were on them now. Rees held up a hand. “I’ll grab the tavern wench, then you deal with the rest,” he ordered, and jumped off his horse.
Jana stepped closer to Tanya, defending her flank. Riley was already behind her. Tanya put her thumb and forefinger on the arrows’ bases on the map.
The moment she turned her hand over the map, Tanya felt the glow from the arrows seep into her skin, sending prickles of heat and cold all the way up to her hair follicles and down to her toenails.
Rees pulled his own sword, sneering. “You think I don’t remember you, smithy tart,” he spat at Jana. “You don’t have any of your foul herbs now. I should have known this other one helped you steal my quill. Never trust a wench!”
“Actually,” said Tanya, “it’s the Queen’s quill.” She looked up and smiled again. “But nope. Never trust a wench.”
She waved and, with a flick of her wrist on the parchment, reversed the arrows.
There was a ferocious gust of wind, narrow but stronger than anything that came off the sea from the docks at Griffin’s Port. She felt herself, Jana, and Riley revolve on the spot as a blur of color raced past her eyes, too fast to make out any shapes.
And then the revolving stopped. The wind dissipated, and they were no longer in the White.
Well, that wasn’t quite accurate. They were standing (in Tanya’s case, crouching) on the same patch of chalk they had been. But they were back in the woods where they had started, a circle of dusty white in the verdant trees. Their horses, still tied up, blinked at them, startled and sleepy.
Tanya exhaled and slowly got to her feet.
Jana was still frozen in her battle position, sword out and ready. “What the . . . ?” she whispered, and then swore so filthily that Tanya didn’t even understand it—and she had grown up around sailors.
One of the horses whinnied and Tanya turned to see Riley already tying the pack carrying the tiara to its saddle.
“We should move,” he said, his voice shaking a little; he cleared his throat before speaking again. “I want to get back to camp before dawn.”
Jana laughed like she was gargling knives. “Why bother riding?” she asked, a note of hysteria in her voice. “Let’s just have Tanya draw us there!”
Riley silently gestured for Tanya to stand in front of him. He boosted her up into the saddle, and then vaulted up behind her.
“You didn’t seem very surprised that I could do that,” remarked Tanya. She was a little miffed at his nonreaction to the miraculous escape she had single-handedly wrought.
“I was,” he said slowly. “It was well done, Tanya.”
He was warm behind her, his heart beating fast.
She had flown. Tanya felt her blood sing through her veins, through the quill, her own heart beating as fast as Riley’s, thrumming harmonically together.
They had done this. Jana, Riley, and her.
Her and Riley.
Her breath coming rapidly, their shirts sticking together with proximity and each other’s sweat, Tanya gulped and reached behind her, her fingers finding Riley’s.
He ripped his hand away and pulled the horse up short.
“Both hands on the saddle horn, please,” he told her, his voice short. “Wouldn’t want to lose the damn quill.”
Tanya, mortified, obeyed. When Riley spurred the horse back into action, he was stiff and held himself far away from her.
They rode fast through the forest, with no more conversation. Jana rode still faster and was soon out of sight.
The message to Tanya was clear:
Riley, and Jana, too, were obligated to protect the quill. They didn’t have to like it—and, now that they knew what she could do, they didn’t like the girl who wielded it, either.
In the dark and the wind and the silence, Tanya remembered that she was alone. And she was furious that she had forgotten. There was a reason, after all, that she had kept to herself. She was much safer that way—life was more reliable alone.
Tanya missed Froud. That relationship had been uncomplicated. Froud got help and Tanya got a home. Easy.
By the time Tanya and Riley’s horse slowed to a panting stop in the clearing, there was barely a camp to speak of. Trunks were being loaded into wagons, bundles tied onto yawning horses, and all but a few of the more elaborate tents were gone, dismantled into unprepossessing piles of sticks and fabric.
Even the Tomcat was in action, pacing impatiently in front of the brushed dirt where his tent had been.
Riley jumped off the horse and met the Tomcat where he was clearly waiting for him, alerted by the faster Jana. Tanya was left to scramble off the horse’s back herself, her short legs swinging perilously around the animal’s knees as the creature, tired and unhappy at being so unceremoniously abandoned by its rider, tossed her still-hanging torso down and then off, sending her to the ground with a thump.
“Never mind,” Tanya muttered to no one. “No one panic. I don’t need any help getting up out of this mud. I’m fine alone.”
Dirtying her hands still further, she pulled herself to her feet and found herself face-to-face with the Tomcat.
He was holding a silver tiara. In spite of herself, Tanya felt her eyes go wide.
The silver was dull, but there was supernatural magnetism in the dullness—it pulled her gaze insistently, almost violently. The Tomcat stepped closer to her with it and the scent of roses filled her nostrils.
“Jana said you used the quill to fly,” said the Tomcat softly.
Tanya yanked her eyes away from the tiara. “Not exactly,” she said.
The Tomcat did something unexpected. He smiled, stretching out his hand to tousle Tanya’s hair before putting his arm around her shoulder and steering her toward the last active firepit. “Very well done, niece,” he said. “Uncle Tommy is quite proud of you.”
The smell of strong tea hit her nostrils, waking her up a little, building her confidence through sheer familiarity. “I’m glad you’re pleased, sir,” she said politely.
He sighed, his arm slipping through hers. “Enough of ‘sir,’ Tanya. Haven’t I told you to call me Uncle Tommy?”
Tanya locked eyes with Lukas, the unfortunate kitchen boy, who was managing a rudimentary cook stove. His eyes were wide as he watched them.
“Apologies,” she said quickly. “It won’t happen again, Uncle Tommy.”
“Excellent! See that it doesn’t. Now,” he said, “I’m famished. Let’s have breakfast before we begin our journey.” She moved to the cook stove, but he stopped her.
“Allow me,” he said.
He busied his hands with something, his back to her. When he turned around, he was carrying a neatly arranged little wooden tray laden with a small carafe of tea, a pot of honey, a tiny pitcher of milk, and a plate piled high with cornbread biscuits.
Tanya had to admit that she couldn’t have done better, certainly not as quickly as the crime lord had.
“Thank you,” she said. “I’m not used to being served.” She couldn’t quite keep the question mark out of her voice.
The Tomcat twisted his mouth into something that was almost, but not quite, a smile. “I imagine not.”
“I would have thought that you had as little experience serving as I had being served,” said Tanya, picking her words carefully. She wasn’t sure she liked being pampered. It meant somebody wanted something from her. The thought of what the Tomcat might want from her this morning of all mornings—the morning after plans weeks in gestation had finally been put into motion—frightened her.
“Well, you’d be wrong there,” said the Tomcat,
surprising her. “I spent my youth as a page in the Glacier, serving the Queen and Council.”
Tanya dropped her jaw. The Glacier was the Queen’s home and the seat of ultimate power in Lode. To serve there was a mark of the highest distinction for the help class. A port city tavern wench like her wouldn’t be considered refined enough, no matter how well she could cook.
The Tomcat’s silent lackey came to stand next to his chair. The crime lord sighed and stood up.
“Apologies, my dear, but we will have to cut this breakfast short,” he said, removing her tray with—yes, she saw it now—a well-trained flick of his wrist. “Your unfortunate familiarity with Commander Rees has made it necessary to rush.”
Tanya imagined she looked pale, because he quickly added, “I don’t blame you for that, my girl! I do have the tiara and, after all, it’s no great inconvenience to reach Bloodstone earlier than planned.”
Tanya collected her wits, standing and smoothing her hair. “Right,” she breathed. “Bloodstone.”
The Tomcat’s face didn’t alter from the pleasant indulgence he had had plastered on all morning. “Don’t fear, Tanya. You won’t be there long, I suspect,” he said. “I’m still considering all your options. Talents like yours shouldn’t go to waste.”
He bowed at Tanya’s frozen face and strode off with the silent man.
Jana appeared about twenty feet away, hauling a messily wrapped bundle over the back of her horse.
The girls locked eyes. Jana had ratted her out for using the quill to “fly.” Tanya’s eyes narrowed and she crossed her arms. This usually conveyed her contempt clearly, but Jana didn’t react the way Tanya would have expected.
Jana smiled.
It wasn’t a knowing smile or a canny smile or a wicked smile, or even a tense smile. It was a friendly, comradely smile, the kind she had been sending Tanya’s way since they met in the corps’ camp by the junkoff. Jana waved a little and went back to securing her measly luggage, whistling away.