Wench

by Maxine Kaplan

  Tanya located two mugs of brown pottery on the bottom shelf of the sideboard and snagged the coffeepot with one hand as she rose.

  After she had poured two cups, she looked around for an icebox; there wasn’t one—at least not one in the main room.

  In no mood to have her coffee in any way other than her preferred way, she left the mugs steaming on woven trivets on the bar and walked into the kitchen of the Witch.

  She felt an unexpected surge of temptation.

  The Witch had a kitchen four times the size of the Smiling Snake’s. The entire right-hand wall gleamed with silver-and-black stove-ranges, neatly fitted to immaculate ovens.

  A long worktable of blond wood extended down the center of the room. Tanya lightly ran her fingers over the surface; it was even and rough all at once. It was end grain wood—the best possible cutting surface for preserving the quality of good knives. Tanya had only one small end grain cutting board hanging over the sink in the Snake’s kitchen.

  A curling wisp of condensation drew Tanya’s eyes to a door, constructed from some dull metal. It opened to reveal an icy room with venison, suckling pig, wild boar, pheasant, duck—every exotic meat Tanya had ever wanted at the Snake—hanging from the ceiling; all the fish Tanya could recognize, as well as some she couldn’t, and buckets stacked taller than she was of strange creatures enclosed in iridescent shells of pink and purple and gold; enormous yellow squashes, bushels of purple broccoli, and tomatoes in shapes and colors she would have thought impossible—all neatly categorized in their own wooden crates; and all the way in the back, a wall of cheeses, blocks, spheres, and cylinders, clearly labeled and aging into perfection.

  This, then, was what Madame Moreagan was offering her. She could have management over this domain.

  In a daze, Tanya walked to the dairy section and selected a chilly jug of fresh cream, still frothing at the top.

  Riley eyed her with alarm as she crossed the room.

  “Who said you could go into the kitchen?” he asked as she set the tray in front of him, absentmindedly arranging it so the handle of his mug faced him.

  Tanya sat down. “Tavern wenches can go into any kitchen,” she said tartly. “We have magical powers that allow us to push open doors and walk through them.”

  “All right, sourpuss.” He grinned, reaching for the mug. “I was just asking.”

  Tanya studied the boy in front of her. His clothes were creased, his hair was rumpled, and he stank of a barnyard.

  “You’re filthy, Riley,” she said, fighting the urge to lick her thumb and wipe away a brown streak from his forehead. “What have you been doing with yourself?”

  He took a long gulp of coffee. “Guarding the horses,” he said. “Some of us have to earn our keep with more than a stolen feather.”

  Tanya drew her eyebrows together. “Do you mean you sleep in the stables?” she asked.

  “Wouldn’t exactly call it sleeping.”

  Tanya felt frustration rise in her chest as Riley dripped muck into her meticulously prepared coffee cup. She pulled it out of his reach.

  “Honestly, Riley,” she said. “No one steals from Madame Moreagan. The Tomcat should have known that she could guarantee the safety of the horses under her roof. We’re in Bloodstone, you idiot. We need to stay alert. You should have gotten a room and slept.”

  “I couldn’t have, all right?” he broke in, turning red. “The Tomcat wasn’t going to pay for my room and I gave him all my own discretionary funds as a down payment on the mare that, thanks to you, I’ve now had to steal twice—yeah, that’s right, I’m taking her back. Is that understood?”

  She knew the mare expected to reunite with Rollo, but Riley didn’t have to know that. “Did the mare have a good night?”

  Riley brightened a little. “I think she’s warming to me,” he said. “She let me give her a nice going-over with a hot comb and didn’t kick me once.”

  The door to the tavern banged open and a slim figure dressed in black from the mask over their face to the gloves over their fingertips sauntered in.

  Riley sat up straighter, his hand going to his belt. Tanya waited for the feather to prickle against her skin, the way it always did when there was danger. But it didn’t, so she stood.

  “May I help you?” she asked, her hand automatically finding her hip. “They don’t appear to be open for breakfast yet, but I can manage coffee, if you’d like?”

  Tanya’s voice rang out in the quiet room, startling her with her own authoritativeness. This is not your tavern, she told herself sternly. You pushed the key back across the table. But Tanya was back in an inn and, somehow, her body wouldn’t let herself sit and relax.

  She began to seriously consider the possibility that she was constitutionally incapable of not being a servant when the figure spun in a graceful circle and whipped something straight at Tanya’s head.

  Chapter

  28

  That something turned out to be tiny, but hard and sharp, making Tanya squeal as it bounced off the bridge of her nose and landed on the table.

  “Ow!” Tanya held her hand up to her nose. “Did you break my nose?! Am I bleeding? Riley, does my nose looked messed up?”

  “No more so than usual,” he said absently, focused on the shimmering ballistic in front of him. “What the . . . ?”

  Tanya dropped her fingers from her smarting nose and joined him in staring at what the stranger had mysteriously lobbed at them.

  It was small and circular, sort of like the balls the boys hit back and forth with racquets in the Port Cities. But it wasn’t made of knotted rags or wood. When she looked at it from one angle, it looked like steel, but when she moved her face a little to the left, it looked like glass; one second it appeared to be made of gold, the next it looked like a duck egg.

  “Sorry about that,” said a muffled voice by the door. Tanya turned, remembering to be angry, when the figure pulled off the mask and yawned. “For some reason, that thing never goes in the direction you aim at.”

  “Where did you get it?” asked Riley as Jana shook her hair out of a net. “What’s it do?”

  Jana threw her head down and began finger-combing out the mats in her hair. “Beats me,” she said.

  Riley dubiously poked it with the point of his knife. “It looks expensive,” he said.

  “It better be,” Jana said, pulling off the black sweater, revealing a camisole in an even darker black, and sauntering up to the table. “It was a bitch to steal. You’re bleeding,” she said, turning to Tanya.

  “I’m aware of that, thank you!” Tanya spat out. She stalked behind the bar to grab two discarded rags from the bar back. She stuffed the smaller into her nose, curling her lip at the smell of used-up soap.

  The two thieves sat calmly drinking coffee, Riley out of Tanya’s mug and Jana out of Riley’s.

  Tanya stood over them, mopping up her bloodied front. “Riley dripped mud into that coffee,” she commented to Jana. “Or at least it looked like mud, but he slept in the stables, so I wouldn’t count on it.”

  Jana spat the coffee onto the table.

  Tanya eyed the mysterious ball. She didn’t approve of something that wouldn’t stay itself. “Why did you steal it, anyway?” she asked. “If you don’t even know what it is?”

  Jana shrugged and began to flip her knife open and closed, pretending not to eye the doors behind the bar, the ones leading to the kitchen and to Madame Moreagan’s office.

  “I needed something to keep me busy,” she said. “Saw it in a booth in the market and thought it looked like something I could sell.”

  Tanya shook her head. “How do you live like that?”

  “How do you not?”

  Tanya looked down at herself and sighed. “You people are a curse,” she complained thickly, her voice muffled with the terrycloth jammed up her nostrils. “I simply cannot stay clean when I’m with you!”

  “Then why’d you come back?” asked Riley, nonchalantly looking into the befouled coffee cup. />
  The question—delivered with a studied offhandedness—took Tanya aback. She suddenly realized that Jana and Riley assumed she had come to Bloodstone to rejoin the Tomcat’s fold, had come back to them.

  Before she could decide how to answer, the door opened and Darrow, wearing only a thin cotton vest and a shorter version of his tight herder pants, jogged inside. He was breathing hard and Tanya immediately tensed.

  “Darrow, what’s wrong? Where’s Greer?”

  Darrow stopped in his tracks, looking flustered. “He’s probably still sleeping,” he said. “I was just on my morning run.”

  “Your morning run, huh?” said Jana, climbing up on the table for a better look. She put her chin in her hands and grinned lasciviously. “Tell me, corpsman, did you go by the Pitfire or do you always get so nice and sweaty?”

  Darrow looked down at himself and modestly crossed his arms, scratching a red spot on his elbow. But Tanya thought she could see him smile.

  It was a nice smile. “Darrow, you remember Riley, I assume?” she said. “He’s a . . . friend. Riley, Darrow is—Riley, are you choking?”

  Riley was bright red and coughing out coffee, the misbegotten mug finally thoroughly knocked over.

  Jana reached behind her and slapped Riley hard on the back, still grinning up at Darrow. “He’s fine,” she said, eyes dancing. “Aren’t you fine, Riley?”

  Riley composed himself, shaking off Jana. Still red, he stood, staring at Darrow.

  Darrow smiled at him and stepped forward. “Rafi Darrow,” he said, shaking Riley’s stiff hand. “We didn’t get a chance to meet last time.”

  Riley’s eyes flashed and he wrenched his hand out of Darrow’s grasp. “Yeah, well, I didn’t want to give you a chance to arrest me,” he said hotly. “What’s he doing here?” He looked accusingly at Jana. “You didn’t tell me he—I mean, one of those corpsmen—was here.” He punched her in the shoulder.

  “Hey!” she cried. “It was just a prank, Riley!”

  Darrow stepped forward. “I am sorry for any offense or worry I caused,” he said earnestly, looking Riley in the eyes. “Any action of mine that made you fear for your freedom or safety, I took solely in the pursuit of duty, which was sworn in service to the Queen’s Corps. They don’t reflect any personal feelings of disrespect for you. Or disapproval. I hope I may earn your trust in that regard.”

  Riley had gone red again. “Oh,” he said, his shoulders slouching uncomfortably. “I mean, if you’re here with Tanya, whatever, it’s fine now. Just don’t get too close, corpsman!”

  Darrow turned to Tanya. “Do you need anything from me, miss? If not, I believe I should bathe.”

  “I think you can just call me Tanya at this point, Darrow,” she answered dryly. “Go ahead.” Darrow bowed briefly to Riley and Jana, and went up the stairs. “The only thing I need help with right now, I need Madame Moreagan for, unfortunately.”

  “How may I assist?”

  Tanya bit back a curse and turned.

  Madame Moreagan—looking identical to how she had looked the day before (and probably the day before that and the day before that)—was standing on the bottom step of the great staircase, one step below Greer, who was somehow looking both sleepy and alarmed.

  Madame Moreagan surveyed Tanya, bloody and coffee stained. “I see,” she said, her tone full of gravity. “That won’t do at all.”

  “What?” Tanya, having quite forgotten the state of her, looked down. “No, that’s not what I need help with.”

  “Some breakfast, then,” said Madame Moreagan smoothly, stepping off the staircase and moving to the table, sweeping up the mess of stoneware silently, almost invisibly. She snapped a finger and one of the kitchen girls appeared at her arm to take the bundled mess. “And some fresh coffee.”

  “No.” Tanya had to execute yet another fast spin to keep up with Madame Moreagan, who, though she seemed to be gliding across the floor at a leisurely pace, was somehow already behind the bar and pulling out a fresh tin of coffee from some hidden cabinet. “This has nothing to do with breakfast, Madame Moreagan.”

  The Witch seemed to wake up all at once. The door burst open to let in a mix of dusty, well-dressed travelers and grizzled, imperious locals, all seeking caffeine and fried meat, while the rest of the Tomcat’s company came tumbling sleepily down the stairs, mismatched armor clattering the whole way.

  Suddenly a girl in low-cut pink was installed behind the bar as if she had never left and girls in brown dresses were carrying baskets of toast to the corner tables. Tanya smiled at the synchronicity, the swiftness of the response, and then stopped her smile cold in its tracks when she noticed Madame Moreagan eyeing her hungrily.

  Tanya took a deep breath. “Madame Moreagan,” she began. “I’m grateful for your hospitality, for the free room—” Jana snorted. Tanya shot her a glare. “I’m grateful for the room, but I need a new one. A guest room, that I’ll be paying for.”

  Madame Moreagan pursed her lips, surveying Tanya thoughtfully. “No,” she said finally. “I don’t think I have another room for you. If you want to stay at the Witch, you’ll stay as my guest. In my room.” She turned and disappeared into her office before Tanya could protest.

  Greer, who had waylaid one of the maids to pluck toast out of her basket, walked up behind her. “Morning,” he said finally, mumbling around a half-full mouth.

  Tanya was furious.

  Specifically, she was furious at Madame Moreagan. But Madame Moreagan had gone. So instead, she turned to Greer. “The Queen didn’t send you with me to wish me good morning,” Tanya hissed. “She sent you to protect me and so far, you’ve abandoned me to the whims of a sinister tavern keeper and had a nice, lazy sleeping in. What kind of job would you say you’re doing?”

  Greer blinked at her for a moment, before balling up his fists at his side. “The Queen didn’t send me anywhere,” he hissed right back, his eyes flashing with anger. “If I’m not mistaken, I’m here because you wanted me here.”

  Tanya felt a flush rise in her cheeks. “I am the private secretary to the Queen of Lode,” she retorted. “I am entitled to whatever escort I wish and I don’t have to explain myself to anyone, least of all a corpsman with no rank, earned or otherwise. Darrow can talk to me like that; he’s a sergeant. You can’t.”

  Greer was also turning red. He drew himself to his full height—not very great, but taller than she was—and stepped closer, so close her nose brushed his chin.

  Tanya looked up at him, meeting his cloud-colored eyes.

  “What?” she demanded. “What is it you want to say? People are going to start looking soon.”

  “No one’s looking at us, Tanya. This is Bloodstone. We’re the least interesting thing in the room.”

  “I think you had the right idea when you were calling me ‘my lady.’”

  “You forget: I know you, tavern wench.”

  Tanya snorted, but felt her cheeks grow hot. “Yes, well, I’m not a tavern wench anymore. Say what you’re going to say and then move out of my way. You only think you know me. For every ten of me you’ve met, I’ve met a hundred of you.”

  “No, I know you, Tanya. So, what I have to say is this: What are we doing here?”

  “You know what we’re doing here. We’re locating the source of the power coming from the Volcano and stopping it.”

  “That’s what we’re supposed to be doing. That’s not what I see.”

  Tanya laughed at this, suddenly feeling giddy with the adrenaline of the fight. “No? What do you see?”

  “I see a lonely girl who’s happy to see her friends. Including me.”

  Tanya stopped laughing. “Look again, corpsman. Riley!” The thief looked up. “Find the Tomcat and tell him I want to see the Others.”

  Riley went pale. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Now, please.” Tanya shoved past Greer, stopping to whisper in his ear: “You are resources, not friends. I don’t have friends. You don’t know me, corpsman.”

  Cha
pter

  29

  The next morning, Tanya rode the golden mare down the main thoroughfare of Bloodstone at the head of the Tomcat’s pack. The mare had apparently had another pleasant, restful night, because she plodded down the rough cobblestones of Bloodstone at an even, almost sleepy pace, giving Tanya plenty of inconvenient time to brood.

  Despite riding on the warm back of the mare, in the strong sunshine and the steam, she shivered.

  She could feel Jana riding behind her. The girl thief had been sitting with Riley and the rest of the Tomcat’s men at breakfast and she could think of no rational reason to send her away. Jana seemed to want to stay near Tanya—it was frightening. Not that Tanya was frightened of Jana. It was her want that frightened her—her affectionate smiles, and every touch, and the way Tanya had actually wanted her there, too, if she was being honest.

  She could also feel Greer next to her, only a couple paces behind, his eyes boring into the back of her neck like he knew what was in her head. It made her want to scream—Tanya didn’t even know what was in her head. How could a corpsman whom she’d only spoken to a handful of times in her entire life?

  Tanya was so engrossed in her own swirling thoughts that she didn’t notice that they had arrived at their destination until the Tomcat reached out to grab the reins from her hands, pulling the mare up short.

  “It would be prudent to watch your horse’s step here,” he said. “The footing gets a bit unreliable.”

  There was a cracking sound and the mare reared back as a chunk of the ground three feet across splintered from the rest of the marble walkway and simply fell away, leaving a gaping chasm in its wake.

  Tanya nudged the mare forward a few steps and peered down. She quickly put her arm under her nose as the rotten, stinging smell of sulfur floated up, an almost visible miasma of corruption that made the moist air shimmer.

  Tanya squinted, wanting to see deeper into the crater. She nudged the mare again and, after the equine equivalent of sigh, the mare complied, carefully and slowly stepping her way to the newborn crater’s edge.