Yes, looking for a man based on a description like that was a lost cause.
Hans asked Madam Emma to keep a close eye on Lollie. If anything happened to the girl, he would personally take care of the brothel. Nobody would like his methods, but he promised a lot of fire and screams, after which nothing would remain of the building itself—and possibly the madam herself.
Second, if the aforementioned customer ever returned to the brothel, she was to rush straight to Hans and inform him of that, doing her best to apprehend the customer. If she didn't... Well, see item one.
Hans wasn't going to be soft. Too bad that all the threats in the world couldn't lead him to the killer.
***
"Lady Miranda, Nanook's not eating anything."
The servants were worried about the countess as well, even if they tried to hang in there. No surprises there.
Lily was a good mistress. She paid wages on time—and more than many of her peers. She never quibbled over trifles, didn't stick her nose into the kitchen, didn't count every penny, yet somehow managed to be assiduous enough and save up to reward them with small gifts on the occasion of a holiday. The Earton house was a nice place to work.
She hated thievery and impertinence, but then, who liked them? She checked the bills but could overlook tiny faults.
In her house, nobody had to worry about their honor, expect to have the master or his guests make passes at you, or stress out about being killed. Like, say, Duke....shh, no need to call him by his name. He was famous for getting drunk every other day and throwing empty bottles at his staff. He was a straight shooter, too. He usually gave a few coins as an apology, but it was all very hit or miss. One poor fellow had been hit in the head and died two days later without regaining consciousness.
Then there was a count who loved hunting. If he found you guilty of something, he'd release you into the woods and send his hounds after you. You could run, of course, but if you weren't fast enough... That was your problem.
Servants were often slapped, whipped at the stables, underpaid, reprimanded for every copper spent and every dust speck missed... Nothing like that ever happened at the Earton house, and its staff held their masters in high regard. But Her Grace was missing—the servants knew that; they knew everything. And her dog...
The maid was trembling but kept staring Miranda right in the eye.
"Aldonai!" Viscountess Earton pushed aside an unfinished drawing and stood up. "Thank you for telling me. Annie?"
“Yes, Your Grace."
"Thank you, Annie."
A silver coin fell into the maid's palm.
Annie shook her head.
"Your Grace, I wasn't asking—"
"I know. I'm not buying you off. Just get yourself a nice new ribbon or something."
Unflinching, Miranda left the room and headed to her parents' chambers. When her mother was home, her father always slept there. But she was gone, and it hurt him to even go inside. Mirrie had seen his face...
Stop! Don't think about bad stuff! Mama will be back; it cannot be otherwise!
Mirrie entered her parents' bedroom. Nanook was lying on the rug next to Lilian Earton's side of the bed, his nose stuck in her slippers. His eyes... Who says dogs cannot feel distress?
Miranda didn't even realize how she ended up on the rug next to the dog.
"Come on, boy..."
The "boy" was maybe even bigger than the viscountess, but she didn't care about such nonsense.
"My sweetie, my fluffy miracle..."
Nanook didn't even move an ear.
"Hey, look at me!" Miranda flared up and pulled at the aforementioned ear.
He couldn't care less. Virman dogs were nice and all, but to make them notice you, you often had to hit them with a log. Alas, there were no logs in sight, but Miranda decided to avoid overdoing it.
"Nanook, she'll be back. I promise."
Silence. Even his eyes stayed still.
Miranda waved her hand, stretched on the rug, and hugged the dog, pressing closer.
"Nanook, honey, Mama's alive, and she will be back. Just wait a little, and she'll come here, so you and she could go for evening walks again. You're such a good boy, you ran to Taral just in time, or they wouldn't notice she was missing until the evening. You raised the alarm, but now, you need to eat and recover so you can wait for Mama. Papa will return her, he's strong, and he's smart, and as for that nasty Lofrayne, we'll bite him together. You can do it, can’t you? Just look at your fangs and your claws, you're so much stronger than me..."
As Miranda whispered some nonsense into his ear, she realized that she was crying. Then she noticed something else.
Nanook had turned his huge muzzle to her and watched her closely as if asking if she was telling the truth.
Of course, it is, just live on! Then we can deal with any enemy, I promise!
He ran his wet tongue over the girl's face, wiping away her tears. Nanook was cheering her up in his own way. After all, she was his mistress' pup. While his mistress was gone, he would take care of the girl.
Don't cry, little one. We'll bite all the enemies, we will.
Miranda pushed a bowl of water toward Nanook and stared adoringly at him drinking it and then swallowing a large piece of meat in no time, crunching the bone.
"Imagine it's Lofrayne," Mirrie whispered to him.
The bone crunched again. The dog was very expressive.
She buried herself in his thick fur.
"Arrf," Lou-Lou grumbled, pressing against her from the other side.
"Hang in there, guys. We just need to wait."
Miranda believed in her words, but her heart was heavy with longing.
Mama, where are you?
***
Patternmaking and sewing really weren't complicated, especially if you had the entire set of tailor's tools. Tape, needles, a good pair of scissors, a piece of chalk to draw on fabric, a nice table...
Things were quite different if you had only half of that set, and the table was reeling in tune with the whole damn ship.
She was truly surrounded by one-hundred-percent bastards!
That's what Lily realized two hours after starting her work. The pant legs ended up of different lengths. Lily somehow managed to use several pins to make them look even and started sewing, occasionally cursing as she pricked her fingers with the needle and fondly recalling her sewing machine, the old one with a pedal. She would have loved to have anything, really, but she had to use her hands.
Pants were a necessity, so Lily kept sewing and cursing, sewing and cursing.
Baron Lofrayne's arrival pulled her away from that important task.
“Your Grace...”
Lily glared at the baron, but staring him down was impossible.
"I came to escort you to breakfast."
Lily silently stood up from the table.
"How did you sleep?"
"Wonderful," she replied, completely honest. "Early in the morning, I dreamed that you were hanged."
"Well then, it means I'll get to live a hundred years," Tony retorted.
"You won't. I'll take care of that."
"Your Grace, why hate me this much? Trust me; in a couple of years, you'll be grateful. It will all be behind you. His Majesty Entor appreciates beauty and wit..."
Lily wanted to wince. So the indoctrination had started. After all, if she expressed her true opinion of Entor in front of His Majesty, it wouldn't be a good look for Anthony. Therefore, he needed to turn her around, make her calm down and submit to the role of a trophy.
Really, if Lilian were an ordinary medieval woman, he wouldn't have any problems. Ladies around there were meek and submissive, taught to obey since childhood and used to changing hands. Women, lands... Lily had read about that once, and it chilled her to the bone. How was that possible?
A woman had lived with a husband; their land was attacked, all of their men killed. She was raped, her husband and half of their children murdered, and she...started to liv
e with another husband. She accepted it, calmed down...
That was their reality. Ativerna and Avester were no better.
But Lily was a woman of her time, and she had not a hint of submission in her. So she was hit on her cheek? She would turn the other one, and then duck under the blow and punch the attacker in the liver. How could that person be a fellow man if they did such things to her? If they weren't, no need to be soft!
It was much easier for Lily to think that evil had to be punished in this world without putting it off and passing the job to Aldonai. After all, he was far away and had important things to take care of. People could restore justice with their own hands.
Let's say you were wronged, and you forgave the perpetrator. What would happen next? You'd be considered a doormat and walked all over until you're dragged through the mud. Really, in this case, you'd be committing two sins. First, you hadn't stopped a man who would go on to do even more harm while also risking a much stronger retaliation than the one you'd given them. Second, you failed your loved ones, as who would protect them if everyone trampled over you? Nobody, and that would be wrong.
The conclusion was simple. Bad people were to be punished here, in this world, and get their just rewards right away, to the full extent. Honestly, Lily would have loved to drown the entire ship. Too bad, there was no gunpowder, and she wouldn't risk preparing trinitroglycerin—that stuff was way too unstable. One wrong move, and your legs would be on Jupiter and your ears on Saturn.
Well, she also had no materials and no place to do that, but a girl could dream.
She hated all of it so much! If only she could kill all of those bastards, slowly and with feeling, drowning them in the sea and eating popcorn as they went to the bottom. And then, she would set the disgusting ship on fire and sink it together with them!
She was on the end of her tether, not to mention her gurgling stomach, the numb feeling in her head, and her trembling legs. Naturally, the baron's rants about a better life in Avester fell on deaf ears as if he didn't say a word.
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner onboard were carbon copies of each other: salted beef that really should have been salted better or at least boiled, going by its stale odor, and hardtack that needed to be soaked in water. Too bad there was no water—only watered-down wine.
Lily began protesting at the second meal, and she with good reason, too. She was pregnant, and drinking alcohol, especially in the early stages, promised nothing good for the child.
But how was she to drink stale water? They clearly didn't store it in oak barrels. Those barrels probably had enough dirt in them to grow potatoes! Did she want to be "cleansed" from another end, too? No, thank you! Diarrhea was the last thing she needed.
Lily fiddled with the cup.
"Your Grace, it's good wine."
"I don't like wine," Lily said with a sigh, realizing that she had to take measures. "Do you have any water? Clean water?"
The men exchanged looks, an age-old expression on their faces—the one men used at the sight of women's whims.
Ugh, now she's going to scoop my brain out with a dessert spoon...
Men probably had the same expression even in the times when people took shelter in caves and never knew about dessert spoons. What a pity party! Stupid females, asking for God knows what—a purse made of pink dinosaur leather or T-Rex skin boots.
They did have water, though.
"I think you could boil some water for Countess Earton," Lily decreed. "If you don't mind, I'll be visiting the galley every day and take some boiled water."
The captain frowned.
"Is this really necessary?"
"Furthermore," Lily added, ignoring his question, "I'll need a funnel, some wool, and some coal."
She was perfectly capable of making a simple filter to avoid getting poisoned.
As for the salted meat, Lily wasn't going to eat it, either. She remembered how it was prepared. The ingredients were good, actually: meat, spices, onions, carrots, beer... Boil for four hours, pack in a barrel, and leave them. There was a catch, though. Salted beef was considered edible only after two years. Lily wasn't going to risk her stomach. She wanted to survive.
The Virmans had also told her, with utterly horrified faces, how that beef was prepared after leaving the barrel. First, it was soaked in water for a day and a night—otherwise, it was impossible to chew it. During this process, it lost half of its weight in the form of liquid dirt. That dirt was drained and sold off to be made into candles or lubricants for the ship.
Enjoy. No wonder Lilian didn't want to eat that.
The porridge looked mostly edible, except for an occasional flake, but she could spit that out. The butter and cheese reeked of rot. Either they had gone bad, or the barrels they were stored in hadn't been washed in forever.
There was also poultry on the table and several eggs. The captain had bought a small henhouse for his personal use. Lily tried eating a chicken leg roasted until it resembled mostly coal, but when she sank her teeth into that meat, she barely managed to pull them out. Nope, let them eat that.
Incidentally, everyone present, other than Baron Lofrayne and her, had a severe case of missing teeth. No wonder, considering their diet.
Couldn't they at least prepare some sauerkraut to be stored in barrels? She wasn't brave enough to try the eggs, not knowing how they were cooked. Most likely, boiled in wine—but she didn't want to take risks.
What if she got salmonellosis? In such conditions, it was a death sentence, especially for the baby.
"Why isn't there any fish on the table?"
The men looked at each other and winced. Old sea dogs like them, for some reason, renounced eating fish.
Now a rat was a different story: freshly caught, flayed, and roasted. A delicacy! After all, it was a hunting trophy. A real man ate what he personally caught.
It wasn't like that on Virman ships, by the way, although they had their own problems. Still, Virmans weren't biased like that. They had no problems eating fish, catching it, cooking it into soup, braising, curing, even eating it raw... And their water was much better, too. It wasn't that hard to take a few sheepskins and some coal to make a filter. Why couldn't Avester or Ativerna do the same? It was a mystery.
Lily really didn't want to go on a diet, but it looked like she had no choice.
"I hope you've removed all worms from the hardtack," she said casually.
Anthony shook his head.
"Your Grace, how do you know all of that?"
Lily dangled the hardtack, demonstrating the distinctive holes.
"I can see weevil marks. So?"
"We soaked it," the captain said through his teeth. "Everything for you, Your Grace."
"You're so thoughtful," Lilian said, grinning. "I'll ask His Majesty Richard to replace your hanging with a beheading. It's nowhere near as painful."
For some reason, nobody at the table rejoiced at her generous promise, and the dinner conversation died out.
Lily snickered and started chewing on the hardtack.
***
"Your Grace, may I?"
"You may not," Lily snapped.
Anthony slipped into the cabin and sat down on the trunk without asking.
"Your Grace, don't think of me as an enemy. I'm doing everything I can for you. I'm trying to make your trip as comfortable as possible..."
"This trip is your fault. I can't be grateful to a thief and a villain," Lily flared up.
"I'm following the orders of my king..."
"Not for free."
"Your Grace, don't get me wrong..."
Lily sighed.
"Baron, I don't want to get you in any way. You're disgusting. Whether you stay here or get away to Maldonaya's nethers, I don't want to talk to you. I don't want to see you or hear you. If I had my way, I would have thrown you out to become fish food. Have I made myself clear?"
"Countess, why don't you change your mind? We still have a long journey ahead..."
"Baron, are
you insane? Change my mind? I have only one wish—to drown you in a lavatory! You repulse me! I've never seen a more disgusting man in my life! Even if you were the last man in the world, I'd rather die a virgin!"
Anthony's smile disappeared.
So he didn’t expect that? Well, he asked for it.
"Lilian, it's your fault!"
"For what? Not being born in Avester?"
"No! Lilian, if you had accepted my offer..."
Lily burst out laughing right in his face.
"Who do you think you are, a vision of beauty? Any woman's desire? A style icon?"
The baron didn't get the last expression, but her point was clear. He seemed shocked. How could he be refused? But why?
Lily shook her head.
"What the hell are you thinking? You're an ordinary pretentious snotnose! Only a woman with no self-respect could be seduced by you! What's so special about you? Your looks? Nothing else? You're empty."
Anthony seemed offended.
"As if your husband—"
"I saw my husband go through fire and ice," Lily snapped. "You would have pissed yourself in fear if you ever found yourself in a situation like that."
"What do you know about my bravery?"
Lily shrugged.
"Only a coward would abduct a woman and pin the blame for his infirmity on her."
"You never gave me a chance."
"And I won't. You make me nauseous."
"You're just seasick."
Lily's mouth twisted in a mocking grin.
“How about we check?”
The baron didn't want to check. Once was enough.
"What should I do for you to give me a shot?"
"Nothing."
"Maybe time and company could bring us closer? Do you mind if I'll be your guest, Lilian?"
Lily didn't yell at him to get out. She didn't curse, didn't take a stand, didn't threaten him. Why would she?
She winced.
"You've heard me, Baron."
Then she turned around to the table. She still had to finish her sewing.
Back to work, girl. Make a pattern, do a mental tally, stitch it...
Really, not having a sewing machine was torture, especially with a nasty creature that somehow managed to be born in a handsome shell with a noble title droning in her ear. In his soul, however, the baron was a rat. Ugh.
A New World Page 26