I made a mental note of who seemed to be from the midlands and vowed to steer clear of them. Midland accents drove me crazy. Those from the far north and deep south spoke very different languages, but we spoke them in the same way. Whether we were freezing in the snow or burning in the sun, we understood it was best to spit out our words and be on our way as quickly as possible. On the other hand, midland folk had no ken of weather rushing their speech, and they took forever to get to a point.
Willy’s wife Nadia stood when she saw him. A timid but good-natured smile spread across her lips as she wove back and forth in order to be seen through the ever-shifting crowd. She was a small woman, younger than Willy by a decade. Though the years had been kind to her, she still carried a few white streaks through her light hair. Willy stooped to kiss her forehead when he reached her, and she curled her arms around his back in a brief embrace.
“Where’s my daughter?” Willy asked.
“She’s with my mother. I think you’ll agree this would be a little much for her,” was Nadia’s tart reply. Despite her soft appearance, Nadia was like any woman born and raised in the wintery mountains—more than tough.
“Of course, my dear. How has the day been?”
We moved off, to give them time to catch up. Father took us towards Aedith. When he stood behind her, she turned to greet him. Though she was still clearly a woman to be reckoned with by point of her muscles, this evening she had relaxed. With cheeks flushed from wine, she beamed up at my father.
“Raynard!” She glanced at me, “And Taryn! How are you this evening? Lads, these are a few of the folks who live and work on the—on the lands we’ll be hunting.” This incurred a cheer, and I noticed with interest that none of the women seemed to take offense at being called lads.
“Aedith, this is my son Michael and my wife Wynifred.” It would have been ungenerous to describe my father’s tone as disapproving, but he was, in his own words, “a busy man,” and not one to imbibe to the point of carelessness.
Aedith shook both of their hands. “It is wonderful to meet you. This is my daughter Aella. You lot!” She barked the last part abruptly, not giving me time to say that her daughter and I had already met. She gestured at the three women and Kaleb who were to her right. “Scoot down, will you?” When the two men on the other side of those four grumbled, she gave them a mean smile. “It won’t kill you to go and make nice with the townspeople. You know as well as I do that this place is full because they want to get to know us.” They hesitated a moment longer, and her next word was said in a tone that made my spine tense. “Move.”
They gathered their plates and cups without another grumble and moved to the other long table where Willy was sitting. Introductions were made, and their voices carried none of the resentment I would have expected. When I checked I found them to be smiling and shaking hands as though making the rounds had been their intentions all along. Those at their new table amiably made room for the mercenaries to sit. Aella caught my eye and waggled her brows at me. I covered a smile.
“That was very kind Miss Aedith. You didn’t need to go to such trouble,” Mother said demurely, taking the seat next to the larger woman. Father took the seat next to her, then me and then Michael.
“Aedith likes any excuse to make us socialize. She thinks the road makes us uncivilized.” Kaleb flashed white teeth at us.
Aedith grinned into her tankard. “He’s right. Besides, I find they work harder when they have memory of local faces swamped in admiration at their stories.”
“You make them feel as though they’ve something to prove?” Michael asked.
“Something to live up to,” Aella countered from across the table, before her mother could reply. “Seeing you lot and talking to you reminds us of the standards we should already have.” She practically glowed when Aedith nodded approvingly.
“It’s easy for us to forget in the thrill of the hunt or the doldrums of the marches that we’re fighting for the lives of people, and not just the chance to see a little bit of coin and our own warm beds again,” said the man next to Aella. There was a melancholy note in his voice that surprised me.
He was a slim man who bore deep wrinkles across his forehead and at the corners of his eyes. His scalp was bare and speckled with sunspots and it gleamed in the firelight. A little girl, bouncing on the lap of a mother who hadn’t been able to find a sitter for the evening, waved and babbled some baby nonsense at him. He smiled and waved back. The smile caused the cloudiness in his green eyes to blow away and they sparkled. It showed a faint echo of the man he must have been when he was younger.
“I’m sorry, I don’t believe we have your name sir.” Mother leaned forward on the table to address him.
“Victor, mum.” His movements bespoke stiff joint as he reached across the table to shake hands. “It is a pleasure to be of whatever service I can be.”
Over his shoulder a panicked Thomas stumbled through a clutch of bodies. He seemed to be searching the room for something, or someone. Mother caught sight of him, and with a look like a cat with a canary she flagged him down.
“Have you even said hello to Thomas yet?” Mother asked me as he came closer, a wicked smile on her face.
I wrinkled my nose. She knew I hadn’t. I hadn’t left her side. “No Mother, not yet. Good evening Thomas. How is your night going?”
“It’s busy. You didn’t go to the seat Maude pointed out for you,” he said, voice half a whine and half apologetic. “Where did everyone who was sitting here go?”
I pointed out the four in question, who had moved down. “There are two more who moved over there though.” I gestured to the table the others had moved themselves to.
Thomas made another small moan. “What can I get for you? We’ve a fine roast pie tonight, with potatoes and carrots, or a stew, which to be honest is much of the same mix.” Thomas’s gaze darted to the front door as he spoke, as it swung open and a few more bodies poured in. He practically wilted, clutching his small slate and piece of chalk to his chest.
“I’d like a refill on my wine,” Aedith said. “Aella, more wine?”
“A little, please.”
After conferring with us for a moment, Father asked for four portions of the roast pie, as well as two glasses of wine and two tankards of the ale. Thomas took a few more orders from the rest of the table who all wanted refills on their drinks, and then, with a parting beg for us not to switch tables at least until things settled down, he fled back to the kitchen.
The stocky woman to Aella’s left watched him go. “Poor lil lad. Don’t they have anyone else to help?”
I gestured to Thomas’s little sister. She was about fourteen and shorter than most everyone in the building. Darting between tables, she served from a too large platter which she balanced on a hand held high over her head—often the only part of her that could be seen. “That’s Thomas’s sister Maria. Their mother and father work kitchen in the back, and their aunt is the one up front.”
“She was foul! Does she have to pull the stick out if she wants to sit down?” This came from a laughing man to the left of the woman who had spoken before. She guffawed her agreement, then stopped abruptly with a contrite glance at my family.
Father shrugged. “She doesn’t take kindly to strangers.
“Or anyone,” Michael muttered to me, and I grinned at him.
The burly woman shrugged, not seeming to have heard him. “Can’t blame her. I’m Tess, by the way, and this is Harold.”
“Very good to meet you two.”
“And the same to you,” said Harold. He had a plate in front of him already, the same as the other mercenaries, and he was stabbing a potato with his fork and bringing it to his fat lips. I looked up from them to find him watching me watch him. He met my stare with one of his own. As he took a bite with a bit more force than necessary, I dropped my gaze.
“But,” Tess went on, either not having seen Harold, or ignoring him, “are there no others to help? There must be half of
the town trying to squeeze their way inside. It must be a madhouse in the kitchen.”
A quick survey of the room proved Tess to be right. Every chair had filled as we talked, and now some people were standing at the ends of them. The large room was warm with the press of bodies and loud with conversation. The pleasant sound of good natured discussions rolled across the floor, punctuated by laughter and some people had to shout in order to be heard. Anwar and his wife Salma had taken the seats next to Willy and Nadia. Naieed was missing from their party, and there were no empty seats she might have momentarily vacated.
“It’s likely,” I said, “That they’re wrangling up help even as we speak. You remember Naieed from earlier today?” I asked Aedith. She frowned as though she didn’t, but nodded. “Her parents are here, but she is not, but she wouldn’t have missed this for a new dress. So, Thomas has likely conscripted her to help.”
As if on cue, Nai exited the kitchen. She was tied into a splotched apron, and her hair was pulled out of her face in a bouncy pony-tail. She used a toe to kick the door open and those nearest to it moved back or were struck. As she cleared the doorway, both of her hands came into view, balancing full trays of drinks. Despite the veritable sea of people, she made a beeline towards us with such grace that the trays never so much as wobbled. When she reached the end of our table she set the trays down and made a show of wiping her brows.
“Taryn, look at the state of me! I come to get a hot meal and you see what happens? Poor Thomas saw me and he was practically on his knees begging. What’s a kind-hearted girl to do?”
I snorted, pretending not to notice Aedith’s appraising look. “Maybe tell Thomas that his parents should admit that they need to hire you on full time?”
“Good evening Nai,” Mother said to Nai with an affectionate smile. “How are you holding up?”
“‘Lo Mother Wynn, Mister Raynard, Michael. The kitchen’s like an oven, and you lot must all be looking to match your body weight in liquids, for how quickly I’ve been running in and out those doors.” There was no real reproach in her words. She smiled as she passed wine glasses and tankards to us. “Aella, it’s good to see you.”
“Yes, you’re looking well— is it Naieed or Nai?”
“It’s Nai, unless you’re mad at me, or you’re my parents.” Moving counterclockwise as she spoke, Nai refilled the empty cups of the others at the table, going through the remainder of both a bottle of wine, and a pitcher of ale. “That’s me. I’ll be back sooner than later.”
With that farewell, Nai made her way back the way she had come, pausing at a few of the smaller tables and making notes on the slate she had fished out of her apron. Giggling at the little comments made to her at each stop, complimenting, and teasing, she smoothed any discontent about the slow service and left smiling faces in her wake.
“When did you have a chance to meet her?” Aedith placed both forearms on either side of her plate to skewer her daughter with a look. Her voice was clear and easy to hear over the din. “I know you weren’t skulking by the door this afternoon like an eavesdropping child.”
Aella froze in the midst of a bite of roast, then she swallowed thickly. “No, Ma.”
Tess and Harold exchanged a knowing look. When Tess opened her mouth to say something I thought I saw Harold move as though he had kicked Tess. Certainly, she elbowed him back.
“Nai ran into Aella and myself on the street. After I left you all, I came upon her and we got to talking,” I supplied.
Aedith would not be deterred. “Where did you run into each other?”
“Near the butcher Ma. I saw her and I asked if she knew where I might purchase some soap. I was getting a lay of the area.”
I nodded my corroboration, and Aedith shrugged and took another swig. “Just making sure. You know my rules.”
“Yes,” Aella agreed. She spooned a potato and a carrot into her mouth at once, not meeting her mother’s eyes.
Outside, there was a flash of light and then the crack of thunder that tore a cheer out of those in the crowd who had already had too much to drink. Following that came the shushing noise of steady rain on the roof of the inn. Those around me raised their voices to be heard over the sound, and it became too difficult for me to follow any one conversation.
Around that time, Maria came out of the kitchen again. This time she deposited full plates in front of me and the rest of my family, much to my empty belly’s pleasure. The food was steaming hot, and the smell of the rosemary which the meat and vegetables had been cooked with was enough to make my mouth water.
When the initial downpour slackened and it became possible to be heard again, I returned my attention to the mother and daughter mercenaries, though I didn’t stop eating. The wine seemed to have removed some of Aedith’s edge, as she had already moved on from grilling her child. At present, she was addressing a man to her left in an animated fashion.
Aella caught my attention and mouthed, “Thank you.” I shrugged.
Michael caught the display and leaned over to whisper in my ear. “Helping the little mercenary stay out of trouble?”
I spoke out of the corner of my mouth. “It’s honestly nothing worth her getting into trouble over. She wanted to know what was happening, the same as Nai and me. Her mother’s a bear about rules, I guess.” I cut at the tender meat on my plate.
Michael glanced at the mother mercenary, who was slapping her companion on the back, mid chortle. “That, I can see.”
“She’s not like this sober. She’s actually sort of amazing.” My shoulders rose a little so that they were almost touching my ear.
He shrugged. “I’m sure. She’s a brawler. This is how they are, right?”
“How do you mean?” I popped the meat I’d been worrying into my mouth.
“I mean they fight and get bloody all day. They keep serious and stalwart through all of that, and then in the evenings they cut loose and act like animals. I’m sure Nai will go home with one of them tonight. Or to his tent rather.”
My eyes widened in shock and I was grateful that it was too loud for his dining companion to the right to hear him. It was Kaleb, and I liked Kaleb from what I had seen. “That’s a nasty attitude to take. They’re here to help, and Nai can do what she likes. It’s not like you’ve taken up with her.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’m not judging her or them. I’d get drunk and belligerent too if my only purpose was to beat things bloody until I couldn’t stand anymore. If I had as little to do and was as pretty as Nai, I’m sure I’d get around as well.” I wondered if my glare could melt the metal of the spoon he was twirling between two fingers.
“Certainly, we live a gruesome life, put into those terms young Master … Michael, was it?”
Michael sat upright in surprise, and my gaze flew over his shoulder at Kaleb, who had us fixed in his sights. One long finger traced the rim of his wine cup delicately. He had heard. I blindly grasped for mine and took a sip that drained half of its contents. Across the table, Aella perked up. She hadn’t heard what Michael had said, only her fellow’s response, but it seemed her warrior instincts gave her a good sense of when a fight was imminent.
Surprise caused my brother to fumble for words at first, but then he donned that haughty expression I was growing to hate, and he pushed a braid back over his left shoulder. “You don’t take offense to it, I hope. You’re a fighter who isn’t affiliated with the official guard; there must be a reason for that. Also, the chances of you striking upon something lucrative enough to let you settle down comfortably is incredibly slim. Taryn, stop pinching me.”
“I’ll stop pinching you when you shut up,” I hissed.
“That’s all right Miss Taryn. Master Michael shares a very commonly held opinion, which is that those who choose to travel and fight for seemingly random causes have no other discernable skills that they might capitalize on. Is that right, Master Michael?”
Michael blinked, and I knew he had not expected such vocabulary from someone whom he consid
ered to be a grunt. “I believe that is generally safe to assume, yeah.”
Kaleb’s voice was soft, and though the smile never left his lips, I felt a chill creep up my back, turning the sweat from the warm room into ice droplets. “I would say that it is a dangerous thing to assume that a person is only the sum of what they appear to be doing when you can see them, wouldn’t you?”
Michael’s mouth hung slightly ajar. His smug expression had vanished. I had the dubious pleasure of seeing Michael at a loss for words. “I suppose so,” he managed, then, “I apologize. I was rude.”
“It’s a family trait. I don’t think we can fairly blame you for it.” Aella was grinning sympathetically at me. Her earlier attitude at my questions made much more sense, given my brother’s outburst. Despite what she had actually said, she didn’t seem upset. Somehow, I managed to relax enough to smile back.
A glance at Michael told me he was still wire tight. He shoveled food into his mouth a little faster than he had before, not looking at anyone else. He was embarrassed, I realized, noting the flush in his cheeks. Michael had been getting into more of these little tiffs lately, but it was a rarity for him to be put in his place— verbally at least.
None of our parents had noticed anything amiss. They were engaged in conversation with the next table, turned in their seats so that they could interact with Willy, Nadia, Anwar, and Salma. I glanced back at Aella, she was pushing a stringy carrot around on her plate, and her companions were talking to the table on the other side of them, where Dai sat. Kaleb was now turned away from us, towards a tall black woman with a shaven head who was one of those who had made room for us. Many patrons around the room had finished their meals and were lighting up their pipes. The air above our heads began to fill with the fragrant smoke.
When I pushed back from the table. Father glanced up but I waved him off. “I’m just getting a little air.”
The sound of the rain had ceased to be discernable over the noise of the tavern. If it was still sprinkling, I was willing to brave it. Normally I might have passed an awkward meal talking with Michael, but these days…
Of Gryphons and Other Monsters (Taryn's Journey Book 1) Page 14