She dodged the caress. “You’re too presumptuous.”
“I’ve been told that, too. Many times.” He shrugged. “Doesn’t mean I’m wrong, though, does it?”
“I can always run away,” Roena said.
“To where? How would you feed yourself? I don’t see you disappearing out in the city to work as a…what can you do? Cook? Sew? Bake bread? Surely you don’t expect to making a living with your bedroom skills.” He looked amused.
She narrowed her eyes. “I can fight.”
“Interesting.”
“Probably better than you can, from the looks of you.”
“I don’t disagree. I’m sure you can beat me bloody. But how is that supposed to do anything for you? Don’t tell me you’re planning to join the guards. You might as well throw yourself in with a mercenary band.”
Roena looked at him a little longer than she should’ve, because now he burst out laughing. “Gods, don’t tell me you’re considering it. You wouldn’t last a day. Better take your chances with the monsters in your woods. You show up within sniffing distance of a mercenary band and you’ll find yourself raped and dead the next day. Maybe even the other way around.”
“You paint such a grim picture.” She glanced at the mirror to make sure she looked presentable enough before turning for the door. He reached out to take her wrist.
“My lady,” he said.
“What?”
“I do mean it. I’ve been around these people. Did your father think he was dealing with professional soldiers, allowing them to go stomping through his villages and towns with his blessings? I’ve warned him about this, but your father thinks he’s a more brilliant tactician than he really is. For you to make the same mistake…”
“You think I’m soft?”
“I think you’re a pampered nobleman’s daughter. I think you ought to be thanking the gods every day that you were born to this life and not in some dank alley whoring yourself for a bite to eat. What you think you hate—how many people will give up everything to have it?”
“It’s prison,” she said. “They’re free to take it from me if they want.”
“Easy words to say. Who said it had to be? Marry your nobleman. Take his money. Buy horses and pretty dresses and whatever else your heart desires. Spill his seed on your belly and sleep around behind his back if you want to. I don’t see the problem.”
She tore her hand from his grasp. “Best get back down there. My father will kill you if he catches you here.”
“You’d have that on your conscience?”
Roena laughed. “I think it should be clear by now, Lord Ferral, that I have none.”
Chapter Seven
Perhaps the most infuriating part about Ylir’s words was how much they brushed against the truth. Roena was distinctly aware that there were worse things in the world than to be Duke Blackwood’s eldest child. From the moment she was born, she had been showered with all manners of gifts and luxuries: exquisite wooden dolls from Jin-Sayeng with painted faces so well-crafted they looked almost real, pretty gowns and dresses from the best Forrehsi tailors in Tilarthan, little woolly lapdogs from the Baidh highlands, and all the expensive sweets from Dageis that she could ever want. Her father certainly spared no expense when it came to her. She knew that plenty of people would trade places with her in a heartbeat, and be grateful for it every minute.
But a golden chain was still a chain, and the more she rubbed at it, the sorer it felt. Dolls quickly lost their appeal, gowns grew old, dogs shat everywhere, and too many sweets made her sick. The weight of her father’s voice, on the other hand, only seemed to grow heavier as the years wore on. If only she had been born elsewhere—in Baidh, perhaps, where they sent their children across the ocean when they came of age, to study among the Forrehsi or run campaigns in the lands further west…
The Hafed, unfortunately, seemed to relish in the societal cesspool they had created since Agartes’ days. Very few families saw the need to send their children so far away, preferring, instead, that they stayed at home and spat out more children in an effort to outlast their rivals. Legacy was the most important thing. Roena had argued against it more times than she cared to recall. What need did her father have of her when he had three other daughters to marry off, and a little son besides? Couldn’t Blackwood’s legacy go beyond? She could bring new things to Hafod, strengthen their house by the strength of its knowledge…progress, after all, didn’t come from reviewing the same old farmboy’s history over and over again, hero though he may have been…
Her father had laughed when she said this. “You, Roena?” he thundered. “Study?” And left it at that.
She heard a door open at the end of the hall. Roena paused as she saw her mother emerge from her chambers. Known as Duchess Branna to the Hafed, Roena had a hard time picturing her as anything but the quiet, timid woman who had travelled from Baidh to marry Duke Iorwin on the first day she had met him. She had borne him five children since, and done nothing else with her life. Roena was almost sure the history books would say the exact same thing about her.
She was wearing a plain gown, having chosen to remove herself from the party not long after she’d been presented to the other lords—she preferred not being underfoot when Iorwin was engaged in important affairs. She gazed at Roena, a shadow flickering over her usual expression. Roena noticed her glancing briefly at the tear in her gown.
“Shouldn’t you be downstairs entertaining your guests? I believe your father is over-exerting himself for your sake.”
“For my sake?” Roena asked. “You truly believe that? Come now, Mother. We know where Father’s priorities lie. I’ve known it all my life.”
Branna tugged at Roena’s sleeve. “Let’s not start this again. You must learn to drop these arguments. You know your father loves you. It is not—”
“Appropriate, for someone of my stature? I do listen, Mother.”
“You listen, you say, yet you remain as stubborn as the cliffs of Tilarthan. My dear—”
“I don’t want to marry any of those men. Did you see them?”
“Yes. They are all well-bred, most of them handsome enough, and have remained—as far as I know—respectful of your father’s hospitality. Unlike some.”
Roena consciously placed a hand over the tear. “What I do with my spare time…”
“And what if you get with child?”
“Then I’ll drop a bastard on Father’s lap. He’d love that. He so wants grandchildren.”
“Roena, please.”
“I am not you, Mother.”
She realized, as soon as the words left her lips, that it was the wrong thing to say. Branna’s jaw tightened. Before Roena could scrabble to fix what she’d just done, her mother slapped her across the cheek. The sound echoed through the hollow halls. Roena turned back to face her, trying hard to recall if her mother had ever struck her before.
“You will change out of those…filthy…clothes,” Branna said. “And you will apologize to your father. And when the musicians arrive, you will dance with those men—every one of them. I married your father without even knowing what he looked like. We have given you the courtesy of being able to pick someone for yourself.”
“I’m not some brood mare—”
“This isn’t about what you think we’re trying to make you do,” Branna said. “This is about your responsibility to this household and your responsibility to your father’s name. Do you not understand anything, child? Every time you pull these antics, you weaken his position. You make him appear the fool in front of his men, in front of the court, in front of his enemies. If Duke Iorwin cannot even contain his headstrong daughter, what else is he incapable of? What if the king finds out?”
“You’re creating mountains out of molehills. All of you.”
“And you make it sound as if we have burdened you with the weight of the world. What sort of example is this for your sisters? Will you have your brother think that the woman he marries was forced into it—a brood mare,
just like you said? You’re the eldest. Act like it.”
“I didn’t ask for this,” she whispered.
They stared at each other for a length of time. Roena could feel tears prickling her eyes—angry, red-hot tears.
Her mother reached out to wipe them.
“No,” she said, slapping Branna’s hand away as soon as her fingers touched her cheek. “No. You can’t have everything. Especially not me. You don’t own me.” Without another word, she turned around and made her way back to her room.
~~~
Ylir was gone, with only the disarray of her bedsheets and the faint whiff of his unperfumed scent reminding her that he had been here at all. She slammed the door and locked it for the second time that afternoon.
She glanced at the bed. She had gone back with every intention of throwing herself on her mattress and crying the whole night away. But the thought of that suddenly seemed detestable, in light of Ylir’s words. Pampered nobleman’s daughter, indeed. He wasn’t wrong about that, but there was so much about it he didn’t understand. Layers and layers, adding up so that they did feel like the entire weight of the world, no matter what her mother said. What did they both know? They weren’t her father’s child.
She slowly changed out of her gown and into her riding clothes. And then she went to the window and slipped out into the balcony below.
The afternoon sun had slipped from the zenith and had taken a dull shade of red. She glanced out at the courtyard, noticing that the castle staff were nowhere in sight. Every single servant must’ve been called inside to help with the guests. There were guards by the gate, but only two—the rest, Roena figured, were with the other soldiers in the barracks.
She made her way to the next balcony down, which was closest to the stables. They kept the dogs there, too. One deftly thrown stone across the roof was enough to send them barking.
“Quiet, you!” one of the guards called out.
She tightened her jaw and threw a second stone, which sent the dogs into a frenzy. The horses panicked. The guards left their post to check on them. As soon as their backs were turned, Roena vaulted over the wall and was out of the castle grounds in the blink of an eye.
She stopped running when she reached the fork in the road that led to the city of Blackwood. Here, she was as nondescript as any traveller. She kept in pace with a farmer on his way to deliver some goods, managing to quell her beating heart long enough to engage in friendly banter with him and his wife. It wasn’t the first time she had escaped from the castle, and lapsing into city vernacular was easy enough for her. She separated from them at the gates and made her way down the familiar path to the tavern.
The hostess knew her face and greeted her with a smile. She led Roena up the stairs to a private loft that overlooked the rest of the establishment. A footstool was pulled out for her, along with a tray of candied fruit, steeped in a mixture of honey and brandy. “The usual, my lady?” the hostess asked.
Roena stared at her wide, beaming face, and suddenly felt sick. She nodded, and the woman went rushing off to pour her a mug of their best cask of porter and a plate of whatever roasted animal was on special that day, but she could feel her ears burning as she settled into the lovely, cushioned armchair. She remembered that it hadn’t been there the first time she had paid this tavern a visit. It appeared the next day, all oiled and cleaned for her.
Pampered nobleman’s daughter. She could still hear his voice, could still see that smirking grin in her mind’s eye. The nerve of the man. The nerve of the man to be right, all along. But what was she supposed to do about it?
She glanced over the railing. The tavern was particularly lively today—a by-product, no doubt, of the festivities back at the castle. Plenty of the guests’ servants must’ve stolen away as she had—she spotted a handful still wearing their lords’ livery. A bard in the corner was singing about Lord Blackwood and his mercenaries, of the duke’s wisdom in seeking forth such courageous men…
He had barely gotten the words out of his mouth when a man rose and slammed his fist on the table. “Courage?” he laughed. “That’s how this Iorwin intends to seduce us? With pretty little words from a pretty little man?”
“Sit your ass down,” one of his companions, a redheaded man with a slim goatee, said. “It’s like you’ve never heard a bard in your life.”
“The fat bastard didn’t even have the courtesy to give us food and lodging,” the man snarled. “We come all the way out here only to be turned at his fucking gates. I thought this was a job. I didn’t spend coin only to get here and spend more coin for the chance at a fucking—”
“Sit. Down,” the redhead hissed. “Iorwin’s steward is going to come around to take our names soon enough. You want him to find out you’ve been making trouble in his taverns?”
The man shuffled his bulk back into a chair, grumbling. Roena pushed her own seat a little closer to the railing so she could get a better look. The man had dark hair, slightly darker skin, and a nose that, from a glance, oddly reminded her of Ylir’s. The similarities ended there. He was filthy, unshaved, and dressed in an odd assortment of leather and wool. Even from where she sat, she could tell he smelled no better than a wet dog.
The others gathered around his table looked just as dishevelled, with the exception of the redhead, whose clothes seemed to be a cut above the men he was with. They resumed to whispering around their drinks as the bard awkwardly excused himself.
The tavern doors swung open and a new group stomped in. From the look of them and the weapons they bore, they were mercenaries, too. Roena’s curiosity was piqued at the sight of two women among these. The tallest one scanned the crowd with a scowl before her gaze settled on the loudmouth from earlier.
“Jona,” she snarled.
The man folded his elbows over the table with a grin. “I was wondering if you received my message. Can you believe the nerve of these assholes? Where the hell is Oswyn?”
“Oswyn’s dead.”
The man called Jona started laughing.
The woman’s hand dropped to her sword. “Tasha,” the other woman said. “Not here. We’re supposed to work with him.”
“I know murderers and thieves from the back alleys of Cairntown I’d rather work with.”
“What’s wrong, little girl?” Jona snorted. “Scared of poor old me? Seems like you haven’t learned all these years. Probably can’t believe your luck, can you, that we’re back here after the Boarshind spat your gnarly bones out. Hilarious, that whole thing. And now Oswyn’s dead! Who’s this young filly behind you?” He whistled at the other woman, who folded her arms together and looked far from amused.
“I have a name,” the other woman said. “It’s Hana.”
“And we’re not here to entertain your questions, Jona,” Tasha snorted. “Oswyn wanted us to join with you. Fuck knows what got into his head to pick you of all people, but here we are.”
Jona snorted. “If he’s dead, who’s supposed to lead us? I sure as fuck don’t want to follow you.”
“Can’t we do this without them?” one of the men they had walked with spoke up.
This one, Roena guessed, was clearly Gorenten. He stood a little shorter than the woman, though he was quite tall all the same, with the sort of brawny arms that came from hard labour and not fighting. Roena’s attention fell on him because unlike the other mercenaries, he was dressed like any old farmer from the surrounding villages. He didn’t even have a weapon on him.
“Oswyn was adamant that the client wanted—” Tasha started.
“And what,” Jona broke in, “the fuck is this? Where did you find this whelp? Are you that starved for men, now?”
“He’s our guide,” Tasha said.
“Interesting clientele we’ve been having these days, won’t you agree, my lady?” the hostess asked, breaking Roena’s thoughts. She approached her with a curtsy before setting out a tray with cheese, grapes, and roasted chicken, the skin all brown and crispy. She also placed a mug of thick
, oily beer on the table. “All because of your father, of course. They’re scary people, but imagine how much scarier they’ll be when they go up against the beasts. Your father is an intelligent man.”
“Intelligent,” Roena said, testing the word against her image of her father. She wasn’t quite sure if she agreed. He believed himself crafty, but if the commotion downstairs was any indication, this little plan of his could go sour at any moment.
“But of course, my lady,” the hostess said, unaware of Roena’s hesitation. “Duke Iorwin has always put the interests of his people above all else. You should be proud.”
“How many villages are under attack, truly? Do you know?”
“My lady must know these things more than I do.”
“But you run a tavern. You must’ve heard more than enough rumours.”
“I know Shortwood, to the north, have lost at least five youngsters within two months. And my sister lives in Riverbend, and they’ve lost eight in their village. She sent my nephew over here, actually, since—”
The doors opened again. Roena turned and saw her father’s steward shuffling through the doors. He glanced up as soon as he stepped in, as if he knew exactly where Roena would be. His face flickered, but if he had an opinion on her presence there, he didn’t say anything. Everyone in the castle knew of her habits. It would take someone a lot braver than Master Landor to confront her about them.
The patron dipped her head and excused herself to meet him. Landor handed her his coat before turning his attention to the mercenaries in the tavern. “I’m here to take your names for Duke Iorwin Blackwood’s approval,” he said out loud. “We need to know who you are, and the main person we’ll be dealing with. Tomorrow, you’ll be called into the castle, where we’ll assign each group a village.”
“Bout bloody time,” Jona snarled. “Since you’re here, sweet sir, can you explain why the fuck we have to pay for lodging and food? We were under the impression that Duke Iorwin called us in to take care of a problem. A bit of coin for our needs isn’t too much to ask for, is it?” There was a collective murmur of agreement from the other tables.
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