Nobody's Lady

by Amy McNulty

  That brought a smile to her face.

  The boy was not so easy to appease. “You didn’t tell us about the lord.” His gaze was still focused on the window above me. “How come he never comes down himself? He must be monstrously ugly.”

  “He’s not.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop myself.

  I felt the eyes of all three children and Jurij bearing down on me. “She likes him!” whispered that girl again, although not very quietly.

  “Then why won’t he visit the village?” asked the boy.

  “Because then children like you wouldn’t have so much fun asking so many questions.” Each of the kids responded with a blank stare. “He’s more mysterious this way, isn’t he? Who’d care about him at all if he wasn’t hidden away?”

  The door to the baker’s shop opened, and I clamped my mouth shut. I busied myself fussing with the nearest row of animals, turning a perfectly fine display into something of a mess. The specter had one of the baker’s sons pushing a cart full of bread for him. I had to scoff despite my fear of being noticed. I knew the specters didn’t eat anything. What did Ailill always need so much bread for? To make people think the specters were human? I wondered why I’d never seen a room full of rotting, moldy bread, but it could have very well been on the top floor, next to the tower prison. Where he’d kept my mother. And probably Jurij, for that one day he’d stolen him from me.

  I shook my head. From Elfriede.

  The cart stopped. “Oh. It’s today.”

  Darwyn, Baker’s son. One of my friends from childhood. A rather annoying friend from childhood. Looking down and clearly expecting me to say something.

  “What’s today?” I asked, tucking that too-long bit of hair behind my ear.

  “Your shop.” He let go of the cart handle to gesture at my blanket. “In front of ours.”

  “Oh. Your mother said it was okay.”

  Darwyn nodded. “Yeah, sure. I guess we don’t mind. But if I knew you’d be here, I’d have … ” He stopped, putting his hand back on the cart and turning to go.

  I stopped fondling my carvings and stared up at him. “You’d have what?”

  “Nothing.” Darwyn started pushing the cart again. It carried more bread than would feed one man, but at least it wasn’t overflowing like it used to be. Maybe Ailill was trying to be a little less wasteful. But how would such thoughts even occur to him in the middle of a long, brooding day?

  The specter stepped out from the shop behind Darwyn, and I knew this time that his eyes met mine. I looked away, flustered. It wasn’t like Ailill could read minds. Just get a report of all my actions. At least I hoped he couldn’t read minds. But even if he could, it didn’t matter. He’d already decided I still hated him, so he wouldn’t bother reading mine.

  The cricketing of the cart faded, the sound drowned out by the movements of villagers going about their business on the road.

  “Let’s follow him!” whispered the boy.

  I looked up, for a foolish moment thinking the invitation included me, the weird lone woman who’d rejected the lord and turned the whole village upside down. But the children were already lost in their own world, giggling and running down the road after Darwyn and the specter. My hand lingered on a wooden horse, thinking of the days when I led a group of boys around the village, always after the mysterious, always looking for adventure. At least, after everything, there were children now at play, children who might have forgotten one another in the days of the goddesses.

  “Nothing?” echoed Jurij beside me, sometime after Darwyn had left. He snorted.

  I leaned back against the wall beside him. “He probably meant he would have sent his brother.”

  “So he didn’t have to see me?”

  I studied Jurij, wondering where he came up with that idea. “Why would he care about seeing you? I was the one who always bothered him when we were kids.”

  Jurij let out a deep breath and shook his head. “I think everyone bothered him. To tell you the truth, I couldn’t even stand the guy until he found his goddess.”

  I tilted my head and raised an eyebrow. “We barely saw him once he found his goddess.”

  Jurij shrugged. “Exactly.”

  I tsked. “So there’s something to be said for goddesses after all?”

  The laugh I heard from beside me couldn’t have been more contemptuous if it had been Ailill’s. “And what would that be?”

  Jurij and I looked up. Darwyn had returned, the squeaky cart no longer with him to give us a hint of his approaching. I swallowed, wondering how much he’d heard. Not that I’d said anything beyond what he might be expecting. But if there was one thing I didn’t miss from the days before my friends had found their goddesses, it was attempting to break up fights between them. Even if I caused more than a few of them myself.

  “They gave you guys some sense of direction.” An idea popped into my head as my gaze drifted between Darwyn and Jurij. “Say, Darwyn, your brother Sindri, he works in the quarry?”

  I didn’t have to look at Jurij to feel his accusing glare from beside me, but I purposefully ignored it. “Yeah?” Darwyn said after a moment’s pause, clearly not following why I’d asked to begin with.

  My eyes traveled to the baker’s shop door. “And your mother could use some help these days, right? Since your father … ” I cut myself short.

  “Moved in with one of the farmer women. Sure. Lots of people doing strange things like that these days.” Darwyn tried to state that fact as if it didn’t matter, but his voice cracked as he did. He wiped his nose with one finger and crouched beside us, his gaze drifting quickly over my wooden figures and back again. “You looking for work, Noll? The shop, maybe, but I don’t know if you have the heft for quarry work.”

  “I’m set with my woodworking, thank you.” I nudged Jurij and looked at him for the first time since I started the conversation. His face seemed dejected, and he wouldn’t return my gaze. “But Jurij needs something to do. And maybe it’s time he asked some of his friends for help.”

  The look that Jurij gave me made me wonder if I’d finally added him to the list of people who once cared about me but didn’t anymore.

  “Again? We just ate with them last week.” Jurij wiped the sweat off his brow with his forearm and placed the pickax in its corner by the door. His scarred eyelid drooped heavily. “And where are we going to fit them all?” He shook his head. “Scratch that. You guys can eat here. I’ll go to Elweard’s with Sindri.”

  “Ha,” I said, pulling open the cupboard and gripping the picnic basket handle on which I’d carved some flowers and thorns. “But is Sindri eating at the tavern? Why don’t you invite him, too?”

  Jurij regarded me as if I’d just asked him to marry his mother. But I supposed in this strange new life we’d been sharing for about two weeks, everything I asked of him would seem odd and new. I broke the silence. “Tell him he can bring any of his brothers, too.”

  Jurij glanced around the cottage, his eyes resting on the pork roasting in the fire. “You bought a pig.”

  I smiled and put my hands on my hips. “I bought a pig.” My toys had been selling pretty well as of late—probably because they offered children in the midst of family turmoil a little comfort. Even fathers—or especially fathers—were buying them, despite the fact that they were the ones causing the turmoil in the first place. I wondered if they felt a little better distracting their children with baubles before they went off to the tavern. In any case, I had a sizeable stash of coins now, and it wasn’t like I had anything else to save up for. The villagers needed people to spend more, so I wanted to lead by example.

  “You knew we were having guests, and you didn’t feel fit to tell me until I got home from the quarry.” He scowled. “From a long, long day at the quarry.”

  I skirted the table and put my hands on Jurij’s back, twisting him gently and guiding him to the door. “And a big feast will prove just the thing to make
you feel better.”

  “Noll, you invited my parents. My brother. Nissa. My aunt.”

  I smiled, feeling the sickening sweetness I poured into each muscle responsible for the movement. “Just be glad I didn’t invite my family, too.” I’d considered it. But since the Tailors had informed Elfriede that her former husband was safe and sound and living exactly where her own sister had sworn he’d never be found, I’d since realized they’d never reunite if Elfriede knew I was involved. “Now, go on. Invite our friends.” I opened the cottage door.

  “Yes, ma’am,” mumbled Jurij. “Are you sure you didn’t get a lot of practice being a goddess?”

  “What was that?”

  “Never mind.” Jurij stepped onto the dirt leading to the road between the village and the quarry. “Friends is probably the wrong word anyway,” he muttered.

  He headed down the road toward the mass of men going home from the quarry. My gaze turned to the horizon. Good. No rain. The fire popped behind me. “Right. The pig.” I rotated the animal on the spit, my mind racing with all of the preparations left to be done.

  ***

  “I like this one.” Nissa probably meant it, but the extent of her enthusiasm made the comment seem about as genuine as Jurij’s love for hard labor. She stroked the wooden rabbit in her lap like it was a live pet. It took a moment of studying her in the flicker of firelight to remember that Luuk had often worn a bunny mask, a hand-me-down from his brother.

  I finished chewing my portion of meat. “You can have it.” I nudged her. “No charge.”

  Nissa shook her head, and then, remembering herself, smiled ever so slightly at me. She placed the rabbit gently back into the basket I’d brought outside in order to show everyone gathered around the fire the new additions to my wares. “Let a child have it,” she said quietly, failing to recognize that being thirteen hardly made her an adult. She observed the fire, and I noticed a hardness in her heart, maybe even harder than the hardness I’d felt at her age, when I saw the last of my friends leave me behind for my sister. Sure, Jurij had still been my friend, thanks to an unintended command from his goddess, but it wasn’t the same. The secret hope I’d been harboring, that Jurij might love me when we grew older, was gone when I was Nissa’s age. The way Nissa’s eyes kept drifting to Luuk across the fire made me think she felt just as hopeless.

  I’m sorry, Nissa. But you don’t want a love like that anyway. I tossed the bone onto the fire. It wasn’t real. It didn’t last.

  “Nice pig.” For a moment, I thought Siofra might be complimenting the wooden pig I’d begun carving before they’d all arrived for dinner, but the block was still too formless for anyone to identify. Siofra was nodding at the tree stump on which I’d placed the roasted pig slices on a large platter and wiping her mouth with a scrap of cloth I’d gotten from the Tailors to serve as a napkin. “Good cut. Good buy. Good cooking.”

  I tucked the stray bit of hair behind my ear, still not used to compliments from the woman I’d grown up thinking was so surly. “Thanks.”

  Siofra held her plate out to Master Tailor beside her. “Coll, put another slice on my plate?” It wasn’t a command exactly. But she’d already turned her attention to her mug, not even regarding the plate, which she must have assumed Master Tailor would take from her. It fell to the ground with a thunk.

  Master Tailor stared at Siofra as he lifted his fork to his mouth and chewed slowly. You could practically hear every movement of his jaw between the crackling of the fire.

  Siofra’s face darkened as she snatched the plate. “Of course. I can do it myself,” she said quietly. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  As she stood to refill her plate herself, I cleared my throat, my gaze drifting to the large gaps between us I’d left for Jurij, Sindri, and whatever other Baker boy felt like joining us. My hand dug into Bow’s fur. I’d been looking forward to seeing the look on Jurij’s face when he saw our surprise canine guest, but now I wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him until the whiny, selfish man who’d moved in with me was replaced by the kind and caring boy who’d never spared a thought for himself.

  But you were the one who felt it only right to give men their freedom.

  “I like this ale,” said Master Tailor, taking a swig from the mug I’d served Alvilda’s and Siofra’s gift in. “Alvilda, did you get this from Vena?”

  Alvilda slammed her plate so hard on the ground beside her, I thought for a minute I’d served her meal on glass instead of wood. “All right. We’ve waited long enough.” She bolted upright. “I’m going to search the entire village, I’m going to knock down doors, I’m going to find that lazy, ungrateful—”

  “Alvilda!” Both Siofra and her former husband spoke the name at once, one pleading, even angry, the other so surprised, it was a wonder he was able to keep a grip on his mug.

  Alvilda whipped around, first to face her wife and then to face her brother. She didn’t seem to notice Luuk slinking down beside her as if hoping he could vanish entirely into the ground.

  “No. This is ridiculous. I thought last week, when he dined at our house, that his plan to join the quarry workers would snap some sense into him, but that was just at Noll’s urging, wasn’t it? Leaving this entire meal to Noll, continuing to encroach upon her hospitality.”

  Despite my own irritation at the man who was the topic of her tirade, I started to feel protective, even defensive in the face of Alvilda’s overreaction. “He hasn’t been encroaching. He’s been going to work every day.”

  Alvilda’s boiling hot gaze fell on me. “Don’t tell me he’s been doing the minimum of what’s expected of him like it’s some accomplishment.”

  “It is an accomplishment.” I jumped to my feet, staring her down across the fire. “Alvilda, don’t you think you’re being too hard on him? You didn’t say a word against him for doing nothing with his days before the curse broke.”

  Alvilda thrust her arms across her chest. “Things are different.”

  “Things are different. You can’t just expect men to pick up their lives like nothing’s changed.” My gaze fell on Master Tailor and Luuk. “Tell her,” I said, as if my experiences put me in the position of acting like some translator between men and women. “Tell her things are different.”

  Siofra set her plate on the ground. “She knows that, Noll. She just wants what’s best for our sons.”

  “Our sons?” The clatter of the plate on the ground beside me was enough to rival a dozen glass plates smashing. Master Tailor stood, his finger pointed at Alvilda. I’d never seen the man so angry. Granted, I’d never seen his face before the curse had broken, but I never imagined the features behind the owl mask he so often wore could contort so wildly. “Jurij and Luuk are my sons. Mine and Siofra’s.” He patted his chest with his fist. “And the two of you might have tried to forget I existed all of those years—”

  Siofra gasped, standing. “We never!”

  Alvilda put a hand out to stop her from crossing around the fire to get nearer to him.

  “You always.” Master Tailor’s voice grew so deep and troubled, Bow woke from her nap emitting a low growl. Master Tailor paused, the lump on his throat shaking visibly as he swallowed. “It was always the two of you, from the start. I had my uses, but I was nothing to you.”

  “That’s not true.” I’d never heard Siofra’s voice so unsure.

  “No, it is true.” Master Tailor shook his head. “I may have been too stupid to be hurt by it then, but it hurts thinking about it now.” He sighed, his eyes darting between Alvilda and Siofra. Siofra couldn’t meet his gaze, but Alvilda stared, daring him to say more. Master Tailor waved a defeated hand, dismissing them. “I don’t mean I want Siofra back. I didn’t have a choice to love her, you know.” He tapped his fingers across his forehead as he paced back and forth before the fire. “But I can remember things. My own sister, Siofra, like I wanted to know what was going on between you. Like I was nothing but a messenger with
out a brain. But I remember what you had me say to her.”

  I clapped my hands together. “Okay, Nissa, why don’t you help me clean up?” I looked across the fire. “Luuk?”

  Luuk practically jumped up but stopped himself, his eyes wandering between Nissa, his mother and aunt, and his father, clearly trying to figure out who was least likely to cause him discomfort. And he wasn’t having an easy time deciding.

  Master Tailor seemed to notice the pause, and his attention drifted between Luuk and Nissa. He grabbed Luuk by the arm and pulled him upright. “No, Luuk’s had enough of that. We’re leaving.” He looked at me. “Thank you for the dinner, Noll. It was great. Thank you for opening your home to Jurij, who is a grown man and can do as he damn well pleases.” His extra emphasis was clearly not meant for me. “Tell him he can come home to me if he gets tired of the quarry.” He looked back at Alvilda and Siofra. “Or of women in general.”

  I decided to let that last comment slide, given the situation, but some women couldn’t.

  “Coll!” Some of Siofra’s usual stubbornness came through.

  “No, let him go.” Alvilda slipped an arm around Siofra and pulled her to her chest, roughly, more boldly than I’d ever seen her do before. “Let the man whine and see what good it does when the work still needs doing. Let him see that it’s not so easy to think for himself and take on responsibility when someone isn’t commanding him.”

  “So, Nissa,” I spoke quietly, turning to see how the poor girl was handling it. She was clinging to Bow and trying to peer around my legs at the path Master Tailor and Luuk were cutting through the grasses, the shortcut that would take them to the Tailor Shop at the edge of the village.