by Barb Hendee
“Let me ask about a job mucking stalls,” he added. “That way, you won’t even have to be admitted inside the house.”
Though I wanted to take matters into my own hands, I also wanted to succeed, and his idea made sense.
“All right.”
“Come with me and try to look like my downtrodden wife,” he said.
“Your what?”
“Just do it.”
There he was giving orders again. But I bit back a retort and followed him to the stable. The bay front doors were open, exposing stalls along both sides. A distinguished looking man with silver hair was giving orders to two stable boys when we entered.
All three of them looked at us. I did my best to appear downtrodden.
“Pardon,” Cooper said. “Didn’t mean to interrupt, but I’m looking for work and wondered if you need another hand. Anything… mucking stalls, or carting manure, or whatever you ask.”
The sliver-haired man glanced at me and back to Cooper with no expression at all. He walked over to us, but I sensed he was a guarded man.
“You know horses?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” Cooper lied. “I worked a public stable in Kéonsk as a boy, but lately, my wife and I have fallen on… hard times.”
The flaw in his plan was obvious when the man glanced at me again, at my well-tailored yellow dress, and then back to Cooper. We didn’t look like a couple who’d fallen on hard times.
“I cannot hire new help without asking my master,” the man said, “and he is away at present.”
Sensing we were about to be dismissed, I blurted out, “What is your master like? Is he good to his servants?”
The instant those words left my mouth, his face darkened. “Why would you ask such things about my master?”
“If I’m going to work for him, I’d wish to know what he’s like,” Cooper put in quickly, casting me a frown.
“I haven’t even offered you a job,” the man said, and he motioned with his head. “Get out. I’ll not stand here gossiping about my master.”
In spite of my bluntness, this was seemed an overreaction to our questions. I started to panic at losing my best chance for information.
“Please, sir, we meant no disrespect,” I pleaded. “We are only concerned with finding a good place, a place we might stay. Please consider my husband for a position.”
The silver-haired man appeared to be done with us. “Out, now,” he ordered, “and don’t come back asking any more questions.”
His voice had altered ever so slightly, and I thought I heard an edge of fear in it.
Cooper took my hand and pulled me out of the stable and back to the wagon. I wanted to shout with frustration. Now the stable workers knew our faces, and we’d lost our best chance for information.
“Well, that didn’t work,” I whispered, taking out my frustrations on Cooper. “Thank you so much for the help.”
“You spoke up too soon,” he accused. “I told you to let me do the talking.”
Growing angrier, I was working up to a proper response when the stable’s side door opened and one of the lads slipped out. He walked right up to us, and up close, I saw fading bruises on his face and neck.
“Do you still want to know about Jovanovich?” he asked Cooper, spitting the last word with hatred.
He looked to be about fifteen, and his eyes were hard. The silver-haired man might fear his master, but this boy hated him. I wondered about the bruises.
Cooper didn’t answer and eyed the boy cautiously.
I, on the other hand, spoke up. “Yes, we want to know.”
“Five silver pennies, and I’ll send you to someone who knows everything.”
“What makes you think we have any money?” Cooper asked.
“Because you’re not looking for work.” The boy glanced at the wagon and then me. “That dress would cost me six moons wages. You’re looking for information.” He held out his hand. “Five sliver pennies.”
That was a good deal of money—more than the price of Patrick’s year’s worth of leather for his cobbler’s shop—and I didn’t have it.
Cooper took out his pouch.
“You can’t,” I whispered, for I didn’t care to be even more in his debt.
Ignoring me, he paid the boy.
“Go to the Iron Boar, a tavern on the outskirts near the front gate, and ask for Marta,” the boy supplied. “She’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
With that, he glanced back at the stable and then took off up the street.
“Where are you going?” Cooper asked.
Clutching the coins, the boy called over his shoulder. “I’m never going back in there again.”
A moment later, he vanished down the next side street.
Cooper and I looked at each other, and for the first time since beginning this journey, I felt a waver of fear. What were we about to find out?
“Do you want to go to this tavern?” Cooper asked me, perhaps feeling the same trepidation.
The question surprised me considering the amount of money he’d just paid for the information.
“I don’t have a choice.”
·····
It didn’t take us long to find the Iron Boar, but by then, late afternoon had set in and unpleasant smells permeated the city’s outskirts. I tried to keep my hand off my face as Cooper pulled up in front of the tavern and scowled at a broken shutter and a door nearly falling off its hinges. A few men in filthy clothes, all of whom appeared to be drunk, sat or stood leaning against the outer front wall.
Cooper hesitated and looked to me. “Maybe I should go in alone. I can speak to this Marta.”
I shook my head and climbed off the wagon’s bench. “No, I’m coming.”
We didn’t even know if this Marta existed. For all we knew, the stable boy had taken Cooper for five silver pennies by rattling off the first tavern that came to mind along with a made-up name.
Cooper dropped off the wagon, wary-eyed, but didn’t try to stop me as I headed for the door.
Inside the place was dim but surprisingly neat with ten small tables and a variety of painted stools and chairs. There were only a few patrons sitting about at this time of the day, and most of them were either smoking pipes or eating bowls of soup. Perhaps the two drunkards outside had come from up the street.
A broad-shouldered man in a near-white shirt and black apron stood behind the bar. He was about fifty years old with deep creases around his mouth.
“Welcome,” he called to us, and the friendly expression on his face reached his eyes.
I smiled and went right to him as Cooper followed.
“Hello,” I said. “We were hoping to speak with a woman named Marta. Is she here?”
A flicker of uncertainty passed through the barkeep’s eyes. “Marta? Why?”
At least he’d confirmed she existed.
“We were sent,” I answered, and when he still didn’t offer any help, I added, “Please. It’s important.”
Exhaling through his nose, he looked across the room at a woman wiping down a table near the front window. “Marta… some people to see you.”
The woman turned. She was also around fifty and very thin—especially her face and hands. Lank graying hair escaped from her braid and hung past her cheeks, but I could see a quality in her… something in the way she moved that suggested that she’d not been wiping down tables her entire life.
Still holding her rag, she walked to the bar with small, even steps and looked me directly in the eyes.
“Forgive me. Do I know you?” Her voice and diction were cultured, and up close, I could see that she might have once been lovely.
The angry stable boy had told Cooper and me that this woman would tell us anything we wished to know. I decided to be direct.
“I’m looking for information about Coraline Jovanovich.”
The reaction was instant. Marta sucked a breath and held it as she gripped the closest stool, perhaps to keep from falling. The frien
dly barkeep lost his friendly expression.
“See here!” he barked. “You can’t come in and ask her about—”
“Why?” Marta interrupted in a whisper, her eyes on me again. “Why do you want to know?”
Cooper remained silent, and my instincts told me to keep being direct.
“Because she married my lord, and now she is trying to convince everyone that he is mad… that he is a danger to himself. He refuses to doubt his bride, and so I must do it for him.”
The barkeep leaned silently on the bar with his big hands. Marta drooped a little lower though she still kept her intense eyes on me. She then quickly glanced around at the few patrons in the place and slowly stepped back to the end of the bar, waving me to follow.
I did so, hearing Cooper coming behind me. The barkeep joined us, moving around the end of the bar and reaching out to the thin, now trembling woman.
“Marta,” he said softly. “You don’t have to do this.”
She didn’t acknowledge him. Neither had she even looked at Cooper.
Leaning closer to me, she hissed, “Bride? Is that what she calls herself? A new bride?”
I didn’t know how to answer, and suddenly, Marta grasped my hand as pain filled her face.
“You love your lord?” she asked. “You are loyal to him.”
“Yes.”
“Coraline is no bride. She is a widow. She was married to my son.”
I stumbled back one step. Cooper held me up as I reeled.
A widow? That wasn’t possible. Stefan would never marry a widow, no matter how rich she was. He was particular when it came to women, and I knew well of his prejudices. Then the real importance of the word “widow” struck me.
Coraline had married Marta’s son… and the son was dead.
I didn’t need to ask her any questions.
“I don’t know where they came from,” Marta whispered, and open hatred altered her cultured voice, “she and that whore-son father of hers. I tried to find out before the wedding, paying anyone who knew anything. I learned they were descended from a traveling band of Móndyalítko… and that’s where she got her filthy powers.”
Her voice rolled on in that hate-filled whisper. “My Nathaniel was always fragile, always an imaginative boy. Some thought him strange, but he was sweet until she came. I tried to stop it. I did everything I could, but he was smitten. He married her… and then she called up the ghosts… told everyone he was mad… a danger to himself.”
“Elena…” Cooper said quietly behind me.
Drool ran from one side of Marta’s mouth as her fingers curled and dug into the palms of her hands. “She killed him… killed my darling boy! Took our house… our wealth… and gave it to that whore-son father.”
This was getting out of hand, and I needed to stop it. Before I could move, the barkeep gently took hold of Marta as the woman babbled “sweet boy,” over and over.
Several of the patrons were staring.
“Shush, Marta,” the barkeep whispered with such kindness that I wished I knew his name. “Stop… and rest now.”
To my surprise, he picked her up and carried her through a curtained doorway beyond the bar.
Without turning, I reached up and gripped the back of Cooper’s hand where he’d been holding me, and neither of us said a word. I knew this wasn’t over.
A short while later, the broad-shouldered barkeep returned and looked at me as he sighed. “Did Coraline really marry your lord?”
I only nodded, and he sighed again.
“You mustn’t take what Marta says to heart,” he warned. “She’s had a hard time of things. When her husband died, her son, Nathaniel, inherited their family wool business. They lived in a big house in the merchant district, but Nathaniel was… strange, sometimes hearing and seeing things there weren’t there. When he married Coraline, it seemed to get worse, though I don’t know if being married was the cause or not. He kept saying he saw bloody or headless ghosts.”
This was all too familiar, and breathing became difficult.
“How did he die?” I managed to ask.
“He went to the Vudrask with Coraline and her father to pick up a shipment coming in on a barge. Just past dark, he walked a ways down the shore and threw himself into the river. Coraline and her father were outside the trading post when it happened, and a number of people had seen them there. Much as I’d like to blame them, they had nothing to do with it. The boy wasn’t right in the head.”
“But Marta believed her son when he said he’d been seeing ghosts.”
Taken back by the question, he didn’t answer for a moment. “Don’t get me wrong. Coraline and that father of hers are as black-hearted as they come. After Nathaniel’s death, poor Marta learned that the will had been changed. Coraline inherited everything… the business, the wealth, the house… all of it. Marta was thrown out with the dress on her back.” He paused, and then said, “I was a friend of her husband’s, and I took her in. She’ll always have a place here.”
I was still trying to take in everything he’d related when Cooper spoke up.
“So… Coraline and her father have only lived in that fine house for a few years? They’ve only been wealthy for a few years… and only because Coraline inherited her husband’s business and money?”
The barkeep nodded. “Poor Marta. Again, you can’t pay attention to some of her ramblings. Those two Jovanovichs deserve to hang for what they did to her, taking her home, but Coraline didn’t cause Nathaniel’s death.”
Still gripping Cooper’s hand, I suddenly wanted out of this place. This kindly barkeep might not believe Marta, but I did.
“Cooper,” I said, turning to him, “I need to get home. Can you take me back to the river, tonight in the dark, before we’ve sold your cargo.”
Without hesitation, he cocked his head toward the door. “We leave now.”
·····
Once outside the gates of Enêmûsk, we rolled down an uncomfortably dark road toward the Vudrask. The dense tree branches above blocked most of the three-quarters moon, and the darkness around me matched my mood.
Cooper and I hadn’t spoken since leaving the tavern. I was still days away from the manor, and everything I’d heard from Marta was swirling around inside my head as I tried to make sense of it.
Cooper finally broke the silence. “So… Coraline is marrying men with a history of madness and talks them into changing their wills. Then she somehow gets rid of them and shares the spoils with her father.”
His blunt, calm words helped me focus. On the surface, his assessment summed up Marta’s description of what happened to her son, but there were still many questions. For one, how exactly had Coraline managed to get Nathaniel to throw himself into river?
That made no sense.
Secondly, what did she hope to gain from Stefan, for his situation was quite different from Nathaniel’s?
Shaking my head, I asked, “Yes, but why Stefan? Since he’s neglected the fiefdoms for years, he has little money left after catching up, and the manor belongs to Prince Rodêk. It houses whoever is named vassal of Pudúrlatsat.”
Beside me, I could hear Cooper breathing as he drove the mules. I couldn’t see his face clearly, just the outline of profile in the dark.
“I think Coraline already has what she was after,” he answered. “And now I think she’s working on what her father wants.”
Puzzled, I didn’t interrupt his line of thought and waited for him to continue.
“She has a title now… ‘Lady’ Coraline… and she’s become noble. Pudúrlatsat has a dark history, and not many among Rodêk’s inner circle would want that vassalage. Should anything happen to Stefan, she would live in the manor until he could be replaced. Her father isn’t noble, but now that she is, what if she pleaded her case to Prince Rodêk? Her father might be allowed to take over for Stefan. The dead lord’s beautiful young wife is still in mourning, living in their home, and her father appears perfectly capable of managing the fief
s and collecting rents. I think the prince would be relieved at both solving the problem of a new vassal and looking generous to the widow at the same time.”
I drew in a sharp breath as her likely goals became clear.
“The vassalage might be poor now due to Stefan’s neglect,” Cooper finished, “but it could be very profitable if run with a firm hand. And … I’m certain Luciano would use a firm hand.”
Though everything he said made sense, I still couldn’t see the answers to several questions.
“What about the apparitions?” I asked. “Stefan has little imagination, but he described them in detail. Nathaniel also saw ghosts. How is Coraline—?”
“Calling them?” Cooper finished. “You don’t really believe she’s sending ghosts after Stefan?”
His condescension stung more than I expected. “How do you explain what he’s been seeing… suffering?”
“Maybe she’s drugging him… some herb or something that causes hallucinations… and then she’s placing suggestions in his mind.”
“Oh, Cooper, are there such herbs?”
I was so relieved by his explanation that I didn’t even care if he thought me ignorant.
Pulling up the mules, he turned his head in the darkness. “Yes, there are. I’m sorry if I sounded… You’re so clever at so many things that I sometimes forget you’ve spent your whole life serving in that manor.”
I didn’t want to talk about myself. I wanted to figure out the rest of this threat to my lord and home and the people of Pudúrlatsat.
“So how did she kill Nathaniel, if she was seen around the trading post when he went down shore and jumped into the river?”
Cooper shrugged, and I felt his shoulder brush mine.
“Maybe she or Luciano hired someone to push him in, since nobody saw it happen.”
Such logical explanations should have occurred to me. I had simply been so convinced by Stefan’s account that I’d believed Coraline was capable of somehow summoning the dead.
Cooper had made me see more reasonable options. Unfortunately, my relief was short-lived.
“So, we have their motives and possible methods,” I said, “but Coraline is a murderess and a confidence trickster, and she’s living with Stefan and Maisy and my dear Beatrice, and if she decides to act before we return, she’s only a heartbeat away from handing Pudúrlatsat to her father.”