“What do you think they’re doing right now?” Vanessa asked in a momentary lull one evening. “The girls in Cape Triumph?”
“Mourning us, most likely,” suggested Damaris dryly.
“Jasper might mourn the loss of revenue, but none of the others know us,” said Winnifred. “Except Martha. I know her from our district, and she knows the other Swan Ridge girls, of course. But you—Tamsin. They’ll be crying buckets for you.”
“Or will they?” Damaris’s brown eyes sparkled, despite the morbid topic. “How ruthless were you back at Blue Spring? If you blazed through there like you did on the ship—too focused to make friends, using all that energy of yours to ‘get things done’—then maybe they won’t be too torn up about it.”
I met her teasing look with exasperation. “Yes, yes, believe it or not, I did actually have friends back there.”
Gideon glanced between us, those fine features of his turning quizzical. “Why wouldn’t you? You seem like someone who makes friends everywhere.”
My roommates laughed, all except Damaris. She scrutinized Gideon, glanced at Dinah’s cold face, and then said, “Well, of course she does. We just give her a hard time, that’s all. She’s just got one of those natures, but then, so do you. It’s why you get along so well.”
“That’s enough,” Dinah said from across the room. “No wonder your heads are so empty, if this is the drivel you talk about. Up to bed, all of you.”
My roommates and I scurried to the attic. Aside from walking into town for work, bedtime was the only spare moment we had to speak privately. It was also often my only chance to write letters, so I usually found myself multitasking—writing and talking at the same time.
Winnifred stifled a yawn as she watched me. “You’ll have written a book by the time all those letters of yours get to your family.”
“Did the letter you wrote to Jasper go out?” asked Vanessa, pulling one of the scratchy nightgowns on over her head.
“Yesterday,” I replied. “There was a farmer heading east to Watchful. He took some of the town’s mail with him, which was lucky. But it’ll still take forever to cross Grashond, and then who knows how often ships carry mail down the coast? We’ll probably beat the letter there.”
“Oh.” Vanessa sat on the bed with crossed legs. She sometimes had a blithe nature reminiscent of Adelaide’s, but she was unusually subdued tonight. “I was hoping the letter would get there before anyone wrote to our families back home about us and the ship.”
Silence. I set down my pen and met the others’ gazes. In all my fixation on getting to Merry, I’d never considered that possibility. I knew Mira and Adelaide probably thought I was dead. They’d been near the Gray Gull when we took damage. Our loss would’ve hit them suddenly and acutely, and my heart ached whenever I imagined their reaction to my supposed death. The haunting memory of Mira’s agonized face from the eve of our sailing was etched into my mind. How much worse was it now? And Adelaide . . . I couldn’t imagine her pain either. Because no matter how things had ended between us, I knew she’d grieve for me and grieve hard. Her heart was big.
But my family? They seemed so far away and isolated in Osfrid, detached from any of this. As difficult as my setback with the Gray Gull had been, I thought of it as a problem that was bound to Adoria. The inconvenience affected me, and I would have this settled—eventually—hopefully before it would have any effect on Ma, Pa, and the others.
But of course Jasper would write to our families. The question was: How soon?
“The ships probably aren’t running back east yet,” I said at last. I had to lower my eyes toward the letter, lest my friends read my doubts. “He can’t send anything.”
The other girls relaxed, but only slightly. Vanessa asked, “Have you heard anything about when we’ll go south?”
“They’re waiting for the weather to clear.”
Winnifred brightened. “Then it can’t be much longer. It hasn’t snowed since we’ve been here, and there’s hardly any left on the ground.”
I still couldn’t look up, knowing what I did. “Then I’m sure we’ll hear something soon. And they still have a lot of planning to do. We haven’t even been here for a week.”
A creak on the stairs was our only warning before Dinah stepped through the doorway. “Are you four still awake? You’re wasting candles. And you.” She turned toward me, hands on her hips. “You’re wasting paper.”
I finished writing my last word. “Gideon gave this to me.”
“And Uros gave us the world. That doesn’t mean you have the right to misuse either one. Gideon is a thoughtful, generous man and most likely believed he’d be helping you out with an occasional letter—not a nightly missive!” Dinah scooped up the blank stack of paper.
“Hey!” I jumped to my feet. “That’s mine.”
“Nothing in this household is yours. I will keep this and allow you one page on holy days. That way you won’t squander it and run him out of resources—because he’d no doubt keep supplying you. Out of kindness and obligation, of course. I’m doing this for everyone’s sake.”
“‘Be cautious of those who are too quick to act in your best interests and even quicker to tell you that they are. Too often, your best interests become indistinguishable from theirs.’”
That astonishing bit of scriptural recitation came from Damaris. Her solemn delivery was undermined by a saucy smile that broadened when she saw Dinah gape. “What?” asked Damaris innocently. “It was in one of the passages you assigned me to read this morning. I was trying to apply what I learned in my everyday life. Did I do it right?”
Dinah blanched, then reddened as fury set in. “You think that’s funny? Quoting the holy books for your own insidious purposes? That’s blasphemous and evil.”
“Evil?” I took a few steps closer to Damaris. “I don’t really think—”
“I don’t care what you think!” Dinah’s eyes blazed. “You’re all wicked and selfish, and the angels wrecked you here to learn some humility. Damaris—follow me. Since you fancy yourself such a scriptural expert, you can sit down by the hearth and copy out the first three chapters of A Testament of Angels before you sleep.”
When Damaris started to walk to the doorway, I put out a hand to block her. “That’s huge! It’ll take her half the night.”
Dinah regarded me coolly. “Perhaps you’d like to keep her company and copy out the next three?”
I was about to snap back, “Only if I can use Gideon’s paper,” but then I caught Damaris’s eye. She gave a tiny shake of her head, and after a moment of indecision, I dropped my arm and let her keep going.
I heard her return hours later, long after the rest of us had gone to bed. Lifting my head a little, I peeked over at the small window, which glowed gray in the predawn light. I snuggled back under the heavy quilt but couldn’t fall asleep. Our morning wakeup came all too soon, and Damaris clambered out of bed doggedly, albeit bleary-eyed.
Every time Damaris yawned at breakfast, Dinah looked increasingly proud of herself. I wanted to shake that smirk right off her. Gideon, blissfully unaware of the drama that had taken place last night, kept chatting me up about a bridge that had been built in the market district after he’d left.
Finally, noticing my attention straying to Damaris, he said to her, “My goodness. You must not have slept very well.”
She managed a wan smile. “I slept very well. I just didn’t get much of it. I went to bed late. I got caught up reading.”
“I see,” he said. “Well, try to be a little more careful tonight—though I know how hard it is when you’re in the middle of a good book.”
“That’s wonderful advice,” she said sweetly. “Thank you.”
Later, when my friends and I reached the town square and were about to head off to our jobs, I held Damaris back.
“When you finish prepping the food, come f
ind me at Chester’s. Half my deliveries overlap with yours. I’ll take them, and you can go home early and sleep.”
She blinked in surprise. “What? No. I can’t. Er, you can’t do that . . .”
“Of course I can. I told you, it’s on the way. And you need some rest.”
She yawned. “You think Dinah will let me?”
“I think you’ll have to be sneaky enough to get in without her noticing.”
“Oh, Tamsin,” she said with a chuckle, “I’m glad you’re with us.”
* * *
The nice thing about having a job that sent me out so often was that I’d gotten a good opportunity to study the town and its inhabitants. Although a fraction of the size, Constancy wasn’t so different from the market district in Osfrid. People and horses traveled the streets on various errands, craftsmen made their crafts, merchants sold their goods. The residents I passed didn’t seem unkind so much as wary, but then, we were strangers who’d arrived with Icori and Balanquans. We didn’t practice their ways and came from a place that had, in fact, persecuted them for those ways. I persisted in politeness and respect, hoping the townspeople would eventually accept us.
My attitude must have done something, because the old cobbler who lived next to Chester Woods greeted me as I left with my last delivery later that day. “Where to now?” he asked, tipping his hat.
Smiling back, I set down my baskets and reached for my mittens. “The Randalls, Johnsons, and Calvin Miller. Then I go home.”
“You’ll take the creek road?”
“No, I—” The mittens weren’t in my pockets. Six. Had I left them at one of my stops today? I repressed a sigh and hoisted the baskets back up. “Sorry. What was I saying? Oh, I’m taking the north road. That’s how someone directed me earlier.”
“Nah. Save time on the creek road. After you go to the Randalls, head toward the school, and you’ll come across a little track. Don’t worry—it gets bigger. Stay on it, and it’ll loop up as it winds out of town. Goes right past the pond Miller lives on and then crosses the north road just south of the Johnsons.”
I had a pretty good sense of direction and tried to piece it all together. “If it’s where you say, I must have crossed the creek road before.”
He scratched at his forehead and nodded. “You surely did. You remember an orchard? That’s Albert Thrace’s land, right at the crossroads. North after that is Jacob Robinson’s, then the Johnsons’ farm a half mile later.”
I nearly dropped the baskets. “J-Jacob Robinson’s place?”
“Well, he’s renting it. You would’ve passed it too—it has two red barns.” The cobbler pulled a face at that. “Do you know him?”
“I just heard the name, that’s all.”
“He’ll be gone soon enough, and good riddance. We don’t need his kind of trouble.” The cobbler squinted up at the sky. “If you wait another hour, I can drive you when I go home. The creek road runs right behind Samuel Cole’s, and I’m not far after that.”
“No, thank you.” I was already running later than usual because of making Damaris’s deliveries. I was also forming a plan. “I appreciate it, though. I’ll just finish this up now—I don’t want to keep these people waiting.”
I hurried away, my heart pounding. Jacob Robinson! Or Jago Robinson. Whichever it was, I remembered the red barns. It was hard not to, since no other building in Constancy was painted a bright color. The cobbler’s words echoed back to me: We don’t need his kind of trouble. And Gideon, in his mild-mannered way, hadn’t really spoken well of Jago either.
But I couldn’t pass up the chance. Merry was on my mind, as always, but after Damaris’s punishment, I was more motivated than ever to get us out of here. Everyone kept saying I got things done. It was time to prove I could.
CHAPTER 10
AFTER DROPPING THE LAST BASKET OFF TO A VERY GRATEFUL mother of eight children, I backtracked toward the house with two barns. Clouds were moving in from the north, chasing away our sunny day, and I quickened my pace to avoid both the chilly air and a scolding for being late to dinner.
Jago Robinson’s home was more of a cabin than a house, built of logs that had turned gray in the elements. It was one story and had a small porch that looked like a recent addition, judging from its golden-hued timber. Farther back on the property, the red barns stood like sentries, and the land showed no signs of being farmed.
The new porch smelled of cedar and creaked when I stepped up on it. I set my empty baskets down and knocked, rubbing my hands together as I waited. When about a minute had passed, I knocked again and peered in one of the dark windows, hoping to get a sense if anyone was home.
“Do your parents know you’re here?”
The voice came from outside, not within. I spun around. A man stood at the end of the porch, hands shoved in the pockets of a knee-length leather coat that had seen a lot of wear. A wrinkled brown hat sat crookedly on his head, and a scarlet scarf provided an unexpected flash of color in his otherwise drab attire.
“Are you Mister Robinson?” I asked.
He bowed. “At your service. Can’t say I recognize you, and I know I’d remember if we’d met. What is it you’re looking for? Got a cough? Need something to make your hair grow faster? Want a baby? Don’t want a baby? You know, I’ve got a ribbon that I think would be perfect for you. It’s green—but not a dangerous green.”
“A . . . dangerous green?”
“It’s dark green. A gentle green. Nothing that’ll get you in trouble, but it’s got just enough flair to catch the eye. And yes, we all know the evils of vanity, but between you and me, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a little indulgence like that. Seems like the true sin is not showing off that pretty hair Uros gave you, right? I’ll give you a good price for it. Buy two, and I’ll give you a really good price. Come in and take a look.”
He sauntered in, and I followed him inside, mostly because I was too stupefied by this reception. The snug little cabin consisted of one room, divided into living and sleeping spaces by a stone hearth. It took me a moment to distinguish the two areas, though, because both the kitchen table and small bed were hidden by haphazardly stacked crates and bags.
My host immediately homed in on a pile and lifted a large burlap sack from it. After a bit of rummaging, he produced two green ribbons with a flourish. “See? What’d I tell you? Beautiful, eh? You can try them on, if you want. There’s a mirror over in that box you can use. In fact, I’m selling it for a very reasonable price.”
I pushed aside the ribbons he held up to my face. “Mister Robinson! Please, I’m not here for this.”
“Oh. So, it is medicinal, huh? Sure, no problem. Let’s go over to—”
“I’m not here to buy anything at all!”
He stopped midstep, and some of the enthusiasm in his face dimmed. “You aren’t here to ask me to come to church, are you? I can’t say I’m surprised they’d try again, and I appreciate the creative approach of sending a pretty girl, but I’m not—”
“Can you shut up for a few bloody seconds?”
I didn’t mean to shout, but it was the only way to break through his prattle. After several weighted moments, he said quietly: “So. You aren’t from Grashond, are you?”
“No! My name is Tamsin Wright, and I’m starting to understand why everyone gets so weird when I mention Jago Robinson.”
He cocked his head. “Jago? No one in Constancy calls me that. And just how weird are we talking?”
I leaned back against one of the rough walls and crossed my arms. “Orla Micnimara calls you Jago.”
“How do you know Orla?”
“If you’ll stop trying to sell me stuff, I’ll tell you.”
“I won’t say another word, I swear.” In an unnecessary show of good intentions, he clamped a hand over his mouth.
Sparing him the intricacies of the Glittering Court, I
explained how we’d been shipwrecked and then brought here by Balanquans and Icori. He listened in admirable silence, but when I got to the part about how the town had sheltered us in exchange for work, he lost it.
“Let me get this straight. There’s twenty-one of you, and they’ve got you all doing forced labor?”
“It’s not forced. I mean, it’s nothing I would’ve chosen, sure, but they are putting us up. They gave us food and new clothing. I don’t mind paying that back.”
“New clothing, huh?” Jago eyed the skirt of my navy dress, peeping out from underneath the cloak. “Was your old stuff unsalvageable?”
“No. It just wasn’t . . .”
“Yeah, I know.” He tugged at his red scarf. “You have no idea how much grief I get for this. But back to you. So, here you are, washed ashore, deprived of fashion, living with . . . Who are you living with?”
“Samuel Cole.”
“Wow, okay. So, they’ve put you to work, probably lecture you a few times a day, and now you’re here because . . . ?”
“Because we need to get to Cape Triumph as soon as possible. The council says they’ll help us but not until the weather’s warmer, so we could have as much as a two-month wait before we can even leave! But Orla told me how the Icori will be going south on the river soon and that you’d bought a bunch of spots. If you can just give up some of them, then we—”
“Whoa, whoa, hold on.” He held up a hand. “That’s what you’re here for? To steal my passage south?”
“Not steal it, no. Orla will give you your money back so that we can buy the seats. You just have to relinquish them.”
“‘Just’ do that, huh?” He circled the room, shaking his head. “Miss—what was it, Tamsin? You clearly don’t understand business, otherwise you wouldn’t suggest this with a straight face.”
“I understand perfectly well. My mother runs a business in Osfro . . . ah, offering services to a whole roster of well-to-do clients. I helped her schedule them, keep track of accounts, and all sorts of things.”
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