We walked in silence after that, a silence in which I increasingly had to fight to put one foot in front of the other, simply because every step had become more painful than the last. Surely Corin could not expect us to reach Marric’s Rest by sundown; I had only a hazy idea of how far away it was, but I knew it had to be at least a day’s ride, which meant two days on foot, if not more. But no, my father had mentioned that several inns lay within an afternoon’s walk, so we could not be going quite that far.
At last I could not help myself, and allowed a whimper of pain to escape my lips. At once Corin paused and gazed down at me, his fine brows knitted with concern.
“What is it, Marenna?”
I drew in a shuddering breath. “I am sorry, but I cannot go a step further. My feet cannot manage it.”
“Let me see.”
In response, I lifted my dusty skirts ever so slightly, even as I told myself that it was not unseemly for Corin to see my ankles, for he was my husband. He knelt on the rough road and took one of my feet, lifting it so he could see the sole of my slipper. Truly, it was in far worse shape than even I had imagined, several holes already torn through the thin kid, dark blood staining its surface.
At once he assumed a most fearsome frown. “What fool sent you forth in such ridiculous shoes?”
“They are the only kind I have!” I burst out. “Or rather, I had some high boots for riding, but they would have been even more difficult to walk in, because of their heels — for catching in the stirrups, you know. At any rate, a lady does not tread the high road like a tramp, so I had nothing that would have been suitable for our travels today.”
If anything, his frown deepened. “Are you saying that I am a tramp, my lady wife?”
Oh, dear. I realized then what a blunder I had made. Would my rash tongue ever stop getting me into trouble? “No, of course not,” I replied. “All I am saying is that my former life did not prepare me for this sort of exercise.”
The scowl lessened, ever so slightly. He shifted so he might look up at the angle of the sun in the sky, then glanced back down at me. “Well, we do not have so very far to go, for I had planned for us to stay at the inn in Oakfold. But it seems even a few more miles is more than you can manage at the moment.”
“Oh, if it is only that far — ” I began, trying to sound brave, rather than dismayed all over again at the thought of even walking a few yards, let alone miles.
“It is too far. But no matter. I will take care of you.”
Before I could protest, his strong arms had gone around me, lifting me from the ground. I made a startled sound, pushing at the arms which held me, or at least attempting to, for I still carried my valise, which made things rather awkward. “You cannot mean to carry me for two whole miles!”
“Oh, yes, I very much mean to. Your feet are already battered enough — you would be quite injured if you carried on as you have already.”
As much as I wished to argue, I knew he had the right of it. Continuing to walk would only open new wounds on my feet. Besides, I had no way of knowing whether the injuries I had already suffered might not lead to infection. Gods, I hoped not. Not only would such an incapacity prevent Corin from reaching his destination, but I very much feared any doctor’s fees would use up a good deal of the funds my father had given us.
“Very well,” I said. “I am sorry.”
“It is not entirely your fault. I should have asked to see what you were wearing on your feet before we embarked on this journey.”
Should I tell him that he must not shoulder any of the blame in this matter? No, probably better to be silent and let him save his breath for carrying me. I was slender enough, but all the same, it could not have been easy to carry a grown young woman for several miles.
But he did manage it somehow, staggering into Oakfold just as the sun had begun to lower itself to the western horizon. It was a pleasant little village, with a well-manicured green at the center of town, and a stone well. Several of Oakfold’s inhabitants stood at that well, drawing water. Our arrival piqued some interest, for at once one of the men came over to us, his dark eyes full of questions as he took in my husband and his curious burden.
“A mishap on the road?” the man asked. “We have not had any problems with bandits recently.”
“Nothing so dire,” Corin replied. “Just that my wife has injured her feet, and I thought it best to carry her the rest of the way into town. Can you give me the direction of your nearest inn?”
“Our only inn,” the man said with a grin. He jerked his chin in the direction of a handsome two-story building, with brightly painted shutters at the windows and several horses tied up to the posts out front. “They’ll take good care of you, though, and your wife.” The man gave me a glance that managed to somehow be both pitying and admiring, and added, “Best of luck to you both.”
Corin thanked the man, and turned and headed toward the building he had indicated. Almost as soon as we were inside, a stout woman of later years approached us, inquiring if I was quite all right.
“It’s nothing that some rest couldn’t mend,” Corin said, and she gave a concerned nod.
“Of course, of course. I have a very nice room, at the back of the house, quiet.” The innkeeper — for surely that was who the woman must be — shot a worried look at Corin’s face, adding, “It is on the second floor. Do you think you can manage?”
“It will be fine,” he said calmly.
Whether or not it really would be fine, I supposed I would discover soon enough. If it turned out that he couldn’t carry me up those stairs, then I would simply have to go up them under my own power. Yes, it would hurt, but now that I had been off my feet for a few hours, I thought I could manage.
However, he didn’t seem terribly put off by the burden he carried, and went up the stairs with a far lighter foot than I could have managed. The innkeeper led us down a narrow hallway, then paused at the far end in front of the door on the left.
“Here you are,” she said. “It’s two silver a night, three if you want your meals brought up to you.”
“I think that might be best,” Corin told her. “And thank you — that’s very generous of you.”
She made an amused sound deep in her throat. “I don’t know about generous, good sir, but it is an easy way to put some extra coins in my pocket. Supper tonight is chicken stew and fresh-baked bread, and will be served at the seventh hour.”
A nod, and he said, “If you could also send up a basin of warm water?”
Her gaze flickered to me. “That’s twenty-five copper grauts.”
“It is no problem,” he replied. “And thank you again.”
She didn’t precisely curtsey, but she did bob her head slightly, and promised that the water would be up shortly. Corin put his hand on the latch and lifted it, and entered the room that would be ours for the night.
While of course it could not hope to match the luxury I had left behind me, the space was pleasant enough, with whitewashed walls and dark beams overhead, and several chairs, a wardrobe, and a large bed with carved posts.
Seeing that bed made a flicker of unease awake within me. Yes, although I knew on some level that married couples generally occupied the same bed, I had not thought to apply that particular piece of wisdom to my own situation. But there was only one bed in this room, which meant Corin and I must occupy it.
I swallowed and told myself that at least it was early yet, and I wouldn’t have to face that particular unpleasant reality for a few more hours. As it was, my husband seemed to pay no particular attention to the bed at all, and instead carried me over to the chair by the window, which looked down, not on some unpleasant alley, but a green little patch of grass, with a neatly kept stable off to one side. The innkeeper obviously made it her duty to provide fine accommodations for both her human and equine guests.
With an inner sigh of relief, I let go of the valise I had been clutching all this time and set it down on the floor next to the chair where Cori
n had placed me. At the same time, he hooked his thumbs under the straps of the leather pack he wore and eased it off his back, placing it on the floor next to my valise.
“Ah, that’s better,” he said, rubbing at his shoulder where the strap must have bitten into it. “I had thought I was traveling light, but — ” He stopped himself there, as if he’d just realized that what he’d intended to say wasn’t precisely polite.
Perhaps not, but true nonetheless. Corin was clearly a very strong man, but even his muscles must have been taxed after carrying me all that distance. However, I decided it was probably best that I not say anything, although I fixed what I hoped was an appropriately sympathetic expression on my face.
Luckily, a knock came at the door just then. Standing outside in the hallway was a boy probably a few years younger than I, a large green stoneware basin clutched in his hands. Next to him was a girl so similar in appearance — both of them with the innkeeper’s bright black eyes and rosy cheeks — that I guessed they must be our hostess’s children.
“Your water, sir,” the boy said.
“You can put it on the table for now,” Corin told him, and the boy did as requested, moving carefully so he wouldn’t spill anything on the well-scrubbed wooden floor.
“And two mugs of cider for you and your wife, good sir,” the girl put in pertly, her eyes curious and somehow avid as they took in my husband’s tall form. “My mother thought you could use it, after spending all that time on those dusty roads.”
For some reason, her inspection of Corin made me bristle. Terribly impertinent, I thought, and also quite inappropriate, since the girl didn’t look to be much more than fifteen at the most. In that moment, I conveniently forgot how I had allowed myself to moon over some of my brother Evander’s more attractive friends when I was around that same age. Still, I had known those young men to be unattached, whereas this chit obviously must realize that Corin was my husband.
“That was very kind of your mother,” he said, taking the two heavy pewter mugs from her. “Do make sure to give her our thanks.”
The boy, now relieved of his burden of the ewer of water, made an amused snort. “It’s not kindness, sir. You’ll be sure to find the sum on your bill, since drinks aren’t included in the cost of your stay.”
Corin’s mouth quirked. “Well, I’ll still see it as kindness, for I and my wife are quite thirsty. And thank you again.”
Those last words made it clear he considered that to be the end of the matter, and that they should go. There was such an unmistakable note of command in his voice that neither of them seemed inclined to argue, and instead both took themselves off, although whispering to one another as they went, the girl sending one last longing look at Corin before he shut the door behind them, pushing it closed with his foot because both his hands were full.
“Your cider, my lady,” he said, coming over to where I sat by the window so he might give one of the mugs to me.
“Thank you,” I replied, and took it from him. The first tentative sip I took told me that the cider was very good, crisp and light and made from pears, rather than the apples I had expected. Until I swallowed the drink, I hadn’t realized how thirsty I really was. Another sip, and the dust of the road began to be a memory.
Corin drank as well, a good long swallow that must have drained at least a third of the cider in his mug. Once he had satisfied his thirst, he set the mug down on the table and retrieved the basin of water, which he brought over to me and set down on the floor in front of my chair. “Now, let us see about those feet.”
For some reason, those words sent a shiver through me. Perhaps it was only a fear of further pain; once I had sat down, the throbbing in my feet had retreated to the background, to be ignored while I focused on the comings and goings of the innkeeper’s offspring. Or perhaps it was something much more than that. Although Corin had carried me for several miles, his arms around me the whole time, his touching my feet seemed a far more personal act. Unfortunately, I could not think of a way to stop him.
Instead, I sat there, teeth gritted against the coming pain — or simply the discomfort of such forced intimacy — as he took off my shoes, then undid the ribbon garters that held up my silk stockings and carefully eased them down my calves and over my feet. This time, I could not help but give a gasp of pain, for peeling away the stockings also took some dried blood with them, awakening those wounds once again.
“I am sorry,” Corin said as he laid aside the shredded ruins of what had once been my second-best pair of silken hose.
“It’s fine,” I replied, my jaw still clenched. “It had to be done.”
Without answering, he guided my feet into the basin of water. It was not hot, but nicely warm, and began to work on my injuries almost at once, soothing, gentle. Leaving me there for a moment, he went to his pack and pulled out a soft white cloth, then came back and knelt by the basin once again. After wetting one end of the cloth he held, he lifted my right foot from the water and began to dab at the burst blisters and outright cuts that had given me so much trouble.
A shiver went through me, although I wasn’t sure it was because of the sharp, darting pains that flared up every time he touched an open wound, or simply because a man I hardly knew was kneeling there and holding my bare foot, his fingers warm against my flesh. It wasn’t anything like desire, not like what had flared through my body when he gave me the marriage kiss, but something else, an acknowledgment that we were sharing even this casual intimacy.
“Tell me something of yourself, Corin,” I said, thinking that perhaps distracting myself with conversation was the best way to survive his ministrations. “You work with vines, correct? Where did you learn such a skill?”
A small smile touched his lips, that slight lift telling me he knew exactly why I sought to fill up the silence with idle speech. “I am from Delanir to the south, about a day’s ride from the capital. The grape and the vine were my father’s vocation as well, and I learned from him until his death. But unfortunately, the man who employed my father and me, and who was kind enough to keep me on even after my father was gone, passed away some two years ago. His heirs did not wish to continue in the business, instead selling off the vineyards so they might have the cash in hand, and I was left to seek employment elsewhere.”
“That sounds very cruel of them,” I said. “One would think they might show some loyalty to those who had worked their vineyards, and to whom their own father had shown such kindness.”
Corin shrugged. “To work with the vines — it is a calling, I think. For those who have no interest in such a thing, it can seem like an expensive and risky endeavor, since there is always the chance that a year’s crop might fail, might be blighted by an early frost, or ruined by fungus if a summer is too damp. I cannot fault them for their decision.”
Perhaps he was willing to be magnanimous, but I still thought it very wrong to treat loyal workers in such a way. My father had never let go a single person who worked in our fields, even on those occasions when frost or storm destroyed much of a hoped-for harvest. Then again, our true wealth came from the mines, not our farms, and so he could afford to take the long view in such things. Even so….
After setting my right foot back in the water to soak, Corin picked up the left and began to work on it as well. His fingers were gentle but strong, and I wondered if they were so deft because he had spent so many years working with vines, selecting the clusters to be harvested, carefully pruning as necessary to guarantee the best yield.
“And after that?” I asked, realizing a flush had risen to my cheeks as I watched him dab at the wounds on the sole of my foot, his eyes intent on his work.
“After that, I went to South Eredor and learned from some of the master vintners there. I had a little money given to me when I left my former post, enough to allow me to work my way to Eredor. I spent two years in the south, but I wanted to come home. Alas, employment is not as easy to find here as it was in Eredor, where they have made rather an ar
t of winemaking. The climate there, of course, is much more conducive to such work.”
I tilted my head slightly as I regarded this man who was now my husband. To be honest, I had never much thought about the wine in my cup as I took my nightly meals, except on those rare occasions when a bottle had gone bad. But clearly, it was Corin’s passion, one that had taken him to far-off lands. I, who had never been farther afield than my family’s town house in Iselfex, could not help but be slightly envious.
“So what were you doing near our estate?” I inquired then. “For certainly Silverhold has never had a reputation as a place of wine-making. I would have thought you would have gone directly to Marric’s Rest, if the duke who resides there is as dedicated to the art as you say he is.”
A lift of the shoulders, accompanied by a rueful grin. “I fear, my lady wife, that I was at Silverhold purely by accident. I had intended to go to Marric’s Rest, but the directions I was given were sadly incorrect, and since I am not at all familiar with that part of the country, I did not know how off course I was until I came to your father’s castle, thinking it the place I sought. He corrected me, and told me how I could journey to the duke’s estate from there…but then he also told me of his daughter.”
The Song of the Thrush Page 4