Ruffian wagged his tail.
She eased off her backpack and took the baby from his bindings. He’d wet himself and her, and she had nothing to wash with. The little water remaining in her canteen would be their supper. She spread her cloak near a clump of wilted shrubs and laid the baby on it, drank her share of water and gave the baby his.
When she poured Ruffian’s portion into a bowl and held it while he drank, she discovered bits of fur and a smear of blood decorating his mouth. “So, you caught yourself a meal and didn’t share it with us. Well, at least you won’t have to sleep on an empty stomach.” Sighing, she wiped the messy bowl and returned it to her pack. “For that, you can keep guard while I sleep.”
She lay on the cloak beside the baby. Ruffian settled on the ground nearby, head on his paws.
She thought she had only just drifted into a restless sleep when the rumble and clatter of the iron beast jerked her awake. The sky had turned light, and she saw the thing returning from wherever it had gone. She sat up, hugged the baby to her breast, and watched the creature thunder past. What if it leaped from its path and attacked her?
It seemed unaware of her presence, though the hail of sparks it flung in its wake raised again the danger of fire. One struck her bare arm and left a blistering burn.
When the thing vanished into the ever-present haze, she rose and packed. Deciding against entrusting the extra books again to Ruffian, she slipped their sling over her arm. The added burden was almost more than she could stand, but they would surely reach a village soon. She set off in the general direction the monster had just come from, keeping a considerable distance from the twin strips of iron and their undergirding rows of planks.
She was tottering with weariness and hunger when, shortly after noon, a town loomed out of the haze, its buildings a uniform sooty gray, so near the color of the haze that she had drawn quite close before she saw them.
The outlying houses were wooden shacks, but taller structures, some of wood and others of stone, rose behind them. The tallest sprouted high smokestacks that vomited black smoke into the noxious air.
She hurried toward the nearest house to ask for food and water. Four or five children played on its porch, and in the street in front of it a filthy dog stirred up clouds of dust with its vigorous scratching of fleas. It spotted her and barked furiously. Other dogs heeded its summons and dashed toward her. Ruffian leaped in front of her, growling and baring his teeth.
The would-be attackers backed off. The children stared sullenly from the sagging porch.
“I need help,” Kyla said. “Food and milk for the baby.”
“Tramp!” they taunted in chorus. “Get out of here, dirty, stinking tramp!”
Kyla gathered energy for a sharp retort, laughed instead. She did look like a tramp, a dirty stinking one at that. She put on as pleasant a face as she could manage and called out, “Are your parents at home? Could I talk to them?”
Children from other houses gathered around her, along with more dogs. “Folks aren’t home,” one child said, standing and glaring at Kyla. “Get out o’ here. Ain’t nothing for you here.”
Kyla tried again. “Why are you so rude? I need help. What town is this?”
“Must be crazy, don’t know where she is,” a child yelled.
“This here’s Line’s End,” an older one said. “Last town on the line, as any fool knows.”
They all laughed at that. “Fool, fool,” the younger ones echoed.
“Go away, tramp! Go away, beggar!” they shouted, scooping up handfuls of pebbles.
Ruffian’s fur bristled. He rumbled a warning growl. Kyla turned away but did not run. A shower of pebbles peppered her back. Ruffian snarled and leaped at the children, scattering them and allowing Kyla to hurry out of range of their missiles.
Ill-mannered brats. I hope they’re not examples of what Line’s End is like.
The shacks gave way to larger buildings. Kyla trudged past shops and warehouses. People walked along the streets or stood in doorways, the men in dark trousers and long-sleeved shirts with vests, over which many wore hip-length coats, though the day was warm. The women’s long, full skirts dragged the ground, gathering dust. The high lace collars and sleeves that reached to the wrist had to be hot and uncomfortable. No wonder they all seemed so cross, casting hostile stares and giving her a wide berth when they passed. After her experience with the children, she did not try to approach them and was thankful for Ruffian’s stalwart presence at her side.
There! An inn on the next street corner. She pushed her tired legs to a faster pace, eager to reach that promise of food and shelter. And a bath. Her body longed to be clean as much as her stomach longed for food. She reached the door, pushed it open, entered, and found herself in a large room with six or eight tables on one side and a desk on the other. Most of the tables were empty; one held a group of four men.
Another man stepped out from behind the desk and hurried toward her. “You!” he shouted. “Get out of here with that dog. We don’t allow beggars in here. Go around to the kitchen door if you’re after scraps.”
“I want to rent a room,” Kyla protested indignantly. “And buy a meal. I’m sorry I’m so dirty, but I’ve had a hard journey and a long one.”
The innkeeper frowned and wrinkled his nose. “How’d you get here? Couldn’t’ve come on the train.”
“I came from over the Rim.” Kyla made a vague gesture in the direction she thought the canyon lay.
“That’s impossible,” the man snapped. “Get out of here before I call the sheriff.”
The men at the table gawked at her. One of them scraped back his chair and stood. “Want I should go fetch Ollie and Jake?” he asked the innkeeper.
“Why bother ’em?” one of his companions, a big muscular man, said lazily. “We can take care of it.”
The innkeeper nodded. “There, see? Get out fast, or you’ll be thrown out.”
Kyla backed toward the door, but the aromas wafting in from the kitchen stopped her. “I need food,” she insisted. “And milk for the baby. He hasn’t eaten in two days.”
The big man got slowly to his feet. The other two followed his example.
The innkeeper folded his arms across his chest. “I don’t run no charity,” he said.
Kyla felt her face flush. “I can work for it.”
The man snorted. “Expect to take it out in trade, do you? Who you think’d want a dirty bitch like you?”
Kyla’s face burned hotter as she realized what he thought she’d meant.
The big man clamped a hand around her arm and jerked her toward the door. Ruffian barked and snarled. The man planted a hard kick in the dog’s ribs. Ruffian yelped and ran whimpering to hide under a table.
“Wait!” she cried. “I have something to pay with. Let me open my pack.”
“I don’t take no peddler’s wares,” the innkeeper said.
One of the two men who’d remained silent now said, “Turn loose of her, Pete. Let’s see what she’s got.”
Pete released her arm but stood menacingly over her while she shrugged out of her pack, knelt beside it, and tore frantically through its contents. “Trash!” he said as she pulled out clothes, books, and her battered cooking pots and bowl.
The felt sack of gold disks was at the bottom of the pack. She drew it out, and with trembling hands unknotted the ties and shook out two disks.
The innkeeper snatched the bag from her hand and poured out the rest of the disks. “Where’d you get these?” he asked in an amazed tone.
“Must’ve stole ’em,” Pete said.
“Give those back! They were payment for a house I sold.” Kyla grabbed the disks from the innkeeper and stuffed all but two into the bag. Those two she held out to the innkeeper. “Will these rent a room and buy food and milk?”
The men looked at each other. The innkeeper slowly nodded. “The rooms don’t have baths. There’s a bathhouse out back with hot water, but it’ll cost you extra.”
�
�That’s all right. Those two should be enough to cover it.”
“Might be about enough,” the innkeeper said, accepting the two gold pieces. The other men nudged each other, and one laughed out loud.
Wary, Kyla pushed the bag of disks down into the bottom of her pack. “It will have to be enough. I won’t pay more.”
One man whispered something to the others, and they moved back to their table. The innkeeper wiped the two coins on his shirt and carried them behind the desk. He picked up a small handbell and rang it. “Lizzie,” he bellowed. “Lizzie, we got a customer.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
INN
A gangly scarecrow of a girl dashed from the kitchen with arms waving like windmill paddles. Her strawy hair appeared never to have seen a comb. She skidded to a stop in front of the innkeeper and wrapped her hands in her patched apron. “Sir?” she said in a frightened, childish voice.
“This lady—” he drawled out the syllables, “—wants a room, a meal, and a bath. Especially a bath.”
The four men at the table snickered, and Lizzie flicked them a nervous glance.
Kyla ignored them. “I need milk for the baby first,” she told the girl. “And then food for me and for my dog.”
At the mention of the dog, Lizzie’s eyes widened. She looked around, saw Ruffian, and screamed.
“Quiet, you ninny!” the innkeeper roared. “And you, woman, put that dog outside.”
“The dog stays with me,” Kyla snapped. “He won’t hurt anyone. He needs food and water.”
“I run a clean place here. I won’t have that filthy cur spreading dirt and fleas all around. There’s a tree out back you can tie him to. Lizzie can take him a dish of food and a bowl of water.”
Kyla nodded, unwilling to waste time arguing. Later, after she’d eaten and bathed, she’d find a way to sneak Ruffian into her room. She had to think first of the baby’s needs. He hadn’t made a sound in some time, and she feared for his life despite Alair’s assurance that Claid could not die. When the mage had told her that, he surely was not expecting Claid to take the form of a helpless infant.
Keeping a wary eye on Ruffian and a good distance between her and the dog, Lizzie led Kyla into the kitchen. “I’ll fetch rope so’s you c’n tie the beast,” she said and would have darted off had Kyla not grabbed the girl’s arm.
“The dog won’t hurt you. Get me some warm milk for the baby before you do anything else.”
Lizzie peered at the quiet bundle in the crook of Kyla’s other arm. “Eww, what a poor, wee thing!” she said.
Before Lizzie could carry out Kyla’s instructions, a large unkempt woman in a white apron bore toward them brandishing a meat cleaver. “What’s that animal doing in my kitchen?” she demanded. “Lizzie, where’s your brains, bringin’ that thing in here? Out, now!” She herded them all toward the back door and pushed them through it.
Kyla endured the wait while Lizzie found rope. The girl watched from a safe distance while Kyla tied Ruffian to the indicated tree.
Next to the tree was a ramshackle wooden structure with a tin roof. “The bathhouse,” Lizzie said, pointing at it. “I’ll heat water while you and the baby eat.”
After making sure Ruffian’s rope wouldn’t let him reach the bathhouse door, Lizzie darted inside. Kyla headed back to the kitchen to face the virago alone. The woman gave her a fierce stare and wrinkled her bulbous nose, but she produced a jar of milk, poured some into a pan, and set it onto the big iron stove.
“Looks done in, it does. What you done to it?” A suspicious glare accompanied the woman’s surly observation.
“We’ve been traveling a long way,” Kyla said, trying to keep her tone civil. “We haven’t had any food.”
“Milk dry up?” The woman leered at Kyla’s breasts.
“I—the baby isn’t mine.”
“Humph. You steal it?”
“No. Of course not.” Kyla lacked the energy to sound indignant. “He—he’s an orphan that I’m caring for.”
“Not doin’ a very good job of it. Oughta put ’im into th’ orphanage.” She took the pan off the stove. “You got a bottle?”
Kyla shook her head. The woman gave a disgusted snort, set the pan on the table, and disappeared into the pantry. She returned with a dusty bottle topped with something made of a flexible substance and resembling a nursing mother’s nipple. She wiped the bottle off on her apron, pried off the nipple, and poured the milk into it. “That’s an old bottle I used for my last young ’un when my milk gave out,” she said as she replaced the nipple. “It’s all I got, so it’ll have to do.” She squeezed the tip until milk flowed from it, and handed it to Kyla
Kyla she placed it in the baby’s mouth. After a few seconds he began to suck.
“What’s ’is name?”
At the question, Kyla hesitated. “I, uh, call him Claid.”
She could see that her hesitation had further aroused the woman’s suspicions. She couldn’t think of the infant as Claid. He was only “the baby.”
“Odd name,” the woman said with a sniff.
Lizzie came in and announced, “Bath’s ready, miss. Nice an’ hot.”
“Could I have a quick bite of something before I bathe?” Kyla asked the older woman. “And something to take to my dog?”
The woman gave her a plate with a bit of cold meat and a pile of cold mashed turnips. “This is all I’ve got until dinnertime. Here’s a bone the dog can have.” She handed Kyla a large, greasy soup bone with a few shreds of meat clinging to it.
Kyla started to object, but thought better of it. Ruffian had, after all, eaten something last night. The bone would serve for the present. As angry and suspicious as the woman acted, she had at least been reasonably generous. She’d most likely become more hostile if Kyla asked for anything more.
Juggling the baby, the bottle, her plate, and the bone, she asked Lizzie to bring her backpack. She headed for the bathhouse, detouring to give Ruffian the bone and a bowl of water she had Lizzie fetch.
Inside the door of the shabby structure was a wooden bench. Lizzie set the backpack on it. “There’s soap and towels inside.” She nodded at the wooden partition that separated the bathing area from this front section, which was evidently considered a dressing room. A mildewed curtain covered the doorway between the two.
Kyla looked in vain for a latch on the outside door. “Don’t worry,” Lizzie said, following her gaze. “I’ll keep watch so nobody walks in on you.”
Kyla peeped behind the curtain and saw a big round metal tub half filled with water. A shelf above it held a pitcher, a cake of soap, towels, and a scrub brush. “All right,” she said. “Wait outside, please.”
The girl went out, letting the door bang shut behind her. Kyla laid the baby on the bench and propped the now nearly empty bottle so that he could continue to drink from it. While he sucked eagerly, she gulped down the food on her plate, then stripped off her filthy clothes. By the time she was ready, Claid had finished the milk. She picked him up. “Now to get clean.”
The water in the tub was little more than lukewarm, but Kyla didn’t care; it was wonderful to scrub off all the accumulated filth. She crooned to the baby and sang and splashed in the tub, reveling in the luxury of a long bath. Bathing with the baby was awkward, and when she got him clean, she had to wrap him in a towel and lay him on the floor while she washed her hair. He let out two loud sneezes.
“No more of that,” she called out. “We’ve had all the trouble I can bear!”
By the time she finished washing, the water had turned to mud. She considered calling Lizzie and asking her to refill the tub for a clean rinse, but the innkeeper would most likely charge her double and complain about her monopoly of the bathhouse. She stepped out of the tub, dried herself, picked up the baby, and as she went into the front area to dress, the baby sneezed again.
That warning of trouble came too late. Her backpack lay empty, its contents spread out on the floor. She needed only moments to verify that the
bag of gold disks was gone. She should have been quieter, more wary. Theft was not something she’d ever had to worry about in Waddams, but she’d been so very tired and so eager to be clean, she forgot how different the people here seemed from those of Noster Valley.
Leaving Claid lying on the floor and holding a towel in front of her nude body, she opened the outer door. “Lizzie!” she shouted. “Come here at once!”
The girl did not respond at first, though Kyla could see her cowering by the kitchen door. It took another shout and a stamp of her foot before Lizzie shuffled to the bathhouse with the air of a dog expecting a beating. Her thin face seemed even longer and more pale.
“Who came in here while I was bathing? Was it you?”
Lizzie cringed. “No, miss. I been outside the whole time like I told you.”
“Someone came in and stole something from my pack.”
“That can’t be, miss. I been watching the door.”
“You’re lying,” Kyla snapped. She stepped back from the door and motioned toward the articles piled on the floor. “Someone emptied my pack and took my gold.”
“You had gold?” Lizzie’s voice rose to an incredulous whine.
“I did, and I intend to get it back.” She grabbed the girl’s arm and yanked her inside. “If you didn’t take it, you had to have seen who did. Tell me or I’ll take you outside and feed you to my dog.”
“Let go of me,” Lizzie sobbed, trembling. “I didn’t take nothin’. Let me go.”
“I’ll let you go when you’ve told the truth. Speak!”
Lizzie tried to wrench free and Kyla dropped her towel to hold on to the struggling girl.
Lizzie shrieked, a louder sound than Kyla would have thought that frail body capable of.
Outside Ruffian barked. Heavy footsteps pounded toward the bathhouse. Kyla released Lizzie and grabbed for her towel.
Before she could pick it up, the door flew open. The innkeeper and his four cronies shoved inside. Wailing hysterically, Lizzie pointed to Kyla.
Mistress of the Wind (Arucadi Series Book 1) Page 16