A short, merry-faced man hopped out of the carriage, blue eyes twinkling in the light of his lantern. “You’re a brave one, and no mistake. And who’re these other gentlemen be’ind you?” he chuckled, pointing a stubby finger at the small crowd of drunken men, now huddled together in fear. I smiled, and the expression felt somehow unfamiliar to my face.
“I came along my own road, to find them stumbling down it, and suddenly discovered myself rather nicely wedged between a rock and a very hard place,” I explained, sheathing my dagger and looking around for my travelling bag – I had forgotten, for a moment, that it was still somewhere in the undergrowth, dropped just before I stepped out to speak with the drunkards.
“So we all do, at times… but enough 'bout us, m’dear, what shall we do with this 'orrid little group of men?” His smile widened, if that were possible, and he turned to look them over. I frowned in confusion, for as his eyes turned to watch the men, they all took a step back, as though he were a frightening monster, and not a small, ruddy-cheeked fellow with a somewhat squeaky voice.
“I leave that to you, sir. I find they do not concern me much.”
He glanced down at the little maid’s assailant, who seemed to have fainted from the pain of his injury. The greasy-haired man lay sprawled in the dirt, eyes open and unseeing.
“No need for any ‘sir’s, dear. The name is Wimbledon, just Wimbledon,” he said.
“Wimbledon,” I said, but so quietly that I did not believe anyone else had heard. Where, where had I heard that name before?
“Perhaps we should scatter the sheep, and take the shepherd,” Wimbledon mused, and poked the man’s prone form with the toe of his boot, an expression of slightly amused curiosity upon his bright face. “What d'you think, little un?” He addressed the girl who still cowered behind me for the first time, and she stuttered incoherently for some time before either of us could truly understand her.
“I—I don’ care much wha’ y’do, beggin’ yer pardon sir. I jus’ want ter leave afore he wakes, please, sir,” she muttered, eyes turned towards the dusty ground.
“Sound sense, m’dear, although I beg y’to call me Wimbledon. ‘Sir’ is so stuffy, don’t you know, and I’ve always liked Wimbledon best.” He chuckled again, this time more to himself, and then pointed back towards the coach, saying, “Please, make y'selves at home while I clean up this mess.” He waved vaguely towards the drunken men, who were still edging quietly away from him, and we escaped to the warmth of the carriage before he could change his mind.
The inside was much less ordinary looking than the out; the seats were of soft green velvet – which reminded me rather too much of the duke, no matter how soft they felt – and there was a small table in the corner, near the other door, piled with little cakes and three teacups. I sat down nearest the table, in hopes he might offer us some food, and then remembered I had left my bag outside, in the forest.
“Quite all right, quite all right, I’ve found it myself, m’dear. Bit of mud and an ant or two, otherwise as good as new,” Wimbledon said, popping inside before the little maid even managed to sit down.
“Now, for some stories. I do like story, you know. But whose shall I ask after first?”
He glanced at me, and then over at the little sweet cakes, as though considering asking the cakes their story instead of asking mine.
“Ah, but I forget again – introductions! You know my name, or one of them, anyhow. What do you go by, O Brave One?” he said, turning his smile upon me.
“I, ahm… Hannah. Hannah Slate,” I said quietly, looking down at my hands. If the silence could have spoken, it might have assumed that Wimbledon did little believe me, but I could not be sure, and so I kept my lips tight shut, the name Wimbledon still echoing like an unanswered riddle in my mind.
“I – I’m Triedtha, if I goes by a name, sir,” the girl said, and then her eyes turned guiltily to me. “A-and I weren’t just takin’ a walk, t’night. My la-last master din’t want me n-no more, an’ I couldn’ find a single place to work in Th’rien, so I says to meself, ‘’Ow ‘bouts Earlkone, ‘ow ‘bouts lookin’ there?’ I din’t tell the – the bloke out ‘ere, missus, ‘cause I were afraid ‘e might think I were… unemployed.” Her voice shrunk to a dark whisper at the end.
“Well! No ‘arm done, little one, and let’s ‘ope it stays that way. As it ‘appens, I’s just on my way to an old friend’s inn. If y’both ‘aven’t better place t’go, may’ap he’d take y’on as some new barmaids. What d’you say to that, ‘Annah an’ Triedtha?”
My good fortune, it seemed, had not run out so quickly as I thought. I nodded slowly, and Triedtha followed my lead – I pitied the girl, so young, and yet, by her earlier words, so knowing of the ways of this rough world. “I am blessed by good Aimthaer again, for I was headed, after a fashion, towards Earlkone myself, as, it seems, was Triedtha, to find some honest work.”
Wimbledon nodded cheerily, and offered us some tea. I took one cake, sitting back against the thin cushions of the carriage, and studied his face. It was almost familiar, and yet every time I was an inch from remembering it, something simple – like Triedtha spilling tea down her front – happened to shock me out of my musings, and I had to begin again.
“Good Aimthaer, you said, m’dear? You must have been born a lady, to know his Thetorian name. It takes some edjukation to mem'rize the nobler names of the gods,” Wimbledon remarked, just as I swallowed the last bit of my little cake. I resisted the urge to curse the slip-up as I had cursed at the outskirts of the forest, and forced an expression of vague puzzlement onto my face.
“It was the one ‘noble’ name my poor peasant mother knew. She much preferred to call Aimthaer something else, the name most of the lower classes in Therien did. Wimble—“ I froze, and my eyes shot suddenly to his face. The smile, that familiar smile, and now I knew where I had seen it before. In all the tapestries I had seen, in all the embroideries I had so carefully worked upon, the god Aimthaer, of luck and sometimes of lies, was always smiling just as Wimbledon did now.
“You do not displease me, as you do some – but you’re trying to swim up a waterfall, m’dear. Fall, but never crawl,” he said, and his voice had lost its peasant accent. Instead, it sounded very new, very far ahead of its times; and old, far beyond record or writing. I stared, transfixed, at his happy face, as he began to speak again. “Go to the inn, to The Troll’s Eye. Tell the barman Lucky sent you, and dear?” he caught my arm as I looked uncomfortably away from his abruptly serious face. “Never, never think you’ve none to fear. He will always be seeking you.” I little understood him then, but if only I had, I might still be free today.
But freedom, it seemed, was not to be.
***
When we entered the inn it was dimly lit, it still being the wee hours of the morning, and the only one within was the gray-haired man behind the bar. He was polishing up a pair of glass mugs, humming quietly – and not at all tunelessly – to himself. I walked as one in a trance; Aimthaer’s orders were still to be carried out.
“Excuse me, sir,” I said, and he looked up. There was no surprise in his face, nor even a trace of startled realization that someone else beside himself still stood inside the empty bar of the inn. “Lucky sent us; we need work, my sister and I.”
“Very well,” he said, in a calm, gravelly voice. “Very well.” He gave one of the mugs a final fierce scrub with his rag, and then stored them both away under the counter. I looked around for the first time, and, surprisingly, found the place quite to my liking. It was quaint, and rather small, but the thick wooden floor beneath my feet felt firm and right, the small square tables and chairs scattered haphazardly across the room reminded one of nothing more than a cozy, disordered home.
“One must do what Lucky asks, one must,” said the man, and I nearly jumped in surprise at the sudden sound of his voice. He had lifted up the wooden flap ‘twixt the front and back of the bar, and gestured for me to go through the small space it provided. I glanced down at Triedtha, who still look somewhat dazed, and then bravely stepped forward, feeling as though I’d left Mariadelle behind me as I did.
“I have enough barmaids, and besides, ‘twould take too long to teach you how to make just the right drinks for our normal customers – no, you two will have to wait tables, I’m afraid. Deliver grub and all that. Easy, and it pays well enough. Two new serving-maids is just the kind of, ah, what could you call it… publicity this place needs. ‘Twill be the talk of the town for days, if not longer.” He kept on chattering in such a way, giving us simple instructions such as: always curtsy, and try not to spill beer on any save yourselves, if you can help it. The man, who now introduced himself as “Jaren, or Sir Harolk, to you,” led us through the back door into an almost broom closet-sized room. He took two bundles of frightfully inadequate-looking garments, giving one to me and one to Triedtha. “You will wear these when morning comes; not too far from now, by the way the windows’re lit up a bit. Back this way – careful with that shelf, it’s prone to collapsing on one’s head when one wants it to least. Yet, when does one want a shelf piling with heavy pewter mugs to fall on one’s head? Here, up these stairs, very first door on the right. Very first door, mind you. This is the key, and I have one of my own, for emergencies. I’ll be up in a few hours to fetch you for work.” And with one swift half-smile, he was gone ‘round the corner to the bar again.
“It won’t be so horrid,” I assured Triedtha as we climbed the creaking stairs. “Mayhap if we keep our earnings carefully, we can buy a little house somewhere in Earlkone. I fancy life as a spinster, but that shan’t stop you from marrying some nice farmer’s boy in a few years.”
A dark shadow passed over the girl’s face, and her voice trembled as she spoke. “No nice farmer’s boy’ll want me, missus. Soiled, I am.”
The smile faltered on my face as I unlocked and opened our room’s door, letting her stumble inside first.
My la-last master din’t want me n-no more, she had told Wimbledon and me, just the night before. Yet she had never told us what her master had wanted her for in the first place. No, I thought, trembling with rage and sadness at the thought. Surely… surely not. Oh, she is but a child! I sat down on one of the two straw pallets, staring at the girl who had just flopped down on the other.
“H-how?” was the only word that finally choked from my mouth.
“I was eleven,” she said, and her voice was flat and emotionless. “Jus’ eleven. But ‘en, that’s what Mother told ‘im, too. ‘E din’t care how old I was. That din’t matter, when ‘e had a fat purse an’ a cruel mind. If on’y someone had told me afore, warned me of ‘oo would come rattlin’ up th’dirt path that day...” She grew suddenly quiet, and with one last shaky sigh, turned her back to me, and spoke no more.
Yeh. Yeh-heh. Be honest, yeees? That's what I need, lotsa honesty, don't you know. Lots. Don't worry, Dai'll make more sense later.
I shall try my best...
