PG-13 again for suggestive themes. If you wanted Raymond to be a good guy, I beg you to consider skipping these next couple chapters entirely. ;_; Enjoy, otherwise.
“Oh, ‘Annah, don’t!” cried Dai when I told her, clutching at my hand as though she thought she could keep me from leaving if she wanted to.
“What’m I s’posed t’do? I can’t risk ‘im comin’ in our room, ‘specially with you ‘ere. Unless y’want me to take flight into the li’l hillocks outside o’ town, I have t’go, Dai.”
“Yes, do that! Hide some’ere ‘til he leaves, an’ then I’ll go find you. Please, I’ve – I’ve been there, been down that road, ‘Annah. It jus’ ain’t purty.” I sat back onto my bed with a sigh, looking around the tiny room. It was shabby, with the grimy little window and the two pallets, and just the little stand-up screen to change behind in the corner. My travel bag was open on the other side of my bed, with a hairbrush and the sleeve of one of my old gowns falling out slightly. It was a small, pitiful place, but it was home.
“I can’t, Dai. I don’ know what I’ll do, but I can’t just ignore ‘im. He’s a powerful man, if a c’rrupted one. He can do things t’me I don’ want to imagine; drag me back to Therien in chains t’be tortured t’death, if that’s what tickles ‘is fancy.”
Dai shuddered at the thought, but she still insisted I shouldn’t go. I wished I could believe her when she said I could hide and be safe until he left, and more than anything I wanted to flee the inn and the town, go as far away from Raymond as I could possibly manage – but I knew it wasn’t possible. I had very little money, and just a bit more food than that. I was unused to wild, cold places, and not at all good at running and hiding. If Raymond wanted to find me, he could do so in a matter of hours.
“No,” I said, pulling gently away from Dai as she knelt at my bedside. “No, I will go. I pray he has nothing in store for me alike to the things in my mind, but I will go. Sleep, Dai, ‘tis already quite late. I promise to wake you in the morning and tell you about it, if I may.”
She opened her mouth as though she wanted very badly to argue, but then shut it again, crawling across the wooden floor towards her own pallet.
I walked over and sat beside my bag, pulling out the hairbrush and setting it on the ground – and then my hand, as it delved deeper, came in contact with a soft, silky cloth. I grabbed a hold of it and drew out, to my surprise, the selfsame dress I had worn the day of the wedding. Simple yet elegant, with little pearly beads sown in around the collar. I knew at once what I would wear.
Raymond Leek’s door, unlike mine, was of a thick, well-finished wood, with the number thirteen engraved upon it in what looked like gold. I bit my lip, and looked back down the long hallway towards the room where Dai now slept, free of any worry of her own. There was a strange wrench in my gut, as though someone wanted very badly for me to turn away from Raymond’s door, to go back to my bed and stay there… but I knew I could not.
I raised one trembling fist, and knocked quietly on the hard wood. One, two, three.
“Enter,” said Raymond, and I put my hand to cold metal knob, even then hesitating. The old traveling cloak I wore fell loose ‘round my gown, and I righted it before slowly turning the knob.
The door swung open, inwards, and I saw a pitch black nothing beyond – there was nary a lamp lit beyond the door, nor any moonlight coming in through the shuttered windows.
“You don’t mind the dark, do you?”
“Only when I do not knows what lies within it,” I said quietly, taking one, two, three, four steps into the dark, and groping before me for something solid to hold onto; my hands found nothing but the cold, black air.
“Then you should be comforted, for ‘tis only me.” As though to contradict his words, the door clicked shut behind me – my blood ran cold at the sound, so terribly final.
There was a chuckle in the darkness, and two hands snaked around my neck to fumble with the clasp of my cloak. It fell from my shoulders, pooling around my bare heels as the hands disappeared back into the dark.
“Your friends, I deduce, could not be here to join in the fun?” I asked coldly, still seeking a window to open, a light to kindle. It seemed for those long, terrifying moments as though the furniture was evading me, as Raymond did himself.
“They ought to have been, but urgent business called them away. Something to do with a runaway bride in Jharrim – nothing to interest or worry us, I am sure.”
I smiled sadly, though none could see it. “You might be surprised, milord.”
“Might I?” he asked. My fingers connected with something soft and smooth – curtains.
“Oh, yes. You see, I know who the bride was.” I ran my hands along the fabric until I found a seam, an edge. Slipping my arm around it, I felt the cool glass of the window. The bright moon shot cold beams of light inside, and I slid the curtains open, sighing in relief. “Lady Mariadelle, milord.”
I heard footsteps across the stone floor, and then he was standing before me, a slight frown upon his brow. “And how would little Hannah Slate know of such secret things?”
I smiled slightly, reaching up to brush a wavy strand of brown hair from his gray eyes. “Hannah Slate will tell you tomorrow, if Hannah Slate is allowed to leave now,” I said, and there was clear triumph in my voice.
“Clever girl,” he said softly, and the confident smirk was wiped from his face. “But which,” he said, “do I want more?”
I could feel his warm breath on my face as I looked up at him; it smelled of mint tea. His eyes smoldered in the moonlight, lit with an intensity I had never seen in them before.
“But lord,” I said in a whisper, “can you not have both?”
I glanced back over my shoulder and could just see the hazy outline of the door in the darkness. He did not move, but the smirk was slowly returning to his face. I opened my mouth, as though about to voice a question – and then saw the slightest, near imperceptible nod of his head.
I was out the door and down the hall before he had a chance to change his mind.
The next day, Raymond was not at breakfast, nor at lunch, and do matter how his superior smirk had annoyed me, it was somehow more unsettling for him to have seemingly disappeared. To make it all worse, Hare gave me odd looks whenever I returned to the kitchen, and I was constantly reminded, when and if I looked at his face, of a cat watching a particularly wayward kitten.
“No ‘arrying men today, eh?” he asked, sauntering over to sit beside me at the bar.
“Wot?” I looked up at him, alarmed. Jarenne, the barmaid – who I saw and knew little, for she was worked only at night, and went home as soon as the inn closed – was serving drinks to those around us, but she kept shooting reproachful glances at Hare. I began to wonder if, perchance, they were old lovers, for I had never seen such a venomous stare.
“Don’t be silly, Anni,” chuckled Hare, patting me on the back affectionately. “As if y’didn’t know ‘ow fast such talk runs ‘round ‘ere. Ellie, that serving maid from Ontæn, said she saw some‘un beatin’ you afore the whole hall, an’ ‘Orld, the ole blacksmith, ‘e said you was dragged out th’door to some evil count’s ‘ouse in Farlen.” At this, Hare turned a very extraordinary tinge of red, staring down at his mug of ale.
“Ole ‘Orld always ‘ad a strange mind,” I said, trying to bring some lightheartedness into the delicate conversation.
Hare laughed, brushing that familiar little thatch of hair from his eyes. “Yeah, I s’pose so.”
From the corner of my eye, I glimpsed the clock that hung above the front door of the inn. I watched the second hand ticking slowly along, and I almost thought I could hear it above the loud talk of the men around us.
“Gee,” Hare said, “’S already ‘alf past ten? Good grief, Anni, we should both be in bed. ‘Ere, I’ll walk y’to your room.” He took one last swig of his ale, and then threw a companionable arm around my shoulders, steering us both towards the stairs. “Y’know, I just got a raise, an’ a new room, too. It ‘as a real bed, ‘stead o’ those un’olesome lumps o’ straw. May’ap before you go back t’your room I could show y’around.”
I would have been more anxious at what he was offering it weren’t for the fact that poor Hare was most definitely drunk. We had reached the top of the stairs, and I could hear Dai clattering around – doing gods knew what – in our shared room just feet away. Smiling kindly at Hare, I said, “Per’aps t’morrow, Cookie. Right now I’ve got some sleepin’ t’do.”
“Aight. But don’t come complainin’ t’me when your back ‘urts from sleeping on that ‘ard ole straw thingummy.” He stumbled off down the hall, still impressing upon me the magnitude of my sorry state, come morning.
I smiled after him, watching the tall, wiry form of The Troll’s Eye’s only chef make his bumbling way down the long hall, until I could only just see him in the light of the waning moon. Looking down, I silently bewailed the state of my ragged uniform, stained and patched as it was. Yet, I reminded myself wryly, it had hardly been new the day I was given it.
“Dai—” the remainder of the question died on my lips, for I saw that the small, black-haired girl was curled up on her pallet, sleeping quite soundly for someone who had just before making such noise. A very faint sigh escaped her as she shifted slightly – I had never seen her look less guarded. At least she isn’t awake to ask me anything about Raymond, I thought, and silently thanked Aimthaer it was so.
But the night was growing older, and I had promised Raymond that I would be again his room, ere the moon rose too high. Panic formed suddenly my mind, as I remembered that no plans had been made to elude him, to distract or lie to him. It was too late now not to risk him becoming impatient, deciding to drop in when I failed to come to him.
Once again, I left myself in the hands of Aimthaer.
“Enter,” came Raymond’s voice, as I stood outside his room. The door swung open, and I saw at once that it was as dark as it had been the night before. I stepped inside, this time with much less fear, and, pushing away all dread of the unknown within the black room, I shut the door behind me.
We-e-e-ell. I know I finished at a kind-of cliffhanger, but don't worry, it's not as horribly cliffhangery as you think. The faster you review, the sooner Chapter Eleven'll be on! Maybe. xD
