Waterborne Exile Page 9

  Of course Jenna had known the truth. She must have known it all along.

  “I would. I owe him my life.”

  “Very well.” The slightest raising of an eyebrow suggested the elder was not convinced by Alwenna’s justification. “When the time is right, you will wish to seek out the outcasts who dwell in the mountains to the north. I am known to them: mention my name and they will receive you.”

  “When the time is right? What does that mean?”

  Jenna smiled. “I cannot tell you. But you will know.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Myrna was nowhere to be found, either upstairs or in the kitchens or sculleries.

  The cook was disparaging, expressing her disapproval with a loud sniff. “Sloped off again, that ’un has. No better’n she ought to be.”

  “One of the customers was asking for her.”

  “Well, that don’t surprise me none. Like I said, no better’n she ought to be. Take this tray for the party in the dining room. Looks like we’re near the end of the evening rush anyway. I’ll have a word with himself, see if he’ll put you front of house instead of yon flighty thing. She’s done this once too often.”

  Lena hurried through with the tray of puddings. The merchants in the dining room had also been drinking all day, but they were quieter than the rowdy lot in the tap room, at least. Even so, she didn’t want Myrna’s job. The obscurity of the servants’ areas suited her just fine. Dealing with the public meant a risk, however slight, that she might be recognised. A quick scan of the faces gathered around the table told her tonight she was safe enough. And hopefully in her changed situation, dressed in unfamiliar clothing, she would not be recognised by any but her closest acquaintances. They, for sure, would never be found in a downtrodden inn in Sylhaven.

  She made her way back towards the kitchen, but was hailed by Isaac Henty from the taproom doorway.

  “Here, lass, come and deal wi’ this bloke.”

  Not again. She quelled the urge to snap at the landlord. “Pardon?”

  “Yon feller in the corner is asking after ye.”

  “He should make his mind up, you said he was asking for Myrna before.”

  “Aye, so he was. Just sweet talk him off the premises, he’s been drowning his sorrows all afternoon.”

  “But, Isaac–”

  “He’s a wealthy man, go about it right and ye’ll get a handsome tip, lass. He’s harmless. There’s others here I need to keep a close eye on tonight. See him safe home, then you can take the rest of the evening off.” He vanished back inside the taproom and Lena trailed behind him. She was paid for kitchen work, not being polite to drunks. And she was paid precious little at that. Henty nodded towards the corner table as he resumed his place behind the bar. A man sat there, slumped over his empty tankard, hair falling over his face. He gave every appearance of remaining upright only by virtue of the substantial table on which his elbows and forearms rested. She sighed and threaded her way through the crowded room.

  “Come on, sir, it’s time for you to head home.”

  “What about Myrna?” He focused on her slightly unsteadily. “Isaac said he’d bring her.”

  “She’s not here.”

  “She isn’t?”

  “No. She’s finished for the night. And now it’s time for you to go. Up you get, sir.”

  “The name’s Nils. Darnell. You can call me Nils, if you want.” He stood up, swaying slightly. She caught hold of his arm by the elbow just before he overbalanced.

  “Watch your step.” She steered him towards the taproom door.

  “You haven’t told me your name,” he observed when they were alone in the hallway.

  “There’s no need to worry about that.”

  “I’d rather know your name, all the same, ’s only polite.”

  “I’m Lena.”

  “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Lena.” He executed a shaky bow. “You may call me Nils.”

  “Pleased to meet you.” She supported him down the steps, hoping he’d find his sea legs in a minute, but he reeled sideways as they reached the street.

  “Where do you live, Mr Darnell?”

  “Call me Nils, I insist.”

  “Don’t start that again. Where do you live?”

  He raised his eyebrow.

  “Where do you live, Nils?”

  “Tha’s better. Vine Street. It’s the house with the biggest courtyard.”

  “That’s nice.” Lena hoped he wasn’t going to lean any more heavily on her, she wasn’t sure she could support his weight much longer. Thank the Goddess the walk to Vine Street wasn’t far.

  “I’ve done a lot of work on it, you know. It wasn’t in the best order when I bought the place. Had to work hard to get where I am today. Damned hard.”

  Lena winced as he trod on her foot. He didn’t seem to notice, however.

  “Not good enough for the likes of Barrett, of course. Looks down his nose at a self-made man. Unless the money’s generations old he’s not impressed. Damn fool, I’ll show him. Pardon my language, Lorna. Shouldn’t have said that in the presence of a lady. Hope you can forgive me.” He stopped and pulled himself up to his full height. “I must be making a poor impression on you this evening. Between you and me, Lorna, I’ve had a bit too much to drink. I don’t normally drink to excess.”

  “That’s a relief. Can you make your own way from here, Mr Darnell?”

  He frowned. “Nils, please. We’ve been through all that. I can’t call you Lorna if you don’t call me Nils, wouldn’t be right.”

  She sighed. “It’s not right anyway. My name is Lena.”

  “Lena? That’s much nicer than Lorna. Why’d you tell me it was Lorna?”

  “I didn’t. Is it much further to your house?”

  “No. See the wide gate up ahead? That’s it.”

  “Will you be all right the rest of the way by yourself?”

  “I want to see what you think of the house. Can’t do that if you don’t come in.”

  She couldn’t argue with his logic. “That’s true, but it wouldn’t be proper.”

  “I know how to treat a lady. Anyway you wouldn’t be alone with me, there’ll be servants about the place.”

  Nils pushed open the heavy courtyard gate, stepping back with a flourish for Lena to precede him. “After you, my lady.”

  “No, really, you don’t need me from here. I’ll bid you good night.” She stepped back from the gateway, but Darnell followed her.

  “Come now, the night’s young.”

  “Not for me, sir. I have an early start in the morning. I wish you well in nursing your sore head tomorrow.” A clunk from the top of the steps behind Darnell heralded the opening of the door. Light pooled out into the courtyard and a middle-aged manservant stepped forward, casting a wavering shadow across the cobbles.

  “Sir, is there some trouble?”

  “Evening, Rossiter. The lady seems to think I’m not to be trusted.” The servant stepped closer, frowning as he studied Lena.

  She was acutely conscious of her scruffy scullery maid’s garb. Without thinking, she drew herself up to her full height. “Isaac Henty of the Royal Hart bade me deliver your master safe home. I trust I can assure him I have left Mr Darnell in capable hands?”

  The servant bowed slightly. “Of course, my lady.” Lena knew a moment’s satisfaction; she could still draw on the old ways when she needed to. But she ought not. It wasn’t appropriate for her situation. But it was so, so satisfying to see the servant’s manner change. She spent too much time at the inn taking the brunt of others’ snobbery and the moment felt good. Maybe it was time she went back. Her grand adventure involved a whole lot more drudgery than she’d expected.

  “Thank you, I shall inform Isaac Henty that Master Darnell has been left in safe hands. I bid you good night, Mr Darnell.”

  Darnell had straightened up in the presence of the servant, and perhaps regained some stronger sense of his surroundings. “Nils, I insist. At some more propitious
occasion I shall hope to offer you my hospitality, my lady.” He bowed, staggering only slightly as he straightened up. “But tell me now, who will see you safe back to the inn?”

  “Have no fear on my account, sir, the troublemakers are all gathered in the taproom.” She turned to leave.

  “No, I protest, you can’t go alone.”

  “Sir, a serving girl won’t suffer ill at this time of night.” The servant took his master by the arm and nodded towards Lena.

  “Good night, then.” She walked briskly down the street away from the gate, ignoring Darnell’s protest that she could not leave so soon. She glanced back as she reached the corner; Darnell was watching from outside the gate. She walked on out of sight, shaking her head. Henty had been right, the fellow was good natured enough, an amiable drunkard. The world would be a better place if they were all like him.

  Myrna was back in the kitchen when Lena returned, sitting at the table, pouting.

  “I’d’ve seen to Master Darnell. You shouldn’a taken him, Lena. You’re nobbut a kitchen skivvy. I’ll tell you what – you’re gettin’ ideas above your station.”

  “I was only doing what Isaac told me. Believe me, I’d rather have stayed warm in here than half carry a drunk up that hill in the cold.”

  “You’d no call to go stealin’ my tips.”

  “Don’t worry, I didn’t get any tips.” She hung her cloak on the peg behind the door. “He won’t even remember my name tomorrow.”

  “More fool you.” Myrna sniffed.

  “There’s a fool in all this, to be sure, but it isn’t me.”

  Lena made her way up the back stairs to the attic room where she slept. It was tiny, scarcely large enough to hold a bed, but at least that meant she didn’t have to share it with anyone else. She thought again of the manservant’s instinctive reaction to her tone of voice. Just for a moment it had been good. Doubtless she’d pay for that moment’s weakness somewhere along the way, that was how life seemed to work. And in the end, if her little deception was uncovered, what did it matter? It had been good to taste real life, but she had to admit the work was hard and the rewards were few. Really, she would be missing nothing if she were to return home now. Doubtless Myrna was already plotting against her, for her imagined usurping as favourite of Nils Darnell. Not that she needed to. As Lena had said, he wouldn’t even remember her name in the morning.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  All was decay: Drew was surrounded by it and it had consumed him, without and within. Every pore, every fibre stank of death, of corruption. Of something so wrong and so unnatural Drew couldn’t bear to move, lest it sense him and somehow turn upon him. He lay there, stock still, a cold stone slab beneath his back. It pressed against the nape of his neck, it pressed against that point on his ribs where he’d fallen from a horse years ago and landed badly on hard ground, and it pressed against his tailbone. He felt as if his body was being torn asunder along a line connecting those three points. He had to move to ease the pressure, but he was frozen there. Immobile. He couldn’t move so much as a single fingertip. His body refused to obey any of his commands. What was this? Death? Was death meant to be this painful? Surely…

  He tried again, to lift one hand, to wriggle his weight on the stone slab to ease some of the terrible pressure through his ribs. But… nothing happened. How could he be here, aware, yet unable to respond? Where even was “here”? His eyelids refused to open, but somehow he knew it was dark. And dank, and chill. Yet he couldn’t see, couldn’t explore anything with his fingertips to confirm or deny his assumptions.

  He was alone there in the dark, his will somehow set apart from the corruption that surrounded him. Did that corruption stir? Might it respond to his thoughts in the way his body ought to have done? Had it turned to gaze at him with sightless eyes and to examine him with un-scenting nose? A shudder ran the length of his body, involuntary; then another shudder, more powerful than the first, set his leg muscles cramping. Another shudder, even stronger and he felt his body twist and spasm. A dreadful half-grunt, half-moan issued from his mouth as his whole torso jerked upwards and new pain found him, firing every nerve end simultaneously and racking him until he cried out, even though he feared that terrible evil would hear him and turn upon him. And air crept into his lungs, every bit as fetid and dank as he’d expected. A rank taste swam into his mouth as he gasped on the slab like a dying fish. Except he was not dying, somehow he understood that. This pain, this torment – this was living. And if this now was living, what had he been before? Walking through some dream, some nightmare? And if he had, and living was new, where had the words come from to give form to the shapeless fears that flitted through his mind? Worst thought of all, had that unnatural corruption supplied him with the words, and the thoughts, and the pain? And if it had, why? And what evil would it visit upon him next?

  A fresh spasm racked his body and Drew woke with a start, crying out, some inarticulate moan of fear. He was sitting up in bed, a soft mattress beneath him, the warmth of Jervin’s body beside him. The air was fresh and sweet. The scent of jasmine carried in from Jervin’s courtyard garden through unshuttered windows. That gentle breeze, benevolent though it was, was enough to raise goosebumps on Drew’s flesh. He shuddered, trying to shake away the shadow of the nightmare, but the foul taste of corruption lingered in his mouth.

  Jervin stirred next to him. “You’ve been restless these past nights. What ails you?” He sounded more peevish than concerned.

  Drew ran his hands through his hair; it was down to his shoulders now, the tonsure of Vorrahan long since grown out. And it somehow felt wrong and alien at that moment. He shivered. “Just some nightmare.”

  “Then you’ve been having a lot of those lately.” Jervin sat up, leaning over to study his face. “You sure you’re not trying to keep some secret from me?” He ran a lazy fingertip over Drew’s forehead, pushing back the unruly hair.

  “No, I wouldn’t. I couldn’t, you know that.”

  Jarvin huffed with laughter. “Some wife and children hidden away in Highground that you’ve forgotten to tell me about? Inappropriate thoughts about those traders from Ellisquay?” The fingertip strayed down the side of Drew’s face, down his neck. Drew’s pulse quickened and he caught his breath with anticipation as Jervin’s hand moved to his chest.

  “Goddess, you’re sweating like a horse.”

  Drew’s face heated with embarrassment. “I– I’m sorry. Just let me go and wash–”

  “Did I say I didn’t like it?” Jervin reached beneath the tangled bedcovers, leaning over to kiss Drew hungrily, pressing against him, hard and eager and guaranteed to chase away any nightmare. Drew abandoned any attempt to think and lost himself in their lovemaking. There were moments when Jervin’s sense of humour confused him, when Drew didn’t trust him at all, but here, like this, in the bed they shared, Jervin became Drew’s entire world. Whatever those dreams meant, they had no place here in the waking world. Jervin’s eager body next to him was all that mattered.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Alwenna woke. She was shaking from the horror of her nightmare. It was still dark, probably hours before dawn. On the cot at the other side of the chamber, Erin slept soundly, her breathing steady, untroubled by any night fears. Alwenna knew a moment’s envy – at times the girl’s outlook was so prosaic it bewildered her, but the former servant had weathered the same storms alongside her and come out of the experience apparently whole and unbowed. Alwenna knew a mixture of envy and respect.

  She was tempted to wake her and ask her what she thought of the dream, but that would be unfair. All she wanted was to hear another voice to banish the terrible dread of that dank corruption. Instead Alwenna pulled a gown on over her shift and slipped quietly out of the cave and into the desert night. The sky was clear and the half-moon not far off setting, but it gave enough light for her to see by once her eyes had adjusted. She walked some distance along the foot of the escarpment, climbing the slope away from the other dwellings. The night air
was still, and almost perfect. If only there’d been a whiff of jasmine to leaven the air, something softer than the scents of sand and rock and scrubby vegetation. Her skin prickled with a strange awareness – had there been a dream within her nightmare? Something kinder? She couldn’t recall it if there had been. It had been that way of late, dreams crowding one another out. Some effect of her pregnancy, perhaps. The wisewoman Jenna had left Scarrow’s Deep, saying she would return soon; Alwenna hoped she would, so she might ask–

  “My Lady Alwenna. You, too, are abroad this fine night.”

  “Marten? You startled me.”

  “I beg your pardon, my lady. It was not my intention.” Marten was perched on a boulder protruding from the cliff face some ten feet above where she stood, his long legs doubled up with forearms resting about them. He must have been watching her walk up the slope since she emerged from her cave. She had to crane her neck to see his face, although it was lost in shadow so the effort yielded little information.

  “I must suppose you are comfortable up there, surveying your domain?”

  “Yes, I believe I am. It is a favourite place. Why don’t you join me up here?”

  The face of the boulder was undercut, and it butted up against a sheer blank rock wall. “I think you overestimate my agility.”

  “As you do mine – it’s an easy scramble from the other side.” He gestured with his left hand. Unsure whether to believe him, Alwenna moved round the foot of the boulder to see that it was indeed the case. This facet of the boulder sloped gently and, even hampered by skirts, it was an easy matter to clamber up the ramp where it adjoined the rock. Marten reached out a hand to assist her, but she declined, choosing a sitting place beyond arm’s length. Marten shrugged.

  “I am not yet forgiven?”

  “There is nothing to forgive – the elders are not yours to command, after all.”

  “I had hoped they would be of more substantive use than proved to be the case, however.”