Wench

by Maxine Kaplan

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

  Names: Kaplan, Maxine, author.

  Title: Wench / by Maxine Kaplan.

  Description: New York : Amulet Books, [2021] | Audience: Ages 12 and Up. | Summary: When Tanya’s guardian dies, having lost her home and the tavern where she has spent most of her life, she sets out on a perilous quest to petition the queen for help.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2020011335 (print) | LCCN 2020011336 (ebook) | ISBN 9781419738517 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781419738524 (paperback) | ISBN 9781683359869 (ebook)

  Subjects: CYAC: Voyages and travels—Fiction. | Taverns (Inns)—Fiction. | Fantasy.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.K345 Wen 2021 (print) | LCC PZ7.1.K345 (ebook) | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020011335

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020011336

  Text copyright © 2021 Maxine Kaplan

  Book design by Hana Anouk Nakamura

  Published in 2021 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

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  Amulet Books® is a registered trademark of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.

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  For my parents

  Chapter

  1

  Tanya was good at many things, but her most useful gift was breaking up bar fights.

  The skill was one she had honed from her earliest days at the Smiling Snake, the biggest tavern in Griffin’s Port. When she was very small, all it had taken was stamping her foot and scowling. This stern-little-girl routine so amused the brawlers that they’d stop fighting to laugh, at least long enough for Froud to swoop in with a warm back-clap and a free round. No one ever clocked that it was, in fact, a routine, devised by a girl with a job to perform at the most inconvenient height of four-feet-nothing.

  But, tonight, she wasn’t in the mood.

  Tanya was, of course, the first to hear the raised voices by the hearth. She sighed and looked over at Froud; he was snoring away in a rocking chair next to the bourbon barrels. He wheezed through a particularly loud snore, knocking his head against the wall. She pulled her cloak off its hook and bundled it into a pillow, slipping it behind his head.

  “Tanya! Tanya! Tanya!”

  Froud slipped off his chair a little and Tanya caught him. “I’ve got my hands full, not my ears, Kit Brightblood,” she snapped. “What can I help you with?”

  “Oooh. Feeling a little cheeky tonight, are we?”

  Just tired. Like she always was, but who could complain about too much work? “Don’t you worry about my cheeks,” she said. “What is it?”

  “My table wouldn’t say no to another bottle of wine.”

  “In five minutes, Kit. I just have to settle Froud and then take care of whatever nonsense is happening by the fire first.”

  By the time she was eleven, breaking up these fights was second nature. Froud had gotten so deaf and sleepy that he rarely even noticed when two drunken brawlers were on the brink of destroying the furniture. As with so many things at the Smiling Snake, it had fallen to Tanya to throw down her rag, turn the key in the cashbox, and vault her tiny, round body into the middle of any given fray.

  Though tonight, looking down at the decaying old man she didn’t know how to help or fix, she thought that the next time two idiots decided to fight in her bar, she might just let them break each other’s heads open.

  Tanya caught herself and shook the thought out of her head—doing nothing was never useful.

  She settled her guardian’s head back on the makeshift pillow. He made a noise that almost sounded like a whimper.

  Tanya frowned. He should really be in bed.

  A glass shattered. The fighters’ voices got louder, the spectators going quiet. That was never a good sign—she had let it go on too long.

  She grabbed two bottles of her strongest honey wine and a tray laden with tumblers. Bumping the side door of the bar open with one hip, and balancing the tray on the other, she went to work.

  Tanya put her age at about seventeen. She hadn’t gotten much taller since she first arrived at the Snake, but she had gotten ever stronger, and she maintained perfect, constant control over herself and her domain. She was everything a tavern wench should be.

  It was a typical night at the Snake. A local crew was about to embark on two weeks at sea—a young batch of fishermen, several on their first overnight expedition. Tanya mussed the younger boys’ hair, made eye contact with the mothers—good, no one is getting too drunk—and nodded with satisfaction that the blueberry syllabub she had brought over had been properly demolished. She could hear new arrivals coming through the door, a boiling wind in their wake.

  The boiling wind transformed midair into hail, sending chips of ice skittering across the floor.

  By now an expert at managing the environmental irritations of the Aetheric Revolution, Tanya neatly skipped out of the way and booted them into the ash pile.

  No one offered to help her, but Tanya found it easier to do things her way anyway. She put grabbing a mop on her list, right under putting Froud to bed, serving Kit his wine, and breaking up the fight by the hearth.

  Something crashed and Tanya sighed—All right, she thought. Let’s break up this damn fight.

  She knew the moment she turned around that it had not been a moment too soon. Gregor Brightblood, the huge and hotheaded older brother of Kit, had two men in a headlock.

  That was neither unusual nor something that Tanya couldn’t easily dispatch. The wrinkle here was that the two young men were dressed in the pale blue coats of the Queen’s Corps. And more corpsmen, more than Tanya had realized were on the premises, all twinkling with dangerous hardware and even more dangerous legal authority, were surrounding them.

  Tanya might not have particularly liked Gregor, but it wouldn’t do to have him escorted from the Snake in chains.

  She moved.

  Tanya rapped an elbow with the wine bottle and bounced through the subsequently vacated space. “Now that’s a sight I like to see,” she said, tidily breaking through Gregor’s left-hand headlock with the sharp end of the tray, sending the smaller corpsman plummeting to the floor. “One of the strongest specimens the Port Cities has to offer in an exhibition with the esteemed soldiers of the Queen’s Corps—easily the finest men in Lode.” She put her hand on Gregor’s right hand, which was wrapped around a skinny corpsman’s collarbone, and pried his fingers away.

  She shoved Gregor in the back with her second wine bottle, pushing him toward his brother. The Snake regulars, knowing Gregor’s intractability when drunk, closed up behind them, and Tanya turned her attention to the corpsmen.

  “Gentlemen,” she said, with as much honey in her voice as she could conjure. “Allow me to show my deep appreciation for your patience with our rowdier townsfolk—he’s just a crabber and is not equipped with the manners and discipline we of course expect of the Queen’s Corps.” She pulled out a chair for the first corpsman, still struggling
to his feet, and dropped to her knees to retrieve something that had gotten knocked out of the skinnier one’s hands in his fall.

  It was a box. A glossy, wooden box carved with a single flame. Tanya thought she heard something humming inside and moved to put it to her ear—only to have it snatched away by Skinny.

  Still on her knees, Tanya recovered quickly and grinned. “Trinket for a sweetheart, sir? Lucky girl to have a handsome corpsman guarding her treasures so valiantly.”

  The skinny corpsman was part of the way toward a smile when there was a scream from the bar and Tanya’s life as she knew it ended.

  After the scream, no one moved fast enough except for Tanya. She knocked over the table, splashing beer all over her clean floor, and pushed past the crowd that had drawn up slowly around the bar—too slowly for Tanya to push past it. No one thought to make her a path and, of course, no one hopped the bar themselves to tend to the old man.

  No, no one had moved fast enough, either toward Froud or out of her damn way, and by the time Tanya got to him, he was already dead.

  Chapter

  2

  The wagon carrying Froud’s coffin stumbled to a stop outside the Shrine of Herold. Tanya hopped down and surveyed the red-dyed stones of the temple and the badly kept grass of the graveyard beyond. For the first time since Froud’s death, she felt tears behind her eyes. She hated to think of gentle Froud in Herold’s wild and neglected burial ground. But Froud had loved the boisterous god of revels and squalls, wind and rage.

  There was a temple. She could see it, mottled black and red, nestled under a burnt-out nut tree. There were priests, but she knew not to expect a reception—especially as a girl. The priests conducted their burial rites in secret and no women were ever allowed.

  Tanya surveyed the scene and, finding nothing useful for her to do, turned to walk back to the Smiling Snake.

  She walked briskly down the sandy road, smelling the fish and salt of Griffin’s Port more with every step. It was rare that she even noticed the smell. But then, she hadn’t left the small, shabby city she called home much in the last ten years. When she was young and first came to live with him, Froud had often wanted to take her down the path that led to the woods—to go to a fair or a market or a festival even—but she had been too frightened. Frightened that she would get lost, that she’d never find her way back. Frightened that Froud would simply leave her under a tree.

  The fears didn’t last more than a year, but then they no longer mattered. She was too busy to leave. The place wouldn’t function without her—she had made sure of that. Fear of being left under a tree was for other, less important, girls.

  Tanya passed through the Talon Gate, a monstrous stone arch half formed by the leaping figure of a griffin, leonine hind legs so old they were rooted under centuries’ worth of packed salt and silt, the eagle head and claws thrusting thirty feet in the air to clutch at its prey, the perishing mermaid that made up the gate’s west side. Tanya scowled at the ossifying mermaid diving into the earth. The griffin can fly and he’s already got your fin, she always wanted to scream at her. There’s no escape down. Find another way. Move faster.

  The Smiling Snake was located just inside the horrific gate. Tanya felt warmer as she approached her inn. It was salt-whitened clapboard, sturdy, fortified at the joints with oxidizing copper, green and sinewy. Tanya looked up at the wide, four stories of her home, presided over by its sign, a diamond-cut block of polished oak, painted green and brown with the carved image of a grinning serpent. She straightened her back, pulled her key ring from the pouch around her waist, and stuck it in the rusting lock.

  The lock gave right away and the door swung open. Tanya stumbled backward, surprised. She thought she had locked the door before leaving for the temple. Then Tanya heard voices and was sure she had.

  She drew a deep breath and walked calmly into the inn, slamming the door behind her.

  “Can I help you, sirs?”

  When none of the assembled men—damned corpsmen all—answered, Tanya walked behind the bar and retrieved the tinderbox.

  “We’re closed, I’m afraid,” she said, striking a match and lighting the lamp. She moved to the front of the bar. “If you need rooms, we’re always happy to accommodate the men of the Queen’s Corps, but you’ll have to fend for yourself for dinner.”

  Someone cleared his throat and the crowd shifted to reveal a man seated at the best table, the one in front of the fire. The fire was lit, and the table was set with a cold roast turkey leg and a whole cask of Tanya’s best wine, the rich, sweet red that one of Froud’s trader friends had brought from across the Swept Sea as a gift.

  The man reached for the cask and Tanya’s attention moved from the meal he had simply taken from her kitchen to the man himself. He was clearly the commander, she could see that from his well-pressed coat, brushed shiny and free of all debris—she had cleaned enough of those coats to know that the wool picked up lint like anything.

  He was also the most physically imposing man she’d ever seen, his head nearly clearing the mantelpiece while he was sitting down.

  “I apologize for startling you, madam, but I believe there’s been a mistake.” He stood slightly and inclined his head toward the chair opposite him. Tanya sat down carefully, not liking the look in the giant’s eyes. “It was my understanding that Froud Loomis employed a serving wench. That was you?”

  Tanya’s eyes narrowed, but she nodded.

  He took a large gulp of the wine. She noted that he was using the wrong sort of glass—that narrow tumbler was for cider—and inwardly shook her head.

  He put his incorrect selection of glassware down and rubbed his finger along its edge. “You are not the man’s daughter?”

  “No.”

  “Were you his mistress?”

  Tanya felt sick to her stomach. “To whom am I speaking?”

  He smiled and pulled a parchment out of his breast pocket. “I am Kiernan Rees, commander of this corps. And, in my authority as a representative of the Queen and Council, I have requisitioned this inn and all its contents.”

  “What?”

  He handed her the parchment. “Read it for yourself.”

  Tanya snatched it out of his hand. She read, “‘Writ of Requisition. By the order of the Queen and Council, all accommodations, provisions, livestock, and sundries deemed necessary by the commander of this corps, Sir Kiernan Rees, are to be surrendered upon request. The Queen and Council thank their citizens.’” It was signed by Councilman Hewitt, known even to Tanya as the Queen’s closest advisor.

  Tanya found her voice. “This is fake. I don’t believe it.”

  Rees leaned over and drew her attention to the second signature. “It was certified three days ago by a Sir Clark. I believe he is the tax collector in these parts.”

  Tanya knew that signature well. It was the same one she saw on the tithe documents every other month.

  Suddenly she found that she was standing up. “The Smiling Snake is mine.”

  Rees held out his hand. “Show me a writ of leaving signed by Loomis and certified by Sir Clark, or another appropriate official, and we might have something to talk about.”

  Tanya started trembling. She couldn’t quite tell if it was with rage or with the beginnings of fear. “I’ll find it,” she said loudly. “But it doesn’t matter. Ask anyone in Griffin’s Port. Froud meant me to run this inn. He always said so.”

  “Are you sure he meant that?” Rees leaned forward, a sharp glint in his eyes. “Are you sure he wasn’t just trying to keep his unpaid help happy? Anyway, even if you do find it, this writ is signed by both the Queen and Councilman Hewitt himself. It can’t be reversed by just a tavern wench with a scrap of paper.”

  Tanya, defiantly, met his eyes. “That is unacceptable. Sir.”

  “I don’t make the rules, tavern wench. You’ll have to take it up with the Queen and Council.”

  Tanya didn’t answer, but she did snatch the cask of wine off his table before shoving her
way through his men and climbing the stairs to her room in the attic.

  The attic still acted as storage for the Smiling Snake, but Tanya had made a nest for herself among the chests of linen and piles of silver waiting to get polished.

  Two overstuffed, oversize canvas sacks of goose down piled on top of each other was all she had for a bed, but they were made up in immaculately clean sheets of rather fine white linen. Her blanket she had made herself out of scraps of bed coverings and curtains from the inn, again overstuffing it with goose down. It might have been catch as catch can, but for all that, it was probably the most comfortable bed in the house. Tanya sat down on it heavily and took a drink directly out of the cask.

  She unlaced her boots and kicked them off, then took another drink. She would wait until the men had put themselves to bed, or more likely fell asleep in tavern chairs, since she was damned if she was going to light fires and change sheets in the rooms for them. Then she would creep downstairs to the little room off the kitchen where Froud kept his books. That’s where the writ of leaving would be. Tanya knew it was there. It had to be.

  The Smiling Serpent was the key to Griffin’s Port. It was the biggest room in the city where everyone was welcome and equal.

  The pirates that everyone pretended weren’t pirates could carouse at the stalls by the docks, but it got cold there at night. The rich mineral merchants could host lavish dinners in their homes, but they couldn’t get any news there. The fishermen had their own cozy homes with their cozy families, but sometimes even respectable fishermen needed to drink. Everyone needed something that only the Smiling Serpent could give them, and Tanya knew, without a glimmer of a doubt, that she was the one who made it happen.

  Tanya was the cook, the brewer, the distiller, the laundress, the housekeeper, the waitress, the hostess, the landlady, the muscle, the drunk-wrangler, the comforter of the brokenhearted, etc., etc. Tanya passed messages. She stored up information. She flirted with the boys who were just starting to be men and a little too nervous to be in the big tavern room with the grown folk. The nice boys anyway. The bad ones she scowled at, though they seemed to like that just as much.