Wench

by Maxine Kaplan

  Jana reached out to stroke it, but Tanya grabbed her hand before she could. “Stop that,” she said sharply. “What is it?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Tanya gave her a look. “Take it from a port city tavern wench: Don’t touch things you can’t identify. Especially if they sparkle for no reason.”

  Jana nodded, frowning, and sighed. “It’s a good rule.” She drew a small black pouch and a white handkerchief out of a garter. Carefully, she picked the feather up with a hanky-covered hand and slipped it into the pouch.

  Tanya blinked as Jana slipped the pouch into the front of the borrowed nightdress, the box tumbling out of her hands to lie forgotten on the ground. While the feather had been visible, she had felt transported. As the pouch disappeared into the strange girl’s cleavage, Tanya suddenly remembered where she was and then, quickly, so did Jana and the tip of her blade was thrust against the top of Tanya’s throat.

  Tanya craned her head backward, trying to avoid the sharp, steel point. “What now?”

  Jana smiled a quite friendly smile. She shrugged, keeping her blade level against Tanya’s flesh. “Not much really,” she said. “I steal a horse and get away.”

  “And me?” Tanya swallowed. “Are you going to kill me?

  “No!” Jana looked offended. “Why would I kill you? I’m a brigand, I’m not evil.”

  “Well, that’s comforting.”

  Jana grinned and pressed the blade a touch harder. “Turn around and walk toward the bonfire.”

  Tanya obeyed, walking with the blade just barely pressing into her back until Jana told her to stop.

  “Sit down.” Tanya knelt in the dirt. “Not like that,” Jana said impatiently. “Make yourself comfortable.”

  “Give me the sword, then.”

  Jana sighed again. “I’m making this so easy for you. What do you care about the corps’ stuff? You’re not their, like, follower, are you?”

  “Certainly not! I’m trading domestic work for safe passage to the Capital.”

  She snorted. “Not that safe.”

  Reluctantly, Tanya had to agree. This particular regimen of corps had been a thorough disappointment. She settled herself comfortably on the ground.

  Jana knelt in front of her and uncoiled some rope from around her thigh. For the first time, Tanya started to panic. Jana caught her eye and shook her head. “I’m not going to hurt you,” she told her. “I’m just going to tie you up a little.”

  The girl grabbed Tanya’s wrists together in one hand and started wrapping them together with the rope.

  Tanya found that she did not at all like how it felt to lose the use of her hands.

  “Listen,” she said, breathing hard. “Do you really have to tie me up? I have no idea how to fight. I don’t even know how to hold a sword. You don’t have to tie my hands or”—as Jana moved to her ankles—“my feet, for the Lady’s sake. I’m barefoot.”

  “So am I and I’m going to run. Look, I’m really sorry, but I do have to tie you up. I have a reputation and it’s just too sloppy not to.”

  “Oh,” Tanya whimpered as Jana pulled the knots tight. She winced, partly in pain, partly from embarrassment at whining. She regained her composure and looked at Jana with the sharpest daggers her eyes could conjure. “You’re a real piece of work, aren’t you?”

  Jana shrugged, seemingly unconcerned. “Hey, at least I didn’t drug you, right?” She looked at the sky. “The potency should be wearing off by now, so you’re fine to breathe. I think.”

  Tanya frowned. “Why didn’t you drug me? And, come to think of it, how did you even know we had the . . . feather thing? Do you have a spy in the corps?”

  Jana stood up and pointed at something behind Tanya’s head. Tanya twisted awkwardly, hampered by the ropes.

  “That,” said Jana, “is a very good climbing tree.”

  Tanya followed her glance and saw a tree on the other side of the magical swamp. She remembered twisting in the junkoff slop, feeling as if something was moving around among the leaves. She knew Hart couldn’t have made that kill shot.

  “You were waiting for us,” she said softly. “You wanted to see how the corps reacted when they were threatened. The first thing they did was check a parcel.” She turned and looked back at Jana, who was already leading one of the newly shod horses away from the herd.

  “Here girl,” she cooed. “Who’s my good girl?”

  “Wait, you shot your own man?”

  Jana chuckled, vaulting neatly onto the horse’s back. “He was hardly mine.” At Tanya’s appalled face, she urged the horse over to her. “Don’t be shocked, Tanya. I promise you, he was awful.” When Tanya primly screwed up her mouth and didn’t answer, Jana sighed and reined in the horse. “Well, anyway, it was nice meeting you. I hope you get to the Capital.”

  She turned and had already started to ride down the path when Tanya remembered something. “Why didn’t you drug me?” she called.

  Jana called something back. Tanya couldn’t be sure, but she thought she heard something about a nightgown.

  By dawn, Tanya’s knees were sore from being bent in one position for so many hours, her sinuses were blocked from being out in the cool autumn air, and her nerves were jangled from having to endure the muffled curses and groans from the men on the trees.

  “I can’t help you,” she had eventually shouted, annoyed. “I’m tied up. Instead of whining, you’d be much better served shutting up and trying to rest.” But they didn’t listen.

  “Idiots,” Tanya grumbled. She scooted on her bottom across the forest floor until she found an unoccupied tree to lean against, and endeavored to take her own advice.

  Greer was the first of the drugged to stumble out of his tent, bleary-eyed and yawning. He made for the almost-banked fire, seemingly blind to all the havoc around him, until he came face-to-face with Tanya and stopped short.

  His mouth fell a little open. “What are you doing there?” he asked, groggily.

  “Ropes, Greer!” Tanya shook her bound feet and hands at him. “Would you wake up and untie me already? Now, please.”

  But Greer wasn’t paying attention to her anymore. He had noticed his fellow corpsmen on the trees and was running from trunk to trunk, slicing them free with his sword—starting with Rees.

  As soon as Rees had spat out his gag, he shouted, “Check the baggage! Now! What did she take?”

  “She?” asked Greer, sawing through the ropes around a particularly tightly bound Hart. “Tanya took something?”

  “Not her, moron!” yelled Rees at the same time that Tanya yelled, “Not me, idiot!”

  The men released from the trees were scrambling through their belongings, bellowing. The men who had been drugged in their tents started crawling out, dumbfounded and screeching questions, the smoke from the smoldering bundles still stinging everyone’s eyes. And, through all the chaos, Tanya remained tied up, unheeded, by her tree.

  Only when the whole corps had been brought up to speed on the theft and subsequent desertion of “that smithy tart” did their attention turn to Tanya.

  No one made a move to untie her.

  “What was she even doing out here?” asked Hart sulkily, dabbing at a mysteriously split lip. “She had supposedly gone to bed, but instead she was out here talking to her?”

  “It’s a good question,” answered Rees, turning toward her with his arms folded. The corps fell silent behind him, all eyeing her with suspicion.

  Finally, Darrow broke the silence. “Well, we need breakfast anyway, right sir?” He stepped toward Tanya and turned his head to his commander. “Sir?”

  At Rees’s nod, Darrow bent to one knee and started gently unraveling the knots around Tanya’s wrists. “Are you hurt anywhere?” he asked in a low tone.

  “Just my sense of honor,” she huffed. “Last to be untied, indeed. I at least have an excuse for being defeated—you all were armed!”

  He smiled and moved on to her ankles. “You’ve got some vinegar in you, miss.
There,” he said, pulling out the last loop of the knot binding her feet together. He frowned and rubbed her toes together between his fingers. “Your feet are freezing.”

  Tanya looked behind his big, round shoulders to the hard eyes of his companions and said, “Never mind that. Better help me up.”

  As Tanya scrambled to her feet, she cast an eye toward the back of the camp where the rangy kid was furiously rooting through a ransacked wagon. He spotted the polished wood box on the ground and yelped, tripping over himself to run it over to Rees.

  “It’s here, sir,” he said breathlessly.

  Rees visibly relaxed, followed quickly by the rest of the corps. “Well that’s that, no harm done. We’ll teach her a lesson if we run across the trollop again, but for the moment, I believe it’s high time our other tart”—with a nod toward Tanya—“started brewing us some coffee.”

  Amid the tension-relieving laughter, Tanya, annoyed and rubbing her sore wrists, said sharply, “Yes, yes, the box is here. But your sparkly feather is quite thoroughly stolen.” Abruptly, the laughter stopped.

  Rees stepped toward her. “The girl from the smith stole the contents of that box?” he asked quietly, pointing at the now dim-seeming container.

  Tanya stood up straight. “Don’t look at me like that,” she said sternly. “I’m not the one who brought her to camp. I didn’t help her steal it, she held me at sword-point! She just happened to show me the feather first.” It didn’t seem necessary to include that the feather had actually been in Tanya’s possession at the precise moment of its abduction.

  Rees seemed to think for a moment. Finally, he said, “You’re right. You didn’t bring her to camp.” He turned around, walked three paces, and punched Hart in the face. He punched him again and again, until he fell to the ground.

  Tanya looked around curiously. Was this normal? No, judging by the expressions on the rest of the boys’ faces, it wasn’t, although most looked as though they would like to get in a few licks themselves. They were all surveying the tableau with varying mixtures of fear, dread, and rage. It was dead silent.

  When Rees felt he had made his point, or his arm had simply gotten too tired to go on, he turned and barked, “We ride to Ironhearth. Now.”

  Tanya hurried through the throng to her own tent, as even she could sense that there was no wiggle room in that order. But as she started bundling her belongings together, letting her well-honed efficiency take over, her mind cleared enough for her to remember that Ironhearth was not on the way to the Capital. It was, in fact, several miles out of the way.

  She stormed out of her tent, collapsed it, and threw it on the nearest wagon. Greer was the first person to pass her, so she grabbed him by the shirt collar.

  “It’s a feather,” she said flatly. “A very pretty feather, I’ll give you that. But it’s a feather. Why are we going out of our way to retrieve a feather?”

  Greer shook free of her grasp. “It’s not a feather, it’s a . . .” He scowled and shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Rees says we need it and I believe him.”

  As he took off across camp, Tanya stamped her foot in irritation. She picked her way across the chaos of wagons and parcels toward Rees, noticing again just how much of the supplies were her own from the Snake.

  “Freeloaders,” she murmured. “Thieves.”

  Rees spared her a glance. “You get on a wagon,” he ordered.

  “Really?” she asked, surprised. “I get to ride?”

  “We don’t have time for anyone to walk, least of all you,” he snapped. “Don’t make it a festival. Darrow!” The corpsman looked up from where he was stacking crates. “Put her on a wagon.” Rees stalked off.

  Darrow took Tanya by the wrist and marched her over to the wagons.

  “Darrow! Slow down,” Tanya fruitlessly ordered as he put his hands on her waist. “What do you think you’re doing? Take your hands off me.”

  He grunted and deposited her heavily on top of a folded canvas tent. “Sorry miss,” he said. “Following orders.” And he, too, rushed off.

  Tanya knew that if Darrow wouldn’t make time to be polite, then no one in the company would. Biting her lip with frustration, straining against every instinct toward action, Tanya literally sat on her hands in an effort to keep still and be patient.

  Finally, the men were packed and on horses and, in a great stroke of luck, Greer hopped on the horse hitched to her wagon. She’d be able to get something more out of him.

  Rees got onto a horse in front and yelled, “Forward.” Greer snapped the reins from side to side and the still-sleepy horse pulled their carriage through the clearing into the forest proper.

  Tanya clambered from the back of the wagon to the front, until she was directly behind Greer’s left ear.

  “Are you really a corps?” she asked.

  Greer jerked the reins back on the horse, who whinnied in protest. He twisted his neck to stare at Tanya, his eyes wide and wild.

  “You sneaky wench,” he exclaimed, tense, but, Tanya thought, not displeased. “How did you get back there?”

  “I was deposited back here. As baggage. Are you really a corps?”

  Greer scowled. “Of course we are. What a ridiculous question.”

  “Is it?” she asked, leaning in, suddenly sure she was onto something. “You were very poorly provisioned for a corps. Especially for one claiming to be from the Capital. Are you on probation or something?”

  Tanya watched as the red stain blossoming under the skin of his cheeks spread to his ears, and his fingers fidgeted around the reins. “It’s none of your affair,” he sniffed.

  Tanya smiled. “You don’t know what your corps is supposed to be doing, do you? You think this is strange, too, but you have as little information as I do.”

  “Listen: Shut up.”

  “You’re right,” she said. Satisfied that she was at least correct and that no one here knew what they were doing, she lay down on the wagon and stretched her arms over her head. She yawned. “I might take a little nap. I didn’t sleep.”

  Greer only grunted.

  In Ironhearth, the air was thick and heady. Charcoal dust floated lazily from forge to forge like smoke, and the smell of burning hay tickled Tanya’s nose. She rubbed her eyes and clambered to the edge of the wagon, looking at the town with bright eyes. She hadn’t left the Port Cities in over a decade.

  Ironhearth was a town known for its foundries and ironwork. It was gray and cacophonous with the sounds of metal striking metal and sizzling pokers. Tanya peered over the wagon and saw roads crisscrossed by narrow brick pathways leading from building to building—nothing like the sandy streets and limestone curbs of Griffin’s Port. Enormous apple trees, ancient and gnarled, hung over the main road like gargoyles.

  The corps’ caravan stopped and Rees jumped out of his saddle. After a quick word with Darrow, he moved toward a low, rounded building tucked near a stream a few paces off the main row. He pounded on the door, taking a surprised step back when the door opened quickly and a young boy in a dusty red cap, obviously the blacksmith’s apprentice, politely bowed him in.

  Tanya rolled her eyes and turned back to the main road, where sparse groups of people, uniformly dressed in gray, hurried to various tasks. “Is there a festival or a fair nearby?” she called up to Greer.

  “No.” He turned to face her. “Why do you ask?”

  “There’s just . . . not a lot of people out,” Tanya said, swinging her legs over the edge of the wagon. “There should be more street life in a town this size. Don’t you think so?”

  “These single-industry towns can be a little prim, I guess. What do you think you’re doing? Stay in the wagon—damn it, girl!”

  Tanya had already jumped off. She tumbled a little on the dismount and tipped forward, landing hard on her hands and knees.

  “Ugh.” Tanya lifted one hand and inspected her red, dirty flesh. “Ouch.”

  Suddenly Greer was at her side and picking her up by the elbow. “Well, what were yo
u expecting?” he asked crossly. “You’re too little a wench to have made that drop without help.”

  Tanya wrenched her elbow away. “I made the drop fine,” she said icily, ignoring the sharp pain in her kneecap. She opened her mouth to deliver the second half of her retort, but was interrupted by a thin young man, almost as short as she was, slamming into her shoulder as he ran down the thoroughfare

  “Sorry miss,” the young man called. He did sound sorry, but not sorry enough to stop running, still tripping on what looked to Tanya like a very inconveniently long scholar’s robe.

  “I hope you have somewhere very important to be,” she yelled after him as she rubbed her freshly injured shoulder.

  “Are you all right?” asked Greer. “Did he hurt you?”

  Tanya shook off his hand. “Don’t be absurd. I outweigh that boy by at least fifty pounds. Don’t say a word,” she added, noticing Greer’s quick look down her body.

  A roar came from the blacksmith’s forge. Tanya and Greer whipped around just in time to see Rees throw the door open and storm out, his face red and contorted with rage.

  “That bitch,” he growled, and kicked a tree. Tanya and the corps watched him in silence as he stood, mumbling, his brows low over his eyes. Finally, he looked up and, stone faced, walked purposefully over to one of the wagons and started rooting around the supplies, throwing provisions into a canvas sack.

  Darrow approached his commander carefully. “Sir,” he asked, in his slow, placid way, “may I ask what you found out about the girl thief?”

  Rees laughed, but didn’t stop packing. “Well, Darrow, since you ask, she is certainly no blacksmith’s cousin. The blacksmith has no family at all aside from that apprentice of his—his nephew.”

  Darrow frowned. “Then who was the blacksmith I met at that forge?”