Wench

by Maxine Kaplan

  Tanya gripped the quill tighter and the vibrations from its fibers shot through her nerve endings into her bloodstream, a strong coursing of power that was either pain of the highest order or immeasurable pleasure; she couldn’t tell.

  “You know nothing about me,” she answered the priestess coldly. “You can recite the facts of my life all you want. You’re right—I understand what it means to be of use. I am of use, without the assistance of a demon that has chosen to lord itself over a city of corruption and chaos. You can’t tempt me with the glory of being of service. I am nothing if not that.”

  The priestess still circled and Tanya felt her next words on the back of her neck as much as she heard them.

  “You truly believe the Queen, pathetic and ensorcelled, trapped with her youth and beauty in that iceberg, represents a higher power than we do? You poor, poor child. You have been greatly deceived.”

  “What do you know about the Queen?” Tanya sneered at the priestess’s back as she moved to regain her throne.

  The priestess snorted as she sat. “I know a great deal more about that deluded, stunted, power-mad child than you do, Tanya of Griffin’s Port,” she said. “I know more about her than she does. I know that she thought commissioning some pitiful little fools of magicians to manufacture your little toy would be enough to seize control of this kingdom. It will not be allowed.

  “Don’t misunderstand me, young Tanya,” she continued, leaning forward. “I understand how powerful that quill is. And you and your developing skills have already been very useful to us.”

  “Useful to you? I beg your pardon. I don’t serve demons.”

  “Just as you don’t steal, and would never imprison, or allow innocents to suffer. Our lord can see inside you, Tanya; you cannot hide. I know what you have decided to call victory in your failed quest for your tavern, and it is a lie. Ask yourself this: When did the demon begin his spread? Was it before you unlocked the power of that quill with your blood magic, or was it after?” She leaned in. “We could feel it when you flew. We followed you through the aether. Blood calls to blood and we are blood magicians, too.”

  There was a profound silence in the chamber. Tanya felt Greer and Darrow fall back. She turned and saw them huddled together, far away from her. She looked to Jana and Riley—their eyes were trained on the ground, anywhere but on her.

  “I think I would like to leave now,” said Tanya, snapping the quill against her wrist, seeing no need to hide her powers any longer. “This has been unforgettable, thank you very much for the nightmares, which way to the exit, please?”

  “Out the way you came,” the priestess said pleasantly, pointing to the now-solid wall they had walked through. “I’m sure you can find your way through, with the help of all your friends here. Just remember, Tanya: We know why you’re here. And we’ve already won.”

  Jana had to eventually hack their way out with a pickaxe from Riley’s pack, tearing a gash through the wall with a moist ripping sound. The Others placidly watched from their dais.

  Their wreck of a procession was quiet as they filed out of the temple, breaking free into the corrupted, but cooler, clearer air of Bloodstone. The mare immediately galloped away and across the bridge, giving the chasm a wide berth, whinnying in extremis the whole way.

  “Horse!” called Tanya, hurrying after her, but the mare was too fast. “Damn it! Riley, do you think she’ll find her way back to the stables? Riley?”

  Riley wasn’t moving. His own horse had been too wide to make it through the temple’s archway and had been left tied to a scrubby tree just outside. The rest of the Tomcat’s men, and the man himself, hurried down the path, but Riley stayed, his face buried in his horse’s neck, breathing in and out slowly, eyes closed.

  Tanya was shoved, hard, from behind. “Hey!” She turned. “Stop it, Jana!”

  Jana pushed her on the shoulders again, sending her stumbling backward. “What was that all about?” she shouted. “What was all that about the Queen? What could the Volcano witches want from you? Who are you?”

  Tanya pushed her back. “I didn’t know a thing about those witches until I got here,” she yelled back. “You’re from Bloodstone! Who are you?”

  “Do you know what you’ve done?” Jana was shouting, her voice matching the roar of the nearby falls, the whispering of the sludge. Sticky wind blew her hair back and it stuck against the sweat on her brow. “You can use that quill because you’ve bound it with blood?”

  Tanya felt panic surge in her chest. “I could always use the quill,” she told her. “I can use it better because I bound it with my blood. It’s a good thing, Jana, I’m going to be able to fix everything, everything wrong with Lode! Everything wrong with the world!”

  Jana laughed, a nasty, mirthless laugh. “Well thank you, Your Highness, for the great honor of you getting so much power over the rest of us. That’s just what we needed, more oversight.” Jana’s breath caught in her throat in what was almost a whimper.

  “I trusted you,” Jana whispered. “I wanted to trust you. Do you know how long it’s been . . . ?” Jana broke off and shook her head. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, balled up both fists, and charged Tanya.

  Acting on instinct, Tanya put up her hands in defense and found them crushed to her side as Jana caught her up in her arms and kissed her hard on the mouth.

  The kiss was fierce at first, angry and sharp. Tanya tasted salt and kissed her back.

  They broke apart, their eyes flashing, Jana’s still angry, Tanya’s still defiant.

  Jana shoved Tanya again, and then wordlessly went to join Riley by his horse.

  Tanya put her face in her hands, her temples aching. She dragged her fingers over her eyes, recoiling when she saw that they came away blackened, her skin stained with sludge.

  And there was Darrow at her elbow, holding a clean handkerchief.

  “What are you doing?” she asked sharply. Darrow only shrugged, his eyes gentle. The gentleness in them hurt. “Where’s Greer?”

  He pointed. Tanya turned and saw Greer standing alone at the edge of the chasm.

  Suddenly Greer screamed—a wordless, angry, pained cry that just went on and on, past the point when Riley and Jana had disappeared back down the path, and it was just the three of them again.

  And then he screamed some more.

  Tanya, Darrow, and Greer made their way back to the Witch on foot. Tanya stumbled briefly to the stable and found the mare, submitting meekly to a determined currying by Riley.

  She softly called out for them both, but either they didn’t hear her or they chose not to.

  Tanya crashed through the door of the Witch, pulling notice from no one but the yellow-dress girl behind the bar. Madame Moreagan was nowhere to be seen, but the girl’s jaw clenched sympathetically as she passed a slender tin key across the bar, and Tanya knew the proprietress had not changed her room.

  After she had changed into a crisp new uniform, this one a rich brown color embroidered with solemn burgundy butterflies, Tanya surveyed the pretty white door leading away from the maid’s corridor into the main room of the Witch. She didn’t want to leave it. She liked it there. It was clean, it was straightforward, it was peaceful; it was an oasis of mundane, rigidly clean housekeeping, bathed in bright light. Tanya understood this place and, more than that, she understood how she fit into it.

  At the Witch, she could be safe from the Volcano, she could be safe from everyone. She could be as in charge as she had ever been at the Snake; Madame Moreagan had practically promised it. And wasn’t that all she had ever wanted?

  She lifted her arm and looked at the quill, firmly implanted on her gold-strung skin. She stroked it and it nuzzled her back. The quill turned over on her arm and nestled in deeper, like a kitten going to sleep. Tanya took a deep breath and reentered the main room of the Witch.

  She found Greer sitting alone at the bar, staring into an untouched glass of pale amber beer.

  Tentatively she asked, “May I join yo
u?”

  Greer wordlessly pulled out the stool next to him and Tanya sat. The yellow-dress girl stepped forward.

  “What can I get you, Miss Tanya?” she asked.

  Tanya didn’t bother asking how she knew her name. “A cup of tea, please. Whichever kind you like best.” The tavern wench dimpled prettily and reached for a kettle.

  “How are you feeling?” Tanya asked Greer.

  Greer’s only answer was to laugh.

  “Thank you,” said Tanya as the tavern maid set down her tea. She looked back at Greer, no longer feeling quite so solicitous.

  “I don’t know what could possibly be construed as funny,” she commented.

  Greer looked at her, and then looked back at his still-full glass.

  “I have three older brothers, one younger brother, and one younger sister,” he said finally. “They’re all really similar. They’re all like my dad and his little brothers. And all of their kids.”

  “You said they were hunters, right? In Killian Township.”

  “I said that. And it’s sort of true. I mean they are hunters, all of them, my sister, too, and they pay taxes to the collector in Killian Township. But they don’t really live there.”

  “Where do they live?”

  Greer finally picked up his beer and drank half of it in one gulp. “They live in the woods,” he said. “The Greer Family Compound. They don’t like outsiders. They don’t like traditions that aren’t their own. They have a lot of traditions.” Greer’s voice was distant as he talked about his family—as if they were strangers. “There are a couple of other families with compounds in the woods around Killian Township,” he said. “There’s a community, a culture. Maybe I was being unfair.”

  “You didn’t want to be a hunter?”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t mind the hunting part. And even if I had, I could have wildcrafted like my mom instead—that means foraging, for mushrooms, roots, herbs, that kind of thing. Usually the girls learned that side of things, but it wasn’t unheard of for sons to follow that path. It wasn’t about the work.” He paused and then sighed wearily. “I just hated it there. I hated it so much.”

  Tanya shrugged. “So, you left. Makes sense to me.”

  He laughed again. “I did more than leave, Tanya,” he explained. “People don’t leave the compounds. I left my family. If I went back, they wouldn’t shun me. They’d be hospitable enough. But I wouldn’t be their son or their brother anymore. Leaving isn’t just leaving with my people. I had never quite believed that, but I knew it was true when I’d been in Killian Township a month and no one came after me. They could have. I might have even gone back with them. But they didn’t. Why pretend I belonged there when I clearly didn’t?”

  Tanya digested this. It was hard for her to imagine having people; to understand what it would mean to leave them. “That’s when you joined the corps?” she asked.

  “Not right away,” he said with a rueful grin. “I’ve had some ‘adventures,’ I guess you could call them, but they were never as much fun as they seemed in books. I was on a merchant caravan for a while. I liked meeting new people, but I didn’t like the buying and selling, and I didn’t like the people who did like it. I could never make them laugh. I like making people laugh.

  “I tried mining in the copper veins, but there’s too much darkness and nobody talks—can’t blame them, it isn’t safe to get distracted, but still. I didn’t fit in. There were a few other places. I tried being a hand on a dairy farm, an apple orchard—a tavern. That’s where I was when Rees blew in one night with an empty commission sheet. I brought him his beer. I kept making him laugh. He found out I knew how to shoot, how to use a knife, how to live in the woods, and that I liked to travel. I was about to get fired from the tavern anyway—the tavern keeper thought my mouth was too smart—so I was easy to recruit. Now you look like you’re about to laugh.”

  Tanya tried to wipe the mirth from her face, but failed. “I’m sorry, Greer,” she said. “You’ve given me a history in which you don’t like anyone, including your own people. But you were charmed by Rees?”

  “It wasn’t about him. We moved from town to town, and everywhere we went he picked up someone who was . . . kind of like me. Unhappy sons, bored apprentices, loners.” He shrugged. “I fit in. I didn’t like them all, but I belonged. And then, somehow, we also picked up Darrow.”

  “Where is Darrow? Is he OK?”

  “I don’t know. He cried when we got back to the room. It’s a loss for him, too. In some ways, it’s harder.”

  Tanya was puzzled. “What’d you lose?”

  He looked up sharply. “I knew it was sketchy when we broke into the college, but at least we still had a commander and a mission. We had papers from the Queen and Council. And the service is what matters to Darrow. His sworn duty. It didn’t matter what he was being ordered to do, just that he was doing it with integrity. But then you came along and we lost everything. Our entire corps. I can’t speak for Darrow, but that time in jail . . . I thought that was it. And that maybe jail was where I belonged. Then the Queen said I could be useful to her, so I gave it a shot. But today in that volcano . . . that demon whispered to me about the Queen, Tanya. I knew she had drugged children before, but today I saw her . . . I know what it showed me was true. I can’t go back to being a good little soldier to a madwoman, Tanya. I’m . . .” He looked at her. “I might as well have stayed on my compound, shooting deer with my stoic father and humorless brothers. But I can’t even do that now.”

  Chapter

  31

  Tanya listened. She took a sip of her tea.

  She looked across the room to where Jana and Riley were cowering silently. She looked back at Greer, drowning his sorrows.

  She may not know what to do about the Queen or the Others, but she knew how to fix this.

  She smacked Greer sharply across the face.

  “Ow,” he cried, rubbing his face. “Why would you do that?”

  “Snap out of it, Drew Greer,” she told him. “You are not a sad, lonely boy wandering around the woods with his bland brothers. You made what sounds like a smart decision and you left. You’ve had adventures instead. Stupid, corrupt, possibly sanity-threatening adventures, sure, but who cares? Why shouldn’t that be good enough for now? You want friends? Look.” She caught sight of Darrow coming down the stairs and pointed. “There comes your friend. He’s a little sad today, fine, but he’s generally a pretty cheerful soul. Want to belong, make people laugh? Make him laugh. Make him happy. But mostly, just stop whining, please, for the Lady’s sake. Look,” she said, pointing to the center table. “There’s Riley and Jana. Riley’s a thief, but he’s smart and dedicated. And I think,” Tanya exclaimed, the truth finally dawning on her, “that he might be able to make Darrow smile again.”

  Greer turned to look. “That guy? The morose weirdo who broke into a castle and spent the last hour crying on a horse’s shoulder? He’s going to cheer Darrow up?”

  Tanya raised an eyebrow. “Who was it who screamed for half an hour after we left that temple? Was it Riley? Because I’m pretty sure it wasn’t.” She pushed him off his stool, shoving him toward the table. “I’m in charge and I say you go. Miss,” she said, turning to the bar and hailing down the girl in yellow. “Do you have any rooms left? One of the private ones, with its own bathtub?”

  The girl bit her lip. “I’m sorry, Miss Tanya, but I’m not sure I’m able to rent you a room,” she said. “Madame Moreagan—”

  Tanya cut her off. “It’s not for me,” she said, pointing behind her. “You see that boy over there, the skinny one? He’s been sleeping in your stables. I want to pay for his room. I’d like it to be the nicest one you have available. Here.” She opened the purse sown into her pocket, pulling out a handful of gold coins. “I’ll pay in advance. Do you have one of the good rooms free?”

  The girl smiled. “We have the red room,” she said. “I know it sounds ghastly, but it’s just called the red room because of the curtains and t
he bedspread. It gets the best morning light in the inn and has an extra-squishy bed.”

  Tanya pushed the coins toward her. “Perfect. What’s your name?”

  “Lorna, miss.”

  “I’m not miss, I’m just Tanya. Lorna, a round for us two and those four people. And the key.”

  Lorna nodded and piled a stack of glasses and a pitcher of cider on tray. With a wink at Tanya, she added a round of soda bread, mouthing, “On the house.” She pulled a miniature version of Madame Moreagan’s key ring out of her pocket and extracted a single brass key.

  Tanya took it. Balancing the tray against her hip with her other hand, she moved through the bar, dodging a spilling beer to her left, a sliver of broken whiskey glass to her right, to where Riley and Jana sat huddled over their drinks.

  They looked wan and anxious. Tanya smiled wide and set the tray down in front of them.

  “Anyone for a free round?” she chirped, before beckoning to Darrow. “There’s room over here, corpsman. Yes, right here. I always take care of the men of the Queen’s Corps.” Tanya hip-knocked one of the Tomcat’s men farther down the bench, to make room next to Riley. With a nervous glance at the thief, Darrow sat. “Good. Is there anything else I can get for you?”

  “What are you doing?” The question was asked by Jana and Greer at the same time. The two looked at each other warily.

  Tanya, not sure how to answer, didn’t. Instead, she reached behind her and grabbed Greer by the elbow, depositing him on the bench next to Jana. “Riley,” she said, leaning toward him. “Here is the key to your new room. For the Lady’s sake, order a bath.”

  Greer couldn’t quite suppress a chuckle and even Darrow smiled. Jana didn’t break her moody glower, but Tanya thought that, out the corner of her eye, she saw her mouth twitch.

  Riley just looked at her blankly. “I don’t have a room,” he said, pushing away the key. “I told you.”

  Tanya stood up straight, hand on her hip. “And I told you that this was your new room,” she retorted. “Meaning you didn’t have it before and now you do. Stop it,” she said, holding up her hand to block his protest. “It’s not a present, it’s payment. I owe you for the horse.”