by Guy Antibes
“You could wear your new dress after you bathe,” Unca said.
Sallia ground her teeth and grabbed her package and left the room in a huff.
The wizard lay back down, but now he felt restless and sleep eluded him. Unca drifted back down to the common room and ordered an ale. He never drank much, but perhaps the ale would settle him down.
He tried to ignore the smell in the room and moved away from the roaring fire and the steaming wool. The ale came and he took a swig as four uniformed men entered the common room.
“Everyone stand where you are!” a man with a slightly different uniform announced, with his hands on his hips. Four more men entered the inn. “We are passing back through your village and will search the inn. Everyone line up. You,” the soldier looked to the innkeeper, “get your staff out here.” The soldier sent men up the stairs into the rooms.
Unca could hear the heavy steps and a few doors being forced open as he lined up with the other men. He splashed some ale on his shirt and joined the lineup. He began to bob and weave a little. The man next to him sneered at Unca as the wizard giggled just a bit, playing a part.
The soldier walked down the line with a sour look. He slapped the hilt of a dagger against his palm as he walked. “The Duke is looking for an old white-haired man and a blonde woman with violet eyes.” He instructed the patrons to leave the inn and Unca followed the other men, who huddled on the inn’s porch looking out at the rain.
What could he do? Eight men? He could run away and save his own skin since the soldiers hadn’t looked at him again. He waited for the soldiers to drag a dripping Sallia out to their horses. Moments passed and most of the men began to grumble. The cooks and maids, along with Regetta, gradually exited the inn. The soldiers’ faces didn’t look any happier as they stood, getting soaked, in the cobbled street by their horses.
Their leader instructed the men to search the rest of the town. “That was our last chance to find her in this gods-forsaken end of the Duke’s kingdom.” Unca just giggled and swayed a bit more, earning a glare from the leader as he told the village men to go back into the inn. “Stay there until I tell you can return to your homes.”
That was fine with Unca, who couldn’t help but giggle for real. Sallia had somehow eluded the Duke’s men. He returned into the common room with the rest of the men and maids. He sat back down and took another swig of his ale before he ascended the stairs to the large room he shared with Sallia.
He lay back down again and worried about the princess until he heard the door latch.
“I thought I had been scared before!” Sallia said wearing her new dress and holding out her old dress, still dripping a bit from washing.
Unca sat up as relief flooded through him. How did you escape?”
Sallia put her old dress over a large wooden chair.
“The innkeeper’s wife poked her head in the washing room. I nearly ordered her out, but the terror in her eyes stayed my tongue. She tossed my old dress to me and told me to get it wet and use it to cover all of me while soldiers searched. She threw more clothes into the tub and I stayed underneath the pile of old clothes while they searched the kitchen. She said there’s no telling what soldiers would do, confronted with a naked woman.”
“Did they come into the room?” Unca said, trying not to picture Sallia without clothes on.
She nodded. I held my breath and stayed as still as I could. I thought I shook the whole tub, but after a moment, the door closed and I came up for air. I finished my bath and washed my own dress after I heard them leave the kitchen.”
Unca laughed. “Be thankful for the rain and the stink in the common room. If not, you might have been captured.”
“What about you? Aren’t they looking for a wizard?”
He laughed again. “Do you think I look and smell like the Court Wizard? Black hair… ”
“With gray roots,” she said.
“Indeed and smelling of ale.”
Sallia sniffed. “Youdoreek of drink.”
“Indeed. The soldiers looked right past me. But you… ”
“Are they really gone?” Sallia said.
Unca nodded. “That dress looks well on you.” He meant the compliment, but Sallia didn’t seem to notice.
“When will they return?” she said.
“They are finished with the inn. They will do some searching in the village and you will stay in the room until I am sure they are gone. They could return for an evening meal.”
“And until then?”
“Do something with your wet hair and I promise I’ll bring up dinner.”
Sallia stamped her foot on the ground, but then turned and put both hands on the chair. “I really was scared.”
Sympathy overpowered Unca and he came over and put his hands on her shoulders. She turned around and buried her face into his shirt and quickly backed away, scrunching up her nose. “You get a bath while I’m up in this little prison.”
Unca departed with a change of clothes in his hands. He’d talk Regetta into letting him into the wash room for a bath. He laughed at the sight of a soldier breaking in while he scrubbed his back. The thought of that brief moment with Sallia clutching him filled his thoughts until he brought up dinner. She had startled him with an embrace and the emotions that the unbidden act generated confused him. He shouldn’t have feelings like that, he was too old.
He had his bath and returned with dinner to share, wondering what she would do with a clean Unca? It didn’t matter. He found her fast asleep.
~~~
CHAPTER FOUR
~
SALLIA WONDERED IF THEY WOULD EVER ARRIVE at Unca’s cottage. Yet within half of a day, Unca led her up through the foothills that defined the northern border with the Dukedom of Gensler. After an hour or so of riding along a narrow dirt road that bordered a large stream that wound between a dense copse of woods, they stopped at the beginning of a large meadow. The grass grew a foot or so high with the stream running from a rather large pond.
“My little estate, Sally,” Unca said.
She hadn’t really said much since the village where the Duke’s soldiers came close to finding her. “This is beautiful. The cottage is across the meadow?” She squinted in the afternoon sun and thought she saw cultivation and smoke curling up from the trees.
“I see smoke.” Her words caught in her throat. Perhaps the soldiers had found them despite Unca’s assurances.
“My housekeeper, Willow. She lives on the other side of the forest in a little hamlet that I’d just a soon avoid. Nasty experiences there. She has a son who works a bit of the land and my tiny mill.”
“A mill?”
“It powers my cottage. You’ll see.” Unca sped up without another word and proceeded along the little track that led in the direction of the smoke.
She nearly smiled at the invigorating smell on the wind. The setting seemed fresh. The building wasn’t the little hovel that she had in her mind. They passed a little wooden pier leading out into the pond and then she saw the ‘cottage’ or rather what looked more like a large lodge that seemed to grow from the front of a steep hillside. She could hear a mill wheel creak and finally saw it as the stream pushed the wheel round after it fell from the top of a rocky ledge to the floor of the meadow and on into the pond.
“This is more like a small holding,” she said as they rode up to the two-story dwelling.
Unca nodded. “I come here from time to time to escape from the demands of your father’s court.”
Sallia took a deep breath as she thought that his statement should now be uttered in the past tense. Her father no longer possessed a court and she no longer possessed a father.
“Anything wrong?”
She sighed. “My father is dead and his court no longer exists.” She couldn’t help looking down.
“I’m sorry. I lost my library and many of my possessions, but that pales in comparison to your loss, Princess.”
Her heart brightened when he called her th
at. Unca still perplexed her. He seemed so heartless and cruel as he pushed her on during their flight and at other times he actually seemed tenderhearted and funny in his always peculiar way. His behavior confused her, but then she always thought of Unca as an enigma. What did her father see in the man? She shook her head. Unca continually surprised her at his knowledge and resourcefulness. If her father had seen this side of Unca, and he undoubtedly had, he had brought a uniquely qualified person into his inner circle. Perhaps he didn’t want to replace him, after all and talk of retirement might have become a private joke between them.
Here she would spend part of her exile. Which part or how large of a part? Unca didn’t have an answer when she pressed him during their journey. The six weeks of zigzag travel that it took them to arrive at his holding finally convinced her that she wouldn’t have a speedy return to Foxhome where Duke Histron now ruled the Red Kingdom.
Sallia’s thoughts were interrupted when Unca called from his horse.
“Willow! I have arrived with a house guest.”
A matronly woman with brown hair shot with a few streaks of gray opened one side of double doors that opened onto a porch that seemed to go around three sides of the house. Sallia liked the looks of the place. Rock made up the foundations and went halfway up the two-story walls where large multi-paned windows let light into the structure. The roof was made out of roughly-hewn slate. It looked roughly hewn, but as she got closer, she could see the pattern was intentional to make it blend into the hillside more easily. The house was deceptively impressive.
“Unca! How good it is to see you. It’s been a full year and you didn’t even send word.” Sallia detected a gentle chiding in her voice, but no serious complaint.
“All the more time alone for you and your son. How is Hal?”
“The boy has married and only comes here twice a week. I think it’s to make sure I’m still alive.” The woman chuckled. “The Baron has given him a plot in Chapel Vale and the fool would rather work for him than move up here like you offered.”
Unca shook his head. “He would be free and make more money by working my small fields than working for Lord Beckhall. Hal still comes up here, though?”
The housekeeper nodded her head. “Enough so we will have sufficient grain to mill and a bit extra to sell in Sally’s Corners.”
Sallia furrowed her brow. She detected an untold story here, but then the entire situation confused her somewhat. She dismounted when Unca did and walked up to meet Willow as Unca disappeared behind the house with the horses.
“Come in, my dear,” Willow said. “Unca rarely entertains guests, but anyone he brings to his house is welcome. You will get your pick of the guest rooms. Although I’m often here alone for months at a time, they are all kept ready. You must be tired from your journey.”
Exhausted might be a better term for the weariness she felt all the way to her bones. Willow showed her to a large parlor. The furnishings were made out of a light wood upholstered in a green leather. Shelves, filled with books and scroll boxes, lined the long side of the room, away from the windows. Unca had complained about losing his library, but these shelves must have held much more than what he left behind.
She settled into a large chair, surprised at how soft the leather felt. She leaned her head back and seemed to sink into the cushions.
“What would you like as a refreshment? I have iced wine, lager, although that’s more for a man, like Unca or my son. Perhaps some fruit juice? I pressed some yesterday.”
“Iced wine would be nice.” Sallia thought of the cool light wine she would share with her mother on a hot summer’s day in their gardens. She’d never be able to recapture that time. Tears blurred her vision a bit as her eyes welled. She ran her fingers under her eyes.
“Here you go. I hope you don’t mind if I join you. I’m not much of a servant and often join Unca.”
Sallia shrugged. The house was nothing like she expected. Neither was the wine. The goblet looked frosted as if it came from a snow bank in the middle of winter. Her fingers felt the cold as she sipped the chilled wine. “How did you do this? Unca’s magic?”
Willow’s laughter echoed around the room like a happy song. “The house is built in front of a cavern that Unca created decades ago when he was much stronger. In the winter, my son takes ice blocks from the pond and stacks them far into the cave and covers them with straw. I have a chest that Unca built that cools food using that ice. Everything lasts much longer in the summer when properly cooled, you know”
Sallia didn’t know, but the explanation didn’t bore her, like she thought it would.
“The juice that I pressed will last more than a week!” She laughed again. “You’ll like it here,” she said, smiling like a cat, as she sipped from her own goblet.
Sallia heard steps coming from the back of the house. Unca turned the corner rubbing his hands. His hair now looked like a dirty gray.
“You washed your hair?” Willow said. “I can’t say I liked the black locks, Unca. I liked the old days when your hair was blond, before you turned into an old humbug. The color might not come out and you’ll have to wait for your hair to grow.
“Mmmm,” said Unca. He lifted a finger and left the room.
“Is he always that strange around here?” Sallia hadn’t seen this side of Unca. He seemed so relaxed.
Moments later he returned, his long hair no more than an inch or so long. “Better?” Sallia thought the shorter hair made him look years younger.
Willow laughed. “It certainly is. I like that length and the white won’t take so long to return.”
Unca lifted his chin. “Do I get any iced wine?” He smiled and sat down as Willow rose.
“I will serve you, master,” she said, joyfully as she left the room.
“I like her,” Sallia said, surprised that she would feel that way.
“Her charms, Sally. She hasn’t led a wonderful life, but she has a wonderful outlook. It sort of evens out with the dourness of Hal, her son. Her husband—” Unca stopped when Willow entered the room and smiled when his housekeeper presented him with a goblet of his own.
“Even in the palace, chilled wine isn’t as good as this. The grapes come from our own vineyard planted on slopes of a hill we didn’t see when we rode up. I’ve planted some grapes for a dark red wine, but this variety is the best.”
Sallia couldn’t help but laugh, “Unca, Court Wizard and Gentleman Farmer.”
After a sip of his wine, he waved away the compliment. “Willow is the Lady Farmer with the help of Hal. I just give them permission to plant where and what they want.”
Willow nodded her head. “He’s right, but he does get consulted. Terracing the hill for the vineyard was his idea. That was what, twenty years ago?”
“Just after I finished the house and you’d only been helping me out for a few years.”
“Not long after Bestan died.” Willow sighed. She turned to Sallia. “My husband, Bestan, was killed in a brawl at The Traveler’s Rest in Sally’s Corners. The fight was his fault and they tell me he drew his knife first. Hal and I have been by ourselves ever since. But,” she took a deep breath and beamed at Unca, “with Unca’s help, we made it through and have been making it through ever since.”
“To our mutual benefit. My house is maintained and always ready for me, even if I just drop in like I did today with our latest guest.” Unca gazed at Sallia. His attention made Sallia fidget for a moment. She felt comfortable enough in the house. It wasn’t as ornate as the castle, but the house had such a comfortable feeling. Welcoming. She felt welcome in Unca’s cottage.
“How are your sewing skills, Willow? Sally is going to stay with us for some—at least through the winter. She’ll need clothes. I’ll pay for whatever she needs.”
Willow looked a little worried. “My fingers are stiffening up a bit for precise work, Unca. Comes with age.”
He nodded and said, “I do know how that happens. Is there anyone in Chapel Vale? It’s only a
few hours away.”
The housekeeper brightened and slapped her hands on her thighs. “I know just the person in Sally’s Corners. Let me take some measurements and we’ll get a few day dresses made for the rest of summer and perhaps a riding outfit?”
Unca nodded. “Horses do like to be exercised.”
“Wonderful.” She rose. “I’ll take you to your room.” Willow looked at Unca.
“Red.” Unca said. “I’ve put what little she owns there. She bought what she’s wearing in Sally’s Corners and her other clothes are shredded from travel.”
“I thought I recognized that dress.” Willow clucked her tongue and looked sympathetic, and then turned to Sallia. “Finish your wine dear and let’s go up to your room. I’ll take some parchment and a quill and ink and get you measured.” She rummaged around in a sideboard in the room and put some items in her pocket.
Sallia followed her upstairs to her room. “I expected the room to be all red,” she said, looking around at the white-painted plaster. Heavy wool drapes framed the two windows and a red quilt covered the ample bed. The rest of the furniture looked to be crafted from oak, stained a golden color.
“Red and gold, colors of the kingdom,” Willow said as she rummaged around in the worn sack that held her possessions.
“This is a nice cloak, although it’s a bit worn from your journey, a nice cleaning will restore much of it’s former glory. Well made, too.” Willow squinted at Sallia. “You’re noble born, aren’t you?”
Sallia didn’t know what to say. She merely nodded her head and kept her mouth closed. Unca hadn’t revealed her identity to Willow.
“Last I’ll say anything about your lineage, dear. I don’t know why Unca has brought you here, be it a love affair gone wrong or whatever. I’ll respect your privacy. In fact as soon as I clean your old clothes…” She picked up the silk nightgown she wore on her escape. “No hope for this or these.” The slippers that Sallia used to trudge across the Red Kingdom were worn out. “Seeing that you aren’t used to common clothes, we’ll make some that are a little more in keeping with your station, Sally, but not enough to raise eyebrows from the other ladies in Sally’s Corners.”
