The Aisling Trilogy

by Cummings, Carole

“Hush, you,” Miri snapped over her shoulder. “What Garson don’t know won’t piss him off. When’s the last time he hauled that great arse of his out to the stables?” Tom subsided with a roll of his eyes and a shake of his head, rather proving the earlier jibes about who wore the stones in this budding little family, but he glared dangerously into the yard when several snickers drifted from their small audience. Miri must have noted it, too, because she kindly lowered her voice when she turned back to Wil. “I can’t fill up a new bath for you, you’ll have to make do with what’s there from the last one, but it ought to still be warm, at least, and soap’s included.”

  “No, it en’t,” Tom muttered, but only kept poking at the coals of the pit when Miri ignored him.

  Wil looked down, pushed a hand into his pocket and toyed at the coins. “I wouldn’t want to get you into trouble,” he said quietly, a little surprised at the truth in it. Only this morning, burning ticks from an arm and a thigh with a malicious little snarl, he’d thought he’d be willing to push someone over a cliff for a dip in a half-frozen pond; now, knowing he would be paying for probably only about half of what he was actually getting, shame overwhelmed greed. “How much for just the bath?” Bathing in someone else’s filth wasn’t exactly a pleasing notion, but it was better than walking around in his own.

  Miri only peered at him, her kind eyes assessing. Still smiling, she let the paddle rest against the side of the cauldron, told Tom, “Lend an eye for a moment, won’t you? Don’t let it scald the bottom.” Then she turned toward the bathhouse and gestured for Wil to follow; with one last glance at Tom, Wil did.

  “That’s Tom’s place over there.” Miri pointed out a neat little shack, past the small paddock and next to the stables, as they passed them. She’d set rather a brisk pace, and Wil had to pay attention to his footing so he wouldn’t trip in the dark. “It’ll be ours, once we’re bound.” Wil smiled at the proprietary glint in her girlish grin. “‘Tenny rate, Tom doubles as ostler, so there’s no one as would know if someone were to make a quiet nest in the stables in the night.” She winked over her shoulder at Wil; he gave her a quick grin in return. “Here we are, then,” Miri said cheerfully, swung the door of the bathhouse open, and gestured him through.

  The heat of the little room slammed him in the face like a thick, soft wall. It took a moment for his lungs to adjust, the air heavy with moisture and blessed, blessed heat. The fragrance of cedar and wood soap hit his nostrils, their clean scent blundering into the stench coming from his own body, making it sharper and more pungent. Again, he felt those damnable tears crowding his eyes, a quick moment of mourning for how low he’d come, but he shoved it away. If he’d learned nothing else over the past few years, he’d learned that one who managed few pleasures should snatch at the ones offered and be grateful. Peering around, breathing in the clean steam, he was.

  Slender slats of wood lined the walls, not the mud-mortared boards he’d seen from the outside—this little bathhouse must have been double-walled, the interior boards fitted tight together and snugged so close that no draft wended its way from the chill outside. Red clay tiles lined the floor, sloping gently to an open drain in the center of the close little room. A thin stain of rust ran to it from three dripping spigots on the wall opposite the door, but that was the only blemish Wil could spot in the whole of the room. Otherwise, it was a haven of cleanliness and civilization.

  Three large wooden tubs took up the rest of the room, their sides darkened and smoothed from years of constant use. Only one was full, its water only a little gray, Wil noted—a far cry from what it would likely be when he got through with it. A hearth took up the entire east side of the room, its fire blazing high and bright; five over-sized coppers hung from hooks over it, the tick of the heating metal dulled by the crackling of the coals.

  Miri stepped smartly over to the fire, slid a blackened mitt over her hand and lifted a copper from its hook. Wil stepped back a little as she breezed past him, and with a wink, she poured the hot water from the kettle into the tub.

  “I won’t tell if you won’t,” she smirked. She took a key from her apron, stepped past Wil again and unlocked a cupboard by the door. “One bath-sheet and one cake of soap,” she told him, stacking both on the small table beside the tub. As if by habit, her hand fell upon a straight-razor and she paused, peered over her shoulder with a frown. “Why don’t you need a shave?” No suspicion, only ingenuous curiosity. And then she tilted her head. “How old are you?”

  “Old enough,” Wil said, probably a little too quickly, definitely a little too tightly. How was he supposed to answer that? I have no idea how old I am, but I know I’m old enough to grow a beard, and yet I don’t, and I have no idea why that is, either. There’s a lot about me I don’t know, and too much I do know, and a lot you probably don’t want to know, so we’ll both be better off if you just don’t ask. He took a breath, offered an apologetic smile and rubbed at his beardless chin. “It just… I’m not one of those rugged sorts blessed with a thick growth.” He did his best to make his smirk look winsomely philosophical. “Sometimes I have to find other ways to prove my, um…” He trailed off, embarrassed.

  Miri snorted. “Not sure I’d call it a blessing, and you look like you do just fine.” She rubbed her cheek. “I think Tom’s could cut through leather sometimes.”

  Wil flashed a nervous grin. “It’s just as well then.”

  Dropping the shaving supplies and closing the cupboard, Miri gave Wil another quick assessing glance. “Have you got a change of clothes?” she wanted to know.

  You mean besides the one I meant to buy with the money I’d earned at Ramsford’s before I got run out of Putnam? The thought came with not a little bit of venom. Wil said nothing, only flushed some and looked away.

  “Right then,” Miri sighed. “You’re not supposed to wash clothes in here, but if you’ve not got enough for a room and a meal, I imagine you’ve not got enough to have what you’ve got on laundered, neither.” She tutted. “Just don’t be washing them in the tub ‘til you’re out of it, or you’ll be more dirty getting out than going in.”

  Wil gave a guilty little start. He’d just been wondering if he could get away with exactly that, and how ungrateful and unappreciative it would be of him if he did. He shifted, embarrassed. “I won’t—”

  “Well, you should,” Miri cut in. “If you don’t, that gilder that’s so dearly spent will be so much wasted coin. And it won’t make no difference, anyhow. Two to a bath is the limit. I’d be emptying the tub when you’re through at any rate.” She tactfully didn’t mention that she’d have to empty the tub after him, even if he weren’t the second to use it. “You can hang them by the fire to dry. Don’t worry, the fire’s high so it shouldn’t take too long and I doubt there’ll be much more business for the baths tonight.” Her expression took on that benign look of sympathy again. “I’ll have to ask for the money now,” she told him kindly.

  Wil only blinked at her for a moment then shook his head, said, “Oh!” and dug into his pocket. He handed her one of his three remaining gilders. She’d never answered him about how much it was for just the bath, but now that he was here with the water calling to him, he thought she could ask him to empty his pockets and he’d probably do it.

  “That should do you for now,” Miri told him, “unless you can think of something else?”

  Wil shook his head, mute. He couldn’t think of a single thing more he wanted right now than for this kind young woman to leave so that he could strip off and dive in. Perhaps she sensed this somehow, because her smirk broadened a little and she gave him another of those knowing winks then let herself out without further comment.

  He wasted no time. His pack dropped to the floor with a thunk that reminded him vaguely that he’d likely now have several bruised apples, but he couldn’t give the thought enough room in his brain to care. His boots and clothes made a stiff pile on the floor. He kept them close to the tub—meager as it was, it was all he had, and he’d been robbed
in the bath once before.

  A brass plate hung on the wall opposite the foot of the tub, and he supposed it was inevitable that he’d catch a glimpse of himself. He’d lost the light tan that the string of sunburns had left behind. Now he was pale and drawn with sunken eyes beneath a wild tangle of hair that was long-ish and dark, glossy when it was clean, but dull and unhealthy-looking now. New bruises over old scars, haggard and bedraggled, with a sad exhaustion in his eyes that gave even him a twinge. No wonder Miri had felt sorry for him. The thought made him blush. Thinner than he’d ever seen himself, ribs defined and too obvious; the points of his hips looked like axe-blades jutting out behind paper-thin flesh.

  “At least I got all the ticks,” he muttered. Clenching his jaw, he shook his head and stepped into the tub.

  The water wasn’t hot, but it was warm, and sluiced gloriously against his skin; it couldn’t have been better if it was made of rose petals and silk. A groan loosed itself from his chest as he sank in to his collarbones. He dipped his head under first, lying back beneath the water, stretching out as best he could so that only the knobs of his knees broke the surface. It was bliss.

  Baths hadn’t always had this effect on him; he’d taken them for granted once. Three years ago, ‘dirty’ had an entirely different meaning to him. He snorted grimly at the fool he’d been, small bubbles leaking from his nostrils to pop in tiny, silent explosions on the surface of the water. Simple pleasures had never really been simple for him—he’d had so few of them, and hadn’t really known the difference until the Deartháireacha had clumsily and inadvertently opened his eyes, shown him that what he’d thought of as life had only a passing acquaintance with reality. Still, baths had been daily and routine, before… Well. Before.

  He sat up, blew water from his mouth and nose, and reached for the soap. Hair first—he’d likely have to wash that at least twice. He ought to cut it, in fact, ought to have done long ago, but somehow couldn’t. It had pleased him once, though he couldn’t remember why, and so he’d resisted cutting it, even though he’d probably be less noticeable without it. The people of the Commonwealth wore their hair short, by comparison, and he’d seen few others with hair as dark as his. That constable had been right—he stood out. Granted less so in a big city like Putnam, but standing out at all for someone in his position was never a good thing. And yet still, he couldn’t bring himself to cut it or even find a way to lighten it. Then again, until only recently, it hadn’t really mattered a whole lot.

  A quick knock at the door gave his heart a bit of a jolt, and he reached down instinctively toward his boot and the small blade secreted inside it. It was only Miri, that little grin tugging at her mouth as she barged through the door with a tray in her hand, a bowl of the pottage she’d been cooking and two thick slices of brown bread slathered with butter balanced at either side of a tall mug. She closed the door quickly, ghosts of steam escaping past her and sucking back a cold whorl of night’s breath that slid over Wil’s skin; he pulled his arm back in and dipped it beneath the water.

  “Well, glory be, at least there’s one man in the world who doesn’t shriek like a lass when a female enters the baths.” Miri moved the bath-sheet from the table next the tub, slid the tray there instead. “Honestly, the way some men jump and cover the jewels, you’d think they had something I en’t seen before, and probably better stuff at that.”

  Wil frowned a little, peered down. He hadn’t felt self-conscious before, but now, he wasn’t so sure.

  “The beer’s a bit watery,” she told him, snapped out the bath-sheet and draped it over a hook behind his head. “But the stew is good and hot. I thought you might like to have a bite whilst you soak.”

  She had such a kind practicality about her; between that and the bath and the rich smell of the stew, Wil suspected he might be falling in love. Either that, or he was drunk on pleasure.

  “I haven’t paid for it,” Wil reminded her.

  “‘Course you have,” Miri answered. “One gilder for a bath and a meal.” She peered at the soap he hadn’t rinsed from his hair yet. “You’d best dry that by the fire while you wait for your clothes to dry. You oughtn’t to be ramming about in the cold with a wet head. Have you got a comb?”

  A slight smile tugged at Wil’s mouth and he nodded. Two days ago, a kind old man had said almost exactly that, yet with Miri, nothing dark or worrisome lurked beneath the concern. He was in better shape now than he’d been when he’d passed through the little village, he supposed, due mostly to the generous supplies his three billets had bought him, and he’d let himself sleep a little more since then, too. If he kept himself away from the edges of starvation and exhaustion—and let’s don’t forget fear, he thought with a slight clench of teeth—he could almost pass for a normal person without having to concentrate so hard on keeping such a tight leash on what roiled about within; it was when he lost his concentration that things went wrong.

  Perhaps I’m learning to control it, he told himself with a cautious little snatch at hope.

  “All right, then,” Miri told him, “you ought to have the place to yourself ‘til I come back in a few hours to close up. Buy yourself a beer in the common room when you’re dry and dressed, if you’ve got enough left, then sit by the fire ‘til Garson calls last-call. Tom will have checked the stables by then.” That last she said with a conspiratory little waggle of her eyebrows. “Hang your bath-sheet up on that rack by the fire when you’re through, eh?” And with that, she tipped him one last wink then let herself out again.

  The puff of cold from the door prickled at his soapy scalp and raised gooseflesh on his arms, but Wil barely felt it. He dunked his head beneath the water again, watched as murky trails of soap tendriled from it, and smiled.

  ***

  Funny, how the cold didn’t seem to bother him when he stepped back out into it. His collar was still damp and the waistband of his trousers was already soaking through his shirt, but he didn’t feel any of it. Clean and warm and relatively dry, and smelling of wood soap, instead of dirt, Wil stepped back out into the yard with a happy sigh. The stew and bread had filled his belly almost to the point of lethargy as he’d lounged in the tub, and then the beer, combined with the heat of the fire as he’d sat beside it and waited for his clothes to dry, had sent him into a light doze right there in the bathhouse. He’d have to watch himself in the common room; it wouldn’t do to fall asleep there.

  He passed Miri on his way through to the yard. She was chivvying Tom as he scrubbed out the cauldron, but she stopped as Wil sauntered by, peered up at him with a grin and a teasing whistle. “Cor, look how pretty he is under all that!” she crowed, gave Tom a bit of a nudge with her elbow.

  Tom puffed what Wil guessed was his usual grunt, nodded a bit and went back to his work. The pit was empty, Wil noted, and the coals had already been raked thin and buried in the ash to die. Whatever had been cooking in it must have been the main course in the common room while he’d been dozing and drying. Wil was pleased to note that his stomach didn’t give so much as a disappointed grumble at having missed it.

  “Thank you, Miss Miri,” he said sincerely, pausing just out of the way of Tom’s thrashing elbows. “I can’t…” He shook his head, unable to find words. “You’ve no idea—”

  “‘Course she does,” Tom put in, voice less prickly than Wil had heard it yet. “Why d’you think she’s such a bloody pushover?”

  Miri scowled, flung a wet cloth at his head, but couldn’t cover a smile when Tom merely ducked and smirked. She turned to Wil, rolled her eyes. “Ignore him. Everyone does.”

  Wil just dipped a half-bow. “Thank you,” he said again. “It meant everything.” And since there was really nothing else he could add, he merely turned and headed for the front of the inn.

  He would’ve liked to have gone right to the stable and to sleep, so relaxed was he, but though Miri definitely seemed the one in charge, Wil saw no point in causing unnecessary discord. She’d told him to go there after Tom had made his round
s, and so he would. He had no doubt that Tom knew he’d be out there anyway—Miri’s intent had been crystal clear, and Tom’s disapproval of it equally so—but it would be easier for the man to turn a blind eye if there was nothing for him to see.

  Supper evidently over, the crowd of patrons inside had thinned, some having apparently gone to their rented rooms and others to their homes, and so the spill-over out to the yard had trickled back in. Wil recognized one of the men who’d bantered with Tom draped over the bar, trying to drunkenly proposition a middle-aged woman who looked like she wanted nothing to do with whatever the man’s no doubt clumsy offer might be. Wil ducked his head to hide a grin and moved himself toward the scattering of tables and chairs arranged around the central hearth. Oil lamps burned smoky and low, adding a slight tangy fog to the air that stung his nose. A one-legged man was just tossing a coin onto a table in front of the plump, worn chair he was vacating; Wil eased around behind him and slipped into the chair as soon as the man had gained his crutch and taken two lurching steps away from it. Not only would his wait be comfortable, tucked away in a nice, dark little niche as he was, but the man had left behind a mug and a trencher with the leavings of his supper. Perhaps the barmaids would assume Wil had been waited on and wouldn’t bother with him. If he was very lucky, they’d think he was already a paying customer and he wouldn’t have to spend unnecessary coin on a watery beer he didn’t want.

  The fiddler and the flautist had apparently packed it in, but the man with the lute still sat on a stool in the far corner, dreamily strumming his instrument to the lulling babble of the crowd. The barkeep—Garson, Wil assumed—let out a braying laugh, slapped his hand on the bar, as those around him broke into a jovial argument, apparently over whose wife could hit the hardest. One of the wives in question strutted over from across the bar and offered a demonstration, and Wil worried that Garson’s head might pop off, so red was his face with his laughter.