Crown of Earth

by Hilari Bell

  Edoran clutched his blanket tighter. “We got lucky. If they’d come up with us on the road…”

  “Then we’d have hidden in a ditch or a hedge,” Arisa told him. “I’ve been listening for a troop behind us all morning, and they’re riding fast enough that I promise we’d hear them before they saw us. But I don’t think you have as much to worry about as you think you do.”

  “Why?” Worrying seemed perfectly sensible to him.

  “Because they’re looking for ‘a young noble, fifteen years old, in a good brown worsted suit and a gray cloak lined with rabbit fur.’ Your valet knew what you were wearing, didn’t he?”

  “He saw me packing.” A wave of burning fury washed over Edoran. “But he won’t be my valet for one minute after I get home!”

  “You can’t really blame him,” Arisa pointed out. “Justice Holis pays his salary. And what he told them will make you safer, because you look more like a thirteen-year-old ragpicker than a fifteen-year-old nobleman.”

  Edoran looked down at his collarless shirt and rope-belted britches. Both were more than a little grubby, and the rough coat she’d brought him would complete the image. He regarded it with more favor and took another bite of sausage.

  Since Arisa considered Edoran adequately disguised, they kept on the road for the rest of the day and into the evening. It was dark when they finally reached the village where Arisa had decided to stop.

  Edoran was grateful for his ragged coat by then, for it was warm, softer than he’d expected, and he was long past caring how he looked. Arisa had carried the sword and shield on the road, but he’d been forced to lug them around so many small villages that he’d have sworn he carried them almost half the time. At least a third. He was more tired than he’d ever been in his life.

  He listened with approval as Arisa bargained with the innkeeper to let them eat their stew before they started working. After all, they couldn’t mop the floor or wipe off the tables till the last customers left—though that would probably be soon. There was only one occupied table now; their plates were empty and their mugs were low.

  The stew was hot and filling, and Edoran thought it an excellent bargain… until Arisa handed him a wet, grubby cloth and told him to clean the tables. “You can get them started while I draw mop water from the well.”

  She departed before he could force words past his astonishment, and after a moment he was glad. He’d realized that they’d have to work for food and lodging, and he’d promised not to slow her down. Paying for his own dinner and a pallet to spread near the taproom hearth was doubtless part of that bargain. Edoran approached the first table with some trepidation, but he soon discovered that when he swiped the cloth back and forth all of the crumbs fell off the sides and the surface was evenly coated with wetness. And probably clean. Or at least cleaner, for his rag became grubbier as the task went on.

  Arisa returned and started mopping the floor. Edoran watched her, surreptitiously, and that didn’t look too hard either. It was just a variant of what he was doing, except that her method for spreading wetness was a pack of strings tied to the end of a pole, and she dunked it into the bucket every few minutes and then twisted some of the water out of it against the bucket’s edge.

  Should he be dunking his rag in something? Surely as the water in the bucket got dirtier and dirtier, she was just spreading—

  “What are you doing?” Arisa snapped. “I just cleaned that!”

  “What?” Edoran looked around. He was standing on an area she’d mopped, but he had to stand there to reach the table.

  “You dropped that pile of crumbs onto the floor I just cleaned,” said Arisa angrily. “Which means I’ll have to do it again. You haven’t been knocking all the crumbs onto the floor, have you?”

  Her eyes had narrowed in suspicion, but Edoran didn’t know what she was accusing him of.

  “When you clean them off the table, the crumbs fall on the floor,” he pointed out. “Where do you expect them to go? To the ceiling?”

  Arisa closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them again. “You’re supposed to catch them in your hand before they hit the floor,” she told him. “Like this.”

  She took the cloth and wiped a pile of crumbs, pipe ash, and the One God alone knew what into her waiting palm. Then she went and emptied her hand into the hearth and came back. She handed Edoran the cloth.

  He stared at her in disgust. “You expect me to take such stuff into my bare hand? Under no circumstances!” Touching the rag was bad enough, but he’d tried not to think about that.

  Arisa sighed. “Maybe we should switch jobs. With a mop, you won’t have to touch anything but the handle.”

  She sounded patient and obliging, but there was a glint in her eyes that Edoran didn’t trust. Still, he’d watched her for some time, and it hadn’t appeared difficult.

  He soon realized why she’d offered to swap, for working the stick was harder than wiping the tables. And a large part of that effort consisted of dunking the mop and twisting it against the side of the bucket, which made no sense to Edoran. The water went back onto the floor anyway. It would surely save a great deal of time to dump it straight onto the floor, sop it up with the mop, and then twist it into the bucket. And he was tired. If there was a shortcut, Edoran was prepared to take it.

  He poured out almost three-fourths of the bucket in an arc across the floor. When Arisa shrieked he jumped, and the last of it splashed out.

  “Now what?” he asked impatiently.

  He soon found out what, for returning large amounts of water to the bucket turned out to be trickier than he’d expected. Even when they finished mopping, and then wiped the floor with cloths from the kitchen, the rough wood was still so damp that Arisa insisted on keeping the window open so it would be dry by morning.

  This made for a chilly night, despite the hearth fire. Edoran was yawning and bleary-eyed when they set off again, shortly after sunrise.

  Arisa, also yawning, said nothing more about the incident. But her silence was almost as eloquent as her previous curses.

  If they looked even half as tired and bedraggled as Edoran felt, it was no wonder that the carter who’d slowly pulled past them stopped his ox team and called back, “I’m headed into Mallerton. You two want a ride?”

  Every aching muscle in Edoran’s body screamed, Yes! But Arisa hesitated.

  “We’d not want t’ burden your beasts,” she said, her strong country accent warning Edoran to keep his mouth shut.

  “No problem for them, lass. My cargo today is fine glass panes packed in straw. The glass is heavy enough, but the straw around it weighs practically nothing—and it’s the greater part of the load. Joss and Shem here could carry ten of the two of you and hardly feel it.”

  She hesitated still, and Edoran gave her a nudge in the ribs with his elbow. Say yes!

  Arisa glared at him, then turned back to the carter. “We’ll accept your offer, goodman, with thanks t’ you and your beasts.”

  They scrambled onto the cart and found themselves places in the space between the crates. Then the oxen set off at their slow walk—far slower than a horse, Edoran noted. The fact that they’d passed Edoran and Arisa on the road told Edoran how slowly they’d been walking, and he sighed and leaned against the side of the wagon.

  “I thank you, too, goodman.” He tried to mimic Arisa’s accent, but he must not have succeeded, for the driver glanced at him in mild surprise.

  “He’s just back from a stay in the city,” Arisa told him. “A long stay, for his mam sent him to learn accounting, but he wasn’t any good at it.”

  “I was too,” Edoran retorted, stung. Why did she always have to make him out a fool? He wasn’t good with numbers, but until Holis’ new tutors had arrived, no one had ever tried to teach him.

  The carter looked at Edoran’s clothes and face, and a frown creased his broad forehead. “You been robbed, lad? Whitston’s the next town, and I can take you straight to the town guard’s office. It’s on
ly a bit off the main street, no trouble at all.”

  “No!” said Edoran sharply. “I mean, I wasn’t robbed. I, ah…”

  “He means that when his master turned him off he was fool enough to take up gambling,” said Arisa, with all the righteousness of a good sibling ratting out an erring brother. “And with the wrong people, too. They did that to him when he couldn’t pay his debts, so then he finally wrote home and Aunt Allie—he’s my cousin, you see—she sent me to bring him back. But I’m the one with the purse, and you can bet I’m keeping a close eye on it.” She shot him a look so smug that Edoran didn’t know whether he wanted to smack her or burst into applause.

  “Why, you… That’s… You don’t have to tell people that!” he burst out indignantly.

  The carter laughed. “Don’t let it trouble you too much, lad. Youth’s the time to make mistakes, while you can still recover from them. But I asked about robbers,” he went on, “because those accursed pirates have been raiding farther and farther inland. Though if you’d fallen foul of them, you’d likely be dead,” he finished grimly. “Not just a bit bruised.”

  Edoran wondered if the carter had heard the rumors he’d started at the gates, but Arisa said soberly, “I heard they hit Tisdale, but I’d hoped that was wrong. It’s almost twenty miles from the coast!”

  “It’s small and rich,” said the carter. “What with all those potteries. And because it’s so far inland the guards weren’t even trying to cover it. Last count I heard was eighteen dead, but those numbers sometimes grow in the telling. We can hope it’s fewer.”

  He seemed certain that some had died. And Arisa had already heard of the Tisdale raid? When? Why hadn’t she told him?

  Edoran glared at her but she ignored him, talking to the carter instead. Perhaps she thought his erratic gift might have given him some warning, but it hadn’t, not since that first raid—and given how that had felt, Edoran could only be grateful.

  The sun was warm despite the chill air, and the jouncing of the cart didn’t prevent Edoran’s eyelids from drooping. It wouldn’t hurt to rest his eyes for a while….

  A particularly bad jolt woke him. A glance at the sun told him that only a few hours had passed, but the hard edges of the wagon and crate were biting into his flesh, and an urgent bodily need was making itself felt.

  “Pull over, goodman,” he said. “I need to… I must attend to business.”

  The man shot him a startled glance, but then he laughed. “I could stand to attend to that business myself.”

  They were coming up on a wider place in the road, and he guided the oxen into it and stopped. Edoran clambered over the side and found some bushes to give him privacy. The man still hadn’t returned when he climbed back into the cart and turned to meet Arisa’s scowl.

  “Talk to him like a man!” she hissed. “He’s not your servant!”

  Edoran frowned. He’d spoken perfectly politely. He’d even remembered to address the man as goodman, in the country manner. He was about to ask what she was talking about when the carter came back, and they couldn’t discuss that in his presence.

  So Edoran shut his mouth and passed the rest of the journey to Mallerton glaring at Arisa. They reached the town a bit before dusk, and the carter dropped them off. Edoran echoed Arisa’s thanks—graciously!—then turned to her and whispered, “What were you talking about? I was perfectly polite!”

  Arisa rolled her eyes. “For someone addressing his inferior. Never mind. I know you don’t understand. You probably can’t, and we’re both too tired to discuss it. We’d end up quarreling, and there’s no point. It’ll be dark in an hour, and I need light to find the next message drop. I’m going to see if there’s some inn that will give us real beds in exchange for a hand with the dinner dishes. Even you couldn’t screw up drying a dish!”

  She turned and walked off before he could reply, which was probably just as well. That short speech had held so many insults, Edoran wasn’t sure which he should respond to first.

  The third inn they tried was shorthanded in the kitchen, and several of their smaller rooms were empty, so Arisa struck the bargain she wanted. Soon Edoran was standing in front of a tub of very hot water with a drying cloth in his hand. At least this time the cloth was clean.

  “I’ll wash,” said Arisa, gesturing to the tub in front of her, which had soap bubbles on its murky surface. “When I hand you a dish, you dip it into the rinse water, dry it off with the cloth, then stack it on the board beside the tub. Clear?”

  “Perfectly,” said Edoran crossly. The very care with which she explained was an insult, but for all the clamor of cooks, waitresses, and tapsters rushing about, he didn’t dare argue with her publicly.

  In truth, the bustling kitchen was a bit intimidating, but dipping the plates and drying them was so simple that he soon got ahead of her, and found himself waiting for the next one.

  Arisa observed his smug glance. “Washing is always slower than drying,” she told him.

  “If you say so,” said Edoran, “I’m sure it’s true. Particularly when you’re the one doing the wash—”

  “What’s this?” One of the cooks, a big-boned woman with strands of hair curling wildly around the edge of her cap, was frowning at him. She was holding out a plate, pointing to the edge, where a triangle of soap scum made a swirling pattern on the porcelain glaze.

  “That’s where I held the plate to dip it into the water,” Edoran told her. Politely. “It was too hot to put my hand in.”

  The woman’s face turned red. She seemed to be trying to speak.

  “I’m sorry, mistress,” said Arisa hastily. Edoran noted that she used the city term, which implied that the woman she spoke to outranked her. “He’s simple sometimes about things like that. We’ll do them over, and I’ll keep an eye on him to be certain they’re done right.”

  The woman studied Edoran, no doubt looking for some outward sign of his feeble wits. “See that you do.”

  She stalked off, and Edoran glared at Arisa. “Now what?”

  “You have to rinse the whole plate, you… you half-wit!” she snarled.

  “But the water’s too hot. It would scald me.”

  “It’s supposed to be hot! You take the plate and turn it in the water, like this.”

  She dipped the rim of the plate into the tub, turning it till the whole surface had been submerged.

  “When we do the glasses and mugs you do the same, rinsing them inside and out before you dry them. And when we do flatware, you drop the whole thing into the water, then use something with a long handle to fish it back out.”

  “Oh. Why didn’t you explain that before?”

  “Because I hadn’t realized how hopeless you really are. Do these again.” She pointed to the stack of plates he’d just finished. “I’ll do some pots next. They take a bit of scrubbing, so it’ll give you time to catch up.”

  By the time the kitchen closed for the night, Edoran was too weary to argue about insults or anything else. In his opinion, working was vastly overrated. Particularly as a way to build character, for everyone who engaged in it was far too snappish and fussy, and seemed to have no manners at all. He was particularly tired of Arisa snapping at him, and insulting him, and leading him around by the hand as if he was a toddler! He’d have rescued himself if she hadn’t been there, for the night hadn’t been cold enough to freeze to death after all.

  The narrow feather tick in the small attic room was a blessing for his aching bones, and he hardly had the strength to pull off his boots, much less go to her room and start a fight, before sleep claimed him.

  He woke at dawn the next morning and lay still for a time, enjoying the solitude as much as the warm bed.

  He probably shouldn’t argue with Arisa. He was hopeless at this working thing, which had turned out to be much more complex than it looked. She was keeping her promise to take him along, even though he knew he was slowing her. And every guard in the realm was now on his trail, just as she’d prophesied. He’d have to
take great care to keep himself out of the Falcon’s hands when they found her—it would be disastrous if that prophecy came true.

  He donned his now really dirty clothes and went to tap on Arisa’s door.

  She seemed subdued that day as well, and they made good time to the message drop—which, to Edoran’s disappointment, proved to be nothing more than a rotted hollow, high in a tree by the crossing of a couple of back roads. It was empty.

  Arisa was frowning as she climbed down. “It may be too soon. She knows where I’ll be checking, and there are four other drops along this route. She may not be settled into hiding yet. Or even have decided what she wants to do next, since she’s only got Weasel instead of you.”

  “I suppose that did put a crimp in her plan.” Edoran tried to keep his voice neutral, but Arisa cast him a sharp look anyway. It faded into a sigh.

  She was the one who had thwarted her mother’s plan.

  “Come on,” she told him. “The next drop is two days’ walk from here.”

  Edoran didn’t know if they passed the town they should have stopped at, or failed to reach some place Arisa had intended to stay, but when the sun started down they were nowhere near a town, or even a village.

  “Curse it,” Arisa muttered, staring at the wilderness around them. Even the plowed fields were scarce here, and the woods around the road made the evening shadows deeper. “If it was summer, we’d still have two or three hours of daylight!”

  “Well, it’s not, and we don’t,” Edoran told her, trying not to snap. “What do we do now?”

  “Make camp here.” She gestured to a clearing, a bit off the road. Judging by the old fire rings, it had been used for that purpose before, but it looked remarkably bare of comforts to Edoran. On the other hand, he didn’t have a better idea.

  At Arisa’s insistence, he went out to gather wood for the fire. It had been mostly dry weather for the past week, but the persistent rain before that had soaked everything thoroughly, and it was harder to find dry wood than he’d expected. He brought back a respectable armload and was irritated when she sent him out for another. And another. By the time he’d gathered enough to keep the fire going all night, the pile was almost as high as his head, and it was too dark to search further.