Blue shadows were creeping from the forest into the stableyard, although the sky above had not quite begun to darken very much. And it was getting quite chilly; something Vanyel hadn’t expected, given the heat of the day. He was just as glad when the second armsman finally put in an appearance, trailed by a couple of inn servants.
Vanyel pretended to continue to study the sky to the west, but he strained his ears as hard as he could to hear what his guardians had to say to each other.
“Any problems, Garth?” asked the one who’d remained with Vanyel, as the first bent to retrieve a pack and motioned to the servants to take the ones Vanyel recognized as being his own.
“Nay,” the first chuckled. “This early in th’ summer they be right glad of custom wi’ good coin in hand, none o’ yer shifty peddlers, neither. Just like m’lord said, got us rooms on second story wi’ his Highness there on t’ inside. No way he gets out wi’out us noticin’. Besides we bein’ second floor, Ts needful we just move t’ bed across t’ door, an’ he won’t be goin’ nowhere.”
Vanyel froze, and the little corner of him that had been wondering if he could - perhaps - make allies of these two withdrew.
So that’s why they’re keeping their distance. He straightened his back, and let that cool, expressionless mask that had served so well with his father this morning drop over his features again. I might have guessed as much. I was a fool to think otherwise.
He turned to face his watchers. “I trust all is in order?” he asked, letting nothing show except, perhaps, boredom. “Then - shall we?” He nodded slightly toward the inn door, where a welcoming, golden light was shining.
Without waiting for a reply, he moved deliberately toward it himself, leaving them to follow.
Vanyel stared moodily at the candle at his bedside. There wasn’t anything much else to look at; his room had no windows. Other than that, it wasn’t that much unlike his old room back at Forst Reach; quite plain, a bit stuffy - not too bad, really. Except that it had no windows. Except for being a prison.
Inventory: one bed, one chair, one table. No fireplace, but that wasn’t a consideration given the general warmth of the building and the fact that it was summer. All four of his packs were piled over in the corner, the lute still in its case leaning up against them.
He’d asked for a bath, and they’d brought him a tub and bathwater rather than letting him go down to the bathhouse. The water was tepid, and the tub none too big - but he’d acted as if the notion had been his idea. At least his guardians hadn’t insisted on being in the same room watching him when he used it.
One of them had escorted him to the privy and back, though; he’d headed in that direction, and the one called Garth had immediately dropped whatever it was he’d been working on and attached himself to Vanyel’s invisible wake, following about a half dozen paces behind. That had been so humiliating that he hadn’t spoken a single word to the man, simply ignored his presence entirely.
And they hadn’t consulted him on dinner either; they’d had it brought up on a tray while he was bathing.
Not that he’d been particularly hungry. He managed the bread and butter and cheese - the bread was better than he got at home - and a bit of fresh fruit. But the rest, boiled chicken, a thick gravy, and dumplings, and all of it swiftly cooling into a greasy, congealed mess on the plate, had stuck in his throat and he gave up trying to eat the tasteless stuff entirely.
But he really didn’t want to sit here staring at it, either.
So he picked up the tray, opened his door, and took it to the outer room, setting it down on a table already cluttered with oddments of traveling gear and the wherewithal to clean it.
Both men looked up at his entrance, eyes wide and startled in the candlelight. The only sound was the steady flapping of the curtains in the light breeze coming in the window, and the buzzing of a fly over one of the candles.
Vanyel straightened, licked his lips, and looked off at a point on the farther wall, between them and above their heads. “Every corridor in this building leads to the common room, so I can hardly escape you that way,” he said, in as bored and detached a tone as he could muster. “And besides, there’s grooms sleeping in the stables, and I’m certain you’ve already spoken with them. I’m scarcely going to climb out the window and run off on foot. You might as well go enjoy yourselves in the common room. You may be my jailors, but that doesn’t mean you have to endure the jail yourselves.”
With that, he turned abruptly and closed the door of his room behind him.
But he held his breath and waited right beside the door, his ear against it, the better to overhear what they were saying in the room beyond.
“Huh!” the one called Garth said, after an interval of startled silence. “Whatcha think of that?”
“That he ain’t half so scatterbrained as m’lord thinks,” the other replied thoughtfully. “He knows damn well what’s goin’ on. Not that he ain’t about as nose-in-th’-air as I’ve ever seen, but he ain’t addlepated, not a bit of it.”
“Never saw m’lord set so on his rump before,” Garth agreed, speaking slowly.
“Ain’t never seen him taken down like that by a lord, much less a grass-green youngling. An’ never saw that boy do anythin’ like it before, neither. Boy’s got sharp a’sudden; give ‘im that. Too sharp?’’
“Hmm..No - “ the other said. “No, I reckon in this case, he be right.” Silence for a moment, then a laugh. “Y’know, I ‘spect his Majesty just don’t want to have t’ lissen t’ us gabbin’ away at each other. Mebbe we bore ‘im, eh? What th’ hell, I could stand a beer. You?”
“Eh, if you’re buy in’, Erek - “
Their voices faded as the door to the hall beyond scraped open, then closed again.
Vanyel sighed out the breath he’d been holding in, and took the two steps he needed to reach the table, sagging down into the hard, wooden chair beside it.
Tired. Gods, I am so tired. This farce is taking more out of me than I thought it would.
He stared numbly at the candle flame, and then transferred his gaze to the bright, flickering reflections on the brown earthenware bottle beside it.
It’s awful wine - but it is wine. I suppose I could get good and drunk. There certainly isn’t anything else to do. At least nothing they’ll let me do. Gods, they think I’m some kind of prig. “His Majesty” indeed.
He shook his head. What’s wrong with me? Why should it matter what a couple of armsmen think about me? Why should I even want them on my side ? Who are they, anyway ? What consequence are they ? They ‘re just a bare step up from dirt-grubbing farmers! Why should I care what they think? Besides, they can’t affect what happens to me.
He sighed again, and tried to summon a bit more of the numbing disinterest he’d sustained himself with this whole, filthy day.
It wouldn’t come, at first. There was something in the way -
Nothing matters, he told himself sternly. Least of all what they think about you.
He closed his eyes again, and managed this time to summon a breath of the chill of his dream-sanctuary. It helped.
After a while he shifted, making the chair creak, and tried to think of something to do - maybe to put the thoughts running round his head into a set of lyrics. Instead, he found he could hear, muffled, and indistinct, the distracting sounds of the common room somewhere a floor below and several hundred feet away.
The laughter, in particular, came across clearly. Vanyel bit his lip as he tried to think of the last time he’d really laughed, and found he couldn’t remember it.
Dammit, I am better than they are, I don’t need them, I don’t need their stupid approval! He reached hastily for the bottle, poured an earthenware mug full of the thin, slightly vinegary stuff, and gulped it down. He poured a second, but left it on the table, rising instead and taking his lute from the corner. He stripped the padded bag off of it, and began retuning it before the wine had a chance to muddle him.
At least there was mus
ic. There was always music. And the attempt to get what he’d lost back again.
Before long the instrument was nicely in tune. That was one thing that minstrel - What was his name? Shanse, that was it - had praised unstintingly. Vanyel, he’d said, had a natural ear. Shanse had even put Vanyel in charge of tuning his instruments while he stayed at Forst Reach.
He took the lute back to the bed, and laid it carefully on the spread while he shoved the table up against the bedstead. He curled up with his back against the headboard, the bottle and mug in easy reach, and began practicing those damned finger exercises.
It might have been the wine, but his hand didn’t seem to be hurting quite as much this time.
The bottle was half empty and his head buzzing a bit when there was a soft tap on his door.
He stopped in mid-phrase, frowning, certain he’d somehow overheard something from the next room. But the tapping came a second time, soft, but insistent, and definitely coming from his door.
He shook his head a little, hoping to clear it, and put the lute in the corner of the bed. He took a deep breath to steady his thoughts, uncurled his legs, rose, and paced (weaving only a little) to the door.
He cracked it open, more than half expecting it to be one of his captors come to tell him to shut the hell up so that they could get some sleep.
“Oh!” said the young girl who stood there, her eyes huge with, surprise; one wearing the livery of one of the inn’s servants. He had caught her with her hand raised, about to tap on the door a third time. Beyond her the armsmen’s room was mostly dark and quite empty.
“Yes?” he said, blinking his eyes, which were not focusing properly. When he’d gotten up, the wine had gone to his head with a vengeance.
“Uh - I just - “ the girl was not as young as he’d thought, but fairly pretty; soft brown eyes, curly dark hair. Rather like a shabby copy of Melenna. “Just - ye wasn’t down wi’ th’ others, m’lord, an’ I wunnered if ye needed aught?”
“No, thank you,” he replied, still trying to fathom why she was out there, trying to think through a mist of wine-fog. Unless - that armsman Garth might well have sent her, to make certain he was still where he was supposed to be.
The ties of the soft yellow blouse she was wearing had come loose, and it was slipping off one shoulder, exposing the round shoulder and a goodly expanse of the mound of one breast. She wet her lips, and edged closer until she was practically nose-to-nose with him.
“Are ye sure, m’lord?” she breathed. “Are ye sure ye cain’t think of nothin’?”
Good gods, he realized with a start, she’s trying to seduce me!
He used the ploy that had been so successful with his Mother’s ladies. He let his expression chill down to where it would leave a skin of ice OB a goblet of water. “Quite certain, thank you, mistress.”
She was either made of sterner stuff than they had been, or else the subtler nuances of expression went right over her head.
Or, third possibility, she found either Vanyel or his presumably fat purse too attractive to let go without a fight.
“I c’d turn yer bed down fer ye, m’lord,” she persisted, snaking an arm around the door to glide her hand along Vanyel’s buttock and leg. He was only wearing a shirt and hose, and felt the unsubtle caress with a star-tlement akin to panic.
“No, please!” he yelped in shock; the high-pitched, strangled shout startled her enough so that she pulled back her arm. He slammed the door in her face and locked it.
He waited with his ear pressed up against the crack in the door; waited for an explosion of some kind. Nothing happened; he heard her muttering to herself for a moment, sounding very puzzled, then finally heard her retreating footsteps and the sound of the outer door opening and closing again.
He staggered back to the bed, and sat down on it, heavily. Finally he reached for the lute, detuned it, and put it back in its traveling case.
Then he reached for the bottle and gulped the wine as fast as he could pour it down his throat.
Oh, lord - oh, gods. A fool. After everything this morning, after I start to feel like I’m getting a grip on things, and I go and act like a fool. Like a kid. Like a baby
who’d never seen a whore before.
He burned with humiliation as he imagined the girl telling his guards what had just passed between them. And drank faster.
He did remember to unlock his door and blow out the candle before he passed out. If Sun and Shadow out there decided to take it into their heads to check on him, he didn’t want them breaking the door down. That would be even more humiliating than having them follow him to the privy, or laughing at him with the girl.
I’ve never been this drunk before, he thought muzzily, as he sank back onto the bed. I bet I have a head in the morning....
He snorted then, a sound with no amusement in it. At least if I’m hung over, it’ll make Trusty and Faithful happy. If they can’t report to Father that I tried to escape, at least they can tell him I made a drunken sot of myself at the first opportunity. Maybe I should have let the girl in after all. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve bedded something I didn’t much care for. And it would have given them one more story to tell. Oh, gods, what’s wrong with me? Mekeal would have had her tumbled before she blinked twice! What is wrong with me?
He rolled over, and it felt a lot like his head kept on rolling after he’d stopped moving.
Then again - I don’t think so. Not even for that. The wine’s bad enough here. I hate to think where the girls came from ... or where they ‘ve been.
But why can’t I react the way everyone else seems to? Why am I so different?
His head hurt, but not unbearably. His stomach was not particularly happy with him, but he wasn’t ready to retch his guts up. In short, he was hung over - though less than he’d expected. In an odd sort of way, he was feeling even more detached than before. Perhaps his intoxication had purged something out of him last night; some forlorn hope, some last grasping at a life no one would ever let him have.
He pulled on his riding leathers and groomed himself as impeccably as he could manage without a mirror, leaving only the tunic off, since he intended to soak his aching head in cold water before he mounted Star - in the horse trough if he had to. He walked out into the morning light pouring in through the outer room, surveying the pathetic wrecks that had been his alert and vigilant guardians only the night before with what he hoped was cool, distant impassiveness.
And he spared a half a moment to hope that the girl hadn’t told them -
His guards were in far worse case than he was, having evidently made a spectacular night of it. Quite a night, judging by their bleary eyes, surly, yet satiated expressions, and the rumpled condition of the bedding. And Vanyel was not such an innocent as to be unable to recognize certain - aromas - when he detected them in the air before Garth opened the window. He was just as pleased to have been so drunk as to be insensible when they had been entertaining their temporary feminine acquaintances. Could be the chambermaid had found what she’d sought in the company of Garth and Erek after being rebuffed by Vanyel.
They weren’t giving him the kind of sly looks he’d have expected if the girl had revealed his panicked reaction.
Well - maybe she was too busy. Thank you, gods.
He managed to deal with his hangover in a fairly successful fashion. Willowbark tea came for his asking, hot from the kitchen; on the way to the privy, with the faithful Garth in queasy attendance, he managed to divert long enough to soak his head under the stable pump until his temples stopped pounding. The water was very cold, and he saw Garth wincing when he first stuck his head beneath it.
That dealt with the head; the stomach was easier. He drank nothing but the tea and ate nothing but bread, very mild cheese, and fruit.
He was perfectly ready to ride out at that point. His guards were not so fortunate. Or, perhaps, so wise, since their remedies seemed to consist of vile concoctions of raw eggs and the heavy imbibing of the ale
that had caused their problem the night before.
As a result, their departure was delayed until mid-morning - not that this disturbed Vanyel a great deal. They’d be outside the bounds of the forest before dark; at least according to what the innkeeper told Garth. That was all Vanyel cared about.
Garth and Erek were still looking a bit greenish as they mounted their cobs. And neither seemed much inclined toward talk. That suited Vanyel quite well; it would enable him to concentrate on putting just a bit more distance between himself and the world. And it would allow him to do some undisturbed thinking.
The forest did not seem quite so unfriendly on the eastern side of the inn - perhaps because it was hunted more frequently on this side. The underbrush certainly wasn’t as thick. The boughs of the trees overhead weren’t, either, and Vanyel got a bit of nasty satisfaction at seeing Garth and Erek wincing out of the way of sunbeams that were much more frequent on this side of the woods.
But it was hotter than yesterday, and Vanyel finally stripped off his leather tunic and bundled it behind him.
Seeing no lurking shadows beneath the trees, he felt a bit easier about turning his attention inward to think about just what, exactly, he was heading toward.
I can guess at what Father’s told the old bat. That’s easy enough. The question is what she’s likely to do about it.
He tried to dig everything he could remember out of the dim recesses of memory - not just about his aunt in particular, but about Heralds in general.
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