by C. E. Murphy
"Then we must not let them press us."
He chuckled faintly. "You don't know lawyers, Amber. They're relentless. Sharks, save that their skin makes less fine leather. They'll learn about the lodge."
I stood with sudden certainty. "Not if we're not here to press." Father looked at me then, surprised, and I steadied myself with a deep breath. "We must leave the Noble, Father. Tonight. Immediately. I'll trade my gowns for a horse and carriage. We'll take blankets and pillows from the hotel and bundle up, and we'll leave."
"Flee?" Father asked incredulously. "Are you proposing that we flee?"
"Do we have another choice? If we stay they'll take the clothes from our backs and the one building we have left to our name. To Maman's name. Solindra won't marry Pearl now, and under slightly more forgiving circumstances Opal's kindness might win her a husband in time, but a wife who has had to live in the streets is too much for any decent man to bear, and nobody was going to marry me any time soon anyway. The boys are too young, even if we could find someone wealthy and generous enough to betroth them to, and we won't, not right now, perhaps not ever. So what choice do we have?"
Father looked at me as though I had become someone else entirely. I almost felt as though I had: running from the only life I'd ever known had certainly not seemed an option half an hour earlier, but then, half an hour earlier I hadn't known there might be one single place for us to run to. "I can't run," he said without conviction. "The dishonor…."
"We're already ruined," I said grimly. "How can running make it worse? Go tell Maman and the others to pack what they have, including the hotel's blankets. We'll need them more than the Noble does. I'll get my dresses and…" I faltered. I had barely any idea where to go in daylight hours to acquire a horse and carriage. It was after ten in the evening now, and surely any reputable place would be long-since closed for trade.
"Miss," said an unexpected voice, more gentle and regretful than I had ever heard from him before. I met my father's manservant's eyes, surprised to even see him; servants were simply not seen, unless they were necessary, and I hadn't had any idea he was there. "If you'd allow me, Miss, I think I could be of some assistance tonight."
My father burst out, "Glover!" with the same astonishment I felt. His manservant bowed to him, but kept his attention on me. Something happened in that moment, an offering of the mantle, and though I did not fully realize it at the time, I accepted its weight without hesitation.
"I would be grateful, Mr Glover. I'll pack my gowns—"
"If you will allow me, Miss," Glover interrupted, as politely as before, "I believe it would draw less attention if I were to apply a little coin to the situation, rather than half a dozen ladies' gowns."
I hesitated. "There's almost no chance we'll ever be able to repay you, Mr Glover."
"I know." Something else changed in that moment, and I almost had the capacity to recognize it: we had become equals, this manservant and I, in a strange meeting of my fall and his rise. I nodded once, but his lean, tall form was already on the move, leaving a polite excuse at the door for his departure.
My father gaped after him, then turned the stupefied expression on me. "What are you doing, girl?"
"I hope to the sun and her sister the moon that I'm saving us all. Go, Father. Pack your things. I think we don't have much time."
I do not know who was more surprised, my father or myself, when, after another moment's silence, he rose to do as he'd been bidden.
The boys were easy: the entire prospect was presented to them as an adventure, and they could hardly contain themselves with excitement about it all. Opal's resistance faded into acceptance so quickly that the former hardly seemed to exist at all, and Pearl, magnificent with rage, acquiesced to the inevitable immediately, if not precisely gracefully.
Maman fainted and would not come to. We packed around her, all of us that much more sombre for her fragility, and if Annalise, our maidservant, didn't help, neither did she hinder us, even when we began to pack the sheets and blankets that belonged to the hotel.
Midnight had come and gone and we had long since finished packing our meager belongings before Glover returned. Jet and Jasper's excitement had not been enough to keep them awake so late, and I collected Jet while Father lifted Jasper's sleeping form into his own arms. Maman, either truly in a desperate faint or in an equally determined one, refused to awaken. Glover, with a glance at Father for permission, picked her up, and it spoke to her sincerity that she did not respond. Pearl, Opal and Flint collected our bags, though there was one too many and Glover said, "If you don't come with us they'll jail you for collusion," to Annalise, who sighed bitterly and took the last bag.
Glover led us out through the servants' stair and halls, our feet treading bare wood that no one of our class had ever walked before, and out a servants' entrance to be met by an enormous, sour-faced nag hitched to a thick, heavy covered wagon. All of us save Glover stopped short in dismay; he climbed with long sure legs over the wagon's tailgate and laid Maman inside before thrusting his head out the bonnet's pinched front. "There was nothing else to be had that would carry ten people. Swiftly, sirs and madams. The watch passes by in another nine minutes, and we do not want to be seen."
Pearl threw her bag in and climbed after with constrained rage. Opal moved more quietly, as if already tired—as well she should be, in the early small hours of the morning—and Glover took Jasper from Father, tucking him into the same small bed on the wagon's floor that Maman was already settled in. Jet was placed between them, and I offered Annalise a hand up. She stared at me sullenly, then took my offer in a fit of pique and flung herself against the back of the wagon as Flint climbed in and Opal tucked blankets around the trio sleeping on the floor.
Father joined Glover at the driver's bench, and their low voices exchanged information for a few minutes before Father, expressionless, joined us in the wagon. Glover, who had not retained a driver—how could he—clambered onto the bench, drew the wagon cover closed as tightly as he could behind him, and clicked to the vast black nag, who lurched into motion with a muttered protest.
I couldn't tell, from inside the snugly covered wagon, what roads he took, only that the cobbles turned quickly to frozen dirt, and that the night watchmen did not hail us. We took blankets from the bags and snuggled together, sleep taking us one by one.
I woke when the wagon stopped just after dawn, and crept through its puckered cover hole to the sounds of the nag slobbering water from a stream. I went a little distance into the wood and squatted to relieve myself, yellow steaming against the snow, then returned to Glover's side. He handed me a tin cup and I scooped from above the horse's watering place, and drank water so cold it made my teeth ache before it slid down to coat my stomach with its chill. I spoke softly, aware of how loud the stream's song was in comparison to the winter morning's silence. "Thank you. You should ride inside for a while. It's freezing."
"And who will drive the wagon?" Glover asked in not-quite-mocking amusement. I gave him a sideways glance, examining his tall, slim form, then gave the nag a better look.
Last night I'd thought her black as pitch. In the dawning light I could see she was a dark bay with black socks, and not a scrap of white anywhere on her. She also stood sixteen hands if she stood an inch, with a belly roughly the size of a barge. Feathery fur grew from her knees down her forelegs and swept magnificently over feet like dinner plates. She rolled an eye at me, and I swear the beast sneered, curling a big lip before puffing a hot breath over the stream and returning to her drink.
I set my jaw. "How hard can it be? If she runs—and surely she won't run, not after walking all night—you'll be right there in the wagon to help rein her in."
"A beauty like this can trot forty miles in a day," Glover said cheerfully. "Plodding along at night isn't enough to wear her out. But I could do with a little warming up," he admitted. "It's a long night, sitting on a bench like that."
I nodded. "Where are we? How far do we have to go?"
"We've come some fifteen miles. It's another seven to the next village—we passed through a couple last night—and we might go on by one or two after that and still be well settled before evening. We can make better time in the light."
Towns and villages lay some seven miles apart by nature, that being the distance most people could walk to a market and get home again in the same day. Even I knew that, though on the occasions we left the city it had always been in a carriage, and seven miles had seemed nothing to me. If we passed through another three villages today, we would be close to fifty miles from the city and that much farther ahead of any pursuit. I found that I preferred, intensely, to be as far away as we could be. "Will she be all right with that much walking?"
"She will," Glover said with confidence. "But an early night will be good for her, after that. We'll rub her down, get her some good oats and some bran, and she'll be set to walk till sundown tomorrow."
"And how far is our journey?"
"Some seventy leagues, miss."
A chill that had nothing to do with the crisp air seized me. I turned involuntarily to look at the road we'd taken already. The last village was well out of sight, not even smoke from chimneys visible above the trees, and those trees closed like dark arches over the lonely frozen road. The gentle blues and pinks of a winter dawn made their frost-rimmed branches beautiful, but not inviting. Like Pearl, I thought, and shivered again as I looked the other way, at the road ahead.
The noisy stream followed the road a little way before diving back down beneath the earth, and the road itself curved gently not too far ahead. Seventy leagues was over two hundred miles, and none of us, save Father, had been more than ten or twenty from our home. Well, perhaps Maman, if the hunting lodge was hers, but Maman rarely went beyond the city walls, and certainly we children had never gone so far. I was abruptly afraid, too aware of wolves and boars and bears, all the murderous beasts that lived in the woods. Last night, fleeing had seemed the only sensible thing to do. In dawn's breaking light, knowing there was a week's journey in the winter ahead of us, I wondered if I had been a great fool, condemning my family to starvation in the wilderness.
"Come along, miss," Glover said gently. "When there's nothing left behind you, the only way through is forward. I'll drive with you a bit, and then if big Beauty here doesn't take advantage of you, I'll slip inside for an hour or two's warmth before spelling you again."
"Thank you, Glover." He helped me to the wagon's bench, and under the sun's bright reflective gaze, I learned how to drive a wagon and one, the first of many strange lessons to come.
I hadn't known, until a day of it had gone by, how tired the body could be left from riding in a wagon. I ached everywhere, my limbs were stiff, and my head seemed to bump of its own accord, even when the wagon had stopped. And I was young, and so comparatively unaffected: Father moved like an old man, creaking and grimacing as he stretched. The boys were hardly bothered, leaping about when we stopped and sometimes running alongside the wagon, even in the cold, for an hour or more. After the first day, I joined them as often as I could, and Opal emerged whenever she thought Maman could be left alone for a while. Maman and Annalise refused to leave the wagon except to do the necessary, but once in a while even Pearl stalked along beside the wagon to stretch her legs.
She would not, though, deign to touch the reins. Opal did, with shy amusement, and Flint took them with obvious pride. Even Jasper had a go, and Jet, sitting in Father's lap, held their tails while chattering to birds and rabbits. Mostly, though, Father, Glover and I took turns driving, while Flint walked beside Beauty—for so the big nag had been deemed—at her head, talking softly to her and, as far as I could tell, transforming her personality from surly to soft.
Four days along the road, at lunchtime, Annalise exited the wagon with her chin high and fierce color in her cheeks. "My home village is two miles down that track," she announced. "I'm going back there. I won't go with you to the ends of the earth. I've done nothing wrong and won't serve you in isolation when I've family and friends at home."
Maman let out a terrible cry that affected Annalise not at all as she turned and simply walked away from us. Opal gazed after the girl in pure astonishment, while Pearl's beautiful features pinched with disbelief. I was only surprised because I hadn't known she had somewhere to go; it had been clear she didn't want to be with us. "We have no way to pay her," I said to the cold afternoon air. "There's no reason for her to stay."
Maman cried out again, sending Father and Opal into the wagon to tend to her. Pearl and I exchanged glances before she said, coolly, "There will be more food for the rest of us, then," and climbed into the wagon as well. The boys, standing in a circle of surprise, looked between Glover and myself, and after Annalise, and then Glover said, "We might as well be on the way, then. No sense in losing daylight."
"Will she be all right, walking home from here?"
Glover shook his head. "We've seen no brigands and she seems to know the territory, so I can only assume so. I've a quick step, miss, but I can't walk her home and catch up with Beauty's pace while it's still light out."
"No, I…" I looked after Annalise a moment longer, watching her cloak mottle and fade with distance, and spread my hands. "No, you can't, and she didn't ask. I hope she'll be all right."
"That one lands on her feet." Glover lifted Jet into the back of the wagon. "All right, lads, let's move along."
Flint took up his place at Beauty's head, and we moved along. Barely an hour later, for the first time, we saw a boar on the road: a massive thick-shouldered beast with small eyes and long tusks. Beauty stopped dead and lowered her head, steam puffing from her nostrils as Flint slowly backed up to the wagon's bench. The boar snorted and glared at us while my heart pounded increasingly hard. Surely even a boar understood that Beauty herself was twice his height and ten times his weight, and that without the wagon's cover rising up behind her to treble her apparent size.
But then I remembered that boar hunting was done by groups of men on horseback, often with dogs, and that the boar did not always lose, despite those odds, and I reconsidered what a boar might or might not understand.
Beauty took one solid step forward, leaning her weight into her leading leg, and the boar, with another snort, turned and trotted away into the woods. Glover, at my side on the wagon bench, let go a sharp sigh of relief, and Flint's voice skirrled high with excitement. "Did you see it, Amber? Did you see it? It was bigger than I am! Do you think it would have stomped us all? Oh, but if we could have killed it we would have had boar for supper! Wouldn't that have been delicious?"
Glover chuckled and ruffled Flint's hair, a vastly more familiar gesture than he would have allowed himself a week ago. "Yes, lad, but we lack every single weapon we would need to slay such a beast. Had we tried, we would have been its supper, not the other way around."
"Boars don't eat people," Flint said stoutly, but he climbed onto the bench with Glover and myself anyway, and kept a wary eye out on the road until darkness fell.
I didn't need to have traveled regularly to know how fortunate we were in the weather. It remained clear the entirety of our journey, the roads staying frozen and easily passed. Clouds followed us on the retreating horizon, thick and grey and threatening snow, but they never caught us. I imagined they might have caught anyone who might pursue us, though, even as I wondered if anyone had. None of us spoke of the possibility; what conversation we had centered around Maman's health, which remained fragile, and how we might barter for food or drink at the next village. We scavenged more than one of our dresses, but left the boys' clothes alone, as they had fewer to begin with. We drove past farms and through villages, but mostly we were alone in the forest, until it began to seem the world was nothing but forest.
Each morning Father had a low discussion with Glover, who then drove us onward as if he knew the way well. The trees grew thicker and the road narrower, until on the eighth afternoon we passed through a village almost too small for
the name, and up an ill-kept track that might once have been a road, and finally through low stone gates to a stone building two stories tall, with a peaked slate roof and windows whose sliding shutters remained tightly sealed. Beauty thudded to a halt and dropped her head to nose at ankle-deep snow. The family slowly climbed out of the wagon to stare at the building, myself with a numb disbelief that seemed reflected in the others. It was not dismay at the small size or condition of the lodge—after weeks in the hotel and then nine days in the wagon, two stories seemed absurdly luxurious to me, who had only a month ago had a room and a library of her own—but rather an inability to fully believe we had arrived.
"The door," Opal finally said. "Is there a key to the door? Maman?"
As if her question had shaken us of a stupor, we began to move again: the boys let go unearthly shrieks and ran through the snow, shouting as they explored. Here were outbuildings; there, a stable with three boxes and room for the wagon. A barn with still-standing fences around it lay some distance off from the main building, and at the back of the lodge, a patch of smooth land that Jasper declared a garden.
Before they were done looking around, Maman had produced a key, which was the most participatory action she had taken in over a week. Glover opened the door onto a single large room dominated by ghostly, sheet-covered furniture and, at one end, a fireplace broad enough for Jasper to lie down in.
A door stood on one side of the fireplace, and on the other, a staircase spiraled upward. The main room was floored with boards as wide across as Jet was tall, and oak beams, aged with time and smoke, stretched heavily across the ceiling, supporting the upper floor. Father opened the inner shutters, then worked stiff iron casings to open the outer ones, and suddenly, despite the late hour of a winter afternoon, the lodge seemed flooded with light. Opal gave a gasp that I thought represented all of our sentiments well, and we turned smiles of real joy and relief upon one another for the first time in weeks.
