CILLEY yawned.
Why did people insist on rising so early? She had already been woken once, at dawn, when a group of departing riders had talked far too loudly of that day’s destination and that morning’s bowel movements while saddling their horses.
She had managed to fall back asleep after that lot had departed, and it felt like she had scored a few extra hours of shut-eye out of that. Now the stable boy was checking on the animals, though, and from the noise coming in from the village’s single proper street, Cilley knew that it was useless turning over once more. She pushed herself up to a sitting position and stretched out her arms above her head, cracking her spine.
“Morning, handsome,” she said when the stable boy looked around in her direction. The kid—all of fourteen years old if Cilley remembered correctly from the day before—blushed such a bright red looking at her that she checked if she was still properly clothed. Which she was. Ah, he was probably just that age. Or simply not used to pretty women sleeping on the hay in the back of the stables.
Brushing the hay from her clothes and hair, Cilley sat up on her knees to check her pack. Being a light sleeper, she was sure she would have woken if someone had tried to rob her, but you could never be too careful. Everything still seemed to be there, so she took the pack, tugged her boots on and slouched towards the doors. The stable boy was doing an impressive job of ignoring her now—and if he really was just that age, Cilley frowned, that was actually a bit insulting.
Outside, the sun was out. It was not a pleasant experience, and Cilley fled into the inn’s main building as quickly as she was able. It took a minute of blinking and furiously rubbing her temples before her vision cleared. She looked up just as the door swung shut behind her. It echoed. Or at least it seemed so to Cilley, the room was that empty. Not a single table was occupied by more than empty bowls and mugs. Behind the bar, the innkeeper was wiping clean more dishes, and the look he gave her was as harsh as the sun.
Cilley dropped her pack on the ground and fell into a chair. “You owe me breakfast!” she said.
“Breakfast was an hour ago,” the innkeeper said. She wished she could remember the man’s name. Names were useful tools when talking to people.
“Well, I didn’t hear you say that when we talked business yesterday. No timetables were mentioned.”
“Breakfast is the morning meal. For decent people, anyway. It’s practically midday. The cook is out now.”
Leaning back her head, Cilley groaned. As if he was free enough with his coin to pay someone else to prepare breakfast. She said, “Come on, goodman, let’s not be difficult this early in the day, all right? I just want something to eat before I get back on the road. Don’t even care if it’s hot. And then I’ll be out of your hair.”
The innkeeper glared at her. It looked like the actions physically pained him, but he ladled some slop into a bowl, gathered up leftover bits of bread and brought them over.
“You’re too kind,” Cilley told him, but the man was too boring to rise to the bait. He had liked her well enough the night before, when seemingly every person for miles around had come to his crummy inn to listen to her.
A few bites into her breakfast, Cilley was more certain than ever that they had not come for the food. Finishing her meal as quickly as possible, so as better not to taste it, she left without another word.
It was still bright outside, but with food in her belly, it was easier to take. And all things considered, this late in the season—with the winter chill beginning to set in—better the glare of the sun than grim rain clouds.
She made her way to the riverside, where a narrow stone bank kept the reeds out of the way and gave access to relatively clean water. Cilley freshened up, filled her waterskins and drank her fill.
As simple as that, she was ready to leave the nameless village behind. All obligations fulfilled, all preparations made. There was only the nagging feeling that she had been underpaid. Rummaging through her pack, she grabbed her flute, leaving her lute safely wrapped up in its oilcloth, and sat down on the riverbank to play.
The night before, her lute had gotten exercise aplenty. She had played the inn’s common room from dusk until the early hours of the morning. A crowd the likes of which the crummy place had probably never seen had stayed up late to listen to her songs, drinking ale by the bucketload. She had negotiated with the innkeeper for her meals—including breakfast—free ale for as long as she was playing, and a place to sleep. It was cheap for what she brought to the place, and common practice throughout the lands was that she got at least half the tips that were left that night. People certainly left them for her, even holding up the coins to show them to her before putting them on the table. The innkeeper had hurried to snatch up every last bernon, and after her performance the calculating looks he kept sending her way were enough to inform her that she needn’t bother ask for any share of it. A false note disrupted her flute play. Damnation. She shouldn’t have started thinking about it, now she was getting cranky.
A giggle sounded from behind her, shaking her from her thoughts. Without taking her lips from her flute, Cilley turned her head. A bunch of children, varying in age from near-toddlers to young teens, were standing a little distance away, watching her. From the looks of their muddy feet, they had been playing among the reeds when they’d heard her play. She smiled and played some questioning notes their way. They came closer, the older ones nudging the younger, shyer ones forward.
Cilley kept playing one-handedly as she pushed herself to her feet and swung her pack onto her back. She enjoyed playing for children, but unless there was a village fair or a farmers’ market, she rarely got the chance. The money was in late nights, in adults who were already spending it freely on ale or mead.
Movement caught her eye. It was a woman, apparently the mother of two of the children, because she rushed up and grabbed a boy and a young girl by their arms to roughly drag them away. The woman cast a dark look over her shoulder as they retreated.
Oh, so that was how it was. Afraid the naughty troubadour might corrupt her children. Undoubtedly it was because of the bawdy songs she’d sung last night—but as if any of the men hadn’t been twice as crude to her as any song she had sung. That did it. She deserved a better reward from this cruddy village, and she’d get it.
Switching to a jaunty tune, Cilley walked through the group of remaining children, back towards the village buildings. When they didn’t follow, she turned around and walked backwards, smiling at them. They got the message. Cilley began to skip and to twirl about, and the children laughed and easily topped her for energy.
As they walked down the street, her entourage grew to over a dozen. Over a dozen noisy, dancing and singing children—enough to keep busy every wary adult’s eye, which suited Cilley fine.
A blanket hung over a line between a tree and a shed. Winter was coming, and that blanket looked mighty warm. She snatched it and threw it about her shoulders like a cape. All part of the show for the kids—why would anyone think to stop her?
Nobody even saw the freshly baked bread vanish underneath that cape from the windowsill of the farmhouse they passed next.
The children seemed to be having the time of their life—probably were, in a nowhere town like this—so Cilley didn’t feel guilty for using them as a diversion. As they neared the inn, Cilley turned back around to face the children. She shifted to a different tune, a well-known one that served as a melody for a dozen different children’s rhymes in a dozen different lands. The one this group of children started singing to it, she had always liked. It was full of mischief. Walking backwards and egging the children on to be as overexcited and noisy as humanly possible, Cilley nudged open the door with her behind and went inside.
“What in the Pit of the Thirteen Depths!?” was the innkeeper’s greeting. Cilley grinned at him past her flute. The children were coming pouring in through the door. “What? No. No!”
The innkeeper-whose-name-Cilley-still-couldn’t-remember-only
-now-she-no-longer-cared’s eyes widened. Quickly he tossed aside the dirty rag he was using to make a pretense at cleaning with, and tried to grab the nearest kid. The young boy shrieked with laughter and danced out of his reach. The children thought this was a wonderful game—all except for maybe a few of the older ones, who knew better, but none of them seemed eager to lend the innkeeper a hand.
Cilley loved chaos. And she was so very good at causing it.
“Off! Keep your hands off, Aster!” the innkeeper raged at one of the younger girls, who had climbed onto a table and was sniffing a half-full mug of ale that someone had left unfinished. “Your da’ll kill me!”
Amidst all those children shrieking at the top of their lungs, it was easy to overlook one quiet adult as she put away her flute and ducked behind the bar. In any city inn, the moneybox would have had a firm lock on it, but in a village like this where everyone knew everyone, people got careless, innkeepers included. Probably too busy ripping off people to their faces to worry about anyone doing it to him behind his back. Anyway, Cilley only took enough to cover her share of the tips, or her best optimistic estimate.
Then she ducked through the door to the kitchen, only pausing to grab some hard sausages and a bottle of brandy to wash them down before vanishing out the back door.
When the sunlight hit her face this time, she smiled, the ruckus inside muted as the door swung shut. She knelt down for a moment to put away her food, then rolled up her blanket-cape and tied it onto her pack.
Feeling much better, positively re-energized, Cilley once again lifted her pack onto her shoulders, ready to leave the crummy village behind. The westward road waited for her in the distance. It was a ways to the next town big enough to have an inn, but Cilley had a feeling she was going to make good time that day. She’d better—no telling when the innkeeper would remember her or check his moneybox, after all...
FULCRUM
BOOK I:
THE ROT HAS SET IN
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