Ayler’s inspection was pensive as always. “So you think that’s the best disguise to wear as we continue our journey?” he asked, no inflection in his voice.
I shrugged. “It’s easiest. Fewer questions.”
“And when you arrive in Wodenderry?”
“I had always intended to search for work dressed as a young man,” I said, climbing into the wagon and settling on the bench. “I don’t know how safe the royal city is for young women on their own.”
Ayler settled next to me and slapped the reins. The horse started forward at her usual phlegmatic pace. “Depends on where you go. What kind of work do you think you’ll look for?”
I turned my head a little to watch the passing countryside, which seemed to turn even more greenly lush as we proceeded. It was the very beginning of summer, only a breath or two past spring. It had not escaped my notice that yet another chapter of my life was about to open in the golden season. “What I know is inns and restaurants. There must be plenty of those in Wodenderry, and one or two must have work for willing hands.”
“Indeed. And I know of a place—” Ayler began, and lapsed into silence. This was habitual with him as he considered a new thought; it might be five minutes between one of his sentences and the next. I waited. “Actually, it might do very well,” he finally continued. “It’s a tavern, rather small, but extremely charming. Run by a young woman named Leona who is”—he glanced at me—“perhaps ten years older than you.”
“And she runs a tavern on her own?” I said. “That’s unusual.”
Ayler nodded. “It was her father’s. He died a couple of years ago, leaving the place to her. To a point, she’s been successful, but I think the work is harder than she thought—and there are a lot of taverns in Wodenderry. Hers is not always as full as she would like.”
“She might not be able to pay me anything if she doesn’t have any customers,” I pointed out.
“Indeed. But I think you might be able to work out a deal with her. Some of your salary to be paid in room and board. You will be safe at Leona’s as you might not be in some other parts of town, or other residences. And she need not fear that you will run off with the silver or steal from the till, because I will vouch for you. Actually, you would be doing her a kindness if you went to work for her. She needs the help of someone she can trust. And those sorts of people are sometimes rare in the royal city.”
“All right. I’ll meet her,” I said. “And if I like her and she wants me, I’ll stay.”
“This might work very well,” he said again.
We traveled for a few more moments in silence—although it was never entirely silent in Ayler’s wagon. I had noticed that on our first day. It was the creakiest cart imaginable, the wood of its frame popping and screeching even when we passed over utterly smooth terrain. If you shifted your weight ever so minutely on the bench, the boards groaned in protest, and the wheels clattered even as they followed soft, deep ruts in dry dirt roads.
“Why is your cart so noisy?” I demanded as we squealed through a crossroads at a sedate pace.
Ayler laughed. “It’s built of chatterleaf wood. Very loud. I sometimes think, even at night in the barn when the wagon’s not moving at all, the boards are probably whispering and conversing with one another, making their own special racket.”
I stared at him. “Why would a Safe-Keeper build a cart from chatterleaf trees?” I asked. “Those are for Truth-Tellers.”
Ayler nodded. “I know. And for a year or two I drove through the kingdom in a cart made of kirrenberry timbers. Never mind how rough the road, that cart never made a sound. I found I did not like it. I am not used to silence.” He glanced down at me, read the surprise in my face, and smiled. “Truly, I am not. I am not the most talkative man, perhaps, but others are always speaking to me, telling me their stories. I find, even if it’s only metal and wood, I still want to hear the voices.”
“You’re the strangest man,” I commented.
Ayler gave a low laugh. “Aren’t we all strange,” he countered, “in our own ways?”
We reached Wodenderry a few hours after noon on the fifth day. Never had I seen such a place! I sat rapt on the bench as Ayler negotiated the narrow streets, thick with traffic—pedestrians, solitary horses, grand carriages pulled by matched teams, humbler carts like ours. Looming over us from both sides were closely packed buildings of wood and stone, most of them two stories high. Some were beautiful, built of a dense silver-hued marble and decorated with flags and flower boxes; others were plain and mean and grimed with soot. Vendors stood on almost every corner, selling everything from bread to housewares to shoes. The noise was loud and incessant—people shouting, horses whickering, wagon wheels clanging against metal grates in the road. It was both terrifying and wonderful. I felt assaulted by energy; my mind began to hum. I wondered how anyone ever relaxed enough to fall asleep in Wodenderry.
After I had been silent for a few minutes, Ayler glanced down at me. “A little overwhelming, isn’t it?” he said. “You’ll grow used to it, though. You’ll even find, when you leave, that you start to crave it. Wodenderry gets a hold on your senses and doesn’t let go.”
“I would think you could get so lost here that no one could ever find you again.”
“You could,” Ayler agreed, “if you wanted to.” He carefully navigated his way around a wagon stopped at the side of the road. “But who wants to be lost?”
About half an hour after we had entered the city, Ayler turned down a quieter street and pulled the cart into an alley. We had come to rest beside a one-and-a-half-story structure built of gray stone, roofed with orange tile, and taking advantage of a very small square of lawn to sprout a vivid array of flowers. On the front of the building, as we had passed, I had noticed a weathered sign painted with the word COTTLESON’S in block letters.
“It’s safe to leave the mare here for a few minutes,” Ayler said. “Let’s go in and meet Leona.”
I understood the hospitality trade, so I knew we had arrived at a good time, midway between lunch and the evening hour when people would begin drifting in for a glass of ale. Even so, I noticed a few customers in place as we pushed through the thick front door and entered. The room was smaller than the dining hall at the Parmer Arms, but appealing, with dark beams set against a whitewashed ceiling, a cluster of tables arranged in the middle of the room, booths lining the two side walls, and a highly polished bar at the back. Lighting was supplied by half a dozen stained-glass windows, shaded lanterns at each table, and an array of candles behind the bar. I could smell the comforting and familiar scents of yeast, onions, meat, and ale. Not so strange in Wodenderry after all.
A door behind the bar swung open, and a young woman stepped through, bearing a tray. She was about my height and wore a plain gray gown. Her drab dress and her rather severe coiffure didn’t do much to disguise the gorgeous color of her hair—a dark auburn—and her rather anxious expression could not conceal the lovely contours of her heart-shaped face. She glanced at us just enough to acknowledge our existence, then carried her burden to one of the occupied booths, where she had a short conversation with the two men sitting there. Then, wiping her hands on her apron, she approached us.
“Yes? Would you like—Ayler! I didn’t realize it was you!” she exclaimed, and threw her arms around the Safe-Keeper. “It is so good to see you! I thought you were traveling the rest of the season.”
“And so I am, but my travels have brought me here,” Ayler replied. “I thought I would check on you since I am in Wodenderry. How is life since I saw you last?”
The woman grimaced and pushed at a lock of hair that had strayed from confinement. “Much the same, but even more hectic,” she confessed. “Jedlo quit—going back to the farm—so now I am down to just me and Sallie, and there is more work to be done than two women can finish in a day. Phillip comes and goes as he pleases, and is more trouble than help, frankly, and there are days I think—oh, well.” She attempted a smile. “But you did
not come here just to hear my complaining. Are you hungry? When did you arrive?”
“Yes, and just now,” Ayler replied. “But let me first introduce you to a young man I have brought with me all the way from Thrush Hollow. He wanted to see the royal city, and he is feeling quite awestruck. Kellen, meet Leona Cottleson, our harried hostess. Leona, this is Kellen Carmichael.”
Leona bestowed a friendly smile on me. “I’ve never been to Thrush Hollow, but if it’s as small as the towns where I grew up, then I understand your amazement at arriving in the city,” she said. “But I love Wodenderry now! I could not imagine living anywhere else.”
“My thought was to stay and make it my home as well,” I said, consciously using the lowest register of my voice. Still, she would think me a lad of fourteen, perhaps, beardless and slim. I would turn sixteen in a few weeks, but I knew that I seemed younger as a boy.
“And do your parents have an opinion about your moving to the royal city?” Leona asked. “Or are they no longer alive?”
“Living, but uninterested,” I replied.
She nodded, complete understanding on her face. “Mine are both dead now, but it hardly makes a difference,” she said. “Well, I miss my father.” She glanced around the tavern with affection. “He built this place, and we ran it together for several years. That was the only time I ever felt close to him.” She brought her gaze back to my face. “So what do you plan to do in Wodenderry, Kellen? I assume you’re looking for work?”
“Yes. I had a job at the Parmer Arms in Thrush Hollow,” I said, answering carefully. It would not do to say, I have been a servant girl or a maid. “I worked in the kitchen and waited on customers and did the gardening or the chopping when an extra hand was needed. I also helped my mother, who ran a temporary boardinghouse. I am used to the work done at a place like yours.”
“What Kellen means is that I thought you might offer him a place,” Ayler interposed. “I know he can do the work, and I know you need the hands.”
Leona looked hopeful. “Oh, indeed I do! But—as Ayler might also have told you—I don’t know how well I can pay anyone. Business has been slow—”
“As you might have surmised, Kellen has nowhere else to go,” Ayler said gently. “A bed and the promise of a few meals would almost be adequate salary.”
“Now that I could offer him,” Leona said. “A small bed, it’s true, but a bed.”
I laughed. “At my mother’s, for most of the last few years, I have slept on a mat in the kitchen,” I said. “I don’t ask for much more.”
Leona smiled. “I can do slightly better than that. There’s only one bedroom upstairs, and that’s mine, but I have always kept the room off the kitchen for Phillip. However, he’s not sleeping there anymore. He has taken up with friends who are somewhat older and who have quarters down by the docks. Not very reputable friends, I might add. In any case, the room is empty.”
“Who’s Phillip?” I asked. In my experience, dispossessed people often did not like to be dispossessed, and I wanted to know a little about him before he came back to reclaim his place.
Leona made a sour face. “My brother.”
“Her scapegrace brother,” Ayler amended. “You’ll meet him, no doubt, for he has a tendency to show up when it’s least convenient.”
“Demanding things I cannot give him, and complaining bitterly about how badly he is treated,” Leona added. “Such a joy in my life is Phillip.”
We seemed to have strayed from the main point. I took a deep breath. “Then,” I said, “if his room is empty and you need the help and you will trust me to work for you, will you hire me?”
“Oh! I thought we had already settled that! Yes, of course I will,” she responded. She glanced at the Safe-Keeper. “If Ayler recommends you, you know, I cannot help but trust you. In fact, I like you already.”
Ayler’s face was touched with his usual abstracted smile. “Yes,” he said in a dreamy voice, “I think this will work out very well.”
Chapter Nineteen
I loved working at Cottleson’s. From the very beginning, the place felt familiar to me. Perhaps it was because I knew the work, although running a tavern was somewhat different from either a posting house or a bed-and-breakfast. But there were still meals to prepare, customers to please, cash boxes to balance, and various chores of maintenance and upkeep to complete.
Perhaps it was because Leona reminded me a little of Sarah Parmer. Well, in fact, she was nothing like Sarah. Where Sarah was serene and a little stately, Leona could be passionate and quick to show temper. But they were both warm-hearted women a few years older than I was. They were both kind to me when I needed kindness. They were both grateful for the gifts I brought and always thinking of ways to turn those to good use. So for Leona, as for Sarah, I accomplished a wide range of tasks. While Leona and Sallie mostly waited on customers, I became the primary cook and keeper of the kitchen. I also shopped for food in the market, tended the minuscule garden out back, haggled with peddlers when they came to the door, and fought a perpetual war with vermin.
One day I became the unofficial protector of the other women under the roof.
It was nighttime, actually, not far from midnight, and the tavern was almost empty. I was in the kitchen, scrubbing the last of the pans, when I heard a commotion from the front room. There was a squeal, then a round of laughter, then the sound of Leona’s raised voice, both furious and fearful. I dropped the pan, grabbed a poker from the fireplace, and ran through the swinging door to investigate.
Sallie was struggling in the embrace of a drunken fellow whose two companions were exhorting him to kiss ’er, kiss ’er good, that’s a pretty girl, Bart. Sallie was shrieking and Leona was circling the intertwined couple, still shouting, her raised hands pounding at the back and shoulders of Sallie’s captor. As I entered, one of the other men still seated in the booth grabbed Leona’s arm and yanked her onto his lap. She tumbled toward him so hard her feet flew up to reveal a froth of petticoats.
I charged in. One hard swing of the poker caught Sallie’s attacker in the back of the head, causing him to yelp, release her, and go staggering across the room. Surprise made the other man release Leona, and she leapt to her feet, red-faced and raging.
“Out of here! All of you, out of here! And never come back!” she cried.
“Here, now, you can’t be hitting people on the head,” the man in the booth said, giving me a darkling look.
“You’re next if you don’t get up and get out, like she says,” I threatened, brandishing my weapon. I knew I didn’t look particularly menacing—I appeared so young, so soft—but I figured they were drunk and I was a lot stronger than they knew. I could take them, at least one by one.
“Kellen!” Sallie shrieked, and I whirled around just in time to see the first man launch an assault on me. I didn’t hesitate. I kicked him in the groin, hard, a move Ayler had taught me many years ago. He grunted and went down. I returned my attention to the men in the booth, no longer laughing.
“Out,” I said grimly. “And take your friend with you.”
They blustered some more, but soon found that Leona had armed herself, too, snatching up another poker since mine had worked so well. Spitting invective and insults, they gathered up their friend and hauled him through the front door. I glanced around, ascertained that they were the last customers for the day, and locked the door behind them.
Leona had collapsed at one of the tables in the middle of the room and looked wan and exhausted. Sallie, a strapping blonde girl of about nineteen, seemed none the worse for wear. I imagined this hadn’t been the first time she’d been the unwilling recipient of an overeager kiss. She bustled back behind the bar and drew glasses of ale for each of us. We settled around the table with Leona.
“Does this sort of thing happen often?” I asked.
Leona shook her head, then nodded. “Never when my father was here. Sometimes since he’s been gone. Men think they can take advantage of women.”
?
??Usually I just give them the knee,” Sallie said. “But he caught me when I wasn’t paying attention, and I couldn’t get free.” She toasted me with her glass and gave me a warm smile. “Glad you were here, Kellen. Very heroic to have a boy like you come to my rescue.”
I spared a moment to hope she didn’t start to think I was a romantic prospect, and then I decided that I was too young and slender to appeal to Sallie. I had seen the men she liked to flirt with, and they were all hardy and full of muscles.
“Is it better when Phillip’s around?” I asked. I had been here two weeks and had yet to meet the reprobate brother.
Leona shrugged. “Phillip brings his own trouble. His friends are just as likely to cause a ruckus as to save you from one once it’s started.” She nodded at me. “But I too am glad you were here, Kellen. You’re tougher than you look.”
I grinned. “I guess we’re all full of surprises.”
“Maybe you should walk Sallie home,” Leona suggested. “If those men were angry, and they’ve decided to lie in wait—”
“Happy to,” I said.
Sallie shook her head and rose to her feet. “I’ll slip out the back way. It’s only two streets, and my father waits up till I’m home. Anyone comes after me tonight, he’ll get more than a poker to the head if my father catches him.”
“Good night, then,” Leona said and yawned. “I’m so tired. I’ll see you both in the morning.”
Sallie survived the walk home, and we had only minor incidents like that in the days that followed. But I could tell that my very presence made Leona and Sallie feel safer, and I rather relished the idea of being a champion. I had always liked being strong enough to defend myself, to fight for and keep my own place in the world. It was novel but agreeable to think I might be called upon to fight for someone else as well.
I had been in Wodenderry three weeks before I saw Gryffin.
I thought about him every day—heard about him at least as often. It was Sallie who took it upon herself to tell me what she clearly considered his romantic tale. We were working all day to clean up after a late but fairly well-behaved Summermoon celebration the night before.