Chapter Three #3
Along with the rouge, she had purchased a white powder made from very fine flour that, when mixed with rosewater, produced a paste that could be spread over the skin to make it very flawless and fine.
Pale and flawless skin was very desirable and Spring tended to have skin blemishes and freckles, which the white paste covered up.
As Wynter refused to get up, Spring mixed some of the paste with the only water she had, from the basin, and spread a fine layer over her skin, leaving an unfortunate line of demarcation just below her chin.
“Wynter, I am warning you,” she said as she looked into her mirror. “If you do not get up, I am going alone. If something happens to me, it will be your fault.”
Wynter grunted and Spring proceeded to put the rouge on her cheeks, faint orange circles right on the apple of her cheeks.
She’d also purchased a piece of charcoal that was sharpened to a fine point, so she drew a line on her upper lashes and also across each eyebrow to darken them.
She knew other girls who plucked their eyebrows thinly, but she wasn’t brave enough to do that yet.
Her mother would see and she would be punished.
Even at twenty years of age, she still feared her mother because she was living under the woman’s roof.
But tonight, what her mother couldn’t see, she couldn’t become angry at.
The lip balm was next.
As part of her hoard, Spring had purchased lip grease made from suet and ocher, nearly the same color as the rouge, and she slicked it on her lips.
It smelled of rosemary and marjoram. Gazing back at herself in the mirror, she could see a pale-faced lass with orange cheeks and lips gazing back at her.
Considering she was the plainest of the de Thorington sisters, she thought she looked rather pretty and she would need that confidence against Wynter’s lush beauty.
What came so easily to her sister came with effort to her.
She wasn’t going to waste it.
Tucking her cosmetics away, Spring went over to the bed and slapped her sister on the rump.
“I am leaving right this minute,” she declared. “Come with me and we shall enjoy the night. Stay in bed like a lazy piglet and I will make you wish you hadn’t. Do you understand me?”
Wynter rolled onto her side but that was all she did.
Spring went straight to the door, quietly opened it, and slipped out into the corridor outside.
Staying at their Aunt Sedelia’s home, the ancient manse had corridors and stairs that Ariadne would not have been able to find her way out of, but the de Thorington girls knew it well.
The moment the door shut behind Spring, Wynter was on her feet.
Frustrated and exhausted after a long day of travel, Wynter was growing increasingly furious as she ripped off her sleeping shift and rushed to her satchel.
She pulled out the first shift she came across along with a wine-colored brocade that had been carefully rolled up by a servant.
There were virtually no wrinkles to it. She yanked the shift over her head and promptly pulled on the brocade, which was simple in construction but quite lovely.
The bodice was cinched under the breasts with a golden ribbon and the sleeves were long and embroidered with golden thread.
Feeling the pressure of her sister, who was probably already out on the street by now, Wynter quickly ran a brush through her hair, failing to tie it back or style it in any way.
Her hair was her crowning glory, all of that dark auburn silk that tumbled down past her waist. She didn’t even put any jewelry on.
She simply slipped on her shoes, grabbed her coin purse, and threw open the door to see Spring standing in the dim hall.
“Well?” Spring whispered. “Shall we go?”
Wynter rolled her eyes when she realized she had fallen into her sister’s trap. But she also noticed her unnaturally pale face and unnaturally orange lips and cheeks. She peered more closely at her.
“What did you do to your face?” she asked.
Spring’s answer was to grab her hand and pull. “Come along,” she murmured. “We have an inn to visit.”
The house was quiet at this hour as they made their way down the stairs and into the entry.
Her great-aunt had a few soldiers milling about, but they were outside.
Carefully unbolting the door, Spring and Wynter slipped outside into the cold night air, with a full moon and a million stars overhead.
It was quite lovely. Spring, who was several paces in front of her sister, came across two guards at the big, iron entry gate and slipped them a few coins to both keep their mouths shut and let them back in when they returned.
The soldiers took the money and let the women pass.
Fortunately, the inn that Spring had in mind was only a few doors down from Aunt Sedelia’s house.
As they scampered down the darkened road, breath hanging in the cold and moist air, they could see the inn up ahead.
Being that it was nestled among the manses of the wealthy, there wasn’t any noise.
There weren’t any people outside, singing and drinking, and for all appearances, it looked like a quiet and respectable place.
There was a man guarding the door and he opened it for Spring and Wynter, casting Wynter an interested look as she frowned at him.
In response, the door hit her in the arse as she entered as he shut it on her a bit too fast.
Giving her bum a rub because of the spiteful doorman, Wynter followed her sister into the common room.
It was surprisingly crowded and surprisingly tame for a tavern.
Usually, places like this were loud and full of laughter and conversation, but this one seemed to be very quiet.
There was a man in a corner playing a lute and singing softly, not at all the lively place Spring had expected.
She found them a small table near the man with the lute.
“Look at this place,” Spring hissed. “It is as exciting as a bucket of nails.”
Wynter yawned. “It is late,” she said pointedly. “Did you truly think this would be a wild place?”
“I’d hoped there was some life to it.”
Wynter shook her head. “It’s among homes. People are sleeping. A place like this could not stay in business if it was too boisterous.”
Spring was clearly disenchanted. A serving wench came around, eyeing the two women without an escort, before telling them what was on the menu for the evening.
Disgruntled, Spring ordered the pork pie and wine that had been soaked with fruit.
Before the food came, she went to the man playing the lute and slipped him a coin, asking him to play something that could be danced to.
The man took the coin but finished the song he was currently playing, which was a lament for a lost love.
The next song was a little faster.
This was a song about maidens and fairies, running through a valley, and it was lively.
Spring started to perk up. The food came, including an entire pitcher of wine mulled in lemons and apples, with chunks of the fruit still in it.
Spring went straight for the wine, pouring it into her cup and eating the chunks of boozy fruit right out of the pitcher.
Wynter thought she should at least get what she could, while she could, before Spring drank and ate everything on the table. She’d been known to do that.
The quickened tempo of the music seemed to stir the room a little.
People were moving around now, heads bobbing to the beat.
A serving wench began to dance for a table of men who were now cheering her on.
She gyrated and twirled as they clapped.
Wynter was deep into her pork pie, listening to the music and not paying particular attention to Spring, who was becoming more inebriated by the minute.
The wine was strong, and it was sweet, which made for a bad combination to a young girl who tended to become tipsy easily.
She was slurping up the apples and biting into the lemons, sucking down all of that alcohol.
The next thing Wynter realized, Spring was on her feet, pulling her scarf from her neck as she prepared to do the Dance of Veils again.
“Again!” she commanded the lute player.
The man picked up the tune again, only faster this time as Spring convulsed her way through a dance she thought was quite seductive.
She thought she was doing a very good job.
The patrons of the tavern, mostly men who had been paying attention to their meal and their companions, were now shouting encouragement to her and laughing because she had absolutely no rhythm.
The more she’d spin and teeter, the more they’d encourage her.
Wynter was beside herself.
“Spring!” she hissed, trying to get her sister’s attention without drawing attention to herself. “Spring, sit back down. Cease! Do you hear me?”
Spring did or she didn’t. Wynter had no idea, but she suspected the woman was ignoring her soundly as she spun her way right into the lute player.
The man toppled back into the wall as the music momentarily stopped, but he managed to push himself back into his chair and shove Spring away from him.
She staggered across the floor, caught herself, and started dancing again.
“That’s not how you do it, girl.” A man with chain mail and a tunic came out of the shadows, now standing in front of Spring and grasping her by the arm. “You have to dance more slowly, so a man can feel your body against his. Like this.”
Spring smiled at the man with her painted lips, clearly not troubled by him as he put his arms around her and squeezed her bottom. She yelped.
Wynter was out of her chair.
“Let her go,” she said, grabbing her sister by the arm and trying to pull her away. “She does not want to dance with you, so let her go.”
The man was momentarily surprised by the interference, but he quickly scowled and pulled Spring back to him. “Leave her be,” he said. “If she wants to dance, we’ll dance.”
Wynter sized the man up. He was a soldier or perhaps even a knight because he was well dressed. She didn’t see any weapons, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t armed. Men like him usually were. She thrust herself in between the pair, pushing Spring away.
“She is drunk,” she said to the man. “Please leave her alone.”
As Wynter pushed Spring back towards their table, the man grabbed Wynter by the arm and yanked hard. She stumbled away from her sister, nearly crashing into the entry door.
“She’s a grown woman,” the man said, pulling Spring back into his arms. “She can make her own decisions. She doesn’t need you telling her what to do.”
Wynter hadn’t been frightened until that moment, but she was frightened now.
She watched the man pull Spring into his embrace again and boldly cup her buttocks.
Spring seemed to enjoy his attention until that moment and then she tried to pull away, giggling.
He whipped her back into his arms, spinning her around as if dancing with her, but she was so drunk and so uncoordinated that she ended up tripping on her own feet.
The man pawed at her as she teetered, somehow always coming back to her buttocks.
Wynter had enough.
Frightened that the man had no intention of letting her sister go, she picked up an earthenware pitcher off the nearest table, came up behind the man, and smashed it over his skull.
After that, all hell broke loose.