Chapter Four
FOUR
ASPETH
Icry all the way back to the inn.
I hate crying. It feels helpless and pathetic, and it should be reserved for dire times in one’s life. I cried over the death of my mother. I cried when I overheard my fiancé, Barnabus, speaking to one of his friends about me, complaining that he was being forced to marry an ugly spinster for her estate. I cried again when I found out that the estate is bankrupt and defenseless and the lives of every person at Honori Hold are in danger. That we could be conquered at any time, our people put to the sword.
I’ve done far too much crying lately.
But truly, what a pompous, arrogant little prick that Rooster fool is. If he’d known he was speaking with Aspeth Honori, Holder Honori’s sole heir, he would have kissed my hem and cooed that he would do anything for me in the hopes of getting Holder Honori’s commission…because he wouldn’t know we are penniless. He wouldn’t let me join the guild, of course, but at least he’d properly kiss my arse.
Instead, I had to swallow my pride and endure them all laughing at me because I’m a woman .
I knew it wasn’t common for women to join, but they made it sound like it’s forbidden. I know it’s not. Just because they don’t think a woman can do everything a man can doesn’t make them right. It makes them absolute cretins and I’m even more determined to prove them wrong.
I will find a teacher.
I will pass that guild test. I will find artifacts and replenish my family’s holdings and bring us back to greatness. And I will make sure that Rooster fool knows who I am.
My mouth screws up and I have to fight back a fresh onslaught of tears. I can handle this. I can. I knew it wouldn’t be easy. I knew that joining the guild would be fraught with complications, but I hadn’t anticipated that I’d be turned away the first day. I don’t know what to do. I’m not going to give up, but that doesn’t mean I know how to move forward.
I…need to hug my cat.
An hour later, I’ve returned to my rooms and am wearing a warm dressing gown, seated by the fire as I hold Squeaker tightly in my arms and let her lick my chin. “They were horrible, Gwenna. Just horrible.” I fight back another watery sniff. “I didn’t even get a chance to approach any of the guild members to speak my case. They don’t know—or care!—that I can read Old Prellian. All they care is that I have…I have…”
“Tits,” Gwenna declares. “I knew they’d hate tits.”
“How can anyone hate tits?”
“They don’t get to touch ’em,” she says, shaking her head. “That makes them angry. To them we’re nothing but things to grope with no brains in our heads.”
I sigh heavily, feeling defeated. My sheltered life at Honori Hold hasn’t prepared me for any of the challenges that Vastwarren City offers. I’m entirely out of my depth. I’ve always been respected and obeyed because of my holder name. Now that no one knows who I am or the family I come from, I’m finding the world very different and a great deal bleaker than I imagined. I bite at my thumb, my cuticles already nibbled to a painful level. “I don’t know what to do, Gwenna.”
“I do. We turn around and we leave. We go home and we figure something out. You marry some idiot for his fortune and we forget this nonsense.”
She doesn’t understand. Gwenna doesn’t realize that Barnabus would likely get rid of me once he finds out my family has no artifactual value. That our hold has no defenses and the mystical renowned Honori faeriefire cannons are dead, their charges expended. That our defense stones are depleted. We can’t protect anyone or anything, and once that’s discovered, everyone will attack us. Our neighbors, our friends, our enemies—they’re going to realize we’re weak and try to take over Honori Hold. If we’re lucky, Father and Grandmama and I will be cast out. Unlucky? Someone will find what’s left of us in the moat.
And she doesn’t realize that it won’t stop there. Anyone with any sort of connection to us will be either driven out or killed, simply so there will be no one contesting the new rulers.
I can’t even approach the black market because Honori Hold is penniless. Our credit is gone and there’s nothing to pay my father’s debtors with. Father sold all of our valuable artifacts.
I haven’t told Gwenna that Barnabus only wanted me for my family’s holdings. That he’s never been interested in kissing a spinster like me, and all the times I let him touch me, he was pretending. Even now, the thought makes me feel like vomiting. It’s too shameful to bear. I know I’m not particularly pretty or charming, but finding out what Barnabus really thinks of me has made me feel ashamed. Like I’m some sort of disgusting creature that can only be tolerated because of the title I bring. I’ve tucked it all deep in my heart and kept it to myself. As far as Gwenna knows, we’re low on artifacts and I’m here to find new ones for my family. My father’s gambling problems are well-known by all the servants already, though I don’t think they realize how vulnerable it’s made all of us.
“I’m not leaving,” I tell Gwenna softly. “I don’t know what we’re going to do, but we’re not leaving. We’re not giving up. Not after we’ve come this far.”
“Mrrrrowr,” Squeaker agrees. But she also just might want out of my clinging grasp.
Gwenna takes a deep breath and then jumps to her feet, pacing the room. “All right, then. We’re not leaving. We’re still going to join the guild. So if those twits won’t let you in the front door to join the guild, how do we get in the side door? Who do we know that we can pull connections with?”
For a moment, I stare at her in awe. Of course we’re not giving up. It’s time to enact another plan. I’m humbled by her faith in me, and new tears threaten, but I blink them away. Just like Gwenna isn’t a hugger (gods, I could really use a hug right now), she’d hate crying even more. And those horrible men aren’t worth crying over. “I don’t know,” I admit. “I don’t know what we do from here. Father no longer sponsors a guild Five because we haven’t the funding. Even if he did, we couldn’t approach them because I’m not supposed to be here.”
“Right.” She pauses, drumming her fingers on her crossed arms, thinking. “Well, perhaps we should find out where they drink and seduce our way into the school. A man with a tired cock can’t refuse a woman anything she asks.”
Seduction?
Me?
It’s…not a bad plan. If she was suggesting this to anyone other than me, it’d be an excellent plan. As it is, I’m not sure I’m the right person for the job. “How am I supposed to seduce someone? Sit on them and recite Old Prellian poetry until they give in? I don’t know the first thing about being appealing to men. The only experience I’ve had is with Barnabus.”
And I can’t trust any of it.
My cat twists in my arms, digging in her claws, and I let her go. Squeaker abandons me, leaving behind floating bits of fur in her wake, and I cough, waving a hand in the air to clear it.
“All right. Not seduction, then.” Gwenna continues to pace, thinking. “But if we can find out where the guild men drink, perhaps we can bribe or trick one into getting us in.”
“I’m not sure that’s going to work,” I tell her, uncertain. “They seemed pretty against women overall.”
“Because they were in a group,” she says, all confidence. “Men say very different things when they’re alone with a woman.”
This sounds suspiciously like seduction again. But I don’t have any other plan, and I don’t want to give up, so we might as well give it a try. Find a nice man at a bar. Talk to him. Get him to realize how much this means to me and see if he can’t persuade them to let me in. I don’t have the funds for bribery, but there are other things I can do. I can read and translate. I know how to deal with holder nobility. I’m very good at etiquette. I have an excellent grasp of Old Prellian history.
And if nothing else seems to be effective, perhaps tits will work.
We argue over who will stay with the luggage and the cat. Gwenna wants to go with me as I head out into Vastwarren City after dark, and I would love for her to accompany me as well, but I also don’t want to abandon our things.
“Let’s go downstairs and talk to the innkeeper,” she suggests. “Maybe she’ll know something and we can go from there.”
It’s a good compromise, and a short time later, we’re downstairs in the raucous tavern room. There’s a woman in the corner shouting a story at a nearby man, a large mug of ale in her hand. Two other men watch her with annoyance, and there looks to be a family tucked away at a table in the corner, by the hearth. The room is dimly lit and smells of smoke; the battered tables are greasy and look as if they haven’t been cleaned in years. Behind the bar, the innkeeper leans against a cask of ale, talking to a man seated by himself at the bar. He looks…unsavory, and I nudge Gwenna to make sure we keep a safe distance between us and him.
We settle at the other end of the bar, near the door, and the woman in the corner gets louder. “AND THEN I WALLOPED HIM,” she howls. “SHOULDA SEEN HIS FACE!”
I wince delicately and wait for someone to tell her to calm down, but no one does. Perhaps this is a normal occurrence here. That’s…worrying.
The innkeeper saunters over to us, and I’d swear she’s wearing the same clothing as yesterday, stains and all. She slaps at the counter with her wet rag, and it’s the same one, too, and smells awful. I swallow hard and decide to breathe through my mouth.
“Y’hungry?” she asks us.
Oh, by the five gods, I don’t think I’ll eat anything in this place again. I try not to stare at the dishrag in horror. “We are seeking information—”
Gwenna puts her hand on mine, shaking her head. “What my friend here is trying to say is that we’re looking for men. Guild men.”
The barkeep eyes us as if we’re fortune hunters. “Mm-hmm. I suppose it’s that time of year.”
What in the Lady’s name does that mean? I open my mouth to protest, but Gwenna stomps on my foot. “Can you think of a better time to find a good man?” She beams at the woman. “Don’t suppose you know where we might introduce ourselves to a few of them? See if they’re lonely?”
See if they’re lonely ? Good gods.
The innkeeper shrugs. She swipes at the counter with that nasty rag again, sending a fresh wave of scent in our direction, and I press a finger under my nose as if it will make a difference. “You can ask the loud one in the corner,” the woman says. “She’ll know everyone at the guild. And if you get her out of my inn before she breaks something, I’ll be mighty grateful.”
I turn my head, craning to look at the woman in the corner with new interest. She’s currently in a drinking contest with another man, both of them with their mugs tilted back and beer spilling down their faces. From what I can see of her, though, she looks to be about the same age as Gwenna and myself, though she’s wearing a pair of trousers and a dark blouse that is about to be completely soaked.
“Thank you.” Gwenna puts a penny on the counter and then grabs me by the arm, hauling me across the tavern room toward the carousing woman in the back. We march up to her table, and Gwenna speaks again, holding me against her. “Scuse me, miss—”
The woman slams her near-empty mug down on the wooden tabletop, splashing us with the remnants of her beer. She looks over at us, then opens her mouth and gives the most unholy belch in all of history.
“That’s very impressive,” I say politely, since I’m not sure what else to say. “Good job.”
“Nasty,” Gwenna agrees, waving a hand in the air. “You the one who knows all the guild people?”
The woman shrugs. Her blond hair is wet around her face, and I suspect it’s from beer and sweat. Tendrils hang over her eyes and I resist the urge to push them out of her way. She’s younger than I originally assumed and can’t be more than twenty, perhaps twenty-two. “Maybe. Who wants to know?”
“Me. I want to join the guild,” I blurt out.
The man across from the blonde spews his beer out of his mouth, showering us with more booze, and then laughs as if it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard.
I’ve had enough. I grab the drink from his hand and dump it over his head. “I don’t think it’s funny, you rockhead.”
The room gets quiet, and then the blonde laughs even harder. “I like you,” she declares. “Come and join our game.” She gestures roughly at the man sitting across from her. “Get out of here, Jallus.”
He gets up and leaves, and the woman pounds on the table, indicating we should sit across from her.
“Oh, I don’t drink—”
Both she and Gwenna turn to me.
I know when to shut up. I smile brightly instead. “Very well. Game it is.”
Gwenna and I squeeze onto the vacated bench across from the woman. I try to ignore the fact that my seat is wet, the table is, too, and I’m a little worried as the innkeeper comes over with three full mugs and drops them down in front of us.
“I’m Lark,” our new friend announces. “But not like the bird, because I’m told I haven’t earned it yet.” She rolls her eyes. “So it’s just…Lark. Like an adventure, I guess.” She lowers her head to her beer and slurps the foam off the top, then licks her lips. “You two looking for a guild hangout?”
I nod eagerly. “Yes!”
“Because you want a guild man?” She wrinkles her nose. “They’re arrogant pricks, but I guess if that’s your thing—”
“I already said I want to join the guild.”
“Oh, right.” Lark holds up a finger and then lifts her beer, chugging it. She sets the mug down with a thump and I wait for her to blow our hair back with another staggering belch, but she only sniffs and eyes us. “So where are you ladies from?”
I blink, because I don’t have a good answer. It didn’t occur to me to lie, but telling the truth seems too obvious, like I’ll be discovered for sure.
Gwenna steps on my foot under the table and takes control of the situation. “We’re coming in from the north. Yourself?”
Lark brightens, and not only because a refill is brought to her. “I came in from the south. Left my troupe because it was about time I came to Vastwarren.”
“Troupe?” I ask politely.
“Entertaining troupe. I was a sword juggler.” She starts to get to her feet and knocks over the bench she was seated upon, then staggers.
Gwenna grabs her arm, giving me a panicked look. “We believe you! No need for a demonstration.”
“Oh.” She hiccups. “All right.”
“So you must be good with a sword,” I venture, tensing until she sits down again. “That’s an excellent skill to have if you’re looking to join the guild.”
Lark grimaces. “Alas, the only skill I have with the sword is actually juggling it, and I don’t think the ratlings would be much impressed with that.”
“Ratlings? What’s a ratling?” Gwenna asks. “This is the first I’ve heard of such a thing.”
Oh, have I not told Gwenna about the dangers of our soon-to-be profession? “You know the tunnels below Vastwarren? The Everbelow?”
“The ruins, aye.” Gwenna nods.
Lark leans in and mock-whispers, “They’re totally crawling with these huge, oversized rats.” She flings her arms out and stretches them as far as she can to indicate the size, then frowns and twists her body sideways, trying to indicate height. “That tall. Big. Nasty. Smelly. And they swarm.”
The look Gwenna shoots me is one of alarm. “No one’s ever mentioned ratlings to me.”
“I’m sure they’re not as common as they seem,” I say, dismissing her fear. From what I’ve heard, cave-ins are far more likely. “But this is why everyone who joins the guild learns sword work.”
“Mucking lovely,” Gwenna mutters. “Human-sized rats.”
“More like child-sized,” Lark corrects. “Or slitherskin-sized.” She lifts her beer and chugs it until she drains it, then pounds on her chest and lets out an unholy belch. “So you two wanna join the guild?”
“We’ve said that, yes.” I give her a tactful smile, but it takes everything I have not to fan the air in front of my face to get rid of the burp smell.
“Three times,” Gwenna adds helpfully. “Should you be drinking this much?”
Lark shrugs. “You’re not drinking enough, if you ask me.”
Because I want Lark to be happy with us, I lift my beer and take a sip. And then I cough. By Asteria, that is the worst flavor. It tastes like piss, a far cry from the expensive wines of my father’s hold. But I smile between coughs and take another drink—or pretend to. Gwenna seems unbothered, taking a large swig and then swiping at her foamy lip.
“I went to the guild meeting this morning,” I tell Lark. “Just like the guild pamphlets say to do. And before I could even sit down, they kicked me out. Said I didn’t belong because I was a woman. That I’d be distracting to the others in the tunnels.”
“Cocks,” Lark swears viciously. “Cocks, all of them.”
I’m a little startled by her vehemence, but Gwenna giggles and takes a larger drink of her beer. “I like her,” she says, leaning over to me.
“I’ve met several, and they’re all cocks,” Lark continues, swiping my mug and taking a drink. She really is quite drunk, if her glassy eyes are any indication. “Specially the leader. He’s the biggest cock of them all.”
“Is his name Rooster?” I ask.
She pounds on the table and then points at me. “Yes! How did you know?”
“Because that’s who I met.” My heart sinks and I start to worry this is going to be all for nothing. Not that Lark isn’t fun. Gwenna’s having a great time, and Lark seems nice, if a little beer-happy. “He’s the one who told me I couldn’t join.”
“That cock,” Lark says again with a shake of her head. She waves at the innkeeper. “More beer for us! We’ve dealt with too many COCKS today.” She shouts the word across the inn.
Gwenna just snort-giggles into her beer.
“I don’t know what to do,” I confess, my hands curling around my half-full mug of beer. “This was the plan—to show up and get accepted into the guild trainee program. I don’t have the funds to bribe someone.”
“Oh, that’s easy,” Lark says. “You can join my fledgling group. We need five and right now we’ve got four. The two of you join and that makes five!”
“That makes six,” Gwenna corrects.
Lark squints at her.
Gwenna shakes her head and reaches over to pat Lark’s hand. “Just keep drinking. So how do you know we can join your class if the guild leader said no?”
“And how is it you can join and you’re a woman?” I protest. This doesn’t seem fair. Lark’s going to be a trainee?
Lark beams at the innkeeper when she arrives with three more mugs of beer. She pays the woman and hugs her beer to her chest, sighing happily. “I’m going to miss you,” she tells it. “So, so much.”
“Is it going somewhere?” I ask.
“Can’t drink when you’re a fledgling,” she says, and then takes another hearty swig. “That’s why I’m celebrating tonight.”
“So you are a fledgling.” Lark belches an affirmative, and I cover my nose with my sleeve. “How did you get in when they turned me away?”
“Oh, that’s an easy one. It’s my aunt’s class and she promised my mother. I figure we won’t be distracting all the cocks if we’re a party of girls.” She wiggles her eyebrows and then looks thoughtful. “Though there is a slitherskin in the class. Oh, and a man, actually. But once he finds out there’s more women, I bet he leaves. He won’t be able to stand the shame of us walking around with lady parts in his presence.”
“Men do get weird around women,” Gwenna agrees.
I’m about to agree, too, when I realize what Lark’s just said. “Wait…you said it was your aunt’s class? But only guild masters can teach. How is this possible? Magpie is the only woman in the current roster.”
Lark swipes at her mouth and then beams at us. “Magpie’s my aunt. She’s gonna be my teacher. Our teacher.”
Surely…surely I can’t be that lucky? For the first time since arriving here in Vastwarren City, I feel a surge of excitement.