14. THEY NEVER CAME BACK #2
Gwen cleared her throat. ‘So … there was no evil sorceress at all? Just an ordinary witch in a cottage by the woods?’
Bingleton shook his head, clutching at the arms of the chair. ‘Oh, there was evil, all right.’ His eyes flicked between Gwen and Isobelle and he gave a theatrical shudder. ‘She did go mad and start attacking people. Ask any of the townsfolk.’
‘We can’t ask the townsfolk,’ Isobelle reminded him. ‘They clam up every time we try.’
Bingleton considered that, looking rather gloomy.
‘Oh, I know … you ladies haven’t yet visited our hot springs, and I do particularly want your thoughts on it, miss …
sir … Gwen. Old Gargery oversees the springs, and he’s the one you’ll want to talk to about the witch.
He lives outside of town, maybe he won’t be as reticent as the others.
You can kill two birds with one stone … experience the delightful springs and get your fill of old stories. ’
Despite her annoyance at Lord Bingleton’s complicated relationship with objective truth, Gwen felt herself brightening a little.
She’d never been to a hot spring, but she’d had a few hot baths while living at the castle, and had found the act of submerging herself in hot water utterly magical.
She cast a sidelong look at Isobelle, expecting to see her perking up at the thought of spending the evening soaking.
But Isobelle was gazing intently at Bingleton, her fists clenched against the arms of her chair, and there was a strangely grim determination in the set of her features.
She’s taking this whole ‘town under a spell’ thing far too seriously, Gwen thought, and reached out to lay a hand over Isobelle’s.
The other girl flinched, glanced at her, and then drew a long breath. ‘What a splendid idea. The hot springs. That’s where we’ll go next.’
They rose, turning to leave. Gwen lingered by Isobelle, hoping to catch her elbow and ask once more what was bothering her. But Lord Bingleton was right on their heels, fidgeting and watching them somewhat anxiously.
‘Um, you won’t tell anyone that I made most of this stuff up, will you?’
The afternoon was nearly over by the time they were ready to depart for the springs.
It took longer than Gwen had hoped to get moving, but Isobelle had spent quite some time digging through her trunks, strewing clothes around her room, before she conceded she had not brought a bathing costume.
Gwen reminded her that Bingleton had said the hot springs staff would provide them with everything they needed, but Isobelle was sure she could not have neglected such an obvious part of her wardrobe.
She seemed to be in possession of three pairs of dancing shoes, a bonnet from Freya’s Fashion Emporium, advertising the sponsor of the Tournament of Dragonslayers, and a beekeeper’s veil, but that was the sort of thing that was wont to happen when Olivia wasn’t there to do the packing.
Gwen entertained herself by offering crumbs to the tavern’s cat, a portly ginger tom. But though he’d been amenable to this in the past, this time he backed up, hissed and turned to disappear down the stairs with more speed than she’d have thought him capable of.
Both girls gazed after him, caught by surprise.
‘Everyone’s a critic,’ Isobelle said lightly, dumping a pile of clothes on the floor and abandoning her search.
By the time they’d collected the girls from the inn, deposited Orson and Tabitha at the bar – why would I want to sit around stewing in hot water? he’d asked with a sniff – and set off for the springs, Gwen was more than ready for some relaxation.
Along the road, someone had erected a large wooden sign declaring that this was the way to the Dragonsfire Pools. The girls, who had been walking ahead of Gwen and Isobelle, had stopped to look at it.
Gwen glanced up at it, and then stopped short, horror and indignation flooding every particle of her being.
On the giant sign was a portrait of her, larger than life, with the words: ‘Forsooth, the Lady Dragonslayre Always Taketh a Soake Wyth Us After a Longe Daye’s Smytinge of Foul Beastes!’
But even that wasn’t what had stopped her dead.
Isobelle, at her side, was trying to conceal her laughter. ‘Well … you look very, um, dashing. I mean, it’s quite a look, really.’
The board showed Gwen wielding a sword and wearing armour – but no armour like she’d ever seen.
The helmet was more of a tiara, with her unbound hair whipping around her face as if in a gale.
The articulated shoulders she’d designed were there, but her arms were bare down to the wrist, where delicate little vambraces gleamed like bracelets.
The hip joints were there and, though they looked more skirt-like than anything else, the faulds were there, too.
Beneath that, her legs were as bare as her arms but for implausibly skintight metal boots – heeled boots – that went up to her knees.
The sword was practically no longer than a dagger, a delicate little thing that wouldn’t have taxed the apparent strength of those smooth, un-muscled, unscarred bare arms.
And the breastplate … was a goddamned breast plate. And one made for someone with quite a lot more flesh in that particular area than Gwen could boast, to boot.
Gwen could scarcely speak for fury, and managed to sputter, ‘No one in their right mind would wear – I mean, one good blow to the chest, and that ridge would shatter my breastbone – what the fuck, we have to … who …’
‘I wouldn’t mind having a portrait of myself in a costume like that,’ Jane said, gazing up at the figure on the billboard, who held a most improbable pose, half turned around, chest thrust out in a way that would’ve required double-jointed hips and shoulders, and a good number of missing internal organs.
Gwen rounded on Jane, managing not to snap, but instead making an agonised sound of helpless indignation.
Hilde and Sylvie took one look at Gwen’s face and grabbed Jane’s hands to lead her firmly onward, despite the latter’s protests.
Isobelle slid her arm through Gwen’s and squeezed. ‘Ignore it. We can ask them to take it down, but they’ll just put it back up again when we leave. It doesn’t matter, they don’t know you.’
‘No one who sees this will ever take me seriously as anything other than … than … a puffed-up pastry sweet for the eyes!’
‘There are worse things than eye candy,’ Isobelle mused, sneaking another look at the portrait. Then she stretched up on her toes and pressed her lips to Gwen’s flushed, angry cheek. ‘Gwen, the moment someone actually meets you, they’ll realise this caricature bears no resemblance to the real you.’
Gwen let Isobelle lead her on, but could not stop herself from adding, ‘And what the hell was that knitting needle of a sword? For fuck’s sake, are men so precious about size that a woman can’t hold a full-sized sword without threatening their manhood?’
Isobelle made soothing noises the rest of the way to the hot springs. Gwen wanted to hold on to her fury – and she certainly wasn’t letting go of her outrage – but it was hard to fully commit to blind rage with Isobelle leaning against her and chatting excitedly about having a nice soak.
The entrance to the hot springs was nestled down by the cliffs, which blocked the ever-looming tower from their line of sight, and promised a spectacular view of the sunset.
A pair of staff in matching faux-chainmail costumes greeted them with a poorly memorised speech about the power of dragonsfire, no doubt scripted by the creative, if rather trite, Lord Bingleton.
They were eyeing Gwen a little oddly, one of them in particular – perhaps it was simply because she was still scowling about the board.
‘So intense was the flame of an ancient dragon that it scored this land and left these pools forever scalding hot …’ droned one of their guides, as Gwen’s attention began to wander.
She felt Isobelle’s gaze on her, and gave a little roll of the eyes to show her that this mention of dragonsfire was somewhat unlikely to trigger Gwen’s fear response. Isobelle grinned and slipped her hand into Gwen’s.
Their guides marched in somewhat ragged unison down a tunnel that would no doubt eventually look like the maw of a dragon, although currently only three of the teeth had been constructed and fixed into place.
The tunnel widened into an open-air grotto marked by several different pools nestled in among greenery, flickering torches and the distant, urgent plunking of frogs.
Broad stone steps led to other pools higher up the path, and scattered around the edges were lounge chairs draped with fresh fluffy towels.
Steam rose from the hot water into the chill air, like smoke wafting from the coals of an ancient fire.
Luckily their guides provided them with bathing outfits, and led them to small, curtained alcoves where they could change.
Gwen dimly heard Isobelle asking one of them about Gargery, the man Lord Bingleton had told them to question about the witch, but she dived into one of the changing rooms as soon as she could.
She’d never changed her clothes so quickly in her life, starting to shiver, and yet by the time she flung the curtain aside, Hilde, Jane and Sylvie were already up to their chins in the first pool, wearing matching expressions of bliss.
Jane cracked open one eye, and then sat up straighter with a slosh of water, staring.
‘Whoa, Gwen,’ she said. ‘You look amazing.’