Chapter 4
Finding the right moment to approach his first potential research participants proved tricky, however.
Initially intending to make his swift introduction after Honey checked in the new guests, Ainsworth’s plan was foiled when the traveler insisted that Honey join him outside with Ashe and his sister to settle the horses.
“I’d like you to get a good look at them and their temperament before deciding if you can keep and work them until we charge someone with collecting them after our journey.
” With a wink at Ainsworth, who had somewhat awkwardly risen in his attempt to approach them, he swiftly vanished out the front door.
Honey raised a brow as Ainsworth lingered.
“Don’t you have work to do, scholar?” Before he could reply and make his intentions known, she added, “Let them get settled in first before you make your research request. I know you don’t need my permission, but surely an academic such as yourself is well-versed in manners? ”
“Very well,” Ainsworth said, throwing up his hands.
But his heart was not in the task of tackling the attic chaos and slowly collecting the illegible, damp remains of scrolls and manuscripts.
He needed to patch the window, at least, to stop more water creeping in, but until then he would make do by bringing some of the boxes down to his room before any further damage could be done.
It would be more pleasant working through the contents in the warm, clean bedroom he resided in anyway.
And although normally the idea of working through such fragile documents near the heat of a fire would have him recoiling, there was no one here to supervise him, no one to tell him off for taking such a risk.
An hour later, he shivered in the cold, dank air of the attic as he clambered across the mess to grab another box.
Ainsworth wrinkled his nose and placed a lace handkerchief over his mouth as he breathed in.
He would surely catch some illness amid all the damp and mold.
Yes, better indeed to work in his guest room until he could improve things up here.
Lazy. Weak-willed.
He grimaced, almost able to hear the rebuke Enach would utter should he be here to witness Ainsworth’s behavior.
But those things that, yes, Enach had said before, Ainsworth reminded himself, were said in anger.
People always said things they didn’t mean in the heat of an argument, and that particular argument—like so many of them—had been a blazing, uncontrolled bonfire.
Ainsworth pulled out his small pocket watch, the gold chain clinking pleasantly as it unfolded.
His favored constellation was engraved across the back of it, each star an embedded spright-diamond that briefly shone when he caressed his thumb across them.
This was how Enach really felt, how much he valued Ainsworth.
He recalled the press of the watch into his hands during their early, hazy days of infatuation.
How Enach, his pointed ears flushed red, had stolen a kiss from Ainsworth among the shelves afterward.
Glancing at the time, he put the watch back in his pocket and continued his organizing.
A couple of hours later, he made his way down the rickety steps, a heavy box of what he assumed to be logbooks and accounts bundled in his arms. He was not as out of breath as he once might have been—thanks in part, he thought, to the trek he had embarked upon to reach the inn in the first place.
He intended to place the box safely and snugly under his bed, get his fire going for a small pot of tea brewed with the dried ficklebell leaves Bren had so kindly allowed him to take to his room, and unwind for a few moments before heading down to introduce himself to the new arrivals.
He should also take care to clean himself up, he thought grimly, noting the smudges of dust on his arms, his knees, and most likely his face, due to his constant wiping away of sweat.
As he approached the door and tried to work out which hand he could momentarily free from beneath the box to turn the handle, it opened.
A white-furred face looked back toward the room. “Do not make a mess, Figius! We must be considerate of our—”
Ainsworth let out a cry and stumbled back as she walked into his box, almost losing his balance. Swiftly, she reached out and snatched his shoulder with a soft, firm hand. “Woah, sir! Watch yourself!”
“I should say so of you as well!” Ainsworth huffed, righting himself.
“Who is it, Fern?” called a familiar, jovial voice from within.
“Who is it indeed?” Fern asked, appraising Ainsworth with an admiring look as she took in his blond hair and antlers. “My, aren’t you a pretty one! You must be the scholar—Gladsly?”
“I—” He was flustered at her boldness, and her gaze seemed to pierce through every inch of him. “Yes, I— That’s me. I’m Ainsworth Gladsly.”
“Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Ains. My name is Fern Felyday.”
“Ah, nice to meet you. Yes, I am the scholar from the Skarrow Library—and I prefer Ainsworth, if you please,” he added, keeping his tone polite, unbothered.
His mother and father had called him Ains, as did Enach.
It seemed an intimacy he was unwilling to share with strangers.
“I was hoping to stow this box away. May I enter and…?” He jerked his head toward the heavy box.
Fern held out an arm and gestured him inside.
She was about the same height as he was, and judging by the large, stooping figure of Figius by the fire, he imagined her brother would not fall much shorter than his antlers.
Figius turned from his business—making tea, as it happened, with the supply Ainsworth had so happily stowed next to the hearth last night—and welcomed Ainsworth into his own bedroom.
“Good day! I hope you do not mind sharing your space with us, but it saved us a few coins since one of three beds was already occupied. You know how it is!” boomed the cat-mhith.
“The name’s Fig. Nice to meet you, Ainsworth.
The innkeeper told us a bit about you. You’re documenting the inn, yes?
How marvelous! Do you like to write? My, what fine inks you have! Are they expensive?”
Fig did not seem to notice that Ainsworth hadn’t the time to think of the answer to one, never mind all, of the questions he had thrown at him.
His encounters with cat-mhith scholars had led Ainsworth to believe they were a quiet, secretive folk, but the siblings currently making themselves at home in his room were a reminder not to make assumptions about people.
Well, Ainsworth mused, it certainly was not “his” room anymore.
The mess the siblings had made was akin to the state of the attic.
He did not object to all of the additions, though—especially not the fresh-picked flowers sitting in the water jug on the window, the delicate white and butter-yellow petals leaning against the glass as though peering at the mountain in the distance.
Ainsworth lifted a small bag that was not his somewhat awkwardly off his bed, moved it onto the floor, and put his box in its place. “What you got there?” Fern said from the door. Whatever errand she had been on her way to do seemed forgotten in the wake of his arrival.
“Whatever I can salvage from the attic,” he replied. “I intend to make an archive of sorts, organizing the guest logs, accounts, and written passages of the inn’s history, and then craft a legible history of it myself.”
“How wondrous!” Fig remarked, turning finally from the small pots of ink by Ainsworth’s bedside table.
Ainsworth noted, with a small inward grimace, that they were now out of place, and a splotch upon Fig’s sleek, furred wrist suggested he had performed quite a thorough inspection.
“So you shall author a book, then? I have met many authors on my travels, and I am enamored with your ability to digest the world with quill and ink. It seems to me that life passes in a blur, and trying to look back and decipher it is like chasing smoke in the breeze.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Ainsworth remarked, slightly doubting the reliability of his first potential research subject. “But it is not just the Misnich Inn and its history I seek to immortalize. I also seek accounts from adventurers.”
“Now, there’s a book I’d read,” said Fern, who perched upon her own bed at the opposite side of the room. “What accounts exist so far? Do they have any tips for us?” Her eyes were wide, hungry.
Ainsworth met her stare. “Well, that’s rather what I was hoping you’d help me with.
There exists no formal account of any adventurers who have taken on Mount Vengeance—whether seeking the dragon or going face-to-face with the beasts that roam its slopes to prove the worth of their adventuring group.
Nothing is in our official records hall, nor are there any renowned songs to celebrate specific heroes.
Which is rather outrageous, no? It’s the kind of territory that lets heroes shine.
I mean, we’ve all heard of Tormod, haven’t we? ”
Fig and Fern gasped in delight and broke into song simultaneously. “Forever there was, a shadow upon, the Forest of the Dawn—!”
“And everyone knows, how Tormod rose, to take the darkness down…!” Ainsworth continued—trailing off, he hoped, with enough finality that the siblings would not seek to finish the rather lengthy tale of the heroic orc who had saved the souls of poor wandering travelers snatched by the ravenous trees of the Dawn Forest. He shivered slightly as he recalled the tale.
Tormod’s exploits had taken place more than two centuries ago, and yet you would be hard-pressed to find those across the kingdom who did not know his name.
“Exactly. Yet nothing exists of Mount Vengeance. There is no such heroic figure. Of course, there have doubtless been gallant and brave adventurers, but it seems no bard or historian has received their accounts to record them.”