11. Renard #4
The innkeeper nods and retrieves a key for the upstairs room. I place coins on the counter before either he or Vireth get into any kind of argument—idly, I think about Vireth’s sister and her easy merrymaking, and feel I am beginning to understand the appeal.
Of course, Nibblebones chooses that exact moment to flow from beneath Vireth’s cloak, snatch a sausage from a plate near the bar, and vanish beneath a bench.
The innkeeper stares after her.
“That,” he says slowly, “is not allowed.”
“She will remain with me,” Vireth insists. “And we’ve had an arduous journey.”
The innkeeper scowls until I add another coin.
“For the sausage,” I say.
“And the emotional distress?”
“Hmph,” I grunt. “That seems harder to calculate.”
The man snorts and gestures to a staircase tucked in the back, next to a stack of barrels that threatens to topple in a stiff breeze. Vireth whistles for Nibblebones, and I corner the stable boy at the entrance to slip him some more coins to ensure Magnar is well cared for.
We leave our packs upstairs and return to the common room for food. The stew is thick with mushrooms, barley, and root vegetables, served with coarse brown bread studded with chestnuts. Vireth eats with the fixed purpose of someone who has spent too many recent meals cold, frightened, or both.
I try not to watch, but it’s difficult. I enjoy the way she tucks into her food, the way her elegant neck moves when she swallows, and gods, the way her tongue darts out every now and then to lick a spare drop of broth that begins to escape. After a few moments, she notices my attention.
“It’s impolite to stare, especially at a lady eating. Were you not brought up to be a knight? Have your manners been buried in your fields along with your crops?”
I chuckle at that, but do not immediately reply.
“By the gods, what?”
“Nothing. You eat with admirable focus, is all.” Despite my best efforts, I cannot fight the tide of lust rising in my body. The way she devotes herself to this pleasure gives rise to the thought of her devoting herself to other pleasures with equal verve.
“I am hungry,” she practically growls, teeth tearing into a chunk of brown bread as though it will sprout legs and run away from her plate.
“As am I, but you devour with an enjoyment that I have only seen on some of the most dedicated gluttons.”
“And you feel compelled to observe this… why?”
“I observe many things, ’tis my nature.”
“Hmph,” she grunts, swiping a chunk of the craggy bread through the remnants of her stew. “Perhaps you should observe your own meal, or I shall bid Nibblebones to steal it for her and I to share.”
I hide a smile in my cup, and do as she suggests—though I save a chunk of gristly meat for the corpse weasel, who squeaks with delight.
When we finish filling our bellies, I am revived enough to ask the innkeeper about the seer. His face closes in the smallest way, reticent to offer any initial information. I have spent enough years watching men lie badly to recognize someone deciding which truth to withhold.
“What business have you with her?”
“That business is our own,” Vireth says.
“That’s not very helpful,” I murmur to her, but she shrugs.
The innkeeper looks between us again, slower this time. “She doesn’t see visitors.”
Vireth’s lips purse at that. “Does she see anyone?”
“When she must.”
“And where might she be found when she must?”
The man sighs. “Depends who’s asking.”
Vireth smiles, and it isn’t a comforting expression.
Thin trails of powdery yellow spores start to leak from her fingertips where they rest against the counter.
The innkeeper’s expression goes from surprise to burgeoning anger in a heartbeat.
Gods, if I don’t get a handle on this situation, we’ll never find the seer.
“I am asking, and I must see her, do you understand?” Vireth says, her fangs glinting in the firelight.
His gaze flicks to her hood, and something changes in his face, though I cannot quite name it. It’s not quite fear but more… resignation. I wonder how many come to this inn asking after the woman if this is the usual reply.
“Try the western ridge,” he says. “Past the tanner’s lane. If she wants you lost, you’ll end up lost. If she decides to see you, you won’t.”
This is remarkably less useful than I hoped, but Vireth seems unsurprised.
We step out into the chilly afternoon, agreeing to remain together rather than split up to cover more ground.
It’s difficult to feel at ease in this place with hungry gazes and distrust leaking from every person we stop.
The streets get narrower as we search, and the directions we receive are increasingly contradictory—or confusing altogether.
Down one alleyway, a girl selling chestnuts tells us the seer lives near the old shrine, which we later discover was demolished in an avalanche twenty winters prior.
After wandering in circles for another hour, an elderly man sitting outside a tavern insists he knows her well, but says she moved last winter.
When the shadows of early evening begin to lengthen, an older woman stirring dye in a steaming vat refuses to answer until Vireth compliments the color—a rather hideous brown—then points us toward the wrong bridge entirely.
Nibblebones attempts to assassinate several chickens near the lower market and has to be removed from beneath a cart while their owner shouts at us in a dialect I cannot begin to follow.
By late afternoon, both Vireth and I are exhausted, irritated, and no closer to finding the woman.
“I think,” I say as we climb a slick stairway cut between two leaning houses, “the people in this wretched village of fae enjoy tormenting outsiders.”
“This wretched village of fae?”
“You know what I mean.”
“No, please continue assigning me responsibility for every strange fae custom you encounter. It makes you so much more attractive.” The words leave her mouth before she realizes her mistake, then she snaps her jaw shut with an audible click.
I still, turning to look at her. She stalwartly keeps her attention fixed ahead, but pink blooms upon her cheeks in a way that makes me feel rather hopeless.
“You think I’m attractive?” I cannot hide my grin. It is the lightest my heart has felt in a long, long time.
Suddenly, Vireth slips—I manage to catch her by the elbow before she goes down. The cold has reddened her cheeks beneath the hood and one pale braid has come loose near her jaw, giving her a somewhat tumbled look.
Her gaze drops briefly toward my mouth, then she narrows her eyes.
“I think mayhap you are enjoying this too much.”
“I am well into my years, Lady Fae. I learned in my reckless youth to enjoy whatever pleasures life may offer whenever and however they’re offered, because none of us are guaranteed another sunrise.”
“Unless you are fae.”
“I suppose that is true,” I admit. Something of an awkward silence descends, until I realize I am still holding her upright.
She pulls away before either of us can say—or do—something unwise.
The final directions come from a butcher sharpening knives beneath a striped awning. He listens to Vireth’s question, looks at her hood, then points with the knife toward the edge of the village. Vireth nods once, throwing him a rare smile.
“If this isn’t the right way, I’m going back to the inn for a bath,” I grumble.
Dusk is settling early between the mountains. Smoke hangs low over the village, and windows begin to glow one by one behind us. The bustle of the village fades in the distance and the path narrows beneath undisturbed snow.
The seer’s house stands alone near the tree line, surrounded by a thready garden that probably looks magnificent in the spring.
A single window shines gold against the snow, flickering with the movement of someone within.
The cottage itself is small and crooked, with a roof sagging slightly on one side and bundles of wooden charms and dried plants hanging beneath the eaves.
Vireth slows, her fingers twisting in the fabric of her cloak.
“Nervous?” I ask.
“Yes.”
The plain honesty of the answer catches me off guard—I’d been expecting another haughty denial.
“Good,” I say, trying for her wry humor. “I was beginning to worry you weren’t taking this quite seriously enough.”
She lets out a breath that almost becomes a laugh, then shifts her shoulders back, lifts her hand and knocks.
For an interminably long moment, nothing happens. It’s long enough that I begin to suspect the villagers have sent us here for their own amusement, but then footsteps cross the floorboards inside, and the door opens slowly.
The woman standing there is much younger than I expected, though world-weary.
She is dressed in a simple brown shift, her long hair tied up in a bundle beneath a red kerchief decked with threadbare ribbons and small silver beads.
Her smile is as thin as she is, and small charms dangle from the sleeves of her dress, clicking softly when she moves.
Her gaze settles first on Vireth, then on me. No surprise enters her expression—something that I dislike immediately because of what it might mean.
“Ah,” she says softly.
Vireth goes still beside me, her hand suddenly reaching for mine. I squeeze hers, hoping to offer whatever she needs in this moment, be it reassurance or simply warmth.
The woman steps back from the doorway.
“I wondered how long it would take you to find me.”
Then she opens the door wider.
“You’d better come inside before the weather changes its mind again.”