Chapter 17
While Ainsworth felt a tad guilty about his contentment—because at least four of the inn’s staff were rushed off their feet because of him—he had to admit that the lively, jovial evenings in the tavern, now that there was more life about the place, were a highlight of his day.
Over the following week, the visitors continued to stream in.
Each night, there were no less than six people wishing to experience the delights of the Misnich Inn, which Honey usually supplemented by acting as bard for the evening.
Alvea ensured that fine food was provided in abundance alongside whatever drink Bren put in front of guests.
Some guests liked to explore Spin’s wondrous garden, with the gardener herself anxiously waiting by the gate to be sure no one swiped anything. (They had not so far, thankfully.)
Honey did seem to be enjoying the coins thrown her way.
As did Quiddle, who was thrilled with his new income and became extra charming and affable, eager to earn more to send to his father back home.
Ruraidh, too, was benefiting financially, although he frantically complained to Honey when the first coins were left in a room overnight, with a note for him to receive it.
“I—I already get paid! Honey, please can I catch up with these people on their journey home and return it?”
“I’ll have it if you don’t want it!” Quiddle had cried in outrage, and after Honey had recovered from laughing, she said that Ruraidh had earned it, and that if he insisted on not wanting it for himself, then the next time he visited Wenslykirk he could make some purchases for all of them.
“Like…the scented candles? The lavender ones? We would all benefit from that, right?” Ruraidh had asked, eyes aglow. Honey had assured him it was a purchase they would all love, but Ainsworth knew she would encourage him to keep them in his room for his own use.
That evening, after finishing a particularly lengthy song about the first king and queen of Saltquart (to help with Quiddle’s newfound interest in the subject), Honey sat down on the chair opposite Ainsworth with a sigh of exhaustion.
“I am quite finished singing for tonight, I think!” She wiped sweat from her brow.
“I forget how hot it gets in here with so many people! But Ashe will not allow us to leave the door open at night, and Bren refuses to have a room with no fire, so…” She gave a good-natured shrug.
Ainsworth refrained from reminding her that this was her inn and she could organize it how she saw fit, because Honey was not like that, and the Misnich Inn was not some sort of hierarchically ordered institution like the Skarrow Library.
Before, the impulse to make comments such as those would have been pressing, but it now took little effort to hold his tongue.
What good did comments like that do to anyone anyway?
“You were wonderful, as always,” Ainsworth said truthfully. Honey only sang when guests were here, and it was one of the main reasons he enjoyed the evenings so much. “You sing the tale of the victorious battle against the last of the Great Sweep dragons beautifully.”
“Oh my, I did not realize you were a scholar of the arts, too,” she teased. “It would most likely take an expert ear to truly understand my brilliance and talent.”
He did not object to her jest. She was brilliant and talented. More people deserved to know. The inn should be bursting with guests every night, he thought, and people should return to their homes and their travels full of tales about Honey’s hospitality and magnificence.
To that end, Ainsworth hoped to hear about the Transportation Circle application soon. Frustratingly, the only way they would find out if it were successful would be if a sorcerer came strolling down the hill to provide them with the license coordinates.
“I am just going to grab wine from the bar. Would you like some?” Honey asked.
Ainsworth shook his head. “No thanks, I still have some ale left.”
“Great,” said Honey, standing. She glanced over to the floor where Ashe was now setting up with her lute and Bren was perched on a stool, warming up his fiddle. “Would you…? Ah—I’ll be back in a moment, then!”
“All right,” Ainsworth replied, somewhat puzzled by her demeanor. Perhaps she truly was exhausted from singing all night.
Almost as soon as Honey left, one of the guests approached him. “Excuse me, Ainsworth?” she said as Ashe and Bren jumped into the rhythm of a rather upbeat song. The ale was getting to him; he started tapping his foot in time with vigor.
“Good evening, Tryll!” Ainsworth beamed in response.
She had arrived that morning with two others, and Ainsworth understood they were one of the families who ran a store in Wenslykirk.
They must have given in to curiosity to see the inn whose needs they always supplied. “Are you enjoying your evening?”
“Why, yes.” She grinned. “But I’d enjoy it even more if you danced with me.”
Without waiting for a reply, she grabbed his hand and tugged with such alarming strength he practically flew out of his seat.
“Wait!” he cried, laughing, making sure his drink did not fly off the table with him.
Tryll eased up slightly, then turned to hold his hand with both of hers and firmly led him to the floor.
“You look like you’d be a good dancer,” she said, her cheeks and pointed ears flushed red with, presumably, the wine and the heat of the room.
He tugged at his shirt a little to let in some air and was startled when her eyes darted to his neck at the gesture.
Oh Matron! He was little more than prey to her on this fine evening.
Well. He could still dance for a bit, couldn’t he?
After a few weeks of revelry, he was now more accustomed to the lively, swirling dances that adventurers and tourists brought with them.
Wenslykirk had its own favored tune and dance, which Ashe and Bren were adept at playing.
It involved several rounds of stamping feet and clasping hands with your partner afterward, spinning for sixteen counts clockwise before returning the opposite way, then taking them by the arm and weaving in and out of the other couples.
Ainsworth ended up breathless and dizzy, his heart soaring as he spun around the room with Tryll.
She was almost of a height with him and excelled in the dance of her hometown.
It was delightful—more so than any formal dance he had ever attended back in Hinslyth.
Here, no one cared if your hair had fallen out of place, if your clothes were a season out of date or cheaply made, or if you had a splash of ale on your shirt.
The music was utterly liberating, and made Ainsworth feel like he was, somehow, home.
“My turn next!” roared Alvea from across the room when the music stopped.
She strode over and snatched Ainsworth from Tryll’s grasp, as though he were a sweet grabbed from one child’s hand to another.
Tryll scowled, but Ainsworth paid little attention to her.
He and Alvea were firmly friends after the challenge, but he had not assumed she was so fond of him as to sweep him off his feet and onto the dance floor!
Alvea towered over Ainsworth and placed her hands on his shoulder as they moved in time to the music. “Gladsly?”
“Yes?”
“Are you stupid?”
She had swept him away from enjoyable company for this?
“Alvea!”
“I think you are, you know.”
“What do you—?”
She twirled him around, her arms long enough that he went under her hand with ease—antlers and all. “Didn’t you leave something behind at your table?”
“I— My ale?” he said. “But I can surely get another!”
“Oh Matron.” She rolled her eyes at him, and in the aftermath of his own spinning it made him fretfully dizzy. “You really are dense. You sure that library of yours didn’t send you here as some sort of exile?”
He had not the faintest idea what she was talking about, but he’d had rather too much ale to counter her. “Whatever are you getting at?”
She gave him one last spin as Bren and Ashe finished the jig. “Oh, nothing of any importance, apparently. Say, could you do me a favor?”
He stood straight, gathering his senses. “Well, I suppose—despite how your words have wounded me tonight!”
She gave a snort. Around them, the dancers dispersed to get drinks and other refreshments. Tryll lingered somewhat behind Alvea, as if trying to catch his eye. He found himself suddenly keen to avoid it.
“That’s the spirit. I’ve left my favorite bracelet in my room. Here’s the key to the staff quarters; would you go fetch it? It’s on my bedside table, and my room is the second to the right.”
“Alvea! I cannot go into the staff quarters,” Ainsworth protested.
For as long as he had been here, no one had invited him in there—and despite how close he was to the staff now, he respected that desire for privacy, for a degree of separation between their work life and their personal life.
He felt the same with his dwellings at the library.
His room in the Scholar Quarters was his own sacred sanctum.
Enach was the only one of his companions who had been inside it, and, well…
that was more a matter of convenience and privacy than any desire to share his personal space.
“I have to return to the kitchens and bring out the next round of appetizers. Come on, Gladsly! Just get it for me?”
He sighed and took the key she had been jabbing into his arm in her eagerness to have him take it. “Fine. But are you sure this is allowed?”
“It’s my room, isn’t it?” She took him by the shoulders, turned him around, and pushed him toward the corridor. “There’s a good lad. Thanks, Gladsly.”