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Bede approaches, casting a wary glance at the cook’s departing figure. She’s carrying two bowls of stew, one of which she holds out to me.
“Thank you.” I set down the tea, pocket the coins, and accept the food. Though I don’t feel hungry, I should eat something if I’m going to travel anywhere tonight. Determined, I shove a spoonful of stew into my mouth.
Bede sits down as well and begins to eat. She makes some odd noises during the process, and I become painfully aware of how much I use my tongue to manage and manipulate food when I’m chewing and swallowing. The King took not only her powers of speech, but her ability to enjoy a good meal, too. It’s such a basic human pleasure, and it makes me furious that she’ll never experience food the same way again.
“Can you taste anything?” I ask.
She manages to swallow, then holds up her forefinger and thumb, slightly apart. A little.
As the Mistress Moorne said, people like Bede are suffering beneath the King’s terrible rule every day. Who am I to ask them to suffer longer so I can rescue Rupert? The King could do so much damage in a couple of weeks. Who knows how many of the remaining maids and House staff he will punish cruelly, out of pure spite, because his collection of concubines has escaped his grasp?
Yet I can’t persuade myself to let the uprising happen now, to give up on Rupert altogether. He never gave up on me, even before he really knew me—even with all the risks.
I have to do this. I have to try.
“As soon as I’m done eating, I have to go,” I tell Bede quietly. “I have to leave the city tonight. There’s something I have to do... a journey I must take.”
Bede taps her chest, nodding quickly at me.
“You want to come?”
Again she nods.
“It’s going to be dangerous. A hard journey, with an uncertain end.”
She raises both eyebrows and tilts her chin down, looking at me so insistently that I chuckle a little.
“Fine, you can come along,” I tell her. “I’ll teach you more Elvensign on the way.”
22
Getting out of the city isn’t difficult, thanks to the cook’s direction and her rebel friend at the canal gate. But there are no carriages or horses to be hired at this time of night, so Bede and I spend a harrowing several hours walking through the tufted grass by the side of the road, with only faint moonlight to illuminate the way. I’ve never done such a thing, and I’m sure we’ll be waylaid by bandits or captured by soldiers long before we reach the next town. I’m glad of Bede’s silent presence. If I were alone, I don’t think I could manage the trek without breaking down.
Blisters form on our feet from the ill-fitting footwear we were gifted. Halfway through the night, I switch my clogs for Rupert’s boots.
But despite the darkness, the blisters, and my fear, we make it to the next village and hire a pair of horses. Then comes the day-long ride to Lensterhaven, with more chafing and blisters, particularly along my inner thighs. Whenever I feel like complaining about it, I think of Rupert and what he might be enduring at the King’s hands. My grief and anger over his fate stirs me up, carries me through the physical discomfort and the hours of riding.
We arrive at Lensterhaven too late to enter the town—the gates have already been shut for the night. But the transport service from which we hired the horses has a station outside the wall, so we pause there first to return our mounts. The manager checks the horses over and proclaims them in decent shape. I’m relieved that he doesn’t require any additional fees, because I have just enough money left for one room at a shabby inn and a meager breakfast for Bede and me.
We have nothing but the clothes on our backs, but when we arrive on foot at the tiny inn near the transport station, the innkeeper takes pity on us and gives us a bar of soap, several clean handkerchiefs, and a bag of clothes and personal items that guests left behind. We claim what we can use and return the rest the next morning, after better sleep than I expected. I suppose I was so weary from travel that not even my anxiety about Rupert could keep me awake.
When we leave the inn, we find the gates of Lensterhaven wide open, admitting farmers with produce carts, traveling merchants, fishmongers, and a few travelers like ourselves. No one asks our business as we enter the town.
It’s a bustling place, with narrow buildings crammed against each other along crooked streets. I suppose it sees plenty of traffic since it’s so near Giltos.
Now we must visit all the shoe shops, Bede signs to me. She has become an expert in Elvensign during our journey, and I’ve gained a fresh appreciation for her quick mind. The King had no idea what a treasure he’d relegated to maid-service. The speed with which she learned not only the signs for letters, but a vast quantity of words, is nothing less than a marvel. She would have been an asset to any court or household, and yet he had her changing linens and doing hair for his concubines. There is dignity in such work, of course—yet I can’t help believing Bede is capable of far more.
“Yes, we’ll have to check every cobbler and shoe shop,” I admit. “Rupert never told me the names of his friends, only that they were a pair of Elvish women masquerading as human.”
As luck would have it, there’s a cobbler on the main street. It’s run by an elderly gentleman, so it’s not the place we’re looking for—but as soon as I ask him about a married pair of skilled shoemakers, both women, he nods knowingly. “You want Enthel and Lannau of the ‘Jig and Heel,’” he says. “Down through the town center, across the bridge, take the second left and then a right. They’re the fourth shop on the left.”
“Thank you.” I hesitate, wishing I had something to give him for his help, but all I have is one coin, and we need that to fill our empty stomachs.
The old cobbler nods kindly and returns to prying the nails out of the sole of a worn shoe, while Bede and I leave his shop. We pause at a food stall on the street corner and exchange our last coin for a pair of boiled eggs and two small buttered buns, which we eat as we walk.
By the time we’ve devoured our breakfast and licked our fingers, we’re within sight of the shop the old man mentioned—the “Jig and Heel.” Its sign is two smart leather boots, angled as if they’re dancing.
It’s early, but the shops along the street are beginning to open. A-frame signs are set out, doors are propped wide, proprietors step out to sweep their doorsteps and call greetings to each other. It’s a fresh, clear morning, with the kiss of an early fall chill.
