Page 49 of A Baron of Bonds
“I filled her request as best I could.”
“He did not disappoint, and stood over me.”
“I might have passed out.”
“He slid to the floor, felled like a tree.”
“And when I awoke, she was there still.”
“Loving this good, I’d…never…foreseen.”
She slowed the last line and sang the last note long and high as the crowd gathered around to sway. At the last strum, the two performers paused, stepping closer and letting their lutes fall to their sides, their voices harmonizing slowly together to end their song.
“What began as a dalliance,”
“I’d forever preserve.”
“For she holds my heart,”
“And he’s what I deserve.”
I gasped and glanced at Rev who was already staring at me across the table.
Guilt swept through me for the hundredth time since I had left through that hole in the ground and my gaze softened.
He lowered his eyes to his upturned hand across the table, then back up to my face. I placed my own in his and he swept his thumb across my wrist, turning back to the performers.
I followed and grinned as they kissed on the stage, riling the crowd in cheers and whistles. Coins were thrown onto into an enormous hat below them.
“Here you are, friends.” The young man returned, placing two wooden bowls of a shimmering cream soup and two mugs of apple ale on the table. His pale complexion did not match the black tips of his fingers, nor the dark veins that ran up his wrists. I looked back to his face. He could not have been more than twenty, which would have made him a child during the Black Fever.
I realized I was staring and swiveled my head back down to the food he brought. Fighting back the sadness and anger that threatened to spill out of me, I gave my thanks and took a long swig of ale. It bubbled and fizzed in my mouth like a crisp apple exploding on my tongue and, surprised to enjoy the taste, I kept going, filling my belly with bubbles. I drained the large mug andslammed it on the table, out of breath and holding back a belch as I hiccuped instead, sweeping my sleeve across my mouth.
Rev’s lips were parted as he gave me a look of bemusement. I shrugged, picking up my spoon and dipping it into the stew filled with potatoes, soft, sweet onions, and enormous clams brought in from the nearby sea.
We ate together in our own silence, though the room was hardly that at all. The performers began a new duet, this time about companions trying not to kill each other, traveling from city to city.
It was witty and amusing, inciting even more of a stir of laughter and shouts from the crowd, but I kept my head down and ate. The alcohol seemed to swim through my veins and my almost empty stomach. It traveled down my legs, making them fuzzy before settling into my head. I was no longer able to concentrate on much as the sound of the songs seemed to play right next to me, yet far away. I looked up at Rev in an awed expression, my eyes wide and blinking in realization.
“Are you alright?”
I nodded, the movement sloshing my brain back and forth slowly as my vision tried to keep up.
“This ale is stronger than I expected. I’m not surprised at this crowd, nor at you right now after downing the whole thing.”
I swear he was trying not to laugh at me, and I sat back and glared. “It wasss you…who bought it for me to drink so don’t say you’re surprised that I did.”
He brought his hand to his mouth and rested his face on his elbow, covering what I knew was a smile because his eyes lit with humor, creasing at the sides.
I took my hand back from his and swept it through my hair, leaning back in my seat to stretch. My belly was full and my body was suddenly exhausted and heavy.
He pushed his chair back and came to me, offering his hand again to pull me up from my seat. I shook my head once in a defiance I was determined to continue for the rest of the day and stood on my own, wobbly but upright.
He instead laced his arm tightly around my waist, pulling me close to his side, so close I almost fell into him, defiance suddenly be damned.
He walked and I stumbled out of the tavern room and not to the doors of the inn, as I expected, but instead to the wooden staircase that climbed up and over a good hundred floors. It seemed like a hundred floors, at least.
“Oh, no,” I muttered, my head falling back and squinting up at what I knew I could not currently climb.
