Page 43 of Silverbow
She finally stumbled onto a cart path. It was only two strips of dirt rutted into the earth, but it surely indicated enough traffic that a village must be nearby. Need outweighed caution, so she heeled Arawelo into a canter, and the mare’s hooves thundered down the track, uncaring that shepherds looked up from their flocks as they passed.
Enya expected this path to take her back to the Queen’s Road, but as a little cluster of stone buildings rose ahead, it wasn’t the Queen’s Road she realized they sat upon. It was a riverbank.Oh, light.
She had often poured over the map in her father’s study, running her fingers down the great roads that crossed the continent, but stumbling around in Greenridge, she had realized how little help a map was once you were already lost. As she gazed out at the wide expanse of blue that glittered in the afternoon sun, Enya realized how lost she’d truly been.
The track turned to a narrow road as it wended between the outer ring of buildings. She pressed straight ahead to where a handful of docks jutted out into the current, eddies of white swirling around the pilings. Beyond, more than a mile away, the distant bank held only tall grasses with hardly a tree in sight.
The Trydent was the widest river in all of Estryia. And if she was standing on the banks of the Trydent instead of the Queen’s Road, she’d drifted much farther to the north than she’d thought. She gazed around at the stone shops and houses haphazardly grouped along the bank and wondered what ink dot this was, if it had been marked on her father’s map at all.
Goodwives hanging laundry on their lines leaned over white washed fences to gossip. Every few doors, a sign marked a shop, and on the north end sat a wide village green. It was crowded with people, people she was not prepared to see after her weeks in solitude, so she turned Arawelo away from it.
Unsticking her tongue from the too dry roof of her mouth, Enya cleared the disuse from her voice as she approached two women gossiping over a garden gate. They jumped at her approach, their eyes going slightly wide at the sight of her. She realized then she didn’t know when she’d last combed her hair.
“I was wondering if you could point me to an inn,” she said.
“Keep going, child, and you’ll run right into it. The Queen’s Dragon is just ahead.”
A faded blue serpentine beast coiled around the sign marking the Queen’s Dragon. At the back of the inn, a round faced stable boy took Arawelo’s reins from Enya’s outstretched hand. The mare, too tired to object, followed him into the dim interior after Enya shouldered her saddle bags.
Her feet felt heavy as she climbed the back steps and pushed open the door into a wide common room. The tables were half full, abuzz with chatter, and no one paid much mind when a new dirt covered face appeared. The divine smells drifting from the kitchen twisted the hunger in her middle. Raising her chin andsquaring her shoulders, Enya strode to the bar where a man with wispy white hair poured frothy mugs of ale.
“A room, dear?” He asked before she’d even opened her mouth.
“Yes.”
He glanced from her face to the bags over her shoulder and back again. “For one?” She nodded, too tired to consider if that admission might cause her trouble. He wiped his hands on a towel and reached for a set of keys behind the counter. “This way.”
The innkeeper introduced himself as Master Finn as he led Enya up a narrow stair. Leaning heavily on the railing, she did not give a name. They passed the first landing, her legs wobbling, and she almost asked for a second floor room, but she gritted her teeth and followed Master Finn to the third floor.A waterskin, a tin cup, and a small kettle.
The innkeeper unlocked a door at the end of the hall. It was a small, simple room with a bed and a washstand pushed up against the wall, but it had a window that looked out on the village green. Enya nodded, her eyes fixed on the pitcher that sat with the basin. “Thank you.”
“You’ll be wanting a bath?” He asked, not unkindly.
“Yes.” She desperately wanted a bath. Almost as much as she wanted the water in that pitcher.
He studied her for another agonizing moment. “I’ll send Hatti up with a tray while you wait.”
She nodded her thanks and Master Finn disappeared down the hall. Enya didn’t bother to close the door before she dropped her saddlebags in a heap and bounded across to the washstand. She lifted the heavy ceramic to her lips. Her stomach churned as water splashed into the empty pit.A blanket roll, towel, three changes of clothes.
She drank every drop and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. With a steadying breath, she leaned a shoulder against the window frame and gazed out at the bustle on the green. It was partially obscured by the peaked rooftops of the houses that stood between, but what she could see of it held a crowd of men, erecting a wooden platform.
A throat clearing in the hallway announced Hatti’s arrival, and Enya whirled. The slender dark haired woman carried a tray with a cup of tea and a loaf of bread. She gave Enya a quick appraising look, but didn’t betray what she found. “Tea, Miss?”
Enya gave a curt nod and darted a look around the room. She was suddenly aware of how dirty her clothes were compared to the clean white linens of the bed, but with nowhere else to sit, she took the tray and sank onto the edge of the mattress.
“Will you be leaving on the morrow, Miss?” Hatti asked. Enya hesitated before answering. The serving woman must have read suspicion in her face. “I can take your laundry if you’d like, but with the damp it’s not like to be dry by morning, if you’ll be leaving then.”
“No laundry,” Enya said, though she would give over half her gold for freshly laundered clothes. She’d already lost far too much time in Greenridge.
Hatti nodded. “Just come on down to the bar when you’re ready. I’ll show you to the bathing chamber.” The woman closed the door softly as she backed out of the room.
Enya sighed, nibbling at the loaf, ensuring the first bites settled before tearing off a whole heel and stuffing it into her mouth.The Trydent. Light, how far off course have I come?She could ask Hatti or Master Finn, but decided better of it. A girl alone on the road was bad enough, better to pretend she knew what she was doing. When she’d eaten every crumb, she upended her saddle bags.
Sifting through the heap of clothes, wrinkling her nose as she sniffed, she sought the cleanest of the filthy. What she wouldn’t give to have Mistress Alys now. The thought froze her.Mistress Alys is why you’re doing this. Her and the rest of them.Still holding a shirt and britches, she carefully retreated from that line of thinking, willing it away.
The Queen’s Dragon didn’t see much female custom, Hatti said apologetically as she led Enya to a small room across from the kitchens. It was barely more than a closet, holding only a single copper tub, but it sat full of steaming water. When Enya wiped the fog away from the murky mirror, she startled at her own reflection.
She hadn’t seen herself in a mirror since Ryerson House, and the girl that looked at her now hardly looked like Enya Ryerson at all. Her face was thinner than it had been, and dark purple half moons hung beneath bloodshot eyes. But the layer of grime made her look more urchin than lord’s daughter. Bits of dried blood were still caked in her hairline from where that branch had nearly unhorsed her. Her braid was a knotted tangle, and bits of Greenridge still clung to it.
