Total pages in book: 204
Estimated words: 193124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 193124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
Given the morning hour, the pub is comparatively empty, and I glance at the trestle table in the back. Even Top Hat, as I’ve come to think of him, is not in residence. I’m guessing he owns the place. Perhaps the whole town.
The henchmen-like entourage that was with him is also absent.
Behind me, the doors open once again. It’s a man, not dressed in brown felt, and I move out of his way before I find myself in the kind of trouble I can’t easily solve—
He takes one look at me and jumps to the side. He’s clearly drunk—I can smell the alcohol on him, plus his balance is such that it’s as if the floor under him is unreliable—but avoiding me is clearly important enough to cut through his addled brain.
That’s when I notice the other men who are dotted around the tables. They’re not looking at me. At all. Their eyes are locked on their tankards with such studious nature, it’s as if they’re going to be tested by a schoolmarm as to the froth that awaits their numb tongues.
I tug the hooding back into proper place so that my features are fully hidden.
Obviously, Merc’s presence precedes me, and this gives me a depressing shot of confidence: Even after he leaves, I suspect I’ll still be considered his woman.
After last night, I certainly feel as though I am.
Heading over to the stairs, I stop—and then I reroute to the kitchen’s flap door. Some sixth sense spurs me on, and I put my hand on the sticky panels to give them a push.
The cooking facility is bigger than I thought, as dirty as I feared, and empty of staff. The counters are oriented in a square around a central stone hearth that vents up a chimney that is big as a barn. Multiple oven entry points circle the heat source, and there are cords of chopped wood stacked by each one. Courtesy of all this, the dominant smell is not of food, but of fire and ash, and I’m taken back to the settlement.
Countless loaves of bread are cooling on floured racks, hunks of meat of unidentifiable origins are left out to flies, and vats of stew sit on the floor. Clearly, people survive on the food that’s prepared like this—and I’m one of them. But my stomach turns at all the grease, grime, and debris. I’ve never seen so many discarded grain sacks, although the rat population is no doubt grateful for the sloppy pours into the grain grinder—
A door opens from the back, and I hear a squeak.
As I turn, I catch the short-haired maid making a U-turn to duck back into the half door she came out of.
I speak up quick: “Wait, stop.”
She halts immediately, but doesn’t pivot to look at me. As I trace the trembling of her shoulders with my eyes, I reach out my hand, even though there’s no way I can touch her from all the way over here.
“I just wanted to thank you for the food this morning,” I say gently. “And yesterday.”
“You’re welcome.” She speaks to the wall. “If you’ll excuse—”
“Hold on.”
“I have to go—”
“Why.” I stride across the kitchen, rounding the great oven. “Please, don’t leave—”
“I have to—”
It happens so fast. I come up to her, just as she’s trying to go back through the half door, and she stumbles in such a way that the side of her face becomes visible to me.
My breath catches in my lungs. “Crescent moon…”
The maid hides her bruised cheek with both hands. “Please … just let me go.”
“He’s going to kill you.”
As the words jump out of me, she twists around and looks up at me in horror. Instantly, I make a catalogue of the bruising pattern. It’s the exact match to what I saw yesterday. My stomach drops.
“What say you,” she whispers.
“You heard me.” I brush some of her hair back, checking another wound on her temple. “And it’s going to be soon.”
The timing is in that red on her cheek, and the knot on the side of her forehead. It’s also in the rash around her throat, and the cut on the side of her mouth.
My voice is grim. “You need to leave, now.”
“Please, just let me go—”
I put my hands up. “I’m not touching you. But I’m telling you, he’s going to finish this. You need to take your things—”
“I have nothing, and there is nowhere to go—”
“—and I’ll help you.”
The maid stares up at me with such confusion, I nearly meet her eyes again. “Why would you do that?”
We’ve been speaking in hushes, faster and faster, and suddenly crash into a silence.
Now I want to take her hands in my own, as if that will help my message get through, but I fear that if I make contact with her, she’ll spook and run.