Nobody's Lady (8 page)

“Thank you for the purchase.” I smiled, remembering what was more important. The girl cradling her wooden cat grinned.

“Oh! That
is
cute.” The other girl grabbed the cat from my customer’s hands. She seemed reluctant to part with it, but she had little choice in the matter. “I want one!”

“Two coppers,” I said, pointing to the sign.

“Never mind.” She sighed and handed the cat back to her friend, who gingerly pet it with one finger, like it was a miniature kitten.

The boy peeked his head over the two girls’ shoulders, studying the blanket and all of my wares. “They’re all right,” he said, clearly not impressed. His gaze wandered to the shop window above my head, and I knew he was watching the specter conduct his business in there.

Jurij leaned over and picked up the squirrel. He pretended not to notice as the girl without coppers took in the figure hungrily, and he leaned back against the wall, turning the squirrel over in his lap. “You know, when I wanted coppers as a kid, I asked around to see if anyone had any work that needed doing.”

Am I really hearing him say those words directed at someone else?

The girl scuffed her foot on the ground. “Papa used to give me coppers. Now he keeps them.”

I didn’t want to ask what he used them for. Thinking about how things had changed in the village with so many men refusing to work reminded me of that month no one remembered. When Ailill vanished—when I
made
him vanish—the whole village suffered without his purchases. If one man could make such an impact, albeit one man who spent a large amount in the village, surely dozens, if not hundreds, of men earning and spending less would, too. I grabbed the squirrel out of Jurij’s hands and placed it back among the wooden animals. “Well, you earn some of your own, instead of asking your papa for them, and I may give you a discount.”

That brought a smile to her face.

The boy was not so easy to appease. “You didn’t tell us about the lord.” His gaze was still focused on the window above me. “How come he never comes down himself? He must be monstrously ugly.”

“He’s not.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop myself.

I felt the eyes of all three children and Jurij bearing down on me. “She
likes
him!” whispered that girl again, although not very quietly.

“Then why won’t he visit the village?” asked the boy.

“Because then children like you wouldn’t have so much fun asking so many questions.” Each of the kids responded with a blank stare. “He’s more mysterious this way, isn’t he? Who’d care about him at all if he wasn’t hidden away?”

The door to the baker’s shop opened, and I clamped my mouth shut. I busied myself fussing with the nearest row of animals, turning a perfectly fine display into something of a mess. The specter had one of the baker’s sons pushing a cart full of bread for him. I had to scoff despite my fear of being noticed. I knew the specters didn’t eat anything. What did Ailill always need so much bread for? To make people think the specters were human? I wondered why I’d never seen a room full of rotting, moldy bread, but it could have very well been on the top floor, next to the tower prison. Where he’d kept my mother. And probably Jurij, for that one day he’d stolen him from me.

I shook my head.
From Elfriede.

The cart stopped. “Oh. It’s today.”

Darwyn, Baker’s son. One of my friends from childhood. A rather annoying friend from childhood. Looking down and clearly expecting me to say something.

“What’s today?” I asked, tucking that too-long bit of hair behind my ear.

“Your shop.” He let go of the cart handle to gesture at my blanket. “In front of ours.”

“Oh. Your mother said it was okay.”

Darwyn nodded. “Yeah, sure. I guess we don’t mind. But if I knew you’d be here, I’d have … ” He stopped, putting his hand back on the cart and turning to go.

I stopped fondling my carvings and stared up at him. “You’d have what?”

“Nothing.” Darwyn started pushing the cart again. It carried more bread than would feed one man, but at least it wasn’t overflowing like it used to be. Maybe Ailill was trying to be a little less wasteful. But how would such thoughts even occur to him in the middle of a long, brooding day?

The specter stepped out from the shop behind Darwyn, and I
knew
this time that his eyes met mine. I looked away, flustered. It wasn’t like Ailill could read minds. Just get a report of all my actions. At least I hoped he couldn’t read minds. But even if he could, it didn’t matter. He’d already decided I still hated him, so he wouldn’t bother reading mine.

The cricketing of the cart faded, the sound drowned out by the movements of villagers going about their business on the road.

“Let’s follow him!” whispered the boy.

I looked up, for a foolish moment thinking the invitation included me, the weird lone woman who’d rejected the lord and turned the whole village upside down. But the children were already lost in their own world, giggling and running down the road after Darwyn and the specter. My hand lingered on a wooden horse, thinking of the days when I led a group of boys around the village, always after the mysterious, always looking for adventure. At least, after everything, there were children now at play, children who might have forgotten one another in the days of the goddesses.

“Nothing?” echoed Jurij beside me, sometime after Darwyn had left. He snorted.

I leaned back against the wall beside him. “He probably meant he would have sent his brother.”

“So he didn’t have to see me?”

I studied Jurij, wondering where he came up with that idea. “Why would he care about seeing you? I was the one who always bothered him when we were kids.”

Jurij let out a deep breath and shook his head. “I think everyone bothered him. To tell you the truth, I couldn’t even stand the guy until he found his goddess.”

I tilted my head and raised an eyebrow. “We barely saw him once he found his goddess.”

Jurij shrugged. “Exactly.”

I tsked. “So there’s something to be said for goddesses after all?”

The laugh I heard from beside me couldn’t have been more contemptuous if it had been Ailill’s. “And what would that be?”

Jurij and I looked up. Darwyn had returned, the squeaky cart no longer with him to give us a hint of his approaching. I swallowed, wondering how much he’d heard. Not that I’d said anything beyond what he might be expecting. But if there was one thing I didn’t miss from the days before my friends had found their goddesses, it was attempting to break up fights between them.
Even if I caused more than a few of them myself.

“They gave you guys some sense of direction.” An idea popped into my head as my gaze drifted between Darwyn and Jurij. “Say, Darwyn, your brother Sindri, he works in the quarry?”

I didn’t have to look at Jurij to feel his accusing glare from beside me, but I purposefully ignored it. “Yeah?” Darwyn said after a moment’s pause, clearly not following why I’d asked to begin with.

My eyes traveled to the baker’s shop door. “And your mother could use some help these days, right? Since your father … ” I cut myself short.

“Moved in with one of the farmer women. Sure. Lots of people doing strange things like that these days.” Darwyn tried to state that fact as if it didn’t matter, but his voice cracked as he did. He wiped his nose with one finger and crouched beside us, his gaze drifting quickly over my wooden figures and back again. “You looking for work, Noll? The shop, maybe, but I don’t know if you have the heft for quarry work.”

“I’m set with my woodworking, thank you.” I nudged Jurij and looked at him for the first time since I started the conversation. His face seemed dejected, and he wouldn’t return my gaze. “But Jurij needs something to do. And maybe it’s time he asked some of his
friends
for help.”

The look that Jurij gave me made me wonder if I’d finally added him to the list of people who once cared about me but didn’t anymore.

“Again? We just ate with them last week.” Jurij wiped the sweat off his brow with his forearm and placed the pickax in its corner by the door. His scarred eyelid drooped heavily. “And where are we going to fit them all?” He shook his head. “Scratch that. You guys can eat here. I’ll go to Elweard’s with Sindri.”

“Ha,” I said, pulling open the cupboard and gripping the picnic basket handle on which I’d carved some flowers and thorns. “But is Sindri eating at the tavern? Why don’t you invite him, too?”

Jurij regarded me as if I’d just asked him to marry his mother. But I supposed in this strange new life we’d been sharing for about two weeks, everything I asked of him would seem odd and new. I broke the silence. “Tell him he can bring any of his brothers, too.”

Jurij glanced around the cottage, his eyes resting on the pork roasting in the fire. “You bought a pig.”

I smiled and put my hands on my hips. “I bought a pig.” My toys had been selling pretty well as of late—probably because they offered children in the midst of family turmoil a little comfort. Even fathers—or especially fathers—were buying them, despite the fact that they were the ones causing the turmoil in the first place. I wondered if they felt a little better distracting their children with baubles before they went off to the tavern. In any case, I had a sizeable stash of coins now, and it wasn’t like I had anything else to save up for. The villagers needed people to spend more, so I wanted to lead by example.

“You knew we were having guests, and you didn’t feel fit to tell me until I got home from the quarry.” He scowled. “From a long, long day at the quarry.”

I skirted the table and put my hands on Jurij’s back, twisting him gently and guiding him to the door. “And a big feast will prove just the thing to make you feel better.”

“Noll, you invited my parents. My brother. Nissa.
My aunt
.”

I smiled, feeling the sickening sweetness I poured into each muscle responsible for the movement. “Just be glad I didn’t invite my family, too.” I’d considered it. But since the Tailors had informed Elfriede that her former husband was safe and sound and living exactly where her own sister had sworn he’d never be found, I’d since realized they’d never reunite if Elfriede knew I was involved. “Now, go on. Invite our friends.” I opened the cottage door.

“Yes, ma’am,” mumbled Jurij. “Are you sure you didn’t get a lot of practice being a goddess?”

“What was that?”

“Never mind.” Jurij stepped onto the dirt leading to the road between the village and the quarry. “
Friends
is probably the wrong word anyway,” he muttered.

He headed down the road toward the mass of men going home from the quarry. My gaze turned to the horizon.
Good. No rain.
The fire popped behind me. “Right. The pig.” I rotated the animal on the spit, my mind racing with all of the preparations left to be done.

***

“I like this one.” Nissa probably meant it, but the extent of her enthusiasm made the comment seem about as genuine as Jurij’s love for hard labor. She stroked the wooden rabbit in her lap like it was a live pet. It took a moment of studying her in the flicker of firelight to remember that Luuk had often worn a bunny mask, a hand-me-down from his brother.

I finished chewing my portion of meat. “You can have it.” I nudged her. “No charge.”

Nissa shook her head, and then, remembering herself, smiled ever so slightly at me. She placed the rabbit gently back into the basket I’d brought outside in order to show everyone gathered around the fire the new additions to my wares. “Let a child have it,” she said quietly, failing to recognize that being thirteen hardly made her an adult. She observed the fire, and I noticed a hardness in her heart, maybe even harder than the hardness I’d felt at her age, when I saw the last of my friends leave me behind for my sister. Sure, Jurij had still been my friend, thanks to an unintended command from his goddess, but it wasn’t the same. The secret hope I’d been harboring, that Jurij might love me when we grew older, was gone when I was Nissa’s age. The way Nissa’s eyes kept drifting to Luuk across the fire made me think she felt just as hopeless.

I’m sorry, Nissa. But you don’t want a love like that anyway.
I tossed the bone onto the fire.
It wasn’t real. It didn’t last.

“Nice pig.” For a moment, I thought Siofra might be complimenting the wooden pig I’d begun carving before they’d all arrived for dinner, but the block was still too formless for anyone to identify. Siofra was nodding at the tree stump on which I’d placed the roasted pig slices on a large platter and wiping her mouth with a scrap of cloth I’d gotten from the Tailors to serve as a napkin. “Good cut. Good buy. Good cooking.”

I tucked the stray bit of hair behind my ear, still not used to compliments from the woman I’d grown up thinking was so surly. “Thanks.”

Siofra held her plate out to Master Tailor beside her. “Coll, put another slice on my plate?” It wasn’t a command exactly. But she’d already turned her attention to her mug, not even regarding the plate, which she must have assumed Master Tailor would take from her. It fell to the ground with a thunk.