In Her Place

This is a continuation of Æthred’s story, which began with Recruits. The events leading up to this snippet can be found in a previous post, Poisonous.

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Æthred grimaced as she pulled the undershirt from the wash water and inspected it. The food stains down the front had not quite disappeared, which meant she was back to scrubbing. She sighed. It was just as well guests at the inn paid extra to have their clothes laundered, because it had to be one of her least preferred tasks.

At least she wasn’t dealing with chamber-pots this afternoon.

She dropped the shirt back in the water and got to work. Only a few garments were left, after all. As she found a rhythm again, scrubbing the stubborn undershirt, the washboard’s familiar rasp echoed in the empty yard. It was a good time of day to do this, as most of the lunch patrons had left and her mother hadn’t opened the doors for early dinner yet.

“Æthred!”

It was her mother calling, from somewhere inside the inn. Probably upstairs.

Æthred paused. “I’m out back, washing!” she yelled toward the second floor.

Her mother’s face appeared at the window. “Has Ciori’s son been down to market already?”

Æthred shook her head. “He’s at the tannery today, Enne. I told you this morning.”

“Oh, of course!” Her mother laughed. “I’ve got that much to remember, things are leaking out my ears. I’d better get down there myself then.” She turned to go.

“Enne!” Æthred called out before her mother could leave the room. “I’ve already been. The food’s in the pantry.” As we also discussed this morning, she thought as she resumed the washing. Honestly, Enne would forget her own name if it wasn’t painted above the inn door.

“You’re a treasure, Æthred!” her mother called back from somewhere further inside. “What would I do without you?”

With the back of a soap-scarred hand, Æthred brushed a damp tendril of hair away from her eyes and smiled.

Thankfully, the shirt was the worst offender and the rest of the laundry came clean fairly quickly. Æthred rinsed the clothes and wrung them out. She was halfway through pinning them up to dry when the back door creaked open behind her and someone came down the step.

“I can help inside in a moment, Enne,” she said past the clothespin between her teeth. “Thish is nearly done.”

“Æthred.” The half-choked voice wasn’t her mother’s at all.

“Oh!” Æthred wheeled around. “Borian! What brings you—” She saw him and her question died on her lips.

Something was very wrong.

His dark skin had lost its rich glow, replaced by an ashen cast and heavy circles under his eyes. He stared through her, as if she wasn’t even there. He had the haggard look of a man who hadn’t slept for two days—but that wasn’t possible. Æthred had seen him just after nox the night before to meet with the Scar and he had been his usual, roguish self. Now his eyes were devoid of light and his smile was nowhere to be found.

Æthred took a step toward him. “Borian? What happened?”

He dropped the pack he had been carrying, stumbled forward and pulled her into his arms.

Æthred found her face buried in his rough tunic, confronted by the sour smell of the tannery. Her eyes watered, but she did not pull away. Borian had never held her this long or this close before—after all, he said, people would talk—but now he was so close she could feel his heartbeat beneath her palms. She slipped her arms around him. He was shaking.

The longer they remained that way, the more Æthred grew confused. It wasn’t like Borian to stay silent so long, especially if something was wrong. And it wasn’t like him to leave a job early either. What had happened at the tannery?

“Borian—”

“I’m sorry,” he said. He let her go and stepped back with a shaky breath. “I’m sorry, I only meant to drop in, to see you in case—” He broke off and shook his head. 

“In case…?”

Borian avoided her gaze. “It’s getting late, I should go—”

Æthred grabbed his pack before he could reach it and stood between him and the door. “In case what?”

Borian made a half-hearted effort to brush past her, but her hand on his shoulder was enough to stop him. “Don’t try to pretend nothing’s wrong. I’m not blind. Please tell me what’s going on.”

He turned to her, tried to speak, and said nothing.

“Borian?”

“They—they’ve taken my mother.”

Æthred gasped. Her hand tightened instinctively around his arm. “No…”

Kingsguard. They had Ciori. When had they even come to the town of Dhul? She didn’t recall such news floating around the inn tables last night—and news like that travelled fast. For them to arrive so silently and to find so quickly the person whose magic the townsfolk could least do without… how was it even possible? Ciori was the most careful of them all.

“How?” Æthred asked in a whisper, aware of how dangerous this topic was. “When did they come? Your mother would never—”

“Late last night. The temple turned her in.”

“Last night? Borian, why didn’t you tell me? We could have—”

“I didn’t know! She only got through to me this morning—”

“You could have sent—”

“Sent?” Borian cut her off with a harsh whisper. “That’s the last thing I would have done. I can’t risk sending to you, not with kingsguard around! They can see the barest glim of magic—what if they’d been in the inn, with you serving, and seen the flash? I can’t lose both of you—”

He broke off and rubbed the back of his hand over his face, but not to wipe away tears—his eyes were red and dry. Æthred guessed he had already spent every tear he had.

“Where is she now?” she asked.

“At the lock-up.”

“Then they haven’t left for the mines yet.” Finally, a glimmer of hope! “There’s still a chance—” 

But her optimism had no effect on Borian. “I have to go,” he said.

“To… see your mother?”

“No. I’ve got medicine to deliver. For Nwedi—you know, Hols’s daughter, the one with flaxfever—Mother was with her last night.” 

As he hoisted his pack back onto his shoulder and reached past her for the door handle, Æthred suddenly understood what she had seen in his eyes from the beginning: he had given up. The shock of his mother’s fate had broken the resourceful Borian she knew and left someone who thought he had nothing to fight for. Now he was willing to blindly trade his life for Nwedi’s.

Æthred caught his wrist. “No. You shouldn’t go back to where they caught your mother.”

“The girl needs help!”

“I know, but it doesn’t have to be you!”

He shook off her grasp, frustrated. “If you happen to know some other wickner who learned the craft from my mother, they could have made themselves useful long before now.”

“Sit down, Borian.” Æthred flattened herself against the door and glared up at him. “You’re not thinking straight.”

It took a moment, but Borian finally crumpled to the doorstep, his head in his hands. Æthred knelt beside him. She wanted to throw her arms around him and pull him close, but they’d done plenty of that already, and time was important now. His mother was sentenced to the mines. Hols’s daughter was sick. Borian was on the verge of doing something terribly reckless about it.

So Æthred blinked back her tears and set a hand on Borian’s knee instead. “I don’t want to lose you either, you know,” she said softly. “That’s why we need a plan, and retracing your mother’s footsteps doesn’t sound like a good one. But you don’t need to do any magic at Hols’s place. Make the draught here, send it with me—stay here and let me go. They won’t connect me to your mother. Why should they? It’s normal for the town inn to bring leftovers to a sick family, and no one even knows I’m your sweetheart—”

In an abrupt movement, Borian dropped his hands from his face and laced his fingers through hers. Æthred gave them a reassuring squeeze.

“The fact that it’s dangerous is a good thing—if the kingsguard are still in Dhul then they haven’t yet left with your mother for the mines.”

Borian looked up. “You’re right.” His voice shook, but a glimmer of life had returned to his eyes.

“There’s at least a little bit of time to think and come up with something,” Æthred added. “We’ll work on it. Stay here tonight.” She pulled his bag toward them. “How long will it take you to fix Nwedi’s medicine?”

“I did that at home,” Borian answered. “At least—I did my best. I only dropped in to see you in case… in case I couldn’t come back.”

“Well, you’re not going anywhere yet.” Æthred did her best to smile. “Here, you find what I need, and I’ll see if Enne has some real leftovers I can add to the load, for camouflage. You won’t mind helping with the evening meal in my place?”

She moved to stand, but Borian caught her wrist. “Æthred.”

“Mm?”

He pulled her to himself once again. “Thank you,” he mumbled into the damp mess of her hair. “I need you more than I know.”

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More of this

First snippet: Recruits
Previous snippet: Poisonous
Next snippet: A Thousand Threads

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