And I announce to our group that we’ll be staying at the little village’s inn.
Brigitta gives me a look of abject horror, as though the mere fact that we are on a mission of utmost importance means wehaveto sleep on the hard-packed earth of the forest.
Cornelia doesn’t give her a chance to interject. She squeals her agreement and throws her head back, red hair tumbling out of her cloak’s hood. “Yes. You can continue on for a campsite if you like, Brigitta. Take your guards with you. But I’m sleeping in abed.”
At least two of the Grenzwache eye each other and look torn between protesting for comfort and duty to Brigitta.
But Brigitta sighs. “Fine,” she relents, and if there’s a flicker of relief on her face, she hides it quickly.
The inn has a stable where we leave our horses with eager stable hands who grow even more willing to help when Alois pulls out a satchel of coins.
He dumps a mound of gold into his palm. “Is this enough to feed and house our horses for the night?” he asks me.
The two stable hands are practically salivating. By their gaunt faces and gangly limbs, and the brightness in their eyes at the prospect of customers, I can easily guess that they do not see much business, let alone profit, so for Alois to flaunt money like this will either get us robbed or have them build a statue to him in the town square.
“It’s perfect,” I tell him, and he hands over the coins. The stable hands take the money like they’re being handed soap bubbles.
I catch the eye of the one who looks the oldest, not far off from my age. “Have you seen any soldiers come through? Ones in black?”
We crossed out of the Trier diocese and into Protestant lands, but my brother has never cared for subtlety among political or religious struggles. He would barrel through with his forces regardless of who owned what land.
The stable hand shakes his head. “None but our own lord’s fighters. Nothing unusual.” He hesitates, hands fisting on his share of the coins, and he looks between his treasure and my eyes with a sudden wariness. “Is there trouble about, Fräulein?”
My instinct is to tell him no. To lie, to spare them.
But I bite the inside of my cheek. “There may be. Have you noticed any flooding?”
The stable hand’s eyes go momentarily sullen. “Aye. A farm flooded on the outskirts of the village not a day ago. Bit unusual for the time of year. Why, Fräulein?”
It could be nothing. A single farm flooding is hardly the same power as the whole of the Moselle devastating Trier.
I shake my head. “Never mind.”
He nods, wariness trading for practicality. I have seen faces like hisbefore, set with determination; he has seen struggle, has lived through it, and knows he will face more yet to come.
My throat closes.
What if magic was everywhere? What if, what if…?
These thoughts are consuming me. As though I opened my own internal floodgates, and I’m buoyant in possibilities now.
The inn is as empty as the stable suggested, and the innkeeper is just as eager for our business. Brigitta arranges accommodations with her usual efficiency, putting guards on patrol while we ferry ourselves into rooms. The innkeeper offers to make us supper; the hour is late, but Alois and Cornelia jump at the chance to eat a warm meal.
Otto starts to open his mouth, but I snatch his hand and haul him to the stairs.
He stumbles after me, his surprised laugh a cooling breeze. “You’re not hungry?”
“Later,” I tell him and drag him into the room we’ve been given.
The inn is all sturdy wood carved from the surrounding forest, dense and earthy and baked in with years of travelers. The room itself is simple, a threadbare straw mattress on a lifted frame, a pitcher of water on a table by a banked fire. The single window is shuttered, darkness pervasive when I close the door behind us.
Otto’s brief spell of levity starts to fade as I make my way to the fire and rouse it. “Liebste…”
Flames catch, casting him in orange as he eyes me, a question hanging in his silence.
I brush ash from my skirt and face him. “Banish your debauched thoughts, Jäger. I didn’t bring you up here so you could have your way with me in a roadside inn.”
He barks a laugh and scratches a hand through his hair, the darkstrands coming loose around his face. “Scheisse. You do know how to seduce a man.”
