I don't like posting things before they're done, but I think if I post this in segments, it will force me to actually complete it some day. This is the first chapter of the short story I'm working on. I'm still playing with the title; it's more for my own personal amusement that arises from my marriage than anything else. Little everyday things that happen that remind me of something, and make me smile, get woven in here and there.
I don't think it's too hard to see who the main character is. Or who wishes she could be what the main character is.
Anyway, I digress.
Here it is.
>i<
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1
Runaway
Alessya
found herself in the peculiar position of wishing herself about fifty pounds
heavier, and a good deal stenchier—if that was even a word.
The market was no place
for a woman—she had only been told so half a dozen times by large rather
sour-smelling persons who were themselves decidedly not female—before she had actually begun to believe it. Which is
why at this moment she wished that the man’s cloak and tunic that she had just
stolen (which brings us to the aside that she was quite pleased with her
pinching skills—though of course she knew weren’t up to par with, say, Ali
Baba’s) were a better fit, and that her already deep, husky voice were deeper
and huskier yet.
No
matter.
Mud!
What she lacked in weight and timbre she would make up for in filth.
Men
always seemed to be dusty in the marketplace. “I shouldn’t wonder if they roll
in it,” Aless muttered. Luckily, there seemed to be a good supply of prime mud
behind the local tannery. And aside from the fact that the place smelled even
worse than burned split pea soup—which smells exceptionally awful without being
burned—it seemed an ideal out-of-the-way spot. At least the odor would ensure
the lack of curious onlookers.
The
sign that hung on the fence around the tannery’s yard read, “Keep Out Trespasser’s Warned.”
“What
is a ‘Warned’ and why does it belong to this trespasser character? And why isn’t
it allowed in this yard?” Aless mumbled. “Are people so poor they can’t afford
punctuation here?” She bent down to the earth and grubbed up a bit of soil on
her first finger, and then jabbed punctiliously at the sign. She took a step
back and surveyed her work, which now read, “Keep Out: Trespasser’s You Have Been Warned!”
Aless
dusted off her hands and hopped the fence; she didn’t consider herself a
trespasser—it wasn’t as if she was going to steal
anything; unless, of course, the owner of the land took “owner” and “land”
very literally…
Here was to hoping.
A disguise!
What good was an Adventure without a Disguise? Taking a deep breath, she got
down to it.
It
was colder than Aless had expected. And less…comfortable. It had rained last night
leaving large puddles. The earth was a curious color in this particular area,
and frankly, she hadn’t thought the whole mud-in-the-undergarments bit through.
Maybe a roll in a
puddle had been a little too extreme…maybe she should have just thrown dirt at
the cloak (which she had so elegantly thieved; Robin Hood likely would have
tipped his feathered hat and flasher her the roguish twinkle she was sure his
eye had). It certainly would have been less…squelchy.
Well, no going back
now. The ground made odd sucking noises in protest as Aless rolled into a
sitting position, sending ripples to the puddle’s banks. Legs splayed, she
scooped up a handful of gloppy brown: “And now for the grand finish--!” Aless
squeezed her eyes shut, sucked in her lips, held her breath, and smeared.
“Oi! Boy!” a voice called from somewhere off to the left. Twilight
crept in as Aless cautiously cracked first one eye, and then the other.
A grubby man in a
bloody apron held an armful of something—something that dangled and swung when
he moved. To Aless, he looked like the Falstaff from the old stories—well,
about as fat and bald, but less jovial.
The man stepped into the
light, the sweat glistening on his shining dome. His eyebrows were bristling, and Aless could
now see that he was holding a complete set, plus some, of cow entrails.
“Boy!” he shouted
again, “stop muckin’ in the bowels dump!” With that, he flung his arms wide,
releasing a shower of intestines and kidneys, which landed with a definitive plop in the puddle about Aless. The man
turned and disappeared, the slam of the tannery’s back door punctuating his
exit.
The corner of Aless’s
mouth twitched.
Beneath her hood (which
she had stolen with such grace, she
would like it to be noted), the brown was broken by an eruption of gritty white
teeth that spread across her face like the moon coming out. If Aless could have
seen herself there in the dusk, she probably would have thought how remarkably
much she looked like the floating smile of a cat from one of her favorite
childhood books.
“Boy,” she said. And again, with a laugh, “Boy. He called me ‘boy’! Now we’re getting somewhere!”
*
Seamus was pacing.
He wasn’t quite sure
why, but it seemed to be the thing that people did in books when they were
anxious, so he had followed suit, hoping that hundreds of authors couldn’t be
wrong and that it would help.
They were, and it
hadn’t.
It had been three days.
Three whole days.
His pacing was
interrupted abruptly. A maidservant stuck her nose around the corner; “Sir,
would m’lady like anything?”
Seamus started, and
turned on his heel. He flung his back against the double doors that he had been
patrolling.
“No! No, no, it’s fine—we’re
fine, m’lady’s fine…and eh, does not require anything…but to be left alone!” He
blocked the handles with his body.
“But, sir…” the maid
ventured, “she hasn’t eaten in days…”
“Ah, well, yes…I
suppose she hasn’t,” he said, his face faltering. His conviction was, however,
re-gathered in a moment. “She’s fine,” he repeated. Seamus pushed what he hoped
was a reassuring smile across his mouth. Judging by the maidservant’s dubious
look, it seemed it had less than done the job. They stayed like that a moment,
and then Seamus’s nose twitched in a peculiar way. He glared, and with an
about-faced turned the handle of one of the doors. Pushing it open a fraction
of an inch, he stuck his nose in. “You’re
just fine, aren’t you dear?” The response from within was too quiet to hear
from the outside. He closed the door with a snick,
and turned again to face the maid. She looked up expectantly.
Seamus sighed, and
collapsed back against the doors. He ran his fingers through his tousled hair
and said, “On second thought…bacon.
Bring lots and lots of bacon….”
The maid’s forehead
furrowed a moment, and she then scurried off down the hall before the threat of
additional silent commentary offered by her brows was realized.
*
“Bacon!” The maid whispered in hushed
tones to another rather large-bosomed servant who was pretending to dust a
picture frame. “That’s all he said she wanted, was bacon!”
The second servant
straightened, gave a tight-lipped nod, and began waving her dust rag in a
lecturing manner; “Mark my words, it’s the mistress!” Her tone was knowing. “Askin’
for strange things for supper, not coming out of her room for almost half a
week…” she folded her arms authoritatively; “the lord and the lady—they’re in…”
she lowered her voice to a whisper, “…a
family way.”
The
maid’s eyes widened; “You mean…?”
The
larger maid straightened suddenly and looked about suspiciously before
continuing, “Yes, I do. Bacon at supper! In all my days…. It’s the only
explanation.”
The
smaller maid was not convinced. “What if she just wants bacon?” The other’s
expression scoffed this idea.
The first maid placed
her hands on her hips: “In that case, the master is with child too; it’s all
he’s eaten recently! Bacon: Mounds and
mounds of bacon!”
The
large servant shook her head and patted the smaller’s hand reassuringly. “Just
you wait and see. When you’ve got as many soiled diapers under your fingernails
as I have, you can tell these things. Better put a kettle on for the
mistress—she’ll be wantin’ tea soon to calm her stomach….A little one is on the
way; I’m sure of it!”
*
The
bacon came sizzling from the frying pan, hissing as it was carried through the
halls. It left behind it a glorious trailing aroma. Seamus sprang to his feet
from where he has been slumped on the floor against the doors, his long legs
splayed out like an awkward grasshopper’s.
“Excellent,
wonderful, good!” The heaping plate shook as he took it from the small
servant’s hands. “I’ll just…eh…take it into m’lady myself….she’s eh…not really
up to seeing other people right now….” Seamus ducked inside the door, slamming it
behind him. It re-opened a fraction of a second later just enough to
accommodate Seamus’s sharp nose.
“You
wouldn’t happen to have a spot of tea made, would you?” Without waiting for an
answer, the master again slammed the door.
The
key turned in the lock from inside.
The
small servant cast a wide-eyed glance across the hallway at the larger servant,
who had moved her dusting duties to a location more strategic for eavesdropping.
She was laughing silently, and shaking her head: “Tea…what did I say? Yes, m’am,
just you watch,” she nodded knowingly. “We’re going to be hearing the sound of
little feet running down these halls before long!”
*
The
first three nights had been a little rough. Aless felt slightly wounded, like
she had been led astray—deceived. In all of the books, the hero always found a
warm haystack to sleep in, or a kind elderly couple who offered their barn as a
place to bed down for the night.
Even
Little Boy Blue had fallen asleep in the meadow.
Turns
out, haystacks weren’t that comfortable, and the village seemed fresh out of
old people with barns. Aless would have been glad to sleep in a field under the
stars, pressed against the warm body of a lounging cow…but it also turned out
that apparently cows sleep standing up, unless they’re sick or dead—in which
case they aren’t actually asleep…or warm.
The
books had said nothing of this.
The
inn in town had been, of course, out of the question. Money wasn’t an
issue—Aless had taken plenty of that—and she could thieve more of it if she
wanted, the way she had (so brilliantly, as if she were an apprentice of that
old trickster Fagan) slipped off with her Disguise.
The problem was people.
People would talk, and ask questions. Ask why a woman was traveling alone. Ask
why a woman who was traveling alone had so many coppers. Ask why a woman who
was traveling alone with so many coppers smelled like she hadn’t bathed in
three days. (Of course the answer to that was, that she smelled that way
because she hadn’t bathed in -three
days.)
It could be disastrous.
The Bard probably would have found some ridiculous sort of situation to toss
Aless into if she were a character in one of his plays. Anyone at any time
might recognize the pauper as the prince, and she hadn’t wanted to take
chances.
Tonight, though, would
be different. Tonight, Aless hoped that the mud and her cloak would speak for
her, and answer any questions from the start. Tonight there would be no twigs
poking in her back as she tried to sleep, no chasing livestock at midnight in
search of body heat. Tonight, there would be sheets!
She took a deep breath,
and plunged across the town square towards The Blue Boar Inn.
*
The
room was still, except for Seamus’s heavy breathing, and the fizzling hiss of
the cooling bacon. His feet dragged across the heavy carpet and brought him to
the four-posted bed that dominated the room. He addressed the lump under the
covers.
“Darling,
why do you do this to me?”
There
was no answer.
“They
think you’re ill you know. All of them….I don’t know how long they’ll keep
thinking that though. They’re not dull. Well, most of them anyways. Not
completely dull. Except for that one fellow, the new one who goes about
watering the asparagus fern. If I’ve told him once, I’ve told him a hundred
times, don’t water the asparagus fern,
you’ll drown….ahh what’s the use….”
Seamus
sank down onto the bed. The lump shifted beneath the covers. A book fell from
beneath the blanket. And then another, and another.
“You
could have at least used something that would be easier to put away, dear,”
Seamus sighed, tossing back the sheet. A mound of books lie on the mattress,
heaped vaguely in the shape of an inert body; the bookshelf opposite the bed
sat gapingly empty. “And you didn’t have to dirty the sheets…look how untucked
they are now….” Seamus consoled himself with a piece of bacon as he surveyed
the bedspread that was knotted around the bedpost and trailed out the window,
swaying in the pale moonlight. “I should probably take that down….” Seamus
popped another strip of bacon into his mouth and chewed contemplatively. “Yes.
I should most certainly take that down.” He shifted on the mattress, knocking a
stack of books to the floor with thuds of
varying pitches.
“At
least you’re a smart girl. Most of the time. I mean, there are times when I’m
not sure what’s running through your head at all…but I’ve no doubt you have
planned your little Adventure. And I’m sure you’ll be back soon. You just get
so…bored….” Seamus sighed for what
felt like the fifteenth time that evening, and eyed the rapidly diminishing
supply of breakfast meat. “At least there’s bacon…” He shrugged, and stood,
licking his fingertips. A final avalanche of books rained down from the bed,
the last one landing on his toe before bouncing into a patch of moonlight on
the floorboards.
“Holy mother of crumpets!” The plate of
bacon and Seamus both leapt into the air. Seamus grabbed his injured appendage
and hopped about on the braided carpet; the bacon’s short-lived flight ended in
an ungainly crash.
Seamus
cursed himself for grabbing at his toe instead of diving to intercept the
crispy pork strips.
“Everything alright in there sir?” a
voice from outside the door called. Seamus eyed the bacon scattered about the
carpet; “No,” he breathed darkly, and
then, louder, “Yes, quite fine, thank you! Just had a bit of trouble with
the…er…bookshelf….”
Seamus
cast about himself for the plate, and then set about retrieving the sorry
fragments of his supper. He turned to go, muttering to himself, but then
stopped. There in the moonlight lie the book that had bruised his foot in that
most unkind manner. He paused and turned, letting his eyes adjust to the dim
light.
“R.L.S.,” he mumbled under his breath.
Seamus bent, and read
out loud the small blue-bound book’s title:
“Kidnapped.”
