29. Proposals

In the early morning, after a fitful night of closing my eyes and wishing for sleep, one of Zinnia’s women led us to the women’s baths where we all had another wash, enjoying the cakes of soap.

Tin cups of chew sticks punctuated the shelves as well and we all gave our teeth a scrub.

The variety used in Tintar was similar to the sticks in Eccleston, herbal, finger length twigs coated in an astringent sap.

Those trees grew here as well as in the rest of the continent.

I noticed a woman who was likely noble eyeing me and my tattoos as I cleaned the back of my neck carefully to avoid wetting my hair again.

She was sitting on one of the descending steps, nude and proud, rubbing oil into her hands.

She had vivid blue eyes, dark hair and flawless skin.

I judged her to be of my age or even a little older, but the lack of sun on her flesh and the sheen of her hair told me she was of their peerage.

She inspected my tattoos and then my face and then my body.

“Do you see that woman?”

I said to River who was closest.

“She is looking at me.”

“I’m sure you cannot be the only person in Tintar with tattoos,”

she replied, edging closer to me.

I was grateful that she was only partially trying to eye the blue-eyed woman, managing some subtlety.

“Yes, she’s not looking at Mischa’s moth,”

I replied.

“Just at me and mine.”

“Maybe she knows the captain,”

offered River.

“I’m sure descriptions of us are circulating along with the rumors about nine Ecclestonian women, particularly you.”

“You think?”

“Yes.

Your hand tattoo is very distinctive.

And well done, I might add.

I have always loved ranunculi.

Did you know they are mildly poisonous?”

Giving my attention to River, I turned my back to the woman, frowning to myself.

Zinnia’s woman, Beryl, collected us as we finished up and then introduced us to the dining hall mentioned in Gareth’s journal.

And she, like her mistress, generously offered instruction as to where we were and pointed out the handily carved symbols at intervals of the bluff rock.

A fork with a corresponding arrow meant you were on the way to dining hall and so forth.

We had none of us noticed this yesterday.

The first floor of the Shark’s Keep was a maze of halls that either led to one of the four temples of earth, air, sea or fire, to outside the bluff rock, down into Pikestully and the keep liveries or to the living quarters of all non-military keep staff, the kitchens and the great dining hall of King Hinnom’s Shark’s Keep, the room where all who dwelled there ate, even the Shark King himself.

The rows of wooden tables and benches went on and on, leading up to several rows of stone ones where the Tintarian peerage and royalty dined.

Certain notches at the ends of the tables indicated where one could eat.

The ones with shark teeth meant the Tintarian army, cavalry and navy ate there.

Unmarked tables were for all other keep staff.

Like being in the city center of Pikestully had been, the hundreds of armored men, black-clad servants and well-dressed nobles was overwhelming, but the smells this time were magnificent.

I would never take good food for granted again after Nyossa.

The nine of us ate in silence that morning.

Each table was full of cutlery, tin plates and silverware, some cups potted clay, others of that cheap, dinged tin.

Along the centers of each table were pitchers of cold water and hot tea, plates of seafood, grilled and warm or smoked and chilled, hot bread, fresh and dried fruit and nuts still in their shells.

We had served ourselves and were eating, enjoying the feel of a clean body and filling belly.

Beryl, having delivered us to an unmarked table, returned shortly to collect Eefa and Bronwyn.

They would be taken to Fletch’s wife’s brewery in the city center.

We said our goodbyes to them with embraces and well wishes, promising, once we had found our footing and understood how much freedom we would be given, that we would visit the brewery as soon as we could.

Bronwyn whispered hurried thanks in my ear, but Eefa did not acknowledge me.

The remaining seven of us sat back down to eat.

“Might I have a moment, lady?”

said a warm, male voice.

We looked up to see Thatcher, arms clasped behind his back, his eyes only for Helena.

Mischa, Maureen and I all looked at each other.

Helena swallowed the slice of pear she had been eating and stood.

“Of course.”

They stood at a short distance, him speaking and her listening.

The rest of us watched.

“What is happening?”

Mischa whispered.

“He is proposing,”

answered Quinn.

“Remember the king said the two sergeants had to betroth themselves to one of us and that the captain had to marry Edie today.”

The bread in my gut churned at the thought of this afternoon.

“He is going to marry my mother?”

Maureen asked.

“I think he finds your mother very beautiful,”

I answered, trying to comfort my niece.

“Sure he does,”

Mischa spat.

“She is.

And she a lady too good for the likes of him.”

I sighed, now on two straight nights of little sleep.

“Mischa, he is the best of the worst.

He intervened and beat her attacker half to death and then secured her the preventative paste.

He is also why we had clean dresses on the road to Pikestully and he is the one who went to Alric about us not having to stand all day in the pig’s wagon.

There are worse men.”

“Edie, he is our enemy! He—”

she cut herself off when Helena returned to her seat on the bench across from me and Mischa.

River leaned towards my friend and said, “Are you now betrothed?”

Helena picked up another slice of pear. “I am.”

“What did he say?” I asked.

She avoided my gaze.

She did this when she was unsure of something, but she did answer me.

“He said that he and the man called Perch had to ask one of us to wed by luncheon.

The weddings will not take place until the shark’s mating season, this winter.

He said he would offer me and my daughter the protection of his rank and that when the time came for Maureen to reach her majority, he would happily put up the coin for her to have a dowry or for her to purchase an apprenticeship if she would like to enter into a trade.”

She paused to look at her daughter.

Then she continued, “He said I never had to share his bed as long as I lived and that as his bride, no man would dare touch a Procurer’s woman.”

Mischa gripped my hand under the table.

“Maureen and I will be moved to a second-floor dormitory for infantry families though,”

continued Helena.

“Infantry families and higher level keep staff.”

“So will we,”

River said eagerly.

“Beryl said Quinn and I will go to the second level too.”

“And I,”

added Catrin.

“As a lady-in-waiting.”

“And Edie will be sleeping with the captain,”

said Mischa, speculating.

“Thank you for your delicacy,”

I sniped, peeling a nut.

“Well, where does that leave me?”

Mischa cried.

“You will all be on the second level and I will be stuck on the first, all alone.

Oh, I can’t have this.”

“We will think of something,” I said.

“I wonder who the Perch man will ask,”

wondered Maureen.

“Do you hope it to be you?”

asked Catrin, teasingly.

“He is the best looking.”

“He is our captor!”

Mischa exclaimed.

Maureen shook her head.

“I am seventeen! But he must ask one of us.

I hope not me.”

“I would not allow it,”

said her mother, taking another pear slice.

“I think it should be Mischa,”

I suggested.

“Excuse me?”

She was outraged.

“You will move with the rest of them to the second level that way.”

My friend paused, her mouth open to retort.

“That is an idea.”

“But you cannot stand the man,”

said Helena, an indulgence on her face, almost a smile.

She turned from Mischa to me.

“Honestly, it is Perch not Mischa I would pity.”

Hope filled my chest at her little joke.

“You are, as always, Helena, a delight,”

replied Mischa, her gaze hitting the ceiling in annoyance.

“None of you take this seriously.

They are all savages!"

Helena covered her mouth with her hand and I prayed a smile was behind it.

Mischa went on thoughtfully, “It’s just an engagement.

There will be a way to break it.”

Beryl had instructed the rest of us to return to the dormitory, instructing which corridor entrance led there and we finished our meal, stood, stacked our plates and made our way to the corridor’s entrance.

Approaching from the other direction, headed for the same corridor, were Perch, Thatcher and my husband-to-be.

Thatcher was looking at Helena, but she only watched where she walked.

They stopped at the entrance, as if to allow our party to go in first.

Between the two parties, other keep staff walked past us, everyone ready to go about their days.

I did not look at Alric and I sensed he also avoided me.

“I need you to ask me to marry you,”

Mischa blurted, looking at Perch.

“What?”

he burst out.

“Ask me,”

she said slowly, as if he were a witless idiot, “to marry you.

I want to be in the second level dormitories with everyone else.”

Alric and Thatcher looked at their fellow Procurer as he said, “Absolutely not.”

“Who else are you going to ask? Catrin?”

countered Mischa.

“She is a Tigon, far too good for the likes of you.

Plus, her family might ransom her.

Trust me, I am your only choice.”

He stared at her, openmouthed.

“Mischa, you are so kind,”

murmured Catrin, biting back a smile.

“You cannot marry Eefa or Maureen,”

Mischa carried on.

“They are not yet at their majority and Eefa pregnant with another man’s babe.

Bronwyn could be your bloody grandmother and believe me when I say, Quinn and River are not remotely interested.

Helena and Edie are spoken for.

I’m it.

And you’re hardly suffering that much.

I’m a fine woman.

Many men have said so.

So ask.

Please.

Quickly.”

Perch spluttered out another denial, but Maureen spoke over him.

“Please do not separate us from her.

We’re a family.

Mischa and Edie are like the father I never had.”

The three men looked at her, confused.

There was a pause as Tintarians, both servants and armor-clad, streamed past.

“Please,”

Helena said, finally looking up at the three Procurers, but focusing in on Perch.

“We are, the four of us, like family.

And Edie and I will make sure Mischa is nice to you. Please.”

Perch, moved by Helena’s gravity and earnestness, gave a nod.

“Well, that’s done,”

said Mischa and swept into the corridor, the rest of us behind her.

As we made our way, Helena turned to Catrin, Quinn and River.

“And now, it will be the seven of us that will be like family.”