53. Isabeau

We had now been in Tintar three moons.

On rest days, we tried to visit Eefa and Bronwyn at the brewery, keeping note of her pregnancy’s progress and trying to pay Fletch’s wife and her sister for our pitchers of which they always brought us more than we ordered.

We pooled our copper coins after our first moon’s pay and bought River her Tallowgill at the apothecary, promising to do so every payday, River and Quinn both thanking us.

“We can’t have you die on us,”

Mischa had chided, her version of friendship.

It was on one of these excursions that I learned more about my husband.

The seven of us were milling about the apothecary on a day of rest, coin in our pockets still after buying another jar of Tallowgill for River, the summer sun not quite high enough to be bothersome.

We were in high spirits, planning to luncheon at the brewery and spend the afternoon at our leisure in the city center.

I was debating buying another vial of lavender oil, as it would clean out my pockets, when a woman approached me.

She said, “Are you Edie? Edie of Eccleston? Edie Angler?”

I straightened from the shelf I was inspecting, resigning myself to the idea that I should save my coin and turned to the left of me.

She was perhaps forty, full-figured and pretty with dark blonde hair and a pouting mouth.

She was staring at my tattoos, on full display in the celadon green dress.

“I am she,”

I said, trying to keep the wariness out of my voice and remain polite.

She sighed.

“I am so impertinent.

Forgive me.

I have heard you have a tattooed hand and arm, that your hair was brown with red.

I thought it had to be you.

I’m Isabeau.”

I wanted to say ‘pleased to meet you,’ but was unsure if that would be true.

Isabeau continued, “I know this is rude, but I am an old friend of Alric’s.

Would you grant me a minute of your time?”

She smiled.

“This is a friendly gesture, I promise you.”

Was every former lover of my husband’s curious and forward? “In private?” I asked.

“That would be best,”

she said, her manner apologetic.

I looked over my shoulder to see Quinn looking at the woman with mistrust.

“A moment,”

I said, turning to the woman.

“I will meet you outside in the square.

By the fountain.”

“Oh, thank you,”

she gushed and exited the apothecary.

I approached Quinn.

“Who is that woman?”

she asked me, a line between her eyebrows.

“A friend of Alric’s who wants to speak with me.

I’m going outside to speak to her.

If I am not back in a short time, will you come for me?”

“I will watch through the doorway, friend.

I do not trust anyone here.

Anyone but us and those of Sister Sea.”

Quinn crossed her arms over her thin chest.

“I know we have not been harmed here, but it is wise to be on guard.”

I placed a hand on her arm.

“I value that wariness in you.”

Outside, the square, it being a day of rest, was full of street vendors, crowds of shoppers, stalls, players of mandolin and harp, cups at their feet for tips.

There was a fountain in the middle of the square with a statue of figures in the center, a woman covered in vines, a man covered in flames, a woman made of waves and a man made of abstract swirls of stone.

Their arms were linked, facing outward.

They were larger than life-size and impressive.

On the lip of the fountain sat Alric’s old friend, Isabeau.

Keeping a full arm’s length between us, I sat down and turned towards her, grateful that the shadow of Sister Sea fell on me.

The sun was not yet high, but it was summer.

“Thank you,”

she said as I sat.

“I do apologize.

I really do.

Approaching you like that.

It is so familiar.

But I promise you I have good reason!”

“Do tell.

I do not mean to be cagey, but I do not know you.”

She bobbed her head in excitement.

“Oh of course! I do understand.

And again I thank you.

And the noise of the rest day market will hide what I wish to say.”

Reluctantly, I moved closer.

“I believe you can speak freely without being heard.”

She inhaled.

“Before I begin, please know, and I must repeat it, please know that I am speaking to you entirely on your behalf and with fondness for Alric.

I have no gain in saying this.

I wish only to prevent you falling prey to a vicious rumor as I once did.”

I leaned closer to Isabeau, intrigued.

“And, in advance, I thank you,”

I said, trying to keep the panic out of my voice.

“I am from south Tintar,”

she began.

“The farther south you go, the less agriculture and the more marshland you find.

It is a rough life.

But families tend to stay.

I did not want to pick berries or harvest cattails for flour.

My family was poor and those were my choices, whether or not I married.

It is terrible work.

So, after trying that life until my twenty-second winter, I waited tables in a tavern and …whored myself to patrons instead.”

She glanced at me, waiting for a reaction.

I said, “Understandable.”

She exhaled before continuing.

“I do not know what the Tintarian army was doing in my settlement, but they were there for some time and Alric was a patron.”

She looked at me again, waiting for me to react.

“Isabeau,”

I replied, “I cannot be offended by my husband having been with other women twenty winters past.”

I put as much encouragement into my words as I could.

“Well, he observed the tavern owner being boorish with me and he gave me what must have been a moon’s pay.

He told me about a transport wagon that would be coming through and the name of a man who could get me to Pikestully.

Then he told me to find him there.

The army left and soon, the transport wagon arrived and Alric’s name granted me passage.

I went to the army barracks and Alric gave me more coin, enough for lodging and to get myself cleaned up.

Then he took me to an expensive brothel here and vouched for me to the owner.

It is a safe place.

Women are treated fairly and it is costly to frequent.

They have their own guards.

I was so ignorant of the world, it was quite overwhelming at first.

I could not even read back then.”

She passed a hand over her hair and looked away from me out towards the market.

“My life went from miserable to actually livable.

I cannot even explain it.”

“I would think,”

I ventured, “it is impossible to do so.”

She turned towards me.

“Yes. It is.”

She smiled before continuing.

“He always paid when he came to see me and it was probably more than he could afford at his age.

I owed him everything, but he insisted on paying.

I have never been with a man who wanted to be touched so much.”

She said the last sentence almost to herself.

A hot spike of jealousy pierced me.

“There was a time when he did not see me.

And that is when the Lady Vinia got her claws back into him.”

She said ‘the lady Vinia’ like it was a curse.

“I knew that they had been lovers.

He had confessed a little to me, but of course, she chose her lord over her soldier.”

She shrugged.

“I have seen the man and he is not unhandsome and I know him to be one of the wealthier lords, but after having had Alric? And he was madly in love with her.

But you know this already.”

I nodded though I knew nothing.

I wanted to leave this jovial, transparent woman sitting on the fountain wall, but I sat, squeezing the stone beneath me.

“When they were much younger, her family wanted Halsted for her but what girl would choose a stuffy lord over a fine soldier? Alric tried to convince her to marry him, I think.

Again, he only told me tidbits.

But she is not the kind of woman who can live a regular life.

She would not have even had to work that much.

Soldiers are paid well after so many winters of service.

Well, she regretted it, of course.

And she always used to lure him back to her in some way.

She could not stand to see him court anyone else or even hear of him swiving a regular whore.

And so she always wheedled and connived and threw her wiles in his way.

But he is a man of integrity and one time it was the last time.

And I offered him something she could not, a coupling without heartbreak.

I was of the idea that she broke his heart and no woman has ever fixed it for him.”

She turned to me.

“That is why news of your marriage made me happy.

He had finally shaken her ensnarement.”

“You are a good friend to think so,”

I whispered.

I did not trust my voice.

Isabeau leaned closer to me.

“I owe him my whole life.

And believe me when I say, my story is not yet done for there is more generosity from Alric in it.

After his final exit from her bed, she was in a state, I can tell you.

She would not leave him alone, so much so that he, a man who rarely talks, complained of it.

But he could not bed a married woman and live with himself any longer.

So she turned her sights to me.

She spread a rumor that I was diseased.”

My need to escape faded somewhat.

“That is— I am so sorry.”

She reached out to put her hand over mine.

“I knew you would be kind, Edie.”

We stared at each other for a moment.

“I lost all of my clients except him,”

she went on, withdrawing her hand.

“The owner of the brothel was a decent woman, but she could not afford to keep me.

Alric knew this wealthy Sibbereen merchant who sold horses to the cavalry and infantry.

And who liked to escape his shrew of a wife in a house in Pikestully.

And he introduced us and now, so many winters later, I have a house all to myself for most of the time.

And when my merchant visits, he mainly wants me to rub his back and listen to his complaints.”

She turned to me.

“Does my story’s purpose make itself known to you?”

“You want to warn me of the lady,” I said.

She closed her eyes and nodded.

“That woman will never let him go.

I have only seen him a handful of times since then.

I was close to thirty and now I am past forty.

So many winters gone.

He, of course, could no longer be a patron.

My merchant does not share.

But he has checked on my wellbeing every so often.

I used to think I was a little bit in love with him.

To tell you the truth.

But a part of me never let myself fully fall.

I knew his heart would always belong to that woman. But—”

and now she faced me fully, “I have always felt such fondness for him.

And when I heard he had married, I shed a tear.

I never thought he would recover from the illness that is Lady Vinia.

He could not even really believe that the rumor about me had originated from her.

But you are so lovely.

I can see why he fell for you.”

She covered her mouth with a hand.

“I wax on don’t I? Please forgive me.”

“No,”

I replied.

“You are the kindhearted one.

It serves you no purpose to warn me but you do.

I have met her.

In the baths in the Shark’s Keep.

She had been curious of me.”

Isabeau frowned, her puffy lips downturned.

“She plots something.

You are his lawful wife so I do not know what she could do, but believe, she will do something.

She almost cost me my livelihood.

She is eaten alive with regrets.

She cannot abide that she let a man like that go.

I almost pity her.

To live with a mistake of that magnitude.”

“I thank you,”

I said, now placing my hand over hers.

“I will keep my guard up.”

“I know many people in this town and Alric has never told me this, but,”

she paused and leaned even closer to me, “I have heard that she claims that daughter is his.”

And now I gave her the reaction she had originally anticipated.

She nodded seeing my face.

“I do not believe it.

But she told him the girl was his and so, he may never again share her bed, but she has hooks in that way.”

“You do not think Opal could be his child?”

“Yes, that is her name.

I do not know.

I have seen her in a crowd and I see nothing of him in that girl.

I would put nothing past the lady, mind you and I am biased to dislike her, but she looks more like her mother than either possible father.

You are in dismay.”

I rested my hands in my lap.

“I am, but I am now equipped with knowledge.”

“I wished not to upset you.”

“I am not upset,”

I sighed.

“I am at quite a loss for words.”

She moved closer to me until our hips were touching.

“Do not fret.

Alric Angler would never marry a woman he did not love.

He has put her behind him now.”

I realized the rumor about Alric not slaying us due to an infatuation with me was the one that had circulated the city and not the truth.

I now felt very overheated.

“Forgive me,”

I said, forcing a smile on my face.

“I am speechless, but I am grateful.”

“It is I who am grateful,”

she insisted.

“For what he did nearly twenty winters ago, I will always be grateful to that man.

And he expected nothing of me.

And now that we are both happy, I will feel more at peace.

Whenever Lord Halsted leaves his estate and comes to the keep, I hear about it.

For as I said, I know many people in this town.

And I always grit my teeth because I know she has returned to Pikestully.

But now, I will laugh with joy.”

She grinned.

My forced smile widened.

From across the square, I saw Quinn exiting the apothecary.

“My friend, concerned that you are a stranger, approaches,”

I indicated to Isabeau.

“Ah, a good friend then,”

Isabeau said, standing.

She placed a hand on my arm.

“Thank you for listening, Edie.

It was a pleasure to meet you.”

I must have nodded or done something to imply I felt the same.

She beamed at me and said, “I would tell you to give him my regards, but we know he is a reserved man…”

And she leaned in and whispered, “Until he is swiving into you.”