Enchant: Beauty and the Beast Retold (Romance a Medieval Fairytale #1)(8)
A chest at the end of the bed held gowns, but when Zuleika lifted one up, she found they were made in a fashion she had never seen anyone wear before, except in some of the old books her mother had inherited from her mother. Old gowns, in a chamber with faded hangings. The former owner of both no longer lived, Zuleika surmised, so she would not object to her borrowing her clothes.
She dressed in the most practical gown she could find, one of dark green wool. When she tried to place the matching veil on her head, the weight alone made her head ache, so Zuleika resolved to go with her head uncovered. She combed and braided her hair, wishing she owned combs as fine as these, carved of some sort of shell that caught the light and warmed it with rainbows.
If she met the master of the house, she would ask him what they were made of and where they were from, so she could travel there and obtain her own, Zuleika promised herself. In the meantime, she intended to explore the house and find out a little more about how she’d come to end up here.
Her door opened smoothly. Evidently, she was a guest and not a prisoner. The corridor outside her room was open to the frosty air, so she was glad she’d chosen wool and not linen. Nevertheless, she returned to her room to pull a cloak out of the chest to wrap around herself against the cold. Properly attired, she ventured out once more.
She peered over the sill of the glassless window and found the view as cold as the air. A courtyard smothered in deep snow, walled in so she couldn’t see anything but the sea of white. Perhaps they did intend to keep her prisoner, and they felt the walls would keep her in so that no locks were necessary. The were certainly high enough.
Zuleika strode briskly along the colonnade, headed for the shelter of a darkened corridor at the end that she hoped led deeper into the house. Torches burned in the wall sconces, leaving streaks of soot along the white-plastered walls.
She bit her lip, tasting blood once more, and whispered a seeking spell for her father’s ship. The spell sparked and died. Her father’s ship was too far away for her spell to reach it. Frustrated, Zuleika tried again, thinking of the silk her father had promised her when the ship came in. Silk she had no need for, but no matter.
The spell ignited in the air before her, weaving like a firefly as it led her deeper into the house. Zuleika stumbled after it, paying no heed to her surroundings as she followed the light to her destination – the cavernous cellars of the building. These were nothing like the cellars in her father’s house, or the dungeon cells she’d seen in other places. These stretched beneath the building, the vaulted ceilings turning the warehouse into a veritable cathedral of commerce, for it was piled with goods of all kinds. Chests and barrels, stacks of timber, stone jars and bundles of cloth, statues and…she lost track of all the things she saw in the warehouse.
Her spell hovered over a particular chest, balanced precariously on top of two barrels. It was closed, but not latched shut, so she lifted the lid. Zuleika gasped at the sight of silk, exactly as her father had described it. This was her father’s cargo…but where was his ship?
Her hand darted out, almost of its own accord, to stroke the fabric, as soft as she’d imagined. This silk had never touched the sea – salt would have marred its sheen. The chest had been removed from the ship before it sank to the depths where she’d nearly drowned. How, then, had it arrived here?
One thing was certain: whoever owned this house had no right to the stolen goods in his cellar. His wealth was no more his than any of these things. The master they spoke of was a dastardly pirate, the scum of the earth and every merchant’s enemy. Whatever curse lay on him, she was certain he deserved it, and more.
She found a pry bar and began to open the tuns stacked around the chest, all marked with her father’s brand. They were filled with vair, the grey-blue squirrel pelts royal courts found so fashionable of late. Carefully tucked between the pelts of a particularly full tun was a small chest, the size of her mother's jewel casket. Zuleika opened it with shaking hands. The chest was full of amethysts, all the same shade of violet she had seen so many times in her reflection. Just as her father had described them.
Zuleika sank to the floor, overcome by a mix of fury and frustration. More than half the room contained her father’s cargo. A fortune in imports, which he believed lost. If this remained here, he was ruined. But if she could return it to him, even without his ships, he could buy new ones. And where were the crews? Had they perished when pirates attacked, or had they been enslaved? She was no innocent, she’d seen slavery the world over. No man or woman was spared hard labour when taken prisoner in war. But a pirate who sold slaves? The master here was despicable indeed. Perhaps Zuleika would turn him into a form fitting his nature. A pig, perhaps. A bristled boar. Or a form that would teach him the error of his ways? Then she should transform him into a minnow, or a small crab. Or perhaps a squirrel, covered in grey and white vair.
That would be fitting.
Zuleika rose. She added a squirrel pelt to the jewel casket and closed the lid. She tucked the chest of amethysts under her arm, striding out of the room to find somewhere she could cast a portal home to her father. She would show him the casket as proof that she had found his missing cargo, before she returned to this house to seek vengeance on the worthless pirate who had stolen it.
She marched through the corridors, searching for a way out that she simply could not seem to find. The snowy courtyard taunted her, but she could not cast a portal there. Smaller spells could be cast in air alone, but something as substantial as a portal needed to be anchored in earth – soil or natural stone, not the flagstones beneath her feet. The snow in the courtyard was too deep for her to reach the earth. She needed to leave the house and venture outside.