Nobody's Goddess (Never Veil #1)(43)
I tucked my tool and wood block into my sash and started down the village path, but as I passed her, Mistress Tailor had one more thing to say. “I wish you the best tomorrow. Whatever ‘the best’ may be.”
I was taken aback. Mistress Tailor, the stout and surly woman of few words, had said what no one else would. And she seemed to honestly mean it.
“Thank you.”
Mistress Tailor practically growled. “All right. No use crying over the broken thread. I’m sure Alvilda will have some nice words for you.” With that, she and Bow went back into the Tailor Shop, and I was left to face the onslaught of people between one end of the village and the other alone.
If I thought I attracted attention before I became the lord’s goddess, for being a rambunctious child or for having no man to call my own, I had no idea of the type of interest I would have to deal with as the day of my supposed Returning approached.
“Blessed be your birthday tomorrow!” An unmasked man next to a stand of produce tilted his hat at me, the grin on his lips a sign he had no idea how his words cut me to the quick.
I mumbled my thanks, spinning to get out of the way of the tanner and his cart of hides, itching to get away from the busy path that led to the center of the village.
“Watch where you’re going, you foolish girl!”
The woman startled me and I nearly fell, flinging my hands out to steady myself. My fingers smacked against a wicker basket, my nails catching in a dark gauze laid over it. The gauze began to shift and I realized with horror what I’d done.
Not a basket. A bassinet.
“I’m so sorry, Ma’am!” I hurried to readjust the gauze, grabbing my finger with the other hand and carefully untangling the jagged nail from the thin material, all while not daring to look down. “Is he all right?”
“Oh. It’s you.” The woman struggled to balance a baby in the crook of her left arm with the handled bassinet slid across her right. The baby sucked its fist and leaned into her shoulder. She had powerfully dark brown eyes slightly covered by a mess of dark brown curls. “I apologize for yelling at you.” The mother bent awkwardly to tighten the gauze over the baby in the bassinet.
“You needn’t apologize,” I said. “I should have looked where I was going. I put your baby in danger.” I stared at the girl, the only type of baby I’d ever seen. “Twins?”
“Yes. The first goddess blessed me with both a girl and a boy, with a daughter to take care of me and my husband in our later years and a son to do the same for his goddess’s family, to learn the value of love.” She bounced her baby girl higher and shifted the bassinet onto her elbow once again. “It’s fine. It was an accident.” She smiled, falteringly. “We’re so looking forward to tomorrow. My husband is one of the men playing the music. We’ve already gotten the copper for it.” The baby on her left arm cried out suddenly, her face twisting in fury. “Shh, shh,” said the woman, rocking her back and forth.
I didn’t want to tell her there was nothing special “tomorrow.” Besides, I hadn’t gotten an invitation to my Returning. He must have assumed I’d go, but I had no plans to be there.
“Noll, praise the goddess!” A hand touched my shoulder. Elweard. He had a barrel under one arm and a grin that took up half his face. “Vena and I were just talking about you. We received so many coppers for the Returning—we’re so looking forward to finally meeting him, and thanking him for all his orders—and the invitation asked us to provide enough for the whole village to drink.” Elweard laughed, but he wasn’t one to wait for responses, which was just as well. “But he paid us far more than that! The village couldn’t possibly drink that much, even if there were enough wheat and grapes to make enough ale and wine, and we wondered if it would be wrong if we kept the copper and sent the two of you and his servants free drinks for life, or if the lord would need it back—”
Elweard droned on, and the woman curtseyed at me best she could with one screaming baby in her arms and the child’s twin joining in the cacophony from beneath his veil. Stepping aside and putting the bassinet on a bench in front of a nearby shop, she tugged at the gauze gently, shifting it so slightly I could hardly believe it moved at all.
“Noll?” Elweard’s voice drew me out of my reverie. “Do you need Vena to stand up for you and the lord? I know you probably have another in mind. Alvilda, maybe, since you’ve been helping her with carving, or your sister’s man’s mother—”
“No!” I gritted my teeth and fought hard to keep the anger buried within. The woman stood up, tightening the gauze over the bassinet, a deep breath visibly escaping her lips. I clutched my skirt with both hands as the woman disappeared into the crowd, that black gauze on the bassinet threatening to drown me in memories of the veiled lord, in images of me and him where Elfriede and Jurij had once stood, in him removing the veil, in what I would find beneath it … “No. Thank you, Elweard, but no.”
Elweard scratched his head. “All right. Vena thought we ought to offer, that’s all. But about the copper … ”
“I have to go.” I spun around, almost smacking into another woman. At least this one carried bread in her basket instead of babies.
“Oh my! Noll!” Mistress Baker placed a hand on her chest. “Just the woman I was about to go visit. I thought maybe I should ask which of these breads you want served at the ceremony and which we should just send home with everyone.” She shifted the loaves aside in her basket, producing one roll after another. “The lord sent us enough copper to feed the village three times over, so we’ve been working hard and making everything, but we simply can’t carry it all to the Great Hall tomorrow. My husband hasn’t slept a wink in days, I swear—”