The Kiss of Deception (The Remnant Chronicles, #1)(12)

As if on cue, Otto hawed at her remark, making us both laugh, and we raced for a warm bath.

*

I held my breath as Pauline knocked on the small back door of the inn. It immediately swung open, but only the brief wave of a woman’s arm greeted us as she rushed away and yelled over her shoulder, “Put it over there! On the block!” She was already back at a huge stone hearth, using a wooden paddle to pull flat bread from the oven. Pauline and I didn’t move, which finally caught the woman’s attention. “I said to—”

She turned and frowned when she saw us. “Hmph. Not here with my fish, eh? A couple of mumpers, I suppose.” She motioned to a basket by the door. “Grab an apple and a biscuit and be on your way. Come back after the rush, and I’ll have some hot stew for you.” Her attention was already elsewhere, and she yelled to someone who called to her from the front room of the inn. A tall, gangly boy stumbled through a swinging door with a burlap cloth in his arms, the tail of a fish wagging out the end. “Loafhead! Where’s my cod? I’m to make stew with a crappie?” She grabbed the fish from him anyway, slapped it down on the butcher block, and with one decisive chop, whacked its head off with a cleaver. I guessed the crappie would do.

So this was Berdi. Pauline’s amita. Her auntie. Not a blood aunt, but the woman who had given Pauline’s mother work and a roof over her head when her husband had died and the bereft widow had a small infant to feed.

The fish was skillfully gutted and boned in a matter of seconds and plopped into a bubbling kettle. Pulling her apron up to wipe her hands, she looked back over at us, one eyebrow raised. She blew a salt and pepper curl from her forehead. “You still here? I thought I told you—”

Pauline shuffled forward two steps and pulled her cap from her head so that her long honey hair tumbled down around her shoulders. “Amita?”

I watched the old woman’s expressive face go blank. She took a step closer, squinting. “Pollypie?”

Pauline nodded.

Berdi’s arms flew open, and she swooped Pauline into her bosom. After much hugging and many half-finished sentences, Pauline finally pulled away and turned toward me. “And this is my friend Lia. I’m afraid we’re both in a bit of trouble.”

Berdi rolled her eyes and grinned. “Couldn’t be anything that a bath and a good hot meal won’t take care of.”

She darted over to the swinging door, shoving it open and shouting orders. “Gwyneth! Gone for five. Enzo will help you!” She was already turning away before the door swung back and I noted how, for a woman of some years who carried a hefty sampling of her own cooking around her midsection, she was spry on her feet. I heard a faint groan waft through the door from the front room and the clatter of dishes. Berdi ignored it. She led us out the back door of the kitchen. “Loafhead—that’s Enzo—he’s got potential, but he’s as lazy as the day is long. Takes after his shiftless father. Gwyneth and I are working on it. He’ll come around. And help is hard to come by.”

We followed her up some crumbling stone steps carved into the hill behind the inn, and then down a winding leaf-littered path to a dark cottage that sat some distance away. The forest encroached just behind it. She pointed to a huge iron vat simmering on an elevated brick hearth. “But he does manage to keep the fire going so guests can have a hot bath, and that’s the first thing you two need.”

As we drew closer, I heard the soft rush of water hidden somewhere in the forest behind the cottage, and I remembered the creek that Pauline had described, the banks where she had frolicked with her mother, skipping stones across its gentle waters.

Berdi led us into the cottage, apologizing for the dust, explaining that the roof leaked and the room was mostly used for overflow now, which was what we were. The inn was full, and the only alternative was the barn. She lit a lantern and pulled a large copper tub that was tucked in the corner out into the middle of the room. She paused to wipe her forehead with the hem of her apron, for the first time showing any sign of exhaustion.

“Now, what kind of trouble could two young girls like you be in?” Her gaze dropped to our middles, and she quickly added, “It’s not boy trouble, is it?”

Pauline blushed. “No, Amita, nothing like that. It’s not even trouble, exactly. At least, it doesn’t have to be.”

“Actually, the trouble is mine,” I said, stepping forward and speaking for the first time. “Pauline has been helping me.”

“Ah. So you have a voice after all.”

“Maybe you should sit so I can—”

“You just spill it out, Lia. It is Lia, right? There’s nothing I haven’t heard before.”

She was planted near the tub, bucket in hand, ready for a quick explanation. I decided I would give it to her. “That’s right. Lia. Princess Arabella Celestine Idris Jezelia, First Daughter of the House of Morrighan, to be exact.”

“Her Royal Highness,” Pauline added meekly.

“Ex Royal Highness,” I clarified.

Berdi cocked her head to the side, as though she hadn’t heard quite right, then paled. She reached for the bedpost and eased down onto the mattress. “What’s this all about?”

Pauline and I took turns explaining. Berdi said nothing, which I suspected was uncharacteristic of her, and I watched Pauline grow uneasy with Berdi’s silence.