The Duchess Cannot Sleep || ONC 2021

7 | The Inn

Everyone knew Reide Hafiless. The shop vendors, most of the shoppers, the artisans. And everyone wanted to know who it was he had with him.

"What size?" the dressmaker asked.

The leatherworker slung a satchel over Andreya's shoulder and patted her arm. "For you, it's half price."

"A recipe for a recipe if you know any foreign delicacies, Miss Dreya," said the chef with a wink.

The thing that surprised Andreya most, however, was how every person had toothy smiles. Every face was ruddy, every eye crinkled, every arm open and welcome. Conversations struck as soon as people saw one another, laughter broke out seemingly every moment. She had not been in a town in so long, Andreya had forgotten what people were like.

"The last thing I might need is some more arrows, but I suppose those can wait," Reide was saying as he led her along in her brightly-colored Isantadi commoner clothes. Her dark hair was hidden now in a scarf made of beads and her eyes had been painted to alter their shape, something forbidden in Nasavte because it affected one's natural appearance in accordance with the age-class system. When she'd glanced a mirror in the dress shop earlier, she had not recognized the young woman who usually haunted her reflection.

Andreya looked to the sky, orange and pink pigmenting the clouds, and hurried to keep at Reide's side. "Are you positive we will reach Feledir today?"

"Oh, no." He spared her a surprised glance. "Feledir is a day's ride from the forest in a carriage. Did I not tell you?"

Andreya frowned and stopped in the street. Reide stopped a moment later. "You did not. Should I take that to mean we will be camping on the side of the road come nightfall?"

"You know, for a lady who nearly froze to death in the woods, you are quite demanding." He chuckled. "But no, if it is not her desire, I will not subject a lady to camping if I can help it... though I am sure it wouldn't kill you."

Andreya's frown turned to a scowl. "You make light of my curse."

He registered surprise. "Surely not! Forgive me, my humor was tasteless." Then his smile crept back as if it were his natural state—admittedly, it looked quite good on him. "There's an inn here we can stay at tonight, if you'd like. I know the keeper, a woman named Calever. Lovely lady, wonderful tambourinist..."

Dusk followed in what could have been an instant or three days. Half of Andreya would really rather not have listened to Reide's rambling, but the other half was oddly endeared. Another emotion she didn't know what to do with. One way or another, they found themselves in front of the inn, an old but kempt three-story wooden building, lamplight pouring through the windows and the chaos of many conversations drifting muffled through the walls. It was a poor establishment, but perhaps only compared to the prestige of Marivatan Manor with its carpeted floors and velvet draperies and plush lounges. Canopy beds, marble dinner tables, ivory walls, hand-painted navy accents on every doorway trim.

Reide held open the creaky door and Andreya wished to shrink away, retreat back to the comfort of that faraway place.

Instead, she nodded in thanks as she stepped through the threshold into a room crowded with men and women of all age and breed, pink in the face, roaring with laughter or else half-asleep, though the moon had barely shown itself yet. Some appeared to be telling stories, others reacting or clinking glasses. It was pandemonium in the form of twelve-or-so circular tables and forty people, most shamefully inebriated. The smell of alcohol was enough to be sickening if the noise weren't already having the same effect.

"Miss Andreya?"

She turned to Reide, whom she'd forgotten about completely. He nearly shouted over the surrounding cacophony to be heard.