Of Swans and Ravens 🏳️‍🌈 (wlw) [ON HIATUS]

6: The Raven

The constellation of the Swift Fox was high in the summer night sky when Margot and Chiara arrived in Acquarossa. They had ridden hard, though Margot had been so steeped in melancholy that she hadn't noticed their speed until they approached the winking lights of the town.

Why had she left Due Ponti? She ached for Kari, for Adi, for Bertha. For everything that she knew. Sweet thoughts of her parents, the liars, could no longer soothe her despair, but she ached for them all the same.

After everything, Blanche had begged her not to leave. Perhaps they could come to an understanding, and rebuild their love. Perhaps Kari might come back to Due Ponti in winter to visit. Learning that Margot had become Viscountess might tempt her to stay forever.

"Margot?" Chiara urged her horse onwards, and Margot was forced to cast her mad fancies aside.

The town of Acquarossa was smaller than Due Ponti, nothing but six dusty streets winding out like the spokes of a cartwheel from a crumbling Swan Temple in the town's central hexagon. A cluster of wind-engines turned lazily on the dark riverbank that flowed parallel to the main road.

As they passed a row of stately townhouses and coaching inns that lined the town's main hexagon, Margot was struck with unease.

"There must be a grand house away in the hinterland beyond the town," she muttered, as an ostler emerged from the nearest coaching inn. "Madame Celine couldn't possibly live in one of these modest townhouses."

Chiara sat up in her saddle, suddenly alert. "Madame Celine?"

"One of the noble ladies who knows the Prince. My step-mother became firm friends with her at the Spring Ball three months ago. She lives in Acquarossa, and visited us often."

"Hmm." Chiara was pensive for long moments. She waved the first ostler away, and a second who approached from the opposite side of the hexagon.

Margot directed her mare towards the nearest coaching inn, but Chiara shook her hooded head, and instead trotted down a crooked passageway between two houses, where the town's less hallowed lodgings were likely to be. Margot had no choice but to dismount and follow.

Though Margot didn't wish to stay in one of the smaller, filthier inns that stood in one of the smaller, filthier back alleys that criss-crossed the town of Acquarossa, it occurred to her that she had no money, and was relying on Chiara's coins until they visited the notaries in Lago Maggiore, another half-day's ride ahead.

Viscountess or not, Margot had no reason to pour scorn on the neat little room that Chiara had kindly paid for.

They puffed after the landlady as she skipped up four flights of stairs into a tiny room. "Is it to your liking, Mesdames?"

She opened the window with a flourish, letting in the welcome night breezes that whirled around the chimneypots and the lines of billowing washing that hung opposite the inn.  

"Fit for Madame Celine herself," said Chiara brightly.

The landlady levelled Chiara with a bewildered expression. "Who's Madame Celine?"

Chiara set her smallsword on the mantle with a clatter and nestled onto the bed, making a show of plumping up the pillows and pressing the mattress. "Isn't she the lady who lives in the big house?"

"There's no big house here, Mesdames. The nobles all live close to Lago Maggiore."

The moment the landlady had gone, Margot threw a handful of oats onto the bare boards of the tiny room and lifted the flap of her saddle-pack. The four goslings tumbled out and careened to and fro snapping up oats, before nestling down together by the grate.