Reaching for the Stars

Chapter Three

The trip to the Silver Woods was long and arduous, if I had been in a more comfortable carriage perhaps it wouldn't be as bad, or rather if I was more used to riding in a carriage, instead of walking on foot. But now in this carriage that barred everything but the barest necessities, I felt every bump and dip in the road as it radiated throughout the carriage and into my body.

There were no cushions for me to lean against, or to soften the jolting of the carriage wheels going over rough road. We had been traveling for over three days now, on a good horse or better yet with multiple horses towing the carriage we'd be there in a week, as we were going now it would take two weeks. I think the purpose was to drain me of as much money and supplies as the servant could on the way, the fool expected me to buy a room for him at the inns we stopped at as well, if he had been dealing with a usual spoiled noble who knew nothing out of the world, he would have got a lot of money out of me.

But I wasn't stupid, I bought the smallest personal room for myself, and allowed him to stay in the group quarters that were a fifth of the price, always making sure to ask the inn keeper what the price of the rooms were before I revealed my gold coins, it was the only way not to get scammed. I knew for a fact that the Dagon family had given this servant money for the trip as well as to make it as hard for me as possible, they wouldn't want it known that they sent their servant on a trip with no money to survive.

Luckily after the first inn we stopped at I had quite a bit of smaller change after switching out a gold coin for a night's stay, the looks the inn keepers gave me when I asked for change were disgruntled, like they expected a rich person like me who had gold coins to just give them the whole coin when the value of a single night's stay was far below that. Too bad for them I wasn't a stupid noble, I may have been born into the noble Dagon family, but from the day after I turned ten, I had to survive by myself, with my own willpower and skills.

Being given a pitiful amount of money and still expected to dress up like I received fifty gold coins whenever I asked, let alone the fact that I didn't even get a tenth of that. I was lucky for the mere fact that I was a quick learner and learned to read and write before my parents thought I was completely worthless and cancelled all my classes. To live as a peasant with three gold coins a month was no hardship, to live as a high noble with fifty gold coins a day was considered cheap, I was smart and frugal.

I wasn't about to let this stupid servant who wasn't anywhere near clever enough to fool me drain me of my money or supplies. At every inn we went to, I woke up early in the morning to buy more food and water for the trip, knowing that even though the carriage had a compartment full of food and water, the servant wouldn't allow me to touch any of it, likely anticipating eating himself stupid on his way back after leaving me to my death at the edge of the Silver Woods.

The servant at least seemed to learn his lesson after a week, he no longer pestered and complained to me about his unfair conditions, about how I should buy him food and a private room, that it was only proper. One conversation about how while I may be unofficially disowned by the Dagon Family, in name I was still a member of the powerful family, how by rights he was a servant that I could have punished for being disrespectful. I may not have learned much in how to survive from my family after I turned ten, but I at least learned how to act like a haughty noble that wasn't afraid to punish others who offended them.

Let alone by all rights I should have had a female servant along for the trip as well as a maid, or at the very least some sort of chaperone to insure there were no rumors about me being alone with a man when I was unmarried, but when the Dagon family already didn't care about my life, they surely didn't care about ruining my reputation. I am sure they would release all sorts of rumors about why I left in order to save face, to still look like the respectable nobles they prided themselves on being.