Pirate's Treasure

Chapter 3

I woke up late; Henrik was already gone with Robin Hood. I stood up and changed quickly, eating breakfast and grabbing the bag of farthings, running out the door, barely remembering my shoes. I ran past the sign in the front of our land and was vulnerable to the village around me, but soon hurried to Dinah’s home, not caring about the cooking, cleaning, vegetables, laundry, or if Iris would come by. The last thing I wanted to do was see her anyway. How could he want to marry her!? All she'd do is take him away from me, and then I'd really be alone. But I wasn't going to let that ruin today. Today would be my day with my best friend, even if I haven’t seen her in forever.  

Her house was on the other side of town, closer to the village marketplace then mine was. I had to go through a forest and around a river, making my journey hard, but it was kinda an adventure, the only one I would ever go on. But when her house was in my view, she was already outside, playing with her little sister.

"Dinah!" I exclaimed, running across the dirt path and onto her family’s land.

Her face whipped towards me, and it lit up instantly. "Elisa! Long time no see!"  The twenty year old’s black hair flew behind her as she ran towards me, her eyes a pale blue, not like my sapphire colored. "Where’ve you been?"

"Oh, you know. Alone, doing housework while Henrik runs along with Robin Hood, having all the fun. He's robbing the King today, so we should be getting a notice from a knight later." I answered, and she nodded in understanding. It was strange how I never met Robin Hood, but with everything Henrik and his thieving buddies did with him, I kinda wanted to. Maybe he could help me with the adventure thing, but I would save that for another day. Right now, I needed best friend time. "Hey, Henrik gave me some farthings to go down to the marketplace and maybe shop."

"Really?" She asked, eyes wide with shock. It was true; we were all poor in Kenilworth. We had money for food, and every once in a while, some sort of clothing, unless the taxpayers came by. We all hated them, and most of them ran a smaller store that wasn't part of the trader's market. "The only place open is the trader's market because of all the robberies in the taxpayer's stores."

"Really?" I whined, but I knew whose fault it was. "I have no desire to go to the trader's market."

"It's okay, nothing's gonna happen." She tried to assure me, but from what happened to David, I wasn't ever going to trust a trader's market again. Besides, he marketplace was usually for trading among different villages and their rich and royals, and we weren’t welcome there very often. "I'm only hoping  the royals won’t mind. I know they trade a lot there."

I gave into what she wanted to do, only because I really wanted to hang out with her. "I guess we can go if you really want to… can you come?" I asked with hopefulness, and she ran inside, probably asking her parent. Her sister ran inside after her. Dinah ran back out, almost slamming into her, but managed to stumble back to me.

"My mom said it was fine." She told me, and I shrieked in excitement, linking arms with her. "But I gotta be back by mid-sundown to help around the house again. Oh wait, I'm sorry-" She held up her hands to form quotations, scrunching up her face like one of the snooty royals. "The royals seem to call it 'evening'."

"Haha, right." I laughed, slinging an arm around her shoulder. "Okay, we’ll be back by then." I assured her. I don’t care if this sounds childish; I was finally getting a best friend day!

~~~~~~~~~~

The marketplace was really busy today, or at least I thought it was. Merchants with jewelry, spices, silks, porcelain, clothing and animals were all set up, giving us odd stares as we browsed what they were selling. Not only that, but we felt very out of place. Everyone there had on silk or leather, nothing close to the stuff we had on our backs, and had big, elegant or proper hairstyles that made them look so much better. It made us uncomfortable, even if we were having fun. But one thing never changed; the trader's market was still for the nobles and royals.