The Marble Tower

-23-

William had taken her to a boat docked at the shore of the river, where the familiar figure of Lady Abril stood inside. Abril had pushed them off into the river as she waved good bye to William.

Now, a day later, they had arrived at the safe house.

It was a lot smaller than the house than the one that they had met earlier in, but it had been a rather big house.

But sometimes size wasn't what mattered with the number of safe houses they had planted all over the country. All that mattered with this particular safe house was that nobody saw it amongst the various trees and plants that surrounded this part of the river.

So when they docked they hid the boat amongst the many bushes and started hiking though the woods, pushing through vegetation and hopping streams before they came to this old log cabin that, on the outside, looked like it had been abandoned for years, the logs at first glance were invisible underneath all of the vines, one side was pressed up against a hill, trees growing everywhere, and on the other side bushes and weeds hugged the old houses walls.

On the inside though there was barely a layer of dust. Not a single cobweb lurked in a forgotten corner; the lamps that lined the walls were ready to be lit at any time. It was a simple set up, designed for four. A table in the middle had four chairs and there were four small beds shoved in a corner next to the little stove and a pile of wood. The walls had boards nailed to the rotting logs outside with just a basic layer of paint to cover it. The floor was also wood but it had been smoothed flat for comfort. On one wall there was a shelf full of spices and the bare minimum food, a few jars of pickles, some jars of jam that hadn't been opened at all, and some really stale bread wrapped up in an old newspaper. Next to the makeshift pantry there were more shelves, but these were shoved full with books. Big books, little books, books on the different plants in the wild, some were on knots, others on animals. Some were history and geography books. A few maps were shoved into a basket on one of the higher shelves and a few random boxes were scattered throughout the shelves.

And tucked into a corner was a chest which would be filled with a verity of weapons, a bow, a sword, maybe a dagger, and an assortment of other items. There may be a bag of coins tucked in there too, but that didn't always happen.

Lady Abril went to the stove and started a fire.

"So what now?" Ezme asked the usually quiet lady.

Abril blew on the fire for a bit before grabbing a sheet of parchment and a pen from the table and scribbled down a note. Rolling it up and tying a ribbon around it she started towards the door.

"Now we wait."