Ch. 7 - Bitter Bridge

Rula

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We stayed ten days in all in the Inn of the Spreading Oak, and nice as it was, with the rain pouring down outside and the company not always pleasant, it got tiresome. I saw Azeline trying to flirt with Tom the Harper, under the watchful tutelage of Rivenka, and I didn’t think much of it, until I heard Azeline saying something about what he’d tried to do to her. Distraught and near tears, she said he had tried to kiss her in some awful way with his tongue and everything. Were it anyone else, I might’ve laughed, but this was Azeline, and she’s a good girl, and I like her. And then I saw Rivenka with Harper Tom suddenly in her service pretty as you please, and I could tell by the feeling the air between ‘em it wasn’t a willing agreement. Gave me an uneasy feeling, like maybe our Azeline had been getting set up this entire time to be in a situation Rivenka could rescue her from.

When we finally got on the road, seemed there was a lot of foul tempers, and everything was made of mud. Some folk had trouble with their horses, including his lordship Kai, who ended up getting bucked over into the mud in a way that had a lot of us laughing, though not too loud as to get in trouble for it. That night, I sat myself down next to Tom, who’d just finished a surly exchange with Rivenka. I waited until she was gone, and said “Azeline’s a good girl. And I’m fond of her. And I’m going to keep her safe.” I let that sink in a bit, then continued. “You might as well make the best of all this. Don’t think about crossing ‘em, the nobles. They’re smarter ‘n us. Meaner than me. Not worth it.” He sort of grunted at that. I suppose he’ll have to see for himself. I do dark work, but it’s not me comes up with the plans for doing it. Either way, I’d no plans to trust the harper any farther’n I could spit.

In the morning we were going over a bridge spanning a swollen river when there was the sound of a horse panicking, and suddenly my brother and his horse were in the water. The horse got stuck under the bridge, but Slaange was floating downriver at a rapid pace. He can’t swim, and I can swim but a bit, but here in Westeros, he’s all I’ve got, so I threw myself into the water after him. I saw him ahead, trying to grab onto a tree trunk that was being carried off in the current as well. It had branches everywhere, though, and he couldn’t get a good grip. I made it to him and the tree, but I couldn’t grab for him before he lost hold of it. Everything was moving too fast, but the trunk was pointed straight downriver, and I saw the only way I could get a little speed.

After Vasili taught me to be faster than a snake, he said he would teach me to run as if I was made of the wind. I may not, for all that I’m called a water dancer, be a swimmer, but if I have a moment or two for my feet to work, it’s more than just dancing – It’s practically flying. I hauled myself onto the end of the trunk, and even as it spun in the water, I ran across it, never missing a step, never hitting one of the protruding branches. I launched myself off the end, catching Slaange far faster than I ever would have been able to in the water. Unfortunately, he was panicked, and pulled me under damn near soon as I grabbed him.

I managed to get us to the surface, and I saw Azeline and Quaynlis on the bank, doing something with a rope. Then I saw the rope stretched taut across the surface of the water, and both my brother and I grabbed it, and they helped haul us out. I was too cold and too wet to stand on ceremony and propriety, so when Slaange started stripping off his wet things to get a dry blanket over him, so did I. I saw Quaynlis sort of staring, looking between us as if it were the first time it dawned on him that but for my brother being a male and me being a female, we look alike. I was shivering too hard to be flattered, though, and once I had a blanket around me and was sitting with Azeline on her horse, I was only thinking how miserable a place this country could be.

Kai had remembered that my brother’s bag was on his horse, with his traveling kit of poisons, but he remembered when the dying horse had gotten free of the bridge, and so he sent men after it, but it was too late. The only hope was that it could be found and some of the contents salvaged if the dead horse made it down the river to the grate at Bitter Bridge. Not a pleasant thought.

It was a hard journey, and by the end, everyone was looking a little tired around the edges, which is why Odette nearly killed the guards at the toll gate with one of her stares when they said we had to pay up for use of the road. In the end, though, she consented to payment, a pittance in comparison to what we owed the Spreading Oak, and we all went through. We got into Bitter Bridge to a nice reception, and there the nobles had nobling to do, ‘cept for Azeline, who as usual came with us the moment she could get away. We all decided it was best that we go as quickly as possible to try and find Slaange’s bag, as anyone opening it could get a nasty shock or three. We headed down that way, tryin’ to look casual, and as I’d been dressed up as Lady Azeline’s handmaiden and being as I was in a full proper dress for the first time in I don’t know how long, I weren’t doing too good at it. Looked like I was about to bring suspicion on us as a guard came by, and Slaange and Azeline were already sidling off, so Quaynlis threw me up against a wall and kissed me like we was lovers. He was good at it to, so for the moment I forgot where I was and kissed him back, and when he pulled away, maybe my cheeks were a little pinker than they ought to have been.

I tried not to look at my brother too hard as we went on, realizing that it was his man I’d been kissing, but Azeline kept asking me how it was, saying it looked nice. “It was nice,” I told her at last. “Very… nice.” She said it looked a lot nicer than Tom had tried on her, and since I hadn’t seen that, I supposed I agreed.

Storm debris had been pulled from the grates across the river, and so we would have to look where the dead animals would get taken if we had any hope of finding Slaange’s bag. We found the place… and we found a room with three(?) dead men inside of it, and a funny white powder around them. Slaange got a little pale then, saying anyone setting foot in that room would probably meet the same fate. We had to get the poisons out of there, and Slaange could maybe go in, covered entirely, but it would be dangerous. And we didn’t suppose we had much in the way of time.