Page 28 of Wench

‘I thought,’ Allen cuts in, softer now, ‘if I brought you something that felt like yours, it might soften the sting of what you’ve been allotted.’

‘Which is . . .’

‘Laundress,’ Allen says with a wince. ‘You’ll scrub tunics and linens in the stream with the others. Mundane, thankless, a touch undignified, but far better than the alternative.’

Her throat burns. Even with valuable skills and a forest humming with enough magic to rewrite the world, Lox has reduced her contribution to ‘women’s work’. She snatches her hands back from the gift, lips pressed tight, the words bitter on her tongue.

‘Come now. It’s not so bad. If it weren’t for me, you’d be cleaning the latrines.’ He lifts both hands in a half-shrug at the look Marian levels at him. ‘Onóra wanted you scrubbing pits till your hair turned grey. Cern thought muck might build character. I argued for something with a bit more dignity and Lox miraculously agreed. Yes, you’ll wash what needs washing, but when no one’s looking you might forage a few berries, maybe snatch a fish from the stream. A woman who refuses to touch our food should at least have a way to feed herself.’

She glares, cheeks hot. ‘You make it sound like charity.’

‘Then perhaps you should think before you spit on it.’

Marian flinches as if struck, the truth cutting deeper than the wound to her pride. Her gaze falls back to the sketchpad. The leather cover is plain but sturdy. She can almost hear the scratch of charcoal across a fresh page, the freedom of lines not drawn for her father or the Sheriff, but for herself. Her fingers inch closer, traitorous in their wanting. They brush over the leather tentatively.

‘Thank you,’ she finally answers, though the words feel as if they might break apart before they reach him.

Allen brightens, but he doesn’t gloat. His shoulders slump, the tension leaking from them between breaths. ‘Gratitude suits you, Mare. But don’t worry, I won’t ask you to make a habit of it.’

ChapterNine

The next few days pass in a blur. Marian rises with the mist each morning. Her hands are raw from steam and lye by midday, but her mind is sharpened by every detail she collects.

As a laundress, her tasks are simple but ceaseless. Wash. Rinse. Beat the grime or blood from someone’s tunic with river stones. Mend a hem, fold a shift, carry fresh linens up spiralling stairs that snake through ancient oaks. In between washes, she trails Allen around the village like a shadow, learning which bridges creak, which ropes have too much give, and how long it takes to climb from the western canopy where her own cabin is to the seamstresses’ platform on the farthest bough.

Marian hasn’t seen Lox since the ceremony, yet his presence has refused to leave her. The feel of him settles on her skin, catches in her lungs, and threads through her thoughts when she least expects it. She feels him in the silence between tasks, in the hush that hangs before dawn, in the sharp bite of memory whenever she catches herself remembering the weight of his grip on her chin. Marian loathes it. Loathes that he has carved out any corner of her mind, that her pulse still betrays her when she recalls the way his eyes found her in the dark.

In between her shifts at the river, she’s managed to scrounge up enough small things to keep herself from collapsing: tart berries off a passing bush, the bark of birch that leaves her teeth aching, shoots of wild onion that burn the tongue. None of it fills her. None of it satisfies. The gnawing has settled into her stomach with a hunger she carries from dawn to dusk. At night she lies on her narrow cot, jaw sore from chewing tough greens. She dreams of bread so soft it caves beneath her teeth, of roasted meat glistening with fat, of cream spooned straight from the churn.

Still, she endures.

Today, the river has been mercifully low, its bed of stone glinting clear as glass in the morning light. Marian has already scrubbed a dozen tunics. Now she stands near a line strung between two ash poles, watching shirts and skirts flap in the breeze. The scent of lye clings to her fingers. She wipes them against her borrowed clothes, smudges spreading where the fabric wrinkles.

Marian says little and listens much. Allen talks enough for both of them.

It’s a small mercy that he proves to be more guide than captor. Whether out of kindness or command, she cannot tell. He spins stories of bark-skinned tricksters, of harvest moons that hum with magic, of lovers who stitched their souls together with ivy vines. But his presence is constant, always at the edge of each chore like a persistent tune.

‘Are you sure that charcoal is the best medium to capture the handsomeness of my features?’ Allen calls out. He sits a short distance away, back propped against a boulder, lute balanced across his knees. He plucks at the strings idly, not a song so much as a wandering of notes, the sound threading with the rustle of drying cloth.

Marian keeps her head bent over the sketchpad. It rests warm against the crook of her elbow, the paper growing crowded with his likeness. Her hand moves fast, sketching the line of a jaw, the slant of brows perpetually half-raised in mischief, the tug of lips caught mid-smirk.

‘It would take an arsenal of paint in every colour imaginable to properly render your vanity,’ she mutters, dark lines scratching swiftly across the page. ‘But for now, charcoal will have to do.’

‘How dare you!’ Allen gasps in mock offence, one hand splaying dramatically across his chest. The lute nearly tumbles from his lap. ‘This face is beloved in seven fae villages and by countless lovers that I’ve left squandered in heartbreak. You’re sketching history, not just my jawline, Mare.’

She shakes her head, the corner of her mouth twitching upward. Truthfully, she can’t remember the last time she sketched anyone like this – fast and free, lines piling on lines until the likeness emerges. For a breath, she forgets the sting of lye on her fingers, the gnaw of hunger. For a breath, she is herself again.

But the moment doesn’t last.

A shimmer at the corner of her vision stills her hand. Across the riverbank, two young fae stand barefoot in the shallows, a basket of wet fabric between them. One hovers a palm over the collection and water surges upward like a fountain. Threads of liquid bend unnaturally before collapsing back into the river. The other fae swirls her hands in a circle, wrings the basket’s load mid-air, and the cloth stirs as if caught in a gust. One by one, the garments rise before folding neatly and drifting back into the now empty basket.

Allen notices where Marian’s gaze has snagged. ‘Does it bother you?’ he asks, watching her shoulders tense. ‘The way we use it?’

Marian tears her eyes from the spectacle. Her fingers smudge the line she was working, a dark streak dragging across Allen’s cheek in the sketch. ‘It isn’t natural,’ she grumbles. ‘Work should be done with hands. Sweat. Tools. Not . . .’ She gestures vaguely toward the fae, still wringing out scarves with a flick of their fingers.

‘Magic?’ Allen finishes. ‘It isn’t some profane word or curse.’

Her charcoal skitters as Allen names it plainly. The word itself feels dangerous. She glances toward the two fae women again. Their power weaves effortlessly through the river, coaxing water from cloth and heat from wind without a sound of command or strain.