Princess master 4, p.3
Princess Master 4, page 3
“Absolutely not.” I shook my head vigorously. “Nothing like anything I’ve ever seen. Those were monsters from my nightmares, and I’m really, really glad we’re out of the woods. And Ariana, you did an amazing job for someone who’s barely walked before in her life.”
“Thanks, Joe.” The mermaid blushed, and she kicked her boots against the rocks on the ground before she started to laugh. “I don’t think my feet have ever actually had the chance to… hurt… before. I certainly hope it gets easier from this point.”
“I think we all do,” Jessamine confirmed, and then she grabbed both of her sister-wives’ hands and pulled down on their arms. “So, who wants to find a town? Which way should we go?”
I glanced down the road in both directions, and I honestly wasn’t sure how to figure out where we were going next. I figured we’d find something if we traveled far enough either way, but I knew we needed to get somewhere sooner rather than later. The rain was starting to come down a little harder, and the sky was beginning to grow dark for the evening.
“I think we should definitely go downhill,” Cienna suggested. “I’ve had enough of climbing for the day.”
“Sounds like a plan.” I nodded at my wives, and they began to walk in front of me hand-in-hand down the gently-sloping path. “I’m just glad to see this road seems at least a little bit worn down, and I hope we’ll at least run into another traveler at some point.”
I was amazed to see that even after everything we’d just been through, the three princesses were virtually skipping down the road. They seemed to have recovered their happy dispositions despite the horrific forest, the climb, the rain, and the heavy packs on their backs, and I was amazed yet again at how resilient they were.
These women were nothing short of incredible.
“Wait, I think I see something,” Jessamine called out after a while, and she pointed down the road. “It’s really faint, but I think I see lights up ahead.”
“Gods, I hope so,” Cienna groaned. “I didn’t want to complain, but my feet are killing me, too.”
“You’re not the only one,” I chuckled. “Jessamine, I really should have had you make me a pair of socks.”
“Maybe they’ll have something for sale like that there, if it is a town,” my dark-haired wife replied. “I feel so desperate for new clothing, I’ll knock on the peasants’ doors and offer them jewels if we have to.”
“I hope it doesn’t come down to that,” Cienna laughed. “What if the people are as creepy as the animals?”
“Cienna, don’t say that!” Jessamine gasped as her dark eyes grew wide. “I hope they aren’t glowing, or have pointy tails, or even antlers…”
“Ughhh.” I shuddered. “Can we just pretend that never happened?”
“Yes, sounds good to me,” Ariana said with a nod. “But I do see the lights Jessamine was talking about, which is encouraging.”
“Let’s speed up!” Jessamine chirped, and she pulled Cienna and Ariana down the road at practically a run.
So, I started to jog to keep up with them, and I couldn’t believe how much energy they still had.
We headed down the road for a thousand more yards, and we soon found the source of the light. A couple of large torches were lit in the center of a rudimentary town square, and they were surrounded by approximately a dozen dingy log houses. There were no people out in the rain, though, and the princesses and I looked around at each other in the quickly diminishing daylight. They had all pulled their cloaks over their heads to protect themselves from the drizzle, and I wished I had some sort of hat.
“Do we just knock on someone’s door?” I asked my wives, because they generally knew what to do in these situations better than I did.
“I’m not sure…” Cienna shrugged and looked around helplessly. “They certainly aren’t giving us the royal welcome like they did under the sea, not that they would have any idea who we are. That building seems a little larger than the rest, I suppose…”
My blonde wife pointed to a cabin that appeared slightly bigger than the others, and I noticed a faint light glowing from its simple windows and smoke coming out of the chimney.
Before we could take action, though, a man emerged from the structure we’d been looking at, and although we were only about a dozen feet away, he didn’t even look at us as he stumbled across the center of town toward one of the houses.
“Excuse me, sir?” I called out, but he still didn’t turn around. “Sir, can you hear me?”
The man finally glanced in our direction, and even though he didn’t appear impressed, he stopped walking.
“Maybe I should talk to him,” Cienna suggested, and she took her cloak off her head and fluffed out her hair. “Maybe I need to work a little princess magic.”
“Good luck, but we’re all coming with you,” I told my blonde wife, and we headed over in the man’s direction. When we got closer, I saw the big man was wearing a heavy cloak with holes in it and had a large, red nose and watery eyes, and I could smell a distinctive aroma of liquor, body odor, and wet wool.
“Hello, sir, thank you for stopping for us!” Cienna batted her thick, dark eyelashes at the man and looked up at him with her wide, azure eyes. “I’m Princess Cienna, and this is Princess Jessamine, and this--”
“Never heard of ya,” the large man snorted. “A princess all the way out here? Good story.”
“Okayyy…” Cienna pursed her lips. “Well, then, is one of these buildings a store?”
“A store?” the man echoed the blonde princess, and then he shrugged. “I suppose you could call the tavern a store of sorts.”
He started walking again toward the far side of the village without any more explanation, and I didn’t think he could have cared about us less.
“I guess he is just some old drunk,” I sighed.
“Is that the tavern?” Jessamine shouted and pointed at the largest building, but the man continued to stumble away without looking at us. “Alright, never mind. I hate that we were treated that way, but I’m not sure what we can do about it. I reallyyy can’t wait to find Rachel.”
“Me, neither,” I sighed. The rain seemed to have stopped, but I still felt gross and soggy. “Let’s go in there and see what it’s like. Though, I don’t have high hopes if the rest of the people in this town are anything like him.”
I headed toward the structure, and the princesses trailed behind. Then I pushed the door open and was immediately overcome by the scent of ale and burning firewood. When I walked inside, I had to let my eyes adjust to the light for a moment before I could make out the rest of the room. I finally realized it was a mostly-empty tavern, and I looked around at the inhabitants, who were all men as roughly dressed as the guy we’d seen outside. One man stood with his elbows leaning against a crude counter which had several large bottles on a shelf behind it, but I didn’t have high expectations.
When the princesses came in behind me, the man at the counter glanced up for a second, looked out into space, and then he did a double-take. It appeared that, unlike the man outside, he’d immediately noticed the princesses’ beauty, and he headed over to us with a leer on his face.
“Heyyy, thanks for coming in,” the man said with a smirk. He had dirty-blond hair, and he didn’t smell so great, either. “You’re not from around here, are you?”
Jessamine started to move forward toward him, but I gently held her back with my arm.
“No, we’re not,” I said as I stared him directly in the eyes. “I’m Joe, and these are my wives.”
“Your wives, huh?” The man looked me up and down, and then he flashed me a semi-toothless grin. “Whatever you say. I’m Harold. What the hell are you doing all the way out here?”
“Do you know anything about Princess Rachel?” Jessamine piped up. “That’s who we’re looking for.”
“Princess Rachel?” The blond man’s face broke into an even wider smile, and then he started to laugh. “Miss, does it look like princesses come here?”
I looked around at my wives and shook my head. The last thing we needed was for anyone else to suspect we were royalty, because after taking a look at the town, I was afraid of being robbed, or worse.
“No, I guess not.” I shrugged. “Right, no princesses. Anyway, I guess we were looking for some warm clothes, and maybe some food and one of those bottles over there.”
“You got money?” Harold asked with a raised eyebrow. “I don’t mean to be rude, but you don’t really look like you have any money, so whatever you’re up to isn’t going to work in my tavern.”
“Alright,” I sighed, pulled a couple of the gold coins Cienna had given me out of my pants pocket, and held them up to the man. “Yes, we have money. Do you have what we’re looking for?”
“Well, we don’t normally sell clothes, but I guess I can ask my daughter if she has anything she can spare,” he said as he eyed the coins with a greedy expression. “Let me call back to her, and I’ll have her bring out some food, too. And you said a bottle, so I’ll get you that. Our town’s finest, just for you.”
“Great,” I replied, and I put the coins back into my pocket for the time being.
Harold lumbered away and went over to a door leading to a second room.
“Hilda!” he yelled. “Come out here, girl!”
A young woman with the same dirty-blonde hair as her father wandered out of the door and looked at us with a suspicious expression. When she saw me and the princesses, though, she glanced down at the ground, and her cheeks turned red. She appeared to be around the princesses’ height, although she didn’t have anything close to their figures. She also wore a simple, woolen brown dress with an apron and heavy leather boots, and her face was plain and pale.
“Yes, Father?” Hilda asked as she kept her eyes turned to the ground.
“These… ladies here need some warm dresses,” her father said, and he turned to my wives. “What else do you need?”
“Maybe some stockings, and some heavier cloaks,” Cienna replied, and she smiled at the girl. “Really, anything warm you can spare us.”
“But, Father,” Hilda whined, “that will be pretty much all of my clothing.”
“Hilda,” the man hissed as he stared down the girl, “just… don’t worry about it. I have it taken care of.”
“If it’s a problem, we certainly don’t want to take anything from your daughter,” I said as I held up my hands and backed away slightly. We were pretty desperate, but it seemed unnecessarily unkind to take clothes off someone’s back.
“No, no, Hilda’s fine,” the tavern keeper assured me with a rotten grin. “She just hasn’t seen what’s in your pocket yet.”
“Okayyy,” Cienna said as she narrowed her sapphire eyes. “I suppose we’ll see what she comes up with. If you could just get us some food, that would be wonderful.”
“Of course, of course.” Harold nodded. “Go ahead, have a seat.”
“Thanks,” I said, and I looked around the tiny tavern and led us all over to a table by the fire. I’d gotten a chill from the rain, and the warmth was inviting. Two other men were sitting at a table near us, but the room was so small, there was really no way of avoiding them. As we passed by, they blatantly stared at us, so I tried to give them a polite smile, but they just looked back down at the table and continued their conversation.
When my wives and I had all sat down, we looked around at each other with wide eyes.
“I don’t really like it here,” Jessamine whispered. “I don’t like the way that man looked at us, and even though we really need them, I thought it was rude for him to offer his daughter’s clothing, even if we are paying for it.”
“I know,” Cienna sighed. “But at least they don’t have antlers…”
She raised her eyebrows at us, and we all burst out laughing. That drew a look from the other two men in the tavern, and even though I was completely exhausted, I felt like I had to stare them down again. I noticed their clothes were just as worn and dirty as the other villagers’, and I was concerned about what the princesses were actually going to get in the way of clothing.
After a moment, the men looked away from me and continued their conversation.
“Do you think--” Ariana began, but I shushed her with a finger to my lips because I was suddenly curious about what the two ragged men were talking about. I could only hear part of their conversation, but I tilted my head to listen.
“The children… sleeping… a curse from the gods,” I heard a few select words from the man who was the older of the two.
“Old mannn… says it’s the witch!” the other man slurred in a louder voice, and both of them started laughing raucously.
“Excuse me, this food is for you,” Hilda announced suddenly, and I realized the girl had come up behind me while I was eavesdropping.
Hilda slid four plates containing a simple, white fish and what looked like boiled potatoes onto the table along with forks, a large bottle of what appeared to be a clear liquor, and four glasses. Then she shot us a vaguely dirty look.
“Um, I guess I’ll have your clothing ready for you when you leave,” she muttered before she turned and walked away.
“Thank you, Hilda!” Cienna called over to her, but the girl didn’t turn back.
“More fish?” I teased Ariana as I gestured to the plates of food. “After all that time under the sea, we’re eating even more fish, so you must feel right at home”
“Don’t tease me, Joe,” the mermaid said with pink cheeks. “It’s not my fault we got fish again, and you know you love it, anyway.”
“I love you, but I’m not sure how I feel about fish anymore,” I chuckled. “Anyway, I’m starving, so I’d eat just about anything at this point.”
“But would you eat a zombie bear?” Cienna pointed her fork at me. “Would you rather have that or fish right now?”
“I think you know the answer to that,” I snorted, and I took a bite of my fish, which seemed salty but otherwise flavorless. I took a bite of my potatoes next, which were similarly unseasoned, and then I swallowed my food and grinned. “Definitely the bear.”
“Joe!” Jessamine kicked me under the table. “That’s not very polite. This food is alright. How about a drink?”
My dark-haired wife uncapped the bottle and poured a shot into each of our four glasses. I lifted mine to my nose and sniffed, but I couldn’t catch much of an odor. When I tipped back my glass, though, I choked when I realized it tasted more like rubbing alcohol than anything else.
“Well, that’s strong,” I coughed as I wiped my watering eyes. Then I looked around at my wives, who had all wrinkled their noses at the taste of the drink. “I guess it does the trick, though.”
“Let’s save it for later,” Cienna suggested. “To be honest, I want to get out of here as soon as possible.”
“Although, do we need to ask if we can spend the night somewhere?” Jessamine asked us. “We are in the middle of nowhere, and it doesn’t seem like we have anywhere else to go…”
“That is true,” I admitted with a frown. “But I’m getting a bad vibe, too.”
I gestured with my head toward the two other patrons of the tavern, who were just getting up to leave.
“What is it, Joe?” Ariana whispered.
“Tell you in a minute…” I said as I shook my head, and once the two men were safely out of earshot, I began to speak again. “That guy was saying something about children, sleeping, the gods, and maybe a witch. I don’t know, it just sounded weird.”
“It is weird,” I heard a voice from over my shoulder, and when I turned, Harold was standing right there and apparently listening to every word I said.
“Hey--” I interjected.
“Did you say something about sleeping children?” the man asked, and he raised an eyebrow at us. “What do you know about that?”
“Well, nothing at all,” I told him. I didn’t like being eavesdropped on, but I didn’t want to miss a chance to gather information. “We’re new to this kingdom, and I really haven’t heard anything about it.”
“It’s pretty bad,” the tavern keeper said as he shook his head. “The children keep falling asleep, and they won’t wake up. We suppose it’s the gods cursing us, though we can’t understand why.”
Harold looked at the ceiling and threw up his hands in a gesture of surrender, but I had just one more question.
“Do you know anything about a witch?” I asked.
“A witch…” the tavern keeper repeated, and he started to laugh hoarsely. “That’s crazy talk. Only one person in the village believes that nonsense, and he’s just a strange old man. Anyway, do you need anything else? I think Hilda brought those clothes for you…”
“No, we’re great.” I looked around at all of our empty plates and pushed my chair back to get up, and my wives followed. Jessamine also grabbed the bottle of liquor from the middle of the table and stuck it into the pocket of her cloak, which I definitely appreciated.
We walked back over to the counter, and the man handed me a stack of clothing. Then I pulled the two coins out of my pocket and put them down on the rough wood surface, and he grabbed them and put them into his apron.
“So, we were wondering if there’s anywhere for us to stay--” I began.
“Of courseeee,” the man drawled in a deferential tone, but then he grinned again and eyed the princesses. “No one like you has been here in quite a while, and we’re always accommodating to our guests. I can get you anything you need, like another drink, or a room… Hilda can sleep somewhere else tonight, don’t worry about her.”
Harold winked at me, but I saw his gaze return to the pocket where I kept my coins. Then he looked back up, and I saw a greedy glint in his eyes.
Fuck that. There was no way I was going to stay here and let the princesses and me get robbed, or worse.
