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Chapter Twenty-Seven

Guinevere

In hindsight, it had been foolish to believe that the sunny days would hold fast three weeks into Fessuran. Although it wasn’t that Guinevere had believed it would never rain, exactly—she simply hadn’t thought about it.

That was the thing with the weather: one tended to take the good for granted until the bad crept up on them.

Or, in this case, until the skies clouded over, swallowing the sunlight, and a growl of thunder was all the warning that the gods deigned to issue before a blinding deluge fell over the Amber Road.

Vindicator pranced anxiously while Pudding let out a high-pitched neigh of distress.

Through sheets of water so thick that they all but plastered to her eyes, blobs of diminutive orange streaked across Guinevere’s vision as the goblin children abandoned the mare and raced to the shelter of their wagons.

“Come!” The musician had reemerged and was now beckoning at Oskar and Guinevere, shouting to be heard over the din of the elements. “Inside, quickly!”

Oskar urged Vindicator forward. The ground had turned to mud, but the stallion prevailed, and soon Oskar was lifting Guinevere into the wagon.

“I have to stay with the horses,” he told her.

She gripped his arm. “But—”

He shook her off. “Take care of her for me,” he said to the musician, who nodded and ushered Guinevere into the darkness underneath the bonnet.

Guinevere wasn’t sure how many children there actually were.

They moved around so much that each one seemed to be everywhere at the same time.

There were fifteen adults of various races, though, including the musician.

They sat comfortably amidst piles of furs, wooden chests, building materials, and a staggering array of clubs and axes.

“She’s shivering, the poor dear,” tutted the most elderly of the lot, a stooped human woman with white hair and gnarled knuckles. “Rodregg, fetch us some blankets, won’t you?”

“Yes, Nan.” The musician ambled over to one of the chests and heaved the lid open.

“He’s a good lad,” the elderly woman confided to Guinevere. “One of my favorites. I wish he’d apply himself to the clan business more—we’re fur traders, you see—but unfortunately he wants to focus on his music.”

“He couldn’t skin a rabbit if it hopped into his lap and held still!” cackled a brunette goblin who bore enough of a resemblance to Rodregg that Guinevere guessed she was his sister.

“If you are quite done assassinating my character, Zugri…” Rodregg dumped several heavy wool blankets into Guinevere’s lap.

“It’s short for Zugrinilka,” the brunette goblin explained as she helped Guinevere bundle up. “It means ‘the presentiment of doom that overtakes the enemy before battle is joined.’ I hope my little hellions weren’t bothering you too much earlier.”

There were cries of “We weren’t!” and “We’re good kids!

” from the innumerable children. One of them asked Guinevere if Pudding would be all right in the rain.

She nodded, her teeth chattering too much for her to speak.

Her new companions took pity on her and introduced themselves one by one to fill up the silence.

Her head spun from all the names, but she forced herself to concentrate, to remember. It was the least she could do.

The old woman everyone called Nan had formed Clan Bonecrusher decades ago.

They were nomads who plied their trade all over Wildemount, collecting every lost soul in need of a home along the way.

Species didn’t matter; they were a family.

A particularly well-armed one, more than capable of holding their own against the bandits that plagued the wilderness.

When the blankets had finally warmed Guinevere, she hurried to introduce herself and to thank the clan’s matriarch, as etiquette dictated, but Nan waved her off.

“Think nothing of it,” she said. “We know how it goes. Travelers help one another here on the Amber Road, or we’re all up the creek without a paddle.”

“And where are you off to this time?” Guinevere inquired.

“The Menagerie Coast,” said Zugri. Her yellow eyes glinted with mischief. “Where the winters are milder for Nan’s old bones.”

A chorus of cackling laughter echoed through the wagon. Nan playfully shook a fist at Zugri.

“You’re for the Coast as well, yes?” Rodregg peered at Guinevere speculatively. “Forgive my presumption, but a fine lady such as yourself doesn’t seem all that destined for Alfield or Trostenwald.”

Guinevere fidgeted. She hardly felt like a lady in her drenched clothes, half-buried in rustic blankets and her hair a sodden, tangled mess, but her parents would have been delighted to know that her affluent upbringing had shone through.

It’s in how you carry yourself, her father loved to say.

Your mother and I are as common as muck, we come from generations of it, but with you, my girl, we’ll finally break that cycle.

Out loud, Guinevere confirmed that her party was also headed to the Menagerie Coast. Rodregg grinned. “You and your young man are eloping, are you?”

Her first instinct was to protest. But, on second thought, she and Oskar could hardly go around telling everyone who asked that they were transporting a trunk filled with valuable enchanted items. If omitting that fact, though, it was difficult to explain why two people were traveling together all by themselves such a long way, one of them clearly from the upper class, as Rodregg had pointed out.

Without knowing it, the musician had handed Guinevere a plausible cover story.

“Yes, we’re eloping,” she confirmed, and Rodregg clapped a hand over his heart as the other Bonecrushers hooted in delight.

Rain continued to pour well into the late afternoon.

While her companions napped or played games with the children or chatted among themselves or threatened to break Rodregg’s lute over his head if he didn’t stop singing, Guinevere took to checking on Oskar.

She stayed at the back of the wagon, fretfully peeking out the bonnet and into the silver-gray blur that the world had become.

Oskar was practically a darkened silhouette; he walked between the two horses, their reins in his hands as he scouted the ground ahead, guiding Pudding and Vindicator away from rocks and deep potholes.

The hood of his cloak was drawn over his head, but he had to be drenched to the bone…

yet he continued slogging through the mud and the wet behind the wagon, never faltering. Guinevere’s heart ached.

She could have wept in relief when the deluge finally ceased.

Nan made the call to set up camp, as the sun didn’t look likely to return.

The two wagons trundled to a stop at the side of the road, and Guinevere leapt down.

Her arms filled with blankets, her boots kicking up sprays of brown slush, she ran to Oskar, who had taken off his cloak and was tethering the horses.

“I’m fine,” he insisted in that gruff, tired rumble of his as she attempted to swaddle him in the blankets. “Did they treat you all right?”

“Yes.” She arranged a third blanket over his shoulders. He gave up and let her, a faint softness tugging at the corner of his mouth. “They’ve invited us to camp with them tonight,” she added hesitantly. “I think it’s a good idea?”

Oskar nodded. “Safety in numbers.”

“Let me introduce you to Clan Bonecrusher, then.” She wrapped both her arms around one of his, tugging him in the direction of the wagons. “By the way, I told them that you and I are eloping.”

He nearly walked into a tree.

Tents were pitched on the damp ground in a large clearing just off the Amber Road. The Bonecrushers had logs in their wagons, and soon enough, a fire blazed merrily, warding off the post-rainstorm chill. The cozy scent of burning applewood mingled with the cool musk of wet earth.

The clan traveled well stocked. In an enormous iron cauldron blackened from years of use, Zugri mixed up a hearty pottage of cracked wheat, pickled turnips, and mutton that had been cured in salt and honey. Seated by the fire, Oskar and Guinevere threw all shame to the wind and asked for thirds.

“This is the best we’ve ever eaten while camping,” she told him, and he grunted agreeably as he shoveled more pottage into his mouth.

The Bonecrusher beside Guinevere—a half-elf named Iaz — touched her arm. “Big man like that needs his food, and lots of it,” she whispered. “Do you know how to cook?”

“No,” Guinevere admitted.

“Nothing to it, but you have to learn,” said Iaz. “Wherever you two decide to settle down, ask your neighbors for their recipes. There are some basic techniques…” And she quickly went through the steps for boiling and frying.

At first, Guinevere listened only to be polite.

She and Oskar were certainly not going to be settling down anywhere together; that was merely the fiction that they’d created.

The longer she paid attention to Iaz, though, the more an odd little daydream began to form in her head.

A daydream of Oskar coming home to a hot meal on the table, prepared by her.

Perhaps she’d still be wearing an apron when he came in.

Perhaps the house could be by the shore of a shimmering mountain lake, surrounded by trees.

And he would be the first thing she saw every morning, and every night she would fall asleep in his arms.

There would be no jewels or silks in that life. No balls or high teas or pianofortes—none of the things that she was used to. Could she be happy?

But there was no point to this mental exercise. She could never abandon her duty, and Oskar would never want to be saddled with her for the rest of his life. Stricken, she banished that impossible future to nothingness.

After supper, the children were sent to bed, and the adults passed around their homemade grog—a potent spiced drink that, in contrast to Zugri’s pottage, Guinevere found utterly vile.

She imbibed enough to be courteous; Oskar, on the other hand, seemed to enjoy it.

Rodregg broke out his lute, and, with some good-natured moaning and groaning, his kinsmen let him perform.

Drinks flowed and music lilted and firelight flickered, and it was such a beautiful night, there beneath wisp-clouded velvet skies, there in the heart of autumn.

Guinevere soaked up every moment the way a plant soaked up the sunshine.

She was at peace, and all was right in the world…

“What’re you so aloof for, boy?” Nan yelled across the campfire at Oskar, waving her bottle of grog at the space between him and Guinevere as though it were a personal affront. “You stole her away from her lord father, the least you could do is cuddle!”

“Hear, hear!” the Bonecrushers shouted raucously.

Guinevere considered it a small miracle that she didn’t panic enough to manifest Teinidh and burn the whole forest down. As it was, she could only blush furiously and avoid Oskar’s gaze.

“There’s really no need—” she started to tell the Bonecrushers, only for the rest of the sentence to wither in her mouth, suddenly dry as Oskar draped a heavy arm over her shoulders, hauling her close to his brawny frame that she had already memorized with her hands.

“Regretting your lie already, princess?” he murmured in her ear.

She couldn’t respond. There was just… something —about being claimed so openly, even if it was a charade. Their audience cheered, and Rodregg switched from a lively dancing tune to a familiar soft ballad. He was continuing his song from earlier.

“Oh, my beloved is the bronze of the linden trees, she sets fire to my soul,” the musician crooned. “She smiled at me as she went down on her pretty knees, she swallowed me whole—”

Oskar threw a turnip peel at him. The rest of the clan thought this was great fun, and they joined in. Poor Rodregg was pelted with more turnip peels, leaves, and the occasional pebble, but he valiantly kept strumming his lute.

“Oh, everyone’s a critic, it’s brutal out here,” he sang in the same tune but in a much louder voice, caught in the agony of creation. “You’re all bastards, that much is exceedingly clear…”