“You needn’t apologize,” I said. “I should have looked where I was going. I put your baby in danger.” I stared at the girl, the only type of baby I’d ever seen. “Twins?”
“Yes. The first goddess blessed me with both a girl and a boy, with a daughter to take care of me and my husband in our later years and a son to do the same for his goddess’s family, to learn the value of love.” She bounced her baby girl higher and shifted the bassinet onto her elbow once again. “It’s fine. It was an accident.” She smiled, falteringly. “We’re so looking forward to tomorrow. My husband is one of the men playing the music. We’ve already gotten the copper for it.” The baby on her left arm cried out suddenly, her face twisting in fury. “Shh, shh,” said the woman, rocking her back and forth.
I didn’t want to tell her there was nothing special “tomorrow.” Besides, I hadn’t gotten an invitation to my Returning. He must have assumed I’d go, but I had no plans to be there.
“Noll, praise the goddess!” A hand touched my shoulder. Elweard. He had a barrel under one arm and a grin that took up half his face. “Vena and I were just talking about you. We received so many coppers for the Returning—we’re so looking forward to finally meeting him, and thanking him for all his orders—and the invitation asked us to provide enough for the whole village to drink.” Elweard laughed, but he wasn’t one to wait for responses, which was just as well. “But he paid us far more than that! The village couldn’t possibly drink that much, even if there were enough wheat and grapes to make enough ale and wine, and we wondered if it would be wrong if we kept the copper and sent the two of you and his servants free drinks for life, or if the lord would need it back—”
Elweard droned on, and the woman curtseyed at me best she could with one screaming baby in her arms and the child’s twin joining in the cacophony from beneath his veil. Stepping aside and putting the bassinet on a bench in front of a nearby shop, she tugged at the gauze gently, shifting it so slightly I could hardly believe it moved at all.
“Noll?” Elweard’s voice drew me out of my reverie. “Do you need Vena to stand up for you and the lord? I know you probably have another in mind. Alvilda, maybe, since you’ve been helping her with carving, or your sister’s man’s mother—”
“No!” I gritted my teeth and fought hard to keep the anger buried within. The woman stood up, tightening the gauze over the bassinet, a deep breath visibly escaping her lips. I clutched my skirt with both hands as the woman disappeared into the crowd, that black gauze on the bassinet threatening to drown me in memories of the veiled lord, in images of me and him where Elfriede and Jurij had once stood, in him removing the veil, in what I would find beneath it … “No. Thank you, Elweard, but no.”
Elweard scratched his head. “All right. Vena thought we ought to offer, that’s all. But about the copper … ”
“I have to go.” I spun around, almost smacking into another woman. At least this one carried bread in her basket instead of babies.
“Oh my! Noll!” Mistress Baker placed a hand on her chest. “Just the woman I was about to go visit. I thought maybe I should ask which of these breads you want served at the ceremony and which we should just send home with everyone.” She shifted the loaves aside in her basket, producing one roll after another. “The lord sent us enough copper to feed the village three times over, so we’ve been working hard and making everything, but we simply can’t carry it all to the Great Hall tomorrow. My husband hasn’t slept a wink in days, I swear—”
I swirled around as if in a dance and darted through the crowd, leaving poor Mistress Baker to her breads and probable confusion once she looked up to find me gone.
Relief flooded my body when I finally made it across town to Alvilda’s. I almost tore the door open, but then I remembered her visitor and knocked before I entered. Alvilda told me to wait a moment, and then to let myself in.
“Good day, Noll!” called a cheerful voice as I entered. Master Tailor’s worn down owl mask greeted me from Alvilda’s ever-dusty eating table. “How goes the woodcarver’s daughter?”
I sighed and slipped into the seat next to him, placing the chisel and the wood on the table, where they seemed right at home. Alvilda was by her workbench, lost in the task of whittling a chair leg. I could see the as-yet-unfinished headboard propped up against the wall in the corner. She said nothing.
“The same,” I offered. I didn’t bother to ask whether he was inquiring about the daughter in front of him or the one who made his son’s life worth living.