The Inn Ch. 10

[The story so far: Simon is a fantasy author. Leyna is a serving wench and part-time prostitute at the Nestled Goose – a small inn in a tiny town in one corner of the fictitious world Simon created for his series of novels. Through some inexplicable twist in the fabric of reality, Simon finds himself at the Nestled Goose, where he falls hard for Leyna, even though his mind ought to be on more important matters – for instance, the fact that his arrival in this world has set off a chain of events that will enable an insane necromancer to lay waste to all the known lands. The only chance of survival for the Phaeland Empire is if Simon can use his knowledge of the world to send just the right messages to just the right people to undo the evil Necromanata's plans. But one of his letters brings a pissed-off snake-woman to the inn, and while recuperating from her venom, Simon has nothing to do but read. Leyna brings him a published book of plays first, but then gains the boldness to hand him her own writing in a humble, leather-bound journal. And when he sees her full name on the title page, Simon finally realizes who she is.]

I stayed up as long as I could keep my eyes open, reading Leyna's play. If I hadn't been woozy from poison and slamming myself into a door repeatedly, I would have finished the whole thing and probably gone back over it two or three times before hitting the sack. But events had conspired to make that impossible, and when I caught myself nodding off the fourth or fifth time, I shut the book and put it aside so that I wouldn't crumple the pages or spine by falling asleep on it.

How the fuck could she be Necromanata's daughter?

There wasn't any doubt about it: the second I read that name on the title page, Nataleynata, my memory of those long-ago notes surged up to confirm it. She didn't look anything like I would have imagined a necromancer's daughter, but I'd never done a full description of the character or detailed backstory or anything of the sort. My main focus had been plotting out a means by which the Mortuary Mage might plausibly return. She's too young to be Nataleynata! But no, the sequel was going to take place ten years after The Doom of Necromanata, and Leyna would be in her thirties ten years from now. And the necromancer's daughter wasn't necessarily going to be the bad guy of the novel – her evil cult allies would play that role for certain, but I never committed in my notes to whether she fit right in with them or was being manipulated. That uncertainty would provide the story with some of its mystery and tension.

Once those thoughts released me into sleep, I had wild dreams and nightmares all night long – Leyna turning into a zombie witch while we had sex; Necromanata showing up at the Nestled Goose accusing me of being his daughter's pimp and demanding to know why I'd turned her into a prostitute; a grand theater in Phaeratos premiering Leyna's play in an extravagant production where all the parts were played by orcs and ghouls. When I woke in the morning, I felt almost as exhausted as I had when I went to bed.

Light shone faintly through the window, the mild hazy light of dawn. I struggled to sit up and look around. The chair next to me held the lamp, shut off overnight. I'd placed Leyna's handwritten book on the seat beside it, and seeing the plain brown cover gave me a wistful ache.

It was bad, of course. Everyone's first attempt at storytelling is bad. You just can't sit down to write a play or novel with no prior experience and have it turn out to be a masterpiece, any more than you can pick up a paintbrush and a palette of oils and whip out the Mona Lisa right off the bat.

But it was bad in all the right ways, and I found myself aggravated that the circumstances prevented me from fully appreciating that. Leyna had taken it upon herself to write a play with only four examples to work from, and yet her story didn't slavishly mimic any of those, and her characters had their own foibles and flairs. Either consciously or unconsciously, she imitated the meter of Elterawisse – sometimes very poorly, other times with a kind of innocent serendipity that surprised me in its effectiveness. Her spelling varied between immaculate and atrocious, and it took me some time to realize that wherever she'd taken a word from her book of plays, she got the spelling right, whereas any vocabulary she picked up from day-to-day life tended to be written out phonetically.

In other words, she hadn't the experience to show very much skill, but she had talent, and that sparkled through like gemstones. I should have been delighted every time I saw a glint of treasure in her turn of phrase, a glow of clever magic in her plot twists.

But half my attention went to straining and searching for clues about her mother or her father nested within the play, and the other half kept veering off into shock and supposition about what it meant that this wonderful young woman had a monster for a parent and would eventually try to bring that monster back.

Could eventually try, I told myself. That's ten years from now, and I'm counting my chickens before they hatch if I assume Necromanata will be dead at all instead of ruling a world full of zombies and orcs.

At the urging of my bladder, I got out from under the covers and stepped over to the chamber pot. The fire had burnt itself out overnight, so the room held a bracing chill that made me hurry back to bed once I'd finished. Only after I got the blankets pulled up to my chin did I realize I hadn't wobbled or felt like collapsing along the way.

I seemed to be getting better.

So maybe today's a day to put some pants on and go downstairs finally.

Without moving, I debated the merits of that plan. On the one hand, I could have some breakfast and almost certainly get to see Leyna. On the other hand, I'd done a crap job of reading her play, and if I saw her, she'd want to talk about it, and I'd struggle to remember anything that wasn't colored by my Necromanata-obsessed reading of the story. But she knew I was sick and exhausted, so I could probably duck out of that by saying I'd gotten too tired and put the book aside so I didn't fall asleep on it and crush it – which was true. And after three days convalescing, I could certainly use a change of scenery from the four close-set walls of my room.

The key turned in my door before I resolved my inner wrangling, and then it opened a peep and then all the way, revealing Leyna with a tray of eggs and biscuits.

"Oh, good, you're up!" she said, swaying into the room in a dress of grass green, its ivory bodice done up with brown laces. "Are you feeling better this morning, then?"

"Much," I said. As she shut the door and brought my food over, I scooted up to sit against the pillows and headboard. "I don't think I slept all that well, but I'm not woozy anymore – just a normal kind of tired."

She settled the tray in my lap, then sat on the edge of the bed by my knee. I noticed her eyes go briefly to the chair and the book atop it.

"I did a terrible job reading last night," I said before she could ask. "I guess the last of the poison was clearing my system, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't concentrate."

"Because it's balderdash, I'm sure." Her downcast expression told me how little confidence she had in her work, so I shook my head and took her hand in mine and squeezed it.

"No, it's not at all. If I hadn't known, I never would have guessed it was the first thing you'd written." I scrambled mentally for an example that would prove I wasn't just blowing air up her skirt. "The cook, for instance. He's hilarious. Only I had to reread most of his lines a couple times because I could tell there was some wordplay going on that I wasn't getting. I knew I wasn't doing it justice, so I decided to save it for today and hope I felt better. Which I do."

"Well," she said, still looking uncertain. "That part's good, at least – that you feel better."

I picked up a biscuit and broke off a hunk. "Right. And I think my brain's working this morning too, so I bet if you come back at lunchtime, I'll have finished the whole play and we can talk about it."

As I popped the bite in my mouth, Leyna's face tipped up and brightened, then turned to mock annoyance. "Like I'll have time to talk at lunch! Burgham would throw a fit."

"After lunch, then," I said, chewing.

"After lunch and after I've tidied all the fresh-emptied rooms," she countered.

"Okay. That will give me time to read it twice." Picking up the fork, I stabbed a hunk of scrambled eggs and watched Leyna turn pink.

"Oh, you won't really want to do that." She squirmed a little as she said it.

"I absolutely will," I said. "I could tell that much from what I read last night."

She smiled an embarrassed smile. "Probably you were delirious."

"If I was delirious, it's because you make me delirious."

"Oh, stop," she laughed. Then she looked down at her lap, still smiling faintly. "You're definitely feeling better, I can tell."

"Mm-hmm," I hummed around another mouthful of eggs. She still didn't meet my eyes.

"Simon?"

After a quick swallow, I said, "Yes?"

Her blue, cloudless-sky gaze came my way then, and she took a deep breath. "I made fifteen pence last night, and eight the night before, and I'm feeling half at ease in my finances again. Enough to skip a night of spreading my legs for pay."

My cock tried to ring the serving platter like a bell.

"What I mean is," she went on, "I'd really like to pay for a bath for you this evening. And then have you come to my room after. If you're well enough."

I just sat and watched her breathe for a moment. She does an amazing job breathing, I thought ... ridiculously.

"I'd love that," I said. "And if I wasn't well enough already, I certainly will be now."

Her shoulders relaxed and she exhaled. "Good." Standing, she shook herself head to toe and smiled at me, pink lips curved in perfect happiness. "Now I'd best be off to serve the breakfasters downstairs. You tuck in your eggs. I'll see you soon – it's going to be a splendid day, I can tell!"

I agreed, and then watched with my heart pounding as she left.

* * *

'The Far Lost Child' took an old fantasy trope and turned it on its head. The title character was an orphan girl whose true identity no one suspected – but instead of being a princess or demigoddess or the offspring of some wizard or legendary hero, she had absolutely no birthright or claim to exceptionality whatsoever. And instead of being stuck in wretched circumstances by her mislaid pedigree, she was revered and coddled and honored by the town where she lived. Alonya, as the townfolk called her, had been discovered in the remnants of a plundered trading caravan, all its other members (seemingly) slain by bandits. The townfolk of Woodbie found her in a carriage bedecked with noble emblems, saw the wealthy brocade of her swaddling clothes, and assumed she must be a child of foreign nobility – especially because the bassinette that held her also contained a broken tiara sized just right for her tiny, infant head.

Someone, they felt sure, would come looking for this depredated wagon train, and would reward them for bestowing upon its one small survivor the treatment she deserved.

What they didn't know was that Alonya was not the sole survivor, or even a survivor at all. When the bandits had attacked, Archduchess Sarifeice of Tisdantia had quickly handed her daughter to the fastest rider in the troupe, who sped to safety with the child and carried news of the caravan's demise back to its homeland. Perhaps the Woodbieners should have taken a clue from the silver tiara being left behind instead of merely having its jewels prised out by the gang of thieves. But how could they have known that one of the bandits was a woman with child, whose water broke in the midst of the battle, and whose wicked sense of humor led her to abandon her unwanted babe dressed in the clothes of the now-escaped infant archduchess?

At any rate, the poor folk of Woodbie, operating under their misconceptions, took Alonya in, nurtured her, lavished her with the best they had to offer, and then waited for the accolades and recompense that would inevitably result when their kindness and generosity were discovered. Someday, they reasoned, surely someday, Alonya's royal, wealthy relatives would arrive in search of her.

Leyna delivered all this information through a clumsy-ish framing device in which the escaped servant of Archduchess Sarifeice soliloquizes his tale many years later to a traveler in a bar. How the servant learned of the bandit-woman's child wasn't explained, nor how he knew of the Woodbieners' self-serving generosity or any other subsequent events. But he had a number of clever lines, and the setup struck me as so original that I didn't wince too much over the info-dump delivery.

The plot of the play then developed along a simple linear path, with Alonya reaching adulthood and deciding to seek out the homeland she'd been told to expect her whole life. Her experience of constant generosity leads her to assume that all people are giving by nature, bestowing on her a sense of naive entitlement which often leads her astray on her adventures. Eventually, she reaches Tisdantia – where she meets the actual child of Sarifeice and learns that whoever she is, she is not the baby whose caravan met its end so many years ago.

Returning to Woodbie, Alonya is set upon by bandits – the same gang whose crimes set the play's events in motion. Her birth mother now leads the pack of thieves and cutthroats, and as they talk, our heroine learns that she is the cast-off spawn of lowlifes, and that her entire upbringing has been literally one long, cruel joke. The bandit chief is not quite so sadistic as to have Alonya killed, but does take from her every last bit of valuables on her person, including the broken silver tiara she'd carried with her to Tisdantia hoping to prove her identity.

So, barefooted and wearing nothing but the cotton under-shift of her once-fine dress, the far lost child returns to Woodbie ingloriously, where the townfolk greet her with a combination of disappointment and sympathy.

But Alonya stands tall, and in a final, rousing speech, tells her friends and caretakers there's no cause for sorrow.

"I have known what it is to be royal,

And you have felt the love of eminence.

But in Tisdantia, the Duchess' cup

Has ne'er received generosity's pour.

And she, having grown in exalted halls,

Stands regal and revered, but beaming not

Across her subjects' days nor laughing dances

To their songs. We, together, have the riches bright

Of shared souls gilt with kindness, jeweled with joy,

Framed in sincerity's understanding.

I would not trade Woodbie for a manor

Or magnificence, and I would not trade

A one of you for a bowing hundred

Archduchy folk to heed my clap and call."

Then the play ends with a couple of comic relief farmers grumbling about the lack of reward, to which Alonya replies that she'll gladly draw them a map to the bandits' lair so they can earn the bounty.

My hope for a clue to Necromanata's mystical power source bore no fruit whatsoever. Other than the main character being female and an orphan, I didn't see much that reflected Leyna's origins or upbringing. The heroine's journey brought her into contact with people of all kinds, and I could see in their variety and authenticity that Leyna had made good use of her wide experience with travelers. But she hadn't drawn anything from her own life that pointed toward her sorcerer father or her dead mother, so I could only take the play for what it was.

Mostly, it showed all the failings of a novice storyteller – erratic pacing, expository dialogue, repetitious sentence structure, and so on. But the quality of the writing improved almost page by page from the beginning to the end. She said she'd taken three years on it, and I could see how much progress she'd made in that time. And her persistence shone through as well: that final speech ended up at fourteen lines – like several of the quotations I'd written up for Elterawisse – but it stretched across almost ten pages, marked up and crossed out and rewritten and scratched out. I could hear echoes of the bard who'd inspired her in several of the lines, and she'd outright stolen a turn of phrase or two from the volume of plays she'd lent me. Yet at its heart, that speech came from something within her. The message had no parallel Elterawisse, who tended much more toward irony and cynicism.

So when Leyna came back midafternoon, I pretty much gushed over it until she turned red.

"Oh, stop it, Simon," she insisted when I paused for a breath.

"No, I'm serious. It's really good."

"It is not." Her eyes rolled and she looked away. She was sitting on the bed while I sat in the chair, turned around from the desk where I'd been reading. "You can't think they'd ever put it up on stage – it's awful. The whole first half she just wanders around bumping into random strangers, and most of the lines are horrid."

"Okay, look. At the risk of hurting your feelings, no, it's not ready to be put into production yet. But nobody's first try at writing ends up being ready. I mean, maybe Elterawisse's did. But nobody real –" Whoa! Bridge out ahead! Take alternate route! "–ly ought to expect that. Writing is just too complicated to get everything right without practice."

Her nose wrinkled as her face tried to decide between being vindicated and being downcast. "So ... it is awful. You admit it."

"Absolutely not." I got up and walked over to sit beside her on the mattress. "I've read plenty of awful first stories. The first several things I wrote make me shudder when I look at them now –"

"You write plays too?" Surprise flashed across her face. "Why didn't you say so before?"

"Well ..." Because I'm going to have a hard time explaining exactly what it is that I write. "... it hasn't really come up, has it? And you were already nervous enough about showing me your story – I didn't want to make you even more self-conscious. But that's all off the subject. My point is, this," I patted the slim leather book I still held, "is definitely good enough to be reworked someday and put onstage."

"Reworked?" Those blue eyes went wide enough to show the whites all the way around. "Gods and codpieces, Simon, didn't you see how much I already crossed out and wrote over again?"

"Yes. But the next play you write won't have as many crossouts, and the one after that will have even fewer. And five or six more down the road, you'll be good enough that you'll come back to this one and find that fixing it up is a snap."

I waited and watched her. She didn't immediately reply. Instead, her expression played out a struggle between wanting to believe me and ... what? Modesty? Or a fear of getting her hopes up too high?

"Look," I said, taking her hand. "How long will it take before you've saved up enough to move to Silver City, or the capital?"

"I don't know," she replied, with a faint shrug and a glance down at her hand in mine. "I've probably enough for passage to Silver City already. But my plan is to have a good half-year's expenses saved up for before I leave, and then on top of that, there's ... well, Silver City or Phaeratos, they're both guild towns. If I can't sell my play straight off, I'll need to put in for membership in a courtesan's guild, won't I? So all told, I'm not likely to get all my eggs nested for a good two years or more. Why?"