She grimaced. “As well I know. The stillroom — ”
“Looked like a mouse nest. Right, then. Be ready at dinner. That will be early enough. And thanks for this.” He raised the basket to her, and strode off.
She watched him go, then returned slowly to the shelter and warmth of the Manor.
And there had been nothing in his attitude to suggest he was going to try to take advantage of her.
13
THE HUNTING CLOTHES THAT SAPPHIRE HAD BROUGHT to her — and somehow, though invisible, the Spirit Elemental had managed to convey absolute disapproval even as she helped Bella into them — were astonishingly comfortable. So comfortable, in fact, that Bella found herself trying to think of ways that she could slip the outfit into her baggage when she returned home again — and into her wardrobe without her own servants knowing she had them. Scandalous, of course; a woman wearing men’s clothing? No wonder Sapphire was appalled; this was worse than those dismayingly practical gowns she had brought with her. The hunting clothes were fundamentally identical to the outfits that Eric wore; definitely clothing made for rough weather and hard terrain.
She loved them. Completely loved them. Perhaps best was the freedom of movement the outfit granted her. It was a simple set of clothing: brown leather breeches that were somehow both strong and as soft as velvet, a shirt of some lightweight material that could not possibly be wool but was just as warm, over which she wore a sleeved tunic of the same leather as the breeches. No three or four petticoats, corset, corset cover, bloomers, stockings, garters, underdress, overdress…this was something that Sapphire really had not needed to “help” her into, but she hadn’t liked to swat the servant’s “hands” away.
Matching gloves lined with mink fur kept her hands warm, and if the riding boots were rather too big, three pairs of soft, thick stockings solved that little problem. And she wore a hooded coat lined in beaver rather than a cloak, which was infinitely more practical both on horseback and in the woods. Her hair had been tightly braided and coiled on the top of her head, then hidden under a peculiar sort of close-fitting cap, almost like a hood, that fastened under her chin. Like the sort of close-fitting cap or bonnet that one tied over a baby’s head, only made of leather and lined with more mink fur. She had pulled the hood of her coat over that, and fastened it tightly at the throat with a strap and a toggle. Eric, of course, wore his peaked hunting hat, but she would never have been able to hide her hair under such a thing. Besides, she couldn’t imagine how he kept his ears from freezing off under such inadequate protection.
Then came the matter of riding. She was not so used to riding that riding astride rather than aside felt all that peculiar — to be absolutely honest, the farther they went, the better it felt. The mule didn’t seem affronted by the different shape of the saddle, either, nor the fact that her legs were on either side of it. She could actually grip the sides of the beast, rather than squeezing her legs desperately into the pommel and hoping she could stay on. Eric kept his horse moving briskly, and the mule kept up without any concern on her part.
It had been a gray and overcast morning, but the clouds were breaking up as they left. By the time they turned off the well-traveled track, the sky was cloudless, though the air seemed a good deal colder and she was glad of that fur-lined coat.
There was a crossbow in a sheath at the front of the saddle, and a quiver of arrows beside it. She hoped she wouldn’t have to bluff with it, but Eric had showed her how to pull and load it, and it was a great deal easier to handle than she had thought it would be. Provided, of course, she didn’t fumble the arrow she was trying to load!
The change in her garb had wrought an odd sort of change in Eric; there was nothing at all in his manner now toward her that suggested anything sexual. There was nothing condescending, either. It was as if, in his mind, she actually had become the boy she was dressed as.
And that was curiously liberating.
He was calling her “Abel,” a deliberate transformation of “Bella,” which she thought was rather clever. This was certainly a side of Eric she had not seen before, and to tell the truth, she liked it.
“Abel, come up here,” he said, turning his head to look back down the trail at her. Obediently, she urged the mule up beside his horse. This was brutal country — the part of Sebastian’s lands where the tin mines were, he had explained — rough hills thickly covered with trees and underbrush. Not much use for grazing, even for goats. The few farmers here scratched out such a precarious living in the valleys that according to Eric, their rents were a mere token — once a year, a quart of the truffles that were the only things that thrived here, or a month of labor on the roads. There were a few jobs for humans in the mines, but not many; the mines were owned and excavated by dwarves, who were so much better than humans at such things that there really was no point in competing with them. There was some logging, but the Dukes had been very careful about these forests; some overambitious logging had led to the loss of entire hillsides.
She saw as she reached his side that they had come to the top of a ridge that rose even higher to their left, although the trees were so thick here she could not actually see the hilltop itself through the haze of leafless branches. But from where they perched, the land fell away quickly, so the valley was visible below them. There were very few evergreens here; mostly, it was oak, beech and chestnut, and their branches looked like a gray smoke covering the valley. It was difficult to believe there were any humans living out here. It was deeply shadowed already; the sky had darkened to a deep blue, except to their left, where the last rays of the sun streaked the west. And it suddenly occurred to her that she knew exactly where she was. They were in the midst of the hills she had seen on the horizon rising above the forest in the distance every time she had been somewhere she could look over the city walls. Why had she never wondered whose lands they were, or what they hid?
What a peculiar feeling…to realize how narrow her world had been. The city, and not even most of it, just the parts that held the Guildhalls, the homes of the people she visited, the shops she needed, her father’s warehouse. And a little, little bit of Sebastian’s forest. And she had never lifted her eyes past that. How much had she missed?
“Down there, our poacher traps that entire valley,” Eric was saying. “Now, as I told you, the land hereabouts is pretty poor. It’s mostly no good for the sort of hunting that the gentry do except if they want the challenge of a boar-hunt, and it’s been on the orders of the last several Dukes that if the people hereabouts want to take a few fish from the stream, wild goats from the hills, and rabbits and boar from the forest, they may do so. The dwarves mine the tin, so aside from a pen-scratcher or two, and a few mechanical fellows, there’s no wages for a man in the mines, and all the folk here have is what they can scratch out of the dirt, cut down and haul away, and catch.
