Dnara took the sack, surprised by the light weight given its size. “Valuable? Is this the prize you came to Thorngrove for?”
“It is.” Athan picked up the last of his belongings, a bundle of furs and yew branches tied together with braided honeysuckle vine. “Well, go on, then. Have a look.”
Skeptical, Dnara untwisted and rolled back the top of the sack. A musty, earthen scent wafted out, so rich it made her toes curl into the dirt. Unable to see within the dark confines of the burlap, she steeled her resolve and stuck a hand inside. She had been a lifelong slave but a few hours ago. Getting a finger bit would not be the worst thing she had ever endured.
Her fingertips touched moist soil, confusing her further. Poking in farther, one finger hit something more solid. Her hand flinched inside the bag, but she pressed onward and grasped the object. Withdrawing it from the bag, she had to laugh at herself.
“A mushroom?” she asked, struggling to see the value in the white bulbous fungus, beyond its place in a soup bowl.
“Ah! But not just any mushroom, my lady.” Athan gently took the mushroom from her fingers and turned it upside down. Bright crimson gills lined the underside of the mushroom’s cap. “This is a royal moonglow. They only grow in the thickest thorny thickets, beneath mounds of dead foliage and dirt. The only way to find them is to crawl through the thorns at night and look for the way they glow a soft white in the darkness beneath all the muck.”
The way he described things made her think him a good storyteller of some practice. Still, it was just a mushroom, even if a hard to get royal crimson kind. “Do you eat it?”
Athan snorted at the idea. “I don’t. I think they taste like mud, and I might as well just eat a fistful of coin instead.” He dropped the mushroom back into the sack. “But noblemen demand them of their court chefs, because some crazy hedge mage a few hundred years ago once said they- Uh...”
As he stopped and trailed off, Dnara leaned in, not wanting the story to end. “They what?”
Athan rubbed the back of his neck and looked to the river. “They increase a man’s... virility.”
“Oh.” Dnara didn’t know what to say in response, and part of her was sorry she’d asked. But then came the reason behind most of the scars across her back, her curiosity. “Do they actually work?”
“No idea.” Athan shrugged and began walking south along the river. “All I know is they help pay for a night with a warm bed, a good meal and a hot bath. Oh, and they’ll help get you some shoes, too.”
“Shoes for a mushroom?” Dnara closed the sack and trotted after him. “Men are strange.”
“That we are,” Athan agreed.
Dnara thought it funny but noble he should agree so readily to calling himself strange. He was, after all, a man, though unlike any she had met before. Still, men were men, and she could not help but think he had a price. “But I did not pick these. They are yours to sell, and I have no means to repay the debt.”
“You’ll repay it in companionship,” he spoke casually, but beside him Dnara stopped walking. When he noticed, he stopped too and stared at her. After a moment of reflection, the rolled bundle fell from his hands to his feet. “Oh, not like that! Gods.” He raised his hand to his face for a moment before swiping the hand through his hair. “I really need to be careful how I word things. I meant your company and conversation.”
“I’m not good at conversation,” she admitted, having spoken more in the past few hours than she had in the past few months. It still felt...odd to her, to speak freely. But, it also felt good.
“You’re doing fine.” Athan hiked the bundle back up into his arms and began walking again. “Besides, I’m sure you have other skills. Keepers don’t keep people to just sit there.”
She had to nod at that as she caught up to his long stride. “My keeper had a great many whom he kept for various reasons. Some to cook. Some to wash. Some to tend the animals, others the books.”
“By Retgar’s beard, girl, were you kept by a high court nobleman?”
“No, Keeper-” Dnara went silent, fearful even the very name may warp Athan’s charity, but it would be wrong to give the man no warning at all. “No. He is no noble, but he is powerful. Dangerously so.”
“Ah, a mage then,” Athan said, shocking Dnara into gasping at his astute guess.
“I- yes.” Dnara looked down to her bare feet as they walked along the riverbank. “I understand if you choose now to send me back. It could be a bad fate, to cross Keeper-”
“Don’t care,” Athan interrupted. “I dislike mages only slightly less than I dislike blackropes.” The conversation ended for a few steps before Athan spoke again. “So, what were you? A cook, perhaps?”
“Hardly.” Dnara nearly laughed. Her one attempt at cooking had ended poorly and earned her a good lashing. “I did enjoy the smell of the kitchen, though.”
“A cleaner, then?” He glanced at her and she shook her head. “Okay. Well, you don’t seem daft, so a book tender perhaps?”
“I wish,” Dnara muttered. “I was not allowed to read the books.”
“Oh. Well, don’t feel bad. Quite a few folks can’t read.”
“I can read,” Dnara corrected with an embarrassed flush brought on by the little pride she had
