At least there was music. There was always music. And the attempt to get what he’d lost back again.
Before long the instrument was nicely in tune. That was one thing that minstrel - What was his name? Shanse, that was it -had praised unstintingly. Vanyel, he’d said, had a natural ear. Shanse had even put Vanyel in charge of tuning hisinstruments while he stayed at Forst Reach.
He took the lute back to the bed, and laid it carefully on the spread while he shoved the table up against the bedstead. He curled up with his back against the headboard, the bottle and mug in easy reach, and began practicing those damned finger exercises.
It might have been the wine, but his hand didn’t seem to be hurting quiteas much this time.
The bottle was half empty and his head buzzing a bit when there was a soft tap on his door.
He stopped in mid-phrase, frowning, certain he’d somehow overheard something from the next room. But the tapping came a second time, soft, but insistent, and definitely coming from his door.
He shook his head a little, hoping to clear it, and put the lute in the corner of the bed. He took a deep breath to steady his thoughts, uncurled his legs, rose, and paced (weaving only a little) to the door.
He cracked it open, more than half expecting it to be one of his captors come to tell him to shut the hell up so that they could get some sleep.
“Oh!” said the young girl who stood there, her eyes huge with, surprise; one wearing the livery of one of the inn’s servants. He had caught her with her hand raised, about to tap on the door a third time. Beyond her the armsmen’s room was mostly dark and quite empty.
“Yes?” he said, blinking his eyes, which were not focusing properly. When he’d gotten up, the wine had gone to his head with a vengeance.
“Uh - I just - “ the girl was not as young as he’d thought, but fairly pretty; soft brown eyes, curly dark hair. Rather like a shabby copy of Melenna. “Just - ye wasn’t down wi’ th’ others, m’lord, an’ I wunnered if ye needed aught?”
“No, thank you,” he replied, still trying to fathom why she was out there, trying to think through a mist of wine-fog. Unless - that armsman Garth might well have sent her, to make certain he was still where he was supposed to be.
The ties of the soft yellow blouse she was wearing had come loose, and it was slipping off one shoulder, exposing the round shoulder and a goodly expanse of the mound of one breast. She wet her lips, and edged closer until she was practically nose-to-nose with him.
“Are ye sure, m’lord?” she breathed. “Are ye sure ye cain’t think of nothin’?”
Good gods,he realized with a start, she’s trying to seduce me!
He used the ploy that had been so successful with his Mother’s ladies. He let his expression chill down to where it would leave a skin of ice OB a goblet of water. “Quite certain, thank you, mistress.”
She was either made of sterner stuff than they had been, or else the subtler nuances of expression went right over her head.
Or, third possibility, she found either Vanyel or his presumably fat purse too attractive to let go without a fight.
“I c’d turn yer bed down fer ye, m’lord,” she persisted, snaking an arm around the door to glide her hand along Vanyel’s buttock and leg. He was only wearing a shirt and hose, and felt the unsubtle caress with a star-tlement akin to panic.
“No, please!” he yelped in shock; the high-pitched, strangled shout startled her enough so that she pulled back her arm. He slammed the door in her face and locked it.
He waited with his ear pressed up against the crack in the door; waited for an explosion of some kind. Nothing happened; he heard her muttering to herself for a moment, sounding very puzzled, then finally heard her retreating footsteps and the sound of the outer door opening and closing again.
He staggered back to the bed, and sat down on it, heavily. Finally he reached for the lute, detuned it, and put it back in its traveling case.
Thenhe reached for the bottle and gulped the wine as fast as he could pour it down his throat.
Oh, lord- oh, gods. A fool. After everything this morning, after I start to feel like I’m getting a grip on things, and I go and act like a fool. Like a kid. Like a baby
who’d never seen a whore before.
He burned with humiliation as he imagined the girl telling his guards what had just passed between them. And drank faster.
He didremember to unlock his door and blow out the candle before he passed out. If Sun and Shadow out there decided to take it into their heads to check on him, he didn’t want them breaking the door down. That would be even more humiliating than having them follow him to the privy, or laughing at him with the girl.
I’ve never been this drunk before,he thought muzzily, as he sank back onto the bed. Ibet I have a head in the morning....
He snorted then, a sound with no amusement in it. At least if I’m hung over, it’ll make Trusty and Faithful happy. If they can’t report to Father that I tried to escape, at least they can tell him I made a drunken sot of myself at the first opportunity. Maybe I should have let the girl in after all. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve bedded something I didn’t much care for. And it would have given them one more story to tell. Oh, gods, what’s wrong with me? Mekeal would have had her tumbled before she blinked twice! What iswrong with me?
He rolled over, and it felt a lot like his head kept on rolling after he’d stopped moving.
Then again- Idon’t think so. Not even for that. The wine’s bad enough here. I hate to think where the girls came from... or where they ‘ve been.
But why can’t I react the way everyone else seems to? Why am I so different?
His head hurt, but not unbearably. His stomach was not particularly happy with him, but he wasn’t ready to retch his guts up. In short, he was hung over - though less than he’d expected. In an odd sort of way, he was feeling even more detached than before. Perhaps his intoxication had purged something out of him last night; some forlorn hope, some last grasping at a life no one would ever let him have.
He pulled on his riding leathers and groomed himself as impeccably as he could manage without a mirror, leaving only the tunic off, since he intended to soak his aching head in cold water before he mounted Star - in the horse trough if he had to. He walked out into the morning light pouring in through the outer room, surveying the pathetic wrecks that had been his alert and vigilant guardians only the night before with what he hoped was cool, distant impassiveness.
And he spared a half a moment to hope that the girl hadn’ttold them -
His guards were in far worse case than he was, having evidently made a spectacular night of it. Quitea night, judging by their bleary eyes, surly, yet satiated expressions, and the rumpled condition of the bedding. And Vanyel was not such an innocent as to be unable to recognize certain - aromas - when he detected them in the air before Garth opened the window. He was just as pleased to have been so drunk as to be insensible when they had been entertaining their temporary feminine acquaintances. Could be the chambermaid had found what she’d sought in the company of Garth and Erek after being rebuffed by Vanyel.
They weren’t giving him the kind of sly looks he’d have expected if the girl hadrevealed his panicked reaction.
Well - maybe she was too busy. Thank you, gods.
Hemanaged to deal with his hangover in a fairly successful fashion. Willowbark tea came for his asking, hot from the kitchen; on the way to the privy, with the faithful Garth in queasy attendance, he managed to divert long enough to soak his head under the stable pump until his temples stopped pounding. The water was very cold, and he saw Garth wincing when he first stuck his head beneath it.