“I can do the same thing I’ve been doing.”
“Like ya did last time? Like Hilda? Go ahead, try again. I told ya I wouldn’t stand in your way. I just won’t take ya back this time. But you go on. You might last longer than she did. She survived a couple weeks. Maybe you can do better. I actually think ya will. You’re smarter. I bet you’ll last a whole month. Well … maybe not. She wasn’t a foreigner.”
Hilda and Avon had been at the Head before Gwen arrived. Neither one ever admitted how long they’d been there. Hilda had been bent on getting out. She’d saved her meager tips, and after a beating one night, she’d run away. Rumors said she tried to find legitimate work but couldn’t. She resorted to applying at another alehouse, but they all knew she was Grue’s girl and refused. With no other choice, she sold herself on the street, taking men into the alley behind the tannery. She survived all of two weeks. Ethan found her. She’d been robbed and strangled. They never bothered to look for the killer. It could have been anyone.
Grue stepped back, clearing the doorway. “Ya want to live? Ya stay here, and to stay here, ya do as I say.” He rubbed his feebly thin beard, which was no more than tufts of hair that refused to grow together or to a length longer than three inches. “Listen,” he began in a softer tone, “I was trying not to scare ya, but even I know putting you and Stane together ain’t a good idea. So he’s getting Jollin.”
Gwen’s eyes widened. “He did ask for me!”
“Yeah, but he’s not getting ya. Not tonight. Not until I can tell he’s gotten over this whole thing.”
“But it’s not something he’ll get over-it’s the way he is, Grue. And even if it wasn’t, he’d do it out of spite, out of revenge. He’ll kill Jollin because he knows it will hurt me. And if that’s the best he can do, then he’ll settle for that.”
Grue ran a hand down his face and shook his fist at her. “Gwen, I’m tired of arguing with ya. It’s not for you to say. He’s getting Jollin, right after he finishes the door. I’ve already made up my mind.”
“I’m warning you, Grue-”
He slapped her hard, enough to make her stagger but not fall. Still, the crack echoed between The Hideous Head and the inn across the street. “First ya threaten to leave, then ya threaten me? That Calian blood of yours is gonna be the death of you. I shoulda never taken you in. You’re more trouble than you’re worth. I knew men would find you exotic, a novelty. But if I had known how much trouble you’d cause…”
He took her by the shoulders, his long dirty fingers squeezing like bird’s claws. “Now I’m gonna tell ya what you’re gonna do, and you’re gonna do it. Understand?” He gave her a rough shake. “I want you to go wake Jollin up and get a room ready for them. Make up the little one, best not to have Stane in the one with the bloody spot. No sense giving him any ideas.”
He pulled her back into the tavern and pushed her toward the stairs. She staggered into a table and chair. “And I don’t want to hear another word.” He raised a pointed finger. “Not … a … single … word.”
Thud, thud, thud. Stane’s hammer pounded.
When Gwen entered the girls’ room, they were all sleeping as close as puppies on the two mattresses lying on the floor. Work at the Head rarely started before sundown, so they napped during the day. Aside from Gwen, Jollin was the oldest. Rose was the youngest-fourteen, maybe, but Gwen never got a straight answer out of the girl, so she really didn’t know. Mae was the smallest, like a delicate bird, and Gwen always cringed when she saw the girl go upstairs with some of the big brutes who had to keep ducking even after entering the tavern. Etta, who had never been much of a looker, was now worse thanks to a smashed-in nose and two missing front teeth, the remains of a beating that had left her unconscious for a day and a half. She did most of the serving and cleaning chores around the Head. Christy and Abby could have been sisters, they looked so much alike, but Christy came from Cold Hollow and Abby was a native of Wayward Street. All of them had been born in Medford or one of the nearby villages or farms. None had traveled more than a couple of miles their whole lives-except Gwen-who had come from another world.
Thud, thud, thud. “Almost done, Grue,” Stane shouted.
Gwen had crossed a continent, traversing two nations and five kingdoms. She’d seen mountains, jungles, and great rivers. She’d stood in the capital of the east and the largest city in the west, but in all her travels, nothing had ever compared to the sight she’d seen in that tiny room where her dead mother had passed-what she had seen in the eyes of the man who had placed six gold coins in her hand.
Wait until it’s absolutely necessary.
“Get up! Get up, all of you.” She shook each of them. “Gather your things and hurry!”
They rose slowly, stretching-cats now instead of puppies.
“What’s going on?” Jollin asked, wiping her face and squinting at the light outside the windows.
“We need to leave.”
“Leave? What do you mean?” Jollin asked.
“We can’t stay here anymore.”
Jollin rolled her eyes. “Not again. Gwen, if you want to try and leave again, go.”
“I can’t go alone. None of us can make it on our own, but together we just might survive.”
“Survive where? Survive how?”
“I have some money,” Gwen said.
“We all have some money,” Christy said. “But it won’t be enough.”
“No, I have real money.”
“How much?” Abby asked.
Gwen took a breath. “I have four gold coins.”
“Bull!” Abby challenged.
“Four gold?” Mae muttered. “That’s not possible. You could never save up that much, not if you slept with every man in Medford.”
“I didn’t make it. It was given to me. I just didn’t know how best to spend it … until now.”
Jollin was nodding. “I knew you had stashed some money away, but I never thought it was that much. Still, that isn’t enough.”
“Then we’ll just have to make more,” Gwen said.
“So what are you planning?” Abby asked.
Gwen wasn’t-that was the problem. She hadn’t a clue. All she knew for certain was that she wasn’t going to end up like Avon, and to have any chance at survival, she couldn’t manage on her own. Maybe together they would stand a better chance. She went to the window, looking out at the muddy streets of the Lower Quarter. “I’ve got it all worked out-just trust me.”
“No one will hire us,” Jollin told her. “A home wealthy enough to afford a girl would never employ one who has no letter of reference, even to scrub floors and empty chamber pots. And the guilds don’t take girls as apprentices.”
“She’s right,” Etta said. “No one’s gonna hire me. Who’d want to look at my face each day? I don’t like looking at it myself.”
“You know all this, Gwen. You tried and failed, remember? And have you forgotten about Hilda?”
“Hilda tried it alone. So did I,” Gwen said. “That’s what we did wrong. If we all go together-”
“Then we can keep each other company as we starve?”
“Maybe if we went somewhere else,” Mae said. “A place where no one knows us.”
Jollin shook her head. “They’re gonna want to know. Folks don’t hire people unless they know their past. We’d be strangers and no one is gonna hire a stranger over someone they’ve known for years.”
“I watched my mother starve,” Rose said. “I won’t do that.”
“No, leaving is just too risky,” Jollin concluded. “Even if we had enough means for food, we’d have no place to sleep but the street. How long before we were robbed and strangled too? Gwen, if we had any alternatives, do you think any of us would be here?”