Total pages in book: 218
Estimated words: 205594 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1028(@200wpm)___ 822(@250wpm)___ 685(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 205594 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1028(@200wpm)___ 822(@250wpm)___ 685(@300wpm)
Silence from my knife.
“Here?” I touch the next trunk and wait.
It takes four more trunks before I get a positive response, and I haul out the one in question, which is underneath a large, heavy garment bag full of my petticoats. I drag the trunk to the floor and fumble with the latches, pulling it open. Feeling around inside, I’m relieved when I find a bag of thick candle tapers and a wrapped pair of strikers, along with a tinderbox. I scrape the strikers against each other, clumsy. I’ve never done this before without Riza’s supervision, and I all but laugh with relief when I get a spark.
When I finally get a candle lit, it feels like a major accomplishment.
Relieved, I settle the candle into a chamberstick holder and bring it aloft, looking around. The main floor of the tower here is huge, the ceiling high above in the darkness. All of the sounds I make echo, which tells me it’s larger than expected. At least I’ll have room to move about. I set the candle atop one of the trunks and get to my feet, brushing off my skirts…
…and I realize my bodice is gaping open, my breasts hanging out. Whoops. I quickly stuff them back into place, doing the laces up loosely. After all, no one’s here to see me.
Except the Fellian, I remind myself. That makes me lace a little tighter, because they saw me with my tits out, and the realization is a vulnerable one. I grip my knife tightly and pick up my candle again.
Time to explore my new home. Somewhere out there is the Fellian, but maybe they’re just as rattled as I am. Maybe they want to be left alone, too. If this room is any indication, there’s plenty of space in this tower for both of us.
I move around the bottom of the tower. There is a large staircase off to one side that goes up, and another across from it, going down. Along the wall of the staircase going up are a few old tapestries depicting religious scenes, and along the opposite wall, across from the stairs, is an altar to the three gods, each one depicted in an old-fashioned-looking triptych. There’s a scatter of ancient, faded rose petals on the altar along with gutted candles.
“You’ll forgive me if I don’t feel much like praying at the moment,” I tell the altar. If anything, I have the urge to make a crude gesture at the goddess, but that won’t win me any favors, either, so I tamp it down and continue on. I expect to see a lot of dust and cobwebs everywhere, but there’s nothing. Unless someone came in and cleaned this place up for us (which I highly doubt) perhaps it’s been magically cleaned? Is there even such a thing? I have no idea.
I head downstairs first, and it looks like a kitchen below. I see a large fireplace and hearth set into a wall. There’s no wood, of course, and I have a momentary bout of panic as I realize I’ve got no wood with which to cook my food. How is it that we packed everything but wood? Then, I think about the trunks and the huge sled, and realize I’ve got that covered, at least. I’ll just have to be judicious with how much I use.
That’s something to worry over tomorrow.
The hearth is scraped clean of ash and has clearly not been used in forever. I step inside it and hold my candle up, trying to see if there’s daylight at the other end of the chimney. Maybe I can crawl up it and climb my way out of the tower if I get desperate enough.
There’s a small hole of sunlight at the top. A very, very small hole. Either this chimney goes up a very long way—all the way up to the battlements—or it’s a tight squeeze. Either way, it’s no good to me. Disappointed, I explore the rest of the kitchen. There are pots and pans, all of them battered and ancient looking, and I wonder if prior residents have left them here over the ages. There’s a spice rack and some dried leaves hanging up, but when I touch one, they crumble to dust. I find an old root cellar with a few shriveled roots that are probably older than my ancestors, but no food other than that. For water, there’s a well-pump over a large sink, and when I prime the pump like Riza showed me, the thing groans and a trickle of water comes out.
I won’t die of thirst at least. I eye the largest copper tub in one corner of the kitchen, and I suspect that’s where all the bathing is done. Ugh. At the palace, servants brought hot water up to a tub in my rooms and poured it out for me when I was done. I’m realizing the enormity of everything I’ll have to do here. Even the simplest of tasks is going to be a daunting one.