The Cabbage Girl
Chapter Nine
She opened her eyes to the smell of
crisping meat and boiling cabbage.
Sir Gomly was sleeping in a corner, snoring slightly, as Korbinian, the youngest squire, cooked several strips of salted pork on a flatpan over a small fire in what was once a fireplace. To one side sat a mid-size pot filled with bubbling water and two small cut-up heads of cabbage that she was fairly certain had come from the patch outside.
Emlin sat up, rubbing sleep from one eye, and saw Albrecht leaning against one of the building’s old walls. Ishild had awoken and moved to another part of the room to pout, far from her.
Korbinian made the Cabbage Girl wait, giving Ishild the first ready trencher of food. He tried to make her wait until after he fed the magus, too, but Albrecht slapped him in the back of the head.
“Ladies eat first. Then men.”
“But she’s not…” the youngest squire began, but thought the better of it when the elder squire glared at him and left his thought unfinished.
Emlin was happy for the priority, since she hadn’t eaten anything since sometime early the afternoon before. In fact, the last food she remembered seeing was the stew and bread she had thrown at the magus back in her hiding place. It seemed a whole lifetime ago to her now.
Looking around, she realized that they were missing one of their number.
“Where’s Balduin?” she whispered to Albrecht.
“Sir Gomly made him go up to the top of this old ruin and stand watch a few hours ago. Punishment for the trouble he caused last night, I’d think.”
She took a few bites of the grilled salt-pork and cabbage. She hadn’t eaten cooked cabbage in so long, she forgot how soft and non-bitter it could be. And the salt-pork was a savory delight she hadn’t experienced in years.
“It’s not really his fault, though. I mean, for all he knew it really could’ve been a crocodile,” she observed. “I might have done the same thing, had it been the leg of my breeches caught on that stump.”
“Maybe,” Albrecht replied. “But I wouldn’t waste too much thought dwelling on it. Even if he didn’t deserve it for that, he’s gotten away with a number of other things that this is a small price for. He’s a nasty little viper, if you ask me. When he’s not helping Korb over there get into trouble, he’s bullying him. And for some reason, Korb follows him around like a damned puppy.” This last bit was spoken loud enough for Korbinian, its other intended target, to hear.
“Anyway,” Albrecht continued. “He’s taken something of a disliking to you, for some reason that only makes sense in his imbecile head. So I’d watch out for him, rather than speaking in his defense, if I were you.”
She shrugged and finished her meal, eating the slightly stale trencher of bread it was served in. Then she went out into the overgrown field and harvested every cabbage that looked like it could be edible. Whoever or whatever had raided her source of cabbages hadn’t come back in the interim, thankfully, and she found several heads that had grown to a reasonable size since her last visit. She brought in her contribution and helped stuff them in whatever extra spaces were available in the party’s packs and sacks.
The magus pursed his lips and looked somewhat disgusted at this turn of events.
“It will be cabbage for every meal for the next week. Unavoidable, I suppose, given the circumstances. Though I would wager you find this to be a veritable feast, my young urchin.” Emlin was fairly certain that the sorcerer was attempting to be pleasant with the last sentence, but, with his manner and wording, she could not help but feel insulted. She realized then that she’d prefer that the magus simply ignored her altogether rather than try to ingratiate himself.
She faked a smile, nonetheless, thankful that he had not, as yet, taken her to task for her rough treatment of Ishild the night before.
Not long after, Sir Gomly awoke. His eyes were still adorned with rings darker even than his dusky skin, but he seemed more alert and in a slightly less somber mood than he had been the night before during his watch.
The Ostenlander knight called the magus over, pulling out the map that he had asked Emlin and Albrecht to buy several days before. The Cabbage Girl sat by the fire and quietly listened to the two of them discuss their plans, while the knight slowly ate the breakfast that Korbinian brought him.
“Should we seek the sword first or the amulet?” inquired the knight.
“Where are we on this map?” asked the magus in response, pulling out some of the few books to survive the tavern battle from his satchel. Gomly pointed to a place that Emlin could not see and the magus nodded and referenced something in one of the texts.
“Ishild and I came to Feiglingstadt because it seemed to be the closest point of travel to some ruins in this area,” the magus explained, pointing to another area on the map. “Unfortunately, they are not marked here, but they are one of the possible resting places of the amulet. My priority is to ensure that Ishild is safe from the Dunkelgraf’s power, and getting the amulet is the best way to do that; not to mention fulfilling one of the most salient parts of the prophecy.”
The old knight nodded, stroking his white beard.
“But what if it is not there?” the Ostenlander asked.
The magus shrugged.
“Then we might be best served by going after the sword next. We know it to be lying in the tomb of Thurencius, which is over here, near Neufeld. I also have some contacts there that might be able to help us along our way or at least give us some place to spend a few days and re-supply.”
“But what of the amulet’s other possible hiding places?” the knight prodded.
“I am only willing to discuss those once we have eliminated the possibility of this first location,” insisted the magus. He continued in a more conciliatory tone: “I mean no offense, of course, and you have fulfilled your oaths to Ishild and myself admirably so far, Sir Gomly. But it is best that no one else know where to find the amulet, lest they fall into the Dunkelgraf’s hands, and by extension, their knowledge. He cannot be allowed to reach it before Ishild and I do.”
“A dangerous risk should something befall you, magus. But I understand your concerns, even if I do not completely agree with them. And I have sworn to see you through it, regardless. Time for us to get the rest prepared to travel, then.”
Gomly rolled up the map and returned it to the hollow wooden tube in which it was kept. Emlin pretended that she hadn’t been listening to their conversation as the two men stood up and began to go about instructing the party to pack up their supplies. The knight sent Korbinian up to the old farm’s roof to fetch Balduin back down while he oversaw things.
As she put her pack together, Sir Gomly spoke aside to her.
“Emlin, do you know anything else about this area? Anything at all?”
She shook her head.
“As awful as life could be in Feiglingstadt, it was really all that I knew.” She was more than a little surprised at how wistful she sounded thinking back on it. “I was more afraid of the creatures said to live out here in the wild than of the murderers, rapists, and liars in the city. At least I understood what I needed to do to survive against them there. Only desperation drove my brother and me out here in the first place.”
“You will need to keep up, then. Perhaps we will find a new home for you in some village we pass along our way?” The old knight smiled.
Emlin smiled back, but she wasn’t sure she agreed. She only barely trusted the people she was with now. Why would she risk putting her well-being into the hands of another batch of people that she didn’t know at all?
With their belongings gathered together, the band set off through the forest of twisted trees.
Walking beside Albrecht, Emlin asked him about something that confused her.
“If he doesn’t know where he is, how does he know where to go?”
Albrecht laughed a little, then held his side for a moment until the pain passed.
“His map shows him some landmarks, like the city of Feiglingstadt back there,” he said pointing back behind them with his thumb. “Or that mountain peak over there,” he continued, pointing now with his index finger at a grey peak in the distance.
“With a few landmarks, and knowing which way is north or south, he can figure out generally where to go. And further landmarks will verify if he is right.”
Emlin looked suspiciously at the squire.
“I’m not sure I believe you. Sounds an awful lot like magic and guesswork, if you ask me.”
“Well, fortunately for us all, no one did.” Albrecht smiled at her. To which she responded by sticking out her tongue.
The first day of real travel was the hardest for her. Emlin already ached from the running she had done the previous afternoon and the night spent fleeing through first the sewers and then the barren lands surrounding Feiglingstadt. Combined with spending most of her previous life hiding in a city rather than traveling the countryside, she wasn’t exactly used to covering several leagues of rough terrain in a day, nor carrying a full pack on her back.
Thankfully for her, neither were the magus and his ward. Frequent stops were called for, giving the Cabbage Girl many more chances to stop and rest her legs than she likely would have gotten otherwise.
Unlike the magus and Ishild, Emlin accepted the pain in her legs and the blisters on her feet and the occasional cramp rather stoically, only complaining occasionally to Albrecht during the breaks. Better this, she figured, than the pain of a sword shoved through one’s chest. Or some of the more debased attentions of the city guard.
And she was especially thankful for the new boots that Albrecht had purchased with the magus’ money. The boots she had owned before were worn and still too big on her, having been stolen from a man at least twice her size, chafing her feet and exhausting her calves even in short jaunts about the city. This newer footwear stayed where it belonged, and, as an unexpected side effect of soaking them in the waters of the sewer and the river during their flight, the leather had relaxed a bit to fit very well indeed.
She was doubly thankful when she saw Ishild removing her slippers that evening after the first day of hard travel. The slippers were already wearing to rags, and the fair skin of the girl’s feet was mottled with blood from broken blisters and cuts from the rocks and thorns they were unprotected from. Emlin realized suddenly at that moment that this noble-born girl had never had to endure anything like real physical effort before. She felt bad, then, both out of empathy and for rolling her eyes every time Ishild or the magus had called for another stop.
Fetching cool water from the stream they had stopped at for the night, Emlin helped Ishild clean the wounds and bandage her feet. She was even tempted to offer those new boots of hers, but the noble girl’s feet were so dainty in comparison, she knew it would not help her much. So, the next morning, she did her best to help Ishild wrap her feet and lower legs in rags made from a spare shirt, to provide some makeshift protection against the terrain.
At least Ishild seemed less angry with her after that. In fact, she asked Emlin to help her the following night and morning in a similar fashion, though she found the highborn girl’s conversation still to be somewhat clipped and, frankly, a bit imperious.
The second day of travel was almost as bad as the first, thanks to the knots and cramps from a long-day’s travel. This was further worsened by Sir Gomly trying to push them a bit harder and longer to make up for lost time due to the previous day’s frequent stops. They found a road that the knight had been looking for about midday, and the going got significantly easier. And, come the third day, the pains had started working themselves out of Emlin’s legs and shoulders. And traveling the road seemed an almost merciful relief from struggling cross-country through the blackened brambles and twisted trees that made up the countryside surrounding Feiglingstadt.
They had a small scare in the early part of that third day, though, when Gomly rushed them all off the road to hide from what turned out to be a small caravan on its way to the city. The magus broke cover, then, despite the Ostenlander’s objections, and bought a new pair of boots for Ishild, some extra clothing for himself and her, and a bit more food (he had already begun bewailing all the cabbage they had eaten the past few days). The caravan-master seemed quite happy to trade on the road, for as he pointed out quite vocally, anything he sold them now would not be taxed on his way into Feiglingstadt.
Magus Altefalke attempted to haggle for one of the caravan’s horses, but to no avail. Then, at Sir Gomly’s insistence, the sorcerer begrudgingly gave the caravan-master a small bribe to forget the encounter, should he be asked any questions about it.
While the haggling was still ongoing, Emlin helped Ishild into her own new boots. They were prettier than the Cabbage Girl’s, with some well-done decorative needlework and finer leather, yet they were still coarser than Ishild was accustomed to.
“Is it really so difficult to use a little silk in the lining?” Ishild complained while they wrapped her feet, yet again, to protect them from the abuse of travel.
Emlin, who had never even seen silk and only knew that it existed because she had heard the prettier prostitutes speaking of it at the Gurgling Goat, shrugged and chose to remain silent on the subject.
By the fifth day, Emlin’s only complaints to Albrecht during their stops were about the primary cause of most of those stops; namely, Magus Altefalke and Ishild. Though, she was forced to admit, even those two had begun to get used to the journey. Stops were less common and less long, and Ishild’s feet were no longer coming out of her boots bloodied at the end of the day.
Emlin was sure that was a good thing, but she sort of regretted the calluses the fairer girl was being forced to develop. Emlin had never touched skin so soft as Ishild’s on that first night – not even Lora’s skin had been so fair and smooth – and since the young damsel only let the Cabbage Girl touch her feet, it was a quickly vanishing experience due to the rough treatment those delicate feet were now receiving.
On the sixth day, they left the road again and travelled east. They had passed out of the poisoned lands around Feiglingstadt into heavily forested hills by then – a sight to which Emlin was entirely unaccustomed. She had rarely seen trees with much green on them, let alone an uncountable swath of them covered in a hundred different shades thereof.
Heading east took them into the hills and towards some mountains dusted with snow at their caps. The going was easier this time, as much because the party had become used to the effort as it was due to the land not being quite as unkind as the twisted terrain they had previously passed through when escaping the city.
Late on the seventh day, they crested a hill and found themselves looking down into a small valley. This would not have been noteworthy had not the last rays of sunlight been shining down onto the fractured columns and overgrown stonework of some kind of ancient construction.
These, Emlin thought, must be the ruins the magus had spoken of.
Sir Gomly was sleeping in a corner, snoring slightly, as Korbinian, the youngest squire, cooked several strips of salted pork on a flatpan over a small fire in what was once a fireplace. To one side sat a mid-size pot filled with bubbling water and two small cut-up heads of cabbage that she was fairly certain had come from the patch outside.
Emlin sat up, rubbing sleep from one eye, and saw Albrecht leaning against one of the building’s old walls. Ishild had awoken and moved to another part of the room to pout, far from her.
Korbinian made the Cabbage Girl wait, giving Ishild the first ready trencher of food. He tried to make her wait until after he fed the magus, too, but Albrecht slapped him in the back of the head.
“Ladies eat first. Then men.”
“But she’s not…” the youngest squire began, but thought the better of it when the elder squire glared at him and left his thought unfinished.
Emlin was happy for the priority, since she hadn’t eaten anything since sometime early the afternoon before. In fact, the last food she remembered seeing was the stew and bread she had thrown at the magus back in her hiding place. It seemed a whole lifetime ago to her now.
Looking around, she realized that they were missing one of their number.
“Where’s Balduin?” she whispered to Albrecht.
“Sir Gomly made him go up to the top of this old ruin and stand watch a few hours ago. Punishment for the trouble he caused last night, I’d think.”
She took a few bites of the grilled salt-pork and cabbage. She hadn’t eaten cooked cabbage in so long, she forgot how soft and non-bitter it could be. And the salt-pork was a savory delight she hadn’t experienced in years.
“It’s not really his fault, though. I mean, for all he knew it really could’ve been a crocodile,” she observed. “I might have done the same thing, had it been the leg of my breeches caught on that stump.”
“Maybe,” Albrecht replied. “But I wouldn’t waste too much thought dwelling on it. Even if he didn’t deserve it for that, he’s gotten away with a number of other things that this is a small price for. He’s a nasty little viper, if you ask me. When he’s not helping Korb over there get into trouble, he’s bullying him. And for some reason, Korb follows him around like a damned puppy.” This last bit was spoken loud enough for Korbinian, its other intended target, to hear.
“Anyway,” Albrecht continued. “He’s taken something of a disliking to you, for some reason that only makes sense in his imbecile head. So I’d watch out for him, rather than speaking in his defense, if I were you.”
She shrugged and finished her meal, eating the slightly stale trencher of bread it was served in. Then she went out into the overgrown field and harvested every cabbage that looked like it could be edible. Whoever or whatever had raided her source of cabbages hadn’t come back in the interim, thankfully, and she found several heads that had grown to a reasonable size since her last visit. She brought in her contribution and helped stuff them in whatever extra spaces were available in the party’s packs and sacks.
The magus pursed his lips and looked somewhat disgusted at this turn of events.
“It will be cabbage for every meal for the next week. Unavoidable, I suppose, given the circumstances. Though I would wager you find this to be a veritable feast, my young urchin.” Emlin was fairly certain that the sorcerer was attempting to be pleasant with the last sentence, but, with his manner and wording, she could not help but feel insulted. She realized then that she’d prefer that the magus simply ignored her altogether rather than try to ingratiate himself.
She faked a smile, nonetheless, thankful that he had not, as yet, taken her to task for her rough treatment of Ishild the night before.
Not long after, Sir Gomly awoke. His eyes were still adorned with rings darker even than his dusky skin, but he seemed more alert and in a slightly less somber mood than he had been the night before during his watch.
The Ostenlander knight called the magus over, pulling out the map that he had asked Emlin and Albrecht to buy several days before. The Cabbage Girl sat by the fire and quietly listened to the two of them discuss their plans, while the knight slowly ate the breakfast that Korbinian brought him.
“Should we seek the sword first or the amulet?” inquired the knight.
“Where are we on this map?” asked the magus in response, pulling out some of the few books to survive the tavern battle from his satchel. Gomly pointed to a place that Emlin could not see and the magus nodded and referenced something in one of the texts.
“Ishild and I came to Feiglingstadt because it seemed to be the closest point of travel to some ruins in this area,” the magus explained, pointing to another area on the map. “Unfortunately, they are not marked here, but they are one of the possible resting places of the amulet. My priority is to ensure that Ishild is safe from the Dunkelgraf’s power, and getting the amulet is the best way to do that; not to mention fulfilling one of the most salient parts of the prophecy.”
The old knight nodded, stroking his white beard.
“But what if it is not there?” the Ostenlander asked.
The magus shrugged.
“Then we might be best served by going after the sword next. We know it to be lying in the tomb of Thurencius, which is over here, near Neufeld. I also have some contacts there that might be able to help us along our way or at least give us some place to spend a few days and re-supply.”
“But what of the amulet’s other possible hiding places?” the knight prodded.
“I am only willing to discuss those once we have eliminated the possibility of this first location,” insisted the magus. He continued in a more conciliatory tone: “I mean no offense, of course, and you have fulfilled your oaths to Ishild and myself admirably so far, Sir Gomly. But it is best that no one else know where to find the amulet, lest they fall into the Dunkelgraf’s hands, and by extension, their knowledge. He cannot be allowed to reach it before Ishild and I do.”
“A dangerous risk should something befall you, magus. But I understand your concerns, even if I do not completely agree with them. And I have sworn to see you through it, regardless. Time for us to get the rest prepared to travel, then.”
Gomly rolled up the map and returned it to the hollow wooden tube in which it was kept. Emlin pretended that she hadn’t been listening to their conversation as the two men stood up and began to go about instructing the party to pack up their supplies. The knight sent Korbinian up to the old farm’s roof to fetch Balduin back down while he oversaw things.
As she put her pack together, Sir Gomly spoke aside to her.
“Emlin, do you know anything else about this area? Anything at all?”
She shook her head.
“As awful as life could be in Feiglingstadt, it was really all that I knew.” She was more than a little surprised at how wistful she sounded thinking back on it. “I was more afraid of the creatures said to live out here in the wild than of the murderers, rapists, and liars in the city. At least I understood what I needed to do to survive against them there. Only desperation drove my brother and me out here in the first place.”
“You will need to keep up, then. Perhaps we will find a new home for you in some village we pass along our way?” The old knight smiled.
Emlin smiled back, but she wasn’t sure she agreed. She only barely trusted the people she was with now. Why would she risk putting her well-being into the hands of another batch of people that she didn’t know at all?
With their belongings gathered together, the band set off through the forest of twisted trees.
Walking beside Albrecht, Emlin asked him about something that confused her.
“If he doesn’t know where he is, how does he know where to go?”
Albrecht laughed a little, then held his side for a moment until the pain passed.
“His map shows him some landmarks, like the city of Feiglingstadt back there,” he said pointing back behind them with his thumb. “Or that mountain peak over there,” he continued, pointing now with his index finger at a grey peak in the distance.
“With a few landmarks, and knowing which way is north or south, he can figure out generally where to go. And further landmarks will verify if he is right.”
Emlin looked suspiciously at the squire.
“I’m not sure I believe you. Sounds an awful lot like magic and guesswork, if you ask me.”
“Well, fortunately for us all, no one did.” Albrecht smiled at her. To which she responded by sticking out her tongue.
The first day of real travel was the hardest for her. Emlin already ached from the running she had done the previous afternoon and the night spent fleeing through first the sewers and then the barren lands surrounding Feiglingstadt. Combined with spending most of her previous life hiding in a city rather than traveling the countryside, she wasn’t exactly used to covering several leagues of rough terrain in a day, nor carrying a full pack on her back.
Thankfully for her, neither were the magus and his ward. Frequent stops were called for, giving the Cabbage Girl many more chances to stop and rest her legs than she likely would have gotten otherwise.
Unlike the magus and Ishild, Emlin accepted the pain in her legs and the blisters on her feet and the occasional cramp rather stoically, only complaining occasionally to Albrecht during the breaks. Better this, she figured, than the pain of a sword shoved through one’s chest. Or some of the more debased attentions of the city guard.
And she was especially thankful for the new boots that Albrecht had purchased with the magus’ money. The boots she had owned before were worn and still too big on her, having been stolen from a man at least twice her size, chafing her feet and exhausting her calves even in short jaunts about the city. This newer footwear stayed where it belonged, and, as an unexpected side effect of soaking them in the waters of the sewer and the river during their flight, the leather had relaxed a bit to fit very well indeed.
She was doubly thankful when she saw Ishild removing her slippers that evening after the first day of hard travel. The slippers were already wearing to rags, and the fair skin of the girl’s feet was mottled with blood from broken blisters and cuts from the rocks and thorns they were unprotected from. Emlin realized suddenly at that moment that this noble-born girl had never had to endure anything like real physical effort before. She felt bad, then, both out of empathy and for rolling her eyes every time Ishild or the magus had called for another stop.
Fetching cool water from the stream they had stopped at for the night, Emlin helped Ishild clean the wounds and bandage her feet. She was even tempted to offer those new boots of hers, but the noble girl’s feet were so dainty in comparison, she knew it would not help her much. So, the next morning, she did her best to help Ishild wrap her feet and lower legs in rags made from a spare shirt, to provide some makeshift protection against the terrain.
At least Ishild seemed less angry with her after that. In fact, she asked Emlin to help her the following night and morning in a similar fashion, though she found the highborn girl’s conversation still to be somewhat clipped and, frankly, a bit imperious.
The second day of travel was almost as bad as the first, thanks to the knots and cramps from a long-day’s travel. This was further worsened by Sir Gomly trying to push them a bit harder and longer to make up for lost time due to the previous day’s frequent stops. They found a road that the knight had been looking for about midday, and the going got significantly easier. And, come the third day, the pains had started working themselves out of Emlin’s legs and shoulders. And traveling the road seemed an almost merciful relief from struggling cross-country through the blackened brambles and twisted trees that made up the countryside surrounding Feiglingstadt.
They had a small scare in the early part of that third day, though, when Gomly rushed them all off the road to hide from what turned out to be a small caravan on its way to the city. The magus broke cover, then, despite the Ostenlander’s objections, and bought a new pair of boots for Ishild, some extra clothing for himself and her, and a bit more food (he had already begun bewailing all the cabbage they had eaten the past few days). The caravan-master seemed quite happy to trade on the road, for as he pointed out quite vocally, anything he sold them now would not be taxed on his way into Feiglingstadt.
Magus Altefalke attempted to haggle for one of the caravan’s horses, but to no avail. Then, at Sir Gomly’s insistence, the sorcerer begrudgingly gave the caravan-master a small bribe to forget the encounter, should he be asked any questions about it.
While the haggling was still ongoing, Emlin helped Ishild into her own new boots. They were prettier than the Cabbage Girl’s, with some well-done decorative needlework and finer leather, yet they were still coarser than Ishild was accustomed to.
“Is it really so difficult to use a little silk in the lining?” Ishild complained while they wrapped her feet, yet again, to protect them from the abuse of travel.
Emlin, who had never even seen silk and only knew that it existed because she had heard the prettier prostitutes speaking of it at the Gurgling Goat, shrugged and chose to remain silent on the subject.
By the fifth day, Emlin’s only complaints to Albrecht during their stops were about the primary cause of most of those stops; namely, Magus Altefalke and Ishild. Though, she was forced to admit, even those two had begun to get used to the journey. Stops were less common and less long, and Ishild’s feet were no longer coming out of her boots bloodied at the end of the day.
Emlin was sure that was a good thing, but she sort of regretted the calluses the fairer girl was being forced to develop. Emlin had never touched skin so soft as Ishild’s on that first night – not even Lora’s skin had been so fair and smooth – and since the young damsel only let the Cabbage Girl touch her feet, it was a quickly vanishing experience due to the rough treatment those delicate feet were now receiving.
On the sixth day, they left the road again and travelled east. They had passed out of the poisoned lands around Feiglingstadt into heavily forested hills by then – a sight to which Emlin was entirely unaccustomed. She had rarely seen trees with much green on them, let alone an uncountable swath of them covered in a hundred different shades thereof.
Heading east took them into the hills and towards some mountains dusted with snow at their caps. The going was easier this time, as much because the party had become used to the effort as it was due to the land not being quite as unkind as the twisted terrain they had previously passed through when escaping the city.
Late on the seventh day, they crested a hill and found themselves looking down into a small valley. This would not have been noteworthy had not the last rays of sunlight been shining down onto the fractured columns and overgrown stonework of some kind of ancient construction.
These, Emlin thought, must be the ruins the magus had spoken of.
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