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)
“I fear it will be two long weeks,” Balon tells me. “I cannot return sooner than that. I must see to my duties at court.”
“But how will I be able to know if you have returned?” I ask. “There is no way for me to tell time and it is dark in here constantly. Even now I have no idea what time it is outside.”
He’s silent for a moment. “It is near dawn, my lady. When I return, I will bring something to help you! Perhaps a rooster?”
A rooster? What in all the shite am I supposed to do with a rooster? “If you say so,” I call. “Just hurry back.” I pause, then add, “I’ll miss you terribly.”
I wince at the half-truth. While it’s true that I will miss him, I’d miss anyone that would show up to talk to me. I’d happily chatter to the court stableboys if they’d show up and speak to me, just for something to break the monotony of my imprisonment.
Still, though. Two weeks and he’ll be back. I’m touched at Balon’s devotion. Does he truly intend to return for the next seven years or is he going to break and help me escape earlier? I’ve always thought of him as, well, an affectionate dolt. Fun for a one-time fling, but not much else. He’s young and not the cleverest, but the fact that he’s supporting me like this? It makes him shine a bit brighter in my jaded eyes.
My mood is brighter, too. After he leaves, I put away a bit more of the food from my trunks and carry a few dresses upstairs. I’m buzzing with the things he told me. Of the fact that Lionel is gone from court, off to war. That my sister is there alone, waiting for her baby’s birth. I desperately want to be there. I’ll have to play Balon carefully if I want him to break me out. Convince him that I need him so desperately that I will die if we’re apart for any longer.
Maybe seduction? I consider this carefully. It’s a tool to be used, but one that must be wielded with a delicate hand. I ponder what to say to him when he returns, and how I can turn him towards what I want.
The next two weeks drag past excruciatingly slow. I unpack my trunks slowly, hauling a few dresses up to my rooms at a time and then hanging them upon the hooks left by a prior occupant. When I run out of hooks, I head upstairs to see if any of the trunks there will suffice, since it will be far easier for me to drag a trunk down a flight of steps instead of hauling one of mine up a flight.
And I break down some of the junk upstairs for firewood and make a fire for the first time since I entered the tower.
I’ve been eating jerky and cheeses and hard, stale bread since I arrived, but I’m running low on those supplies, and the thought of eating another piece of cheese makes my stomach churn. I’m also down to the last bit of my medicine, so I spend one day taking apart one of my heaviest trunks that I’ve emptied and haul the wood, piece by piece, to the kitchen below. I eye the foodstuffs I have there on my shelf. I’ve put it all away at this point and I’m a little alarmed at how much less I have than the Fellian. His shelves are still brimming with supplies, but mine are only half full in comparison. Is it that I will eat a lot less than a Fellian? Are my supplies more compact? I’m not sure but it worries me, and I have nothing but time to sit and worry.
I make a fire in the hearth in the kitchen, though it takes a bit of time to get the wood from the trunk to catch and I end up using far too much tinder. When it’s good and hot, I put the ingredients for my potion into the cookpot and add water, watching as it boils. The dried organs and herbs make a foul-smelling concoction, but the stink of it gives me a wave of homesickness. I think of Nurse, and Riza, and my sister, and aching sadness threatens.
Tomorrow, I tell myself. You can cry tomorrow after you’ve made your potion and you’ve bottled it.
So I work instead. I let the potion bubble and I flip through Riza’s book of recipes, trying to figure out something to make. She left instructions for a soup with the jerky I’ve been eating, and to make noodles from some of the flour she’s sent, and to add a few dried vegetables to give it flavor. I don’t know how long anything has to cook, and her instructions say “until done,” which means nothing to me. So I let things boil. And boil.