The warm puff of air that escaped from the Ancient Cellars Inn was a welcome sensation that elicited a content sigh from me as it wafted over my face. It wasn’t particularly cold outside, it was late spring and the weather was otherwise warm, but the warm air promised a chance to get dry which I keenly looked forward to. After standing in the rain all evening I was soaked to the bone to the point where even my undergarments squelched awkwardly with every step I took and any time I took a moment to wonder about the waterproof qualities of my fiddle’s case I felt a pang of worry. If my fiddle ended up ruined I supposed I could replace it if I held back my pride and asked Mable to cover food for me until I got paid from the gig, though I assumed there would be a rush tomorrow morning to the nearest music shop for a lot of people to replace their instruments and if I didn’t end up being one of the lucky ones to get a replacement before the shop was swept clean I would be stuck in an expensive city with no means of making money. I was not the kind of bard that could rely on her voice to earn an income, unless some people either took pity on me or took the route of paying me to stop my off tune warbling.

“Welcome, welcome!” the rotund inkeeper bellowed from behind the bar that lined behind the front entrance.

The ginger haired man shuffled from behind the counter, the sound of clinking following him like he was wading through a sea of glass bottles. By the sound and look of alarm on his face as he had to keep turning and checking with each particularly loud clunk, I assumed that it was indeed a minefield of glass behind the counter.

“Sorry about that,” he said with a laugh as he finally broke free from the obstacle course and began to make his way towards us, “we are well prepared for the influx of the patrons for the wedding you see. They have not arrived yet and depleted the stock which is a bit strange… but no matter.” His smile faltered a moment revealing a nagging worry, but then quickly reappeared as he reached out, outstretching his chubby arm to shake our hands. “Cam Livarot,” he introduced.

“Mable Tarson,” Mable responded, taking the lead and stepping in front of me to shake the man’s hand, “and this is my friend, Rose Vinewood.”

“Wonderful to meet you both!” he said brightly. He made sure that as soon as Mable released his hand he immediately reached for mine and grasped it in his warm grip. “You two look like you took a dip in the river, come take a seat by the fire and dry off, I’ll get a plate of dinner fixed up for the both of you.”

Before we could argue anything different or enquire about the price of a meal, he was already speed walking towards the kitchen.

“He seems nice,” I commented.

“Course he’s going to be nice, the place is empty, if we pay him anything at all it’s better than nothing.”

We sloshed and squished our way over to the table closest to the fireplace and began to remove the layers of drenched cloth and wool from us. There was only so much we could manage and still stay decent, but what could be easily removed while preserving dignity was strewn across accompanying empty chairs and tables in a hope that the heat of the fire would speed up the process of drying everything out. Mable was true to her word and let out a curse under her breath as she pulled a small leather pouch free from being laced to her belt and fished three reeds swimming in the accumulated water. She carefully shook each dry from the excess water and set them upright on the table, judging if it would be too warm with the back of her hand and moving them back slightly to a less harsh spot.

“I doubt we’ll be required to play tomorrow anyway,” I said, “should have enough time to dry out before you need them.”

“My big worry is if they’re ruined, reeds are finicky,” she sighed as she sat down at the table and leaned her head to the side to gather her hair towards the fire and squeezed out the excess water from her braids. “I probably will err on the side of caution and leave early in the morning to the nearest music shop and get some replacements just in case. If those reeds warp in any way then every note is going to sound like I’m strangling an asthmatic duck.”

“I might have to join you, we’ll see.” With butterflies in my stomach I placed my terrifying damp fiddle case on the table and flicked open the locks. “If this is ruined you’re going to have to buy dinner, no way I’m going to be able to find another one that sounds any good on the cheap.”

She nodded and waved away my worry with her hand. “I got you if you need it until we get paid.”

A pang of jealousy sparked in me at how nonchalant she was about her finances. I had assumed she was pretty successful at what she did, it was a common (and usually correct) assumption that being a bard meant accepting that the love of spreading music was part of the pay, and she had not once yet acted the part of the starving artist. Those that did make a decent living were a very lucky few and I had never had any illusions about the fact that I would likely never be among their ranks.

“Here we go,” I said and sucked in a breath as I slowly pulled up the top of the case. I was relieved to see that the main instrument had a few droplets of moisture that had made it through the padded interior, but it did not look overly water logged. The bow, however, was covered in a pool of water in its separate holding space. I pulled it out and grimaced at how pliable the water had made the wood feel. I was certain that if I applied any real pressure I could have bent it into a u shape with not much trouble. To further add to my certainty that the bow was a lost cause, the sinew of the bow hair was swollen with water and the grip was slowly unraveling from the wood from the glue dissolving.

“Ouch,” Mable said with a sympathetic laugh, “at least it’s just the bow, could be much worse.”

“True.” I sat the bow on the table and retrieved the fiddle to make double sure all was well with it and after wiping away the clinging droplets, it was in the same shape it had been before the storm. “Guess we’re both going to the shop in the morning.”

“Guess so, still want me to cover dinner?”

I knew the offer was coming out of kindness but I couldn’t help but feel a little bit miffed at the suggestion that I couldn’t afford it on my own. A person smart with their coins probably would say that I still reasonably couldn’t, but regardless I wasn’t all that open to the idea of her feeling like she had to pay for me. There was a big difference between the price of a new fiddle, the price of a new bow, and the price of dinner. Surely if I could ekk out replacing the fiddle with my funds I had at least a decent amount on me, even if it would be nearly every bit of the remaining money to my name.

“No offense meant,” she said once it dawned on her why I had gone silent instead of answering her, “was just a friendly offer. Friends pay for each other sometimes when they go out.”

“This is hardly a girl’s night out.” I cleared the sopping case from the table and turned it upright so the soaked fabric and padding was getting the full brunt of the fire. There was no way it was going to be dry by morning and there was a large chance that mold was going to set in no matter what I did. At some point soon I was going to have to consider getting a new carrying case, though hopefully I could hold out until after I was paid.

The innkeeper appeared again from a door behind the bar, awkwardly holding it open with his foot and stepping out of the way so a thin, tall woman with sparkling blue eyes and long blonde hair could step through carrying two plates of food. His own arms were full of loaves of baked bread and various sections cut out of different wheels of cheese along with a couple bottles of wine. Seeing all of the food coming our direction I wondered if it was too late to take back my offense at the idea of having the meal paid for.

“A little bit of everything,” the man said cheerfully as he waited for his wife to set down the dinner plates so he could start to offload the stock of a small bakery onto our table. “My wife, Bri, is a wonderful cook and I like to show off what a catch I stumbled into when I can.”

The woman’s face brightened at his words and she leaned over to kiss his cheek while he stacked up the various cheeses.

“He’s just boasting,” she said humbly, “you’re welcome to more if you do like it though, there’s plenty where that came from.”

“It seems like you were expecting a lot more people tonight,” I commented.

“A bit of an understatement,” she said with a tinkling laugh, “we were expecting a lot of lower ranking nobles and dignitaries tonight to at least want to drink and sleep after the engagement feast. Either something has held them up or we grossly overestimated how many attendees there might be.”

“There are certainly enough musicians summoned to the city, surely they didn’t invite more common rabble than the noble and royals,” Mable commented. “They must just be held up, you know how formal parties go, someone gets drunk enough to make a speech and starts rambling about the old times and then insists on telling their own life story when no one asked.”

I laughed along with them in agreement, but it was glaring obvious that I came from a very different background. It seemed that people who either hailed from wealthy families or cities had little clue about how anyone else lived. They tended to assume that everyone, even the poor and rural, had the same experiences as them. I supposed that I was even more of an outlier coming from a druidic family. My history and experiences were probably foreign and strange to even the most rural of your standard peasants. Most people just couldn’t relate to growing up chattering to squirrels on the way to gather the daily berries and hustle to get back in time to commune with nature and rethatch the tree nest so we could get better sleep the next night. I grew up dirty, barely wearing any clothing, and being taught how to best intimidate a bear so that I didn’t get carried off to its den as a new cub or get eaten. Not being bored at fancy dinner parties was just not something I could relate to, I hadn’t even been to a single dinner party in the first place. It had taken me an embarrassing long time after leaving the forest to even figure out how to properly use a knife and fork.

“Well let’s hope they’ll all stumble in there soon, I’ve sent our son to snoop around the castle anyway and tell us what’s going on and give us a headstart to prepare once they are released,” the woman said. A sudden smile came over her face and she tilted her head slightly as she looked at Mable. “You know he is probably about your age.”

I couldn’t help but let out a barely stifled chuckle. The woman saw a chance and was taking it, though with a bombshell like Mable, her son was likely to grovel at her feet later in gratitude if Mable was willing to entertain the idea of giving him a chance.

“Oh is he?” Mable inquired with a sweet smile. “Well maybe we will get to meet him and become friends while we are in town.”

“Are you only staying a short while?”

“Probably, I am only here on a temporary contract to play for the wedding, after that I don’t like letting my feet grow moss,” Mable answered.

Even though I had only known Mable about a week, I already knew that there was little the woman could say to convince her to even consider the idea of settling down. She was the type that was only happy when her scenery was changing and there was a new adventure on the horizon. Most people wanted their partners to settle down and start families once they got together and that would simply not do for Mable, it would make her feel restless and miserable. Until she found someone willing to wander with her and accept there would likely never be a permanent roof over their heads, dating and marriage was off the table.

“Oh but it’s such a lovely city, I’m sure once you’re here for a bit and explore you’ll fall in love with what living here has to offer.”

Cam looked to his wife with a reddening face, then glanced to me with an expression of stunned disbelief at how forward and insistent she was being.

“I’ve been in other lovely cities that could not charm me into staying, but we will see.” Mable never broke her smile and took a large bite of the steaming pile of mashed potatoes on her plate as if filling her mouth with food might discourage the woman from pushing any further.

“Bri, my love, Bleu can meet them later when he gets back and they’ve settled in,” her husband suggested gently.

“Ah right,” Bri laughed awkwardly as it suddenly dawned on her that the situation was perhaps making her seem a little desperate to set up her son, “you are both probably very hungry. We will leave you alone so you can have some peace while you eat.”

As soon as the couple made it back to the counter, the husband whispering questions to her about what exactly she had been thinking, and we had dug into our meal in earnest, the door to the inn snapped open and closed and a young man with ginger hair and brilliant blue eyes entered, hair dripping wet from the rain. He didn’t give us a glance as he marched up the counter with a serious look on his face.

“Bleu, did you hear anything?” his father asked.

The man took a deep breath in and let out a long puff of air like he was stressed about what he was about to say. “The king is dead.”