Erida - 19
Erida shoved the last of the hay...
Welcome to the continuing heroic fantasy story, Erida. Use the buttons below to easily navigate to any part of the story. A new segment is published each Thursday (usually).
In the previous segment, Erida learned more about life at the inn and Arno gave him his first lesson on using a fighting staff.
Erida shoved the last of the hay he carried into the roped netting of the feed pouch affixed to the inside of Midnight’s stall door. He sprinted to the tool room and grabbed up two empty buckets. It had been a couple hours since his last water run. He didn’t bother checking the trough. He tossed the empty buckets over the eastern corral fence and climbed over after them. Snatching the buckets off the ground he jogged to the well.
He managed to lower the well bucket before he heard a girl say, “Hi Erida.”
Erida twisted his head around. A young laundress stood with two other girls in the doorway to the laundry.
“Oh, hi Lesa.” It came out in a croak as his voice cracked. The girls giggled and he felt his face flush. He turned back to the well and hauled the heavy bucket up as fast as he could. The sooner he filled his own buckets, the sooner he’d be away. The short dark-haired Lesa made him nervous. With all the lancer’s horses and those belonging to other guests, he made regular trips to the well. Quite often Lesa turned up with one or two of her giggling friends to watch. He couldn’t help thinking that they had also witnessed his scrubbing.
“Want some help?” Lesa asked from where she stood.
“No, I can do it,” said Erida as he hauled the full well bucket up from the depths. He turned to fill his first bucket. Lesa and one of the other girls stood right behind him, each held one of his buckets.
“You should let someone help,” said Lesa’s friend. She had a serious expression on her face and dark eyes that held a demand for Erida to comply. Lesa, her raven hair tied back behind her scarfed head, had the same dark eyes. But hers mirrored the slight smile on her lips.
Erida swallowed. Outnumbered, he let them help. They steadied the buckets as he poured well water into them.
“Slow down,” said Lesa’s friend. “You’ll spill less.”
Erida frowned and looked away from Lesa to give his full attention to filling her bucket. He reflected on the number of girls and women at the inn. Most of the kitchen and all the laundry workers were female. In the few days he had been there, he worked nonstop. They seemed to have time to stand idle and watch him. His father told him life wasn’t fair, or if it was, it was fair in a way that seemed unfair. Erida agreed wholeheartedly.
He sat the empty well bucket on top of the wall. He took his two buckets from the girls. “Thank you,” he said. His voice broke again in the odd way he couldn’t control.
They both smiled and Lesa spoke. “Bring the empty buckets back to the fence. We can fill them and leave them by the well for your next trip.”
Surprised by the unexpected offer, Erida only nodded as he lugged the two buckets toward the front of the inn’s east wing. He climbed the fence on his way to the well. The return trip took the long way around. Mistress Oneta claimed Erida disrupted work in the laundry with his repeated trips for water and barred him from passing through. Not that it mattered. Passage through the laundry led into the east wing’s interior hallway. Once there, he risked coming face-to-face with guests or worse, Mistress Maya. Her imperious attitude and displeasure at Erida’s “unsanctioned trespass” made walking further to avoid her well worth it. Well worth it! Erida chuckled at his own pun.
At the corral trough, he emptied his buckets and took them to the fence where Lesa waited. He wanted to say something nice, something that let her know he appreciated her help. But all he said was, “Thanks.”
She smiled at him. “You’re welcome. I’ll… I mean they’ll be waiting for you.”
Erida nodded and watched Lesa walk away with the buckets. Life might be a little less unfair than it seemed. He went back to work too, putting off further speculation about Lesa’s motive for helping him.
Thanks for reading this segment of Erida. There’s more to come.
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