“Nat!” Artis called from a block away.
Natalie swore under her breath. She knew she would eventually run into him. Upper Angle was a big city, but it wasn’t that big. Plus, Artis always had a knack for appearing wherever she was. Not that she necessarily minded. They were friends, after all—good friends. She just didn’t have the emotional energy to deal with him right then.
Natalie kept on walking, hoping she’d blend into the crowds.
“Nat!” Artis was running.
With an exaggerated sigh, Natalie turned and glowered. Artis skidded to a stop.
“Don’t…say a word,” she told him.
He opened his mouth.
“Not one word!” she said. “I mean it! So help me, Art, if you mention anything about my face or ask what happened, I’ll hit you! I mean it!”
Artis drove his hands into his pockets, rocked back on his heels, and glanced causally about. “Beautiful weather we’re having, eh?”
Natalie couldn’t help but laugh. “Art!”
She smiled too broadly and flinched. Artis’s expression flickered with concern. To his credit, however, he kept quiet. Then he noted the knife hanging from her belt. He didn’t say anything about that, either.
They stood awkwardly in the middle of the narrow cobblestone street that looped around Upper Angle’s second terrace, trying to avoid mentioning the obvious as passersby jostled about them. A horse-drawn wagon full of barrels pushed though the crowds, clopping closer.
“Let’s go get a beer.” Artis’s insistent finger snapped up, cutting short Natalie’s protests. “First, no talking about anything you don’t want to talk about. Second, I’m buying. Third, I can’t make you go with me, but I can be really annoying if you don’t.”
Natalie’s smile softened. She’d known the tall, scrawny Artis her entire life. Now, staring up at him, she realized he wasn’t all that scrawny anymore. How did she not notice that before?
“I’ll buy my own beer,” she said.
“Tell you what—I’ll buy the first round, you buy the second. Deal?”
“Fine.”
Natalie moved out of the plodding horses’ way and glanced up and down the street. Shouting merchants stood by their carts, trying to make one last sale for the night. Several had chickens and ducks hanging from meat hooks, necks broken, ready to be plucked and gutted, while others displayed some that were already freshly cooked. Though they looked ghastly, the scent made her stomach growl. She forced herself to turn away before Artis saw where she was looking. She’d be damned if he began buying her food. She scanned the crowds behind them.
“They won’t find us in the Dead Dog,” Artis offered. “They wouldn’t go near the place.”
“Who?”
“Hadley and Ida. You’re worried they’ll see you and make you talk about what happened.”
Natalie started to deny it, but there was no point. He was right, and he knew it.
“Oh, shut up!” She shooed away the approaching street vendors and headed toward the Dead Dog.
For three blocks, Artis strolled alongside Natalie as she stomped to the shabby tavern, his silence more telling than anything he could have said. Damn him for doing what he was told.
Inside the Dead Dog, they took a filthy table at the back, farthest away from the front window through which Hadley or Ida might see them. Artis got the barmaid’s attention, indicated he wanted two beers, then grinned pleasantly at Natalie as he waited.
“Okay! Fine,” she blurted out. “I’ll tell you. I was walking by the library late last night and somebody attacked me. I fought him off—end of story. I’m not talking about it anymore, so just stop looking at me like that.” Natalie pulled her hood down to conceal her bruised face. “I probably look hideous.”
Artis swept away an accumulation of leftover crumbs from the wobbly table. “I think you’re beautiful.”
“Art! Please!”
The young barmaid brought them their two beers in mostly clean steins.
“Is there anything else I can get for you, sir?” she asked Artis, barely glancing at Natalie. “Anything at all?”
Natalie sipped her beer. It was warm and flat.
Artis blinked. “What? I’m sorry…” he said, suddenly realizing the barmaid was still there. “Nope, we’re good. But thanks!”
“All righty, then. I’ll check on you later.” She tossed her hips as she turned. “Come get me if you want me.”
Natalie watched the barmaid wait on the tavern’s only other customers: two grizzled old men arguing over who the best adventurer in history was—one said it was Drake, the other said it was Sir Edris. As she took their orders, she kept glancing back to Artis, smiling.
“You know we’re just friends, right?”
Usually, Artis balked when she said this, insisting she just needed more time to realize how she really felt. But, after having been told the same thing almost every day for the past five years, the discomfort of her question seemed to have deadened. He lifted his stein and clinked it against hers.
“Friends to the end!” He took a drink.
Natalie slouched and immediately regretted it as pain flashed through her ribs. She whimpered.
Artis ignored it.
She stared at him.
“What?” he said, about to take another drink.
“You aren’t going to get on me for walking home by myself and getting beaten up? You don’t mind being friends?” Clutching her side, she leaned forward suspiciously. “What’s wrong?”
For a moment, Artis’s grin remained in place, until the will to maintain it seemed to waver. He fiddled with his stein.
“Look, Nat…you don’t feel the same way I do, and that’s fine. I want you to be happy. And if you’re happy with somebody other than me, then—” He picked at something stuck to his stein’s handle. “As for what happened to you…” He lifted a helpless hand.
Natalie patted his forearm fondly. Realizing what she was doing, she quickly pulled back. “If being with me makes you uncomfortable…”
Artis took another drink.
The barmaid cleaned a nearby table, eyeing Artis. When he glanced over, she bent forward, revealing more than a little of her generous breasts.
He turned his attention back to Natalie. “I saw your mom and everybody this afternoon,” he said. “Brought them a basket of apples and pears, and a couple jugs of cider.”
“Cider? It wasn’t—”
“No, it wasn’t hard cider, just spiced. Don’t worry, I learned my lesson the last time. Boy, did I learn my lesson!”
Natalie relaxed. Giving her mother hard cider would likely turn things from bad to worse.
“Thanks,” she said. “About the food and everything.”
“Hey, we’re friends.” He managed to wink convincingly at her. “Robbie and the others looked good, by the way. And, oh, that reminds me: my father said we’ll need to hire a couple more hands next fall. I figure Jonathon and Elisabeth will be old enough to help out by then. They couldn’t lift full crates or anything like that—not yet, at any rate—but John could certainly shimmy up the trees faster than anybody we have now. And Lizzy could get whatever falls to the ground.”
Jonathon and Elisabeth working! That would be an immense help, even if they only earned a penny a day. They all might be able to afford better clothes, or pay part of the delinquent taxes. Natalie wanted to reach across the table but stopped herself.
“Thanks, Art.” She stared at the brown beer suds creeping down the side of her stein, trying to hide the emotions flickering deep within her. “That’d be wonderful. I really appreciate it. I’ll make sure they work hard for you and your dad. You won’t have any regrets hiring them.”
“I’m sure we won’t. That’s why my father mentioned it. ‘If they work half as hard as Nat,’ he said.” Artis looked up at Natalie. “But I won’t be there. It’s time for me to leave; you know, go out on my own and seek my fortune and all of that.”
“What?” Natalie slumped in her chair. “What do you mean? What about the orchard? And your family? What’re you going to do?” She tried to master her shock, but failed miserably. “I mean…why?”
Three men in heated conversation sat down at the table near the dingy front window. One shouted for the barmaid.
Artis shrugged. “I’m eighteen now. Time to make something of myself.”
“But…the orchard?”
“What about it? Andy’s the oldest; he’ll get the orchard and everything else when my folks pass on. And besides”—he brooded at his beer—“I don’t want to pick apples and pears for the rest of my life. I mean, it’d be one thing if I ran some part of the business, but…” He gave a pained chortle. “I’m the fifth son. We inherit the dirt road heading out of town.”
Now Natalie fiddled with her stein. Artis leaving? That was something she’d never considered—never in a million years. Artis had always been around. If she or her family ever needed anything, he was there. When her father died, he was at the house for days on end, seeing to the burial and taking care of things that Natalie and her mother couldn’t bring themselves to do. And Natalie didn’t want to even think about how many hours she had spent holding him and crying on his shoulder—or kissing him.
He was leaving?
“So,” she said slowly, “what will you do?”
“Well,” Artis said, sounding a bit more hopeful, “I’ve saved up a good amount over the years, so that’s something. And I have skills. I know how to brew incredible cider. Nobody can deny that. And I’m not afraid of hard work. Plus, I can read and write well enough. The first question I have to answer, though, is: where?”
“Where?” Natalie repeated, overwhelmed by everything. She absentmindedly watched a mouse scurry along the floorboards.
“Yeah, I mean, I have to find work somewhere and there’s nothing holding me here. So—” Artis nursed his beer.
Nothing was holding him here. Had that been a not-so-subtle gibe? Natalie didn’t know, but it stung, nonetheless.
“I…” she started, so awash in emotions, she didn’t know what else to say.
“Let’s talk about something else. Oh! I know!” Artis suddenly grew excited. “Have you heard about the kings’ latest quest? Four thousand gold! Can you believe it? Can you imagine what you could buy with that kind of money?”