Brille Covella's Arc

Chapter 3 of 13

Brille sat on the wagon step until her hands stopped shaking. The painted panels behind her caught the low sun. The pots her aunt had glazed sat in a bright row on the carpet. If she walked into the inn under the east bridge dressed like this, in a smock stained with clay, the recruiters would see a potter and wave her off before she opened her mouth. Cassian could get her through the door. He could not make them look twice. She realized she was still holding the coins Cassian had paid for the pottery with. A gold piece and a bronze… not even enough to pay for the pottery he walked off with. Then she realized there was something weird about the bronze coin. It was one she’d never seen before. The face had a strange symbol and the reverse, 3 words in a language she did not know. She sighed, probably worthless. She added the gold piece to her coin purse. Now she had 2 gold pieces of the realm and a handful of small change, plus one weird coin she probably couldn’t spend. She had earned the other gold from a merchant that morning who bought the horse pitcher outright. She weighed it in her palm and thought about her aunt, who would ask where it went. She told her aunt she needed thread and left before her aunt could answer. The clothing shop two rows over had a striped awning and a sign in curling letters. Inside it smelled of cedar and warm wool. Cloaks hung along one wall. Boots stood in a line under the window. The proprietor looked up from folding a shirt and took in her smock in one glance. "I need to not look like this," Brille said. "By the second bell." The proprietor set the shirt down. "Hunting clothes or city clothes?" "Something a shooter would wear. Nothing fancy. Nothing new-looking." He pulled a dark green coat off a peg, then plain brown trousers, then a soft leather cap. He named a price. She named half. He shaved a quarter off and pointed her behind a curtain. She changed fast. The coat fit at the shoulders. The trousers were loose at the waist, and he handed a belt over the curtain without being asked. When she stepped out, he looked at her the way the stranger with the lizard had looked at the pitcher. "Leave the smock," he said. "I'll hold it till morning for two coppers." She paid the gold and took back the change in small coin. She kept her bow case under her arm. In the shop's polished window she saw a stranger looking back, road-worn and quiet. Not a potter. Not yet a fighter. Something a recruiter might let finish a sentence. Outside, the second bell started to ring. She counted the strikes and moved toward the east side of the city with her head down, coat collar up. She did not go back to the wagons. Her aunt would see the clothes and know the gold was gone, and there would be no explaining it until she came back with something to show. When the last bell died, Brille was standing across from the inn under the bridge, dressed for a room she had not yet earned the right to enter. She also had doubts that Cassian would come through. If he underpaid and gave her worthless coins, could she trust him here? She didn’t know but she mustered her courage. She crossed the street and knocked.