No Place to Hide

Anaisa peeked out from room number four early in the morning. No one in the inn was stirring just yet. She and Katia slipped out of the bedroom and downstairs to start a hearty breakfast cooking in the kitchen. If the food could be nearly ready by the time the guests asked for it, surely the innkeeper would be pleased!

Katia took out the bread dough left to rise the night before and readied it for baking while Anaisa stoked the fire. Thankfully they had spent much time hiding from their father in the kitchens and learned the basics of cooking and baking fairly well.

"Perhaps… they buy from a bakery," Katia said thoughtfully as she looked at the relatively small size of the oven. "Maybe they do not normally make their own."

"Then we will save the inn some money today," Anaisa shrugged. "The owner should be pleased." 

"Trying to get in good with my husband, eh?" A raspy voice said from the doorway.

The sisters watched in surprise as a middle-aged woman hobbled into the room like a stormcloud.

"I beg your pardon?" Anaisa sputtered.

"My husband told me he hired two young girls to run the kitchen while I was sick. Come to find ye ain't little girls at all. Full grown is what ye are, and you don't belong here sniffin' around my man!" The woman declared before a nasty cough wracked her body.

"Ma'am, it seems that you are ill. Perhaps you would like to rest?" Katia tried her hand at peacekeeping while Anaisa tried to suppress her flaring temper. The audacity! 

"A little rest, and I'll suffer my husband being seduced by some little trollop! I see your clothes, I know you're poor. You won't get a penny out of us for your favors!" The older woman's voice rose to a screech before she dissolved into a fit of coughing.

"Please, let me make you some tea for your throat," Katia offered, moving toward a cupboard.

"Don't you touch any more of my things!" The innkeeper's wife rallied. "Get out, the both of you! I'm sure you don't have a single possession to collect, so it would only be stealing for you to stop and get anything! Out!"

The woman snatched a broom up from the corner and brandished it at the girls. Katia moved back, but Anaisa firmed her lips.

"Madam, you are clearly not feeling well. Your words have been hurtful and rude, and I must ask that you apologize and go back to your room to rest. Your presence in this room risks infecting the food we are cooking with your illness. I'm sure your husband would be displeased if all the guests became ill and spread word that this inn harbors disease. No one would stay here in the future." She was proud of how reasonable and even her words came out when she really felt like slapping the woman and screaming back at her. 

"You spoiled, uppity brat!" The woman swung the broom, missing Anaisa and knocking a pot of hot water off the stove. The scalding liquid splashed across the kitchen floor, making the sisters jump back in alarm and the ill woman slip and fall to the floor.

The noise was quickly followed by the innkeeper's entrance, his angry expression melting into shock at the scene.

"What have you done??" He demanded, helping his wife stand up from the soggy ground.

Anaisa opened her mouth to explain, but the older woman interrupted with her raspy, vicious tone.

"These girls you hired tried to hurt me so that they could keep me from my own kitchen and make you keep them longer!" She accused. "Tried to throw boiling water on me!"

"We did not!" Anaisa cried in horror. "She attacked us with a broom and missed! She knocked the pot over herself! We did nothing wrong!"

"Slander!" The innkeeper's wife whimpered with another cough. "I'm far too ill to lift a broom, let alone knock that pot off the stove."

Fury broiled up from inside Anaisa's belly, but Katia tugged on her sleeve.

"That's just not true. We all saw it." Anaisa gritted her teeth and spoke as evenly as she could.

"Calling me a liar! A sick woman like me…"

"Hush," The innkeeper said, but before Anaisa could become hopeful, he turned to her. "Both of you, get out of here before I call the authorities and have you arrested. I better not catch you lingering outside, either!"

"But…" Anaisa's mouth fell open.

"I said out!" He boomed, and the girls fled from the kitchen and out the back door of the inn.

They stopped in the street, both shocked at the turn of events.

"We were doing a good job," Katia frowned.

"And we got a place to sleep for the night, and some food," Anaisa responded, glad that they had eaten their portion of breakfast as they cooked. She sighed. "I suppose we must find a different place for tonight."

"That nice man who gave us his room–" Katia began.

"We can't wait around for him and hope he'll be generous once more," Anaisa shook her head. "That horrible woman is looking out the window at us now, and I don't trust her not to send the authorities after us. We've got to go." 

Joining hands, the sisters departed in earnest. Anaisa couldn't resist a final glare over her shoulder at the innkeeper's wife. Insane woman! They had nearly exhausted the city's supply of inns yesterday in their quest for employment, so today Anaisa decided a place to sleep was their second-highest concern.

Money came first. Money could buy food and shelter. Money could pave the path to revenge.

They began at a bakery, but they could not make the fancy pastries and snacks that the baker was famous for, and he had no use for unskilled kitchen labor just now. They inquired at eating establishments if cooking help was needed, but no one wanted them. 

The day wore on, and Anaisa's feet and head ached from her efforts. Her stomach growled with hunger, and she knew Katia was likely feeling worse, though she wouldn't complain.

"I'm sure the next person will have something for us," The words of encouragement fell flat. It was all but hopeless.

The girls stopped in front of a tailor's shop, and Anaisa frowned.

"We can sew well enough," She said confidently before striding in. The bespectacled tailor looked up from his work and squinted at her.

"Need something, Miss?" He asked politely. There were a few other customers in the shop, but all were browsing contentedly.

"Employment," Anaisa replied. "My sister and I need work."

"Come here," He beckoned with a bony finger. "I admit I have more orders than I can fulfill right now, but I won't take on just anybody."

As Katia came close, he snatched at her skirt, causing her to gasp.

"Poor fabric… recycled, definitely. But the stitches are close and even." He mumbled to himself before looking up at her from his chair. "You sewed this yourself?"

"Yes sir." Anaisa answered, "We both sew well."

It was one of the few things they had been allowed to do during their free time; sew for the poor.

"What are your names, and who are your parents?" He asked next. "I'm very picky about whom I take on."

"Anaisa and Katia, daughters of Hector, the son of Go." She managed to say their father's name without her voice trembling. She used his informal name instead of his title, hoping it would pass easily.

The tailor gave her an appraising look. "How fast can you create a garment?" He raised a finger, "I don't like laziness or sluggards."

"I'm not sure you want them," Another customer butted in. "I hate to interfere, but I thought you ought to know I recognize their father's name. The executed and disgraced fake Count. The royal proclamation of his desertion and treachery is in the city square."

"Is that so?" The tailor's eyes demanded an answer from the girls, and Katia shrank back. Anaisa straightened her shoulders.

"Our father faced the consequences of his actions. My sister and I will make our own lives." She hoped that answer would gain them employment; besmirching the king's decree would only create trouble.

"That's all well and good, but if rumor gets out that I hired a traitor's family, my business will be ruined," The old tailor shook his head. "I'm sorry, girls. I will ask you to go now."

Anaisa wanted to rant at the unfairness of the situation, to scream at the nosy customer that it was none of her business, but none of that would help them now. The sisters held hands and went out, with titters and gossip about their father in their wake.

Once the whispers began, some street children made up a chant, singing and following the girls as they walked.

"Deserter's Daughters far and wide,

They have no place to run nor hide.

Fake nobles, fake girls,

Probably wore fake pearls."

The rhyme was as cruel as it was catchy. Anaisa's blood boiled. How could anyone believe a man could realistically fake his way into nobility? It was an obvious lie to protect the reputation of the upper class. Ridiculous on its face, but everyone simply accepted it because the king declared it to be true. 

"We'll never get jobs as long as they know, will we?" Katia whispered. 

Anaisa closed her eyes for a moment of frustration and took a deep breath. "No, we won't."

"Then what shall we do?" The elder sister fretted.

The younger looked at a poster on the city's proclamation boards.

"I only have one idea, and I hate it." Anaisa pointed.

"Oh, oh we can't, can we? They'd separate us!" Katia bit her lip.

"Let's… ask," Anaisa said slowly. "Perhaps if we can be given to neighbors, it would not be so bad. It never hurts to ask."

Katia nodded, but her voice was uncertain as she repeated her sister. "We can ask."