Part 6
280 Words
SIX
Several hours later, when Bianca could barely keep her eyes open, she was startled into alertness by the clatter of metal at her feet. She peered under the table. A sword, still in its scabbard, attached to an unbuckled swordbelt, lay on the flagstones.
A snore cut through the air like a rusty saw, before something clunked to the table beside her. Bianca bumped her head painfully in her haste to see what it was this time. The man at her side had fallen face-first onto the table, and the snoring came from him.
"Finally," Brenna said, rising. The other girls followed her example, and Bianca struggled to her feet.
Bianca swayed, exhaustion conquering her as surely as it had the unknown man. The unknown, boring man she would sooner die than marry, she knew now.
"I'm going to bed," Bianca mumbled, stumbling in the direction she vaguely remembered led to the bedchamber she'd share with her sisters.
"But you must come dancing with us!" one of the other girls said.
"'Nother night," she managed to say.
"Let her rest," she heard Hazel say as someone took her arm, leading her. "She's been travelling all day. Tomorrow, she can dance."
Dance? Bianca could do many things, but dancing wasn't one of them. Grace was not one of her virtues. She opened her mouth to say so, but all that came out was an unintelligible yawn, followed by another one.
Somehow, she found herself on a soft surface. A bed, she hoped, but she was too tired to care, as sleep enticed her into a dream where dogs drank wine, beggars wore silk and princesses served their every whim as crows cawed from the heavens.
- Writer
