章 79: Wild Card
Mrs. Alayla saw us off at the city gates.
It was really early in the morning and Shia was still sleeping, so I bade goodbyes in her stead.
Yesterday, the Barrack Family decided I had to leave two days early. Things happen on roads, so it was probably a good idea to start early for a party you 'had to' attend. I could have left with Nisa or Mike but that would have hurt my family's pride so they sent us off on an expensive looking carriage. It looked expensive but the inside was pretty shit. Didn't even come with cushions! So, I brought pillows instead.
We weren't going alone. We had eight guards, all belonging to the Barrack family. They were the Employees. We also had a knight with us. Apparently, he was an escort from the Duke's family. Which was both good and bad. Good because he could take care of most of the problems at the border and bad because God damn would he lose all the respect for this family soon.
Strangely, our family's eight guards were dressed for the occasion and actually moved like they were also trained knights. Rather weird.
"She's pretty clumsy, so do take care of her."
Shouldn't she be taking care of me? "I will," I said.
The carriage drew its doors shut and the journey began. I watched the sky slowly light up. We were going to take a familiar path for a few hours. I came through this place, the first time I came here with Den. Brought back memories. It's already been more than two months. I wondered what they were doing at this point? Crossing countries maybe? Maybe I should write to them? I planned to write after six months. Sending letters cost like two gold if you were sending across continents. So, I couldn't do that willy-nilly. But maybe, maybe I could manage a bit and send a letter at the end of this month?
The postal system of this world was pretty good. As long as you paid a handsome amount of cash, you could be certain your letter would reach in about a week. Even if the receiver had left for another country, the letter would still reach him. If he left for another continent, the letter would Still reach him. However, in that case the receiver would have to be pay extra money to get the letter. How the postal system actually worked, I couldn't figure out. Apparently, it was a trade secret. If they somehow lost your letter, you were also eligible for a refund! Why didn't we have this system?
"We already left?" Shia woke up.
"Yeah. Your mom came to-"
"Our mom," she said, eyes slightly narrowing.
"Sorry."
"Don't apologize. Just because your half, doesn't make you any less of her child."
Apparently, only Barack senior knew I wasn't his kid. Everyone else in the family were told I was a bastard child that the Borges family raised in his stead. Barack senior fooled around quite often, so that wasn't a surprise. What was a surprise however was the fact that Mrs. Alayla didn't ask any questions and just accepted me into the family. Perhaps she understood her husband was lying.
I felt bad about deceiving Shia and her mother but at the same time, it wasn't my place to worry about that. I had a lot on my plate and I didn't plan on misusing their trust and influence. Eventually, I planned on paying them back and coming clean.
"I thought you hated Nisa," I said. "Didn't think you'd come along."
"He made me…" she said. "And I kind of do hate her. That pompous tramp thinks she owns the world."
I snickered. "Maybe she does; she's the daughter of a duke you know. But she's not that bad. She let me keep the fish, remember?"
"Wait till she asks for favors."
Well, if you help someone, of course you'd want help in return. I'd like to think she helped me out the goodness of her heart, but that probably wasn't the case. Nobles were shrewd and Nisa in particular was quite cunning. She probably wanted to use my friendship and show off in front of her siblings or something like that. At least that was my guess.
Sharmon Barrack probably didn't trust me enough to leave me alone in a foreign country with foreign nobles. That was why he'd sent Shia with me, to keep an eye on me, so I didn't do anything to bring down his name. At this point I didn't think his family was fake anymore. He had enough influence to rival even the counts of neighboring lands. He didn't have money though, which was also pretty necessary for a noble.
I yawned. "This is going to be a long ass ride, so let's walk around every now and then," I said. "I want to try shooting some birds."
"With what?" Shia said.
"My bow?"
"You can use a bow?"
"Yeah?"
She shut up. More like frowned. "And you didn't tell me?" And why was that necessary? As if she'd read my mind, she continued. "Mom never let me touch bows."
Oh. "I could let you touch mine." I tried to sound as neutral as possible.
"Hmm," She leaned closer and grinned in a rather mischievous, almost cheeky way. "So that's how you seduced those ladies?"
"What are you even talking about?"
"Don't play dumb. I know you seduced Selia, Samille, and Arin. They often compete to have the right to talk to you at the library. Father says, you remind him of his younger self. But he only started dating after 10, so he plans on having a serious discussion with you soon. Don't tell him I told you though."
Who the fuck was spreading these rumors? I didn't even know those girls! And how did Barrack senior of all people know that? I sighed, more like groaned. "Does mother know?"
"Not yet," she grinned.
"I hope it stays that way."
"And I hope I get to practice with your bow."
Biting my teeth hard, I pulled out my bow from my bag, which I thought I wouldn't have to carry around this soon. "Uh-huh."
Chirping, she took it. "We're stopping for lunch!"
"It's not even morning yet, my lady!" They did not stop, that was for sure.
It was plenty morning for me. I usually always woke up around this time, so I wasn't bothered. But apparently waking up early had caused some brain damage in our dear sister's case.
***
We stopped for lunch just before midday. We stopped by some trees in an open area. I remembered this place. Den and I camped here for the night once.
And I practiced with bow here myself.
"Yeah, pull it like that, aim and shoot."
"Yeah!" She shot. Apparently, she was worse with it than when I started; not that I was that better now but I was still leagues ahead of her. No wonder your mother doesn't approve of this.
The Barracks were a noble family. If their first daughter was bad at something, it was only natural they'd keep her away from it. If it were up to me, I'd have told them to let her practice and get better but it wasn't up to me. And I knew where they were coming from. My mother never let me play football no matter how much I wanted to. That probably had to do more with how much it would have impacted my studies and less with how much I sucked at it.
Anyway, Shia wasn't deterred in the least. She just ran around and shot and stuff. I was losing my stamina just from being in the sun but this lady was running around and looked fine. "We're taking a break in five minutes," I said.
"Okay!" She said but she wasn't even looking at me anymore. She was shooting, running around, picking up the arrow and shooting something else. Didn't matter if it was a bird, squirrel or snake, she just shot like crazy, never hitting a single thing.
Yeah, maybe this lady was a bit more of a wild card than I'd initially assumed.
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