Smiling Stallion Inn Excerpt

Another excerpt from The Smiling Stallion Inn
Copyright © 2014 by Courtney Bowen

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Basha waited, thinking that it was taking a while for someone to open the front door. He rubbed his sweaty palms against his pants and then wiped off his face and forehead, smoothing back his hair in the process. He wanted to see Jawen, but he couldn’t stand around out here all day. He hummed and sang a little tune, whistling as he started to sniff himself, hoping that he smelled nice and clean. And then the front door opened.

Even knowing who would be there, Jawen’s heart leapt at the sight of him. He looked ridiculous standing there with his pathetic bouquet and holding his arm up to smell himself, obviously very nervous. He reminded her of the little boy she had made fun of long before she had ever gotten to know him, long before she had ever fallen in love with him. He could not be any more different than what her father had planned for her.

Yet when she looked at him, she did not think much about respectability, or money. He reminded her of a god, one that stayed young and indomitable forever. And that scared her. He just had to use that hidden force of strength and determination to do some good.

Basha lowered his arm, freezing as Jawen stood in the doorway, staring at him and at his bouquet with her blue eyes. Her face was prominent with large features, hardy and full of class. An old blue cotton dress covered her shapely form. Basha couldn’t help but notice the laugh lines around her mouth and the coy glint in her eyes as he saw her throat move when she gulped. She looked past him, apparently checking again for anyone watching them, just as he said, “I have come here…” He inhaled, trying to calm himself down, “to ask you…”

“Are you here to woo me, or have you come to help me feed the pigs?” Jawen asked.

“I come to you with a yearning heart!” he exclaimed, throwing his hands up into the air. His heart had been yammering so fast that nothing could touch it, but now it came crashing down. “Respect me, and accept me for who I am, and what my feelings are!” he insisted. “At least don’t joke about it. Don’t joke about my love for you,” he said, lowering his hands and pulling back his flowers in frustration. “Be serious for once.” Several petals had been shaken loose. He should have known that she would do this, Basha thought. He could almost hear his older brother laughing at him in the back of his mind, but he had hoped that she would take him seriously, just this once, especially when the Courtship ritual would take place tomorrow.

He reminded her of a puppy dog, especially when she made fun of him. His little nose would flare up, and his large brown eyes, usually as intense and somber as a scholar’s, would light up in anger. It was priceless. She tried not to laugh as he ranted and raved about a bit. She ought to be scared that he might harm her, but she wasn’t—she knew that he wouldn’t. No matter what she did, or what she tried to say, she ended up always teasing him. It was easier than trying to acknowledge her own feelings for him sometimes, and at least she was kinder to him than she had been before.

Her little sister stood behind her, watching Basha’s reaction to the pig joke. Annalise whispered, “You know you should not be seen with—”

“Be quiet! Go away!” Jawen told her.

Annalise finally went away, but she was bound to blab to their father soon. So Jawen had to get Basha out of here, but she wanted to hear what he had to say. She owed him that much after the years of trouble she had put him through. He had not even noticed Annalise was there at all, he was so angry, and Jawen was angry at him, too, for putting them both at risk.

“I am not. Basha, you shouldn’t even have asked me for anything,” Jawen said. “You shouldn’t even have come here. What do you want me to say?” Yet he put up with it for the most part. He knew that she was still attracted to him. Why else would he keep coming back? She wished that she wasn’t, sometimes, but she couldn’t help it. It was the way that they were attracted to each other; it was the way that they were meant to be together. She could see him as something inevitable. She could not put him off for years; eventually he would find a way into her heart.

“When will you say you love me, in front of everyone, by accepting my proposal of marriage?” Basha asked.

Jawen frowned. “I ought not to, but Basha, I love you; you know that.” She softened. “I just don’t know if I can say it in front of everyone just yet when I’m going to be facing my father along with them.”

“Jawen, please tell me when.”

 “I don’t know when I can accept your proposal of marriage, but not right now. Maybe when Mount Doomba turns to ice?” she asked, hopelessly smiling. There had always been a certain amount of tension between Basha and Jawen, a back-and-forth game of love and lust ever since they were little; she had not recognized it then. But as they got older, it had developed and grown more intense, a ritual of fight or flight between them, chasing each other around and trying to hide, or show, their real feelings.

 “Jawen, be serious.”

“All right already, I will be serious.” Jawen groaned. “But can’t it wait just a little while longer?” she wheedled. “I haven’t lost you yet, have I, Basha?” She knew she was being ridiculous, but she hoped that it would be enough to keep him satisfied for now until she was ready to get married.

 

Excerpt from The Smiling Stallion Inn

I'm going to start posting excerpts from my first novel on here, just because...

*The Smiling Stallion Inn is currently available at these and other online retailers with ebook editions at just $0.99:

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The Smiling

Stallion Inn

The Legends of Arria: Volume 1

Copyright © 2014 by Courtney Bowen

Arria, a land of rocky shores, myths and legends, mist and magic, mystery and music.

Arria, a song that is both familiar and unfamiliar to you. It bears you to the surface, and moves you to the depths of your being as the woman stands alone at the center of the stage, singing her heart out to you for one brief, yet long moment in the middle of the chaos that is the opera of life.

 

 

Part One: The Militia Tryouts

Chapter One: On the Threshold

Marry me, my dear, and I will give you

A bed of roses to sleep on. Marry me, my dear,

And I will give you the dreams we have to share.

Marry me, my dear, and you will know only happiness.

--Love song from Mirandor

 

“You could wait, you know,” Oaka said to Basha a month after Basha’s birthday. When stretched out on his back, Oaka was a tall, thin young man. Half-dressed in a linen shirt and breeches with his hands tucked underneath his tousled black head, he didn’t seem to want to move out of bed, a little lazy this morning.

“Wait for what?” Basha snapped, feeling nervous. He was already up, getting dressed in his freshest, finest clothes. A small bouquet of flowers lay on top of the armoire, just waiting for his hands to hold and carry them to Jawen. Mila be praised that there were flowers already blooming this season, although they were weak. New blossoms did not have the full strength and beauty that later flowers did.

Yet he already knew what his older brother was going to say even before Oaka brought it up. “To propose to Jawen. A few more years, you both might be ready.”

“I’m not going to wait a few more years,” Basha said, fixing up the tie around his neck and checking his reflection in the small mirror hanging inside on the door of the armoire. He sighed to himself. “And Jawen will be ready tomorrow, I know it.”

“You don’t know that for sure,” Oaka remarked.

“If I wait, I might lose the chance to marry Jawen.” He turned around to face Oaka, a little fed up with his brother’s criticisms. But to save on time, so that he wouldn’t be delayed with another long argument with Oaka over Jawen, he explained, “If I wait, she might marry somebody else. What is the matter with you?”

“What?” Oaka asked. Right now his eyes seemed to be glazed over with fear and happiness, an odd combination.

“Are you nervous?” Basha asked.

“Why should I be?” Oaka asked as he stared up at the ceiling’s wood beams with a half smile, half grimace frozen on his face. “Apart from the big day tomorrow.” He fidgeted a little bit. Besides the tightness in his voice and the look in his big green eyes, he otherwise had an easy demeanor visible in his body. Oaka was always at ease, like a cat after a kill.

“You’re going to ask for Sisila tomorrow?” Basha asked, wondering if something else was amiss with Oaka.

“Yes, yes, of course I will, who else would I ask for?” Oaka asked and then inhaled sharply, sitting up in bed. “You don’t know that she will marry somebody else.”

“She is one of the most desirable girls in town.” Basha sighed and turned back to the armoire, picking out the waistcoat and slipping his arms into the armholes. “As the merchant’s oldest daughter, she’s going to have a whole slew of beaus wanting to marry her for her father’s wealth and position, most notably Hastin.”

“Who would want to marry Jawen and get Lapo for their father-in-law?” Oaka cringed. “Not even Hastin would be so desperate, I think. The man is a cheat, no matter how much wealth or power he possesses; Father said so. So who would want that?”

“Careful what you say, Oaka,” Basha said, raising a finger to his older brother as he pulled the waistcoat across his chest and started buttoning it up. “That man, who is a cheat, is also Jawen’s father, and he might be my future father-in-law if she likes me well enough to want to marry me.”

“Which is a big ‘if’ in my opinion,” Oaka muttered.

“Shut up!” Basha cried and then sighed as he realized that he wasn’t at all surprised by Oaka’s response. “Don’t you care enough about me, Oaka, to at least stop criticizing me all the time?”

“What are you talking about, Basha? I don’t criticize you all of the time,” Oaka said, grimacing and smiling at the same time.

“I don’t want your opinion if you’re not going to be helpful. Why are you so against me and Jawen?”

“Because she’s not right for you, Basha,” Oaka insisted.

“Then who is right for me?” Basha asked. “Because I don’t see a whole lot of girls lining up to pound on the door of the inn so that I can woo them and offer them…Well, what can I offer them?”

“Yourself,” Oaka said begrudgingly.

“So how much is that worth in the great big scheme of things?” He sighed and continued, “Lapo’s wealth and power don’t matter much to me, yet I can’t compete with what Lapo offers his daughter in terms of financial security. And I certainly can’t compete with what those other boys are going to offer her in terms of looks and prospects.”

He turned and solemnly appraised himself in the mirror with the waistcoat on, making a rather unimpressive figure in his own mind when compared to some of the other boys in town, like Hastin and even Oaka. He could hardly be called homely, yet he wasn’t exactly handsome. His body was of a medium build, not athletic, not fat, not too tall and not too short, but just average with some muscles in his arms and legs from working out in the fields and training to fight with a sword. He couldn’t be said to be the striking model of a hero, not like one of the ancient Knights of Arria, who had faced the evil of Doomba. He was just his self, and that was all he had, which frightened him most of all. What was he worth to Jawen? Was he enough?

Oaka hemmed and hawed a bit, as if he wanted to say something else just before Basha left to see Jawen, but Basha said, “You know it’s true, Oaka. You’re going to inherit the inn; there’s nothing else for me. You’re the oldest, and the trueborn son of our parents, and it all passes down to you by rights, whereas I, on the other hand, have no real parents, or family, to call my own. Just my mother, Kala, who died giving birth to me.” He sighed. “She left me with nothing of my own, nothing to inherit from her. I have food, family, and shelter, but that’s all because of your parents, not mine.”

“Basha, it’s not that bad!” Oaka said.

“I’m sorry, Oaka, I am, but it’s the truth, the truth as Lapo sees it, the truth as everybody else in town sees it. But we are a family, I know; we are a family by choice, not by rights,” Basha said, repeating a phrase that his adoptive mother had uttered to cheer him up the first time she had told him and many times after. “You might support me if I stay on at the inn, to work for you in the years to come, like Uncle Smidge does, but I still would not have enough money to support Jawen.”

Oaka stared at him. “I’m not going to argue with that,” he said in a half-joking way, although he didn’t really mean it.

“It wouldn’t be fair to her, I suppose, if I were to depend on charity for the rest of my life,” Basha said. “I might have a chance to support her by earning enough with other endeavors, like getting into the militia and the Border Guards, but still, it’s not like I can get an immediate response. What am I doing?” he asked, turning away from Oaka.

People walked by him every day without more than a casual glance. They knew him, though, these townspeople of Coe Baba, his friends and family; they knew him and everything about him here, or so they thought, except for what was unknown. Basha had no proof that he was not a balnor. He had only his birth mother’s word, and she was not alive to tell others of his birth father. If only she had lived and told them. If only she had not died. If only he had not been born at all. Basha felt that way sometimes.

No one knew who his real family was, whether his birth parents were rich or poor, and so his social status was unknown. He was unquantifiable in the legal sense, as no one could prove whether or not he was an orphan or a balnor. He had doubts about himself that even he could not stand, and sometimes it overwhelmed him to be faced with such predicaments. He wondered sometimes if he was missing something, if he was forgetting something. He wondered if he was lost, and if other people knew the way. Where was he going, and where were all of these other people going as well?

Basha sometimes thought that other people treated him differently, that his mother was too kind, his father too harsh, and his brother too overbearing with him because of who he was, or who they thought he was, and what had happened to him. And people outside his family treated him as a stranger to be regarded suspiciously. They just did not trust him completely.

Perhaps his birth mother had done something wrong? He did not know this for certain, but he had heard rumors. Were they true?

If only he could find an easier way of going through life, he might take it. Gods, he almost missed Monika.