Free The Folly of the World by Jesse Bullington Page A

stranger by her own flesh and blood, and she had no reply ready as he shoved her past the old woman and closed the door. When she finally let a string of curses fly, the beldam smiled a rot-toothed grin and descended on Jolanda like a witch in the bedtime stories nobody ever told her after Pieter ran away.
    Being in a real town—as opposed to the clutch of fish-shacks that passed for a village near her father’s house—Jolanda had expected the widow’s hut to be clean and bright. Instead it was squalid and dim, humid and cavelike, with a full half of the floor and one entire wall buried in a drift of rags—a witch house if everthere was one. Boringly enough, though, the hag didn’t try anything interesting, instead teaching her how to knit leggings for Lubbert from a wheel of greasy, discolored wool. The girl already knew how, having made a dozen pairs for her brothers and father over the years, and the odd set for herself, on the rare occasion when there was enough material left over for her after theirs were done. When real winter came she had been glad for something to gird her legs with as she hunted the frosty dunes for vermin burrows worth digging out to supplement the family diet, but her father hadn’t let her bring them with her when he sold her sorry arse.
    It soon became apparent that the old woman wasn’t going to let Jolanda take away any loose wool and instead planned to outfit the girl from the rag heap, the legging lesson being given solely for future applications. At this discovery Jolanda threw down her needles, declared herself the superior knitter and seamstress in no uncertain terms, and ruled the exercise a waste of everyone’s time. The biddy didn’t have anything smart to say to
that
, but in retaliation the bitch refused to let her try on any hose, claiming they were only for men.
    When the Frieslander came back a short time later, the old woman had already dug through her mountain of oily hand-me-downs and extracted the articles in question. The worst of these was the gown, an enormous serge tunic that the crone hemmed up, though not nearly high enough—it barely came above Jolanda’s ankles, and would make the simple act of walking into a chore. Beneath this came the pelisse, which seemed to be a moth-worried cat-fur waistcoat with a ridiculously large bonnet to thread through the gown’s neck hole, and beneath
that
a thin linen shift. From the way the woman smiled at her afterward, Jolanda knew she must look like a sweat-wet idiot.
    “Beautiful,” said Lubbert, inspecting her from the doorway.
    “I look like a sweat-wet idiot,” said Jolanda, wiping a gown-entombed arm across her boggy brow.
    “She says nasty things about you,” said the old woman. “Nasty, nasty words. She needs a hiding.”
    “Thank you,” said Lubbert warmly.
    “
Thank you
,” Jolanda imitated, pulling a complicated face at the old woman as she mimicked Lubbert’s stupid accent.
    Outside, Lubbert cuffed her lightly on the bonnet, and she hit him back, which led to a brief but spirited slapping match in the street, wherein they each landed several blows. He was taller and so connected with her face more, but not so hard as he could have, and mostly avoided her aching nose and the head-wrap it had taken her forever to tie down. She was soon giggling despite herself. He offered a truce by way of a cheese he had acquired while she was being fitted, probably to make up for saying that thing about her mussel rubbing on his horse.
    Nobody had ever bought her anything before, even if the clothes were horrible and the cheese so salty it made seawater seem sweet. And when she staunchly rejected his offer of a pair of shoes to go with the new attire, he didn’t press the issue. Not such an arsehole, then.
    They rode on, usually sleeping on the side of the road. The silence of the nighttime fields, beyond the bugs and birds and other noises, put Jolanda very off—to not hear the sea anytime she should listen for it