Once in the village, the pair found an inn where they booked a room for three nights. Vass said if there were work in this village they would see about finding a more permanent place to stay, if not, they would need to move on. After all, their money and Asphodel's jewellery would not last for ever.
Asphodel left Vass in the inn bar talking to some of the villagers about work. She made her way to a herbalist.
'Do you have any herbs to prevent pregnancy?' she asked the old woman who seemed to be in charge of the shop.
'Is it for you?' the old woman said, peering over her glasses.
When Asphodel answered in the affirmative, the old woman looked at her sharply.
'Are you married?' she asked.
Asphodel blushed and looked down at her feet. 'Why do you ask?' she said.
'Because I don't encourage promiscuity. I don't sell to unmarried women and girls.'
'Y-yes,' lied the girl. 'We were married in Quantissillaron just before we came here.'
'Hmm.' The old woman peered again at Asphodel, then said, 'I'll have to believe you. I don't know anything about elves so I can't tell if you're lying or not.' She turned round and reached up to a box on a shelf behind her. She weighed out some of the herbs then reached for another box. From this one she added a different herb. She put them into a pestle and began mixing them together.
When she had finished, she took a small pot and poured the herbs into it, then fastened a lid over the top.
'Take a tea made with one spoonful of the mixture each evening and you will have no trouble with pregnancy,' she said. 'You have enough there to last you for three or four weeks, but don't forget you need to take it every evening.'
Asphodel handed over the money the old woman demanded than almost ran back to the inn.
Vass laughed when she told him she had got the herbs, and almost rushed her up the stairs to their room.
They did not find any work in the village, and so they left after their second night at the inn. Vass thought they should go to Frelli, the capital of Erian. There would be more work there, he reasoned, and so they set off once again.
It took them a sixday to reach Frelli. The capitol city was in a wide valley in the Mountains of Doom, not too far from the border with Grosmer. in days gone by, there had been many wars and skirmishes fought between the two neighbouring countries and Frelli had developed into more of a fortification than a city.
From the Erian side, it appeared as a normal city, with surrounding walls it, but on the Grosmer side, the valley narrowed and the walls had been built across the valley, completely barring access.
Asphodel and Vass approached form the Erian side, of course, and so did not see the forbidding approach from Grosmer. They passed through the gate into a city of streets that seemed to wind around in a spiral towards a castle with a high tower.
'So this is Frelli,' Asphodel said, as they searched for an inn. 'I'm not sure I like it very much. Not much in the way of trees is there.'
Vass shrugged. 'We can stay here for a while and make some money, then we can go somewhere you'd like better, if that's what you want.'
Asphodel smiled. 'Yes, I'd like that. Somewhere where the wildlife can flourish, Perhaps a little farm somewhere.'
Vas put his arm round her. 'I know nothing of farming,' he told her, 'but if that's what you want, I'll learn.'
The pair found an inn, and the next morning set off to try to find work. Asphodel quickly found a scribe who was looking for someone who could read and write. His last clerk had left the previous week. Vass, on the other hand, found work more difficult to come by. He had no skills required by the businesses in Frelli.
'Couldn't you get something as a labourer?' Asphodel asked him one evening.
'What? Get myself filthy? Darling, I don't want to come home to you dirty.' He lifted up a lock of her black hair and kissed it. 'I have more respect for you than to expect you to live with someone who's dirty.'
'But you could get washed, Vass. I would barely see you dirty.'
Vass looked at her. 'Asphodel, the labourers end up with the dirt ingrained in their skin and hard hands. I don't want you to have to put up with callused hands on your beautiful skin.'
Asphodel sighed. She argued no further but thought she would not mind as long as the hands belonged to Vass.
Vass left again the following morning to look for work and for somewhere for them to live. After all they could not live at the inn. It would be far too expensive. Asphodel left soon afterwards to begin her new job at the scribe's office. At the end of the day, she rushed back to the inn to tell Vass about her day. He told her he had not looked for a job that day, but had found them somewhere to live. He had put down a deposit and they could move in immediately.
Asphodel was delighted they had somewhere to live, but said, ' Why didn't you wait until I came home before you took it. I'd have liked to have a say in where we're going to live.'
Vas put his arms round her and said, 'Asphodel, my darling, I daren't wait. The place might have gone by the time you got home. There aren't many places to rent in this city, you know. I had to make a decision straight away.'
They gathered their meagre goods and, after eating a last meal at the inn, went to the apartment Vass had found.
Asphodel was appalled. It was in the poorest quarter of the city with rats running around in the filthy street. The apartment itself was one room. It had a filthy rug in the centre of the room and a sofa that looked as if it had been dragged in from the rubbish tip. It, too. was filthy. There was a greasy sink in one corner of the room, and a fireplace with an oven at the side. In the fireplace were ashes left from several fires.
As she stood there, not believing that Vass could have agreed to rent this place, a cockroach ran across her feet.
'Vass, this is awful,' she told him. 'We can't live here.'
'It'll only be until I find work and we can then get something better. Darling, we can't afford anything better at the moment.'
'I suppose it won't be too bad if I can get it clean. I'll start now. It's a good job we ate before we left the inn. I wouldn't like to eat anything that had been cooked in here.'
Vass told her he would only be in her way if he stayed. He was not very good at cleaning, he said, so he would go out.
Asphodel spent the evening cleaning. She did not get everything to her liking, but it was better than before. She killed at least two dozen cockroaches, and went out to buy mousetraps as she felt sure there must be mice there.
A large cupboard stood next to the sink, and this she filled with cleaning products and then she cleaned out a small cupboard with a mesh front for food. The bed she could do little about, but she determined to wash the sheets the next day. They had access to a small garden at the back of the house and she thought she could wash the sheets before she went to work the next day and with any luck they would be dry when she got home. The mattress she could do little about that night, but decided that one of the first things she would do would be to go out and sell some of her jewellery and buy a new one.
Vass turned up just before the eighteenth hour of the day. (On Vimar, the day began at sunrise on the equinoxes, 6am, and so it was the middle of the hours of darkness when Vass arrived home.)
Asphodel brushed a strand of hair from over her eyes and stopped cleaning the fireplace.
'You're late,' she said.
'S-sorry,' stammered Vass. 'I meeted, no, met, shome blokes in the tavern.' He staggered. 'They shtold me all shorts of shtuff. Oh, I feel shick.'
He rushed to the sink and was sick.
'That'sh better,' he said, collapsing on the bed.
'Vass, you're drunk!' Asphodel said, but he was already snoring.
The next weeks followed a similar pattern. Asphodel cleaned before and after work and Vass went out to meet his new friends. Each evening he came home drunk. Sometimes more, sometimes less.
One evening Vass did not arrive home at all. Asphodel was at last satisfied with what she had done to the apartment and had been out and bought some flowers and put them on the table. she cooked a meal with what they could afford and waited for Vass to arrive.
The meal got cold, then congealed. Asphodel threw it away. The night crept on and Asphodel fell asleep on a chair. She worried that Vass had gone somewhere else in Frelli and had got lost in the maze of streets. The layout of the city was confusing. It appeared to be straightforward, with the roads spiralling towards the castle, but in reality it was a maze.
Just as she woke, the door opened to admit Vass. She had dark circles beneath her eyes from worry and lack of sleep.
'Asphodel,' Vass said, taking her in his arms. 'You look awful. so tired.' He ran a finger over her eyes. 'You mustn't go to work today, but sleep to get your beauty back.'
Asphodel yawned and pushed him away.
'I must,' she told him. 'You've no job and we need money. You're spending what I earn drinking with your friends.'
Vass laughed. 'I'm investing it,' he replied. 'My friends can get me work. I need to keep on their good sides though, so I must drink with them.'
'What sort of work? Your 'friends' don't seem to do very much.'
Vass tapped the side of his nose.
'I can say nothing, yet,' he told her. 'I need to sort a few things out first, but be assured, I'll soon have more money than you've ever dreamed of.'
Asphodel turned to the door. Then she turned as she left and said, 'I've never dreamed of money, Vass. Just you.'
