I watched the door close behind Apollo, and dazedly, I turned and looked down at my trunks.
Trunks.
Yes, three.
I’d come in with only one as well as the things we brought from Fleuridia. Only one had been brought up to the room yesterday. And I had not studied what was packed behind us under the silken green tarp of our sleigh.
But now, to my surprise, I had three.
We were in Vasterhague.
Vasterhague was much bigger than the village we’d stayed in the night before. In fact, it was as big as a small city.
When the boys were bringing me into Lunwyn, we’d stayed there and they’d told me a lot about it.
But as he drove the sleigh, moving our conversation to something that was much more comfortable, Apollo told me about it too. And as I needed more comfortable conversation and since he seemed keen to share with me, I didn’t tell him I knew a lot of what he had to say.
And that was that Vasterhague was kind of a cosmopolitan trading post. Situated equidistant from two large port cities, it had large warehouses at its outer edges where merchandise from ships was delivered and then disseminated. Because of this, there was a great deal of activity, merchants going there to sell their wares, buyers going there to make deals, delivery sleighs going there to pick up shipments. And naturally, a variety of other things had grown up around it.
Outside of the warehouses, and the four long rows of massive greenhouses built a bit away from the city, the rest looked like any other sleepy village I’d seen in Lunwyn. There were buildings that were taller, larger and grander, but the feel was rustic simplicity. Perhaps more elegant than the other villages, but still rustic.
Thus welcoming.
Draven had explained the greenhouses (as did Apollo) and their existence made sense. In this frozen landscape, they were essential. They held fruit trees and berry vines and vegetable patches that were forced to grow during the long time of the year (three quarters of it!) that Lunwyn was under snow.
Apollo had gone on to tell me what Draven did not. And that was that the greenhouses of Vasterhague were a smaller collection. Across Lunwyn, there were acres of them dotted across the land (and he, not surprisingly, ran two such “enterprises”). Many of the richer citizens with larger homes and enough money to have servants also had their own small (and large) greenhouses to supply their homes (as well as those dwelling around them).
“I have greenhouses at all my homes,” he’d said.
This comment made me look at him and ask, “How many homes do you have?”
“Four, in Lunwyn,” he told the landscape then looked down at me. “As well as apartments in Bellebryn, the house where you stayed in in Fleuridia, a townhome in Benies and then there’s my castle in Hawkvale.”
Uh.
Castle?
“You own a castle?” I asked, and for some reason, this question made his brows draw together.
“Yes, of course. Did you not stay in it as you journeyed through the Vale?”
“Uh…no,” I answered.
This made his mouth get tight and he looked back to the snowy plain as he murmured, “Curious, as it was on your way.”
He said “curious” but I was getting the feeling it wasn’t curious to him. It was, instead, annoying. I just didn’t know why.
I also didn’t know why the guys didn’t take me there, thus I definitely found it curious.
Though, since he found it annoying, I didn’t press about it.
Upon entering the city, Apollo had informed me of something else the boys had not. This was pointing out the large warehouse (from what I could tell, the largest of the lot) that was his.
“That looks like it could hold a lot jewels and furs,” I noted, staring at it as we slid down the snow encrusted lane that took us deeper into the city.
“I may not have mentioned that I also trade in lumber,” he replied on a murmur, a comment that made me again look at him.
“So in other words, you’re loaded.”