by Lana Popovic
The housekeeper plants her hands on her hips and rolls her eyes demonstratively, heaving a gusty sigh. “Fine, then, you single-minded nuisance of a child. I’ll not bother the lady on your account, but I’ll have a word with Master Aurel, the steward. But mind me . . .” Abruptly, she places a warm hand on my shoulder, drawing me closer. Her palm is so work-coarsened that I can hear it grate against my cape’s wool, catching its threads. She pitches her voice low, her mouth close to my ear. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll turn tail and run back to where you came from. Do you hear me? This is no place for you, I can already see as much.”
My hackles rise, and I shrug off her hand as politely as I can, though my insides surge with defiance. Who is this woman to tell me where my rightful place might be? She may be charged with the running of this castle, but she was born no better than I am. “Thank you for the concern, mistress,” I say, struggling to keep my voice even. “I will take your counsel to heart, but still—I’m not leaving until I speak to the steward.”
She shrugs her broad shoulders in frustration. “Go, then,” she capitulates, mouth pinching. “Wait for him in the great hall. I’ll send word, and he’ll come find you when he’s free.”
I sketch another curtsy, deeper this time. “Thank you, ma’am. I’m in your debt.”
She shakes her head, almost ruefully, waving away my thanks. “It’s that way, down the corridor and then to the left. I hope you’ve patience to spare, child. I’ve never known Aurel to hurry.”
“I’ll be fine, mistress,” I assure her, and I will be. It’s warm inside, and a night of sleep has revived my fortitude. Once again, I am willing to do whatever it takes. “I have plenty of time.”
The castle’s great hall is a marvel, paneled with gleaming mahogany and hung with massive chandeliers of such intricately wrought iron that I cannot imagine how something so delicate could have been worked from a material as obstinate as metal. The ironwork comes to viciously speared points, and they creak a little, swaying subtly in the castle’s crosswise draft. I make sure not to stand directly beneath one, shuddering at the thought of what would happen should the chains suspending it snap without warning. Above the fireplace hangs a colossal stag’s head with an upper lip curled into a half sneer, presiding blindly over the hall. Huge tapestries portraying woodlands, entwined lovers, and warriors in the thick of battle adorn the walls, so vibrant and well-crafted they seem to tremble with barely contained life. Absurd as it sounds, it feels almost as though they can see me just as I see them; when I turn away, my neck prickles with the sensation of being observed by watchful eyes.
Despite the grandeur, the space feels ineffably sinister, as though its trappings only flimsily conceal an altogether different aspect. As though one need only scratch at the room’s veneer to expose the teeming rot beneath.
When the steward finally arrives more than three hours later, I’m ready to leap out of my skin. I’ve resorted to playing cat’s cradle to distract myself, adjusting the string with my teeth.
I rise hurriedly while he puckers his mouth, watching me disapprovingly. He has a face like a stewed bone, and threads of hair combed over his liver-spotted scalp. I dislike him instantly. He reminds me of the baby buzzards, clumsily feasting on carrion, that I sometimes stumble upon in the woods.
“Oh,” he intones with pronounced displeasure and surprise. “You’re still here.”
“Of course I am, Master Aurel,” I say, taken aback. “I was told to wait here for you. Where would I have gone?”
“Mistress Magda informs me that you’ve been here some hours.” He arches a tufted eyebrow meaningfully. “One might hope you’d have gotten the hint by now.”
My heart plunges down, landing in my stomach. It’s conceivable, if not likely, that a housekeeper would not know that her lady had set her sights on a new chambermaid. But the steward is the lady’s right hand, and if there were still a place here for me, this man would be sure to know.
Unless this too is intended as a test. But how many more hurdles can I leap, if she won’t even let me see her?
“The lady does not wish me to be her maidservant, then?” I try, struggling to contain my despair. “Are you absolutely sure?”
“Of course I am sure, you impertinent chit!” he hisses, flappy cheeks mottling. “I am paid to know my lady’s wishes! How dare you question me?”
“But she sent for me only a few days ago!” I argue again. “Perhaps there has been some confusion, some mistake! Her man Janos—”
“Is in my direct employ,” he finishes, grasping me by the upper arm so hard I’m startled into a gasp. He begins marching me toward the doors, sharp fingernails digging into my flesh. “I know very well that he was sent for you. But her ladyship has changed her mind, and you are no longer wanted here!”
“No,” I half shriek, wrenching myself out of his grip. My voice is so shrill that he draws up short, his weak chin withdrawing into his gangly neck. “I—I’m sorry, master, but I will not go. I cannot. Not until I’ve had an audience with the lady, to be sure she does not want me.”
The steward regards me narrowly, still flushed with outrage, his pendulous jowls aquiver. I draw myself up to my full height, slight as it is, bolstered by sudden resolve. My family needs me; I will not fail them when I’ve come this far, no matter how many obstacles she places in my path. “I will not leave without seeing her,” I repeat, quiet but firm. “And if you try to remove me, I will scream bloody murder until I bring the castle down around your ears.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” he mutters sourly. “But I’ve no wish to hear your squealing. Come then, you impudent trull. And may the lady give you exactly what you deserve.”
He barges ahead of me, not bothering to see if I will follow. I trot to catch up, hope swelling inside me as we pass through the corridors glowering with darkness, lit by the faintest flicker of candle sconces. I can make her change her mind, I know it. I can make her want me again.
I have to make her want me.
The steward leads me up two circular flights of stairs, then draws in front of an ornately carved door with bronze hinges, swinging it open and sardonically ushering me in. I enter what must be the countess’s solar, though strangely, the curtains are firmly drawn over the expansive windows. Perhaps the countess isn’t partial to the glare of midday sun. Surrounded instead by a retinue of candles, she reclines in a crimson velvet armchair, needlepoint spread over her lap. Three chambermaids sit on the floor near her feet, perched on large plush cushions like spoiled kittens.
The weight of their regard makes me twitchy, and I wobble a bit as I curtsy, tipping my head. Someone titters at my clumsiness, but not the countess, I think; the sound isn’t husky enough. When I rise, the steward is still carping about my stubbornness. “And she refused to leave until you granted her an audience, your grace,” he finishes, with a peevish glare flicked in my direction. “Threatened to scream bloody murder.”
“Did she,” the lady remarks mildly, shifting her indolent gaze to me. “How very alarming.”
“I told her you did not wish to see her, but—”
She silences him with an elegant sweep of her hand, glittering with rings. “Understood, Aurel. My thanks. You may go.”
Once he’s gone, the countess beckons me forward. I come reluctantly, struck almost shy by the chambermaids’ baleful scrutiny. “My lady,” I begin, swallowing against the rasp in my throat. “Thank you for seeing me. I—”
She cuts me off, leaning forward in her seat. “You’re filthy,” she observes, her lip curling minutely. There isn’t a shred of warmth to her, no leftover intimacy from our vigil over her son. I may as well be a stranger to her. “Dirt on your face, straw in your hair. Altogether slovenly.”
A wave of mortification and ire sweeps over me, reddening my cheeks. “I’m sorry, my lady. I have not had a chance to wash off the dirt of the road. And I spent last night in the stables.”
Her eyes soften a bit, almost admiringly,
and I wonder if it’s my tenacity that she likes. “I’d almost forgotten what a spectacular blush you have,” she remarks, her eyelids dropping to half-mast. It’s not my perseverance, then, that’s sparked her fancy. “Remarkably florid, as if your skin is transparent! So much blood, and so close to the surface. You look almost like a pomegranate.”
I waver, uncertain as to whether this is a compliment. I have no idea what a pomegranate is. “Thank you, my lady?”
The momentary admiration sluices away, replaced by stony resolve. “I fear, however, that your fine skin changes nothing. There is no longer room for you here.” She gestures at her pretty ladies-in-waiting, arrayed all about her like baubles, human ornaments. “As you can see, I am well attended.”
I steel myself, gritting my teeth. “As you say, my lady. But—you asked for me only two days ago. Can circumstances truly have changed so much already?”
She weaves her head languorously back and forth, as if considering, and I am reminded of corn snakes sliding sinuously through grass. “It was a passing whim,” she says airily. “One that you did not seize upon when you had the chance.” Her eyes glimmer with subdued malice, and I abruptly understand that behind the cultivated carelessness, she is rankled by my refusal just as I suspected, maybe even wounded by it. And the hurt of it has made her furious, ready to lash out at me. “So now that door is closed to you, I fear.”
Out of nowhere, tears prickle in my eyes. I have not cried at all, not when I learned of my father’s death nor on the road yesterday, but now I cannot contain my exhaustion, my despair at what will befall my family if I return to them empty-handed.
“It was my father who refused you, my lady, not me. He—he was a greedy man, and wished to wring more money from you. Please understand,” I say, allowing myself to sound as abject as I feel. “I would have come at once, had the choice been mine, for whatever you were willing to spare. And now he is dead, and care of my family falls to me.” Slowly, like a wilting flower, I come to my knees and bow my head. “My lady, please. Give me another chance to prove my devotion. I will do anything, your grace. Whatever you wish of me.”
I wait, head bowed, for so long that my knees begin to ache dully from the cold stone beneath them. Then her low voice comes, on the heels of a long, contemplative sigh. “We shall see about that, I suppose.” My head snaps up, giddy with torrential hope. She has her chin rested on her palm, a languid dark curl slipping over her cheek. Her lips are so red, a deep, flushed ruby, as if she has been biting them hard while I waited for her judgment. “You will begin in the scullery. The pay will be nothing like what it would have been as my maid, of course. A few thaler a month, at most.”
“Of course!” I rush, dizzy with gratitude. Sculls do the grubbiest, most backbreaking work for a pittance, and I realize that this is to be my punishment for defying her. But no matter, because if I am permitted to stay, it means the door is open again. Just a crack, but enough for me to wedge my foot in, begin squeezing my way through to the light beyond. “That’s—that is immensely kind of you, my lady. I swear I will do my best for you.”
She flicks her fingers dismissively, then picks up her needle point, red lips pursing. “You may go,” she says, eyes on her sewing as if I am already gone. “And see that you find no further ways to disappoint me.”
Chapter Six
The Rats and the Maidens
The cellars where the scullions sleep are barely fit for rats. Though, from the flurries of movement I glimpse from the corners of my eyes, this does not dissuade vermin of all persuasions from swarming in the shadows.
I sit on my rickety pallet, brushing out my hair, coarse straw piercing my nightgown and poking into my thighs. The low ceiling above my head reeks of mold and mildew, sweating stone that never dries. I keep my feet drawn up so my bare toes don’t have to touch the slimy, louse-ridden floor. As I tug at the snarls, I find myself awash in sticky misery, second-guessing the choices that have led me here. This place is so foul that it makes our little cottage seem a palace in comparison. How will I ever sleep here, with the damp cold of the underground seeping into my bones, nothing but a ratty, flea-bitten blanket to cover me, no Klara to warm my back?
It’s worse here than in the stables, I think, with a wry twist of amusement. If only I had known how good I had it, with horses for company, I would have enjoyed my last night above ground more.
Amazingly, our accommodations do not seem to faze the other maids. They must be inured already to this ghastly gloom. There are about a dozen of us down here. Around me, everyone else is busy chatting and laughing, trading neck rubs and plaiting each other’s hair. I feel a powerful burst of loneliness at the pleasure they’re taking in the shared company, in these moments of leisure they manage to steal for themselves before they sleep.
The girl on the pallet beside mine notices my wistfulness. She casts me a smile, earnest and dimpled, lending surprising beauty to her sallow face. She gestures gingerly toward my brush, reaching for it.
“I could help you?” she offers timidly. “Your hair is so long, it must be hard to do for yourself.”
“Oh, I would love that,” I reply. “Thank you. I’m Anna.”
“Ilona,” she murmurs back, settling herself behind me on the pallet and taking up my hair. “Goodness, it’s so pale and fine. Like raw silk.”
“Let me feel,” another of the maids demands, overhearing. She tramps over from three pallets down, flopping next to us with such carelessness I’m afraid my pallet might collapse under our weight. I recognize this girl as the ringleader of the room. She’s Krisztina, a brash redhead with an impish, freckled face, startling green eyes, and a riot of hair that springs everywhere like encroaching ivy now that it’s been released from the confines of her braid. I’ve heard her name bandied about, and I see the way the others treat her with deference. As if she’s the self-appointed lady reigning over this murky, underworld domain.
Without asking, she sinks both hands into my hair. “Ooh,” she exclaims. “Fancy. And the color, almost white! Have you Austrian blood, maybe?”
“Krisztina,” Ilona chides gently, casting her a reproving look. “Maybe Anna does not wish to have her hair pawed without permission.”
“You were pawing it readily enough, squeak,” Krisztina shoots back. “And fawning over it to boot. Had I waited a moment longer, you’d have been rubbing it all over your face like a cat rolling in a patch of nip.”
As Ilona blushes so furiously it’s visible even in the gloom, I intervene. “I don’t mind,” I say honestly. It feels so good to be touched, after the past few days I’ve had, almost decadent. “Usually my mother or sister brush my hair before bed. It’s nice to have someone do it here, so far away from home.”
Krisztina’s face softens at that, and she gives my hair a gentle tug. “We all feel the homesickness sometimes,” she says kindly. “Hard not to, in this godforsaken gaol of a cellar. But the smarting will pass, chickadee, I promise. You’ll get accustomed.” She snorts a little, chuckling through her nose. “And if not, you’ll be so bloody tired by day’s end that you’ll collapse before you can spare home more than a thought.”
“I never even got a chance to say goodbye properly,” I confess. “I meant to return for a full farewell, once I secured my position here. But the lady did not grant me leave.”
“’Course she didn’t,” Krisztina mutters sourly, her face tightening. “She thinks you’re hers now, like as not. Bought and paid for. You’re lucky she didn’t make you chop off all that pretty hair.”
“Chop off my hair?” I exclaim, brow wrinkling with confusion. “Why would she do that?”
“It’s one of her ladyship’s most favored punishments,” old Katalin croaks from the shadows. I’d marked her for her unusual age; most scullery maids advance to higher stations or succumb to illness caused by backbreaking toil long before they reach such years. Her pallet is the farthest from the door, so distant from the spare light that filters in that she may as well be living
with the earthworms. The tiny spiders down here are so plentiful and persistent she doesn’t even bother to clear the cobwebs that gather in her corner, where the low ceiling slopes right above her nose. I can see them shifting with her breath as she speaks, their strands glimmering in the candlelight. The sight of them so close to her face makes the hair on my neck prickle with revulsion. “Vex her when she’s feeling a bit tetchy? Or maybe her breakfast’s sitting wrong when you cross her path? Off with your hair, little besom!”
She cackles so wildly I shoot Ilona a disconcerted look. She shrugs at me, rolling her eyes minutely as if to tell me to pay the old woman no mind.
“Sometimes she does it just because she’s jealous, I reckon,” Krisztina adds, lowering her voice. “It’s taken me ages to grow mine back. She had it cut the first day she clapped eyes on me. It’d be distracting for the castle’s men-folk, she said.” She snorts again, shaking her head. “More like, it pricked her right in her envious eye. Now I keep it braided and wound so tight under my cap that it looks shorn.”
“Surely she wouldn’t do such a thing for no good reason,” I say cautiously, taken aback by how scathingly they speak of the lady that puts a roof over their heads. And I consider the stable boy’s advances; maybe the countess has all our best interests at heart, and they are simply fortunate enough not to know it. “I’ve seen her be very kind.”
“Kind?!” Krisztina hisses, eyes widening with disbelief as she leans closer to me. “You must be mad, or jesting. That snake wouldn’t know the milk of kindness if it bit her on her narrow arse. I had a friend that worked here, as the lady’s seamstress. The nimblest fingers on her that you ever did see. But she didn’t sew fast enough for the ladyship’s liking—so the bloody bitch made her stitch her own fingers together as punishment. Can you imagine?”
My eyes dart to Ilona’s, wide with disbelief. “Surely not. That’s—that is mad.”
