by Lana Popovic
“Don’t fret,” I soothe, patting her other hand. “You did right by your lady, telling me. And unless I find that I can help her, what you’ve told me shall remain between us. You have my word.”
She slumps with relief, so overcome that I wonder what the punishment would have been for her loose lips. Krisztina would surely know, I think irritably, and would only be too happy to be asked. Detailing our lady’s alleged misdeeds is her favorite topic of conversation. The latest outlandish tale is that one of the lady’s chambermaids has been dismissed, for having laced the lady’s stays a touch too tightly, enough to leave an unsightly bruise. Apparently the countess had her manservant and the other two chambermaids lace the woman into her own corset so tightly that they broke her ribs. Some even whisper that her lungs were punctured, that she almost died before being sent home to recuperate.
I wouldn’t be inclined to believe this for a moment, were it not for the fact that I haven’t seen the girl about myself. Something clearly befell her, though I doubt it’s what they say—who would mete out a punishment so severe for mere incompetence? But her absence means that the countess is short one chambermaid.
And now she’s in need of healing hands.
With this new information, I seethe with urgency, aflame with the fervor to show the countess that I can be of use. But she has still not summoned me, and I can hardly stroll into her chambers without any invitation; impatient as I am to court her favor, I know the dangers of being too bold. As much as I struggle with it, besieged by doubt and the prickling of my conscience, I can devise only one thing to do.
The next time I see Agata in the morning, before she begins her day’s work, I slip some bearberry into her tisane.
She stays with me while she drinks the tea, regaling me with the details of her intestinal distress, as if she expects me to be goggle-eyed with fascination over every stray fart. It never ceases to amaze me how some folk revel in their own ailments. For once, I egg her on until I see beads of sweat begin to pearl on her forehead. Bearberry is not a kind herb; I would never have resorted to it were my own need not so great. But at the very least, it will do no lasting damage beyond a day’s severe distress.
“Anna,” she struggles, fisting a hand against her churning gut. “I think—”
I have a basin ready for her when she abruptly purges the contents of her stomach. My own shoulders hunch with sympathy, my stomach clenching like a fist with guilt, as the poor woman heaves helplessly with convulsions. She looks up at me, teary-eyed, haggard with pain. “But, it’s making me worse, what—” Another violent retch cuts her off.
“Sometimes chamomile can cause purging,” I lie. “Especially if the belly is already upset. Did you indulge in anything overspiced last night?”
I know the answer is yes, because it always is. Pressing her trembling lips together, she shoots me a guilty look. “Aye, I did,” she admits. “But only a bite, two at most! How could it have—” I look away, my skin crawling with guilt, as another grievous bout overtakes her. When it passes, she glances up at me desperately, panting with exertion. “How will I tend to the lady’s room in this state?” she gasps. “What if I should befoul her things? She would whip me, she . . .” She dissolves into tears, weeping over the slop basin.
“What if I were to go in your place?” I offer. “Would that help?”
She shakes her head hard, swiping her hand over her mouth. “You aren’t a maidservant, not fit to attend to the lady’s quarters.” Contrite as I am, it raises my hackles that this foolish, undisciplined woman would think herself above me. “Maybe one of the others could . . .” She trails off, realizing that the other maidservants have already flocked to their duties.
“The others have gone, and you’re in no fit state to serve,” I counter. “Give me your work dress, and I shall take your place for the day. The lady hardly bothers with who tends to her hearth and washing water, I’m sure.” This is a lie of course. The countess will surely take exception to my sudden presence, but I plan to cross that bridge when I come to it. “I’ll do just as well as you—and you will lie here, quiet, and recover your strength.”
She casts me another doubtful look, heavy with misgivings—What have you done to this poor woman, Anna, I think, for your own miserable gain?—then nods reluctantly, reaching for the basin. “Just remember,” she says hoarsely, her throat spasming as the bearberry torques her innards again. “Should she order you to do something, do it, at once, exactly as she tells you. And if her husband is about, you’d be wise to make yourself scarce.”
I nod grimly, my suspicions confirmed once again. “Thank you, Agata. I’ll do as you say.”
In my borrowed work dress, I hurry through the keep’s oppressive corridors. The innermost hallways always feel like midnight, even at the very break of dawn. They have no windows, and the meager light shed by the candle sconces barely pierces all that dark. And their frail flicker throws such ghastly shadows, skittering like spiders up the walls, that sometimes I think it would almost be better to simply succumb to the darkness. Creep blindly through it like a mole rather than resisting in vain.
The countess is still sleeping when I let myself in, slipping on mouse-quiet feet to stoke her hearth. Her chambermaids have not yet risen, either, so we are left alone. It smells like a different world up here compared to the rat shit and mildew of the cellars, an airy, floral haven shot through with the bright peal of citron. I steal thieving little looks at the lady as I clean, compelled by the way the shadow of her canopy competes with the dawn’s pale light to play upon her cheeks. She is paler than normal, I note, her skin a touch sallow, high points of fire burning on her cheekbones. Her sleep is uneasy, restless; she whimpers a little in her dreams, like a pained pup. It twists my heart to hear it.
By the time I’ve filled her basin, one of the other chambermaids has come in. I keep to the corners, dusting the windowsill as she helps the countess rise, draping a velvet housecoat over her shoulders and leading her to the vanity to dress her hair.
“Nothing too complicated, Judit,” the countess says, her low voice a rusty rasp. She peers closely at her reflection in the mirror, meeting her own dark eyes as she prods at their corners, tutting dispiritedly at the blue half-moons of fatigue beneath. “What a weary wretch I look, so blanched and sluggish and damnably old. Not a single rose in my cheeks or lips. I’ve a mind to retire again after I break my fast. If I can keep anything down, that is,” she adds ruefully.
“Aye, my lady,” the chambermaid agrees. She does look a bit like Krisztina, I note, though her hair is a pale copper like apricots rather than my friend’s fiery red, and tastefully restrained. She picks up a silver-backed brush and begins to drag it gingerly over the lady’s curls. But her hair is snarled into stubborn knots, likely from a night of tossing and turning, and the chambermaid has unsteady hands. I can hear the bristles catching as they yank on the lady’s hair—and her ensuing, furious yelp.
“Leave off, you ham-fisted twit,” she hisses abruptly, snatching the brush out of Judit’s hand. In the mirror, I see her face contort with pique. “You shall have me stripped bald as a newborn babe if you continue with this ineptitude!”
“I’m sorry, my lady!” The chambermaid gulps, her blue eyes huge with panic. “I did not mean—”
“Did I ask what you meant? Did such a question pass my lips, you ninny?” In a flash, the lady whirls around and cracks Judit across the cheek with the hairbrush. I stifle a gasp, and the chambermaid flinches with her entire body, releasing a shrill whimper. The lady glares at her, her cheeks splotched with heat, and I think of my brothers in the throes of a wicked tantrum. She is clearly in pain, at the very end of her tether, else she would not have lashed out like this—like a wounded animal.
Judit stands frozen, trembling like a leaf, eyes wide with terror. She has clearly never withstood the ire of wild, overindulged brothers, and she does not know what to do to defuse her lady’s rancor. So I step into the silence, my heart thrashing like a caged bird. This may ve
ry well be the worst mistake I will ever have a chance to make. But I have no choice; I cannot let this opportunity pass me by.
“My lady,” I say quietly, dipping into a deep curtsy despite my protesting knees. “May I try my hand at dressing your hair? I’ve a light touch—I promise not to cause you pain.”
The countess’s infuriated gaze flies to me for the first time, her eyes widening. “Anna Darvulia,” she says, low, dangerous, like something hidden rustling through tall grass. “Do my eyes deceive me with a phantom, or do I truly see you standing here before me, though I haven’t asked for you?”
I dip into another curtsy, flicking a cool but deferential glance up at her. I sense that I cannot allow a jot of my fear to seep through, to goad her with vulnerability when she’s so irascible. “Beg pardon, my lady,” I say smoothly, betraying no semblance of my clamoring heart. “Your maidservant has fallen ill this morning, and I was sent in her place.”
It’s not exactly a lie; after all, I did send myself here. Though my choice of words would suggest that Mistress Magda sent me. I can only pray that the lady never thinks to ask her.
The countess beholds me narrowly, torn between rampant displeasure, the urge to punish me for my insolence, and the yearning for the comfort she knows I can give. She worries her full lower lip between her teeth until it reddens. Even in her pain, she’s unaccountably lovely, her tangled hair falling over the milky lace of her nightgown like some black, storm-tossed river. The kind of beauty that strikes up a helpless aching in the gut.
“Fine,” she bites off, turning back to the mirror. “Judit, remove yourself from my sight this instant.”
“Yes, my lady,” the chambermaid whispers, hand clapped to her cheek as she scurries gratefully out of the room. She certainly flees more adeptly than she dresses hair.
Relief and trepidation sluicing through my veins, I take her place behind the lady’s shoulder, gently picking up her tangled locks. I twist them against her nape as I brush so that the hair bunched in my fisted grip takes the brunt of each stroke, not the lady’s scalp.
“Is that all right, my lady?” I ask, angling my hand so I can massage the knobs of her skull with my knuckles as I brush. I know how good that feels, from the head rubs my mother used to give me before her hands failed.
“It is,” she murmurs back, her eyelids fluttering with relief, nibble-reddened lips parting slightly. I suddenly think, with an unexpected flush, that her mouth must look just this way after her husband kisses her. “If you would continue . . .”
“Of course.” I let the silky mass of her hair fall through my fingers as I bury my fingers into her scalp, searching for tender spots. If her flux is so painful as to keep her abed, the tension will likely have given her a headache, too. When the tightness ebbs from her cramped shoulders, I see that I am right. She tilts her head back with a faint, grateful sigh, resting it in the cups of my hands, and I feel a tremendous satisfaction at having eased her pain.
“Forgive my forwardness, my lady,” I venture. “But you seem aggrieved. Does something torment you?”
She takes a deep breath, then exhales it through her nose, the smooth space between her eyebrows cinching. “My blood is upon me,” she says, morose. “Again and again and again, such monthly agony. It seems that I do not take easily to my husband’s seed. As if both my soul and body are dead set against producing the heir he so desires.”
Her eyes flutter open, impossibly black and lustrous, like polished jet, and she watches me in the mirror to see what I will say.
“Is it because you already have a son, my lady?” I ask evenly, holding her eyes fast with my own placid gaze. “Do you not want another child?”
“I do not.” She gives a shuddering sigh, as if relieved to admit it. “Gabor—well, you have seen him. He is singular, so thoroughly mine that it is as if I see myself when I look upon him. Beautiful as the day is long, clever, so aflush with youth. So like I was, when I was young.”
I make a sympathetic moue. “But my lady, you are not yet twenty. Still so young.”
She rolls her eyes ruefully, her fingers floating up to palpate the delicate skin at the corners of her eyes. “And yet I wrinkle like neglected crepe already. How much worse will it be after another child suckles at my blood from within, draining me dry?” Her delicate features twist with distaste, the hand in her lap clenching into a fist. “Especially a child of Ferenc’s, riddled with the taint of him, sure to grow just as fulsome as its sire. Sometimes I think I could not bear to host such a creature in my loins, much less withstand the agony of giving birth to it. And yet, it seems I will have no choice.”
“I’m sorry, my lady,” I reply, pressing my thumbs into the hollow above her nape. “A woman’s lot can be so cruel that way.”
“In every way, you mean,” she says with a bitter huff of a laugh. “When Ferenc is away fending off the Ottoman horde, I feel as if I am hefting the whole world on my shoulders, all on my own. Like some bedamned pack mule. I look after not just Sarvar, you know, but all our estates. Keresztúr, Varanno, Léka, and Csejthe, too.” She flits an inquiring gaze up to me. “That last was meant to be my wedding gift, did you know that?”
“I did not, my lady,” I murmur. “It seems a splendid gift.”
She scoffs, pressing her lips together. “And it should be, resplendent estate that it is. But how am I meant to preside over it effectively from so far away? As it is, it feels more like a millstone around my neck.” She pitches her head forward wearily, pinching the bridge of her nose.
“And is the work of keeping it very great?” I ask her, partly to keep her talking to me, partly because I’m genuinely curious. I suppose I never considered that the rich have their own burdens beleaguering them, just as we poor do. I find that I wish to know what hers are, even if they’re likely to be far beyond my grasp.
“Oh, it’s just horrid,” she mumbles, with such a petulant pout that I almost laugh before I master myself. She holds up a hand and begins ticking off her duties. “I must oversee the stewards, to see that they manage servants properly and maintain the estate. And not a steward has ever lived who was not an officious prick.”
This time, I cannot stifle my laugh. Her eyes dart up to mine, mischievous, and her lips twitch with a restrained grin. “I see you know what I mean,” she adds dryly. “I tolerate Aurel only because he is so effective in tending to Sarvar’s needs himself, odious though he is. So much must be done, always. Livestock must be bred, crops sowed, furniture repaired, the ledgers balanced. And the tenants, well—they are forever unable to pay their tithes. I could live for a year off the oats, sheep, and wine that the Keresztúr vassals owe us alone.”
It is an impossible situation for most, given the unforgiving winters we’ve been having, but I do not say so aloud. “That sounds terribly aggravating,” I reply instead. “I’m not sure how you withstand such effrontery.”
“Nor am I,” she agrees vehemently. “And yet, I must also see to their health, for no one else will do it. And to top it all off, there is always some greedy scoundrel duke scratching at the door, harrying our estates where they seem weakest. Attempting to steal our lands.”
I start a little, surprised. “Other nobles try to take your lands?” I had no idea the blue-blooded assailed each other just as ruthlessly as they do those below them.
She gives me a vindicated nod, pleased that I sympathize with her plight. “Indeed. You’d think such conduct unbecoming of nobility, and yet.” Her lip curls slightly. “They know that Ferenc is away so often, that a mere woman holds those lands in his stead. And so they test me whenever it amuses them to do so.”
“That seems like a great deal to contend with, my lady,” I murmur.
“It is,” she replies, chin dipping again. “Were I a man, I do not think I would mind it at all. But as it is . . . Well. Though I work twice as hard as Ferenc to keep what is ours, as soon as my husband returns, my effort no longer counts for aught. And whatever I did in his absence, he claims he cou
ld have done better himself. It is as if . . .”
“As if you accomplished nothing, though you know full well you did,” I finish for her, as I realize what chafes her. The same thing that galls me whenever I think of being wed. “As if being his wife makes you merely a convenient extension of him. Another limb, rather than a full person in your own right.”
“That is it exactly, Anna,” she says in a breathless rush, her eyes gleaming with something like jubilation—elation, perhaps, at being understood. Then she casts the wedding ring on her hand a scathing look. “As if I am nothing without him, less than nothing! I cannot bear it, being so diminished. And if I do not conceive soon, I fear that Ferenc might—”
The doors to her chambers bang open, revealing the lord’s lanky silhouette—as if he has been summoned like the devil by hearing his own name spoken.
“My lady Beth,” he drawls with that sardonic twist I remember from years ago. His colorless eyes slide over me, assessing. There is something disquietingly predatory in them, though his face is otherwise weak-chinned and bland. Only his hair is remarkable, as black and riotous as the lady’s own. And he reeks of some overpowering cologne, like amber, honey, and tobacco, so sharp and sweet it cloys the room only moments after he has appeared. I would have thought such a fragrance unbecoming of a soldier, a military man, but he clearly fancies himself a dandy, too. “A new pet, is it? I trust I’m not interrupting.”
I see her twist her hands together in her lap. “Of course not,” she says quietly, but I don’t miss the furious flash in her eyes before she drops them demurely, dark lashes fanning over her cheeks. “Please, Ferenc. Come in.”
He takes only a half step inside, slumping against the jamb. “She’s certainly comely,” he remarks, his gaze raking over me, lighting with a gleam I know well in a man’s wandering eye. My skin crawls beneath his regard like a living thing. This lord is no better than the stable boy who accosted me; he only thinks he is. “My, my, such hair, such skin. All extremely fine. Where did you procure this one, Beth? Rather a cut above the rest.”
