The Alchemist's Apprentice

by Christopher G. Nuttall

  “Yes, Miss,” I said, submissively.

  Lucinda shot me a sharp look. “I will not have my subordinates look slovenly,” she added, tartly. “If you bring me into disrepute, you will be punished. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, Miss,” I said. I had the uneasy feeling that she was just waiting for an excuse to punish me. “May I ask a question?”

  Lucinda nodded, regally.

  “Which bed should I take?”

  “Jill will be down shortly to instruct you in your duties,” Lucinda said. “You may discuss the matter with her.”

  I nodded. Lucinda gave me another sharp look, then turned and swept out the door. I heard it bang closed behind her and shivered. I was definitely deep in enemy territory. Shaking my head, I took the first dress out and held it against my body. Lucinda hadn’t been wrong. It was just about my size. I wouldn’t have to make any alterations before I tried to put it on. I walked into the washroom and allowed myself a moment of relief when I saw the shower. Splashing around in an iron tub wasn’t fun.

  I could get used to it , I thought.

  I splashed water on my face, then walked back into the bedroom and changed into my uniform. The maid’s dress was longer than I’d expected, but tighter around my chest than I really wanted. It showed nothing below the neckline, yet I felt more than a little exposed. The blue bodice didn’t help. I brushed back my hair, wishing I dared put it in braids. It would have given me some additional protection. But Lucinda and Staunton had already seen me with my hair hanging down.

  The door crashed open. I looked up, alarmed, as a blonde whirlwind swept into the room and threw the door shut behind her. She looked back at me, her eyes flickering over my face, then winked. I had to smile. There was something about the girl - my roommate, I guessed - that I liked on sight.

  “You must be Rebecca,” the girl said. She grasped my hand and shook it, then let go before I had a chance to react. “I’m Jill. Jill of all trades, maid of all work ... you get the idea. I’m allowed to boss you around, apparently. This will be fun.”

  “Oh dear,” I said. I studied her for a long moment. She managed to make the maid’s uniform look very good. “And there I was thinking that Lucinda was in charge.”

  “ Miss Lucinda,” Jill corrected. “And don’t you ever forget it, unless you want your face to be slapped. She will not be pleased if she hears you calling her by her name alone.”

  I flushed. “Sorry.”

  Jill snickered. “Don’t be sorry to me ,” she said. “Miss Lucinda is the person you need to watch. You don’t want to be caught by her when she’s in a bad mood.”

  She sat down on her bed. “And I hope you last longer than a week or two,” she added, after a moment. “The last two girls were dismissed out of hand. It was quite annoying.”

  “I heard.” I met her eyes. “I feel a little overwhelmed already.”

  “Just remember the golden rules,” Jill advised. “Always do as you’re told. Never be alone with any of the young gentlemen. And never ever dispute House Bolingbroke’s claim to be the oldest family in Shallot. That will get you dragged up before Mr. Staunton and trust me, you don’t want to do that . The butler guards the house’s honour more than any of the family themselves. He’s been here for hundreds of years.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Is he really that old?”

  Jill snorted. “He’s in his forties, but he talks as if he was born three hundred years ago,” she said. “Don’t believe everything you hear.”

  “Of course not,” I said. “Does that include everything you tell me?”

  “Oh, you should always believe me,” Jill said. “Miss Lucinda said you had to pay me ten gold for showing you the ropes.”

  “Then you’re going to be disappointed,” I said, sardonically. Ten gold? It would take me years to earn ten gold. “You’re lying.”

  “Probably,” Jill said, without malice. “Pick a bed, then show me your cleaning charms.”

  I looked at the beds, then picked the one furthest from hers. Jill laughed and watched as I cast a pair of spells, carefully removing the dust. It piled up on the ground, waiting to be removed. The bed looked comfortable, at least. I just hoped the wooden struts weren’t as rickety as they looked. My garret had been solid. The bed here looked as if it would collapse under my weight.

  “Good,” Jill said, as she swept away the dust. “Plenty of practice, at least. You’ll need to use the charms each day. Miss Lucinda sometimes inspects our rooms without warning.”

  “Ouch,” I said. That wasn’t good. She’d have a chance to find my money - and the potion vials. I’d have to find a better place to hide them. “What now?”

  “I inspect your outfit, then we go to work,” Jill said. She stood, brushing a fleck of imaginary dust off her dress. “You look good in it, Rebecca. Can I call you Rebecca? Or would you rather be called something else?”

  “Just Rebecca,” I said. My stepfather had shortened my name without permission - an unsubtle insult from an unsubtle man - and I’d never liked it. “And you?”

  “Jill will be fine,” Jill said. “I’m an orphan, you see. No one knows who gave birth to me. They took me into service when I was ten and ... well, here I am.”

  I felt a stab of sympathy. I’d heard enough horror stories about the orphanages to know that Jill might have been lucky to escape, even though going into service at ten had to have been nightmarish. It hadn’t been easy for me to adjust and I’d been twelve. Jill ... I supposed she didn’t look different, but she’d still have problems because she knew nothing about her parents. It wouldn’t be easy for her to get married, let alone leave the hall and find a different job. She was trapped as surely as any of Zadornov’s slaves.

  Jill looked me up and down, then nodded. “You look good, for your first day,” she said, mischievously. “I think you’ll be catching a lot of eyes.”

  I frowned. “Is that a good thing?”

  “Probably not,” Jill conceded. She motioned for me to turn around so she could tighten my collar. “You don’t want too much attention from the young gentlemen. Or even from the older gentlemen. And some of the young ladies can be just as unpleasant. You really don’t want to outshine them.”

  “That’s not likely to happen,” I said, as I turned back to face her. “Is it?”

  “It might,” Jill said. “There’s a certain ... lady ... of a certain age ... who seems to believe that she’s still the beauty she was in her youth. You don’t want to give her the impression that you’re outshining her, really. You’re just a maid and she’s the marchioness of somewhere or other. She’ll go whining to Her Ladyship and Her Ladyship will complain to Staunton and Staunton will tell Miss Lucinda off and Miss Lucinda will take it out on you. And you don’t have anyone to take it out on because there’s no one below you.”

  Ouch , I thought.

  “So the only real difference between the rich and the poor is that the rich have more money,” I said. I’d met women like that at the shop. Too many of them seemed to believe that they could hang on to their looks for a year or two longer if they slathered themselves in beauty salves and bathed in individualised potions. But every year it took more and more magic to maintain the illusion. “There’s nothing else between them and us.”

  Jill snickered. “Witty. Very witty. But don’t say that in front of them.”

  I laughed. “I won’t.”

  “Good,” Jill said, suddenly serious. She waved a hand towards a cupboard by the door. “Grab a bucket and broom. It’s time for your first lesson.”

  “Yes, Jill,” I said. I took a broom that looked to have seen better days and followed her through the door. “I’m coming.”

  I had a feeling I was not going to enjoy my first day. I was right.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Master Travis had spoiled me.

  I hadn’t realised it, of course, until I went to work at Bolingbroke Hall. Master Travis had made me work hard - and he’d taught me to be a perfectionist
, which was something I’d hated until I’d recognised that no Potions Master could afford anything less - but he hadn’t worked me to the bone. Lucinda, on the other hand, expected me to spend the mornings scrubbing, the afternoons polishing priceless artefacts and the evenings assisting Cook ... by which she meant clean the kitchen while Cook had a nap and her staff rested after a long day’s work. I would not have survived the first week if it hadn’t been abundantly clear that Bolingbroke Hall was terrifyingly short of staff. The vast army of servants I’d expected had either been sent to the countryside for the summer or simply never existed in the first place.

  Jill, I discovered, was a gold mine of information. She was the lowest of the low, as far as the rest of the staff were concerned, even after I came along. We were thrown together because hardly anyone else would talk to us, particularly when they might be seen talking to us. The staff hierarchy was just as impenetrable as the aristocratic hierarchy on the floors above. Cook - if the woman had any other name, I never learnt it - was friendly enough, but the remainder of the staff took a perverse delight in ordering us about. The only reason everyone liked Cook, I gathered, was that she was always careful to make sure we had enough to eat. Even Lucinda trod carefully around Cook.

  “Henri’s death has thrown the house into a tizzy,” Jill commented, as we worked our way down a long corridor. Lucinda had ordered us to dust the portraits in preparation for the forthcoming ball. “They just don’t know who’ll be the next Patriarch.”

  She jabbed a finger at a portrait edged in black silk. “That was him,” she added. “Killed in the House War, may his ancestors welcome him.”

  I followed his gaze. There was something of Reginald in Henri’s portrait, although I doubted the real Henri had been quite so handsome. No one could have had so many muscles on their arms without having problems walking in a straight line. Jill had commented that very few of the portraits actually looked like their subject. One of them, she’d said, had depicted a ten-year-old Henri as a young adult. I wondered, rather nastily, just who they’d been trying to fool.

  “Reginald is next in line, isn’t he?” I kept my voice under tight control, unwilling to let her sense that it was anything but a moment of idle curiosity. I’d spent the last five days expecting to see Reginald around every corner. “He’ll be the next Patriarch?”

  “No,” Jill said. “He’s a bastard. Literally.”

  I blinked. Reginald was a bastard, but somehow I doubted it disqualified him. There were people who would argue that being a bit of a bastard was a good trait in an aristocrat. Master Travis had commented on it, often enough. It made me wonder if he’d had more dealings with the aristocracy than I’d known. He’d had a life well before he’d taken me into his service.

  And then the coin dropped. “He’s illegitimate ?”

  “Keep your voice down,” Jill hissed. She looked up and down the corridor, then cast a small privacy charm. “You don’t want to say that too loudly.”

  “Sorry,” I said.

  Jill gave me a long look, as if she was torn between gossiping and telling me to keep my mouth shut. “The master had a relationship with a woman after Henri was born,” she said, finally. “It’s quite common amongst them” - she jabbed a finger at the ceiling and the upper floors beyond - “when the family arranges the match. This time, someone wasn’t as careful as she should have been and little Reginald popped into the world. Lord Anton did his duty and took the bastard into his family. Reginald grew up amongst his legitimate brothers and sisters.”

  I stared. “And his mother?”

  “I have no idea,” Jill said, primly. “Someone respectable, no doubt. I dare say Lord Anton pensioned her off at some point.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  I felt an odd flicker of sympathy for Reginald, mingled with envy and hate. He was a bastard in the truest sense of the word. He knew his mother - I assumed - and yet he would never be truly part of his father’s legitimate family. He’d had all the advantages he could possibly want, but ... oh, I could’ve felt sorry for him if he hadn’t killed Master Travis. I wondered, again, just what he’d been trying to do. I had the feeling that the answers would fall into my lap as soon as I found the notebook.

  “Don’t let him catch you alone,” Jill said, warningly. “He’s the worst of the bunch.”

  “I understand,” I said.

  Jill kept chatting away as we worked our way down the corridor, alternatively filling in details about the family bloodline - Lord Anton had married Lady Antonia, bringing two distant branches of the family back together - and interrogating me about Lady Younghusband and her household. I did my best to deflect her questions, pointing out that my good character depended on keeping my mouth closed. Thankfully, Jill accepted the excuse and told me more about the house. I had a feeling that no one had quite realised just how much Jill knew. She’d been there long enough to be considered part of the furniture.

  “Clarian shared a room with the Zero when she was at Jude’s,” Jill said. “Apparently, they were close friends. I don’t believe it, but that’s what she was telling her younger sister during half-term. We’ll see if Lady Caitlyn accepts a personal invitation to the ball in the next couple of weeks. Her family has been invited, of course, but ...”

  “Of course,” I agreed. The ball had been the only topic of conversation in the kitchen for the last few days. Everyone was excited, although I couldn’t see why. It sounded like fun and games for the aristocracy and lots of hard work for everyone else. It wasn’t as if we would be invited to dance. “What happens if they don’t show up?”

  “They will,” Jill assured me. “But everyone will be looking to see if Lady Caitlyn comes alone, as the personal guest of Lady Clarian, or if she comes with her family.”

  I shrugged. It made no sense to me. “Why is the ball so important? Why is everyone below stairs so excited?”

  Jill winked. “Food,” she said, simply. “There’s always enough left over for us. And there are some other advantages too.”

  I waited, but she didn’t seem inclined to elaborate. Instead, she turned and led the way down the corridor as the clock struck twelve. I followed her back to the kitchen, where two trays of food - protected by a preservation charm - were already sitting on the table. Cook was snapping orders at one of her assistants as we entered, her face red with anger. Clearly, something had gone wrong.

  “Take these trays to the gambler’s room,” she ordered, glaring at us. She was a stout woman, her belly wobbling like a tub of lard. “And be quick about it.”

  “Yes, Cook,” Jill said.

  “And if you see Daisy, tell her to get her ass down here,” Cook added. “She was meant to be here half an hour ago.”

  “That’s bad news for Daisy,” Jill muttered, as we carried the heavy trays up four flights of stairs. “Cook will not be happy unless she has a very good excuse.”

  I frowned at her back. “Is there an excuse good enough to escape punishment?”

  Jill snorted. “It depends,” she said. “If she was ... waylaid ... by one of the family, she might get away with it. Cook won’t be happy, but she’ll understand. If she was distracted by one of the stableboys, on the other hand, Cook will have her scrubbing grease off the pots and pans for the rest of the month. That’s unforgivable.”

  “Yuck,” I said. I’d scraped enough bacon grease off the grill to feel sorry for whoever had to do it at Bolingbroke Hall. The kitchens cooked enough bacon every morning to feed a small army, from the perfectly-cooked pieces that were carried to the family’s breakfast table to the charred scraps that were put aside for us. “Poor Daisy.”

  “Only if it wasn’t her fault,” Jill said. “People have been dismissed for less.”

  I said nothing as we reached the top of the stairs and slipped through the hidden entrance onto the fourth floor. Bolingbroke Hall was riddled with hidden passages and staircases, all designed to keep the staff out of sight. I couldn’t help looking around with interest as I follo
wed Jill down the corridor. Here, everything was perfect. The floors were lined with plush red carpets, the walls were covered in paintings and brilliant lanterns hung from the ceiling. I felt a stab of envy, mingled with contempt. Reginald had so much and yet he wanted more? Some people didn’t know how to be happy.