Cook caught sight of Duncan almost the moment he appeared. “Scurvyhead!” he cried contemptuously. “What’re you doing here? We’ve no time for gawkers!”
Duncan held up the letter. “Princess Alberta sent me to give this to you.”
Cook’s nearest underlings froze in horror, and Cook himself looked down at the folded page with sudden nervousness. Duncan held the letter with a steady hand until the man finally snatched it from him.
His round face twisted unhappily as he read its contents. “Baker!” he snapped, and one of his underlings skittishly darted forward. Cook shoved the letter into his hands. “Take this to Gardener and follow its commands,” Cook snarled, and he glared menacingly at Duncan. “What did you tell the princess, Scurvyhead?”
“N-nothing,” said Duncan. Since he had no clue what the letter said, he could only guess how Cook expected him to respond. “She just told me to bring that to you and return for more chores.”
Cook grunted. “So you’re her lackey while she’s bedridden. How’d you get saddled with that job?”
“I don’t really know,” Duncan lied.
The man glared at him but decided not to question further. Princess Alberta had probably demanded stranger things, Duncan thought.
“Go on, then,” Cook told him. “You’ve done your task here.”
He immediately retreated, grateful to escape one enemy at least. He was returning to another, though. Dread pooled in his stomach as he unwillingly imagined the many forms Princess Alberta’s punishment might take.
He found her with a book open on her lap and another one on the table beside her. A stylus in her hand scribbled away something in the second book. She looked up at Duncan’s entrance, and her customary scowl darkened.
“You delivered it?” she asked suspiciously.
“Yes,” said Duncan.
“Took you long enough. Now, do you see those bookshelves behind you? I want you to take all the volumes off the shelves and reorganize them for me.”
Duncan turned with foreboding. The wall was lined with bookshelves from one end all the way to the other. He had not really paid them much heed earlier because books held no use for him, but now he let his eyes take in the sheer number of volumes before him.
“Reorganize them how?” he asked in a small voice.
“I need them alphabetized, obviously.”
He turned a helpless expression on her, and her scowl deepened. “You want to complain?” she asked.
“What’s ‘alphabetize’ mean?” he replied. He thought he knew, but it was better to ask the question than to start a task he didn’t fully understand.
Alberta looked at him like he was crazy. “It means to put them in alphabetical order, from A to Z and everything in between. I want them by author, not title.”
“I don’t know the alphabet,” he replied.
“What? Preposterous!”
“I don’t,” he insisted. “I can’t read. I’ve never learned how.”
“What did they teach you in school?” she demanded irately.
“I’ve never been to school. I grew up on a farm.”
“Schooling is mandatory, even in farming communities,” said Princess Alberta.
“Not where I’m from,” Duncan protested. “Only the kids who lived in the village went to school, and only if their parents could afford it.”
She looked affronted. “Where exactly are you from?”
He gestured vaguely toward the window. “Borealia, somewhere up north.”
Her brows drew together with growing suspicion. “What’re you doing in Meridiana, then?”
Duncan shrugged. “My horse brought me here a couple years ago. I’m just here to work.”
“But you can’t read?” she asked flatly.
“I’m a farmer! I don’t need to read!”
She watched him with malevolent eyes. “The note I had you deliver to Cook ordered him to have you thrashed with a horsewhip three hundred times this evening,” she told him brazenly.
Duncan’s jaw dropped. The blood drained from his face and his eyes grew wide with horror.
“Oh, for—!” cried Alberta with increasing frustration. “You really can’t read!”
“I told you I can’t!” Duncan cried.
“Useless!” she snapped. “Why do you have to be so useless?” She threw down her pen and massaged her forehead. “What am I supposed to do with a lackey who can’t even read?”
“I’m sorry,” Duncan said sullenly. He snuck a furtive glance toward the door, hopeful that she would dismiss him then and there. Such was not his luck.
“Take down the books anyway and dust them,” she suddenly commanded. “I don’t care what order you put them back in—they’re in disarray already.”
He hesitated, which caused her to glance up sharply. “What do I dust them with?” he asked, his voice timid.
“Fetch a rag from one of the chambermaids,” she replied, through clenched teeth. “Be quick about it. That dust is giving me a headache.”
He scampered off to obey. He was used to working long hours out in the sun, so he thought it might be a nice change to be indoors, even if his chores did involve dusting books in front of a grouch like Princess Alberta. The task would certainly take him several hours.
It was more difficult to find a chambermaid than it was to procure the desired rag from her. By chance, he came across one exiting a room in the next wing of the castle. His mere mention of Princess Alberta caused the girl to pale and proffer the rag without question. She would have given him the rest of her supplies with the slightest indication he needed them, too.
Alberta was sure to yell at him when he returned, for he had been gone several minutes. Wildfire’s frequent criticisms had hardened Duncan’s skin somewhat, though. As long as she only yelled, he could handle it. He knew from experience that he could handle a beating as well, but his upbringing had instilled such terror in him at physical punishment that he preferred to avoid it at all costs.
Princess Alberta’s outraged voice sounded down the corridor as he returned. He stopped instinctively to listen.
“That fool can’t even read!”
“Bertie,” chided a second voice, and Duncan immediately recognized it as belonging to Princess Bellinda, “just because he can’t read doesn’t make him a fool. He seems to know his plants well enough.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“He’s the one I got the pot marigold from. Gardener would’ve had him pull it like a weed.”
Alberta scoffed. “That calendula you brought me? It is a weed. There’s a whole field of them beyond the castle walls.”
“Don’t try to tell me it’s not terribly convenient to have one here in the castle,” her sister replied. “Besides that, you didn’t know it was a calendula until you looked it up. And you didn’t know there was a whole field of them sitting beyond the castle, either.”
“It looks different in the botany book! I should track down whoever made that woodcut and have him executed for poor artistry!”
“Now you’re just being ridiculous.”
It occurred to Duncan that he had misinterpreted the relationship between this curious pair all those weeks ago when he had first seen them. He had assumed there was animosity between Bellinda and Alberta, and all accounts from the other servants supported this assumption. The few times he had seen them together, Alberta had been berating Bellinda like a wicked stepmother from a fairy tale. Their interactions last night and now contradicted this, though.
They were equals, he realized in a startling epiphany. What’s more, they were friends. If Alberta ran roughshod over her younger sister, it was only because Bellinda allowed it. They spoke to one another now in the same manner that Wildfire spoke to Otis the blacksmith, with that familiarity born from a bond deeper than any mere acquaintance. Of course they were sisters, but the roles that they played in public differed so greatly from the picture before him now. He couldn’t imagine such a marked differ
ence being anything but calculated.
His ears perked up again when he heard his name mentioned.
“And anyway,” Bellinda was saying, “what do you care that Scurvyhead can’t read? It doesn’t really matter, does it?”
“Might I remind you that I’m cooped up in this room for at least three weeks?” Alberta replied. “I can’t very well send you to fetch my things for me. I was going to give him the list, but it’s useless if he can’t read it.”
“Where is he now, anyway?”
“Gone to fetch a rag to dust the books—he can’t alphabetize them, of course. He’s taking his precious time about it, too.”
Duncan thought he should probably stop eavesdropping and get back to work. He stepped toward the doorway just as Bellinda commented, “Most of those books aren’t even yours. If Father discovers they’re missing from the library, he’s going to demand you return them.”
“He doesn’t care about these books,” Alberta retorted. She looked up from the volume in her lap just as Duncan paused on the threshold. “Did you have to trek all the way into town to find a chambermaid?” she asked him sarcastically.
“No, just the next wing over,” he said, and he pointed down the hall for emphasis. She thought he was a fool, so he was more than happy to play one.
She was not amused. “Get to work,” she ordered.
“Hello, Scurvyhead,” said Bellinda pleasantly.
Duncan ducked his head. “H’lo.”
He turned to the books then and failed to see the grin that Bellinda shot her sister.
“Bertie,” she began the next moment, “you said you had a list of things for Scurvyhead to fetch. I can go along and read it for him, if you’d like.”
“No,” said Alberta, “and don’t call me Bertie.”
“I guess you can sit here bored out of your skull for the next three weeks, while all your little potions get overdone because they had to sit too long,” Bellinda innocently remarked.
“Bella, I’m not stupid enough to send you out with a servant. We both know why that’s a terrible idea.”
“But Scurvyhead’s not in love with me,” Bellinda replied impishly. “You see how he starts and shies away when I even mention such a thing? I always feel like he’s trying to keep away from me.”
“Bella,” said Alberta dangerously.
“It’s like a challenge,” Bellinda protested with a pretty sulk. “I’m supposed to be the perfect woman. What does it mean when a mere servant isn’t head-over-ears in love with me?”
“It means he has more sense than he looks,” her sister replied drily.
“It’s an insult to your handiwork,” Bellinda responded.
Duncan wanted the floor to open beneath him. Barring that, a sudden brick to his head would work just as well. He would be eternally grateful for anything that saved him from being the vastly uncomfortable and unwilling witness to this conversation.
“Maybe he just doesn’t like blondes,” said Alberta pragmatically. “Some men don’t.”
“Is that the problem, Scurvyhead?” Bellinda asked him.
He glanced her way helplessly but said nothing.
Bellinda squealed in delight. “Did you see that, Bertie? He’s like a puppy!”
“Bella, quit pestering my slave. He has work to do.”
“Pooh, dusting books!”
“If you have nothing better to do, come help me work these reductions.”
“Oh, no!” said Bellinda in dismay. “You’re not roping me into that again! I only came by to see how you’re doing.”
“And now you’ve seen, so go away.”
Bellinda made a face, but she headed to the door. “Ingrate,” she muttered as she passed from the room. Alberta continued to work as though she had not heard her. Duncan did the same.
The silence was more than welcome to his ears. The princess was absorbed in her books, and he was absorbed in dusting them. He decided to be grateful for this arrangement rather than letting it get to his nerves.
A cowering servant came to deliver Alberta’s lunch. A little while after that, another lugged in a basket full of lemons.
“Put them here next to me,” Alberta commanded, and she pointed to the floor directly in front of her. “I’ll make a list for Cook when I’ve decided what I want done with them, so you needn’t wait.”
The servant was more than happy to oblige and scampered away as soon as the task was complete.
Duncan frowned in confusion at the basket, and then realized that the princess was watching him. He turned sheepishly back to the bookshelves.
“I ordered Cook to have all the lemons picked from the tree and brought to me,” Alberta said bluntly. “That was the note I sent down with you this morning.”
He nodded to indicate he had heard but made no vocal response.
“It means you’re absolved of guard duty tonight,” she added. “The least you could do is say thank you.”
“Thank you,” he told her automatically.
“Insincere, but it’ll do,” she said, and she returned to her book.
Sometime in the mid afternoon, when Duncan was only halfway finished dusting, the castle doctor turned up to check on Alberta’s welfare.
“You’re dismissed, Scurvyhead,” she said. “I’ll summon you again if I need anything.”
He made a fast escape. He thought he should go straightway to Gardener and see what duties he had assigned him for the day, but instead he oriented himself toward the stables.
Wildfire was munching from his oat bin when Duncan arrived. He looked up in surprise. “You survived the night, it seems,” he remarked. “Did you survive the morning?”
“What have you heard?” Duncan asked suspiciously.
“Just the stable boys betting on whether you’d lose your head before nightfall. What happened?”
Duncan saddled the horse and led him from the stable before he related the tale of the previous night and his resulting slavery. “I can’t make heads or tails of her—of either of them,” he finished, desperation thick on his voice. “Can’t we just… I don’t know…”
“Run away?” Wildfire finished the suggestion for him. “That would seem to be the wisest course of action, but you’ve piqued my curiosity. I visited Midd before I was a horse, Duncan,” he added, and it was a rare reference to that life he usually avoided mentioning. “The three princesses were nothing then like they are now. I thought Bellinda was the most changed, and she is from a physical standpoint, but Alberta’s personality has altered beyond recognition. Of the three, only Mae’s still roughly the same—she always was a sober creature.”
“How’d you know they call Princess Margaret ‘Mae’?” Duncan asked with sudden perception. “I only heard that this morning, when she was scolding Alberta for firing her maid. Just how well do you know these princesses, Wildfire?”
The horse stonewalled him. “Not at all,” he said shortly. “I heard rumors and saw them from afar on a couple of occasions—”
“Fine, don’t tell me,” Duncan interrupted, rolling his eyes heavenward.
“Fine, I won’t,” said Wildfire.
They rode in silence until Duncan could bear it no more. “It would be better for us to leave,” he blurted.
“I thought you said Alberta threatened to send a legion of soldiers after you if you tried,” the white horse reminded him. “Look, just stay put. You’ve figured out that she and Bellinda wear different faces in public than they do in private, but that only opens a more pressing query: why do they do it?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care.”
Wildfire snorted. “You’re curious. Admit it.”
“I’m not,” Duncan insisted, “and you should know me well enough by now to realize that.”
The horse conceded that point. “But I am,” he added. “I haven’t come across a situation this curious in ages. You’ll stay where you are until you can satisfy my curiosity, do you understand?”
Duncan grumbled somethi
ng that may or may not have been an assent. Wildfire took it as one regardless, and they turned their course back to the stables.
Chapter 14
That evening at supper, the servants’ hall was abuzz with chatter of the day’s strange happenings, of Lizzie’s dismissal and Scurvyhead’s summoning, and of Princess Alberta’s fate for the coming weeks.
“Good riddance to her,” many whispered under their breaths.
Some who overheard this sentiment quickly shushed it. “She’ll find out you said that,” they warned. “She’s a regular witch!”
Duncan didn’t see how calling her a witch was any better than the rebuked statement, but he kept his mouth shut. He was already on the receiving end of many condolences from the other servants, with the exception of a handful of doom-predicting stable boys, who only glanced his way in severe disappointment. A few people tried to ask him what Princess Alberta had wanted from him, but he thought it best to be as vague as possible in his answers.
“She just wanted a lackey,” he said with a hapless shrug. This manner of response reminded the questioner that Scurvyhead was not mentally whole; most of them turned away feeling as though, if anyone had to be tortured by Alberta, he was the best candidate.
Gardener informed him that he would not need to guard the greenhouse that night, as Princess Alberta had confiscated every last lemon from the tree. “But then,” he added belligerently, “you already knew that.”
“They brought the lemons while I was dusting,” Duncan replied.
“What’s she need an under-gardener to dust for?” the man said to the ceiling. “The castle has plenty enough maids!”
It was an apt question, and one for which Duncan had no answer. One of the castle servants overheard and volunteered a response. “Princess Alberta won’t let the chambermaids in to do anything more than sweep and change the bed linens. She doesn’t like people in her room when she’s not there.”
Goldmayne: A Fairy Tale Page 16
