Tale of Elske

by Jan Vermeer

  The Adelinne looked long at her, then said, “I will ask again later. When you know me. When you know it is safe to answer me truthfully,” she said.

  Elske didn’t doubt that time to come. There was in this Fiendly Princess something to which Elske’s spirit answered.

  The Adelinne went on. “The Kingdom lies so far from the world, news comes to us so slowly, we could be lost and taken before we even know that there are the weapons to destroy us.” She turned around again and Elske went back to working the comb through the tangles. “I think any man might have this weapon in his hand, and why should not I, too, possess it? I don’t wish to be ignorant on the subject of black powder. What were you in Var Jerrol’s house, besides his spy?”

  “I was nursery maid to his three daughters. After the Var remarried, it was better that I leave his house. Once the Var had a bride, his house had no need of me.”

  The Adelinne turned again to look at Elske full. “You shared his bed?”

  “Why would I do that? The Trastaders protect women from ruin. Women are dear to the Trastaders.”

  “Not dear enough to be masters of merchant houses, Elske, not even the widows. Nor of inns, nor of ships, not even in the market stalls, and never dear enough to sit on the Council,” the Adelinne answered. “And that’s too dear a dear for my purse. You were not the Var’s bedmate, then. Nor any other man’s?”

  “No, my Lady.” Elske patiently worked the comb through and through the tangles, until her mistress’s nut brown hair hung smooth down her back.

  “A pity, that. But it can’t be helped. What skills do you have? Besides a gentle hand on the comb.”

  Elske could only answer everything she knew, since she didn’t know why the Council had placed her with this Adelinne. “I speak both Souther and Norther. I read and write in both tongues. I can figure with numbers. I know how to care for babies, and children, and something about cooking. I can snare small animals and skin prey of any size, dig over soil, plant it and harvest a crop. I can serve at table,” she said. She thought of her most recent experiences. “I can launder clothing. I can mend with a needle and thread.”

  “And do you know the streets of the city?”

  “Of the two other islands, yes, Old Trastad and Harboring. Logisle is not familiar, but I think I might be lost anywhere on three-islanded Trastad and find my way.”

  “I will know their use for you,” her mistress warned her, but promised, “And so will you. Braid my hair. Maybe you will do well for me, as my maidservant. But tell your masters, I will look through you like glass and see their plans, let them imprison and starve me as much as they will. You will be a window for me to see through to their intentions.”

  “I am not glass,” Elske said, “and I don’t know how to be such, not even for you, my Lady. If that is what you require in your maidservant, perhaps you should ask for another. I can help you in other things, as in teaching you their language, or perhaps finding food, but—at most I can be your beryl glass, and that cannot be seen through.”

  Something in Elske’s words caused the girl to smile, some secret mischief amused her, and she rose to look at herself in the room’s beryl glass, as if that would hide her from Elske. Seeing herself, her mouth set firm. “I’ll not be forced to any husband,” she said, whether to herself or to Elske, Elske didn’t know, although she spoke as if Elske had thought to contradict her. “Who thinks he can force me will pay with his own blood for that. Sooner or later, he’ll pay. I can be patient,” she said, thoughtfully. Then she demanded, “You said food? You’ve food hidden here? You have a friend to let us out?”

  “If I go out the window—I was only outside the once, the day I was brought here, but I saw kitchen gardens, or I think they might have been.”

  “I want bread and meat, and wine.”

  “I saw trees, so perhaps there might be apples.”

  “Only apples? But I need sustenance,” the Adelinne protested. Then she surrendered. “Bring me my cloak. I’m going with you.”

  “I think, better not, my Lady.”

  The Adelinne drew herself up, her shoulders high and proud. “You say no to me?”

  Elske explained it. “If I can’t climb back in, and they find me outside in the morning, then that is one kind of disobedience, which they may punish. But if you’re out—and it’s you they’ve locked into her room, for they never locked me in while I have been alone here—then they may take stronger measures against you. If you’ve already once been lost to them—”

  At this, the Adelinne smiled again. “As I have.” Then she frowned again. “You will do this,” she determined. “You will go out the window and immediately climb back in. If you can do it then so can I. My cloak is clothing enough for night. Do it,” the Adelinne ordered.

  Elske obeyed, fetching in both cloaks, pulling on her fur boots.

  The bedchamber’s narrow windows opened outwards. Standing sideways, Elske could easily slip through. She opened a window and climbed up onto the deep sill, and looked out.

  It was a lightless night, with the moon at half and behind clouds, the stars hidden, too. The dark air breathed a great silence, over all the grounds of the villa. Elske stood on the windowsill, listening to the darkness. On this windless night, the river greeted the land with little watery sounds.

  “Go. Now, Elske.”

  Elske sat down on the broad stone sill. Her feet did not touch ground. She couldn’t remember how high these windows were, so rather than jump, she rolled over onto her stomach and slowly lowered herself. Almost immediately she felt solid land underfoot. Her shoulders and head reached above the open window.

  “Well? Can you get back in?”

  Elske reached her arms up and over the sill, and pulled her weight up. Her boots scratched at the wall for purchase and she found she could thus push her body up, to scramble back onto the sill, so she dropped back onto the ground.

  With a grunt the Adelinne dropped down beside her, then said, “Wait for my eyes.”

  Elske waited. The air had an edge to it, a knife blade edge of cold.

  “What’s that?” the Adelinne demanded at her ear.

  “What, my Lady?”

  “That sound, like—is there a river here? Is it the sea?”

  “The river. The High Councillor lives on Logisle, the inmost island, and his villa lies on the riverside. By daylight—”

  “Are there boats? Does he keep boats here?”

  “Yes, little—”

  “Then I could go home,” she said, her voice in the darkness filled with longing. “Oh, Elske—” the Adelinne said, and then her voice changed and she said, “A small boat would never survive the open waters, I know that as well as any other fool. When you report to them what I say, tell them I know that I can’t run away by sea.”

  “Why would I tell them anything you say?” Elske asked.

  “Why, indeed?”

  “And why would the Council want to know what you say?”

  “As to that, they’re employed to keep me here by those who wish to keep my throne from me, and so they are my enemies.”

  “The Council employs me but they don’t own my choices,” Elske said, understanding now. “Might not they be so employed by your enemies?”

  “I cannot think,” the Adelinne said. “I must get food. Hunger and judgement don’t harness well together.”

  “This way, my Lady,” Elske said and moved off, but “Am I to follow you?” the Adelinne demanded. “When I know the way,” Elske said, and the Adelinne announced, “I know my own way.” But she let Elske lead.

  The blank, dark face of the house showed no light other than their own windows. Elske moved swiftly back around to where she remembered the kitchen gardens. In the dark, the villa seemed longer, taller than she remembered, the kitchen wing farther from her own than she would have guessed. Beyond the kitchen entrance she came upon the low stone wall that edged the gardens. The Adelinne started to enter the garden but Elske held her back.

 
; She pulled herself loose.

  “Farthest in that direction,” Elske pointed, “are trees. I think they may have apples on them. What lies in here, and where, I don’t know.” She kept her voice low, as muffled as the night sky.

  The Adelinne answered at the same pitch, but angry. “Do you think I complain of hunger because I am soft with having been waited upon?”

  “No, my Lady,” Elske answered. “I don’t think you are soft. Nor do I think you have been much waited upon.” She waited for an angry expostulation, but it did not come.

  “Well?” the Adelinne asked.

  “I will go down for apples if you gather what you can find here.”

  This they did. Elske went on to blindly reach fruit down from low branches, then she returned to where they had separated, to wait until the Adelinne found her. Night lay over them as undisturbed as a heavy robe as they crept back along the side of the villa until the light guided them back to the opened window. Her mistress stepped up on Elske’s cupped hands to make an easy ascent back into the chamber. Elske clambered after her.

  Her mistress had tied her cloak up around its burden of plump onions. She bent to untie it while Elske pulled the window closed.

  “Were there apples?” The Adelinne held a hand out, and when Elske gave her one, she bit into it. With the apple held in her teeth, she shrugged off her cloak and went to the cupboard, from which she took the dagger Elske had hidden there. “I’ll have two of the onions,” she said. “And you? What do you want?”

  Elske added one onion for herself, out of curiosity. With the onions, her mistress threaded two of the apples onto her dagger, which she held into the flames of the open stove. As they heated, their skin blistered and blackened, and then it split. A liquid, clear and sweet-smelling, like the blood of the apple, oozed through the split skins. The onions, too, bled so. The chamber air was perfumed with the smells of cooking onions and apples.

  They ate gingerly, so as not to burn their fingers, and without speaking. The stove consumed whatever they did not—the thick papery outer layers of onions, the cores of the apples. “Better,” the Adelinne said, and said no more. She merely went across to the privy and returned, to climb up onto her bed.

  Elske picked up the cloak from the floor and placed the uneaten apples and onions into the cupboard. She had never expected to be locked in, and she couldn’t guess how long it would be before they were released. Furthermore, she had never seen Var Vladislav, or spoken with him, so she had no idea how he planned to deal with this willful Adelinne. They two might well spend the whole Courting Winter locked into these rooms together.

  Elske thought, she could be in worse company, for a winter’s imprisonment. She blew out the flames of the oil lamps.

  The Adelinne’s voice spoke out of darkness. “I sleep behind closed doors.”

  Elske pulled the door closed behind her and returned to her own pallet for what was left of the night.

  There were no windows in Elske’s antechamber, and so she did not know what hour of the night, or morning, it was when she was wakened by the sound of a key turning in the lock. No other sound followed, so she returned to her slumbers. How long after that it was that the door was opened and one of the kitchen maids set a tray on the floor, Elske couldn’t say.

  The tray was covered with a white cloth. Under the cloth were two bowls of porridge, with spoons, a platter of bread and cheese, and two cups of ale. Honey made a sweet pool at the center of each of the bowls of porridge.

  Elske pulled on her dress and then looked out into the hall, where the light showed her that morning was well begun. When she returned from the privy, she saw that a jug of water and a bowl had been set down beside the tray. The water was warmed, for washing. There had been no summons nor sound from beyond the bedchamber door, but the wooden door was so heavy and the villa walls so thick that Elske was not sure she would have heard any sound her mistress might have made.

  She pushed open the door. A still mound lay on the bed. The fire in the stove had burned out and an early morning chill lingered in the room. Elske slipped into the chamber and took chunks of wood from the basket, opened the door and laid them on the glowing ashes. She blew into the heart of the fire until smoke rose in thin wisps. She closed the stove again.

  Turning, she saw that the still figure had not moved.

  Outside, beyond the windows, beyond the grass on which sheep grazed, the river was flowing, and beyond that she saw the mainland shore, where forests stretched back endlessly.

  “Leave me,” ordered a voice behind her.

  Before drawing the door closed behind her, Elske said, “There is a tray here, with food, when you wish it, my Lady.”

  It wasn’t long before the door opened and the Adelinne stood in it, her wrapper tied at the waist, in stocking feet, her face expressionless. “The chamber pot is ready. You may bring in the tray,” she said, and withdrew to sit at her table beneath the windows. Elske brought in the tray, and uncovered it. She removed the chamber pot and emptied it into the privy, then returned for whatever service might next be required.

  Her mistress ate hungrily, spoonfuls of porridge. She drank at the cup of ale, took a chunk of bread and finally asked impatiently, “Do you expect to be asked to sit down with me?” She thrust the second bowl of porridge into Elske’s hands. “Do you need to be told to eat? What do you expect?”

  “I don’t know what to expect, my Lady.”

  The dark blue eyes studied her suspiciously. “I can tell you to expect no coins of me. My purse is empty. Have you never served an Adelier before?”

  “No, my Lady.”

  “Eat, then, Elske, and trust me to instruct you how to serve me to my satisfaction. And I don’t mind admitting that you have thus far proved satisfactory.”

  Elske smiled to hear that, for if she had a choice of masters this Adelinne would be the one she chose.

  “Of course,” her mistress went on, “good beginnings can lead to bad ends. But today, I will walk out and you will accompany me. While Adelinnes are usually taken out only for display, to flirt and attract, we are permitted exercise in good weather. When there are entertainments, Assemblies, and dances, you must accompany me.” She watched Elske’s face, as if it were a page of words she was puzzling out. “As my maidservant, you eat what I eat, and when we dine, we dine alone. At feasts, you serve me and do not eat. You may have the bathwater when I am done. Now, you may sit on the stool, and eat your porridge,” her mistress told her, and Elske obeyed.

  Her mistress remained lost in thought for some time.

  Then, “When you return this tray to the kitchen, tell them: I will bathe this evening. Also tell them: I require wine with my midday meal, and tell them also that I have no coins in my purse.”

  “Why should they know anything of your purse?” Elske wondered.

  “Because those who serve the Adeliers expect coins for every service. But my gold is already spent, and much besides, too.”

  Elske protested. “I don’t wish to tell them that, my Lady, for your sake. These are proud servants, for this is the house of the High Councillor—”

  “Servants too proud to take coins?” Her mistress was doubtful.

  “Too proud to ask for coins,” Elske said, “and also ashamed not to be given them. It is better to tell them nothing of your purse; they will assume that your purse is fat and it will be only a matter of time before you fill theirs, when we come to the end of the Courting Winter.”

  “You presume to advise me?”

  “Why should you wish the house servants to neglect you?”

  “You presume to know better than I how to deal with servants?”

  “Yes, my Lady, since I know them a little and you know them not at all.”

  The Adelinne stood up then. “I think I know now why they chose you for me. They think your disobedience will be their revenge on me. But understand this, Elske: I will be obeyed. I will not keep my pennilessness a secret, as if I were ashamed. Any person who serve
s me, and any man who courts me—which is unlikely, since they send me dowerless to Trastad—will take me for myself alone. I offer nothing more.”

  “Yes, my Lady,” Elske said. The Volkaric would not wear their pride on that shoulder, but that didn’t mean they went naked of pride. She picked up the tray.

  “All the same,” her mistress said, now, “I will ask you not to tell them in the kitchen that my purse is empty.”

  In the cook room, Elske delivered her Lady’s instructions.

  “She wants wine, is it? And a bath? She’s realized how soft a bed she’s sleeping in, and quickly, too, hasn’t she? It didn’t take long for her to show us her true colors, this Fiendly Princess. You’ll soon be wishing yourself back in the peace and quiet of the laundry room, Elske.”

  Elske did not think so, but said nothing. “Will more Adelinnes come to this house?” she asked, and they told her that for the High Councillor to take in even one was unusual. So Elske asked when the Assemblies would begin, and was told, “All in good time, tell her. Tell Lady Impatience that.”

  “She will walk outside today.”

  “You must be with her at all times, especially such a one as she. If we were to send her back ruined to her home, other fathers might keep their daughters from us, and there would be no Courting Winters in Trastad, and then where would we find the gold to pay the Emperor’s tribute? She is in your keeping, Elske, and if harm comes to her, you are for the cells.”

  “Why should harm come to her?” Elske asked, and the other servants exchanged knowing looks.

  “She is the kind of Adelinne who puts herself in harm’s way. She does not behave as a Princess ought.”

  “Because she is a Queen,” Elske explained.

  “And I am the Emperor’s daughter,” they laughed.

  Elske returned to her mistress’s bedchamber, where she was told, “Fetch my cloak. I am restless.”

  The proper way to the outside was through the dining chamber, a door that opened onto the lawns they saw from the windows. Outside, a wind blew, but not ungently, and her mistress instructed, “You will follow me.”

  “Yes, my Lady,” Elske answered and fell into step behind her mistress, but the Adelinne said, “You must keep close enough that we can speak,” and Elske stepped obediently up to her mistress’s shoulder, remaining just a little behind.