by Ross Kitson
***
The Great Hall of the Keep had witnessed many celebrations in its thirteen hundred year history, and each one had left a mark on its weary timbers. Legend told that King Tilmoth the Eighth, the first Emperor of Eeria, planned the great push west into Midlund that was to signal the onset of the First Empire in this hall. Legend also had it that the coup that ended that self-same empire two hundred years later was ironically plotted at the long oaken table by Lord Ebon-Farr’s ancestors and the attendant Knights of the Air.
Such history was lost on Emelia as she scrubbed the remnants of the previous night’s feast from those knowledgeable timbers. Yet even as she winced with each push of her arm, as the scabs on her back cracked and oozed, part of her wondered at what this vast chamber must have seen.
The past is just dust and whispers on the winds of nostalgia, said Emebaka.
It was true to some degree, Emelia considered. She was working on a stubborn red wine stain with her wire brush. It had taken almost all of the day to clean the hall. Where was the honour of yesteryear in the Ebon-Farrs now? Her respect for Lord Talis dwindled as each day between her and her move to the Enclave drifted past. Erica Ebon-Farr was like a vacuous kitchen cat, lapping up attention and fuss. As for Uthor: she still shuddered at the memory of the night a week ago that had earned her the welts she still bore across her back.
She paused to get her breath and surveyed the Hall. A dozen torches sputtered in their sconces along the walls. The room was a hundred feet long with a vaulted ceiling and stone walls adorned with memorabilia of an age far prouder than this. The other girls had been all of a twitter last night about the feast being held in honour of Uthor’s entrance to the Knights of Air.
Emelia had been confined to the kitchens where she was run ragged and had to endure the continual glares of Captain Ris as he sat at the edge of the hard graft. The death of two of his guard weighed heavily on him and the Enclave had been alerted about the presence of dark-magic within Coonor. Emelia was convinced Ris suspected that she was involved somehow. Yet logic clearly told Ris that a runaway housemaid could not really be implicated and after her caning Emelia did not dare to brooch the subject with him.
Gloom had returned to her mind during this last week. Every part of her life was shaded grey, like she was becoming as unfeeling as the stone around her. Her thoughts often wandered to the nightmare that had troubled her as a child. In the daytime she kept ruminating about the Dark-mage that she had disturbed that night and about the certainty that she was losing her mind.
However, the days were a welcome break from the nights where the dream about being a lamb chased by the wild dog had become more vivid. She would awaken lathered in sweat to mumbled threats from the other girls in her room with whom her popularity could not be much lower.
She moped over to the window, her finger tracing a trail on the dusty glass. The Great Hall was situated on the opposite side of the corridor to Lord Ebon-Farr’s chambers where she had met the Arch-mage Inkas-Tarr a month or so ago. Normally there would be a fine view of the city from here; the square below was in front of the gatehouse, where the garrison drilled. Wide avenues that lead into the upper city ran from its edges. A black cloud had been persistent since the night she had met Torm in the kitchen and now rain and wind battered the window’s exterior.
Last night’s dream had been especially intense, leaving her awake from before dawn and thus tired and grouchy. She shuddered as she recalled the sensation of striking the cobbles in the dream, that odd sensation that was not pain yet was some ethereal discomfort akin to it.
A sudden gust of wind thrust one of the windows open. The torches flickered and then extinguished. The Hall deepened into gloom.
Terror ran through Emelia as the wind howled through the Hall. She dropped her brush and ran by the windows until she reached the open one. With all her strength she shoved against the pane, closing it to a degree where she could lower the rusty latch.
The drop in the noise of the wind left the hall in silence. Emelia strained her ears, suddenly uncertain as to whether she could hear a noise. Slow footsteps resonated in the corridor outside, echoing in the dark hall.
A tingle of apprehension arose in Emelia’s chest. What in the Pale was happening to her? She was treading on egg shells. The footsteps could be anyone. There was no reason to think it was the dark sorcerer. Surely she was safe in the Keep and would continue to be so when she went to the Enclave?
An instinct made her drop to her knees and crawl under the huge table. She was shaking again and she bit her lip in anger. This was insane—the Keep was safe.
Yet was it? The Dark-mage had inferred he knew Inkas-Tarr. And if he knew the Arch-mage then surely he would know Lord Ebon-Farr. But that didn’t make sense. The Eerians were arrogant and condescending, but they weren’t evil. Yet the Dark-mage was in Coonor for a reason—some nefarious purpose at the cemetery—and she had disturbed him. He knew who she was, she was certain. And she had seen him emerge from the shadows.
Her heart stopped in abject dread. He came from the shadows. The room was dense with them. She scrambled forwards under the table; she had to get into the light.
The door to the Great Hall creaked and Sandila entered carrying a bowl covered by a cloth. She was framed in an aura of light. Her ginger hair was tied back and smeared with grease and ash. Sandila’s round face was ruddy with the exertion of climbing several flights of stairs.
“Torik’s wind, I can’t see a bloody thing in here!” she said with a laugh. Sandila stepped out and returned with a torch from the corridor and proceeded to ignite four others on the wall.
Emelia ducked her gaze; she had been avoiding her friend since she had run away from her and Mother Gresham in the market square.
Sandila strolled to the edge of the table near Emelia and slid her bottom onto the surface. Slipping off the cloth, she plucked a red grape from the bowl and bit into it.
“You’ve missed a patch there.”
Emelia flushed and was about recommence her scrubbing and hope her friend would leave when, jaw muscles twitching, she retorted.
“You know where the brush is.”
Sandila laughed, her grin lighting up the room. “Ha. That’s more like it. I wondered where the old Emelia was hiding. Working in the dark doesn’t help so much with finding the stains, love.”
Emelia felt as if a weight was being hoisted off her shoulders.
“Sandy, I’m really, really…”
“Yeah, I know,” Sandila said. “Would you like some grapes?”
“Grapes? Um… well, yes. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Pinched them from the pantry. One good thing about being ‘this way’ is that everyone avoids being near you, like they’re worried they’ll catch my… trouble.”
Emelia nodded, rubbing the back of her neck. She sat next to Sandila and plucked some red grapes.
“So do you want a hand then? There’s lots of spilt wine and ale on these boards. What a set of greedy fat buggers.”
“Are you fine to help, Sandy? I mean is your sickness better?”
Sandila paused then stood and strode to the window leaving the grapes on the table. She stared out at the square.
“Yes, that’s the funny thing isn’t it? Mother says that’s usually how it goes. First sickness, then showing and then swelling. But fine to work? Sure… I’d say my little rest is well and truly over.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t with you at the wise woman’s place.”
“I’ve said I know you are. Torik’s wind, you were better off running around the pubs of Cheapside. I’ve never been to a worse place in all my days! The hovel was so vile I thought I’d be stuck to the floor for a week. It was like being in a room coated with honey, except it stank.”
“Oh that’s disgusting.”
“Yeah tell me about it. And the crone that looked at me smelt like a garrison’s privy. What a nightmare. And just when I’m sick as a dog.”
“Was
your malady cured?” Emelia asked, rising from the table.
Sandila hesitated then turned slowly, a look of amusement on her face.
“Cured?” she said. “You really don’t have a clue about all this do you? Oh, Emelia, I will miss you when you’re gone. Your naivety is a light in the gloom of this place.”
“That’s not fair, Sandy. I do know about… about womanly things. I know of the world.”
“All right, all right—sorry to touch a nerve. No, I’m not afflicted with some pox or worms or such like. I’m with child.”
Emelia’s eyes widened at the news. A shudder worked its way through her, a sense of foreboding.
“Oh, Sandy. Oh. How... err, how has it..?”
“Happened? That’s a talk for another day, my little Emelia. Foolishness? My own innocence? Duped by the syrupy words of a rich boy? Not the first and certainly not the last to get caught that way.”
“What will you do?”
“Mother feels there are two choices. I can go see the crone and she will use slippery elm and that will be the end of it. Or I see it through and am cast onto the streets of Coonor for bringing shame upon the household, left to beg in the warrens of Cheapside.”
Emelia looked with sorrow at her friend. The vivacious Azaguntan seemed diminished, like she had lost some of herself to this problem. Her mind swirled with things to try and say.
“By Torik, that’s …”
“Not a great choice. Mother says in truth I have none. She’s arranged my return to the hag’s boudoir.”
The two girls hugged—faces damp with tears—clutching each other as if by pressing themselves together it would in some small way make them bond forever. They clung like reunited lovers for several quiet minutes and it was Sandila who broke the silence, her voice thick with emotion.
“It’s all changing, little Em. Our days of childish fun, if ever they were really there, are fading like the snows of early spring. Within days you’ll be a servant at the Enclave and it’ll be years until we are free from our servitude and get chance to see each other again. As for me… whatever I choose it’ll never be the same.”
“It’s not fair.”
“What is? Was it fair that the gods watched uncaring as our parents sold us on—me from my tiny village in Azagunta or you from your little island? You know, still now I sometimes awaken crying, thinking of my father’s sobs as they took me, his sheep bleating around him and his hound wining.”
“Your father was a shepherd? I never knew that.”
“Why would you? The brazen Sandila, a shepherd’s daughter—my father’s little lamb. But for the roll of Engin’s dice I would be sat chewing bread on a blustery hilltop, not scraping sick and wine from the floor of our callous masters.”
“Why… why did he put you into service?”
“Money… and safety,” Sandila said. “He was in debt to a landowner and there had been threats that I would be taken and put into… shall we say unpleasant work in the docks of Kir. It was the only way he could do it… I’m certain.”
Emelia nodded at Sandila’s statement, her mind drifting to her own servitude. Idly her fingers twiddled with the shell pendant around her neck. Perhaps the famine in the Islands had been so severe that if she hadn’t entered service then all her family would have died. That surely made it justifiable—didn’t it?
Emelia broke the silence. “I’m almost done here anyway. Are you going back down to the kitchen?”
“No. No. I’ve got something to put to rest,” Sandila said. “Look, Emelia, sorry I’m a bit… well… not myself. Remember me for the joyful times, not for the last few weeks, eh?”
“I shall, of course I shall.”
“And don’t let go of those dreams of yours. Dream of a better life than this and who knows what may happen one day.”
Sandila strode out of the hall and Emelia stared after her thoughtfully. Dreams were all the servants had that were truly their own. The one thing they did not have to concede.
