by A. F. Dery
“But you are an Eladrian!” Kesara blurted out before she could think better of it. She flushed and Darius laughed.
“Just because military service is compulsory does not mean we are all suited for it,” he grinned. “I am far better at being a steward. I put in the required time in the Army and was hired immediately thereafter into the Keep’s service, and believe me, those two years in active duty were the longest of my life!”
“Two years? I thought it was supposed to be four,” she said warily.
“It depends on the material.” Again Darius looked rueful, leaning back in his chair. “If a soldier shows sufficient aptitude to be trained in a specialty, their required term of service is four years to allow for this. It is considered a great honor to be retained that long and many strive for it, just because their preference is military service over mining. The wages are comparable by the time you make it to your third year, or so I’m told.”
“So you did not specialize,” she observed.
“No, but I did so well with the administrative aspects of soldiering that I was given a personal recommendation by my lieutenant for work in the Keep, and so here I am. Oh, not immediately, of course- I had to work my way up to my present position. But I would not be anywhere else, however...taxing our Lord’s views on the size of his personal staff can be.”
“That must be why you made it to steward,” Kesara said, unable to help a small smile. “I have noticed that those who like and appreciate their work, even with its difficulties, tend to be better at performing it than those who rail against their fates.” She thought, but did not say aloud, that she felt that this was the very reason why she had fared so much better than her peers in her training as a Mirror.
“I have noticed the same, miss,” Darius said, his eyes bright. “And it is my hope you will feel the same about your work in the tower before too long. It can be a bit of an adjustment for most people, but it all tends to work out in the end.”
“Because of the long hours?”
“The long hours, and, well, to be frank about it, growing accustomed to interactions with His Lordship.” Darius hesitated, as if considering his words more carefully. “He is a good man and we are all very loyal to him.”
“I’d noticed,” Kesara remarked dryly.
“And he treats us very well. He is not a man usually given to fits of caprice or temper, and he is always very clear about his expectations.”
“So what is there to adjust to?”
For the first time, Darius looked away, now studying the tapestry on the wall instead of her face. And that’s when it dawned on her. “Surely you don’t mean Lord Eladria’s appearance?”
“Most of servants in the other parts of the Keep see him only in passing unless they have served, and you can’t have failed to notice that it can be difficult at first to understand him,” Darius said slowly. “He does not seem to be overly sensitive about these things, but causing him offense is something we cannot help but dread.”
A rather sick feeling came over Kesara as something finally clicked in her mind. “Is that why he is called ‘Dread Lord?’ Because of his face?”
“In a manner of speaking. But it is not my place to discuss that with you,” Darius shifted uncomfortably in his seat, finally looking back to her.
She could only imagine what she must have looked like to him, her eyes wide as saucers and her lips pressed together in an effort not to try to wheedle it out of him. But with the typical Eladrian backbone, he said not another word on it, instead asking, “Do you think you will have difficulty taking verbal orders from him directly in future? Do be honest, miss. I will need to take that into account.”
Kesara thought of the conversations she had had with Lord Eladria. Sometimes his pronunciation or his inflections seemed a bit odd, but he was hardly incomprehensible. The only time he’d been truly difficult to make out had been the morning of their first meeting, when he’d been suffering so intensely.
How often, she wondered now, had he been suffering so, before Cook sent me to him?
“Miss?” Darius prompted, interrupting her thoughts.
“My apologies, sir. I do not believe I will have any difficulty if I am so called upon,” Kesara said, flushing a little at being caught so distracted.
“I know this may sound obvious, miss, especially as you have spent time with His Lordship recently, but it needs saying just the same, as I do with all those who work in the tower. In the ordinary course of your duties, even before receiving orders directly from His Lordship, you will still undoubtedly come across him sooner or later. You may not always expect to see him, but these are his living quarters and where he spends most of his time, outside of his duties with the military or when he travels. You must be careful not to stare, and to monitor your natural reactions to him. It is more than mere politeness, it is the respect that our Lord deserves, and nothing less will be tolerated, whatever favor you have managed to gain up till now.”
Kesara stared at him, speechless. He stared back almost smugly, looking for all the world as though he had just imparted a revolutionary piece of wisdom that could overthrow kingdoms and conquer worlds. She felt her hands start to tremble in her sudden agitation as she finally sputtered, “It is the respect that every sentient being deserves, Master Darius. To be treated with common dignity is not the sole province of the ruling nobility, and the very suggestion that Lord Eladria would be worthy of any less than that...hell, even these ridiculous questions that treat of him as though he is some sort of oddity or-or a caged beast at some festival show- I don’t even know if I ought to be insulted or if you’re just insulting him! I mean, what the hell!” She didn’t even know where to go from there. Her cheeks felt hot and her heart was pounding so loud she felt sure it must be drowning out her foolish outburst.
“You will watch your mouth, Ytaren,” Darius snapped, his brown eyes narrowing, all pleasantness evaporating in an instant. “I am doing my job, nothing more. The very intimation that I would be offering insult to his Lordship is simply beyond the pale. If this is how you carried on in the kitchen, I can plainly see why you met with such trouble there, and it’s nothing to do with where you’re from!”
She stared at him silently, certain that anything she said at this point would only reinforce his plummeting opinion of her. Most of the words screaming in her head at that moment were almost certainly not viable choices for actually uttering in polite company, still less in front of her new superior.
Meeting with her silence and perhaps interpreting it as submission of some kind, Darius said in a low voice, “I am trying to give you a chance here, can’t you see that? This sort of behavior from you is entirely unacceptable, and if anyone but our Lord himself had recommended you to me, you would be halfway out the front gates by now. You will show me the appropriate respect, or you will leave. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “I apologize for my outburst. It won’t happen again.” The words tasted horribly bitter but she somehow choked them out. Her eyes suddenly stung with tears of frustration. She knew she couldn’t afford to lose this position and couldn’t expect Lord Eladria to rescue her from circumstances of her own making, and as her anger began to cool, she felt mortified she’d reacted that way. Whatever her personal feelings on the subject, she ought to have kept them to herself- she knew full well this easy facade of casual friendliness from the steward was just that, a facade. He was no friend of hers, and she knew better than this. What is wrong with me?
“It had best not,” Darius said tightly, but he dropped his eyes, seeming once again uncomfortable. He cleared his throat and added in a gentler tone,”I realize this change might be stressful for you. You are expecting things to be as they were in the kitchens, but they are not. Let us forget this...incident, and start again, shall we?”
“Yes, sir,” she repeated meekly, trying to swipe inconspicuously at her eyes with her sleeve.
But she knew, however convenient
ly faulty his memory was, she would not forget.
By the time dusk fell and Darius had taken her painstakingly through each step of her new duties in the tower library, Kesara felt utterly numb. She was exhausted, not due to exertion- for Darius had simply explained each task and asked her to demonstrate her understanding- but due to the mind-numbing tedium of having each detail explained to her in a tone and with words usually reserved for young children and the mentally addled.
She felt sure that while she had been neither when she first started, she had become the latter by the time Darius had finished with her for the day. Any hopes she may have nurtured of their earlier conflict causing him to conveniently forget his offer to be her guide on the Eladrians’ judgment day along with her offensive behavior died a quick death by the time she demonstrated her mastery with a cleaning rag (only barely restraining her eyes from rolling) and he had again insisted, beaming, that she address him by his given name. His earlier friendliness had returned in force and she had departed the tower with alacrity the moment he had excused her, fearing any more unwanted offers if she lingered.
Such was her haste that, turning a sharp corner blindly in the long hallway that led towards the stairwell, she cannoned directly into what felt like a brick wall. She fell back hard on her rear end, her head snapping back to hit the stone floor with a crack. All the air was effectively knocked from her lungs and she was momentarily dazed, stars flooding her vision.
Before those stars had even managed to dissipate, she felt what was either an arm or a tree trunk curve around her waist and lift her swiftly to her feet, where she swayed so unsteadily that either a hand or perhaps an errant branch enclosed her shoulder, holding her upright.
“Good gods, are you all right?” came a bemused, and all too familiar, voice. “I more than half expect to see the dark god’s hunting hounds only a moment behind you!”
Of all the people I had to run into, she mourned inwardly. Will this miserable day never end? She tried to blink away the bright spots and drag in a new breath at the same time and heard a rather unfortunate snapping sound.
Recalling at the sound of a sudden intake of breath that was not hers that she had been asked a question, she fell back on her usual reply.
“I’m always fine, my lord,” she muttered on her exhalation, then everything went black.
CHAPTER SIX
Margaret could have sang, she was so happy. In fact, she found herself humming, and after catching herself at it two or three times, simply gave in, her cheeks feeling like they might split, so wide was her smile.
She was in her flower garden again, though actual gardening had been prohibited, and she was seated on its lonely stone bench. The flower bulbs in question that she had so carefully planted with her own hands only this past autumn all still slumbered in the cold, so there was not much to see: spring was on its way, but the nightly frosts had not yet ceased.
Even so, she thought she spied the beginnings of some tender green shoots amid the drab brown of her garden and she sighed at them dreamily.
“It will be so lovely when spring is really here,” she commented to the midwife, who stood over one of her shoulders.
She was not surprised when there was no answer. Lina was still seething at the present turn of events, for although the midwife herself had consented to “short walks,” she had objected strenuously to such walks taking place outside of the castle itself. Margaret had asserted herself with a spine born more of desperation than courage, and when Lord Malachi had lent his full support, Lina had heaved an exasperated sigh the moment he’d left the room and proceeded to offer Margaret dire warnings on all the things that could go wrong, under the guise of letting her know when to turn back.
Margaret had cheerfully ignored her, deciding simply to tell the older woman if she felt anything out of the ordinary, and here she was, seated in her garden, outside the castle walls for the first time in months. As cold as the air still was, it was also indescribably sweet, and she breathed deeply. The little one inside her belly felt as though he were dancing in there to the tune of his mother’s unconscious humming. She patted her belly gently and gazed up at an impossibly blue sky, her giddiness ebbing into genuine contentment.
Yes, life was finally good again. She was out of the castle and had been doing remarkably well. She felt fine, ate fine, and was already putting on weight again, so it came as a real mystery why Elsbeth continued to waste. The thought of the Mirror was enough to make Margaret’s smile dim a little. The woman in question was standing at the garden’s edge, holding herself and shivering. Margaret did not mind the cold at all, but she wondered guiltily whether it was actually the cold causing the Mirror to tremble, or the cost of Margaret moving about as she was, more than she had done since the Mirror’s coming.
It doesn’t make sense, Margaret thought, the sky suddenly seeming a little less blue to her. I’m doing so much better. How is it I’m still in pain? The midwife had speculated that Margaret’s pain had been causing her nausea, but the fact that the nausea was now entirely gone and she was feeling better than she ever had, with the Mirror somehow appearing to suffer more, seemed to contradict that theory. The two must not be related, but even the midwife seemed stumped.
Margaret sighed. She could not, would not let the Mirror spoil her outing. Who knew when she’d get another one, or what would happen tomorrow to undo all her splendid progress? She would sit here and enjoy it, and feel bad about it later. She couldn’t imagine that Elsbeth was enjoying her chaise in the corner of Margaret’s bed chamber all that much anyway. Surely she, too, appreciated some fresh air and a change of scenery!
Margaret glanced over at her, thinking to ask her this very thing, but the woman looked so miserable that she gave another sigh instead. So much for that idea!
“Mother Lina,” Margaret said humbly, “Would you consider getting a blanket or something for Elsbeth? She looks so cold over there.”
The midwife stiffened. “Perhaps we should just go back inside, my lady. It is still a little bitter out.”
“I’m not ready to go back in yet! We only just came outside,” Margaret protested, uncomfortably aware of how childish she sounded but unable to help herself. “Really, I’ll be fine for just a few minutes. I’ll sit right here and not move an inch, same as if I were inside.”
The midwife grimaced but said, “As you wish, my lady.” Once again, Margaret’s guilt renewed itself: she knew it wasn’t well done of her to expect her midwife to perform so lowly a task, and for another servant, at that, but there was no way she was ready to go back inside, and her guilty feelings insisted on being rendered some due if she was going to linger here at Elsbeth’s expense.
When the midwife had disappeared back inside the castle, Margaret looked to the Mirror and tried again. “Isn’t it nice, Elsbeth, to finally be outside those walls? You must be dreadfully tired of the view from my bed chamber window.”
The Mirror gave her a wan smile. “I didn’t mind it, my lady. Really, you ought not to take any trouble for my...comfort.”
Margaret tried to stifle another sigh. Before she could think of anything to say that didn’t sound remarkably like “don’t worry, I’m not!” she heard what she thought was the midwife returning with the blanket.
“Thank you, Lina,” Margaret said sincerely. But as she looked towards the newcomer, she realized it wasn’t the midwife at all. “Oh, I am sorry. I’d asked Lina to get a blanket for Elsbeth...”
Nora smiled toothily. “I know, milady. I found her in the corridor.”
Margaret frowned a little, noticing Nora was empty handed. “She didn’t send you with it, then?”
“I’m afraid not, milady.” Nora shrugged a little, as if to say, what can you do with these useless midwives?
“Well...do you know if she’s coming back out or not?” Margaret’s brow furrowed, an unaccustomed pang of annoyance shooting through her. She really didn’t think sending Lina for the blanket was a grave enough insult to warrant t
his kind of rudeness, and inwardly, she felt determined not to let her life turn back into what it was with her husband’s original three servants.
“I truly doubt it, milady,” the maidservant said apologetically. Margaret groaned a little, pressing her hand to her forehead. She suspected she’d obtained her husband’s support in coming out today precisely because she would be in the midwife’s company, and now she had apparently sent her off in high dudgeon and would have to make her way back inside unescorted. She felt her previous confidence in her seeming recovery begin to evaporate at the realization.
“Don’t fret, dear,” Nora said, coming over to stand next to the bench and placing a consoling hand on Margaret’s shoulder. “I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
There was an odd note to Nora’s voice that made Margaret look up at her in puzzlement, just in time to see the flash of the knife in Nora’s free hand as she swung it towards her.
Margaret let out a shriek, throwing out her arms to protect her rounded abdomen. The knife slashed across one arm, leaving a broad ribbon of bright crimson across her sleeve, but she felt no pain even as she heard Elsbeth gasp from the other side of the garden. Nora pulled back her arm, this time clearly intending to stab, and Margaret lurched off the bench, her uninjured arm shielding her belly and striking out blindly at the maidservant with her bloody one as she tried blindly to push past.
Nora stumbled back with a surprised oath, but immediately made a grab for her lady with her free hand, clutching a handful of Margaret’s dress and causing her to fall to one to knee with an oomph as she lost her already precarious balance.
“Don’t make this harder than it has to be, milady,” she hissed, again raising the knife. Margaret twisted away, her dress tearing in Nora’s grasp and tugging her off balance as well. Before she could regain it, Margaret threw her elbow down into the top of one of Nora’s feet.
