Weaving Man: Book One of The Prophecy Series

by Tove Foss Ford

  Menders shrugged, dug his shovel into a snow bank and offered her his arm. She took it.

  After almost a year at The Shadows, Menders and Ermina Trottenheim had reached an unspoken arrangement. They no longer clashed, as she kept to her duties as housekeeper and didn’t interfere with his management of the estate or the Princess. He dealt with her mainly by avoiding her.

  “Why don’t you be polite and ask me how I am?” she asked, a little kittenishly.

  “All right then, how are you?” Menders felt uncomfortable.

  “Fine. I wanted to thank you for how hard you’ve been working to keep us all happy this winter. You don’t think anyone realizes what you’ve done, but we do. It could have been horrible. You’ve made it very special.”

  “There’s plenty of winter to come yet,” Menders replied.

  “Yes, and I’m sure you’ll think up something like a hopfootle tournament or a pillow fight,” she teased.

  He smiled then, she laughed and they skated on in silence.

  “I didn’t have a childhood,” he said suddenly, surprising himself. “I think I’m having it now, this winter.”

  “You’re nothing like a child. Let’s spin,” Ermina Trottenheim answered, swinging around in front of him and grabbing his hands. “But not until we fall, nothing is harder to fall on than ice.”

  He caught her hands and leaned back, starting them spinning. Slower than when Cook whirled him around, slow enough to be able to see her laughing. He couldn’t help smiling.

  They spun to a stop and stood there dizzily. Then she shivered and Menders realized that the sun had dropped completely.

  “Go inside, it’s getting very cold,” he suggested, helping her over to the bank. “I have to finish this and put the shovel away.”

  “Getting rid of me?”

  “No, looking out for your welfare. And I thought you didn’t particularly like me, Mistress Trottenheim.”

  “You’re not so bad,” she said with another smile. “I expect I’ve gotten used to you. You’d think after all this time you might call me Ermina. After all, I don’t call you Mister Menders anymore.”

  She removed her skates and walked away toward the house without a backward glance.

  Menders retrieved the shovel and continued with the expansion of the skating area, not going in until Cook bellowed out the door that he would go without his birthday dinner if he didn’t get in to the table right now.

  ***

  Dear Menders,

  We were delighted to hear from you! Olner learned through Thoren Bartan that you had been sent away with the baby Princess. Before he told us, we feared you had been hurt or killed and removed from the official records.

  Olner says you are wise to be concerned about plots. Of course, there is always something brewing isn’t there, dear friend? I am enclosing a list of details. After all, this is Mordania. No wonder our Queens are so hard. None have been deposed from the Throne since Clearheart, but it hasn’t been for want of trying.

  Our present monarch is in her cups much of the time now, very ineffectual, and people are frightened by the stories that go around about Princess Aidelia. Olner fears an overthrow may be in the offing. As far as we know, little is known about the existence of Princess Katrin.

  Regarding your enquiry about your housekeeper, it sounds as if you’ve been saddled with Ermina Trottenheim. She’s a shrew, manipulative and self-serving as well. I shall intrude enough to warn you not to get involved with her. She has had some tragedy in her life, but even before then she was not a pleasant person. She caused a great deal of trouble at Court by spreading rumors and setting people up against one another. Of the people you were sent out with, she is the one most likely to cause you trouble. Olner has made enquiries about her husband. He had nothing to do with Special Services, but was good with a knife, so it’s likely Mistress Trottenheim did indeed learn that knife trick from him.

  I have given your address to your particular friends Haakel and Bertel. Menck and Commandant Komroff told Olner that they had heard from you and will be writing soon. Ifor Trantz has suffered an injury and his partner, Falk, was killed in the same incident – which you probably know, as you were in Surelia at the same time. We have lost track of where Ifor is. Rumor has it that he is in dire financial straits since being demobilized from Special Services with no pension.

  We are well. We miss you at our socials and dinners. Do write soon again, we will be very glad to keep you informed.

  Affectionately,

  Cahrin

  Menders finished the letter, put it down and sighed a little. He missed his friends and the social life he’d had in Erdahn. He had no close family alive, only first cousins he’d never met. His friendships had filled a gap in his life.

  The news of Ifor Trantz having disappeared was particularly disturbing. Trantz had been one of his tutors at the Military Academy and Menders had worked with him in Surelia as well. To know that Ifor was struggling now was exasperating, considering the man’s excellent record and years of self-sacrifice and service to Mordania.

  He looked ruefully at Cahrin’s warning about Ermina. Cahrin’s letter had been delayed by bad weather which had set in on his birthday, the evening he and Ermina had skated together. Trains had not gotten through for almost two months. Menders, contrary to his usual caution, had gotten very drunk at the birthday party put on for him by the household.

  He had ended up in bed with Ermina – and he was well aware that it wasn’t a love affair. It satisfied a need, but he feared it had opened a door to unwanted complication in his life. He also knew that he had been manipulated in that direction by Ermina and had taken the bait like an absolute fool.

  ***

  Franz paused in Menders’ office doorway.

  “Want me to tell you something you don’t want to hear?” he asked.

  “No,” Menders answered. He was preoccupied with simultaneously writing an order for kitchen staples and holding Katrin, who was bouncing on his lap and trying to take things off his desk.

  “My young friend, I’m going to say it anyway, just so I clear my conscience,” Franz persisted, stepping into the office and closing the door behind him.

  “Why can’t I just order three hundred pounds of flour all at once and be done with it for a year?” Menders asked.

  “Because if you do it gets full of weevils before you get to use it up,” Franz answered, perching on the edge of the desk and making faces to make Katrin laugh. “Everyone knows that.”

  “Right.” Menders took a pencil out of Katrin’s mouth and returned to his order, refusing to look up at Franz. He knew what the doctor was going to say and he didn’t want to hear it. Katrin retaliated by slapping the desk with her open hands and singing wordlessly.

  “You and she are not compatible,” Franz said quietly.

  Menders looked up at him without a word.

  Franz rose and walked across the room.

  “I was afraid of this,” he sighed. “You’re stuck out here together, you’re of an age, she’s a pretty thing and it’s obvious she’s decided to set her cap for you. I know it’s pointless for me to say this, but it would be best if you stopped before things went any further.”

  Menders still didn’t respond. He put his pen down and lifted Katrin over his head. She was now a year old, robust and bright. She knew that she was distracting him and wanted him to stop writing and play with her instead.

  “Menders, there is no way that you are going to be able to give Ermina what she wants. I don’t think any man could do it, because no matter how much you gave, it would never be enough.” Franz turned away from the window and put his hands in his pockets. “She has a difficult disposition and it hasn’t improved. I thought at first it was because of the deaths of her husband and child, but I’m starting to believe it’s inherent. Some women are that way.”

  “Age speaking to youth?” Menders said sarcastically.

  Franz sighed. “Past unhappy experience. Wasting my time?�
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  “No,” Menders replied, settling his baby on his lap again. “I appreciate your honesty, and your friendship.”

  “She’ll want you to marry her. Maybe not now, but in time.”

  “I will never marry,” Menders said, looking up at him.

  “That’s a bold statement,” Franz said, “although I had assumed as much.”

  “I’ll tell her that before things go any further. I’ve intended to,” Menders went on.

  “She won’t believe you. She’ll think she can change you. She’ll try to be first with you and she’ll be jealous of Katrin.”

  “Katrin will always be first,” Menders said quietly, looking at the child. She repeated her name and patted his face.

  “Are you in love with Ermina?” Franz asked quickly.

  Menders turned away and said nothing. He wasn’t, and that truth made him feel that he was using her. He was also painfully aware that she was using him.

  Franz waited for a few moments, and then left without a word.

  (10)

  Cut Down

  Ermina raised herself on one elbow and leaned over Menders in a cascade of dark hair before kissing his mouth. He looped an arm around her smooth back and held her close.

  He had some gratification from the physical side of their relationship. She wasn’t bad in bed, though he was aware that a great deal of her performance was purely theatrical and not genuine. He needed the physical release. He was young and virile and, in some ways, needed to remind himself of the fact. His responsibilities and heavy workload often made him forget that he was only twenty-one.

  Emotionally, he was left cold and feeling less than chivalrous, boxed in by the situation. He was making the best of it, hoping that Ermina would be satisfied with what he could give and that she wouldn’t begin demanding what he could not offer her. So far she had been quite sweet and openly adoring – but he felt that a lot was lurking under the pretty surface of the situation.

  The affair had put distance between Menders and the rest of the household, as it could hardly be kept secret when everyone lived in such close proximity. The others disapproved. Ermina had never done anything to win friends among the residents of The Shadows. It hadn’t occurred to Menders at the time, but elevating Ermina from wet nurse to housekeeper last year had been perceived as favoritism by everyone.

  “She had better not come down here to my kitchen and start trying to lord it over me,” Cook rumpussed at the time. “I’ll give her a crack across the noggin with my spoon!” Cook had a favorite wooden spoon, nearly the size of a small boat paddle, which she wielded as her rod of authority in the kitchen. It had rapidly become known as ‘Cook’s particular spoon’ and was given a wide berth by anyone seeking to sample the cooking.

  The room was growing brighter as the sun rose and he nudged Ermina gently.

  “I need my glasses,” he said as she sat up, looking at him inquiringly.

  “Poor eyes,” she smiled, moving so he could reach over to the nightstand for his spectacles. He perched them on his nose.

  “The well-dressed gentleman this year will sport dark glasses and his birthday suit,” she said.

  “I should walk out like this and look in on Cook.”

  “She’d whack you with her particular spoon.” Ermina settled back on her pillows and stretched.

  Petite, bird-boned, delicate. He would never have guessed that she’d borne a child only a year ago. She’d been tightly corseted since childhood and he found her bizarrely small waist off-putting. Sadly, she was not even the physical type he was attracted to; he preferred hearty and healthy women with natural curvaceous figures, though he certainly would never intimate that to Ermina. She could no more help her tiny frame than he could his white eyes. She tried to be pleasant and intimate and he could certainly do the same, if only out of a sort of sympathy for her.

  “What does the lord of the manor intend to do with the day?” she asked.

  “Oh, I shall call in my mistresses and have my way with them for several hours, followed by an orgy with my Surelian slaves,” Menders answered, giving her a squeeze. She was in a nice mood this morning.

  “You’ll be a very busy boy,” she said. “I’ll be looking out the linens today while you’re wallowing in lust.”

  “In reality, I have to sort through the woodpile a bit, see about that broken window in the nursery, make some progress on the accounts I’ve been neglecting when I’m dallying with you in the afternoons, see Franz about this blasted eye again, ride out to Spaltz’s to see how Eiren’s getting along after being sick, and see the blacksmith about straightening the nursery fire poker, which has been severely bent. That should take me up to lunchtime.”

  She laughed merrily and then stopped when she saw his surprise.

  “You’re actually serious? All this before lunch?”

  “It’s a normal day. After lunch, time with Katrin of course, order seeds and supplies for the kitchen garden, and rope off the skating area. The ice is too thin for it to be safe anymore.”

  Ermina sat up and shook her head. “Give me the accounts. They’re ordered like the household ones, aren’t they? I’ll do them, you’re doing enough. You never stop moving, Menders.”

  “I’m afraid it’s the way I’m put together,” he sighed, rising and stretching mightily.

  “Very nicely indeed is the way you’re put together,” she flirted as he pulled on his trousers and shirt and let himself out into the hallway.

  He made his way to the kitchen and depleted Cook’s supply of hot water. After a bath in his room, he shaded the window and studied his left eye in the mirror.

  A splinter had flown up under the bottom of his glasses while he was splitting a log a week ago. It lodged in the corner of his left eye. In a reflex action he’d rubbed it. Franz had extracted the splinter and the damaged eye was responding to treatment, but slight infection of the injury was causing an irritating sensation of itching and burning.

  His eye was filmed with tears, even with the low light and it looked redder than it had been. Menders decided to see Franz as soon as he was in his office rather than fooling around with woodpiles and windows. Perhaps a change of medications was needed. He felt unusually tired and his thoughts were moving very slowly this morning.

  While waiting for the good doctor, Menders went up to see Katrin.

  The nursery was still quiet, with no indication that either Kata or Katrin were awake. Menders opened the door a crack and peeped in. As usual on fine mornings, it was a bright and cheery place, flooded with sunlight.

  Katrin opened her eyes and rose in her crib, grinning and shaking the crib bars resoundingly.

  “Menders, Menders!” she shouted, bouncing on her toes.

  A groan came from the nurse’s room where Kata was still trying to sleep. Menders hushed Katrin as he lifted her out of the crib.

  “Noisy Little Princess,” he smiled as she put her arms around his neck and snuggled against him. He took her to the nurse’s chair. She stood on his lap and grinned into his face delightedly, ready to start the day, overjoyed that he was with her.

  “Do you know that it’s going to turn green outside soon, Snowflower?” he told her. “There are snowflowers coming up through the snow. Just like your nickname. I’ll take you out later so you can see them. They’re white and gold, just like you are. We’ll get your sled out and you can have a ride around the garden.” He went on with similar chatter while Katrin alternated between listening intently, as if she understood every word, and crowing happily.

  Suddenly she reached out and pulled his dark glasses off.

  Pain flared from his damaged eye to his brain. The brilliant sunlight flooding his retinas felt as if someone had thrust the stem of a broken wineglass into his eye.

  Menders cried out, squeezing his eyes shut as they streamed with tears. He groped for his glasses.

  “Here, Mister Menders,” Kata said. She put the glasses into his hand. He could hear Katrin beginning to cry fearfully.r />
  He shoved the glasses on his nose but still couldn’t open his eyes. The pain was too great. Katrin was crying abjectly and he gathered her close.

  “No, don’t cry, it’s all right. Shh. You couldn’t know what taking those off my nose would do. Don’t cry.” With similar soft words, he comforted her as he worked his eyes open. He could see her blearily, reaching out with her little hands to pat his face.

  “Menders,” she said mournfully, her forehead wrinkled with worry.

  “See there, now I have my eyes open,” he told her. The pain was incredible and tears were running down the inside of his nose. “Everything is fine.” He held her close and kissed her several times.

  “Kata, could you take her? I have to see Doctor Franz. Don’t scold her. Try to comfort her, it isn’t her fault.”

  He stumbled from the nursery, then groped for the stairs. He could just manage to keep his right eye open, but the left was pure agony if light struck it.

  He managed to get to the first floor and heard Ermina gasp as she came out of her room.

  “What happened? Menders, darling, what happened?” she said shrilly.

  “Nothing serious. Katrin pulled my glasses off and that damned eye is so sensitive. Can you help me get to Franz’s room?”

  “That wicked girl! Poor love, here.”

  “She’s not wicked! Don’t be absurd,” Menders snapped, as Ermina put an arm around his waist and led him down the hallway to Franz’s office. “It was an accident, she didn’t mean it. Don’t you go chastising her.”