Elske

by Cynthia Voigt

  That night, Elske slept beside the warmth of coals, and woke early. She had the fire built up before anybody else stirred in the house; although, having done that, she could only sit beside it and wait for what the morning would bring.

  After their morning meal, the two men left the house for Old Trastad, leaving the women in charge of the shop and the home. Bertilde kept Nido back, to accompany her to the marketplace on Old Trastad, where she hoped to find a good fowl for the pot, and cabbage, and a fat, sweet onion, too. Elske, clothed now in a dress that rested light as a summer wind on her flesh, despite its long arms and tangling skirts, asked if she might go with the mother, but Bertilde told her that Nido couldn’t be expected to be protection for two women. So Elske stayed with the baby in the cook room, and when Karleen came running in with the troublesome news of eight kittens born, with none needed or wanted, Elske snapped their delicate damp necks while the sisters watched horrified through the window. She placed the bodies in a sack, which she left beside the shed.

  “She could have spared one!” Karleen cried, when her mother returned.

  “Taddus will remove the remains,” Bertilde answered. “None of us enjoy getting rid of kittens, so stop your sniveling, Karleen, and you, Dagma, spare us your outrage. You’re not children. You should be glad Elske was here, or you might have had to drown them yourselves.”

  “But why drown them when by snapping their necks they die quickly?” Elske asked.

  No one had an answer for her, and when Karleen reported Elske’s heartlessness to her father, at their meal, Tavyan told his family, “We’ve determined today what to do about Elske, at least until the Longest Night. Elske? Tomorrow, Taddus and Nido will take you to the house of Var Kenric, who is Idelle’s father. You will serve Idelle, until she marries.”

  Nido was holding his hands in front of him and twisting them, saying, “Snap! Snap!” until Sussi wept again and Dagma said, “That’s not funny, Nido,” and his father told him to behave himself, when he was at table.

  Elske asked, “And after she marries?”

  Taddus explained it. “I will be the husband. You can’t be my servant when we have traveled as equals.”

  Elske didn’t argue although she didn’t understand. After all, the Trastaders had their own ways as much as the Volkaric, and like the Volkaric, the Trastaders preferred their own ways. Who a servant was, for what work and uses, that she could guess at; and it was no more than who and what every woman of the Volkaric was.

  “By Longest Night we’ll have found you another place, for many houses take on extra servants in a Courting Winter. That’s my decision,” Tavyan told her, as if Elske had argued. But Elske had no such wish.

  Then the men told the gossip and news they had brought home from the city. Two ships had come into harbor, both with sails ripped out and one half-masted, reporting what they knew about the wrecks of the storm. It had not been as bad as it might have been, and none of the Adeliers had been lost. “Which is a piece of luck,” Taddus said, “although—” and then his shorn face lit up with laughter.

  There was one Princess, he reported, laughing with Tavyan at the story, one Adelinne who had refused to be sent belowdecks with the rest of her kind during the storm. The waves were tossing the ship about, as if it were no more than a leaf falling, and all the other Adeliers on board were weeping and vomiting below, making a great moan. This was trouble enough for the captain, who cared only about keeping his ship afloat, but here was this girl—no more than a girl, young for an Adelinne—stamping her foot at him, while the gale grabbed at her cloak. No, she would not go below, she told him. She didn’t have to obey him, or anyone, because she was a Queen and obeyed none but herself.

  Tavyan took up the tale. She was a brat, the captain had told her bluntly, a misbehaved and misguided brat, and if she was his own daughter she’d have the flat of his hand across her backside. But if she wouldn’t be sent below, he couldn’t waste the time worrying about the waves washing her overboard, so he turned his back on her.

  When the captain next thought of her, Taddus continued, there she was hauling down a sail, a sailor at work on either side of her, her hair hanging down wet, and her cloak soaked and dragging. She wasn’t afraid, not of waves, wind, water or drowning. She’d been as good as a sailor in the storm, the captain admitted, even though he’d have liked to throw her overboard with a stone tied to her ankles, for the trouble she’d have caused him had harm come to her.

  “Well, it’s a good profit we make from the Adeliers, so let them be a trouble,” Bertilde said, but nobody answered her because Dagma was exclaiming, “Who would want to marry such a girl?” and Nido said he wouldn’t, and Tavyan said he hoped this Princess had a rich dowry, because she would need it to overcome the reputation this story would earn her, growing fatter as it was told throughout the city until they would say she was sailing the boat alone, the captain clouted across the ears and sent about his business. Taddus wondered how she could have not been afraid, for the one storm he’d been caught in had been enough to overfill his stomach for sailing adventures.

  Elske asked, “A Queen? What is it, if she is a Queen?”

  “The Queen is the wife of a King,” Dagma told her.

  “As a Varinne is the wife of a Var,” Taddus explained. “Idelle’s father is Var Kenric and her mother thus becomes Varinne Kenric.”

  “But this girl—this Adelinne who claims to be a Queen—isn’t married, so no King has given her the title. So she’s a liar, as well,” Dagma laughed. “I pity the family that has her for guest, this winter.”

  “They’ll be given recompense,” Bertilde said. “I wouldn’t mind giving up a bedroom to have some Adelier filling my purse with coins.”

  “Just wait until I’m a shipbuilder, trained and proven,” Nido told her. “After Taddus and his sons have multiplied Var Kenric’s fortune, we’ll build you a villa on Logisle, and you can fill it to the roof beams with Adeliers.”

  “By that time, I’ll be too old for such things,” Bertilde said.

  “She must be swollen with pride,” Dagma said, “this Adelinne. And ignorant, to think she can fool us as to her station.”

  “She can’t be too proud,” her mother answered, “if she is sent to Trastad to catch herself a husband. Don’t waste jealousy on her, Dagma.”

  “I have no jealousy,” Dagma answered, but Karleen said to Elske, “My sister wishes her Henders were not a farmer. She will miss the easy life of the city.”

  “I am perfectly content with my choice of husband,” Dagma said.

  “As you should be,” her father told her. “You’ll be wife of a goodly house, and the flocks that feed around it.”

  “You’re the one jealous, for any husband,” Dagma said sharply to Karleen, who answered, “I need no lout of a husband, thank you, Sister,” and Elske wondered why, with stores against winter, warm fires and soft dresses, these girls should still speak as bitterly as the women of the Volkaric, who were the first to go hungry, and kept farthest from the fire. Her own belly was too full for bitterness.

  Chapter 5

  TADDUS AND NIDO DELIVERED ELSKE the next day to Var Kenric’s house and service. As they crossed the center market of Harboring, Nido pointed down an alley. “See that sign? With a ship’s wheel painted on it? My master’s workshop is there.” In only seven years, Nido told her, he would be a journeyman carpenter, sailing on merchant vessels as a skilled craftsman.

  The street they walked along branched down towards the riverside now, and there were no more taverns or market squares; the houses rose three stories tall and their shops were kept in separate buildings, beside. Taddus knocked on one of the wooden doors, then told Elske, “The Varinne hasn’t left her bed since winter. They say she is ill with the death of her sons.”

  Before he could tell her more, a grey-haired woman, pale as a parsnip, her grey dress covered by an apron, opened the door and asked them to step inside. “Idelle sits with the Varinne at this hour,” the woman said to
Taddus, who answered that he only wished to introduce Elske. “Elske, this is Ula, Idelle’s aunt. I will return this evening,” he said to the woman, who answered, “I should hope so, young master. May we be well met,” the woman said to Elske, who responded in echo, “May we be well met,” and the woman said, “Aunt, not servant. My husband was Var Kenric’s brother. When his ship went down, so many summers ago that I can no longer remember his face, I came here to live, to be of what use I can. So you are to be our young lady’s maidservant. It’s true enough that the Var is a busy man,” Ula told Elske, “and with no one to share his burdens—until our young mistress weds this handsome fellow, of course. But you go off now, young men. I have affairs to manage.”

  Tavyan’s sons left Elske to make her own way among these strangers and Ula hurried her upstairs to show her the chamber where she would sleep on the floor beside Idelle’s bed. “You’ll be comfortable,” Ula told her. “Now we’ll fit you out with a dress proper for Var Kenric’s servant, and shifts as well, I expect. I’ll teach you how to scarf your hair, first thing; you’ll not want it hanging loose. And stockings, I wager you have no stockings. Luckily I’ve stockings to spare, for you can’t go about bare-legged and be dead by midwinter. So we’ve undertaken to clothe you as well as house you, and feed you, and I hope you prove worth the trouble you’re causing. Put your cloak in here,” Ula told Elske, opening a chest at the foot of the bed. “I hope you’re strong,” Ula said, lowering the top of the chest. “I’ve been needing a kitchen girl for years, and it’s worse now with the Varinne useless. There’s only the two of us to get everything ready for the marriage day and the marriage feasts, since the Varinne has taken to her bed with grief and is determined to die there.”

  Elske followed Ula back down the stairs, and drew the high stockings she was given up over her knees, put on the light shift and the grey long-sleeved dress Ula found for her, and protected her skirts with an apron. Ula wrapped her head around with a soft white scarf, to cover all of her hair. She was told to knead bread dough while Ula watched, “for cooking’s a burden I’ll gladly share, now there’s a servant for the house. The sons died of fever, one after the other; it was the spotted fever and it broke their mother’s heart. Aye and mine, too, truth be told. They were lovely boys, a great loss to their father,” Ula said. “The sooner Idelle gives us her own sons, the better off we’ll all be.”

  Elske looked around her. This cook room was furnished like Tavyan’s, but it was larger, with more cupboards, more plates and mugs on shelves, and a bigger hob. A fish lay waiting on the table, and when Ula had shaped four round loaves, and covered them with a cloth, she turned a knife to it. As she slit open the fish’s belly, a young woman came into the room. She was thick of body, like her aunt, and had a broad, Trastader face, with freckles spread across it as plentifully as stars across a night sky. Her eyes were pale blue, her dress a dark blue, and her head scarf a duplicate of Elske’s. She was taller than Elske, and older; when she spoke her voice was soft. “Is this the girl, Aunt?”

  “This is Elske,” Ula said. “I’ve shown her her place in your chamber.”

  “And Taddus?” the young woman asked eagerly.

  “He’s a man, with a man’s day’s work to get done. He’ll come calling tonight, he said.”

  There was a disappointed pause, then Idelle greeted Elske. “May we be well met. Taddus said you’ve no experience serving in one of the better homes, but can you cook? Launder? Sew?”

  Elske shook her head, three times.

  “I’ve never trained a servant,” Idelle said, worried, and “I can learn,” Elske offered.

  “You can hem the bed linens, which is an easy, if time-consuming, task. That will help.”

  Ula reminded her niece, “Don’t forget the work of the marriage feast. Even an inexperienced pair of hands can clean pots, scrub floors—”

  “When I’ve no need for her,” Idelle reminded her aunt. “She is first for me. There are not many weeks left before I marry.”

  Elske thought that she was learning if not what a servant was, at least what a servant did. As she came to know, a servant did what she was told, from first light to late into the night. The preparations for a wedding and the celebration feast—the cleaning and polishing, the ordering of game and fish from butcher and fishmonger, of sweet rolls from the baker and barrels of ale from the brewer, so that all might be ready on the day—those preparations, added to helping Idelle at her dress and wrapping her hair with scarves, accompanying her to the market, hemming the bridal bed linens—all of this kept Elske fully occupied.

  Most evenings saw Taddus come to the house, to dine with Idelle and her father. Elske did not serve them, not being skilled in waiting on table, but when the plates and pots were put away, when the floor was scoured clean and Ula was satisfied that all was ready for the morrow, Elske was sent to sit by the fire in the front room, with its table and candlesticks and whitewashed walls, to join the three who had pulled their chairs up close to the fire, on these cold nights. When Var Kenric had talked with Taddus about stores and sales, profits and investments, he went up to make his nightly visit to his wife and Elske remained, turning the hem on the bridal bed linens. It was necessary for a servant to attend a courting couple. This made no sense to her, but a servant asked no questions, as Elske learned.

  One of the first nights by the fire, while Elske sewed, Taddus and Idelle sat at the table to compose the announcement which made public offer of Elske’s services as maidservant.

  When Idelle saw what Taddus wrote, “You can read? And write?” she asked in surprise. “But our merchants and bankers wouldn’t want maidservants who know such things. It’s not as if you were a manservant,” Idelle said to Elske, and Elske agreed that she was not a man.

  “Still, it might prove desirable,” Taddus disagreed, and wrote, adding, She is experienced with babies. “Is there any other use you have, Elske?”

  Elske, a stranger in Trastad, could not tell him.

  “She can sew a good hem,” Idelle said, and her cheeks turned pink, as if that were a blushing matter. “She is always willing, and she doesn’t tire.”

  “Father said that the men who seek to hire you should come first to our house, Elske,” Taddus told her, as he wrote down Tavyan’s name at the bottom of the paper. “He wishes to see you well-protected.”

  “Thank you,” Elske said. “My thanks to Tavyan, as well.” Her stomach was full with the fish soup she had helped to prepare, served with slices of thick bread; her stockinged legs were warmed by the fire while thick snow fell silently outside; a winter night covered the city but she would sleep on soft furs beside Idelle’s high bed. What more could she ask for?

  She had never had anyone near her own age to talk with before, not any sister or even a brother, only Tamara, who was a grandmother and wise. Idelle was four winters older than Elske and soon to be a married woman, but the two lived companionably, walking out to the marketplace together, talking about the gown Idelle would be married in and the nightdress in which she would present herself to her new husband. “I had no fortune when he chose me, so he chose me, not my fortune,” Idelle announced, so vehemently that Elske knew she doubted it.

  Elske could tell her young mistress, “He was impatient to be back in Trastad.”

  Idelle blushed. “Young men are always eager when a marriage bed awaits them. Should my nightgown have lace at the neck?” she asked Elske. “Would a man desire such finery?”

  Elske could not say. It seemed to her that, except to marry, the women of Trastad feared men, except for their fathers, and brothers; and the fathers, brothers and husbands mistrusted all other men. The women of Trastad could not go out of doors alone, lest they be set on, and ruined. Ruined, Elske deduced, meant raped, although Idelle seemed to anticipate having Taddus in her bed. “So it is good to be raped by a husband?” Elske inquired, and Idelle covered her face with her hands before she said, “When it’s your husband it isn’t rape. Rape is when the woman is unwil
ling. When the man forces her.”

  Among the Volkaric, the women were neither willing nor unwilling. They had no will in the matter, just as they had no marriages.

  Seeing that Elske did not understand, Idelle explained, “If a woman is ruined, no man will have her to wed.”

  “What if,” Elske asked, “a woman is willing?”

  “A woman must be willing for her husband, or how will she get her children?”

  “What if,” Elske asked, “a woman is willing for a man not her husband?” If a woman bore the Volkking a son she got honor and importance, and other men then wished to rape her, this woman who had produced a son for the Volkking.

  “No woman would wish such a thing,” Idelle told her. “Or else why would any man look for a wife?”

  Elske did not know and could not have said. All she could do was accompany Idelle to the great marketplace, and to the shops that crowded around the Council Hall, whenever the needs of house or wedding sent the young woman out of doors. In Trastad, if a female servant was the only companion a woman’s house could afford her, then the female servant made her company, to keep her safe. A Trastader woman did need her safety guarded, Elske learned. The young men of Trastad made a game of teasing women, especially young women. Elske walked at Idelle’s shoulder through crowds and when someone approached her mistress too close, or too roughly, or with words that were too bold, Elske stepped forward. Seeing Elske there, “We only jest,” they might say, turning to find another woman to trail, adding as a parting unpleasantness to Idelle, “If you were prettier, Varele, I’d take more trouble over you.”

  The days went slowly by. When Taddus came in the evenings, he sometimes brought men of the city whose houses needed a maidservant. Often, the man would be pleased with Elske and then Taddus would come the next afternoon to take Elske to meet the mistress of the house. But always the Varinne would say, “She will not do.” Even though Elske looked like any other Trastader serving woman, with her hair scarfed, under a man’s protection, still “She will not do,” the Varinne would report to her Var. Elske was found too young, too inexperienced, too old to train, too ignorant of the ways of Trastad or too clever.