by Megan Hart
She wouldn't wait so long as that. "I plan to leave this afternoon, actually." This surprised the other woman for only a moment. "Ah."
Mina shrugged again. "It's been a long time since I've been able to practice my vocation, Mother. I don't like feeling useless."
Compassiona frowned. "No Sister is useless, no matter if she's serving patrons or assisting here in the Motherhouse."
"Dull, then. Weary. Unused. Is that a better description?" Mina gave a smile the other woman returned. "I don't like feeling unused."
"That I cannot argue against. Go. And may the Invisible Mother herself attend you," Compassiona said.
"And you." Mina gathered the papers and tucked them all together, then put them under her arm.
Already smiling, she headed to her room to finish her preparations. Her journey would be long, but she had little enough to pack. The afternoon carriage couldn't come fast enough. But of course there would be no hurrying it, especially not when she could think of little else but heading away from this place. During her years in service she'd lived in several of the sister-houses scattered throughout the Seven Provinces, and once for a few delightful months at a seaside house as well appointed as a resort. Technically, they were all her home and had been since the moment she walked through the front gates of the Motherhouse, but she'd stayed the longest here.
Long enough to hang a portrait on the wall of her cell and fill the drawers with clothes she'd bought for herself rather than relied on a patron to provide. Long enough to have worn a spot in the carpet where she paced before the window as she read from the book of poetry she now packed in her bag. Long enough that it was time to be out of this room, this house, this province, in fact, and away from the mountains and familiar smells of the flowers. She might return to this house, this room, but while she was gone they'd clean and paint it, scrub it down, so even if she did come back to it, she'd no longer feel like it had ever been hers.
Many of her Sisters-in-Service couldn't abide this sort of change, but so few of them remained long enough in any one place they could never begin to feel like they owned any of the rooms, anyway. Sisters like Mina, those with not-oft-requested specialties, had more chance to stay longer and leave their marks on the rooms they left behind. She'd leave no marks on purpose and be glad to know they swept away any remainder of her. She slipped a gown identical to the one she wore into her hand-trunk along with a pair of sturdy leather slippers. She wore her good traveling boots and her traveling gown, and simply slipping into both had filled her with warmth. She also packed the carved ironwood box, polished to a high sheen, in which she kept her collection of teas. Some for pleasure, some for health. The mix all Handmaidens drank daily to prevent not only pregnancy but also the monthly flow could be brewed from ingredients likely to be found in any household, but she'd included an ample supply anyway. Mina added another small box filled with salves and lotions she'd mixed herself, scented with gillyflower oil from her own garden bed.
Compassiona had said no Sister was useless, but Mina wasn't convinced. She'd been much neglected since leaving her last patron. She'd spent too much time with such activities, the growing of flowers and grinding of herbs. Not that it wasn't necessary to know how, and not even that she hadn't enjoyed keeping herself busy with such matters, but they weren't what she'd joined the Order to do. There was ever much to learn and Mina was no different, no matter how long it had been since she'd been in service or how accomplished she knew herself to be. She'd worked at training new Sisters-in-Service. She'd begun studying the hand-harp, simply because it was one skill that took a long time at which to become proficient and she could spend many hours a day on it. She had been useless and unused, and tired of it. She'd been ready to go the moment Compassiona'd sent for her, and now, completely packed, she still had to wait. Mina paced the familiar route in front of her window, taking comfort in the swish of her hem and thud of her boot heels on the wooden floor.
The carriage did not come.
When at last she could no longer stand waiting, Mina took herself through the halls and down the stairs to the house's large, open entryway. The massive double front doors, closed now as evening fell, resisted her hand but she forced them open anyway. The slate rang beneath her heels as she went onto the front porch and looked out over the yard and driveway, and to the road beyond.
"Mistress?"
She turned at the low male voice. The man in the doorway stood a full head taller but kept his gaze down and away from her. "Yes, Stephan?"
"You're leaving us?"
"If the carriage ever arrives, I suppose I am." Mina looked again toward the road. Stephan took a step closer. "Can I bring you something? Food or drink? You might be waiting a long time. You've missed the dinner chime . . . and it's getting dark." Though the trees crowded close against the lawns of trimmed grass, Mina didn't fear the forest or the encroaching night. There might be beasts in the woods but they rarely ventured this far. Still, she favored him with a smile.
"I'm fine." He didn't expect more, which was why she gave it to him. "Thank you." He looked at her, then, a large man with a plain face and big, work-worn hands. He'd come from the fields to serve in the house and had never quite grown used to it. He smiled, and it was not difficult for her to remember the taste of his mouth. "You're welcome.
"I'll wait with you," Stephan said. "Until you leave." He didn't have to, of course, and she wasn't even certain she required company. But she didn't deny him this small thing, more for his benefit than hers. They waited together in silence as dusk turned to darkness and there seemed little hope of the carriage ever arriving.
She'd thrown her cloak on top of her hand-trunk and now shivered as the night breeze soughed out of the trees. Stephan covered her shoulders with the cloak at once and stepped back again. She gathered the soft material around her throat and looked at him.
"You're not needed inside?"
"I'd rather be out here." He roughed his hair with one of those big hands. Mina understood that. Inside, the Order ran with swift efficiency. The halls overran with women going about their business, and the young, giggling girls unlike she herself had ever been were enough to try the patience of anyone, much less a man like Stephan who'd never quite accustomed himself to the bustle of it all. Out here was only the darkness and the wind, and the scent of the earth in the fields stripped of their harvests. She had nothing to say to him, but Stephan didn't require speech. She appreciated that about him. Mina looked again to the road where the far-off clip-clop of hooves alerted her to the carriage's arrival. "Finally."
When the carriage at last arrived, he helped her into it and loaded her single, small trunk. He kissed her hand.
Mina waited for more, but Stephan stepped back from the carriage and gave the driver the signal to go. She looked out the window at him as they drove away. He lifted a hand in a wave she didn't return.
Light cut through the darkness and Alaric put up a hand to cover his eyes. From far away, farther than the light had come, a groan rumbled in his ears. His own, he guessed, tasting it on his tongue before it faded. He thought he might be muttering, but if words formed on his tongue and not mere nonsense syllables, he couldn't tell.
"By the Void, he stinks."
"This entire room stinks."
Something nudged him and the light shone bright again. Alaric burrowed deeper into softness, seeking his self-made cave. At the next nudge he cried out and swatted at the unseen tormenter. His hand connected with nothing and he fell silent. Listening.
He recognized the voices. Edward and Cillian. Conspiring against him? What did they mean by "get him up, dump him in it?" Some small, clear part of his mind insisted he try to figure it out, but the rest of it, most of it, remained fuzzed with the delightful numbness brought on by herb and wine and some other small potions he'd picked up from he could no longer remember where.
And with oblivion, the source of which he knew all too well. He tasted it with every breath and heard it whisper in his ears.
How long had it been since the last dose? Too long . . .
The frigid water closed over his head and he knew he should come up sputtering, but though it set his teeth to chattering at once, all he did was let his body weigh down deeper into it. Cold and darkness, unbroken by any light. That was what he wanted. That's what he wished for.
Cold, unbroken darkness.
Two pairs of hands grabbed him beneath his arms and hauled him upright. Someone pounded his back. Someone else held his head over a bucket while his guts surged up and out, emptying him. Except he was already empty, he thought, his mind clearing too much. His body heaved again.
His mind went black.
Mina looked good in black. It was not her favorite color—she preferred red. But black suited her just as nicely and was better, for many reasons, at portraying the image she wished to uphold. A Handmaiden in red might as well be a whore, as far as she was concerned, though it wouldn't do for her to say so out loud. Someday she might wear red again, but not now.
Now she had a purpose, and black suited it. She smoothed her hands down the fine cloth of her traveling gown, admiring the severe cut. The high neck. The long sleeves. She'd had it made with buttons of black ironwood, faintly shining, and she admired them too as they ran from her throat to her hem. Not a thread out of place, not a line hanging uneven. Not even a hair dared uncurl from the braid into which she'd pulled it. It hung now over her shoulder and across her breast, and Mina flipped it back to hang straight and sure the way she stood.
A chair, its cushions looking soft, had been waiting when they showed her into this room, but she didn't take it. Her trip had been long, the ride rough enough that standing felt good for a while. She smoothed her gown again and adjusted the sleeves.
"Where were they, by the Void? To have sent for her and be told she'd arrived, yet do nothing to greet her? Intolerably rude. Mina sighed and but didn't shift from foot to foot in her impatience. She kept herself still and stern though she wanted to pace. It had been long enough, waiting to be sent to a patron. The hours of the journey had been long enough, too. Why was she being kept waiting?
When at last the door opened, she'd already made several circuits of the room. She'd looked out the window. Perused the rather shabby and unimpressive collection of books on the shelves. This office was for show, not function, and it told her much about its owner, King Cillian. He didn't spend much time in here, which led to an interesting string of thought about where he did his business, if not in an office.
"Your Majesty." Mina greeted him with her stiffest curtsy, as was appropriate for a man of his stature. To the unknown man coming into the room on the king's heels she made a slightly less formal gesture.
"Oh. They said you were in here, but I wasn't expecting. . ." The king's gaze swept her up and down, and he grinned slowly. He elbowed the man with him. "Edward. What say you?"
His companion gave her the same sweeping gaze. "Perfection."
"No," she said. "Determinata. Perfection was not assigned to this house." Neither man laughed and she sighed inwardly at the confused looks they gave one another. "Gentlemen. I am Determinata, most often called Mina. Or my lady. Sometimes, should I decide it appropriate, mistress"
The materials she'd read had provided great detail about the man to whom she'd been assigned, but next to nothing about the men who'd done the acquiring. One a king, she knew that much. His friend a nobleman of some sort, clearly a long-time companion, and with something there beyond mere friendship. She watched them closely. The King of Firth was new to the throne and not much about him had come as gossip to the Motherhouse.
The one called Edward rallied first, making a half bow and inclining his head. "My lady, I am Edward Delaw."
"Cillian Derouth," said the king without using his title. His gaze turned admiring. "By the Arrow, you will whip him into shape, won't you?"
"By him I assume you mean my new patron? Alaric Dewan, yes? Your friend. I wonder, sirs," she said casually to them both, "what sort of friends you are to send away for a Handmaiden when he is either incapable or uninterested in procuring one for himself."
"Incapable," said Edward.
"Uninterested," Cillian added. "But that doesn't mean he doesn't need one. He does. Desperately."
The men shared another look she couldn't interpret. Mina plucked a barely visible speck of dust from her skirts. "The Order must have agreed, else I wouldn't be here. But I think I shall be the one to decide, ultimately, if he deserves one." Both of them stared at her with frank appreciation, but it was Cillian who spoke. "Of course."
They took her to a set of rooms that would have been impressive if they didn't reek of sour breath, darkness, and intoxicants. Mina looked around the outer room, small but furnished with exquisite and expensive taste. She ran a finger over the fireplace mantel and brought it away coated with dust. Alaric Dewan, the son of a merchant farmer, had risen to favor as one of Cillian's consorts before he became king. Yet the papers the Order had given her said her patron hadn't held a position of any worth within the court.
"Who pays for this?" She gestured at the furnishings, the books, the accoutrements of a gentlemen's life.
Edward and Cillian shared another look, but Edward spoke. "Alaric doesn't pay rent to live in the palace. He's ever been Cillian's friend."
"Since school. I know. But who pays for the rest of it?" She lifted a pile of what might have been rags, though made of velvet and sateen. "These clothes are fine, as is the whiskey in that decanter over there on the window, if it indeed came from the bottle I spy beneath the chair there. These books are all fine-bound and read, real books, not for show. The furniture is well crafted."
"Alaric has an income from his father's estate. I think much of the rest of this came from .
. . gifts," Cillian said.
"Love gifts." That made sense. The room did have a definite, feminine touch to it. "A woman with exquisite taste, yes?"
Edward's lip curled. "A woman, yes. Her taste is a matter of opinion." From the adjoining room came a rustle of fabric and a snorting groan. Edward and Cillian turned, but Mina moved between them and the door. "You can go."
"We should introduce you," Cillian said.
"I don't think so." Mina smiled at him to take the edge off her response. The man was a monarch, after all, and it didn't do to be rude.
"But he's not been himself," protested Edward.
"I imagine he is more himself now than ever he has been, else you'd have no need of me." She looked toward the half-open door but made no further move toward it. Cillian also looked toward the door. "He's not been well, is what my friend meant. But you will help him, won't you? He's sore in need of solace."
"He wouldn't be the first. I know what I'm doing. You can go." Again from within the other chamber came a groan. Mina wrinkled her nose. Whatever aid her patron's friends had provided, it hadn't been the sort she intended to give.
"Edward," said Cillian after a bare half moment. "She's right. Let's go." Edward didn't protest again. He shot a glance through the door but nodded and sketched another bow in her direction. "We shouldn't doubt you, my lady. Your mercy." Mina regarded them both calmly, her mind already working on the puzzle of her as yet unseen patron. Much to learn and more to do. She smiled at them both.
"Sometimes," she said, "they call me that, too." When they'd gone, Mina looked once more around the room. It would have been easy even for an untrained eye to see that despite the luxury, there could be no solace found here. Once it might have been a room of relaxation and peace, but someone—her patron, no doubt—had done his level best to turn on its head anything that might remotely provide comfort.
She knew how that felt.
However, his past was her problem only in how it related to his present; his future was her concern. Her duty was to give this man solace, whether for but a moment or something rather more, something upon which he could build a lifetime. She never knew in advance which she could provide, but there was no doubt in her mind
she would satisfy them both during her stay here.
Rummaging in the desk pushed haphazardly kitty-corner by the window, she found a box of fine writing paper. Another search of the drawers turned up an inkwell and pen of carved wood, the nib showing no signs of even normal wear. Not a writer, then. Well, she didn't require poems or love letters, and she would be the one making the lists, not him. Mina straightened the desk until it sat squarely in front of the window, then pulled the high-backed chair from in front of the fireplace and set it behind the desk. There wasn't much else to tidy there. Alaric Dewan had been a man of much leisure from what his papers told her. A few receipts, a bundle of letters in a masculine hand and tied with a piece of twine. No accounting books or ledgers, nothing to indicate he'd done much work. At least not the sort most fancy gentlemen of her acquaintance had ever done, the start that required much conversation and very little physical effort.
Mina believed strongly in the benefits of physical effort.
When the desk had been sufficiently tidied enough to suit her, and her lists had been written, she stood and brushed off her hands. She tugged the bellpull and waited an entirely inappropriate length of time for the plump-cheeked maid to knock on the door. The girl looked around the room with wide eyes and didn't bother with even a curtsy. Mina didn't waste her time or breath correcting the chit. It wasn't her job to train other peoples' staff. Instead, she spoke slowly and clearly so as not to be misunderstood. "I need a pot of cocao along with a basket of yesterday's bread. If you haven't any from yesterday, fresh will do but make sure it's crusty. I need a pitcher of milk, as well, and the things on this list."
The girl took it and made to read it, but then shook her head. "I don't know what this says, miss."
Oh, by the Arrow, what sort of place was this? "Take it to your chatelaine, girl. Bring me what I asked for before the five chime."
The girl goggled, eyeing Mina's long, dark gown. If she had any idea at all about Mina's function here, it didn't show. "Yes . . . yes'm. Will you be needing anything else? Lord Dewan hasn't had anyone into his rooms in a right long time. They could use a good cleaning."