Tale of Elske

by Jan Vermeer

  “I don’t think to overmaster you at all,” she said. “I’m not such a fool.”

  She accepted the purse of coins he gave her, and wished him well with his new wife, wished the daughters well with their new mother, and when the cool, brief days of autumn spilled over the three islands, Elske said her farewells to Var Jerrol’s household, made her curtsey to the new Varinne—as round and rosy as the first had been slim and pale—and followed Red Piet for the last time through the stony streets of Trastad. They walked past docks and warehouses busy at the concluding days of the trading season, and over the bridge to Harboring where—as she knew—Idelle awaited Taddus’s return with the sorrow of an empty cradle, and then across another bridge to Logisle. There, the stone villa of High Councillor Vladislav opened its heavy doors to Red Piet’s pounding.

  The manservant told Elske she must go around the side of the palace, as he called it, and reminded Red Piet, before he closed the door upon them, that he should know better than to come pounding at the front door of the High Councillor’s palace.

  “You could marry me and come back to Var Jerrol’s,” Red Piet said to Elske, then.

  “Why does everyone wish to wed me?” Elske asked him and he told her, “To keep you safe among us, and have you in my bed. But you won’t marry me?”

  “I’m to serve the Adelinne.”

  “And after that?” he asked her.

  “How can we know what comes after?” she asked him, bidding him farewell.

  Alone now, she followed the sandy path around the villa, passing tall empty windows, passing through gardens where the last of the summer roses faded on their thorny branches, passing into the kitchen gardens—herbs, and the tall stalks of onions trampled down onto the dirt, the green fronds of carrots, waiting in the earth and apple trees behind all—passing on to a plain wooden doorway. The villa was like a bird, with its two wings spread out. The central section rose up four stories, its windows growing smaller with each ascent; it needed four great chimneys. Elske faced one of the wings, only two stories. She could look into the windows and see dried herbs hanging in bunches down from the rafters.

  Then the door opened to her knock, and the same stern manservant urged her inside. “You’ve come from Var Jerrol. You’re to be maidservant to our Adelinne. You’re called Elske,” he told her. “I am steward to the house of Var Vladislav, who is the High Councillor of Trastad.” As he named his master, and gave him his title, the steward became even stiffer than before, and more dignified.

  Elske said nothing, and this pleased him.

  He led her down a narrow dark hallway, past a large cook room—where three open fires burned, and several young women were at work at a table, and cauldrons steamed on the great hob—into a moist, windowless washroom. There two vats of water boiled over open fires, and two women stirred them with thick poles while a third watched them at their work. The third woman introduced herself.

  “I’m housekeeper to the High Councillor. Var Jerrol has sent you to us, and Var Vladislav takes his spy’s word for you, so who am I to question? We are to have the Fiendly Princess for our Adelinne. For they’ve sent her back, to angle again for a husband, and you are to be her maidservant. Carry on here, girls,” she said, and “Yes, Missus,” they answered her.

  They were stirring around among white cloths, sweat running down their red faces and chests heaving with the effort. The housekeeper took Elske by the arm and led her out of the washroom, then down a long hallway, lit by dim daylight.

  There was first a room where servants dined but Elske would not, and then storerooms holding food and linens, pots, brooms, stacks of wood for the stoves, as well as eight large copper tubs for bathing. At the end, a door opened onto the entrance hall of the villa. There, the housekeeper allowed Elske to look into the two reception rooms, one for the Varinne when she had callers, the other for the Var to conduct his business. She pointed out the room in which the Var and his family dined, and the large dining room where the Var entertained. There was also a ballroom, the walls hung with beryl glass, which in daylight made it as bright as outdoors. At the foot of the broad staircase that rose up from the back of the great hall, the housekeeper told Elske, “Under no circumstances will you ever go up into the family’s private apartments.”

  “Yes, Missus,” Elske said, having no desire to ascend. The housekeeper, satisfied, opened a door beside the staircase, to allow Elske a brief glance into a room smaller than any of the others she had been shown. This room had windows that opened onto the front gardens of the villa. There were maps spread out on a table at the center and books standing in rows on the shelves. “Sometimes the Adelinnes like to read,” the housekeeper said, “although what care she might take of the Master’s books, I don’t like to think. That will be your responsibility, Elske. Also, her mischiefs and even crimes will be on your head.” Then, giving Elske no chance to protest, she opened a door into the wing opposite the kitchen wing. “These are your apartments.”

  Here the hallway had broad wooden floors and polished wooden walls; it was lit by candles in wall sconces. One doorway, of dark carved wood, opened off to the left, and that was a small anteroom with the bedchamber beyond. The bedchamber had a waist-high row of windows, the sills deep enough to sit on, a stove with its bucket of wood beside it, a table, a cupboard fitted into the wall, a chest, a chair with arms and a small stool, as well as a high bed, the four posts of which were draped around with a heavy cloth. A beryl glass hung in a thick gold frame, and a bowl of flowers was set out on the table. All was in readiness.

  The anteroom was where Elske would sleep, the housekeeper explained, on a pallet that was now rolled up, and Elske could just set her pack down here.

  Across the hallway was a privy room, and at its end a reception room furnished for dining. “She, of course, does not bring her own servant, so you must also wait on her at table. The meals will be brought to you, and if she requests any particular delicacy, you may send word to me. Also, the Adelinne may take exercise on the villa grounds. Can you remember all that?”

  “Yes, Missus,” Elske said, keeping all expression from her voice and face. If she could not remember such simple instructions, she would be a sorry creature.

  “The Adeliers will start arriving any day now, but until then—what use are you?” the housekeeper demanded and said, without waiting for Elske’s answer, “The washroom always needs an extra hand. You can work there until your Fiendly Princess arrives. Well, she was little more than a child the last time they sent her here to find a husband, perhaps the years have improved her, although they say she was the demon imp himself.”

  “Yes, Missus.” Almost, Elske was eager to meet this troublesome Adelinne.

  ELSKE’S TWO COMPANIONS IN THE washroom were farmers’ daughters, come to the city to try their chance at marriage and pleased to be servants in the High Councillor’s villa, where any man who wished to court them would know their superior status. At first they mistrusted Elske. “You’ve the look of a house servant. Soft.”

  “But I’m not,” Elske protested, and later they admitted, “You’re stronger than you look.” They became more at ease with her, and told her what they knew about service to the Adeliers. “You’ll take meals with your Adelinne, unless you’re accompanying her to an Assembly, or to a ball. Or a feast, sometimes there are feasts,” they reminded each other, and advised Elske, “You’d better make good use of the winter because afterwards—everyone says, everybody knows—the girls who are maidservants for Adelinnes have been ruined.”

  “Raped?” Elske asked, and they covered their mouths, muffling their laughter.

  “What do you think of Trastad, if you think that? Where did you come from to think such a thing? No, those who serve the Adelinnes are spoiled for other employments, because they have developed a taste for rich food and wines, and entertainments, for the company of people of higher station. No house will hire them, afterwards. They go to the inns and taverns, to work there, and that’s the end
of their hopes.”

  “Hopes for what?”

  “For a husband, and children of their own. What else should a girl hope for? Although, I’ve heard of maidservants going off with their mistresses, but I wouldn’t want to do that. Who is anything other than a Trastader, I pity that man or woman.”

  “But even if he’s a Trastader,” the other said, “I’d never marry a herder, however great his flock.”

  “No, nor any man who goes off to work in the mines, and not a fisherman, neither—for those too often never come home again.”

  “And when they do, they smell of—”

  “Oh, agreed, agreed. I’d never wish—”

  “A clean, well-mannered house servant would do me very well.”

  “Nor a sailor, neither. Unless he already owned a house of his own where I might live should his ship be lost.”

  “A house servant looks to his wife’s comforts.”

  Elske took her meals alone in the apartment her Fiendly Princess would occupy, and slept on her pallet in the ante-chamber. Often, she stood at the bedchamber window, leaning her elbows on the deep sill, looking out to where the river ran, silvery in a dawning light, black under the stars. As best she could, in her secluded position, she was considering how she might secure further choices, and what they might be—once this, her first free choice, had played itself out.

  And then, one morning, she was summoned from the washrooms and presented by the housekeeper with two new dresses, and new stockings also, and a pair of soft leather boots. “The ship’s in port, and she’s on it, and all the others are arriving, too. Well, if she wants a more richly dressed maidservant, she’ll have to see to you herself. Don’t fail us, Elske.”

  Elske spent that afternoon awaiting her mistress’s arrival, but no one came. The next morning a small sea chest arrived, and a heavy trunk. Elske shook out the Adelinne’s dresses, and hung them in the dry, clean air of the washroom to freshen them. She placed on the cupboard shelves the shifts and stockings, underskirts and the cloths for the Adelinne’s monthly bleedings. This Princess had clothing that was no more plentiful than Var Jerrol’s daughters, and no finer, either. This Princess also had hidden among her shifts a sharp dagger, its blade as long as Elske’s hand and its hilt iron, worked into the forms of a bird and a bear—the bear on its hind legs, the bird with its wings outstretched—one on each side, and each rounded to make a firm grip easy. It was not a rich weapon, but it was well-made, and well-honed. Elske hid it away again, back among the folded shifts.

  Elske waited alone in the apartments all that second day, too, and still no one came. Most of the time she watched out of the window. Only sheep moved about on the wide lawns. Little boats, some small enough to require only a pair of oars to move them, some with a single red sail raised on the short mast, moved along the river. She began to think that perhaps the Adelinne would never arrive, but deep in the second night there came a pounding at the chamber door. Elske leapt up out of her sleep.

  The door opened and the housekeeper stood there, a candle in her hand, a scarf around her shoulders, her grey hair loose. “Well, they’ve found her,” she said to Elske. “She thought she’d be able to have her own way loose in the city, but Trastaders have good noses to smell out foreigners.” Then turning from Elske she said, “Come here, my fine Lady. Step forward. You’ll have to sleep in your filth, for I’m not asking any of my girls to heat bathwater at this hour. Get”—with a shove against the back of the tall young woman—“in now. There. This is your maidservant.”

  The young woman walked into the room without a glance at Elske, as slow and unconcerned as if she was not the object of the housekeeper’s scorn and irritation.

  One of the servants gave his candle to Elske, who took it without a word. The door was shut, again.

  Elske turned to greet her mistress.

  Behind her, a key turned in the lock.

  Chapter 8

  THE YOUNG WOMAN GLARED AT the thick wooden door, as if she were devising suitable punishment for its misconduct. Her long, hooded cloak had a thick band of mud at its hem, and the boots that showed under the cloak were equally travel worn. She was tall, and seemed taller when she drew herself up and let the hood fall back. Her long brown hair hung tangled. She had a pale, oval face, with a long straight nose and wide mouth; her forehead wrinkled as she drew her dark eyebrows together in vexation. She was two or three winters the older, or so it seemed to Elske.

  The Adelinne stood with her shoulders high, as if she faced an enemy, not a locked door. She unfastened the clasps at the neck of her cloak and let it fall to the floor behind her, as she turned to move through the narrow doorway from Elske’s anteroom into her own unlit bedchamber.

  Elske had seen Volkaric women in a fury of vengeance; she had seen furies of fear and sorrow in the women of Trastad; but this Adelinne was not furious as a woman is. Hers was an imperious anger, firm, steady; you could warm your hands at it. Elske picked up the cloak and hung it on a peg—first it must dry out, and then she would brush it clean. The heavy woven wool, dyed dark blue, the smooth blue lining—these were rich cloths, although this was not a cloak made for harsh winter.

  Elske heard the chest being opened, then its lid dropped down, impatiently. She heard the cupboard doors creak apart, and a rustle of fabric, and more rustling. Then the Adelinne spoke, her voice curling out of the doorway. “Enter to me,” the voice said, in clumsy Norther.

  Elske obeyed.

  The Adelinne had lit the oil lamps and now she stood at the window, looking out at the darkness. She had changed into one of the heavy nightdresses Elske had folded away and she spoke without turning to look at her servant. “My travel dress—those—you must wash.”

  Elske gathered the dress, the underskirts and the shifts up in her arms. “Yes, Missus,” she said.

  At that, the Adelinne spun around, and Elske saw that her eyes were blue, the color of the sea under a clear sky, a deep, bright blue.

  “Say me ‘my Lady,’ ” the Adelinne said, pointing at her own chest whenever she said “my Lady.” “Yes, my Lady. This you say to me. What I speak, do you hear it?” she asked.

  “Yes, my Lady,” Elske answered.

  “There is—to eat?” She gestured at her mouth with her fingers.

  “No, my Lady,” Elske said.

  “They”—her hand reached out and rotated—“keyed me.”

  This wasn’t a question, and Elske didn’t know if she was supposed to answer, or not.

  “These dolts and dimwits. She doesn’t wonder why we should be prisoners,” the Adelinne muttered to herself in Souther, her voice quick in her own tongue, as quick as song. Then in Norther she said, “I am sleeping hungry. You not rest here.” She pointed to the floor. “Not to sleep next me.” She added in Souther, “So your spying will have to be confined to the daylight hours.”

  “I am not a spy,” Elske answered in that same tongue.

  The Adelinne stood absolutely still, her hands quiet in front of her. The blue eyes were fixed on Elske. “And a liar, too.”

  Elske’s spirit rose to meet that scornful glance. If the Adelinne thought that Elske could be bullied by a false accusation then she had a surprise waiting for her, like those foolish Adels and their pretty-faced captain. Elske’s eyes rose to meet the Adelinne’s and she saw, with an unspoken breath of her own surprise—“Oh!”—that the young woman would welcome a battle. She explained, “If I were here for that use, my old master, Var Jerrol, would have told me what to listen for, and how I would report my information to him. Var Jerrol is the eyes and ears of the Council,” she explained. “My Lady.”

  “Why should they have given you to me, when you know my language, unless to know my thoughts? But what should they hope a spy to tell them of me? They starve me into confusion,” the Adelinne said, and ordered, “Take those dirty clothes out of this chamber, then return to me. I don’t understand, and you will not sleep until I do.”

  Elske obeyed. She was not at all slee
py, and she was curious, too, to know how the Adelinne would seek out understanding. When she returned her mistress seated herself in the chair and challenged Elske to show her skills as a hairdresser by combing out the knots and tangles in her hair. “It’s been more than a day since I’ve put food into my mouth,” the Adelinne told her. “I’ve drunk from public fountains, but that’s not like good bread and meat in the belly. Nor strong wine, either.”

  “No, my Lady,” Elske agreed.

  “You’ll be useful to me, to teach me Norther,” the Adelinne said, and admitted, “I think you know why they have locked me in.” And Elske answered, “You are that same Adelinne who stayed out on the ship’s deck during the great storm two years back. Disobedient, they said. They complained that you ran away. You are the Fiendly Princess.”

  The Adelinne answered her quickly. “Not a Princess, a Queen. I am the Queen that will be. Or ought to be, if I can keep them from exiling me, which is their plan. Marrying me off to some poltroon pip-squeak princeling from some distant land—that’s their hope. They wish to be rid of me and they think that if I am out of the Kingdom they can crown my brother. And Guerric thinks he can rule. . . . So, I am called the Fiendly Princess?” the Adelinne asked, not displeased. “And what do they call you?”

  “Elske.”

  “Elske. And you were a servant of this Var Jerrol? This eyes and ears of the Council, you were his spy?”

  “Since I speak Souther,” Elske explained. “I could tell him how the merchants hoped to cheat him, in trade, or what they said about the black powder. I knew what they spoke of when they thought they couldn’t be understood, when I served his guests at table.”

  The Adelinne turned her head at this, to look up over her shoulder at her servant. “What do you know of this black powder?” but this question Elske chose not to answer. She met the blue eyes with her own grey glance.