by Finley Aaron
Nor could she regret competing, though that was what had provoked Raedwald’s ire. She’d made a good showing for herself, defended Henry, and had great fun, other than the times she’d been painfully injured. No, she didn’t regret her tournament participation, nor any of the choices she’d made that had enabled her to participate.
In fact, as she pondered the problem on her long journey home, she came to the conclusion that her biggest mistake, and her greatest regret, had been lying to Henry about who she really was. Her mother had suggested he could be trusted.
If Henry’s claim was correct, if he had indeed suspected her true identity since their very first meeting, then she could have trusted him with the truth, since he’d kept the secret so well, he’d never even demanded to know the truth for himself.
Looking back, she realized that was why she’d been able to keep her secret for so long. Henry had protected her privacy and made it possible for her to dress and bathe and sleep without ever being seen.
And in all that time, in spite of his unwavering assistance, she’d never even considered telling him she wasn’t who she pretended to be.
Ella grieved her choice the entire way home.
The journey was long and lonely. As she drew closer to Caprese, Ella longed for nothing more than to embrace her mother and confess all that had happened, including her realization—too-late, that she should have taken Nora’s advice from the beginning, and entrusted Henry with her secret.
No doubt her mother, as always, would console her, and comfort her with words of encouragement. Perhaps she’d even have advice for Ella, an idea for how she could make things right with Henry once again.
She’d lost so much in that one awful morning—her identity as Allard, her opportunity to travel the tournament circuit and compete as a man, and the companionship of her friends. In spite of Henry’s calm assurances at their parting, she couldn’t imagine that he would hold only fond memories of her. She’d lied to him. Surely, once he’d had time to reflect on all that had passed between them, he would resent her for not trusting him with the truth.
She resented herself for the same.
So as she topped the first high hill that offered a view of Caprese, Ella’s heart, which had been downcast those many days as she traveled home, now rose with hope.
She was home. Her mother would embrace her and make her favorite foods, and would listen to all Ella’s adventures. It was something to look forward to, and Ella nudged Mirage forward in anticipation.
But it was not meant to be.
Chapter Nineteen
The closer they came to Caprese, the faster Mirage trotted. Ella didn’t have to nudge her. The mare recognized home, and hastened forward with a sense of urgency.
As they drew closer, Ella’s heartbeat sped up as well. She told herself she was simply eager to be home, and excited to see her mother, but there was something about the house that wasn’t right, some spirit of melancholy that seemed to hover over it, as though the light had left that place.
Indeed, as she neared the house, Ella could see that the curtains were drawn over the windows, though it was mid-day and the weather was fair, and her mother had always insisted on opening the curtains first thing every morning, and letting in as much light as she possibly could.
Mirage stopped at the fountain near the front door and lowered her head to drink, so Ella dismounted and approached the house.
When she’d thought about her homecoming over the last few days, she’d imagined herself running to the door, or her mother running out to meet her.
But the house was silent and dark, unfamiliar in a shadowy way, and Ella felt pensive as she approached. The flower beds were overrun with weeds, the vines crept over the windows, and even the fountain was blackened by an unusual growth of scum.
Ella pulled her cap from her head, freeing the braid that was in dire need of washing, and looked down at the worn and stained leather armor she still wore.
It wasn’t much of a traveling dress, but her mother wouldn’t care.
The front door creaked as she opened it, which was odd, because her mother always insisted on keeping everything well maintained. The sound reminded her of the doors at Madame De Bouchard’s, at least until she had taken it upon herself to oil them.
“Hello?” Ella called as she stepped into the foyer, which was more than just surprisingly dark. It was gloomy, and the smells were all wrong. Gone were the scents of fresh air and the bouquets of fresh flowers her mother left in every room.
The house smelled musty, the lingering scent a distinct perfume Ella knew all too well.
“Mother? I’m home!” Ella had to struggled to keep her voice hopeful.
Footsteps echoed from the direction of her mother’s room, and a voice carried down the hall. “Ella? Is that you?”
But it was not her mother’s voice.
It was Madame De Bouchard’s.
“Madame?” Ella asked as the woman stepped into sight.
“Ella?” Madame recoiled visibly when she spotted Ella. “Whatever are you wearing, Child? Are those…pants?” She nearly choked on the final word.
“Yes. Where’s my mother? Why—”
“She’s dead. Dead of a fever.”
“What? No,” Ella knew the cruel woman too well to believe her. Surely it was a lie. “What are you doing here?”
“Your mother is dead and your father, in his wisdom, and concerned for the proper upbringing of you, his only daughter, has married me.”
Ella staggered backward and gripped the door handle. Surely Madame was lying.
More footsteps echoed from upstairs. “Mother, who are you talking to? Who’s here?”
Agatha and Bertha flounced to the stairs and slowly began their descent, jabbering inanely the entire way.
“Is that a man?”
“He doesn’t look like a man.”
“He’s dressed like a man.”
“But look at his hair. Do you know who it looks like?”
Both girls gasped at once.
“Ella?” Bertha questioned, before erupting in peals of laughter.
“No, it can’t be.” Agatha hurried down the last few steps, and peered at Ella in the dark foyer. “Oh, it is! It’s Ella. She’s wearing pants.” Agatha joined her sister in fits of giggles. “How absurd!”
“Girls!” Madame rebuked them. “Manners! Your sister has returned from her journey. Show her to her room—to her new room.”
Ella had no idea what Madame was referring to. Obviously there had been some horrible mistake, or Madame was playing a particularly sinister joke (she didn’t have much of a sense of humor, but she was occasionally amused by certain sadistic things, and so joking about death, macabre as it might be, was within the realm of possibility, and certainly preferable to the possibility that what Madame had said was true).
Still, she knew enough of Madame to know that if the woman wanted her to follow Agatha and Bertha, she ought to do so quickly, or risk being struck.
So Ella followed the girls up the stairs in a daze of confusion. They passed the doorway to her room, and Ella saw it was filled with a mess of clothes and shoes (some of them unfamiliar, some of them hers) strewn everywhere about. Indeed, as she blinked at Agatha and Bertha, she realized they were each wearing garments that had been hanging in her wardrobe when she’d left to meet Henry at the tournament at Charmont so many months before.
The two girls led her down the hall to the attic stairs, where they simply opened the door, pointed, and said, “Up there.”
Ella went, hoping to find her mother hard at work on a project, or possibly even tied up against her will.
But there was only a pile of her things, which had been in her room. She lifted one of her favorite books of maps from the pile, and noticed an extra bit of paper sticking up from inside.
It was a note in Bertie’s handwriting.
Ella,
I rescued these from the burn pile. Those girls wanted to throw out everything. S
orry for the upheaval. I couldn’t stop any of it. I fear Father, in his grief, has made a terrible mistake marrying that woman, but he believes he’s doing the right thing, and given our current financial straits, I don’t know what other choice we have.
Father and I are hoping to make a profit this next journey, but our options are limited. News from the east has been suppressed, so I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there are troubles both political and economic in the neighboring kingdoms. Saracen pirates rob merchants freely on land and at sea, and the governments of those kingdoms are doing nothing to stop them. They claim they are trying, but I have seen no proof, and there are rumors that they get a cut of all the spoil (this may be conjecture fueled by spite and anger, but the problem is pervasive, so it may be true). Not only does this make it impossible for us to bring our goods across the border (and thus turn a profit), but I fear for the safety of our kingdom.
I will tell you more when next I see you in person. Until then, stay strong. I’m sure Mother is watching over us, and we must do right by her memory.
Much love,
Bertie
Though his handwriting was clear and his words all recognizable, Ella had to read the note over several times to understand what her brother was saying. Part of this was because she couldn’t believe her father would ever marry anyone after her mother, least of all that awful woman, Madame De Bouchard. But it was also because, by the end of her first time through reading it, tears welled up in her eyes, making it that much more difficult for her to understand the words.
It was like a riddle. Bertie’s statements didn’t fit with what she understood to be true of reality, so she had to rearrange all the certainties of her world until they formed a coherent picture.
It was not a picture she liked.
Was her mother really dead? It didn’t seem possible. Her mother had always been strong and healthy and full of life. Ella didn’t want it to be true. She wanted to hug her mother—she’d wanted to for days and days, and now she’d never have that opportunity again.
But people died all the time, and anyway, what were Agatha and Bertha doing taking over her room? Her mother never would have allowed it, not if she could stop them.
So maybe she couldn’t stop them.
Maybe she was dead.
And Madame taking over the house…clearly she hadn’t just arrived for a visit. There were too many changes that would have taken days or even weeks to sink in. The house was beginning to get run down. That fit with Madame’s way of doing things. And the darkness, and the smells—it all fit.
Just as Bertie had said, Ella couldn’t imagine her father marrying Madame De Bouchard, but if his grief had overwhelmed him, and if he felt it was the right thing, and if their financial situation was dire—he’d do it just to save Caprese and the horses.
The horses!
Ella felt a jolt of fear as she recalled the poor conditions Madame De Bouchard’s horses had been in when she’d first gone to serve as handmaid there. If her father and brother were both away on a trade journey, and if Madame and her daughters were the only ones around to care for them, no doubt her mother’s beloved animals were being terribly neglected.
With haste, Ella stripped out of the heavy leather armor that she’d worn for so many days, and riffled through the pile of things her brother had rescued for her. Agatha and Bertha had left her only her most worn and unappealing clothes, but she pulled them on with little thought, glad for the increased freedom of movement the cool clothes provided, compared to the armor she’d grown so tired of.
Then she hurried downstairs and out of the front door.
Mirage had wandered away from the fountain and was eating from the bushy grasses that had grown up between the hydrangeas and the rose bushes. Ella took hold of her reins and used them as a lead rope to steer the horse around to the back of the house, toward the barn.
The pasture closest to the barn was empty, and the barn doors were closed. Ella could see no sign of the horses anywhere. She nearly tripped over her own feet as she started to run toward the barn.
The door creaked heavily as she pulled it open and peered inside, thankful that the whoosh of stale air that greeted her did not contain the scent of death, or even the putrid smells such as she had encountered on her first day at Madame De Bouchard’s.
The barn also did not contain any signs of life.
Where were the horses? Had Madame sold them off? Were they in such dire financial straits that her father and brother had taken them away to trade?
Panic coursed through her, burning her eyes and clouding her thoughts. Her mother was dead? She couldn’t lose the horses, too.
Mirage had not been told that Nora was gone, nor was the horse aware that their home was under new ownership. The mare only understood that they were finally back home after a long absence, and that tasty grasses now grew among the formerly off-limits roses and hydrangeas.
Also, it is safe to guess that Mirage was as eager to see her family as Ella had been to see hers. The mare sniffed the air, tossed her head, and trotted around the small pasture toward the hayfield.
Ella ran after her.
Mirage whinnied, and the sound seemed to echo many times over from beyond the hill.
Before Ella even topped the hill, she saw horses trotting up to greet their sister. Ella nearly sobbed with relief at the sight of them, but didn’t stop running until she’d reached the point where she could see all the horses.
Her father and brother’s favorite mounts were missing—with them on their journey, no doubt. The two pairs that usually pulled their wagons were gone, as were a couple of others, but the rest of the herd was accounted for.
Mirage’s mother, who’d run up to greet Mirage, now walked over to Ella and nosed her in the shoulder before nibbling lightly against her neck and ear.
Ella flung her arms around the horse’s neck, and bawled.
She cried her heart out, and the horses gathered around her, nuzzling her with their velvet lips and stomping the ground with aching sympathy. Ella embraced them all in turn, picking off ticks from their unkempt coats, and apologizing to them that they hadn’t had their manes or tails combed, or even been brushed down, in weeks and weeks.
The horses didn’t seem to care about all that. They had the small stream at the bottom of the hayfield, and though there wouldn’t be any hay to put up for some time thanks to their grazing, they’d not starved, in spite of their obvious neglect. Most likely they’d taken shelter in the woods, or simply stood in the rain when the weather had assaulted them.
But they didn’t hold any of that against Ella. They were simply glad to see her, and she, them.
Ella cried until her body could no longer produce tears. By then her stomach was rumbling for want of food and her throat was parched. The horses had food and water to spare, and though they needed brushing down, the task was not urgent. Ella removed Mirage’s saddle and gear and carried them back to the tack room in the barn.
She checked on the other animals, and found the dairy cow and goats behind the barn in the small rear hayfield. Both the cow and the goats had nursing young. Ella couldn’t imagine Madame or her daughters milking either, and supposed she’d have to work with the animals to get them back into production.
The chicken coop was a mess with feathers everywhere, but no sign of any eggs or any chickens. No doubt the door had been left open, and a predator had made a feast of their flock. Ella would have to buy chicks from a neighbor, but if that was their only loss, it wasn’t so bad.
The old dog seemed happy to see her, and Ella patted his head, but the cats fled when she tried to approach them, which made her wonder, because they’d always been friendly before. Knowing what she did of Agatha and Bertha’s attitude toward “filthy animals,” they may well have been chased off repeatedly of late.
Ella shook her head. She had work to do.
She headed up to the back of the house, toward the door to the kitchen.
This time,
when she entered, she wasn’t expecting much. If anything, she was bracing herself for whatever mess she might encounter, so the kitchen almost made her laugh.
Every dish they owned was dirty, and many appeared to have been used multiple times over since their last washing. To Ella’s knowledge, neither Madame nor her daughters knew the first thing about cooking nor lighting fires. Few of the pots and pans had been used at all, but the cheeses were all gone, and the regular garden stores had been greatly reduced.
As near as Ella could tell from the crumbs, Madame and her daughters had bought bread, probably in the village (Ella and her mother had always made their own, but the bread pans still hung untouched on their hook) and eaten it sliced with cheese.
There wasn’t much to eat, but Ella fetched water from the cistern and was quenching her thirst when Madame appeared in the kitchen doorway.
“It’s past six,” Madame informed her briskly.
Ella’s stomach stirred. What was the woman trying to say? When Ella had served as her handmaid, she’d served dinner promptly at six every evening, but surely the woman didn’t expect—
“You’ve been home for hours!” Madame snapped. “What have you been doing? Where is our dinner?”
“There isn’t any food,” Ella pointed out. Even on the worst of days she’d normally have had eggs, but since the coop had been raided, she didn’t even have that option.
“So I’ve noticed.” Madame sneered. “This is a mean existence I’ve married into. I fully expect, now that you’re home, that our standard of living will be lifted. We’ll take our dinner in the dining room as soon as you can prepare it. Don’t make me wait!”
The woman turned and stalked away.
Ella was tempted to throw something after her, but that wouldn’t accomplish anything. She doubted Madame and her daughters were really all that hungry, because there wasn’t any bread anywhere, just crumbs, and the mice would have picked those off if they’d been sitting there for very long. No, undoubtedly they’d gobbled up the last of the bread, and were now demanding she cook for them as a matter of principle, because they expected her to always wait on them.