by Robin Hardy
“Bring the child,” Josef nodded before leading her out.
On their way through the courtyard toward the palace kitchen, she took a closer look at the gallows. A permanent structure, not built solely for one execution, it showed signs of wear and age. Noticing her gaze, Josef explained, “Sheva uses it often.”
As they entered the buzzing kitchen she whispered, “What am I to do with this baby?”
“He is your first concern, over all your other responsibilities,” he replied. “Here—I will set up a box bed for him in the corner to sleep while you work.” Before doing that, he humbly sought permission from a large woman in an apron that looked as if it could cover several acres. The kitchen mistress glanced at Deirdre and the baby and gestured her leave. Soon after Josef had found a discarded produce box and old cloths, the baby was tucked snugly in his little corner bed. Deirdre smoothed his sparse hairs lovingly.
“One more thing,” Josef whispered. “Do exactly as you’re told—don’t argue or fight. If you just do your work, you’ll get along fine. And remember—God is with you.” He patted her arm before hurrying off.
Deirdre turned uncertainly toward the head cook, who was occupied pounding meats and barking at the other servants. While waiting for instructions, fidgeting nervously, Deirdre surveyed the kitchen.
It was a small room compared to the kitchen at Westford, having only a few tables and benches at which the servants worked. This kitchen was not intended for additional use as a dining hall. Its floor was good, smooth wood. Its walls were plaster, hung with many shiny pots and cooking utensils. One whole side of the room that was faced with stone contained a large open fireplace; beside it was a deep oven. There were shuttered windows for ventilation along the wall that faced the courtyard. Deirdre pressed her shoulder in anxiety against this wall as she waited.
After a few minutes, the mistress tossed a paring knife toward her and nodded at a large basket of potatoes: “You start washing and peeling ’em.” Deirdre stared at the yard-wide basket. Tentatively, she picked up a spud and fingered it. Now how was this done? The head cook glanced at her and barked, “Don’t dawdle! Get to it!”
“Will you show me how?” Deirdre asked politely.
The mistress glared at her. “Are you an idiot?”
“No!” Deirdre flared back. “I am—” she started to spill out what Josef had earnestly warned her to keep secret. Biting her tongue, she surrendered the last vestige of pride and said, “We never peeled them . . . we ate them whole . . . we were too poor to throw anything out.”
The cook’s anger dissipated, but not her impatience. She seized a potato and thrust it under Deirdre’s nose. “This is a potato! You hold it like this, and wash it like this—” She plunged it in a basin of water and rubbed it. “Then you take the knife like this, and peel it”—illustrating with rapid strokes. “Then you rinse it again and put it in this basket. Can you do that?”
Her face burning, Deirdre said, “Yes.”
“Yes, what?” the mistress demanded. Deirdre stared, uncomprehending. “Yes, mistress!” shouted the woman. “Say it!”
“Yes mistress!” Deirdre blurted. The cook turned away in time to catch another servant committing some incredible blunder, and Deirdre turned in shock to the potatoes. She began rinsing and peeling carefully.
As an afterthought, the head cook said over her shoulder, “Save the peelings. They’re fed to the druds.”
“Yes mistress,” Deirdre answered quickly, having not the vaguest idea what a drud was.
After scraping clean the third potato, she timidly inquired, “Mistress, how many of these am I to do?”
“All of them, of course,” the cook answered from her oven. Deirdre looked miserably at the enormous basket. This could take her the rest of her life. Bleakly, she picked up another potato.
As she worked, she kept an eye on the kitchen bustle. At home she had never once helped prepare a meal—that work was utterly beneath her. But she did not wish to get tripped up by her ignorance again, so she covertly watched everything the others did around her.
The kitchen mistress was high-strung by nature and short-tempered with everyone. A lesser cook who came back from market with the wrong variety of grapes received a caustic lecture. A servant who had neglected to pluck the chickens thoroughly enough got a kick in the rear. No one did anything exactly to suit her.
As she was scolding another servant for his carelessness in handling the venison, the rear kitchen door opened and all the bustle suddenly stilled. The mistress turned. “Why, Lord Caranoe,” she faltered in surprise. Deirdre raised her head and found herself staring into the sharp eyes of a wiry, dark-haired man. She deliberately resumed peeling.
“Come in, come in, lord,” begged the head cook. Deirdre marveled at the change in her voice. “What do you wish, lord? Pastry, perhaps, or—” He raised his hand to cut her off and stepped toward Deirdre.
“You have the garbage?” he curtly asked Deirdre. She had no idea what he meant.
But the mistress quickly collected all the peelings and skins and pits and handed a basketful to him. “That’s all we have now, Lord Caranoe—you usually send someone for them later—”
“Then that’s all they will get,” he said coldly. “What is your name, Goldie?”
Deirdre glanced up and murmured, “Goldie. That’s my name.”
“You will come sleep with me tonight, Goldie,” he ordered.
“Forgive me, Lord Caranoe,” she sputtered, “but I have been charged with the care of the baby.” She pointed toward the box bed. He glanced at the bed and pursed his lips, but did not make an issue of it—for now.
Taking up the basket, he strode out, and Deirdre relaxed in relief. She realized she had been holding her breath.
A short while later the baby awoke with a lusty cry for milk. Deirdre paused with a half-peeled potato in hand, looking uncertainly to the kitchen mistress. The woman jerked her head toward him and demanded, “Go make him be quiet!”
“Yes, mistress,” Deirdre answered willingly, throwing the potato and the knife down in the basket. She sat with the baby in the corner of the kitchen to nurse him, whispering, “It’s a blessing to have you, little one. Now, what shall I name you?” Her first desire was to call him Roman, but she could not even think the name without a heartache. Besides, someone here who saw her good clothes might know the name of the Commander of Galapos’ army and question her choice of that name.
So she probed her brain for another good name. She recalled a boy from a time before Roman had become her guardian. He was the son of a tradesman who had been invited to the palace to show his craft . . . a handsome, smiling boy with bashful brown eyes. . . .
“Your name is Arund,” she declared, breaking into a flirtatious smile. A moment’s thought dispelled the smile. “You are Arund and I am Goldie—two sojourners in a wretched land,” she sighed. Arund merely closed his eyes, utterly unaware of their perilous situation. Her warmth and milk provided all the security he needed.
As he nursed, a serving girl paused to watch. Deirdre did not look up until the girl squatted beside her and smiled. “So your name is Goldie. I’m Bettina.” Deirdre nodded and the girl folded her legs beneath her to sit more comfortably. She had very curly brown hair, an angular face with a sprinkling of freckles, and blue-grey eyes. She was an attractive girl mostly because of her friendly demeanor.
“There’s been a lot of talk going on about you,” Bettina continued. “Some of the others were complaining that you weren’t working. Not me, though. I remember how I felt when I first got here.”
Deirdre smiled, as the girl did not look any older than herself. “How long have you been here?” Deirdre asked.
“Over a year. They conscripted my husband into Savin’s army when they passed through our village. They brought me here.”
Listening, Deirdre shifted Arund, then muttered in dismay to find that he had soiled his wraps again. “How do I keep him clean?” she complained.
“Wait here.” Bettina left Deirdre sitting in the corner and returned in a few moments with an armload of discarded cloths. “Use these.” Deirdre removed the soiled wrap and wiped the baby clean, then Bettina showed her how to wrap a clean cloth more snugly around his bottom.
That done, Deirdre gingerly picked up the dirty cloth and began to toss it in a corner when the mistress stopped over her, glaring. Bettina quickly said, “No, Goldie—out here.” She led Deirdre outside, telling her, “Pile the dirty things here until you have a chance to wash them out. Don’t pile them in the kitchen—the mistress will slay you!”
Deirdre believed her. “Where do I wash them?” she asked.
“Here.” Bettina took her around the courtyard to show her a stream that formed a boundary to the palace grounds. Ten feet at its widest, and not more than a few feet deep, it nonetheless flowed with great energy toward the edge of the cliffs. There it cascaded down in a silvery waterfall several hundred feet to the Sea.
Deirdre knelt to let the water cover her fingers. “It’s warm!” she exclaimed.
“It springs steaming from the rocks just inside the great wall,” said Bettina, pointing to a source she could not see. “If it weren’t for the springs, no one could live on these cliffs. The rains are frequent enough, but the water all runs down to the valleys. With the springs, though, they’ve made these rocks into a garden.” She gestured again, and Deirdre looked out across wide, terraced fields newly harvested, thick orchards, and green pastures on the upper slopes of the mount. Across the stream, directly in front of her, she could see up close one of the many irrigation trenches feeding the fields from the stream. Deirdre was not sufficiently mature at this time to realize the amount of hard labor represented by such a scheme.
Bettina resumed, “Wash the baby’s wraps here and spread them on the rock wall to dry, or dry them on the hearth in the kitchen if the mistress isn’t there.”
By this time, Bettina’s kindness had melted all Deirdre’s sense of superiority toward her. “Thank you for showing me these things. . . . I’ve never had to do all this at once, when I don’t know how to do any of it.” Her throat tightened as she considered her miserable state.
Bettina squeezed her arm in gentle understanding. “We’d better go back in now.”
Deirdre stood by in the kitchen as the noon meal was quickly prepared for the palace courtiers. She gleaned that the Surchataine was out inspecting some property and not expected to return until the dinner hour.
Then Deirdre watched as servants took dishes and goblets through large double doors leading into the banquet hall. By standing at just the right spot, she could see through the door to a room with whitewashed walls and silver wainscoting. The candelabra on the great table were also highly polished silver. From an area beyond the table, she heard the voices of those entering the hall.
“Goldie!” barked the head cook, snapping Deirdre’s attention from the other room.
“Yes, mistress?” she asked meekly.
“Are the potatoes finished?” the cook demanded, standing over the quarter-empty bushel.
“They will be soon, mistress,” Deirdre promised, quickly retrieving the knife.
As Deirdre resumed paring, Bettina joined her with a bushel of greens to wash. Deirdre murmured, “Is this going to feed all the courtiers and soldiers?”
“Oh, we don’t prepare meals for the soldiers,” Bettina said with condescension. “They and the servants are fed from their own kitchen, off the barracks. We fix only for the Surchataine’s table.”
“Oh,” Deirdre said, wondering why it wasn’t done that way at Westford.
When finally she dropped the last clean potato into the basket, she turned triumphantly to the head cook, expecting a word of approval on the work done. But the cook merely glanced over and ordered, “Now, finish plucking and cleaning the birds,” jerking her head toward a dozen headless chickens sparsely covered with down. Deirdre stared at them in horror.
“Don’t tell me”—the cook slapped down her ladle—“You don’t know how! No, never mind, I can’t show you now! Here—grind the flour—like this, you twit! Are you watching?” A red-faced Deirdre intently observed the cook’s demonstration.
Deirdre’s ignorance brought blessing, however, in that the mistress quickly realized she must teach this girl everything from the most basic level. Once Deirdre learned to do a task, she did it exactly as instructed, and brought no more criticism down on her head. In that way she escaped much of the harsher treatment other servants received.
Also, Deirdre discovered that whenever Arund cried, she was allowed to stop whatever she was doing to attend him. No one interfered when she nursed him. Having responsibility for him gave her a measure of control in her strange new life, and, as she found, a reason to accept the beginning of each day without sinking into despair.
The pace in the kitchen, along with the head cook’s outbursts, intensified as the dinner hour drew near. Silver plates and dishes were carefully set out even before the first guest arrived at table. Deirdre strained to glimpse through the doors as sounds of voices and knocking chairs indicated the guests were taking their places. Then a serving girl appeared from the hall to inform the mistress, “The Surchataine is seated.”
The mistress motioned to a manservant, who carried out a large tray with an assortment of rare wines and ale. Following him, two servants carried out bowls of soup and loaves of fresh-baked bread.
The mistress put finishing garnishes on two dishes and motioned to Deirdre. “Goldie—you and Bettina take these out one at a time, and set them before the Surchataine. Bow before you put them on the table and bow afterwards. Then stand behind her chair and wait for orders. Watch her closely—she’ll only lift a finger or glance toward you. And do not presume to say a word!”
Deirdre nodded and carried out a large platter of seasoned rice. She was hungry, and its aroma steamed in her face. She paused apprehensively as her stomach rumbled. Bettina nudged her from behind, and they entered the banquet hall.
Twenty-five men and women sat around a long table, talking and laughing among themselves. They were all dressed in fine clothes, as she once had been. The candles burned cheerily and the food smelled tantalizing.
Seized with unbearable homesickness for past happy evenings with Roman and Galapos, Deirdre closed her eyes. In an instant she saw herself rudely snubbing Roman at the table after his innocent comment. Oh my darling, forgive me, she pleaded inwardly. Sternly, she opened her eyes to face the present moment.
At the head of the table sat Sheva, the Surchataine. In Deirdre’s cold estimation, she was an unremarkable woman—hollow-cheeked and brunette, with deep-set eyes. Yet her plainness faded to inconsequence beneath the majesty of her attitude and attire. Envy surged up in Deirdre to see her sit so cool and regal, wearing emeralds and a rich green velvet gown draped in plentiful folds. Deirdre bowed shakily, placed the dish in front of her, bowed again and stepped back. Bettina did likewise.
As the Surchataine ignored the serving girls, Deirdre soon found the courage to take her eyes off Sheva and scan the table again. Lord Troyce, seated to Sheva’s right, seemed to occupy most of the Surchataine’s attention. Sevter was down the table, and Caranoe a chair down from him. Sevter glanced up at Deirdre to acknowledge her with a wink. Caranoe, to her relief, was directing all his energy toward a lady on his right.
After observing the guests eat for some time, Deirdre discerned that although they appeared to be enjoying themselves, at every pause they darted their eyes to the Surchataine, watching for a sign of her disposition this evening. Tension weighted every word and soured every laugh.
“Surchataine, may I speak?” implored a rotund little man a chair down from Lord Troyce. She nodded toward him. “May I say, Surchataine, how wisely and effectively you have ruled since the untimely demise of High Lord Savin. There has never been such food, such goods, such opulence in Diamond’s Head!” A number of voices seconded this opinion.
Sheva only
smiled. “You still wish control of the water mill, Brude?” He reddened and stammered. “I will consider it,” she said.
“Thank you, Surchataine, thank you,” he gushed.
“Surchataine,” Lord Troyce addressed her quietly and everyone else hushed. “Regardless of his motives, what Lord Brude says is true. You have increased our wealth considerably. Yet you must also be aware of the growing discontent and fearfulness of the population, caught between the usurers and the slave traders. I am certain my lady is aware that the slaves at the palace now outnumber the soldiers—are you not?”
“What of it?” she asked testily.
“It makes for a dangerous situation, Surchataine. There are constant rumblings among the servants—”
She interrupted, “You will talk to me of this later. The overseers [here she glanced at Sevter and Caranoe] will insure that there are no malcontents. That is the purpose of the gallows.”
This last icy remark hung in the air while Sheva threw a hand toward Deirdre: “Bring me the custard now.” Deirdre flew to the kitchen to comply.
As she returned with a tray of desserts, her ears pricked up to hear an officer mention Galapos’ ruling in Lystra, at which Sheva uttered the vilest curse Deirdre’s tender ears had ever heard. Stunned, she jiggled the tray over Sevter’s shoulder, and he surreptitiously reached a hand to steady it.
Sheva was now saying, “I swear I will have vengeance on Galapos. He thinks to rule, does he? Well, he has not yet met my strength. When I am ready, Galapos will learn who is sovereign on the Continent!”
Deirdre managed to place the tray properly before the Surchataine, who took one and motioned it down the table. The custard was eaten in watchful silence as Sheva’s temper cooled. Then she stood abruptly and all the rest hastily stood, whether they were finished eating or not. Lord Troyce kissed her hand while she dismissed the guests with a wave. They quickly filed out as the Surchataine and her administrator climbed the stairs together.
Deirdre watched them go until Bettina nudged her, whispering, “Better not dawdle. The mistress hates dawdling.” Dazed, Deirdre turned toward the great table cluttered with dirty dishes and uneaten portions which Bettina had already begun clearing.