The Autumn Palace

by Ebony McKenna

  ‘You needn’t take that “high and mighty” attitude with me, girl,’ the Infanta said. ‘I know what you’re thinking.’

  ‘Ma’am, I’m thinking I have a lot of work to do today.’

  ‘Don’t answer back.’

  Great Pluto’s ghost, no wonder the last butler quit!

  Without prompting, the Infanta said, ‘You don’t know what it’s like to have your life ripped away from you. To have your hopes and dreams dashed.’

  Ondine kept busy changing the bedsheets. Last time she was stuck listening to the Infanta, in the kitchen, she had had nowhere to avert her eyes.

  ‘I was going to be married to a prince, you know. Not one of those Slaegal princes, they’re a schlip71 a dozen. Over there, you lift up a rock and you find a prince. My prince was a real one, from the house of Hollenstotder-Betansk. The arrangement was already made. The date set for the week after my sixteenth birthday.’

  The Infanta gave a noisy sigh. ‘Am I going to have to pour the tea myself?’

  Far from finished with her present task, Ondine stopped making the bed and walked to the table. She lifted the lid and found the teapot empty. Great, she’d have to start from scratch. On the dresser she found the kettle, also empty, so she walked to the Infanta’s kitchenette and filled it. When it boiled, she tipped some of the water into the pot, swirled it round to warm the porcelain, then poured the water out.

  With a note of surprise in her voice, the Infanta said, ‘You know what you’re doing.’

  ‘Thank you, ma’am.’ Ondine put two teaspoons of leaves in the warm pot. The moment the kettle boiled again, she poured the scalding water over the leaves and the water turned a satisfying dark brown.

  ‘How do you like it, ma’am, weak or strong?’

  ‘Strong and stewed.’

  Ondine nodded and checked the milk jug. The leftover milk in the bottom had formed a thick band of dried scab around the inside wall. Ick! Back to the kitchenette then. Scrub, scrub, nearly done. Just for a cup of tea!

  ‘At this time of day, I take it with lemon. I only like milk first thing in the morning.’

  Ondine thought, You could have told me that before I wasted my time scrubbing the jug!

  In the fruit bowl she found three lemons. She chose one, washed the skin and cut it into thin slices. Then she put a slice in the teacup, grabbed the strainer and poured the Infanta her cup of tea.

  ‘May I return to making your bed, ma’am?’

  ‘Of course. You know, if things had been different, I would have been in the south wing, instead of up here on the draughty north face.’

  Ondine got straight back to work and finished with the bed, then carried all the dirty linen to the laundry chute in the bathroom. The fabric made soft dadud noises as it fell against the chute’s angled walls.

  ‘When they thought I’d be the ruling Duchess, I used to have my linen changed every day. Now I’m lucky if it’s changed once a week,’ the Infanta said.

  My heart bleeds, Ondine thought as she scooped the Infanta’s used towels off the floor and dropped them down the chute. All she had to do next was put the clean towels on the rails and get out of there. Being around Anathea made her twitchy and nervous. If she stayed too long, the Infanta would make her clean the bathroom. As far as Ondine was concerned, her job was done.

  ‘And another thing. This is a fine cup of tea, Ondine. Thank you.’

  ‘You’re welcome, ma’am.’ The batty old cow had said something nice! Ondine decided to return the favour as she made her way to the door. ‘I hope you have a lovely day.’

  ‘Come back here, I haven’t finished with you. Here, let me pour you some tea.’

  To Ondine’s surprise, the Infanta poured her a cup. ‘Do you take sugar?’

  ‘Yes, two please.’ Why didn’t she just excuse herself and walk out? Her job here was done. Draguta needed her back in the laundry.

  ‘Do you know what it’s like to have to bow, scrape and curtsey to someone you despise, Ondine?’

  Lord Vincent appeared in her mind. ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘I believe you do.’ The Infanta looked at her for a while, then a slow, knowing smile spread over her face. ‘You’ve met Vincent, haven’t you?’

  ‘Wow, you’re good.’

  ‘He’s a piece of work, let me tell you. Far too eager to take over. Thinks he’s got it all worked out. With Vincent, the fire’s burning but the cow’s still in the field.’72

  A giggle escaped Ondine’s lips. She couldn’t think of anything sensible or non-committal to say, so she drank her tea.

  ‘I was thirteen years old when it was all taken away,’ the Infanta said. ‘Thirteen! Old enough to understand my duties, my obligations and my destiny. Old enough to know that when people bowed and curtseyed to me, it was because of my God-given birthright. I was someone. They called me “Duchetta Anathea”. The little duchess. I would have been only the third ruling duchess in all of Brugel’s history. Oh, I had such lovely plans for making Brugel truly great.’

  The Infanta’s top lip curled in contempt as she said, ‘Then he was born. The mewling snotty-faced brat. A sickly child by all accounts. Not that they’d let me see him at first. My mother had been ordered bed rest for months before he was born. I was forbidden to see her. I hadn’t even known she was pregnant when the orders for her bed rest came. But I knew what was being done. They must have known a boy would be born, otherwise there would not have been such a fuss.’

  The Infanta looked at the ceiling before she continued. ‘I knew it was a boy the morning I was not called Duchetta. My father the Duke arrived to tell me the news. He called me Infanta. After that, I was called Infanta by all the staff, and bows were not made. Only nodding heads. When I was finally allowed to meet my baby brother, I was ordered to curtsey to him. A few weeks later, news arrived that my engagement was broken. Thirteen years old and my life was over. How do you like that?’

  It was hard to know if the Infanta was asking a rhetorical question or a real one. Either way, Ondine didn’t have an answer.

  A resigned look came over Infanta Anathea’s face. ‘You’re a good listener, and you make a good pot of tea. Your talents are wasted in the laundry. How would you like to work for me? I need a new butler.’

  Warning bells went off inside Ondine’s head. ‘Ma’am, I’m honoured but –’

  ‘You will be paid double the money.’

  That made things interesting! ‘Can I think about it?’

  ‘What is there to think about? You are a smart girl, although from what I hear you need to pay attention in class. A good word can be said to Ms Kyryl.’

  Jupiter’s moons! If the Infanta could put in a ‘good word’ with her teacher, she could probably put in a bad word too.

  ‘Your timetable, what is it?’

  Ondine drew a mental picture of her school and laundry schedule, then she explained it to the Duchess.

  ‘I see,’ she said. ‘From now on, you will fetch my breakfast before school, then work for me in the afternoon from Wednesday to Friday and then mornings at the weekends.’

  ‘But that –’

  ‘Still leaves you with Tuesday afternoons off. Now go and tell that wafer-thin washer-woman when you will be working for me. Then return here with morning tea, I’m feeling peckish.’

  No choice at all, then. ‘Yes, ma’am. Would you like fruit or cake?’

  ‘Cake? Good luck finding that! Unless you plan on making some yourself? Now that’s a handy skill to have.’

  ‘We could . . . make a cake together? It might be fun.’

  Anathea laughed and slapped the table. ‘Me? Bake?’ She wafted her hands in front of her, mimicking the actions of cooking. ‘I don’t do baking.’

  ‘Maybe you should?’

  ‘Don’t push it.’

  Head buzzing with confusion, Ondine made her way downstairs to see Draguta and tell her of her change in circumstances.

  ‘I didn’t want to take the job but she kind of made it hard f
or me to say “no”,’ Ondine said.

  ‘Of course she did. You watch that woman, she all charm and cheer, then strikes and you never see it coming. You get whiplash keeping up.’

  ‘I know. She gave me a compliment and it scared me.’

  ‘Be careful, OK?’

  ‘Thanks, Draguta.’

  70 Female butlers are common in Brugel and also in neighbouring Slaegal, but Craviç is having none of it.

  71 Brugel coinage.

  72 A beloved expression of Bruglers. It means someone thinks they have everything sorted out, but they’ve forgotten the basics. For example, if you want to cook roast beef, you must first get the cow.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The next morning Ondine woke with a jolt. Hunger made strange noises in her belly. She barely had time to bolt down a bowl of Toots Wheat before darting off to the Infanta’s rooms to start cleaning.

  ‘I would like a cooked breakfast brought to me as well,’ the Infanta said.

  Ondine silently groaned at the extra workload, although she did her very best not to roll her eyes. She was used to carrying plates of food to customers in her parents’ pub, but trudging up two flights of stairs with a tray of bacon and eggs and a pot of tea was difficult and potentially messy.73

  With each step the tea made lolloping noises and threatened to slosh out of the pot. Her arms ached, her calves burned, her breath came out in loud puffs as she carried the heavy tray up the stairs. At last she reached the Infanta’s rooms.

  ‘Was this cooked by you?’ the Infanta asked as she lifted the silver dome off the plate.

  Fried-bacon smells pervaded the room. Biscuit the gummy dog stirred in his basket.

  ‘No, ma’am, the chefs cooked it,’ Ondine answered.

  Without touching the food, the Infanta placed the dome back over the plate and said, ‘Take it back.’

  What? ‘But it’s perfectly good,’ Ondine protested.

  The Infanta’s expression remained impassive, possibly because her face just didn’t move all that much, but her voice brooked no argument. ‘Don’t back chat! I want this thrown out. I want a new breakfast cooked. I want no other hand but yours to touch my food. Is that understood?’

  No! ‘Yes.’

  Trudging back down the stairs, Ondine reached the kitchen and put the tray down on a side bench near the bins. Lifting the dome, she grabbed the fork the Infanta hadn’t even touched and ate everything on the plate. A few minutes later she’d made a new breakfast and it was time to climb the stairs again and present the food to the Infanta, who looked none too pleased at the delay in her meal service.

  With a snap of Anathea’s fingers, Biscuit shot out of his basket and sat on his mistress’s lap. The Infanta lifted the dome off the plate and said, ‘You vouch that this was cooked by no one but you?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘Good.’ She picked up the fork and stabbed at a quivering pile of scrambled egg, then ate it. Her steely eyes blinked slowly. ‘It’s good,’ she said at last. To Ondine’s horror, she scooped more food with her fork and fed it to Biscuit. Then she put the Biscuit-slobbered fork back into the egg on her plate and ate another mouthful.

  ‘You think I’m being difficult, don’t you, child?’ the Infanta asked.

  I’m thinking a lot of things, Ondine thought.

  ‘I trust you, Ondine. That is why I want all my meals prepared by you. The kitchen staff cannot be trusted. Corners are cut. Mistakes are made.’

  Pangs and pings went off inside Ondine’s head in frustration. The Infanta was sharing food with her dog, yet she worried about germs from the kitchen staff?

  The Infanta went on: ‘Everyone was made sick recently. I know it came from the kitchen. They are lazy and poorly trained. It’s not their fault, of course. Proper staff were not hired. They were not screened prior to working here. Students are cheaper than people who are qualified.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ Ondine tucked a stray hair behind her ear and did her best not to fidget. She had her own theories about how everyone became sick and it centred around the dog with no teeth.

  ‘My bed will be made now and the room will be tidied,’ the Infanta said.

  ‘Of course,’ Ondine replied, feeling as if she’d snapped out of a spell. She set to making the bed and tidying the room. All the while, she kept catching glimpses of Infanta Anathea and her dog eating from the same plate. Heaven help her, she just couldn’t seem to look away.

  ‘Ma’am, if I may . . .’ Ondine said after she’d cleared the floor, ‘I must get to class.’

  ‘Yes, of course. Go. When you finish school, you may make lunch. I would like poached fish.’

  ‘But the Duke has banned fish,’ Ondine said.

  ‘From his plate, not mine. And it will be fresh. If you can find the gamekeeper, see if there are any trout left in the lake.’

  Silently Ondine groaned at the ever-tightening squeeze on her free time. She’d been cross with Hamish for enjoying his job a little too much and now she’d gone and taken on a second job. They’d be lucky to see each other at all at this rate.

  The days grew colder and the shadows grew longer. Fewer guests arrived at the palechia, making the normally bustling estate feel cavernous and eerie. The one short break Ondine had from the palechia was when she joined the school children in the main street of Bellreeve to hang up bunting for the coming Harvest Festival at Hallowe’en.

  All week she juggled school and the Infanta. At the weekend she spent her afternoons in the laundry rummaging through clothes for stolen chotskys.74 And she hadn’t seen Hamish, proper Hamish, in so long, she wondered if he might be liking his job more than her.

  She barely had five minutes to call her mother, who sounded terse down the line.

  ‘But things are fine, Ma.’

  ‘I don’t care. You went behind our backs and now you’re halfway across the country. You need to be home with us, you –’ Oh, thank goodness, the phone started to bleep.

  ‘I’m running out of coins, I have to go.’

  ‘Don’t you dare hang up on me! Put more coins in. Your sister is trying to organise her wedding and she doesn’t know when you’ll be home. Your father is furious. You come home right –’

  Merciful heavens, the money ran out. Worn out from the strain, Ondine staggered back to her room, to find Hamish asleep in it. Or rather, Hamish waking up with a smile on his face.

  ‘Yer a sight fer sore eyes,’ he said, giving her his charming lopsided grin that made her insides melt.

  Relief made her feel as bright as sunshine. ‘It’s great to see you, too.’ Ondine threw herself against Hamish and hugged him with all her heart.

  Neither of them said anything for a while, revelling in the rare moment of privacy, content simply to gaze at each other. There are times when things need to be said, and other times, like this, when no words are needed.

  In . . .

  . . . a . . .

  . . . book . . .

  . . . it . . .

  . . . might . . .

  . . . look . . .

  . . . a . . .

  . . . bit . . .

  . . . like . . .

  . . . this.

  They kissed, too. Lovely kisses that made her feel such utter contentment she couldn’t believe she could be this happy. How silly she was so think he didn’t love her. Everything would be fine. Eventually, the kissing ended and they tried talking to each other instead.

  ‘How is school?’ Hamish asked.

  Ondine gave a dramatic sigh. ‘Awful. Well, not awful the whole time, just most of the time.’

  ‘What do ye mean?’

  ‘Remember a while back, you told me we’d have a test? Well, I studied really hard for it, but I only scraped through. And now I’m doing double-duty with Anathea and the laundry, I hardly have any time to study.’

  ‘Ye know I’ll help out as much as I can.’

  ‘Can you do my homework?’ she joked.

  ‘I’ll think of something,’ he said,
just before kissing her again.

  ‘Shh,’ Ondine said, her ears straining for sounds in the hallway.

  Hamish raised his eyebrows as if to ask, What?

  Big exhale. ‘Sorry, I thought I heard Draguta coming.’ More than anything, Ondine wanted to spend time with Hamish, but their respective workloads in the palechia were making that nigh impossible.

  ‘How about I do the next test for ye?’ Hamish winked and kissed her again.

  Ondine nearly lost her head, but managed to say, ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘I’m serious. I could sneak intae the teacher’s office and get the answers fer ye.’

  ‘If only.’ Ondine wanted him to be quiet and enjoy the kisses. Something in the back of her mind niggled and naggled. ‘But . . . you’re not serious, are you?’

  ‘I’m very serious. If ye fail at school, the Duke might send ye home.’

  Home to her furious parents? No, thanks. ‘But I don’t like the idea of cheating.’ He kissed her again but she pulled away. ‘I mean it. I don’t want to cheat.’

  ‘I know ye don’t want tae, lass, but ye might need tae.’

  ‘But it’s wrong,’ she said, feeling sick at the thought. ‘You really shouldn’t be thinking like that.’

  Hamish softly touched his nose against hers, making her tummy flip in the most delicious way. It made Ondine wonder whether he’d listened to her at all. When she kissed him again, her heartbeat thumped in her ears like hard shoes on parquet. Mercury’s wings, someone was coming this way. The parting kiss Hamish delivered before scarpering off in his ferrety incarnation was almost her undoing.

  Taking her seat next to Hetty the next morning, Ondine rubbed her eyes. So very tired! It had been lovely to see Hamish in private last night. A grin formed. Little zings of joy danced in her head.

  ‘What are you smiling about?’ Hetty asked.

  The smile grew, but Ondine shook her head and said, ‘Nothing.’ She had to bite her tongue and say as little about Hamish as possible. Especially to Hetty, whose tongue ran faster than a startled gazelle. They had so little privacy here. Keeping those few stolen kisses to herself made them all the more precious.