“Work hard,” one of them ordered. “When you finish here, we’ll think of something else for you to do.”
“Yeah, that new garden near the wall needs work. The soil’s never been turned and it’s full of rocks and roots, but that won’t bother you,” said the other.
Petten plunged his shovel into the wheelbarrow’s dwindling pile of fertilizer.
“I think he likes manure,” the first one said and laughed as if he’d said something very witty.
They walked on, and Petten paused to wipe his sweaty forehead. I hate being laughed at, he told the Maker tersely. I hide it better than Janna does, but the truth is, I wanted to throw this shovelful of manure in their faces. You don’t know how it feels.
Face tight, he scattered the manure on a wide swath of the small ferns. It wasn’t until he’d scooped up another heavy shovelful that he realized something. Actually, you do, don’t you? They laughed at you too.
A sense of companionship enveloped him and the feeling of being understood was like an arm slung around his shoulder. Then another thought struck him, and he almost whooped out loud. One of those fernmen had said that Petten’s next assignment might be near the wall. I hope he knew what he was talking about.
The Fern Queen marked the borders of her forested estate with a low stone wall. Since the estate was large, the wall had a big circumference. If they put him to work near a wall, he would have the opportunity to see what lay on the other side.
Petten went back to work, encouraged. He didn’t care how rocky or root-bound the new garden was. If he could learn the lay of the land outside the Fern Queen’s estate, he could plan where to go if they escaped.
When we escape, he corrected himself.
The hours passed. When the sun was directly overhead, he got a long drink of water at the water trough, though he knew what to expect from anyone who saw him.
“We have ourselves another horse,” shouted a burly fernman heading into a corral.
“That is too gross,” said a giggling ferngirl on her way to the vegetable garden.
Laughter burst from a small group of fernmen walking toward the castle.
“Let’s find a saddle and bridle to fit him,” one of them said, and the whole group laughed again.
Petten continued drinking from the water that poured out of the pump. He didn’t bother to point out that the horses drank from the trough itself, not the stream of water flowing from the pump into the trough. It wouldn’t have made any difference. They would have laughed at him anyway, but this time it didn’t bother him as much. They didn’t have the Maker’s arm around their shoulders.
Besides, he didn’t mind drinking like a horse; he only wished he could eat like one. Hay and grass were readily available.
Later in the afternoon, the smell of meat roasting in the kitchen drifted into the garden. It made the big hunting dogs bark and snarl hungrily from their pens behind the castle. Petten worked doggedly on. By the end of the day, he was weak and dizzy, but he had fertilized half of the side garden. He should be able to do the other half the next day.
The evening light faded as he pushed the wheelbarrow back behind the barn, and a familiar bellow sounded. “Enough!”
Chapter 9
Curtains
Petten dropped the shovel immediately and ran to the horse trough. He pumped hard until water was gushing out, then pushed his head into it and groaned with pleasure, but his time was limited. Quickly, he scrubbed the sweat out of his brown curls and splashed as much of the dirt and muck as he could off his legs and shoes.
It was tempting to step into the trough and sit down, but then he would drip worse on the staircase than he already did, and the fernpeople would object to that. They might forbid his washing up entirely. He’d better stay within known limits.
“Get over here,” yelled his supervisor, who waited impatiently at the back door of the castle until Petten entered.
The big fernman came in behind him, locked the outside door, and stomped through another doorway into the ground level of the castle. Petten was left by himself, but fernpeople were always scurrying up and down the stairs that time of day. It wasn’t a good opportunity to escape. Besides, he would never leave without the girls.
Trudging up the stairs to the top floor, he walked wearily down the hall. As usual, Alissa was already in the room.
“Hello, Petten, how was your day?”
“The same,” he answered, dropping into his hay.
“Are your arms sore?”
“Yes”—he rubbed them—“though they’re getting more used to it. Did you wash curtains again?”
“No, it was sheets today,” Alissa said with a wry smile.
Someone was thumping up the main staircase. Petten and Alissa brightened. Only Janna dared to thump up that staircase. She stormed through the doorway of their room and glared at them.
“Do you know what she told me? She said I smelled bad. ‘I am surprised at you, Janna. Surely your parents taught you better habits than this. See that you clean yourself tonight, dear.’”
Janna’s imitation of the Fern Queen’s slow drawl had been perfected with practice. Petten and Alissa laughed appreciatively.
“I’ve done what I can, but it’s hard to find water, let alone soap,” Janna rampaged on.
Alissa clasped her hands in excitement. “Janna, the tubful of water I used to rinse the sheets is in the laundry room. There’s soap on the shelves too.”
Janna stopped in the middle of her rampage. “And sheets to dry ourselves with. Let’s go.”
“All of us?” asked Alissa, shrinking back.
“Yes. You and Petten are as tired of being dirty as I am. Come on. I’ll handle anyone who gets in our way.”
Alissa followed reluctantly, but Petten hopped up from his hay in anticipation. This he had to see! Janna marched boldly down the fourth-floor hall and into the laundry room. A fernwoman was there, checking on the sheets.
“We will need this room for the next few minutes, orders of the Fern Queen,” Janna said.
“What do you want it for?” asked the fernwoman suspiciously. “The three of you are filthy, and I have clean sheets here.”
“We’re going to bathe in this tub of water,” Janna announced without hesitation, nose in the air. “It’s here; it’s warm; and it will get us clean.”
“Some men are coming to empty it in a few minutes. No one bathes in my laundry room.” The fernwoman sniffed her contempt at the idea.
“Oh,” Janna said with an innocent air, and Petten had to scratch his nose again to hide another grin. “All right, I’ll just run downstairs and tell the Fern Queen you won’t let us follow her orders. She must be having supper now. I’m sure she won’t mind being disturbed.”
“No. I—you—go ahead and bathe.”
Janna was a favorite of the Fern Queen’s. Everyone in the castle knew that. Everyone in the castle also knew that the Fern Queen hated being disturbed at a meal.
“We’ll need a few minutes,” Janna said sweetly. “Please tell the men not to come right away.”
“I’m through for the day,” snapped the fernwoman, throwing the sheet she had been folding into a basket and slamming the door behind her as she left.
Petten bowed low in his best courtier fashion.
“Princess Janna, you are extraordinary.”
“You certainly are,” Alissa said.
Janna beamed at their praise, but there wasn’t any time to waste.
“Petten, why don’t you keep watch outside while Alissa and I bathe? We’ll be fast, then you can take your turn.”
Petten stepped into the tub ten minutes later. It felt wonderful to scrape the three-week layer of dirt and dung off, but he didn’t want to be interrupted in the middle of a bath any more than the girls did. Before the fernmen came, they were back in their room, clothes dripping.
It had been Janna’s idea to wash their clothes out while they had the chance. The problem was that they had to put the wet things
back on. They had nothing else to wear. Night breezes were quite cool in the mountain world, even in the summer, but fortunately, very few of the breezes could make it through their slit of a window.
“By morning, our clothes and hair will be dry,” Alissa said hopefully.
“I feel like a haystack,” grumbled Petten.
He had stretched out in the corner and hay was sticking every place his wet clothes touched.
“Yes, but you’re a clean haystack,” Janna told him. “Count your blessings.”
Petten grunted in answer, and there were a few minutes of silence while the girls lay down.
“I am thankful for two blessings every day: Janna and Petten,” Alissa said.
“If it wasn’t for you two, I would have nothing to look forward to,” Janna agreed.
The ensuing pause dragged on a little too long.
“Petten, aren’t you going to say something?”
“I wish I could eat hay,” came from the corner.
“You can have my bread tomorrow,” Janna said.
“No. You’re hungry too.”
There was another pause.
“You girls are good friends. I’m grateful for you.”
By then, it was too dark to see, but he could sense two big smiles from the direction of the bed.
“Thank you, Petten,” Janna and Alissa chorused together.
Three low chuckles lightened the darkness. Then silence settled in for the night.
****
The next morning, Alissa bent over hot soapy water and ran a curtain across the bumpy washboard. She had not wanted to wash curtains again, but the unnecessary chore was almost worth it when she thought of Janna’s indignant reaction to the news. That wouldn’t happen until nighttime though, and there were a lot of curtains in the castle, enough to keep her busy for hours.
Sighing, the princess wrung soapy water out of the curtain and moved over to the tub of clean water. When she bent over it, her long golden hair fell in too, which meant she had to wring water out of it in addition to the curtain.
The circlet around Alissa’s head had been taken away as soon as she arrived at the castle. She did not miss it as an ornament, but her hair got in the way much more often without something to hold it back. Since Janna had the run of the castle, maybe the younger girl could find her a ribbon or even a piece of string.
As Alissa was reaching for another curtain, one of the gardeners walked in with a huge armload of ferns and flowers. He dumped them on a table and left again without saying a word.
Every morning, a mass of fern fronds and a few flowers were brought from the gardens to fill the various vases in the halls and bedrooms. The vases were there, waiting for their new bouquets, but the fernwomen who arranged them had not yet arrived.
Alissa stared at the fresh things. Gardens flourished in the Kingdom of Green Waters, and everyone decorated with flowers, but Alissa had been particularly good at putting a bouquet together. Should she? It would be such a welcome change from washing curtains. Apprehensively glancing at the doorway, she hurried over to the vases and quickly chose the ferns and flowers that would complement each other.
When a group of fernwomen walked into the room a little later, the vases were filled with unusually beautiful arrangements. The fernwomen paused, dumbfounded.
“Did you arrange these?”
“Yes, will they do?” asked Alissa timidly.
There was no answer. One of the women stepped forward, then the rest of them rushed to the table, laying claim to the particular arrangement that had caught their fancy.
“Let’s put them in our rooms first,” said one of the ladies-in-waiting. “Then we’ll come back for the others.”
In short order, the vases were gone. Alissa prepared for another long, lonely day, but two of the more important fernwomen unexpectedly returned.
“Do you know how to, you know, rearrange things in a room?” one of them asked.
“Yes,” Alissa said simply.
“I told you,” the fernwoman said to her companion. “Let’s get her to do our rooms. I want a change.”
“Leave the curtains,” she told Alissa with a contemptuous wave of her hand, and the young woman gladly obeyed.
It was much more enjoyable creating new beauty in a bedroom than washing curtains that weren’t dirty. The work was harder though, and the lack of sufficient food was having its dizzying effect on Alissa. Several times, she had to grab hold of a bedpost.
As soon as she finished one room, the ladies whisked her off to another. Before they let her go that afternoon, she had redone four bedrooms, and the rest of the fernwomen were fighting over who would get her the next day.
“I am not allowed off the top two floors, which leaves out the ladies who live on the first and second floors. They are going to ask permission to take me to their rooms, but they do not know if the Fern Queen will grant it,” Alissa said wearily to Janna and Petten that evening
“Why the limitation?” asked Petten.
“I do not know,” answered Alissa, shaking her head.
“That’s easy,” said Janna, who had to endure long periods of time in the queen’s presence and understood the woman better than anyone else. “She doesn’t want you near her. You’re competition.”
Alissa shook her head again, but Petten glanced appreciatively at the blonde princess and nodded.
The younger girl grimaced wryly. She spent the whole day in and out of the Fern Queen’s presence. No competition from me. I have green eyes just like the fernpeople. Come to think of it, most of them have brown hair too.
Janna was not one to keep things to herself. “Have you noticed that I look exactly like one of the fernpeople? Green eyes and brown hair…”
She’d hoped either Petten or Alissa would disagree, but it was very gratifying when both of them spoke.
“Janna, you have beautiful eyes,” Alissa said. “They are a very pretty shade of green.”
“And you’re full of personality and make life fun for everyone around you,” Petten added.
I could name a few people who don’t think so—everyone in Mount Pasture for starters. However, Janna didn’t bother to mention that thought out loud. It was really not worth the effort.
The door was jerked open by the fernman who brought their supper. As usual, he threw the basket on the floor and left, locking them in for the night. Janna’s hands shook slightly as she divided two cold baked potatoes between three people. At least there were three pieces of bread this time.
“We need more food,” she said in a voice that cracked. “We can’t keep going day after day without enough food.”
“You’re right. Do you want to march downstairs and demand more, or shall I?” Petten asked dryly.
Janna grinned at him, hoping nobody had seen her shaking hands. “Let’s both go. That way, we can carry up a basket apiece.”
They ate, trying to make the meager portions last as long as possible. During the day, each of them had access to water, but during the night, they had nothing. Janna was thirsty, but she decided not to complain again. She could wait.
“I’ll present our demands to the Fern Queen first thing in the morning,” she said as airily as she could. “I’m supposed to dust the throne room tomorrow, but she’s bound to send for me before she leaves her bedroom. She always does.”
“You are high in her favor,” Alissa said in a soothing voice.
“Yes, what a great compliment,” Petten said in an extremely soothing voice.
“It is not a compliment,” Janna responded, bristling. “It’s an insult and something I would never want known in the outside world.”
Then she laughed helplessly, knowing he had baited her.
Petten and Alissa laughed with her. They thanked the Maker that night for laughter and companionship and three pieces of bread. Janna rolled over in the bed, preparing to go to sleep, but Alissa’s earnest voice stopped her.
“We need more to eat. We are getting too weak. Ple
ase give us the food we need.”
There was silence after that. Not even Petten could think of anything funny to say.
Chapter 10
Cook
“I’m sick to death of the color green,” Janna said under her breath the next morning as she dusted the throne room.
Everything in the Fern Queen’s castle was green. The curtains were green; the rugs were green; the vases, pictures, furniture, bowls, and linens were green. Even the rags for cleaning were green.
It was tastefully done. There were stripes of different hues, dark squares that alternated with pale ones, leafy patterns with flowers providing accent colors, geometric designs—the variations went on and on, but it didn’t make any difference to Janna. They were all basically green.
She dusted the queen’s favorite painting with disgust. It was a large portrayal of fern fronds tossing in a wind. There were several different types of ferns in the painting and their particular shades of green had been painstakingly recreated.
“Makes me want to vom—”
“She wants you,” growled a fernman from the door, and Janna sighed, even though she’d been expecting the summons.
The Fern Queen always ate a leisurely breakfast in her sitting room while lounging on a plush forest-green sofa. She had a selection of beautiful green nightgowns with accompanying robes that nobody but the fernpeople who were allowed in her private chambers ever got to see.
Janna suspected that most mornings the vain woman called for her because she wanted to show off those nightgowns and robes. Today was different. The queen was in a rage. Janna could hear her as soon as she reached the long hallway that led to the royal suite, located on the main floor of the castle.
There were several rooms in the suite. Janna followed the sound of voices to the sitting room, her favorite because it had wide windows that overlooked several of the side gardens. Occasionally, she had caught a glimpse of Petten working. She didn’t get a chance this morning.
“This is disgusting, absolutely disgusting. Take it away,” the queen said as she threw the contents of a small glass into the face of one of her ladies-in-waiting.
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