The Catswold Portal (5 page)

T
he scullery was steamy hot and noisy with the gossiping voices of two dozen scullery maids. Pots clanged, knives chopped against cutting boards, and Briccha's frequent commands cracked like rocks banged together. Smoke from the hearthfire mixed with the steam; the flames hissed and spat as fat dripped onto them from the deer turning on the spit. Beside the deer, braces of chickens roasted. Briccha took Melissa by the shoulders and pointed her toward a counter piled with dead doves and quail. “Pluck and dress them. Don't leave any feathers. Don't dawdle. Wash them in that bucket.”

She set to work with distaste. Around her girls kneaded bread dough, mixed sauces, and cut and peeled piles of vegetables and fruits. She wasn't quick at cleaning birds, even with a simple-spell, and she didn't like doing it; their softly feathered bodies made her unbearably restless. She hated the blood and the smell of the birds' entrails because she was unsettled by them, feeling something stirring within herself that she didn't understand.

It was noon when she finished cleaning the last dove, but she hadn't earned a rest. Briccha directed her to a pile of greasy pots to scrub. She washed pots for the rest of the day, her hands and arms soon coated with grease, and she was sweating from the hot dishwater. The banter of the other girls distracted her, and a few remarks were directed her way, but she did not attempt to make friends. Late in the afternoon Briccha marched her up the back stairs four flights to the attic.

They entered a long, narrow room whose steep rafters rose to a high peak, and whose walls were lined with tiers of bunks. Briccha pointed to a top bunk at the end, up beneath the rafters. A ladder led up, skirting a small window.

“You'll sleep there. That'll do for a few days—you won't last longer. There's a blanket and towel on the bunk, a hook by the window for your dress.”

Melissa looked at Briccha evenly. “Why won't I last longer? Did my work not suit you?”

“Your work was satisfactory.” Briccha turned away. “I wake the early shift at four in the morning. You will go directly to the scullery. You will work until I release you in mid-afternoon.” As she headed for the door, Melissa moved in front of her.

“Why won't I last?”

Briccha's narrow eyes widened. “You will not last at all if you cannot control your rudeness.” She pushed past Melissa and strode out the attic door.

Melissa climbed into the high bunk, meaning to rest for only a little while. She didn't know what Briccha had meant, but she would find out. Pulling the thin blanket up, she lay
thinking about the palace dungeons. She had glanced into the scullery storeroom when a girl was sent to get flour. She thought it likely the cellars were near the storeroom to give easy access to the larger food stores, and she wondered if they opened from within the storeroom. Soon she slept. She didn't wake until Briccha shouted up at her. “Four o'clock. Get down from there. Get dressed.” A lantern burned at the far end of the room.

She climbed down, cramped and uncomfortable in her wrinkled dress. There was a crock of icy water beside the window. Two girls were dipping their towels into it, dabbing at their faces. She dropped her dress and washed herself all over, shivering, trying to wake up. Most of the girls still slept. Only five had been called. She dressed and followed the other four out, crowding sleepily down the dark stair. At home she would have built up the fire and gone back to bed until the cottage warmed, then risen to wake Mag.

As she pushed into the scullery behind the other girls, Briccha was already giving orders. Melissa tried to find humor in the woman's harsh manner, but it took her some days before she could let Briccha's scoldings roll off as the other girls did. Only Terlis seemed unduly upset by the scullery mistress's harshness. Melissa liked Terlis; the valley elven were shy, gentle people—though they hated to talk about unpleasant things, even to answer one's questions. The valley elven took the view that if you didn't talk about it, it would go away. When she asked Terlis why Briccha thought she would last for only a few days, Terlis didn't want to answer.

“What harm to tell me? It's too hard, not understanding.”

“Look at yourself,” Terlis said softly, “then look around you. You're the only pretty one. We're all either misshapen with the blood of cave dwarfs or just homely like me. You'll be sent home soon. The pretty ones are all sent home.”

“But why are they brought here, then? And
why
are they sent home?”

Terlis smiled patiently. “Sent home to keep them out of the king's bed.”

“Oh,” Melissa said, her face reddening. She knew a dozen
tales of the king's adventures with various lovers. Of course the queen took lovers, too. She had a constant procession of bedmates as she tried to breed a healthy heir to strengthen her claim to the throne. Thus the kingdom was locked in a constant power struggle. Siddonie, if she could bear a healthy child, would surely throw King Efil out and make the new child's father king. She had married Efil to become queen; she didn't need him now. And if Efil could breed a healthy child first, he would dispossess Siddonie.

Terlis said, “Everyone knows a commoner is more likely to breed a strong baby.”

“But,” Melissa said, “if she's afraid of the king taking servant girls to bed, why does she bring them here at all?”

“No one knows.” Terlis looked hard at Melissa. “The queen brought you here just as she brought us all, and no one knows why. Maybe her spells made you start out on your own, maybe she made you think you were coming on your own, but you can be sure that Queen Siddonie brought you to Affandar Palace.”

She knew Terlis was wrong, but she didn't argue. What good to argue?

 

It was night when she found her chance to search further for the door to the cellars. She crept down from the attic after the other girls slept, and moved into the black shadows of the storeroom. Feeling her way along the shelves, her hand trailed over cloth bags of flour and jars of fruit, groping for the door that would lead down. She had tried for days to come in here, but there had always been people around. She knew that Briccha slept next to the storeroom, so she moved silently, but at last she brought a small spell-light—and froze.

Briccha stood in the shadows, broader than ever in a voluminous nightgown. “I thought so. What are you doing here? What are you looking for?”

“I was hungry. I came down for a slice of bread.”

Briccha slapped her so hard she staggered against the shelves. “You don't need bread. The bread is in the scullery. I don't like nosiness. Nor does the queen. Get to bed.”

For a week she didn't go near the storeroom. But in that moment she had seen, behind Briccha, two doors. One was open into a sleeping chamber—she could see inside a rumpled bed and a wrinkled white uniform hanging on the wall. The other door looked heavier, more stoutly made, and it was closed.

Convinced that was the door to the cellars, she waited until a morning when Briccha was in the vegetable gardens, then she approached it, slipping out of the scullery past the other girls, carrying an empty bowl as if she were going to fetch something. She hurried through the storeroom…

And she came face-to-face with Briccha. The Scullery Mistress had slipped in by a side door. Briccha held Melissa's arm with fingers like steel.

“I don't know what you're up to, young woman. The queen knows you have been snooping. I'm surprised she hasn't thrown you out or locked you up.” Briccha's pinching fingers were bruising her, the broad woman stared into her face, but then, surprisingly, she released her. “You will not come here again. If you do, you will be eternally sorry. Now go fetch the prince's breakfast up to him. The regular girl is sick.”

Melissa moved away thankfully, amused that Briccha thought such threats would stop her. Briccha said behind her, “Don't talk to Prince Wylles. And don't wake him. Put the tray by his bed. Don't wait for him to eat. He never eats.”

Free of Briccha, she hurried up the two flights. The hot porridge and bacon steaming on the tray smelled so delicious it was hard not to sample the good food. She'd had only bread for breakfast. She felt no conscience about eating the prince's breakfast if he didn't, but she didn't want to get caught.

The upper hallway was lit by a jutting dormer window, with a pair of stone benches built into the recessed area, facing each other. She stepped into the deep bay, set the tray on a bench, and stood looking out through the glass.

She could see part of the kitchen gardens, and cages of doves and captive game birds awaiting slaughter for the
palace table. The flutter of the birds behind the wire gave her a strange, excited urge. And there were cages of tiny birds, too, bright birds which were roasted with wine exclusively for the queen. She had heard Briccha call the birds Siddonie's morsels of spite, and she wondered what that meant.

Idly she watched a dozen horses and ponies grazing the fenced meadow behind the palace. Most of the palace mounts were kept in the stables that were entered by an archway in the courtyard. Beyond the meadows, the far forest looked dense and cold. In that ancient woods bears still roamed, and small dragons. It was the kind of forest where one might uncover the bones of still larger creatures no longer known in the Netherworld, bones that, when touched, moldered into powder. The wildness of the old forest excited her, she felt a hot desire to rove free there. And she felt lonely suddenly, too, and didn't know what she was lonely for.

She picked up the tray and went on. She knocked on the prince's door, then knocked again. When the child didn't answer, she slipped into the dim, curtained chamber.

The boy was asleep sprawled across wrinkled covers. She set the tray on the bedside table and brought a small spell-light to look at him.

His hair was dark, his face the same perfect oval as the queen's. But the child's face even in sleep was drawn with pain. Deep shadows stained his cheeks beneath his dark lashes. Everyone knew he was kept alive only by the queen's spells. No one thought Siddonie protected him because of love; she kept the dying prince alive because without an heir her claim to the throne would weaken. As Melissa turned away she saw an image on the wall, and started, shocked.

She had never before seen a picture, except those that children drew before their parents forced them to stop such practices. Why would there be an image in Affandar Palace, when every effort was made to avoid images? The windows were spell-cast, and it was said that even the horse trough was covered with a wooden lid before Siddonie came to the stables.

The picture was rich with smeared colors forming hills and trees. It showed a boy standing before a wood, and surely it was the prince, though in the picture he was not as thin.

Maybe this image was a charm meant to make the prince well. Such was not an accepted practice, and she knew of no one in the kingdom who would dare make such an image, or who would know how. Yet as she touched its rough surface, a sense of recognition filled her—a strange shadow of memory. But when she tried to bring the memory clear, it faded, was gone.

She straightened the tray on the bedside table and refolded the napkin. She had turned away from the sick boy's bed when suddenly the child spoke.

“What are you doing to my breakfast? What spell did you lay on my breakfast?”

She turned to look at him.

“Or were you eating it?”

“I'd thought of it,” she said, amused. “It seems a waste, if you only send it back. How can you get well if you don't eat?”

He lifted an eyebrow. His pale face was regal in spite of the darkness under his eyes and his drawn look. A regal face, but emotionally empty, cold. His silk pajamas were rumpled and sweaty, and his dark hair was tangled. He said, “I don't want to get well. I don't like porridge and I detest pig meat. Throw it out.”

She studied his black eyes, so like his mother's. He was pale to the point of grayness. “I can't imagine wanting to be sick.” She looked at him for so long he began to fidget. She said, “You don't go out of this room at all? You don't ride? There are ponies in the pasture.”

“Of course I don't ride anymore. I'm too sick. Horses are stupid beasts.”

“You don't get tired of being in bed?” she said more softly. “You never want to be outside?”

“Why should I want to be outside? I'm too weak to go out. What business is it of yours?”

“It is none of my business.” She looked him over severely. The little boy deeply angered her.

She had left him and was hurrying past the deep bay window when she realized a man stood there looking out. She paused. He had his back to her. He was dressed in hunting leathers, and not until he turned did she realize it was the king. She drew back, and because his look confused her, she knelt. It seemed strange to kneel to anyone, particularly someone no older than she.

He stared down at her and laughed, then grasped her hands and pulled her up. His hands were pleasantly cold, as if he had just come indoors. Unsettled by him, she drew her hands away. She had turned to hurry off when his voice stopped her. “The queen said your name is Sarah.”

She faced him, waiting. He looked her over, then sat down on a bench, sprawling his legs comfortably in his fine soft boots, watching her. She looked back as calmly as she could.

“Come sit down, Sarah. Don't stand there like a frightened doe.” His eyes were so dark she couldn't see the pupils—dark eyes that burned with life. His mouth curved in the hint of a smile, but it was a soft mouth. He took her hand and pulled her down beside him. “That's better—Sarah. That is the name you gave the queen.” He smiled again.

“What is your real name?”

“Sarah is my name.”

“You can tell me your real name. I will keep your secret.”

“Sarah is my real name. I must go. Briccha told me to hurry.”