Alice kept to the shadowed side of the servant’s corridor, letting only the slivers of light from the Hall pouring through the slits between the vented walls touch her face. Her hands were tucked against the seam of where her blouse and skirt came together at her waist on her simple dress.
As the help moved in with the bloody rags and out with the freshly clean—though still damp—ones, or bowls, or whatever else was being brought in and out from the cleaning areas, Alice watched. She stopped the ones whose linens were still dripping red and sent them back to clean them again. She stopped ones whose bowls weren’t filled with enough vodka or obviously hadn’t been rinsed enough. She listened to the physicians’ requests—to Maud’s—and double checked that they brought exactly what was requested, never leaving those shadows.
Below the Hall, where the docks had become crowded with fishermen, archers, sailors, and washerwomen and men, Alice had organized the waters. They had boarded around the area, turning it into looking much like the cathedral with the floor turned into a lake and steps to the Bailey and the corridors toward the kitchens and the Hall in place of the altar. The only way out for the armored boats that looked like striped turtles were the wooden gates that slid apart by two thick iron chains pulled by cranks on either side.
When they opened, even for the brief few minutes, though, there would be arrows flying in, along with whatever else their enemies could, the Cleric told her, so she had ropes tied to mark where those arrows might reach. She had other ropes to direct where the fishermen would fish, where her people put large grated cages in to sit and gather water, hopefully keeping the debris and muck out, for them to fill barrels and other vessels for boiling and drinking or cleaning with.
The docks were also sectioned off by her order, though that had been more of a fight because of the lack of space. Her helpers had barely enough room to put their feet between the wide wash-barrels on their side, but they had four. They had the fixed rods and grates with the burning coals to heat the water they washed the linens in. Good enough, Alice decided after the first wounded from the battle came into the Hall and the Cleric finally talked with her.
“We have to defend the lake to stop that kind of fighting happening inside these walls,” he had said. “So, I need room to build as many of these boats and store them as I can.”
“And I need at least enough room to wash the rags to tend the wounds of those who survive fighting to defend the lake so they can continue to do so,” Alice had lifted her chin at him. And that seemed to be enough.
He gave her nearly half the dock. They were building the hulls of the boats and finishing the rest while they were afloat to ensure her people had room. By the end of the day, his torches were mostly aimed to keep light over her half and his men were working in their shadows, a clear sign that he considered her work of a higher proport. That warmed her even as she felt the tension of each trip up into the castle’s corridors—since she refused to appear within the bailey, where everyone could see—gripping her tighter and tighter.
Each time she saw Maud, she wavered, even if it was from the distance. She couldn’t unsee it. She couldn’t cast it away, that gnawing feeling in her gut. The look in her eyes, through those kind smiles and concerned glances filled with such empathy, she saw the venomous monster growing within. Alice stood in those corridor shadows, hour after hour, trying to convince herself that she was wrong, that it was just her overthinking it, that it was just her seeing things, that she was wrong.
Baroness Clarissa von Strasse had been much like Maud at first, too. Kind smiles, innocent curiosities, and wonderfully intelligent. Fiendishly intelligent sometimes. Alice remembered how sweet she was. As she watched Maud moving from patient to patient, she still saw the innocence, the kindhearted girl she had come to care for so dearly, whom she had once hoped to see grow to a strong willed and good noble woman. But now, she knew. She saw the same swiftness to cruelty in Clarissa. Children ripped from their mother by armed soldiers and spread between two hallways. That was enough for Alice. A single, swift instance, and she watched allies be put to spear points and imprisoned in the only way that Talkro had. If there were a dungeon here, she was certain that they would have been put into one.
No, Alice still fought against it as she watched Maud slide to another patient, she wouldn’t have. But if the King had died…that would have been the final straw. Like Clarissa’s stillborn son. When Clarissa turned from kindhearted to playing kindhearted to disguise the venom.
So many times, Alice had turned a blind eye for her, for that little beast she had taken care of from a young girl into the monster who tortured servant girls for simple mistakes, who beat and killed over the smallest infractions. How close had Maud come to becoming a new version of that beast? Her disregard of others was too similar, too familiar. She was Clarissa’s reincarnation.
“Valmond!” Maud had caught him just after the battle, barely out of earshot of Adrian, as if he wouldn’t find out how she completely disregarded him and his family. “Release the Taggertys and let Isabella see her children…”
For a moment, as Alice observed them from where she ducked down the steps to the docks below, she felt her heart change. But it was short lived, just as it was in Valmond’s obvious stiffening of distaste when Maud finished with a stern, “Under guard. The children are to be kept under my care for now. I will speak with Isabella about it myself after my shift is done. She may spend as much time as she likes with them, but they will stay in my chambers during the siege. If she protests, inform her it is not negotiable, but I will explain when I have the first opportunity.”
Alice would have emerged, perhaps, had that gone differently. She returned to the shadows instead. She could taste the victims of Clarissa’s cruelty from that cell she had spent nearly a month in before she was rescued from the dungeon in Strasbourg. She could still feel the burning of the blinding sun in her eyes on her way to the chopping block the day she was betrayed by her House and the family she had spent her life serving. Never again, she had promised herself, and she planned on fulfilling that promise.
“It’s not what you think,” Nina made her jump from staring at Maud’s patient through the tiny vent in the wall, whom Maud had long moved on from.
Alice took a deep breath and let it out to steady herself. “I’m sure you believe as much,” Alice walked past her to return to the kitchen and down to the docks.
Nina followed, limping with a hand to her side. Like Alice, she was in a simple dress that made her indistinguishable from all the other villagers helping with the siege. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“Do you?”
“Yes,” Nina was hopping steps to catch up. “You think that if you show your face you’ll be punished like you were by the von Strasse for not doing your duty for them. You won’t, you know. If you explain yourself, they’ll understand. Aurie is worried about you. Maud is asking about you.”
“They’ll get along fine without me,” Alice rounded onto the docks and quickly began looking over the women and girls plunking and scrubbing the linens. To one group, “Change out that water. It looks nearly as bloody as the rags, now. We need to start cutting them smaller. Make long strips, wide as a hand. We need to make them numerous.” To Nina, “Why are you here? Aren’t you supposed to routing out the rest of the children and families to be murdered in trenches?”
“That’s not fair and you know it,” Nina glared, “A purge cannot be used against them. That’s God’s command and demons were at work through those people.”
“Children?” Alice blinked at her, her face unchanged. “I haven’t the stomach for this. If they’ll understand my absence prior, they’ll understand my absence after.”
Nina gaped, shaking her head. “Of all the people in this, you weren’t the one I suspected would cut her ties and run.”
“I’m not running,” Alice stiffened her back and lifted her chin, tucking her hands on that seam where her bodice normally would have met her petticoat. “I am going to serve as I always have until this is finished, then I will formally resign. But I refuse to speak to any of them until then unless commanded otherwise. You, of all the people I’ve known, should understand.”
Nina’s brow crinkled. “I don’t. Not you. Out of everyone, not you.”
“You don’t see what I do, Nina,” Alice subtly raised a brow at her. “If you did, you’d be doing the same. In time, perhaps, you will, and I pray that it happens before it is too late. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have much to do and I’m sure you do as well.”
“Of course, Head Mistress,” Nina huffingly shook her head and limped back to the steps.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
As the influx of rags and wraps for washing slowed and those needed to go up became excess instead of rushed needs, the docks slowly quieted. It became less a place filled with workers and more a camp of slumbering groups with a few who tried to quietly continue working. In the dim light of only half of the torches, since half of them were put out so others could sleep, Alice found herself a pile of netting between barrels to rest on. It had its bulges that dug into her, but otherwise it was cushioned enough for her to curl up and let herself drift, staring at the blazing of the fires raging in the forest across the lake through the narrow gap between the lake surface and the bottom edge of the boards surrounding their little port.
She couldn’t tell if it was ashes or the snow that was falling on the lake. The red between the laps of black and the brown planks, the white dots falling through, were somehow beautiful to watch.
She cupped her hands together under her cheek and watched. She could smell Valmond’s sweet scent before his soft hand ran across her cheek and his fingers rounded her ear. She hummed a smile at the beauty of the fiery lake and snow, warming to her husband’s touch.
“I brought some bread and broth,” Valmond slid to beside her. “They’re still trying to figure out portions before they begin giving out foodstuffs. Breakfast will be the bigger meals, they said. This will hold you over.”
“I’m not very hungry, regardless,” Alice reached and found his leg with a squeeze. “I’m just glad you found time to be here. Lay with me.”
Valmond shifted and slid along the barrels to wedge snugly beside her. He draped one arm over her, resting his long, hooked nose over her ear after brushing her hair away from it. “I want you to reconsider, my love. I still think you are seeing too much into this and are mistaken.”
“I’m not,” Alice adjusted her hip to press into him, arching her back. “I don’t want to talk about it now. I only want to lay here with you.” She twisted to look at him. “Please?”
Valmond winced, “I want that, too, but…”
Alice sat upright with a huff, shaking her head. “What? I’ve already heard she released them. Not the children, mind you—she still intends to keep them as prisoners and leverage—but their mother may spend as much time with them as she wishes in between. Reasonable, I’m sure.” She could see Valmond hardening as she continued so quickly, she knew he had no chance to say a word until she was finished, “And the King waking and not undoing what she has done is admonition of its highest degree, which only stands to prove my point even further. With all this, I see that we have merely substituted one House for another of exactly the same morality, value, and character, but with a much better practice of civility before revealing the capacity of cruelty. The comparison, otherwise, is a perfect mirror of what we both experienced prior to Clarissa’s second birthing, and don’t deny it, Valmond, I know you see the same. They merely had to rear their heads sooner.”
Valmond’s gaze was colder than she had ever seen when he said with a firmness she had never heard before, “Are you finished?”
Her breath stuck in her throat.
“No, she did not release the young ones back to their mother, that much is true,” Valmond said.
When Alice opened to say, ‘Precisely, and I will not be part of any House who would do such a thing,’ he didn’t let a single word escape her lips.
His voice was calm, but she could hear the anger in him that would be hidden from anyone else who might be listening, “They are in the most protected room in the castle, that’s why. And, yes, they are still leverage, but not against their mother, but against the daughter who made those decisions which forced—mind you, forced—Maud to react in the only way that protected these people from being left defenseless. If anyone was acting like the Baroness, it is Jasmine Taggerty and not Maud, who reacted the way any sane person would against such coldness that would drive another to withhold medical care as a way to gain power in a war counsel, which is precisely what the girl did. Maud did what was necessary. And those children have been treated like her family, albeit kept confined because otherwise they would be in danger of being caught in the chaos of the siege, but they have been otherwise treated like members of House Luminis with no knowledge or even a word edgewise of disagreement. They even have been playing with Esme and Leo! Maud spends her nights playing with them like they’re her younger siblings.
“She is not Clarissa! At no time was I to prepare an execution. In fact, she was intending for a negotiation upon the King’s death—if it happened—for the children to be her wards and a negotiation to take place for the physicians and the Anatolian troops, being cavalry, to aid in the battle, as they did and proved to be an integral piece of, strengthening the alliance. Maud wouldn’t hurt children! And, in truth, Alice, she would have released them sooner, would have done things differently, perhaps even found a better way to go about things, if you hadn’t run into your hole and hidden yourself away not only from her, but from me this entire time! We needed you.”
Alice felt herself sink. His scowl was tinged with betrayal.
“I thought you’d come to your senses,” he shook at her, laying back on the netting with a long sigh. “I thought you’d see that she is still our Maud, if you watched long enough. Aurie is still our Aurie. Draka is still our Draka. The evil of the world is knocking at our gates, they are burning down our house from within and without, and you’re upset that we did our jobs in preparing a girl to be Queen. And that’s what happened, you know. She was a Queen for two days and I’ve never been prouder. I don’t understand why you aren’t with me, feeling the same.”
“What if the King did die? What if she did decide to execute them to make a point? What if she was lying and only said those things so that she retained support because she knew the King was going to wake?” Alice turned on him. “Did you ever think about that? I saw the way her eyes looked when she gave the commands. The emptiness in her eyes. They were the same as…”
“She had her hands in her father’s chest, digging arrowheads from around his heart,” Valmond was up on his elbows. “That emptiness wasn’t because she was emotionless, darling, it was because she was trying not to fall apart while doing surgery on her father and ruling a kingdom at the same time. She does it with every patient. But you should have seen her when she saw them return tonight, Alice. She ran into their arms the way a daughter does who loves her mother and father. The way she does when she loves her future husband. She knocked Adrian to the ground,” he chuckled, “and kissed him in front of everyone. They’re officially courting. The little monster is going to marry those children’s oldest brother. She will sit as Isabella’s heiress. And Isabella is no fool. She wouldn’t place a rival in a position of power. That, in and of itself, should reassure you.”
“But I saw…”
“My, darling Misses Dessinateur,” Valmond put a hand on her cheek, “If she were even a little bit like the von Strasse, by the slightest, I would have abandoned them in an instant right along side you. I, too, will never serve another House of that ilk. But House Luminis is nothing like them. And Maud…” he lifted himself to softly kiss her, “You taught her well. She outmaneuvered the Holy Queen in her own game and made her into a compliant puppet. And, yes, those children are part of maintaining that, in a way, but they are benefiting greatly from it.”
“She should let their mother be with them in that room, even during the night,” Alice eyed him.
Valmond shrugged, “There’s not enough room any longer. And Isabella understands. It has been discussed. Isabella, Aurie, Jasmine, along with the Cleric guard are now in Draka’s room, adjacent to Maud’s, so one door away, until the siege is done.”
Alice furrowed her brow. “Why would the King not be in his own chamber?”
“Because he is now in the tower room with Enya and the heads of his army, which is closer to where he needs to be and is harder for anyone to get to than the rest. Also,” Valmond lay himself back and began wiggling to get comfortable in the pile of netting, “The baby cries too much.”
Alice nodded, blinking. “That makes sense.” Wait, she bit at a fingernail, “Did you say that a baby cries too much?”
“Mhmm,” Valmond rubbed her back, his eyes already closed. “From the purge. God gave him a baby to care for as his own. Named Jacob, a newborn. So, Maud is sharing her room with a milk-maid and the children. And, since her shifts keep her most of the day and night, it’s rather convenient, really. She hasn’t complained. Well, she hasn’t been up there, yet, but I’m sure she will be excited for having a new brother. Or, with her age, perhaps she will see the little thing as her own adopted son. Who knows?”
“Whose idea was that?” Alice slowly lay herself half beside him, half over his shoulder. “The baby being put in her room, I mean.”
“Oh,” Valmond opened one eye with a mischievous grin, “It was Draka’s, but he said that if I couldn’t convince you to return, we’d just say it was your idea.”
“He did, did he?” Alice rolled her eyes before laying her head on his chest.
“No, but if it helps bring you back into their counsel…”
Alice grinned. “Fine,” she sighed. “If these are the types of decisions they’re making without me, then I suppose I can’t sit here and watch them destroy our House. What kind of Head Mistress would I be if I allowed that to happen?”
“So, you’ll make an appearance tomorrow?” Valmond raised an eyelid at her.
“I will, my love. Someone has to save these barbarian simpletons from themselves if no one else can.”
She felt Valmond’s arms wrap her and she warmed to his touch as she fell asleep in his embrace. Fool men and their assumptions. Maud will be furious. But at least she knew now that it wouldn’t result in someone being carted off to an execution or some other heinous atrocity. Maud was no Clarissa, she was assured, because she trusted her husband’s judgment. She hoped that the twisting in her gut would be assured in the morning, too. It was the fact that she still had hope left which made her willing to go.
House Luminis was not House von Strasse.
