Retribution

Chapter One:

The Unfair Sentence of a Laundry Maid

Fifteen years earlier -

Marguerite turned her face away as the steam billowed upwards. Steam could burn, and she had the marks to prove it! After a few seconds it dissipated and Marguerite could see that there were at least five more pails of water that needed to be boiled in order to fill the tub. Sighing, she picked up her buckets and once again headed outside.

As she headed for the water pump, Marguerite passed her mother. Rodmilla was flittering around like she always did, trying not to ruin her noble hands with the work of a washerwoman. Day after day she shirked the duties given her and tried to do as little as possible. As if she had no sentence to carry out. As if the rules didn't apply to her.

The air outside was cooler than the humidity of the laundry room, and Marguerite took the chance to relax herself, dabbing at her forehead with her apron to clean the sweat off of it. The sky was a brilliant blue, and Marguerite wanted to sit outside and stare at the sky for the rest of the day. She wanted to forget about boiling water, of scrubbing shirts, of dieing sheets.

Whistling distracted her from the sky and she turned to see Nancy heading toward her, a bucket in each hand. Nancy was the closest thing to a friend that Marguerite had in this place. Well, she wasn't a friend at all, really. She was someone who Marguerite could complain to without being scoffed at and looked down upon.

She was grateful that she and Nancy were the only two people at the water pump. She knew Nancy wouldn't tell Madame Arnault about Marguerite slacking off in the courtyard. Madame Arnault's hatred for Rodmilla had caused her to dislike Marguerite as well, despite how hard Marguerite tried to work to change Madame Arnault's opinion and so she could perhaps even recommend Marguerite for release.

Nancy snickered. Marguerite followed her gaze and saw Madame Arnault in the doorway, wagging a finger at Rodmilla, who still tried to act all proud and haughty.
"Look at her, Nancy!" Marguerite whispered to her as they continued watching.
"The great Rodmilla de Ghent. What has she been reduced to!" Nancy giggled.
"It serves her right," Marguerite said, feeling a chill creep into her. "But what about me? The King told my mother that she was to be stripped of her title and I was to be exiled with her in the Americas. But Danielle overrode it. She spoke for us. She said, to my mother and by no means to me, that she was to suffer the same hospitality given Danielle. So why am I here? Slaving away, hauling boiling water, purple dye staining the tips of my fingers, burns scorched into my palms from the iron, and my hands wrinkled from being in hot water for far too long?"

As Nancy gave her a sympathetic look, Marguerite rested against the cool stone wall. Why couldn't she have been sent to live with Jacqueline? Even if she was a dull little thing, it would be far better to live with her than live with her mother in the servants quarters of the castle. Nancy said nothing, but picked up Marguerite's buckets and pumped water into them.

"She made them condemn me for something I didn't do!" Marguerite continued. She couldn't stop. "It was all her doing – she lied to the Queen, not I. I faltered, I didn't say we had a cousin visiting, surely Her Majesty saw that it took me a while to answer? I said nothing to incriminate myself, and yet here I am. I shouldn't be here."
"Being here's a great deal better than being locked away in prison somewhere, or being left stranded on the edge of the world," Nancy said, handing Marguerite her buckets full of water.

Poor ignorant Nancy. Her parents would be proud of her for securing work at the castle. Her brothers and sisters would look up to her and wish that one day, they too, could aspire to such a position. A position! What Marguerite wouldn't give for one day off, a ride in a carriage, a goblet of wine, a gown of silk. Anything to get away from the humidity of the laundry room would suit her just fine.

"That water won't pump itself!" Madame Arnault stood in the courtyard, shaking a hand at Nancy who scurried back over to the water pump to fill her own two buckets. Marguerite carried hers back to the laundry, feeling the heat of Madame Arnault's glare burn in to the back of her head. She listlessly picked up one of the buckets and dumped the water into the tub as Nancy did the same next to her.

Marguerite watched as her face was distorted in the dirty washing water by the ripples as her fellow workers scrubbed and rinsed the royal linens. Could you ever have told from that reflection how beautiful she once was? How the hard labours she had been forced to perform had marred her milky skin and white-blonde hair? Marguerite thought not.

She could hardly be expected to spend the rest of her life here in this hellhole. How could she make any remnant of a life if her life was spent laundering and bending to other people's will? And what of a husband and a comfortable home? Her mother had dashed all hope for any of that! She didn't even have any money – besides their bread and board they were paid a mere pittance for their work, and Marguerite received far less due to the royal family's wariness towards her and her mother. And that had to stretch far enough to buy cotton to sew the tears in her dress, to purchase smelling salts and lavender oils to ease the odours which infiltrated her nostrils, and to bargain and bribe her colleagues to get whatever other small luxuries they were willing to sell. She raised the final bucket and watched as the water poured over her reflection, drowning the murky red cheeks, the watery blue eyes, the pinched face. This would not do.

She picked up a garment from the pile of washing. She knew it well. That yellow tunic belonged to Prince Henry. He had worn it often when their paths had crossed, when she was still regarded as a girl of noble birth, and he was on the look out for a wife. She drowned the tunic in the tub, hearing a squelching noise as the air surrendered the clothing as Marguerite's thoughts turned to Danielle. Who was she to have a prince propose to her? Had her father a title? Did she have a noble lineage? Auguste de Barbarac was nothing but a wealthy merchant, and his daughter fortunate beyond all belief to have made such an auspicious match, so high above her station. What did she do all day? It was not as if she had any knowledge of anything save farming and baking and sewing. The cinder girl would not stand a chance entertaining the ladies of the court. They had nothing in common. What would they talk about? Perhaps she would be better suited to the laundry, Marguerite thought with derision.

How would Princess Danielle fit in amongst the nobility? If only Marguerite could see that, see her stepsister falter and fumble as she tried to cope with the everyday pressure of living so well. To see the ladies shy away from her, the uncultured wife of Prince Henry. Danielle knew nothing of being refined. Why, she was happier sleeping amongst the soot and ashes of the fireplace with her beloved Utopia than on a mattress like normal people!

A scuffle occurred across the room as Rodmilla defied more orders given her by the senior laundress. She could be forced to do no more than hanging the sheets out to dry and folding the linens – the scrubbing and dieing and mending was too strenuous for her poor fingers. Marguerite rolled her eyes and dragged the heavy waterlogged material back up, grabbing a bar of soap and scrubbing half-heartedly. She had found that her superiors didn't notice the difference between a completely scrubbed piece of clothing and one where all visible stains had simply been washed out. Marguerite simply did not care. Cleanliness may be next to godliness, but not when you were the one doing the cleaning.

She had to get out of there. It was no life, spending all of the day bending to other people's wishes and having no time to fulfil your own. In the laundry there were no young men to flirt with, no chance for any intrigue, and although the gossip was good, Marguerite was left with an ache to be among those who were the subject of the tirades, rather than being forced to merely talk about them. But how?

She rinsed the tunic, watching as the white soap suds slipped off it and were left floating on the surface of the grey water. Wringing it out, she handed it to a young girl who offered to hang it up to dry. As Marguerite reached for the next item in the pile, she felt the coarseness of hair instead of the soft feeling of material and recoiled. A wig? It must have been put in the wrong pile. She put it aside so that she could put it away later.

As she continued with her washing, Marguerite's thoughts were on the wig. She had never had to use one, as her hair had always been long and thick, and she was proud of the golden allure it gave her among a sea of brunettes. But when people became older, and lost their looks, she supposed that one of their only options to improve themselves would be to change the appearance of their hair. The Lady d'Arcy had worn a wig – and had needed to as well, to hide her almost-bald scalp. If Marguerite had been born with that horrid dark hair that Jacqueline had, she supposed that she would have resorted to something else too, to alter her hair colour.

The gown that she was now washing was heavy with water, and it required every bit of strength she had built up from working in the laundry over the past three months to hoist it up and remove the excess water from the material.

What really stood between her and her life? Simply this dress! She was still herself, no matter what any one called her or forced her to do. She would still be herself when she got out of here. And this dress … and that wig … could be the very things she needed to transform herself. After all, Danielle had managed it.