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"Everyone has been looking for you, Hattie says you are in big trouble." Olive began blandly in her too-loud voice.
"I'm sure everyone could manage for an afternoon without me," I shot back, resigned to my fate and hoping Olive would just go away.
"They were just mad you left," she crossed the kitchen and plopped onto a stool near the heat of the cooking fire. "I'm hungry and dinner won't be for hours, make me a cake." She whined at me. I sighed and began gathering cake ingredients.
Twenty minutes later I was whisking up my finished batter into a cake tin for baking while telling my fourth fairytale when Mandy came in from outside. Her face fell when she saw what was going on but she just bustled in and began the household's dinner. A large fresh-caught fish gleamed as she unwrapped it, she must have gone to market especially to find it. A few more kitchen staff wandered in around us and started tasks at Mandy's direction. I began to help with dinner as we waited for Olive's cake to finish baking but she was forever asking for more stories. It was getting harder and harder to talk over the kitchen noise and my voice was wearing thin from the endless talking. I finished a tale about an Ayorthan maid and a troll and before she could order me again I asked her, "Which tale did you like best?"
"King Midas, he had all the gold in the world, I wish I had all the gold in the world."
"Don't you think it was sad when his daughter was turned to gold?" I asked.
"No, a whole girl is a lot of gold. Do you have any gold?"
"No, I barely have any money at all," I said, dreading where this conversation was going.
"Give me your money," Olive said, a greedy light filling her bland face.
"There really isn't much," I grated through my teeth as my curse took hold.
"I want it! Give it to me," She hollered and the kitchen stilled. I walked stiffly to the stairs not looking at anyone, Olive following me, calming now that I wasn't resisting her demands. I took her up to my room and carefully extricated my little coin purse from the bottom of my chest. I just gave her the whole thing, she opened it and took out my three silver KJ's. Carefully she examined each one, bit it and counted them back into the purse three times.
"Can we go now? Your cake will burn if we don't go get it." I wheedled, trying to get her out of my room.
"Oh, okay." She turned and left my room, leading the way back to the kitchen, my coins tucked neatly away in her pocket. I followed, trying not to cry, it had been a very long day.
Mandy had kindly rescued Olive's cake from a fiery death and set it on the counter to cool by the time we returned. Trust Mandy to save a cake from the oven while dinner preparations were in full swing. The service staff was coming in now, getting ready for the meal.
Nancy the serving maid came in to take a stack of plates upstairs and nearly ran into Olive who was standing in the way in the middle of the kitchen. "My lady Olive, your lady mother is looking for you," she told her as she hoisted the heavy stack of china. Olive looked at her blandly then wandered out the door. There was a nearly audible release of tension as she left and the staff was better able to navigate the kitchen. " Stupid cow," I heard Nancy hiss under breath as she headed for the stairs.
"What a waste," I sighed looking at the cake.
"Ice it and we'll serve it for pudding," Mandy said, looking over at me from her spot near the stove.
I was just adding some beautiful sugared violets to the cake when Nancy came trotting back in. "Olive's told her ladyship that you're back, she wants you up there right away." I sighed, placed the last violets and washed up before heading upstairs.
Mum Olga and Hattie were in the sitting room with Olive gossipping about this lady and that duchess. Olive was bored and was picking at her nails and dropping the bits on the floor. I took a deep breath and went in. I stood awkwardly beside the couch, Hattie's order about standing in her mother's presence still holding me. Mum Olga looked up at me, "Where have you been?"
"Outside."
"This whole time?" she demanded.
"Mostly, I went in the stables and the chicken house." I lied.
"Mandy says I should learn several areas of service so that I am more useful to you."
"And Mandy thinks you'd make a good milk maid!" Mum Olga laughed and Hattie tittered along with her. "I can see why she would think so," Mum Olga said with a sneer of distaste, "barely a day of service and you already look like a filthy peasant."
"Tomorrow you will wash the floor of the front entry after you have laid the fires and helped make breakfast. Your more... eclectic serving duties will have to wait. I am having a party tomorrow to distract me from my love's absence, it was supposed to be in three days but my beloved was called away early." She pouted absurdly. "He takes such good care of his family, travelling so far from us to make us rich." She actually got dewy eyed thinking about it. She promptly remembered the rest of us and snapped, "I expect you to be in the entrance hall with hot water and lye by the time I'm finished breakfast and I will personally see that it is done right. Now go." She waved her hand at me in dismissal and I left gratefully.
I went back to the kitchen to help with cleaning and start the servant's dinner.
It was late by the time the last dishes were done and I made my way up to my cold, tiny room. I was exhausted and lonely, I hauled my magic story book up onto my lap. When I opened it I was treated to pages and pages of embarrassingly bad poetry from Char's diary. I giggled and blushed my way through several pages before falling asleep.
Morning came all too soon with Nancy knocking at my door. I dressed groggily and headed down to begin my day. I helped with breakfast, laid fires and was in the entrance hall with a bucket of steaming water and a waxed pouch of lye when Mum Olga came from breakfast. I took a small spoonful of lye and added it to the bucket, Mandy had warned me not to add too much because it would burn my skin. I began to scrub the floor while Mum Olga watched.
"No, no, you must add more lye," she declared once I had reached the halfway point of the hall. She took the sack and dumped a large amount in the water. "Now start over, the floor near the door still looks dingy."
"The floor near the door looks dingy because it is worn from people walking on it." I thought, but I gritted my teeth and began again. My skirts were soaked through on the front and my hands were red and cracked by the time I was done, the water was grey tinged faintly pink with my blood. My knees were bruised and swollen and I limped back to the kitchen. Nancy and Mandy were there and Mandy was horrified at the state of me. Nancy told me about how she had been tempted to dump the bucket over Mum Olga's head while Mandy tended my wounds. Both agreed that Mum Olga was horrible and I should go up to bed. I went to bed and slept until hunger pangs woke me.
I dressed and went back down to the kitchens. Service was in full swing, Mum Olga must have had quite a few guests because the kitchen was humming with activity. I stayed out of the way and stood in the entrance to the pantry watching the well ordered chaos. Behind me something moved and I jumped about three feet in the air. A large, fit, dark haired man was standing in the pantry behind me eating a winter apple. He had broad shoulders and his curling hair was gathered in a tail, his skin was dark as if he spent a lot of time in the sun and weathered, crinkled around his eyes and mouth. He wore a short beard and mustache.
"Aren't you a sweet little thing," he said, looking me up and down. He looked predatory and my mouth went dry. I wasn't used to rough men looking at me that way and my usually quick wit deserted me. "You're the new girl her ladyship called us all in for aren't you? You looked like a lady then, not so much now though." He sneered at me unpleasantly. "Her ladyship seems quite concerned with you for some reason, I wonder why?" he tapped his finger to his lips in mock seriousness. "She hauled me and my men away from our work this afternoon to ask about where you were yesterday." I caught my breath.
"And what did you tell her?" I tried to look disinterested but I couldn't quite manage. My mouth was twisted in distaste but my eyes were watching him far too closely.
"Wouldn't you like to know." Another sneer and something darker. He took a step towards me and I took a step backwards, running up against a heavy wooden shelf filled with crockery next to the door. He stopped, grinning, and bit his apple again. Chewing thoughtfully, "what would you give me if I told you, pretty girl?" I was desperately hoping he and his men hadn't given Mum Olga too much information, maybe that was why she had been so horrible today.
"I don't have anything to give you…" I felt uncertain but I firmed my resolve. "If you had told her anything important she would have punished me, you aren't going to fool me," I turned away from him and looked out into the chaotic kitchen. I barely stifled a squeak as he came up close behind me and grabbed my hip, whispering in my ear, "we told her you were out buying veg from the market and came back later than you thought," his fingers dug cruelly through my dress into my hip bone, grinding me back against him. I could feel his warmth against me through my clothes, an awful parody of my prince's caresses. I could also feel him straining against his britches as he ground himself into my bottom. "We didn't tell her you got in the prince's carriage and rode off with him into the woods." I tried not to gasp both from his fingers' bruising force and the secret. "I'll keep my mouth buttoned too but you should come visit me in the yard. Don't tell the cook, or us lads will get something on her too." He gave my rear a quick fondle and a swat before pushing past me into the kitchen, deftly nabbing a hunk of cheese and bread before sauntering back into the yard.
I was in shock, no one had ever touched me like that except Char, and never without my permission. Clearly I had had protection by being a lady that I could never have imagined. He was right though, I couldn't bring Mandy into this, I would die if she had to leave me too. Before long the last dishes from Mum Olga's dinner party had been hauled upstairs and I came out to begin cleanup while Mandy put the finishing touches on the servant's supper. I was elbow deep in wash water and grease when Nancy came down, she had just served my cake for pudding.
"Dame Olga says the fire's going out and you need to go up and fix it." She wouldn't meet my eyes, but I could feel her pity as she looked at the piles of dishes and giant wet stain on the front of my dress. I sighed and removed my apron, trading it for a dry one. It almost covered the wet, greasy spot. I rolled my sleeves back down, grabbed my wood bucket and tools and hobbled up the stairs.