Warnings: Sudden career changes may result in fainting, dizziness or nausea. Please see a doctor if these symptoms continue for more than four seconds.
Chapter Nine: Butter and Salt
The next day, both Lucia and I suffered at the hand of the head cook. He beat us like he did his eggs- hard. I found some small satisfaction that this time Lucia was paying for her crime, but it was fleeting in the face of so much pain.
Once more as I collapsed, insensible and sobbing, Livingston gently picked me up and carried me to his little room, and cared for me through the night.
"Catskin, Catskin, doesn't have a thick skin," he murmured as he peeled off the bloodied skin of my back. "You must stop Lucia, my dear one, else she will score your skin deeper and deeper with each cut."
"Livingston," I mumbled into his sheets. "Shut up." I groaned as an attached piece of skin was suddenly unattached.
"As you wish, my Sera-dear." Finally, the cool touch of his salve replaced the burning of the cleaning, and I sighed in relief. "But you know I speak true."
I tilted my head sideways so as to better look at him. "You should have been a fool, not a cake decorator."
"Perhaps I am both." He smiled sadly. "But perhaps you are right. My decorations pale in comparison to the masters'." Then he brightened. "If I am a fool, though, then I should make you laugh. Can I at least do that?"
I smiled wanly. "Try."
He pulled an ugly face. "How was that?"
I sighed. "You can do better than that."
"Fine." Livingston tossed his dark hair out of his eyes and grinned. "I'll tell you a funny story."
"Whatever you wish," I said, shrugging.
"I wish this!" He decreed gallantly. "Now, let's see. There once was a King who decided that all maids in the land should wear blue, and all the lads should wear pink."
Laughing, I stopped him. "Livingston, that will be the most absurd tale ever. If you tell it, I would surely rip myself in two, just from laughing."
He looked at me oddly, then, his eyes questioning. "You speak strangely, Catskin. You talk like one of the highborn, the gentry. But only sometimes."
I chucked nervously. "You speak oddly at times, too, you know, with your rhymes and silly couplets. How am I strange compared to that?"
"Catskin, you yourself are strange," Livingston replied with an air of finality. "I cannot even fathom myself as strange as you!"
I had to laugh at that. "Indeed, my friend." I stroked my dirty cloak of cats' skins, which was lying next to me on his pallet. "You could only dream of honor such as this."
"Ah, honor!" Livingston struck a pose, one elegant hand over his heart, the other extended as if to some unseen lady. "It was once a word of power!" He sighed. "But no more. Honor now is no more than a hidden dream, a forgotten idea of a past civilization. Great knights would ride out in battle for nothing more than honor, you know. They would sacrifice all for that elusive damsel in distress!" He stopped, then, and looked over at me. "How am I doing?"
"You should have been a storyteller!" I smiled; storytellers had long been some of my favorite entertainment. They could transport me to other lands when I was bored with their expressive words and expansive gestures. Mother had liked them too, and had made sure that whenever she was in residence, so was a storyteller.
That life seemed so far away now, so like a story.
Livingston looked ponderous. "Perhaps," he began slowly, "I should have been." Lightly, he folded himself next to me. "I shall tell you a story, then," he pronounced solemnly.
"Tell a good one, this time."
"How does it start?"
I raised my eyebrows. "I don't know. You're the storyteller. You start it."
"Right." He cleared his throat. "I'm going to put the bandages on now." He picked up the strips of linen that had been folded neatly.
"That's not the way it starts!"
"Well you start it then, Queen Catskin!"
I wondered idly if he knew of my obsession with Daryan, but then dismissed it. "I'll be quiet. Tell me a story?"
"Fine." His hands were careful as they pressed the linen into the mess that now constituted my back. "Once upon a time, there was a beautiful young lady. She was the most beautiful thing that ever there was, and wealthy to boot. Her family had old money, which they invested well." Livingston paused to lift me up, wrapping the longer bandages around my entire torso to hold the smaller ones in place. "Though all seemed well with the world, our beauty was not happy; in fact, she was miserable. Scorned by her father and abandoned by her mother, she was being bartered off into a marriage that she didn't want."
I snorted derisively then, interrupting him rudely. "That sounds like just about every story that ever there was."
"Correction: it sounds like every good story that ever there was. This is what people want to hear!" Livingston's mouth split into a wide, white grin. "Now shut up so I can be a storyteller." When I didn't say anything, he continued. "Now this young lady, on the night of her engagement party, snuck off into the shadows with a handsome young man who was most certainly not her betrothed. In fact, she barely knew this young man, though he had watched her for some time."
I frowned. This story of his was sounding far too familiar.
"There in the shadows of the night, our young lady found love for the first time in her life, as her lips met with those of her mysterious stranger. But all too soon she was whisked back to her masque, where she danced the night away with her betrothed, all the while watching her beloved."
Once more, I interrupted him. "And then, I'm sure she ran away with this mysterious stranger and they lived happily ever after, right?" My voice was too acidic, too angry to be justified by mere boredom with the same old tale. I hoped Livingston didn't notice.
His black eyes met mine in a quick, guilty glance of knowing more than what was told. "No, Catskin, they didn't. He never saw her again after that night. Soon enough, he forgot about her, and she about him, though somewhere, deep in their hearts, they remembered quietly. Our precious girl cried on her wedding day, but the tears stopped there. She raised her children and grew into a comfortable old age, living off of her husband's wealth. She wasn't truly happy, but she wasn't as sorrowful as she'd thought she'd be. Every now and then, she'd think of a night, long ago, when a mysterious young man stole her heart and her kisses, but then she'd dismiss it as merely a dream, nothing more." Livingston sighed. "And that, my dear Catskin, is the end."
I had relaxed throughout the rest of his story. Naturally I was paranoid about anyone finding my true identity, but I had nothing to fear from Livingston. I was simply making things up; the look he had given me was just a look, not filled with hidden meaning.
I smiled. "That was an excellent story." Despite all of my rationalization, I still couldn't resist asking, "However did you think it up?"
"Oh," he said, waving a hand, "One of my friends told me about a night he had at one of the gentry's parties. It was similar to that." Livingston smiled. "I wonder what it'd be like to go to one of those parties! All I ever get to do is decorate the delicacies."
"Terrifying," I informed him, not thinking. "Those things are absolutely terrifying. Think of it! All of those people are there, just to watch you waltz around the room and judge you." Suddenly, I realized just what kind of words were pouring out of my mouth. "At least, that's what my cousin's aunt said one time. She said she heard one of the highborn Seras talking about it." I rushed through the last sentences, hurriedly trying to dissociate myself from the masques. "Yes, that's it."
"Sometimes," Livingston said, stroking his clean-shaven face, "I do think you may be hiding something from me, Catskin."
"Could I ever hide anything from you?" I asked him ingenuously.
Livingston shrugged. "Of course; you hide your life from me daily." He was so abruptly serious.
"You are curious?"
"Naturally." He let himself sink backwards so that he rested against the wall. "But you are an enigma, and I cannot figure you at all. I just wonder."
"Did you ever think of asking?" I slowly drew myself up, careful to keep his blankets tucked securely around my front.
"Not that you would tell me anything," He said with a snort.
I grinned. "That's not the point."
"Well, then why bother asking?" Livingston did have a point.
"For the sake of asking, of course," I replied. "How will you ever know anything if you never ask? Is it not written that if you seek, you shall find?"
My friend looked askance at me, then, and wondered aloud, "Where did you come up with that? It sounds like something out of the gentry's dogma."
I frowned, worried. "I learned it some time ago, when I was younger. I have always accepted it to be truth."
"But where did you learn it from?" Livingston pressed onward, delving for information.
"I learned it from my…mother." It was strange to call Ulga mother, as she was neither blood relation nor loving to me anymore, but she had been the one to teach me the faith that I carried with me. Weak though it was, the strange code of belief that I had adopted and modified to suit my purposes had sustained me through most of the hardships of my life. It was an alien idea to me that my only ally now knew of no such thing.
"What was your mother like?"
I sat in brooding silence for a moment. "She was indulgent. I do believe she spoiled me. I suppose she loved me."
Livingston's hand reached out to touch mine softly, and I felt myself get lost in the compassion in his eyes. "She's dead now, isn't she?"
My mind reeled for a moment, trying to ascertain how death fit in with my mother, who was still quite alive, as far as I knew. In the end, I found it easier just to agree with Livingston. "Years ago," I lied, fabricating my past in a moment's thought.
"Poor, lonely Catskin," Livingston murmured, giving my hand a squeeze. "But you aren't alone now!" He declared forcefully. "I, you first companion and staunchest ally, will stand by your side no matter what." He took my other hand, his seriousness turned into delighted excitement. "We, my loveless Catskin, will watch over each other until the end of our days or our internment in this kitchen, whichever comes first."
I giggled. "And you will tell me stories and I will break your dishes!" It all seemed so perfect, so idyllic.
But it was not the life I wanted for myself. One day, I would have Daryan's love, and we would rule Tännon together, and I would never have to work in the wretched kitchens again. I would be a lady, I would be Kelryian again, instead of the hideous Catskin. I would no longer be Livingston's loveless Catskin, but Daryan's beloved Kelry- Tännon's beloved Kelry. Of course I would carry Livingston with me on my ascendance to royal glory, but I would never be content with a life in the kitchens.
"Catskin, tell me something." Livingston's fingers brushed along my jawbone. "What do you think of when you get that look on your face?"
Frowning, I asked, "What look?"
"Beatific; you look so determinedly euphoric that I don't know what to make of it." He drew himself nearer to me. "What is it that you think of then, or whom?"
My lips formed a vaguely smile-shaped curve, but I said nothing. It was silly for kitchen scullions to dream of princes.
"I suspect," Livingston deduced with a ridiculous accent, "That the euphoric look the young Sera wears on her face was caused by thoughts of a man, but which one?"
I blushed a furious shade of fuchsia as he laughed. "It's none of your business!"
"Is it Jerauld, our most beloved cook?" Livingston smirked, "No, I bet it's Stanislaus the midden-boy. Does he kiss you in the slops?" Suddenly, he gasped, as if hit by sudden realization. "I know! It's Ser Gerand, the highborn who's been sleeping with our darling Lucia!"
I smacked him. Hard.
"It is Ser Gerand al Monteville! I knew it! I knew you fancied the highborn! Or no, wait!" The cake decorator's face was almost glowing. "You've fallen in love with another woman, perhaps our own Mistress Taggart?"
I hit him again, this time harder.
"I'll take that as a no, then." He calmed slightly in the few breaths before he next spoke. "No, I think it is a man indeed, but what man would be worthy of the love of Catskin?" Livingston pondered this for several moments. "I think that no one but the King himself will do for you, my girl. But," he continued, considered some more, "Since our dearly beloved King Erath is far, far older than you, perhaps his son would be more suitable."
I said nothing, only held my breath and waited.
"Oh dear," Livingston finally managed. "Oh dear indeed."
Eventually, I dared to break the silence. "Don't tell anyone?"
His laugh was slightly hysterical, but I pretended not to notice. "Who would I tell? Shall I saunter up to Prince Daryan and present you to him, and expect him to fall madly in love with you the moment he sees you?"
Yes.
"No! Of course not," I hedged, drawing his blanket closer to my chin. "I am…content to watch him from afar."
"Liar."
Yes.
"No!" Glaring at him, I asked, "Don't you believe me?"
"No!" Livingston leaned in close so that it was incredibly hard for me to avoid looking at any part of him. "You will not be content, because in your silly, girlish love for him, you will want him more than anything you've ever wanted before and-"
"I know!" I moaned. "I know already. The first time I saw him I wanted to seduce him right where he stood."
"You did not!" Livingston was positively scandalized.
I relented. "You're right. The first time I saw him I was absolutely unaware that in a few moments, I would be in love. Then I wanted him."
Livingston was wide eyed in wonderment. "You little harlot!" He exclaimed happily. "But," he reminded me, "Back to the problem at hand. You will not be content to watch from afar. I know it. Do I have to watch over you to make sure you don't do anything stupid?"
"When do I ever leave the kitchens?" I inquired sardonically. "When does Prince Daryan," and here, I was breathless, "Ever deign to visit the kitchens?"
My friend and now confidante shrugged. "But on the off chance that either of those things should happen, must I protect you from the wiles of amoral men?"
"Protect me from what?" I asked, laughing. "Amoral men? Who is amoral, Livingston? Certainly not Daryan; he's a Prince val Tännon, he of all people is schooled in moral rectitude from the moment he was born. Undoubtedly he follows such a code as befits his station!" I laughed again the sheer absurdity of Livingston's proposition. Daryan was nothing less than the epitome of a Prince, and something every man should strive for!
Livingston stared at me in completely silent shock. By the time his sputtering mouth had gotten control of his tongue, he had gone as pale as icing. "You are so naïve, Catskin, so very, very naïve."
I sighed. "I know. I have been told so many times." I curled up against him, then, which shocked me as much as it shocked him. "Watch out for me, Livingston, for I will need it."
Author's Note: Hah! I did get a chapter done! Of course…it was in the time technically allotted for writing the thing for next week…but I don't care. I still have three days! (Three and a half, if the drive out there counts!) I enjoyed writing this chapter immensely, and I hope you enjoyed it as well. I do, however, apologize for the sudden shot of religion. I've been reading Sharon Shinn's Samaria novels, and they are highly religious, ergo Kelry gets religion too.
To those who reviewed: I love and appreciate you very, very much. Please do so again! XD
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