BELHALLA

"Are you sure I don't need a uniform?" Her lady did not need to brush her hair as she did - it was her role, all things considered, but she wasn't complaining. Lady Cigyun's hands were steady, used to fixing her errors.

She scoffed. There was an ease to her that simply did not, could not, exist in Velthomer. Her stomach twisted. Velthomer. "You are my maid, not the household's. If I wanted you uniformed, I would. You're much prettier in blue than black anyway."

Oh. Velthomer was days away, yet heat perched her cheeks. "Thank you, milady." The brush stopped, dipped to her shoulder. Wrong tone of voice? So rarely reprimanded, but she was bound to er sooner rather than later. Lady Cigyun bared her wrist, resting it against her warm face.

"You might manage yellow, truth be told. I look ill in it, but your skin is not nearly as fair as mine." Words clogged her throat, blocking off her thank you. "It's settled. We'll get you a yellow dress before we leave."

Her mistress' gentle touch left her; Sunilda winced as the brushing resumed. "You needn't buy me another dress. This one is fine."

She heard the great door swing open. Her hands curled into tight fists on her thighs. The door thundered shut soon. "Nonsense. You'll be round before you know it. This dress has no give." Right. The babe in her slowly growing stomach. Her right hand, tight as ever, left her lap to touch her belly. She did her best to not think about it, but the sick mornings and growing hatred of breakfast made it harder to ignore. Lady Cigyun's brushing needed some work, and she couldn't figure out what was worse. Given a brief reprieve, the torture stopped behind her ear. "Did you find it?"

"I did." Lord Arvis was properly dressed, handled first thing in the morning by, again, Lady Cigyun. She was a right lousy maid, taken care of by her lady as opposed to the other way. Palace maids made their beds while she ate at the lady's table. She was here, certainly (as a companion, perhaps? who was she to think so highly of herself?).

"I knew you would, sweetie. Can I have it?" The lord was a quiet boy. She barely heard him move across the room, only to blink and see his eyes locked on hers. He reached out, dropping a hair clip in his mother's hand. Far too nice for her, undoubtedly from the lady's chest, wrought with small gems. "Let's put this-"

He smiled. Always so soft in his mother's presence. "How are you, Sunilda?"

"-here."

Lady Cigyun snapped the clip against her hair, pushing what few bangs she had out of her face. "I am good, my lord. How are you?" Lady Cigyun must've thought her well, groomed and clothed, thankfully done.

Right as her lady stepped into view, the lord pressed himself to her. She picked at his hair, laying it flat. "I am well." He forgot about her quickly in the sight line of his mother, but she never longed for a noble's attention. "How long will you be gone?" he asked.

"You know how tea goes. A bit of tea with the queen—the great honor it is!—and then we will leave in the morning."

"And the prince?"

The prince. What of him? What did she know? Nothing. She kept her eyes down. "Visiting Friege. I'm afraid our Svan is your company for the day." Our Svan. She picked at her palm. "If it wasn't a ladies' luncheon I'd bring you. Your manners are more polished than most men I know."

"Mother." She stooped to kiss his head. Sunilda looked away; none of this was hers to see. Lady Cigyun already placed herself in danger for her. They were bound for pain once they were discovered. "Are we going back to Velthomer?" he asked.

"Velthomer? Already? No. You know how rarely Father lets us leave. I've been an awful duchess because of it." The duke spent half his time in a stupor. She shuddered to think what her lady did to get these weeks out, but the duke would wake eventually.

Lord Arvis let go of her, straightening his shoulders. He tilted his chin up to fill the few scarce inches between them. "If you were my duchess I wouldn't complain."

She laughed, a breezy sound that slipped under her skin. "Thank you, sweet. Sunilda. Fetch my flats."

"Your flats?" she asked, as if she could. A bit different, but, well, there was a freedom here. Who would be looking at her anyway? Men were suppose to know better. (Suppose to. She'd no value, nothing worth looking at, but she pinned the collar of her dress anyway, and wore two sets of stockings (another gift from her mistress). My legs are cold anymore.) "Of course, my lady."

*…*

The prince's absence meant her and Lord Arvis had errands to run. Nothing strenuous, given her burden and the young lordling she was tasked to look over, but they were out of the palace and in the polished market of the capital. The lord, the literate one of them, tightly clutched the lady's list and purse. "Mother does like her berries," he said, completely to her and not himself. "And sugar, it seems."

He looked up, brow creased, glancing down the street. She didn't want to say it, but, "Do you know where to go, my lord? I do not. I've not been without the duchess."

Lord Arvis huffed. Where he a chicken she thinks his feathers would ruffle. "Mother says I've been. I don't remember." When he was little, then. She ran her fingers along the back of his collar, picking another hair off. He sent her a look over his shoulder, sighing big for a boy so slim, but didn't shake her off. "Are my manners truly good?"

"I think so."

"I wish she'd taken me."

"What would you even say to the queen?" She could barely speak to her lady; technically they were suppose to be together now, as Cigyun might've needed help for the simplest of things, but watching Lord Arvis was not the worst thing in the world.

Another huff; his cheeks did not immediately deflate. "That is not the point." She gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze. "Do you like berries?"

Lady Cigyun and her had shared a basket the past summer (before she'd been…). She could not remember what they were called, plumb and pink and trapped between her teeth, but Cigyun stained the edges of her sleeves and her nails with juice. It'd taken a night to scrub her hands clean, pressed together under low candlelight. "I do. Those bumpy ones."

"…bumpy." He finally brushed her hand off. "What am I to do with that?"

*…*

The lord knew, vaguely, what happened to her. He'd been there for the second horrible night, after all, and he lived seven years in Velthomer. Her feet ached with the high sun, so they sat on a pristine white bench in a public green space. Belhalla was pretty, she would give it, and cooler than Velthomer. Truthfully she wanted to peel her boots off, but they were too public for that.

Raspberries were the ones she liked; Lord Arvis figured it. She held a handkerchief under his chin to catch juice from them. They were not sugared yet, still sitting in a bag at her feet. His crisp white shirt was that way thanks to her, and she wasn't in a hurry to ruin anything more. She felt his eyes on her belly; she wasn't showing yet, but her feet never got this tired so quickly before. "Sunilda." She carefully wiped his chin. "When will you have the baby?"

Lady Cigyun and her had counted the days on their combined fingers. "Sometime in the summer, my lord. May I ask why you're curious?"

He pulled the handkerchief from her, pressing a berry in her hand instead. "Mother and I were out yesterday. I did not tell you this, but she bought socks." To avoid her own mess, she popped the raspberry straight in her mouth. Cigyun was kind most days, with those hands and that smile. The days she wasn't kind, when she snapped when Sunilda stared too long in the mornings, she never took it personally; her bruised wrist made her hard to be mad at. "Sunilda. What will you do when you have the baby?"

Berries would spoil his dinner, so she wrapped the basket shut again. Lord Arvis was due back by dark, and he, burdened by her, surely, had taken all day to find berries and sugar. "What do you mean?"

"Mother does not - I was not done eating!" Firm was not something she did easily, but she laid her gaze at him anyway. More importantly he needed room for filling food. "You are cruel. Mother does not like women with babies," he said, as if she'd forgotten.

("He used to wait for me to fall asleep." Sunilda cannot hear it, but she knows what troubles her lady. The duke's quarters are suffocatingly close. The lord had issues sleeping when Velthomer kept company, so her routine with Cigyun was late. Cigyun's hair, soft to the touch, never fought the brush; she's regretfully clumsy somedays and accidentally kneels on the ends, yet she never complained.

"I know," she offered, but she did not. Whatever kind duke Cigyun promised existed was gone the time she'd been here.

Lady Cigyun leaned back against her. Her nightgown slipped down her shoulders. "You'll keep me company tonight, won't you?"

She thought of how women kept the duke company. Heat took her cheeks. Not like that, no. "I will.")

"I—" the rest of Velthomer's bastards. Only a handful, for how the duke slept. Worse, yet, that they were all younger than the lord. "I know. I think she'll still like me. I hope it." They were not suppose to look each other in the eye - she was shocked she could manage it - yet she spent enough time with him that both of them met at the same time. "Where else would I go?" Not much in the way of family, not much in worth.

"Why would I know?" His hand laid on the side of the basket. She meant it when she said no more berries. Her hand slid down to cover his. "Where will it sleep?"

She'd not thought that much. Lady Cigyun was to handle it all. She slept in Cigyun's rooms - some nights in the bed, some nights on a pallet - but that would not do for a baby. Was her baby anything special? For the duchess to deem this pregnancy good out of all the others...what did babies sleep in? "I don't know. Where would you like them to sleep?"

"I would like to sleep in the room besides Mother's. You two can have the one next to that one." And what of your father? She thought him odd, but she knew his mother and knew his oddities. He looked up at the sky. "Can we go back?"

"We can."

*…*

Women did not eat with the king, certainly not without their husbands (though perhaps if the prince was here, she would), so Lady Cigyun ate dinner with her in their guest quarters. Somehow the lord had indulged on berries and only managed a fourth of his plate. Some days the child in her let her eat, some days not; when they did, lamb was all the child craved, lamb and pumpkin. She had no right asking for such things, a meal separate from the rest, but Lady Cigyun told it to the ear of a butler so confidently.

Tonight the child let her eat, and did not fuss at the bread she squeezed the lamb on.

Lady Cigyun was still the nicest of the three of them. Eating the offered cakes with tea was something to do in moderation (so many rules), apparently, so she had room for food. "We take our leave in the morning. I don't think I've met Edda's lady." She leaned back in her chair. The lord leaned forward in his. "No, actually. She was heavy when Victor and I wed. We sent a gift back with their duke. I hear little about her."

Her little lord complained about it, but she still gossiped. "She is busy with the church and blonde to her roots," so many blonds. All duchesses were supposedly fair-faced — why else would dukes make a woman special? — but she bore a soft heart for her lady. Who else could be fairer than her?

"The church? I suppose we must brush up on our prayers." She rubbed her hand across her brow. Tired? A long day for a woman. She was slightly smaller than her, by height, but thicker in a few areas. Being worn down was a part of life. "Finish your dinner and then I'll give you a bath, to tide you over till we reach Edda."

She was a lousy servant for the things she was suppose to do, but bathing the lord was never hers or anyone else's duty. The few times Lady Cigyun had been gone for weeks on end, he only let her hand wipe his face with a rag, and, were he feeling particularly bratty, have her draw and heat a bath, making her wait outside the door.

Oh. He'd need bath water, wouldn't he? She worked a hunk of meat down her throat, but as she went to stand, Lady Cigyun grabbed her wrist. "Where are you off to? You finish eating. There are other girls to do this." The hold turned more gentle, rubbing her thumb across the back of her hand. Her heart thumped in her chest. "You've a baby, Svan. Everything must be for them. But, should it comfort you, I will need a hand." Comfort. Is that all this was?

"Will they let me bathe in Edda?" Lord Arvis asked. Sunilda pulled her hand to her lap.

"I'm sure they will. But until then it is a week." Then, to spin the boy, Cigyun dropped her voice to that breathy whisper to talk about those bath oils he liked so much. He flushed under his eyes. He didn't need them, no, of course not, he just liked them. Her lady was kind and Sunilda was spoiled for a maid: here she was, fed from the palace's kitchens, and if Cigyun bathed then she would too.

Velthomer could only ever be so far away.

AN:/ how i long for a proper notes section on this site. AU, obviously. title from Pelléas et Mélisande.