"Thank you, Jean," Mattie said, accepting the cup of tea Jean had offered her with eager, trembling hands. Jean smiled at her softly, sadly, fighting an impulse to reach out and run her hand over Mattie's hair as if the girl was her own daughter. The night had been a strange and distressing one for everyone in the castle, it would seem, and Jean wanted only to comfort her young friend.
Jean settled into the rickety chair next to Mattie and leaned back against it heavily, relieved to be off her feet and sipping her own cup of tea. The Prime Minister had arrived, and everyone had been so caught up in gossip and intrigue and navel-gazing and trying to steal a glimpse of their new king that poor Mattie had been quite overlooked. Jean had found her loitering in the corridor outside the King's suite, wringing her hands, and taken charge of her at once; someone had to. She was still so young, and Jean knew that she must have been shaken by her grisly discovery earlier in the evening. It wouldn't have been right to just see Mattie to her door and send her off to bed alone without first offering her some comfort, and so Jean had led her here, to a corner of the vast kitchen, to two old wooden chairs and a pot of tea.
"It was just so awful," Mattie said suddenly. Such a response was not entirely unexpected; Mattie was a nurse, but a relatively inexperienced one. She had been dispatched by the hospital under the strictest of secrecy to serve as one of four live-in nurses assigned to tend to the ailing king, in addition to a whole bevy of doctors. It was Mattie who had drawn the short straw, who had been given the task of looking in on the king in the evening, and so it was poor Mattie who had found him already departed from this life. And much as she tried to appear worldly and unflappable it would seem that losing her patient had taken Mattie quite hard.
"I'm sure it was," Jean murmured softly. She was trying to be gentle, trying to keep from offering the trite platitudes people always seemed to fall back on in times of bereavement. Death was no stranger to Jean; she had grown up poor and hungry on a farm outside the city, and she had known death from a young age. First it was chickens and cows and a horse that took lame, then her grandmother, her grandfather, her uncle, her own mother, then her father, then her husband. Death had come for all of them in its own time, and Jean carried the scars of those losses deep in her own heart. She had become accustomed to those scars, had learned how to live her life without ripping them open afresh each time the sun rose, but Mattie had the soft hands and the untried heart of a city girl. If she wanted to pursue a career in medicine she would need to develop thicker skin, but Jean knew that this was not the moment to remind her of such things.
"He was always very kind to me," Mattie continued in an unsteady voice. Yes, the old king had been kind to everyone; that was how Jean would remember him, as a stiff, somewhat formal man who nonetheless cared deeply for every single person living with his realm. "But then the Prince - the King - the new King, I mean, he came in, and oh, Jean...what are we going to do?"
That question had been weighing rather heavily on Jean's mind for the last hour or so, but though she adored Mattie she had no intention of sharing her own concerns. There would be nothing but gossip in the days ahead, people trading information like cheap wares at the market, vying with one another to be the first to reveal this or that juicy tidbit, always trying to outdo one another and spreading rumors without thought to the consequences. The new King would be the only topic anyone wanted to discuss, but Jean knew better than to let a wagging tongue put her position in jeopardy. She enjoyed this job, the home and the security it afforded her, and she would not risk it, not even for someone as interesting as their new King.
"We will carry on," she said firmly. "The hospital may ask you to come back, or the new King may keep you on. We could make use of someone with medical training on staff here. I mean, really, how many times have you patched up Charlie or Danny after some scuffle over the last few months?"
She had hoped to encourage her young friend, but Mattie did not smile as she watched Jean over the rim of her tea cup.
"I'm not talking about me, Jean," she said seriously. "He was...frightening, when I saw him earlier. He looked so angry, and he was so cross with Father Emory. I've heard so many stories-"
"They're just stories," Jean interrupted her, hoping that her firm tone would put an end to that particular line of discussion. Yes, there were many stories about young Prince Lucien. Stories about how he rowed with his father, tales of drunkenness and lechery that stretched from Edinburgh to Singapore. Jean had head them all, had heard that he was a hard man, a cruel man, a selfish man, a weak man, but she had spoken to him earlier in the night, and she had been quite surprised by what she found. He had been by turns self-deprecating and defensive, but he had been compassionate, too, and had shown an earnest desire to comport himself well in the days ahead. He had told her that he had been a soldier, and though Jean had never heard so much as a whisper to that effect she believed him. There had been a hollowness in his eyes, a world of sorrow in his voice that Jean recognized all too well. She had seen the same in Christopher's friends when they returned from the war, his friends who had not been buried on the battlefield but carried it with them in their hearts, everywhere they went.
In truth she did not know what to make of the man. A medic, a soldier, straight-backed and proud and devilishly handsome, she was somewhat inclined to like him. But he had stayed away from his home, away from his responsibilities, for more than two decades, and when she met him up on the battlements earlier in the evening he had been so drunk she could smell the whiskey on his breath from three paces away. Drunkenness and caprice she could not abide, but that boyish smile, his sincere desire to please his people, those were traits she liked very much. He was a contradiction, this new King of hers, and Jean had never been very comfortable with contradictions. She preferred matters that were clear cut, the obvious rights and wrongs laid out by her church, and she was beginning to suspect that King Lucien was the sort of man whose very soul was painted in shades of grey.
"Aren't you worried, though, Jean?" Mattie pressed her almost urgently. "We don't know anything about him, but now we have to work for him, we have to trust him, and I don't-"
"Oh, I'm terribly sorry," a deep voice murmured from the doorway beside them, and Jean's mouth fell open as she saw her new-made King standing there ashen-faced and forlorn. As one she and Mattie hastened to rise, and Mattie appeared so out of sorts that she lost her grip on her cup. Tea splashed down the front of her dress and the cup shattered on the floor, and as Jean looked at her tears gathered in the corners of the girl's eyes.
"Please," the King said, rushing forward at once. Without hesitation he knelt down and began to gather the shattered pieces of glass, and Jean's heart was suddenly torn between fondness for his immediate desire to help and frustration at his lack of decorum. "I was just looking for something to eat, I didn't mean to cause such a fuss."
Frustration won the battle, and it was all Jean could do to keep from stamping her foot. It was all well and good, that the King should demonstrate such a lax approach to the standards of propriety, but he was not meant to kneel before anyone, for any reason, and his lackadaisical personal behavior only made Jean feel dreadfully uncomfortable. She knew what was expected of her, but how could she comport herself with dignity when he insisted on bucking their time-honored traditions at every turn?
"Your Majesty," Jean said, somewhat tartly, as she knelt and all but yanked the shattered china out of his hands. "Please, don't go to any trouble."
At close range it suddenly occurred to Jean that his eyes were very blue, and for some reason the thought made her blush.
"Right," he said, sounding almost disappointed as he rose to his feet and tugged absently at his wrinkled shirt.
"By your leave, your Majesty," Mattie said, already stepping towards the doorway, clearly struggling to keep her distress controlled, to keep from breaking down entirely as this strange turn of events stretched her already fraying nerves beyond their limits.
"Of course," he told her, smiling softly. It was a kind smile, a warm smile, an almost fatherly smile, but Mattie did not see it for the very instant he gave his permission she turned and fled from the room.
And then Jean was, once more, alone with the King. She gathered up the rest of the ruined cup and carried the pieces gingerly to the bin, and all the while he watched her, his hands shoved deep in his trouser pockets, the weight of his gaze heavy on her back.
"I'm afraid I've scarred that poor girl for life," he said. There was something hesitant, something almost desperate about the way he spoke, as if he had been casting about for something to say, some way to ease the tension that had sprung up the moment he arrived. Jean could not help but wonder if he had overheard their conversation, if he doubted their loyalty to their new King, if he was even now trying to find some way to approach the topic delicately, but as the seconds passed she began to suspect that was not so. Surely, she told herself, if he had overheard them he would have said something.
"She's had a very difficult evening," Jean told him evenly, wiping her hands on her skirt and turning to face him. "She's usually much more composed."
"Oh, I don't know," the King mused, "I think I just have that sort of effect on people. The moment I enter a room, everyone seems to suddenly remember pressing business elsewhere."
That little quip put Jean in rather a difficult spot, for in truth she had been just about to make her excuses and leave him, and now she could see no way to do so gracefully. If she could not leave, then she supposed the next best thing would be to find some occupation for herself.
"You're hungry," she reminded him, businesslike and determined. "Why don't you have a seat, and I'll see if I can find something for you."
The kitchen was not strictly speaking under Jean's purview, but she had started her tenure in the castle as a cook, and she knew her way around the place. The kitchen staff were all in bed, and would stay there until about 4:00 a.m., when the first of them would begin to trickle in to make a start on baking bread for the day. There were a few hours yet when the kitchen would be still and quiet, and this much she knew she could do, could rummage through the pantry and the refrigerators and make something for him to eat. Drinking and grieving and affairs of state were a heavy combination, and she was not surprised he'd worked up an appetite.
But he waved her off, looking almost sheepish. "Oh, I'm sure there are some biscuits around here somewhere," he said. "Please don't trouble yourself."
That request was a bridge too far, for Jean. So far this evening she had been accosted in a moment of quiet contemplation, had been questioned on personal matters by the man who was now her King, had watched as her entire world was turned upside down, had been comforted by Sir Patrick Tyneman of all people, had shouldered Mattie's burdens as her own. Those bizarre turns of events she could stomach, but she could not - would not - stand idly by while the King himself went rummaging through the kitchen in search of biscuits.
"Please, sir," she ground out through clenched teeth. "Please, just...sit. Please."
For a moment she thought he might protest, but then he raised his hands as if in defeat, and sank into the chair Mattie had so recently vacated, and Jean breathed a sigh of relief at his capitulation. Order had been restored, in some small way.
"Thank you," she told him sincerely. And then she turned, and went off in search of biscuits and a fresh cup of tea for the King.