The knock on the door came late, at first blue. Kerael was sitting in her downstairs room, embroidering a handkerchief, when she heard the three sharp taps. She hurried to answer.
If the morning's visitor had surprised her, so did this one, especially as she knew he was missing a ball. "Your Grace?" she asked with widened eyes.
"Is your mistress in?" The Duke's voice was uninflected, nearly sharp, and his customary smile was absent. She was about to answer in the affirmative when his face went absolutely blank, his eyes fixed on a point behind her, and Kerael knew that Lady Tamara had appeared.
Silently she backed away and opened the door, closing it quietly behind the noble. She probably could have slammed it, and neither of them would have noticed; the Duke was staring coldly at her mistress, who met his gaze, but not without blushing.
Kerael made herself scarce, but couldn't help lingering at the top of the stairwell for a few moments. She knew why he was here, of course; all the servants had heard what had happened the night before. And she had delivered a note from her mistress to the runners, addressed to the Duke of Savona; she could only assume that it had been an invitation, or entreaty, for a meeting.
Lady Tamara had spent most of the night walking the floor or staring out the window. Kerael was tired too, having stayed awake to provide fresh listerblossom tea that had gone undrunk, and to hang up her mistress's party gown when she had finally changed out of it sometime in second white. Then Lady Tamara had spent the morning in ill-concealed nervous agitation, pacing her anteroom and starting every time someone had knocked on the door.
But it had been the Countess of Tlanth, not the Duke of Savona, who had finally appeared. Kerael had overheard their conversation from the next room. Their lives would be so much simpler if they had our sources of information, she had thought. Kerael had finally understood, after that, the reason behind the gossip: her mistress had gotten Lady Meliara drunk because she was jealous of her. But it was ridiculous for Lady Tamara to be jealous of the Countess when all the servants knew she was secretly corresponding with the Marquis of Shevraeth!
Then the two had left together, and Kerael had taken the opportunity to dash out and tell her fellow servants what was going on. They, in turn, had told her that the Duke was having a picnic that afternoon, and that everyone who had been at Lady Tamara's party, except the hostess herself, had been invited. At that point Kerael had concluded that her mistress would not be receiving any answer to her letter.
Lady Tamara had finally consented to eat something after returning from that walk, but she'd barely touched her food, sending it back not noticeably diminished. Sometime during the afternoon she'd somehow found out about the Duke's party, and she'd sat stony-faced until nightfall, moving only to her desk where her paper and pen were. But every time she started a letter, she'd crumple it up after a few lines or even a few words. Kerael, quietly cleaning up after her, had looked at the salutations before burning the papers in the downstairs grate. Most of them were to 'Russav'; some were to various other members of the court.
Reluctantly, Kerael continued downstairs. The voices above were too faint for her to make out, which was a good sign. Or so she thought until they abruptly grew louder, and she heard the duke say, "… dirty, underhanded trick!" He was practically yelling. Lady Tamara's reply was yelling, but too agitated for Kerael to understand.
Quietly—though it wouldn't have mattered if she'd jumped up and down as hard as she could—Kerael sent for fresh listerblossom tea, then sat down and tried to finish her embroidering. After a few minutes she abandoned all pretense of work and listened, half-fascinated, half-frightened. She'd been Lady Tamara's maid for years, and she knew that when her mistress fought with the man she loved and hated, she truly fought. The Duke of Savona was the only person Kerael had ever seen stand up to her mistress in one of her rages.
The boy who brought the kettle of tea was young, and his eyes widened when he heard the noise. He pointed and mouthed, "Is that them?"
Kerael nodded and made shooing motions to send him on his way. When he was gone, she gently set the kettle in the coals of the fire and then laid down on her bed, covering her ears with her pillow.
Abruptly the yelling stopped, and its absence was followed by the sound of a door slamming. Kerael sighed and took the kettle from the fire, picking up a cup and saucer with her free hand, then climbed the stairs.
Her mistress was sitting in the window seat, leaning her temple against the glass. As she crossed the room, Kerael noticed with optimism that all the items on the floor could have been knocked off by two agitated people, careless of their motions in their anger. It didn't look like Lady Tamara had thrown anything, and nothing was broken.
Kerael put the cup down on the table, filled it, and then gently placed it and the saucer beside her mistress on the window cushion. Not surprisingly, Lady Tamara made no move to take it. Kerael started to turn away, then looked back, startled: her mistress was crying silently.
Quietly, she walked back down the stairs and rummaged in the drawers for the item she was looking for. The lace-edged handkerchief was at the very bottom of the pile of linens, for Lady Tamara never cried.
She put it next to the saucer, and Lady Tamara picked it up and silently wiped her eyes. Kerael turned away once again, to call for the ice that her mistress would probably want to take the red out of her eyes, when Lady Tamara stopped her.
"Kerael," she said. "Am I a fool?"
"No, my lady," Kerael said. Then, because her mistress lifted her head from the window and stared at her with skeptical, red-rimmed eyes, she made bold to add, "A fool would not know she had something to cry about." She backed quickly away, in case her remark should inspire further rage, but Lady Tamara's wrath had apparently spent itself on the Duke.
Kerael quietly set the room to rights, surreptitiously watching her mistress lean her head back against the window and drink the tea, her shoulders slumped. A trickle of letters had arrived since the morning, and she stacked them on the side table where Lady Tamara would see them in the morning. Kerael was dying to talk with the other servants and find out the latest gossip, to find out what exactly had gone on during that morning's walk, and hear what the reaction of the other courtiers had been.
Finally, Lady Tamara sat up and murmured, "I think I will sleep now, Kerael. Lay out my dressing gown." Kerael curtsied, though the gesture went unseen, and moved quietly to obey.
When her mistress was in bed, sleeping or trying to, Kerael took her gown and folded it neatly, placing it back in the appropriate drawer. Then she set another kettle of listerblossom tea on the table with a clean cup and slipped downstairs, through her own room, and into the narrow corridor leading to the servants' kitchen, where she happily passed the rest of the waning night telling and being told.
