Tale of Elske (8 page)

Var Jerrol paid no attention to her.

Elske went to the blank square. Now a face filled it, dark-eyed, a girl's face, with dark thick eyebrows over eyes of so dark a grey they reminded her of rainclouds, and wolf pelts. The girl had a short nose and her hair was worn Trastader fashion, under a scarf. Except for the color of her eyes, the girl looked a great deal like Tamara when she was thinking out the day's work. The girl looked so much like her grandmother that Elske smiled.

The face smiled back at her, as if it were alive, and happy to see her.

She stepped back, and the girl stepped back. She reached a hand out, to touch the face, but the girl's hand reached towards hers, until their fingertips touched. But all Elske felt was flat and cold.

“Elske,” the man spoke from behind her, and she whirled around. “It's all right, it's a beryl glass. Don't be afraid.”

“I'm not afraid,” Elske told him, and now Var Jerrol smiled at her, to say, “Of course. I'd forgotten.”

“But who is she? And where?” Elske asked, turning back to the beryl glass.

“She's you. That's you.” He rose to stand beside her, and she saw him appear also beside the girl. The girl's face, her own, was not a broad Trastader face, although neither was it narow, like the Volkaric. “The back of the glass is painted silver, and that causes it to reflect what is before it, as the harbor on a windless day reflects the sky and masts, or the river water its banks. But come over to the window,” Var Jerrol said. “Let me see you by daylight. You don't look strong enough to have smashed the Adel's mouth.”

“And nose,” Elske told him.

“And nose.” He smiled again.

She explained it to him. “I had a stone. Actually,” she added, for perfect openness, “I had two stones, from the street, because I smelled danger when they turned to follow us and I could hear what they said to one another. I needed to keep them from ruining Idelle.”

“So you do speak Souther. Yet you are Volkaric.”

What did he know of her, Elske wondered, and why would he know anything about her? But she had decided to keep no secrets and by the time he finished asking her, he knew about her warrior father, dead in some distant battle, her Volkaric mother and Tamara, who let her live, and raised her. What he did not ask, he did not know. “Why did you leave?” he asked and “My grandmother sent me away,” she told him. He desired to know no more, but said then, “I am the eyes and ears of the Council. Do you know what that means?”

“You tell the Council the secrets you learn,” she guessed.

“In part,” he said. “Also, I hear their worries and their schemes, and I set my spies to gather information the Council needs, to settle their worries, to enact their schemes. I do not tell everything, Elske, just what they need to know. You will be safe in my house. If you are nursemaid to my daughters, and unseen, the misadventure will be forgotten.” Then, in a different voice, he asked, “You can read? As the posted notice claims?”

“I know letters,” Elske answered.

The Var rose and took down one of the leather boxes from his shelves. This turned out to be sheets of paper, sewn within a stiff leather cover—not a box at all. The cover was made so that it could be opened to display the pages one after another. She could see words on the open page and reached out a hand to touch them. The page was smooth, flat, and the letters lay smooth and flat upon it. “What do you call this?” she asked and “A book,” he answered. “Can you read it?”

Elske studied the letters, making the sounds in her head, until she remembered them well enough to read him the tale of the eagle who was shot with an arrow fletched with his own feathers, a story Tamara, too, had known. When she was done, he returned the book to the shelf and said, “I've kept visitors waiting. Odile will take you to my daughters.” He went to the door and opened it, that she might leave him. Following her out of the room, he reached out his hand to greet a cloaked man, who was just then crossing the hall in loud boots. “May we be well met,” Var Jerrol said to this guest, and to the manservant he said, “Bring us hot drinks,” and Elske was forgotten.

She went back into the cook room where Odile asked what she was to be paid for her labors and when Elske said she did not know, promised to settle it with the Var. “It's hard to put a price on the kind of work you'll be doing for him,” she said. “And he'll work you without recompense if you let him.” Then, “I don't know where you come from, to know so little of the world,” Odile added, and laughed. She led Elske up two sets of stairs, to knock on a wooden door and open it without waiting for an answer.

This was a large room, where the serving girl who had awakened Elske sat sewing and two little girls, of one and two winters, whispered together on a bed. There was a cradle set near the warmth of a tile stove. Windows let in sunlight, and there were two beds with small chests at their feet, as well as a round table at the center of the room, with four chairs around it. When Odile led Elske in, the sleeping baby was the only one who didn't stare solemnly.

“Here's the new nursemaid,” Odile announced. “Elske. And that means you”—she jabbed the girl with a finger—“will be back in the cook room—where I have need of you, what with the Courting Winter, and the master's meals, and the Varinne's dainty stomach. Your soft days are finished and I don't want to hear any snuffling on that account.” The girl rose from her seat.

Odile spoke to the little girls with more courtesy, and in a gentler voice. “Our oldest—she's two. Can you give a curtsey, Mariel?” The child shook her head, No, and sucked on a finger. “And this is Miguette,” Odile said, as the younger, just steady on her own legs, took her sister's hand and bobbed downwards. “The baby is Magan. The sewing is an old cloak of Mariel's we're taking up. You can sew, can't you?”

“Mine,” Miguette said, pointing to the cloak.

“Little girls can't get sick,” Mariel said. “Poor Maman is sick,” she told Elske.

Odile and the serving girl left Elske with the two little girls and the sleeping baby. Without a word, Elske sat on the low seat beside the cradle, took up the cloak and continued the hem where it had been left off. She knew the sisters were watching her from the bed where they sat, each with a doll in her hands. When the baby woke, Elske could ask Mariel where the clean cloths were, and where the baby's soiled cloths were kept, and so they would grow comfortable with one another.

By the time bowls of fish soup were brought up for them, and chunks of bread, with honey to pour on them, the little girls had grown comfortable with this stranger. Elske noticed this, and noticed, too, that her spirits rose to have little children in her care, and for companions.

THE LONGEST NIGHT ARRIVED AND
passed by without Elske having time to do more than silently wish Idelle well. Not only were Var Jerrol's daughters in her care, but also Elske could be summoned to the cook room to assist Odile; for the cook was kept busy, as the Councillors met with Var Jerrol to plan and manage the Courting Winter. The men needed to govern the high spirits of the Adels, so these young men were taught sword-fighting by two masters of that art, and when the snow was packed solid in the streets they had permission to race their horses, and when weather kept them inside they were taught dances, and songs. The city feasted its guests frequently, and regular Assemblies, with hired entertainers, were held in the Council Hall. Still, the Adels had too much time for drinking and quarreling and making mischief, and that interfered with the Council's intention of bringing them to marriage by the end of winter. Luckily, the Adelinnes understood their purpose in Trastad and caused no trouble.

One day, as Odile unrolled a pastry crust over the top of the fish pie she was preparing for a tableful of Councillors, in satisfaction at her work she announced, “I may have been a bad woman, but none can say I'm a bad cook.”

“Was it difficult to become bad?” Elske asked, hoping to cause Odile to laugh.

Odile obliged her, turning the bowl in her hands as she pinched the crust down into place. “The opposite of difficult, Miss Curiosity. It's a short and easy road, but not—as some say—scattered over with flowers and pieces of gold. The law of the city had me bound for the cells, but Var Jerrol took me instead. All the servants of his house he's rescued from the cells, and that keeps us loyal. You, for example. If the Var hadn't fetched you home with him that night, where do you think you'd have lodged the next, and all the rest of your life? And that wouldn't have been long, down in the cells. You'd have not wished it to be long, either.”

“But if the Adels threatened to rape Idelle, why is it I who would go to the cells?” Elske asked.

Odile shrugged. “The law places Adeliers under the Council's protection, so when you harm an Adel you have transgressed against the law. Justice does not always harness well with profit, as any of our merchants will tell you. So Var Jerrol brought you here, to keep you from the cells; and let the world think you in the cells—for there is no doubt the world has thought of you, and spoken of you. Let them think you if not dead in the cells, then dying there.” Odile laughed again, “You're fat for a corpse,” and Elske laughed with her. She placed the fish pie into the baking oven and asked Odile, “
Why
were you a bad woman?”

“Oh, well, I was young. I had a husband but his boat went down in a storm, driven onto sharp rocks, and I left childless and penniless. A widow without property has nothing to attract a husband. So I stole what I could, usually from visitors to the city, and they found me out and set me before the Council. ‘Why did you not go whoring, woman?' they asked me. With the cells awaiting me, I wished I had. But Var Jerrol claimed me for his cook. The Council didn't like to say him nay. None of them naysays any other, if they can help it, and no one wants to cross Var Jerrol. He's given orders to have you trained at waiting table.”

“I think I will obey,” Elske said, and earned another bark of laughter.

“The Council knows that without Var Jerrol, whose ships carry his spies as well as his goods, whose whores pick the heads but not the pockets of our visiting merchants and traders, their own profits might fall off. He keeps Trastaders, too, under his eye, for men who look to profit will often be tempted to take profit where the law forbids it. The city is full of thieves, Elske, and not all of them sleep rough in streets and stables.” But Odile could not be long diverted from her instructions. “He has said you are to wait at table under Red Piet. When you do that, Saffie will watch over the little girls.”

Elske, wondering if her safe place in the house would be at risk with this more public task, asked, “What if I prefer not?”

“I'd prefer so, if I were you, my Missy, unless you prefer the cells. They might send you there to serve this Fiendly Princess.”

“An Adelinne has been sent to the cells?” Elske asked, then answered herself, “No, they would never; but she must trouble them severely. Is she the Adelinne who wouldn't go into safety in the storm?”

“The very same and a very devil, they say. Uncooperative, disobedient, proud, uncivil, she refuses to go to the Assemblies. She demands to be taught swordplay. She tries to take part in the street races—she doesn't know her purpose here, and doesn't wish to. No maidservant will stay long with her, for her temper and tongue, each as bad as the other, both sharp as a sword, hot as a firebrand. And she offers her servants no coins. Now, you do this second pie, fold the pastry over the top, as I did—yes, over, and pick it up from the two ends—yes, and lay it down. Pinch it tight, lest the good juices be lost.
And
she has run away so often they keep her in a locked room, they send her under guard, this Fiendly Princess, when she must be out in the city. But you'll make a good cook, Elske. You're a clever one, aren't you?”

Elske was more interested in the Adelinne. “She must have courage.”

“And if she does, what good will that do her,” Odile decided. “Obedience and beauty get more marriage proposals than courage, and wealth gets the most, and you are needed upstairs in the nursery now, unless my ears deceive me.”