Chapter Three

Mother and Father argued about it the next day. I heard bits and pieces of the quarrel because it became very loud and spilled into the front hall. Words floated all the way up the stairs to my ears.

My parents did quarrel sometimes, if Father objected to one of Mother’s demands as too outrageous or expensive. She would storm and weep, and he inevitably gave in. This seemed different. It hushed the house, which is what allowed me to hear so much.

The truth is, I did not hear the beginning, which must have taken place in the sitting room. Only when it spilled into the hallway could I hear.

“Erikka, you cannot keep her hidden away forever. Last night proves that. It is not fair, for one thing.”

“Not fair? To whom?” Mother wailed.

“To the child.”

The child. Even while he defended me, Father would not call me by name.

I stole a look at Nurse, who also listened while trying hard to appear as if she didn’t.

“Get away from that door,” she snapped at me. “Or do you want another strapping?”

I did not; the welts on my legs already made it hard to stand. I crept away, but both my parents now seemed impassioned. We could still hear almost everything.

“What about being fair to me?” Mother cried, perhaps predictably. “I have three beautiful children—”

“Four. You have four, Erikka.”

“I have three beautiful children! All the world knows them. They’ve forgotten she exits. I will not remind them.”

“You intend to keep her locked away forever?”

“She is safe. Looked after.”

“She is eight years old. It is no life for her.”

“You do not care about me! You have never cared.”

“That is not true. But to keep a child locked away, lifelong, is a sin. What about when we are gone, tell me that? What will happen to her then?”

“Her sisters will look after her.”

Oh, God help me!

“Her sisters will marry and perhaps move away.”

“Her brother, then. Or…let’s do this, Russel—let’s make provision for her elsewhere. That’s it—we’ll send her away. To a convent, perhaps.”

“You are mad.”

“You know it’s the right thing to do. See to it, Russel.”

The quarrel ended then, though its ramifications remained with me. My sisters soon arrived and taunted me with the information I’d already heard, that I would be sent away. For days after, I waited for the blow to fall, certain I would be banished into an unimagined, outer darkness.

But Father surprised us all. For the first time in memory, he stood up to Mother. One day, in the middle of the afternoon, he came to the nursery and informed Nurse I was to be brought down for dinner.

I will remember that particular meal till my dying day, every detail of it. Nurse decked me out in one of Nelissa’s cast-off dresses and combed my hair into a semblance of order. The fact that it still hung limp and mousy helped nothing. She scrubbed my hands, swiped at my worn shoes, and trotted me downstairs at the appointed hour.

My parents sat at either end of the big, polished table—a place where I’d never before been seated. Granted the seat next to Robin, I found myself opposite my sisters, who shot me sly and disparaging looks, their noses in the air as if they smelled something unpleasant.

After one horrified look at me, Mother turned her eyes away and did not so much as glance at me again. Obviously in high dudgeon, she refused every platter the maids presented to her, which made it impossible for me to eat, in turn.

Father attempted to make conversation. He asked me about my lessons. I answered in mumbles, and my sisters promptly took over the discussion, bragging about a party to which they’d been invited. Only the most elevated of their friends would be there—anyone, basically, worthy of existence.

I do not think I did anything wrong during that meal. I minded my manners, used the proper fork—Nurse had taught me that much—and failed to spill anything. Yet before the pudding made an appearance Mother arose, threw down her napkin, and swept out.

She could not stand to be in the same room with me.

Perhaps Father reached the same conclusion, for his next effort placed me in the kitchen—a room Mother most certainly never visited. Perhaps he considered it a compromise on his part—I could get out of the nursery, yet Mother would not have to see me.

And in the kitchen I stayed for the better part of the next ten years, till the heart of this story begins.

In essence, I suppose, I became a servant in my own home. I graduated from the nursery to one of the narrow rooms on the third floor such as the maids inhabited. Nurse retired and lived in the nursery, nominally still in charge of me.

I spent my days in the kitchen scrubbing vegetables, preparing fish, and sweeping the hearth. Those who came and went in that domain more or less accepted me. New arrivals probably did not know me for a member of the family. Cook treated me neither kindly nor otherwise; after the first year or two, she assigned me chores like everyone else. If I performed them well, she refrained from striking me, for which I felt grateful.

Rarely did I see the other members of my family. My sisters came into the kitchen sometimes to cadge tarts or pastries and lord it over me, boasting about their wardrobes and their conquests.

But I knew most of what went on and lived vicariously through the members of the household. Gossip ran rife in the kitchen, and I had leave to listen to it.

Robin, seldom at home, had joined my father in business. He reportedly courted a young belle to whom he might soon be expected to propose.

My sisters had plenty of beaus and, as might be anticipated, played them off against one another. Neither had as yet accepted any of their numerous proposals. For rumor also had it the Prince—whose castle stood at the top of the hill like the town’s crowning jewel—meant at last to take a wife.

Mother had ambitions for her daughters. Lord knew they had ambitions for themselves. The Prince, whose name was Rupert, had been away many years touring the continent, and as a consequence remained largely an unknown quantity. Townsfolk remembered him as a dutiful boy—a handsome, dutiful boy. My sisters focused much on his appearance. But he’d taken his education elsewhere, completing it by seeing the world.

Rumor also had it the kingdom now faced the very real possibility of war with the neighboring realm of Cardonay. My sisters, of course, cared nothing for this. But tradesmen sometimes mentioned it to Cook in passing, citing present uncertainties for the scarcity of the goods she’d ordered. They said Prince Rupert had returned to help his father the King—who failed in his health—prepare for war.

I will admit such a possibility seemed very vague and far away to me. The world itself seemed vague and distant. I’d not been farther out of the house than the garden in many years. What did the affairs of the King mean to me?

I did, though, once hear Father and Robin discussing the possibility of a war. They were in the front parlor, having just entertained a number of other businessmen, and I entered the room to collect glassware and remove the dainties that had been put out. Deep in discussion, neither of them paid me any heed.

“—do you think will come of it?” Robin asked as I went in. “Can it be averted?”

Father rocked on his heels and jingled the coins in his pockets. “I do believe Octavius has tried.” Octavius being our King. “Ortis is a madman. He builds his army with single-minded purpose and, it’s said, has gathered men from throughout his lands.”

“While we continue to carry on as if nothing is happening,” Robin put in ruefully.

“I believe King Octavius has contrived to ignore the threat. I hope not to detrimental effect.”

Robin lowered his voice. “You think we will come under attack?”

“We might.”

“Surely now that Prince Rupert has returned he will do something about raising our defenses?”

“So we can but hope.”

“Father, you met with him at that private reception, did you not? What did you think?”

I paused, hands full of glasses, and awaited my father’s response. This would make rare gossip indeed for the kitchen—not that I often joined in sharing such tidbits. Usually I just listened.

Father grunted. “He’s been trained in warfare, of course. But he seems young to be in charge of an army. And if it comes to that, he will have to take his father’s place. Octavius is much too ill to take the field.”

“Dying?” Robin asked.

Father did glance at me then, as if noticing me for the first time. “Nearly finished there, Cindra?”

Robin, heeding me not, went on. “In your role as mayor, Father, you may be one of the few who can get near the Prince and advise him. Perhaps you might set up a meeting, seek to take his measure.”

“Perhaps.” Father sighed. “Your mother wishes to plan a reception. If the Prince is determined to marry—and it seems he is—she wants to make sure his eye falls on both your sisters.”

Robin groaned. “Might be a fine test, that.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“It should show us whether the Prince has any sense.”

Father and Robin exchanged a look I did not entirely comprehend.

“If Rupert means to marry, he’d better do so quickly and beget an heir. His very future is uncertain. But I think he will reach higher than the daughter of a mayor. Such marriages are usually political, are they not?”

“Yes,” Robin agreed, “which makes me grateful I’m not a king’s son.”