He looked me over and sighed. “I suppose you’ll have to do. Come.”
More courtyards, and my astonishment grew until I thought my eyes, my brain, could take in no more.
Each courtyard was more sumptuous than the last. Wide, quiet, bright with trees and late summer flowers, ringed with buildings of painted gray stone. Then buildings faced with smooth white marble. Finally buildings faced with mosaics of pearl and quartz, all in subtle shades of ivory and cream, all in subtle patterns that changed as the light moved over them. Small fountains appeared, falling in graceful, tinkling arcs. All was subdued, quiet, with a balanced and graceful beauty I had not known existed in the whole wide world. Even the people we passed, dressed in fine green clothing, moved with quiet grace. A few nodded to Kit.
Kit said, “Close your mouth, Roger.” He seemed to grow more and more tense the closer we got to . . . wherever we were going.
Almost I wished I were back with Hartah, with Aunt Jo, jostling along in our wagon. This was too strange, too different. I could never belong here.
Kit said, “Here I leave you. The quarters for Queen Caroline’s ladies are over there, through that gate. Present your letter of introduction to the guard. I must report the wreck of the
Frances Ormund
to the Office of Maritime Records and give the news of the hanging of the one surviving wrecker. May all their souls burn forever.”
I could have told him they were not. I could have told him that the wreckers, along with their victims, sat on the beach and the rocks, contemplating the quiet sea. I could have told him his educated belief, that souls burn or else go to paradise, was much farther from the mark than was the countryside belief that they endure in their own land. I told him nothing.
“Worse luck that it had to be me,” Kit said gloomily. “Never a Blue courier about when you need one.”
That was his only reference to the peculiar situation that I—that the entire queendom!—knew existed at court. Kit Beale walked away. With Mistress Conyers’s letter in my sweaty hand, I moved toward the bored guard to meet the unknown Emma Cartwright, she who held my fate in her hands.
She was much older than Mistress Conyers, stout and wrinkled, just as clearly born a servant as the other had been born a lady. Emma Cartwright wore a plain gown of dull green, her hair in neat gray braids wound around her head. But her eyes were piercing. “Did you read this letter, boy?”
“I can’t read, mistress.”
“Ah. And Mistress Conyers thinks you should work in the court laundry.”
“Yes.”
“A boy. As a laundress.”
I said nothing, because what could I say? And was I supposed to kneel? Kit had laughed at me for trying to kneel to him—was this the same? My ignorance shamed me.
We stood in a small, cheerful chamber hung with a tapestry of noblemen on a hunt. Unlit wood was stacked neatly in the fireplace. A pretty carved table held a bottle of wine, several pewter goblets, and a bouquet of flowers. Embroidery, rather badly worked, lay tossed on a three-legged stool. A polished door led to a bedchamber beyond; I could see that in one corner someone had dropped a painted fan behind a brass water bucket.
Mistress Cartwright sighed. “Very well. I’ll ask Joan Campford, who runs the Green laundry. Although why Lettice should mix herself in your affairs—”
I was startled to hear this servant use what must be Mistress Conyers’s given name:
Lettice
. Then all at once I grasped the situation. Emma Cartwright must have known Mistress Conyers when she was quite small; perhaps she’d even been little Lettice’s nursemaid. That was why Mistress Conyers trusted her. And so—
The door burst open and a girl rushed in. “Emma—you must help me!”
For a long moment I stood frozen, and then I dropped to my knees. No doubt here—
this
was a lady. She was also the most beautiful girl I had ever seen.
She was small, with long brown hair, its color mingled cinnamon and copper and nutmeg and bronze—more gleaming shades than I could count. The hair flowed loose from beneath a little jeweled cap that framed huge eyes of bright green. The skirts of her gown, green silk with a low bodice and full sleeves, were held up in both hands; she’d been running. Her pointed little chin quivered. She ignored me.
“What is it, my lady?” Emma said.
“The prince! I—oh, here he comes! Tell him I’m ill, dead, anything!” She dashed through the door to the bedchamber and slammed it, seconds before a youth appeared in the outer doorway. Emma sank into a low curtsy.
“Mistress Cartwright, summon Cecilia, please.”
I disliked him immediately. His peremptory tone, his rich clothing, his handsome and sulky face. He looked not that many years older than I but was much more filled out. Well, why not—he ate well every day of his life, the bastard!
Then I realized I was silently cursing a
prince
, and the blood rushed to my face. How did I dare? I bent my head even lower, but I needn’t have worried. The prince no more noticed me than he would a piece of furniture.
Mistress Cartwright said, “Your Highness, I would summon her except that she is ill and vomiting in her chamber.”
His scowl deepened. “Vomiting? I saw her just moments ago and she was fine!”
“Yes, Your Highness. It came on quite suddenly, and she rushed away lest she disgrace herself in front of you. I’m afraid she ate too eagerly of the roast swan at dinner. Lady Cecilia has a delicate digestion.”
I peered sideways at the prince. He looked uncertain.
Mistress Cartwright said, “If Your Highness would like to wait until I get her cleaned up, her soiled gown changed, and her mouth washed with—”
“Oh, leave it! Let her rest. But tell her I shall expect her at the masque tonight!” He turned and stomped off. Mistress Cartwright closed the door softly behind him. Instantly the inner door opened and Lady Cecilia ran to her serving woman, hugging her. “Thank you, thank you!”
“What happened?” Mistress Cartwright looked grim.
Lady Cecilia laughed, a high sparkly laugh that went on a bit too long. “He tried to kiss me again. And I slapped him and ran away!”
“Did you encourage him before that, my lady? Were you flirting again?”
“Maybe a little.” She smiled, the most enchanting smile I had ever seen. It tilted the corners of her green eyes, showed off her small white teeth. Her skin looked soft as swansdown, and as white. I felt light-headed, which must have caused some slight motion because all at once she noticed me. “And who is this?”
“A new servant. My lady, this is a dangerous game you’re playing with Prince Rupert, I have
told
you that. You cannot—”
“Oh, Emma, I can manage myself, and the prince, too. It’s all in fun. He knows he must leave on his wedding trip in the spring, and he knows I serve his sister the queen. He would never try more than a kiss, norI a slap.” She giggled, still smiling down at me. “Rise, new servant. Do you have a name? And what will you do here at court?”
“Roger Kilbourne, my lady. I’m to be a laundress.”
“A laundress! How funny!”
Standing, I was much taller than she. All at once I was grateful that the tunic Kit gave me came at least over my hips. My member felt hard as stone. And for a lady born! The light-headedness increased.
“You ears are the most interesting shade of red, Roger,” she said. “Are you blushing? You would look well in a doublet of that shade.”
It was incredible. She was
flirting
with me, as she must have flirted with the prince. Did she flirt with every man, then? Apparently so. I was not used to being a man anyone flirted with. I was not used to being a man. I was not used to any of this—I, Hartah’s unwilling and underfed slave. Her eyes sparkled like diamonds—no, like emeralds—no, like—
Mistress Cartwright said, “That’s enough, my lady. Go inside and rest, you are supposed to be sick from eating too much roasted swan. Roger, I will take you now to Joan Campford.”
“Good-bye, Roger of the Red Ears,” Lady Cecilia said.
I would never see her again. Or if I caught a glimpse of her, it would be at a distance, riding or dancing or feasting with the queen’s ladies, flirting with the prince. And she would not remember my name.
Wordlessly I followed Emma Cartwright to the palace laundry, where my new life was supposed to begin.
10
HEAT FROM THE
constant fires, three of them going day and night, and from the pressing irons. Steam choking the air. Soap so harsh it rose blisters on my hands and arms up to the elbow, to join the skin burns from every careless error with a hot iron. A perpetual ache in my shoulders from hauling cold water from the river. Cold and heat, strong soap and stronger stains, fire and water. This particular laundry—there were others in the palace—dyed and cleaned the clothing and bedding of soldiers, servants, and couriers. Queen Caroline, like her mother, insisted on cleanliness throughout her palace. They were both famous for that.
At the end of the first day, I thought I could not stand the work. By the end of the second day, I knew I could stand it but didn’t want to. By the end of the second week, I had accepted my fate. It was not all bad here. Joan Campford, although she ran her laundry like a captain of the guard, was not unkind. I had three good meals every day in the servants’ kitchen, nourishing food such as I had seldom enjoyed before. The other laundresses, all older women, made endless jokes about the boy doing women’s work, but no one beat me. So I became resigned. That’s what hard and ceaseless work is designed to do: require all your energy so that none is left over to think of another life.
Except that I did think of other lives. As I hauled water and boiled sweat-soaked tunics and pressed clothing, I thought ceaselessly of Hartah, of Aunt Jo, of the
Frances Ormund
, of what I had done on the rocky little beach, of Lady Cecilia, of my mother among the Dead “at Hygryll on Soulvine Moor.” Worse, I dreamed of them all. And in my dreams, as I had done in the hayloft of the inn, I called out.
“Wake up! Wake up, curse you!”
The boy who slept on the next pallet in the apprentice chamber shook me roughly awake.
“That’s the second time tonight! Who can sleep with you caterwauling like that!”
“Not me,” said another voice, equally annoyed. “I am sick of hearing about Frances Ormund! Who is she, your sweet-heart? Go lie with her and not with me!”
Frances Ormund
. Fright took me. What had I said, and what might I blurt next in my sleep, perhaps alongside someone who understood what he heard? Blindly I groped my way from the apprentice chamber to find somewhere else to sleep. The best I could do was the servants’ kitchen, under one of the long trestle tables where we took our meals.
A few hours’ fitful sleep, and another hand shook my shoulder. “What are you doing here? You can’t sleep here!”
Groggy still, I half opened my eyes. A girl crouched under the table beside me. From some dream, or some madness, I thought she was Cat Starling. Before I knew what I was about, I had pulled her to me and kissed her.
She punched me hard in the nose.
“How dare you use me like that! Who are you? Guard! Guard!”
“No, wait—please!” My nose was on fire, the agony bringing tears to my eyes. “I’m Roger Kilbourne the laundress! Please, don’t call the guard!”
She paused, a safe distance from me. “A boy laundress?”
“Yes, I—I’m sorry I kissed you, I was dreaming and—I’m sorry!”
But I was not. It was the first time I had ever kissed a girl, and despite the pain in my nose—had she broken it?—I could still feel her soft lips under mine. She was Cat Starling, she was Lady Cecilia, she was a kitchen maid in a dark green gown and white apron, in the pearly dawn. Again my member was stiff. Was this going to go on the rest of my life, this madness about girls? How was I going to bear it?
“What are you doing here?” the girl demanded. “If you’re a laundress, why aren’t you sleeping in the apprentice chamber?”
“I was. They made me leave. I . . . I cry out in my sleep and it disturbs them. I meant you no harm!”
Severely she studied me. There was about her none of Cat Starling’s simplicity of mind, none of Lady Cecilia’s flirtatious-ness. This was a girl used to hard work, with no nonsense about her. Well enough to look at but not beautiful, her fair hair bundled into a knot, her eyes a light, judgmental gray. Small burns and cuts covered her hands: kitchen injuries.
“I believe you,” she said. “Now leave.”
“I will. But my nose . . . I think you may have broken it. . . .”
“You deserved it. Oh, all right, sit there and be still.”
She brought me a cloth dampened with cool water. I held it to my nose, watching her as she fed the fire and began to knead bread left to rise overnight in the warmth of the banked fire. Other servants arrived, glanced at me, and ignored me. A few men drifted in from the stables and sat at the other end of the table, chatting idly and teasing the women, a full hour before breakfast. I realized that the palace held life beyond the laundry chambers.