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I swallowed my bite of cheese tart and said, “We do well enough. She’s my training Dog, not my friend.”
Mya sighed. “I’m sure you’re right. You can’t be in better hands. Mattes Tunstall is a feckless, overgrown lad, but no one argues that he’s one of the best Dogs in the city.”
Feckless? I thought, putting sliced ham on my plate. And how would she know that? Then a dreadful idea dawned and I stared at Mya. “Auntie.” I swallowed, the pictures in my head making my belly lurch. “You – you and Tunstall.”
She suddenly smoothed her apron over her lap. “I was once accounted a very pretty girl. We had so much fun together – but I wanted marriage and babies, and Mattes just wanted fun.” She smiled at me. “Ulfrec has made me happy these fifteen years.”
“My lady says Rebakah may visit her now.” All unknown to us, my lady’s personal maid had walked into the kitchen. The maids hurriedly began to chop again. The boy splashed as he scrubbed like a madman. I half tripped over my bench as I tried to jump to my feet and brush the front of my dress at the same time.
The walk through the house felt strange. I’d made it only three weeks ago on my last visit, and yet the place seemed different. Smaller. No less elegant or well kept, but not the same.
I understood the difference as we passed through the door to my lady’s part of the house. It was less important. Provost’s House had not changed, but I had.
As if she’d heard my thinking and meant to say that I did not matter, the maid pointed to the workroom. “Wait in there,” she ordered.
I walked inside. My sisters were there with the other mots of the house who did sewing. Diona had an embroidery frame set up before her. Lorine worked on a silk underdress so fine it was almost sheer. Both of them looked like tidy strangers to me.
Everyone looked up when I came in. The room went very quiet.
My sisters stiffened. I did not mistake it. I knew them like I knew myself.
“Goddess bless us, Beka, were you drinking? Or brawling with your Dog friends?” asked one of the older maids. She was favored by my lady for her embroidery. It meant that she gave herself airs. She made a game of saying something cruel to me, then claiming it was a joke when Lorine took her to task for it. “You might have covered those with face paint, you know.” Most of the other maids giggled. Diona went red.
I let my gaze fall to the worn floorboards, then stiffened. Why did I let her speak so to me? What would this empty-headed mot have done on Rovers Street?
“I might have been mistaken for a doxie, too,” I told the floor. The gigglers went silent. Then I looked up and held her eyes. Everyone else says that my gaze makes folk nervous. They tell me it’s like being touched with ice. Let me see if I scare her, I thought.
She tried to stare me down. I made myself think of old Slapper and his crazed glare. She held firm a moment, then blinked and looked away. I waited. When she looked up again, I was still there, still staring. She got up. “Some females have gutter mouths!” she mumbled, and skittered out of the room.
I looked at each of them to see if anyone else wished to sharpen her wits on me. None would meet my eyes, not even my sisters. I went to kiss them on the cheek. Diona pulled away rather than let me actually touch her. Lorine held rock still. They spoke no word to me. I stepped back, not sure what to say.
“My lady will see you now.” The maid had returned for me. It was the only time I was glad to be on my way to Lady Teodorie. I could think of nothing more to do with so many looking on.
Of course my lady’s lips went tight when she set eyes on me. I’d known as much that morning when I’d looked in my bit of mirror and seen my bruises were still plain on my face.
I made my curtsy to her.
“And so you have begun work as a Guardswoman, Rebakah. Plainly you have found it invigorating.”
I didn’t reply. She didn’t expect me to answer. Unlike Goodwin, neither did she expect me to look her in the eyes.
“Dare I hope that you have come to your senses? Your mother wished for you to better yourself.” She took up the needlework that lay in her lap. She always had some about her. She had taught my sisters their first stitches, sewing and embroidery alike.
I never know what Lady Teodorie wants from me. My sisters and brothers are bettering themselves. Why does it matter to her if I am not what she thinks a girl should be?
She pursed her lips. “Tongue-tied as usual. Your performance yesterday before the Magistrate did my lord and me no credit.”
I felt my shoulders twitch. So word of that had come here already. Splendid.
“Have you anything to say for yourself?”
I knew my duty. “Forgive me for disappointing you, my lady,” I said.
“Your seeming meekness would serve you so much better as a maidservant than as an enforcer of the King’s law,” she remarked. “When you recover from your folly in your choice of livelihood, of course I will do my best for you. I promised your poor mother I would do my best for all of her children. You are dismissed.”
I curtsied again. Why does she take it so personal that of all five of us, I am the only one who don’t want the life she picked out for me? I can’t understand why she hates the world of the Provost’s Guard, either, but that’s my lady. My lord has lived with it these many years. Maybe that’s why my being a Dog is so vexing for her – of all the lads and gixies of this house who have gone into the Provost’s Guard, I’m the only one who my lord shares it with, who he’s raised to it. Who loves it as he loves it.
Feeling small and dirty, I returned to the kitchen. I certainly didn’t want to see Lorine and Diona. The other maids would have been talking at them about me all this time, how low I’d seemed. Mayhap when we met in the afternoon, with none but our brothers there, my sisters wouldn’t find me so common.
The kitchen was busy. Vendors awaited Mya’s attention. There were geese to be put on the spit. The undercooks made plenty of noise as they put together other dishes for the noon meal. Mya, tending a weeping stable girl, thrust a basket full of bread odds and ends at me. I took it with thanks and fled.
This time of year the orchard is quiet. The trees are in bloom. They’re pretty, but they’re of use only to bees. They stand behind the hay barn, which is also left to itself so early in the year. No one sat on the bench be
hind the barn. I settled there, put my basket on the ground, and enjoyed the warm sun for a moment.
A thought: Did I know, when I lived here, how often I dodged folk I might offend with what I said? Or did I just not notice because mostly I didn’t talk?
Breakfasts these days will be the ruin of me. First I start talking to Kora, Aniki, Ersken, and the rest. Who knows where it will end? A party? A feast? Chattering with strangers?
Tansy might like breakfast with us sometime. If I can pry her out so early in the day, she might like to meet my friends. Mayhap Annis will help.
But I was writing of my visit and of sitting behind the barn. I ended my sunbath when a shadow passed over my face. I opened my eyes. Of course it was Slapper. It was here that I’d met him two years back. Since then he’s carried at least ten ghosts that I know of. A busy bird.
For the moment he was actually alone, no other birds at hand. Was this a pigeon miracle, a bird without a flock? He landed on my shoulder and pecked my temple hard.
“Pox and murrain!” I cried, and grabbed him. In my lap, he glared at me with poison-yellow eyes, fighting to free his wings. Pigeons are stronger than they look, even one whose back is twisted like Slapper’s. I held him gentle, second and third finger around his right wing, first finger along his neck, thumb around his left wing. With my free hand I dug out some of the cracked corn in my belt purse. I showed it to Slapper, and he went quiet. I settled him with a care to his clubfoot (I always fear it aches) and let him go. Instead of flying off, he began to eat the corn.
“Now listen,” I told his ghost, “you got to give me more than you done. My Dogs need sommat real, not gossip pulled from the air.” I spoke like Lower City folk so the soul he carried just now might trust me. “I been listenin’ to you lot, but it ain’t enough. Can’t you name the street? Is there a stream nearby, or a drinkin’ den? Sommat I can seek and find?” I didn’t say that I’d never been able to get a pigeon and its ghost to lead me anywhere. Maybe these dead would be different, they wanted to be found so bad.
