Elske Read online

  The large cook room was filled with the odor of bread and porridge. A thin woman stood at the long wooden table, her knife raised. The carcass of a rabbit lay before her, skinned, its guts removed, the head and paws chopped off. The woman had blood on her hands.

  “You’ll be the girl,” she greeted Elske. She didn’t wait for any response. “I’m to feed you and then take you to the master. That’s Var Jerrol, in case nobody told you, and I’m Odile, housekeeper for the Var. His wife is so worn out by childbirth that she is dying of the coughing sickness, so there are the little girls to look after. Do you know anything of children?”

  Elske said, “I only know about babies.”

  “What, how to get one?” Odile laughed, loud and short, like a dog’s bark, and drove her knife into the shoulder of the rabbit. “How old are you? Are you bleeding yet?”

  “This is my thirteenth winter and no, I am not.”

  “It’ll be any day, from the look of you, and what’s your name? Sit, I’ve porridge.”

  Elske sat on the bench and the woman dipped a bowl into a cauldron set on the hob, then set it steaming down on the table. Elske took the spoon the woman gave her, and ate.

  After a bite, “Good,” she said, and it was. Porridge was food to fill a belly, and keep it full. “Elske,” she said, between mouthfuls. “That’s my name.”

  Odile cut the rabbit into pieces which she dropped into a second, smaller cauldron, then swung it on a metal hook back over the open fire. “That’s done,” she said. “And you’re fed. Now you go to Var Jerrol. I’ll warn you, you’d better tell him whatever’s true. He’ll find you out easy as breathing if you lie to him, and that’ll be the end of you.”

  So openness would be her safety, here in Var Jerrol’s house, as much as it had been what kept her safe among the Volkaric. Elske followed Odile to a chamber off of the entrance hall. When she entered that room, she saw the Var sitting straight-backed in a chair, and he was busy with the many papers opened out in front of him. Shelves on the wall held leather boxes, and squares were on the walls, most colored, one blank. The man was writing.

  Elske went up to one of the colored squares, to look at it more closely. This was not cloth, although when she touched it, it was as smooth as her skirt. This square showed a man’s head, smaller than a real man’s head. Although it was as flat as glass, it didn’t look flat. The man stared off, as if he saw something over Elske’s shoulder. But when she turned there was nothing to be seen.

  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.”

  AS THE DARK WINTER DAYS went by, Elske was kept busy, with all she had to learn and all she had to do. Var Jerrol gave her a book of animal tales to read to his daughters, to begin the widening of their world. “With wealth, and knowledge gained from books, my daughters will make wives worthy of any man,” he told Elske. “And why should my daughters not marry as well as any Adelinne?” He also had Elske taught to serve at table, having her practice by serving him whenever he dined alone on the golden plates he brought out only for those occasions. All that long winter, Elske stayed within Var Jerrol’s property, but she was not restless. The little girls gave Elske wild nursery games and wild nursery laughter, and that lightened the long darkness. Var Jerrol explained his importance to the Council, how his ships brought not only information and goods, but also rarities from foreign lands to introduce the Trastaders to the newest luxuries, embroidered silks, silver filigree, peppercorns. Odile gave her the gossip of the house and the city—how the Varinne had brought a good fortune to her husband but failed to give him a son, how his own housekeeper had named High Councillor Vladislav, the wealthiest Var in Trastad, father of her child, how a clever thief had emptied a merchant’s strongbox in broad daylight.

  Elske only saw the Varinne when she took the daughters to her. The Varinne didn’t have the strength to have the girls linger, but she was always glad to see them. Once or twice, when Elske had wrapped the two older girls up warm and taken them outside to fall down in the snow, and make snowballs to throw at her, s
he saw the pale face at the window, looking down at her lively, healthy daughters.

  Eventually, winter loosened its grip on the land. Then it rained as often as it snowed, but when the sun shone out of a clear sky, the sea shone back blue. Some few boats ventured out, fishermen hungry to end the winter shortages and eager for profits. As soon as it was safe to travel, the Adeliers returned to their homelands and whatever futures they had made or found during the Courting Winter.

  When she no longer risked recognition, Elske could carry the basket for Odile, with Red Piet and Piet the Brown accompanying them to the shops and markets. She grew accustomed to the city, the many faces and crowded streets, and to its smells—a combination of offal and salt air and bakehouses, with their roasting meats, and yeasty breads and honey-nut cakes. The sea was now a familiar sight, jigging at the edges of the land.

  Elske was growing out of her girlhood, and she started her woman’s bleeding that winter; the little girls were growing, too, and so were the days which stretched now into one another, with only a shadowy darkness to act as night. Elske could bake a meat pie, now, or a fish pie, or an apple pastry, and the daily porridge and loaves of bread. She could prepare a meal, if Odile was taken with her women’s pains, and she could stand beside Red Piet to wait at table when the Var entertained guests.

  The serving at table, she discovered, was one of Var Jerrol’s uses for her; for some of his guests were merchants from the south, come to Trastad to buy lumber, furs and ores. These merchants were cautious when Var Jerrol sat with them, but if he was called away they would speak unguardedly in Souther. Afterwards, the Var called Elske into his chamber and asked her to recite what the merchants had said when they were alone and, as they thought, unheard. She reported to him their disgust at the delicate whitefish the Trastaders ate pickled in vinegar and onions, their hopes that the Council would approve their offering price for a hundredweight of ore and their calculations of how much their profits would increase at that price. She reported when they schemed to mix fine ground grain in with a shipment of spices, assuring themselves that the simple Trastaders would not know the difference between the pure and the diluted.