Crossing Over - Anna Kendall [25]
“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!