Crossing Over - Anna Kendall [26]
“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.
“I’m new here,” I said to the girl. Her strong arms, bare to the elbow, kneaded the bread. “I’m Roger Kilbourne.”
“So you said.”
“Who are you?”
“Why should you care?”
“So I will know to tell the queen who broke my nose. I understand she keeps careful record of all crimes.”
The girl stopped kneading, stared at me, and laughed reluctantly. I was astonished at myself. Where had the courage come from to tease this girl, to tease any girls? With Cat Starling I had felt protectiveness, with Lady Cecilia I had been tongue-tied and oafish. The only quick wit I had ever shown was in dealings with the Dead.
She said, “What do you know of the queen?”
“I have never seen her.” I knew only what everyone knew, plus too much about the orderliness required by this exacting monarch. Endless clean linen from the laundry, to match the washed cobblestones, the spotless rooms, the careful record of shipwrecks. Endless clean clothing: green for the young queen’s household, blue for the old, brown for the stable, gray for those who gardened anywhere in the palace.
The girl said, “May Her Grace live long,” and something moved behind her eyes, something that gave the commonplace words a meaning I did not understand. “Now let me work.”
“All right—but will you tell me something first?