Crossing Over - Anna Kendall [71]
I would have given my left eye to be able to do that now. But I could not. So instead I tried to look important, and ended up merely feeling stupid. “I . . . I have an errand for the queen. I can’t delay! But you will be safe, my lady, I promise you that! If it takes my life, I will keep you safe!”
She cocked her head to one side. “I believe you, Roger.”
“Thank you, my lady!”
Why was I thanking her? I didn’t know what I meant. Her nearness addled my brain. I blundered away down the corridor, toward the kitchens.
Maggie sat at the trestle table, her head in her hands. Only a few other servants remained in the kitchen. The fire was nearly out; nothing had been done about dinner. I stood beside her. “Maggie?”
She looked up. No tears, but a depth of quiet suffering that Cecilia’s hysteria could never match. That thought came, and was banished. “Maggie?”
“My brother, Richard,” she said. “With the Blues.”
“I’m sorry. Maybe he escaped to—”
“Maybe. The others have already gone out onto the field, all the servants, to find their dead. In a minute I must . . . I thought that first I should . . . What do you want?”
I didn’t know what I wanted, why I had come here, had come to her. Before I could summon a fresh set of lies for yet another girl, Maggie’s eyes grew wide at something behind me, and she leapt to her feet. I turned.
The boy with red twigs in his hair, the first singer, stood in the doorway. Unarmed, he nonetheless stood without fear. The few servants in the hall stiffened, and a middle-aged cook hissed loudly.
The boy walked to Maggie, who was closest. He said in a heavy guttural accent, “Food. For Solek and queen.”
“We have nothing. No food,” Maggie said. And, indeed, the kitchen looked as bare as if overrun by ravenous rats. The siege, plus yesterday’s feast, had all but emptied the larders. Yet I guessed there was some food left in hoarded stores. Queen Caroline planned too carefully to let her capital starve.
“Food,” the boy repeated, but not demandingly. Up close, he was extraordinarily handsome under the red paint on his forehead and cheeks. Dark hair, eyes as blue as Lord Solek’s. He was taller than I, and broader. Did Maggie notice that?
“No food,” she said. How did she dare?
The blue eyes searched her face, which had gone white with defiance. His hand reached inside the shaggy fur tunic to draw out something, which he held out to her. “You eat,” he said gently.
It seemed to be a kind of dried meat mixed with berries. The thing actually smelled good. Maggie stared at him.
“No food,” he said. “You eat, girl.”
Something pounded behind my eyes. “She doesn’t want your stinking savage rations!”
His gaze measured me, and I saw the moment he dismissed me. Laying the food on the table beside Maggie, he raised his voice loud enough for the rest of the frozen servants to hear. “No food? We bring food. You eat.” He looked again at Maggie, then strode from the hall.
A man ran in from the opposite side, from the courtyard where the barges docked. “The savages are letting us take our dead for burial. Walter . . . I didn’t find him. Maybe he got away! ”
A middle-aged cook who’d just entered the hall spat, “He was avenging Queen Eleanor, the true queen, and yet now he must run! Shame scars this day!”
Another woman shushed her, with a quick glance at me. Of course. The servants had all taken the oath of fealty to Queen Caroline, but not all of them had meant it. Some of the former Blues were blue still, despite their green tunics, and even some of Queen Caroline’s most loyal servants had relatives among the Blues. Like this man, like Maggie.
The cook snapped, “Begin work, all of you! Before long the queen will send someone for her dinner, and here the fire is nearly out! Bestir yourselves!”
I went out of the kitchen, leaving Maggie to her grief. I could do nothing to ease it. But I did not want to return to the queen, who had caused that grief. So I spent the entire afternoon prowling the palace,