Morgain's Revenge - Laura Anne Gilman [20]
The fact that she was now Morgain’s captive had filled her mind, driving everything else out. Morgain, the sorceress. Morgain, who had reason to hate her. Morgain the cruel…the evil…the merciless.
Play meek, her common sense told her. Play mild. Be the good, gentle maid. Morgain won’t do anything to you if you don’t provoke her.
Once dressed, she had been escorted by the servant from a small room to a much larger one. It held a bed, a wardrobe, and a small desk with writing implements, as though she were free to write a letter to anyone. There was a window large enough for her to climb through—though so far above the rocky ground that to attempt it would be certain death.
The servant had given her a warning: “Do not try to escape, or dire things will happen, child,” and had left her to her own devices. That had been, as far as she could tell, two days ago. The sun had moved across the overcast sky and set, the night stars had glowed and faded, and the sun had risen again. Food was delivered at regular intervals, morning and evening, brought in on a small silver cart that moved as though pushed by invisible hands. Ailis ate, and ate well, and then the silver cart went away, her chamber doors opening for it without hesitation.
Meek. Mild. Well-behaved. Taking the servant’s warning to heart, Ailis tried to keep herself busy within those four walls; tried not to think about what might be awaiting her. She counted the stone blocks in the walls. She counted the oval tiles around the window. She tried to create recognizable shapes out of the shadows the candles cast around her. She recited to herself every poem she had ever heard a love-struck courtier utter, and all the scraps of songs and stories she could recall.
Even before she had ridden out with Gerard and Newt, patience had not been a strength of hers, and boredom had overcome her fear by the end of the first day. After pacing back and forth in front of the door all morning, Ailis found herself reaching for the latch. It turned easily, opening into a larger room, this one with a fireplace, a soft couch, and a thick white fur rug on the floor from some impossibly huge beast. The fireplace was laid with wood that lit itself when she said she was cold, and extinguished itself when she told it she was warm enough now, thank you.
That discovery occupied her for the course of one evening. She justified herself by saying that she was still staying where she had been placed. Would the room be furnished if she were not meant to use it? Would the fireplace have been laid and ready for her, if she was not meant to warm herself in front of it?
The next morning, she grew restless quickly. Ailis paced the confines of the two rooms, stopping only to eat the meals brought to her and to take a bath in the small tub filled with warm water that appeared by the fireplace, fresh white towels piled beside it.
Clean, well-fed, and totally without anything to do for the first time in her life, Ailis thought she might scream. Meek and mild had never been her—not even when she was a servant. But you did what you needed to do to survive.
“I’m bored,” she told the room, as though the magic that brought meals and fire might bring entertainment as well. But nothing happened.
Finally, something inside Ailis snapped and she could not take one more hour of those same walls, that same view. She dressed in the warm wool garments she found in the wardrobe, combed and braided her hair into one thick red plait that fell halfway down her back, put the warm slippers back on, and opened the one door she had not yet tried—the one that led to the rest of the castle.
“This isn’t the wisest thing you’ve ever done,” she told herself. “But it’s better than growing any older waiting in that room.”
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