The Blood Knight - J. Gregory Keyes [58]
“That you are a servant,” Anne said.
“Yes.” Austra nodded. “I know you love me, but even you’ve come to face the facts of the matter.”
Anne nodded. “Yes,” she admitted.
“In Eslen, in the castle, servants have their own world. It’s right next to yours—below it, around it—but it’s separate. Servants know a lot about your world, Anne, because they have to survive in it, but you don’t know much about theirs.”
“Don’t forget, I’ve worked as a servant, too,” Anne said. “In the house of Filialofia.”
Austra smiled and tried not to appear condescending.
“For just under twice nineday,” her maid qualified. “But see here, did you learn anything in that time that the lady of the house did not know?”
Anne thought about that for a moment. “I learned that her husband philandered with the housemaids, but I think she knew that, almost expected it,” she said. “But what she didn’t know was that he was also involved with her friend dat Ospellina.”
“And you discovered that by observation.”
“Yes.”
“And the other servants—did they talk to you?”
“Not much.”
“Right. Because you were new, you were a foreigner. They didn’t trust you.”
“I’ll grant you that,” Anne said.
“And yet the lord and lady of the house didn’t make that distinction, I’ll wager. To them you were a servant, and when you were doing your job as you were supposed to, you were invisible, as much a part of the house as the banisters or the windows. They only noticed you—”
“When I did something wrong,” Anne said. She was starting to understand.
How many servants were there in Eslen. Hundreds? Thousands? Around all the time but scarcely existing so far as the nobles were concerned.
“Go on,” Anne said. “Tell me something about the servants in Eslen. Something small.”
Austra shrugged. “Did you know that the stablejack, the one we called Gimlet, was the son of Demile, the seamstress?”
“No.”
“Do you remember who I’m talking about?”
“Gimlet? Of course.” I just never wondered who his mother was.
“But he isn’t the son of Armier, Demile’s husband. His real father is Cullen, from the kitchen staff. And because Cullen’s wife, Helen, was so angry over that, Gimlet—his real name is Amleth, by the way—was never allowed a position within the castle, because Helen’s mother is the Boar, old lady Golskuft—”
“—the mistress of the household servants.”
Austra nodded. “Who in turn is the illegitimate daughter of the late Lord Raethvess and a landwaerd girl.”
“So you’re telling me that the servants do more sleeping about than they do work?”
“When a turtle takes a breath in a pond, you only see the tip of his nose. And all you know of the servants in Eslen is what they allow you to see. Most of their lives—their interests, passions, connections—are kept from you.”
“Yet you seem to know quite a lot.”
“Only enough to understand what I don’t know,” Austra said. “Because I was so close to you, because I was treated with the appearance of gentle birth, I was not well trusted—or well liked.”
“And what has all of this to do with my uncle Robert?”
“The servants have very dark rumors of him. The say that when he was a boy, he was exceedingly cruel, and unnatural.”
“Unnatural?”
“One of the housemaids, when she was a girl—she said Prince Robert made her wear Lesbeth’s gown and demanded that she answer to that name. And then he—”
“Stop,” Anne said. “I think I can imagine.”
“I think you can’t,” Austra said. “They did that, yes, but his desires were perverse in more than one way. And then there is the story of Rose.”
“Rose?”
“That one they are very quiet about. Rose was the daughter of Emme Starte, who was in the laundry. Robert and Lesbeth made a playmate out of her, dressed her in fine clothes, took her on walks, rides, and picnics. Treated her as if she were gentle.”
“As you were treated,” Anne said, feeling something twinge in her breast.
“Yes.”
“How old were they?”
“Ten years old. And here’s