Chapter 27 | The Queen Who Ruled by Herself

First Impressions

While their brother snored, Ellika was busy in Sedra's wardrobe driving her older sister to distraction. "You can't wear that to meet Brinnid tonight! You've worn it before!"

"Brinnid hasn't seen it," answered Sedra, arms full of indigo silk, "Honestly, Elly, I don't have formal gowns just lying around unworn!"

"I do," answered Ellika. "How else can one be prepared for any occasion? Patience of Amma, you act as if you're a tinker's wife, not a princess. And this was hardly a surprise, Seddy, you should have had something made!"

"It doesn't matter what I wear," snapped Sedra. She made to throw the dress onto the floor in a heap, only to have Camma rescue it from her arms. "It doesn't matter what I look like, it's all a foregone conclusion."

"All the more reason to look especially good. After all, a first impression means a lot!"

"This isn't a first impression, we've already met!" said Sedra in exasperation, rolling her eyes as Camma hung the silk up on the dressing stand.

"It is a lovely dress, miss," said Camma, "quite the prettiest, though a bit dark for the season, perhaps?"

"I'd wear black if I thought I could get away with it," said Sedra, throwing herself down on the wardrobe's little couch.

Ellika smoothed out the indigo skirts. "If you must wear something twice in public, this isn't a bad choice, I suppose," she sniffed. "Maybe we can freshen it up a bit somehow."

"'Freshen it up?' I wore it once, to a diplomatic dinner in Winter's End of this year! What's to freshen?! I'll just wear it with my dark sapphires and dress my hair simply and there's an end to it."

"Oh, no, no, not your sapphires!" said Ellika, turning around to face her sister. "It's bad enough, wearing something so dark in Spring's End. You need something light, sparkly. Mama's diamonds, perhaps? No, too heavy. Oh, I don't know! Camma, pull out the jewel boxes!"

"I don't feel like wearing jewels at all!" groaned Sedra.

Ellika gaped for a moment, then clapped her hands. "Then don't!" she crowed. "Oh, it's perfect! Don't wear jewels, wear flowers! Your favorite dark red roses, they're perfect! A little crown of them in your hair, a bunch at your waist--now, that will freshen up the dress and bring it into the proper season as well as make you look like a properly demure lady. Camma, see to it right away, not a moment to lose!"

Camma looked doubtfully at her mistress, who nodded wearily. The lady's maid dropped a curtsy and trotted out of the wardrobe, through the bedroom and study, out the door and down the hall. She took the back servants' stairs down to the basement "below stairs," where all the real work went on in the Keep.

"Below stairs" wasn't the dank, dark sort of basement; light came in at all the many windows, and you could walk right out the several doors into the yards. "Below stairs" one would find the kitchens, Affton's day room, the housekeeper Mistress Mannell's day room, the servants' baths, the laundry, the service entrance, and the mudroom where the prince usually dashed in and out in a most unprincely fashion, or so thought the staff.

Camma looked in on the kitchens. The cooks were in full swing, sweating over ovens and stoves as they prepared for the welcoming dinner. In the corner at the big table where the servants ate sat Jenks, downing his midday meal. He returned Camma's nod, and she hurried out the mudroom door toward the gardeners' sheds.

Jenks went back to his luncheon, dunking chunks of bread in his stew in the time-honored if vulgar manner of the Tremontine cavalry. He was just about to take a big bite of pickled onion on a plank of cheese when a fuss in the hallway broke out, loud enough that he got up to see what was going on.

In the service entrance's hall stood Affton, Mistress Mannell, the head cook and the rest of the senior staff. Facing them were in essence their opposite numbers--King Brinnid's staff, fresh from Sairland and still in their traveling clothes.

The head cook was purple with rage, the veins in his forehead and neck standing out in sharp relief, and Mistress Mannell had one hand on his arm in gentle restraint. Opposite him stood a handsome, stout woman in her late 30s, her rosy Sairish face composed in a smooth, calm and implacable front.

"I'm sure thy cookin' is fine fer Tremont," she was saying in the broad and lilting way of the Sairish common people, "but I'm not here to cook fer Tremont. I'm here to cook fer his majesty. Just give me a stove an' oven, do, an' I'll stay out th' way. I brought me own second and me own scullery and me own knives." Behind her, the Sairish second cook gave a shallow bow and the Sairish scullery maid dropped a stiff little curtsy. "Would've brought me own pots, but they would'na give leave," she sniffed as she ran a dour professional eye over the pot rack hanging in the kitchens. "Ah well, little Ania here"--she nodded back at the scullery maid--"will get yer pots in trim, sure she will. All right, then, cookie dear, do show us now where we're to sleep, please."

"I am NOT called COOKIE, you bumpkin!" bellowed the infuriated head cook. "And I will NOT be showing you your quarters! I will be going back to MY kitchen and readying MY service for MY dinner tonight!!" And with that the cook planted his high white hat back on his balding head and stomped back into the kitchens, where his staff, heads down in the steam, was busy pretending not to have been listening.

The highly amused Jenks leaned against the wide archway, munching his pickled onion and cheese. This Sairish cook would be a great source of theater during Brinnid's visit, he guessed. He'd have to make sure to spend a little extra time below stairs to watch the show. She wasn't hard to look at, either--tall, ample of hip and breast, with graying chestnut hair pulled back in two smooth wings into a bun at her neck, a wide, wry mouth, a little lump of a nose, and snapping blue eyes.

He didn't look away fast enough, and those clear blue eyes caught his amused, admiring gaze. "An' what art tha smirkin' at, then? Be a bit old fer a footman, I'd say," she said haughtily.

Mistress Mannell gestured him forward. "This is Mister Jenks, the Heir's man. Mister Jenks, this is Mistress Aneen--"

"Nay, nay, I'm no man's Mistress," she said. "In me own kitchen they call me Cookie, but that'd be rude in another cook's kitchen. Call me Miss Aneen if tha must, Mistress Mannell, but I prefer me given name, an' that's Britt." She looked sideways at Jenks and the corner of her mouth quirked minutely.

"Well, Miss Aneen," continued the housekeeper briskly, "if you and your people would please follow me. The footmen have already delivered your bags." The Sairish woman and her two shadows followed Mistress Mannell down the hallway, and Jenks watched her round hips sway under her skirts all the way down the hall.

Affton cleared his throat. "Mister Jenks." He pulled his attention back guiltily. "Here is King Brinnid's man Mister Stewn. You will show him to his quarters, please, in the guest room next to yours." And with that, Affton turned on his heel; his back gave the very strong impression that he was glad to be done with the Sairish for now.

Jenks and Stewn sized each other up. Stewn was a hair shorter than Jenks, a hair older, and a good deal thinner, wiry and dry. He looked even more weather-beaten than Jenks, with tanned skin that crinkled around his eyes and thinning sandy hair in a rat-tail braid that hung between his shoulder blades. "So," Stewn said finally. "And what kind of a man are you? D'ye drink wine or beer or fancy brandy, then?"

"Honest beer and cider are my daily tipple, Mister Stewn." Jenks dropped his voice and leaned in. "I do have a bottle of the smoothest wuisc ever made in Whithorse in my quarters, however, and I'd wager you've never tasted the like."

"Ah," said Stewn, clapping him on the arm. "We will get on famously, Mister Jenks, famously, for I have in my trunk a bottle of arom, the best quality we get in trade from Pau'a, in the Vakalele, d'ye know. It's the king's tot, but he spares me a bottle now and again, whether he knows it or not!"

"Arom?" said Jenks as they walked down the hall together. "I've not had it, I fear, though I have heard of it, of course."

"Have ye never been to sea, man?" said Stewn.

"Pagg bless me, not on purpose! I'm a cavalry man!"

"Cavalry? And here I am, a sailor born and bred. T'is likely to be an interesting evening, Mister Jenks, once our masters have gone to bed!"

They reached the mezzanine, the floor between "below stairs" and "above stairs" that Jenks shared with Affton, Mistress Mannell, Camma, Iddie, Winmer, the head cook and whatever visiting senior staff were at the Keep. "Call me Jenks," he said, opening the door to Stewn's chambers. "I'd rather look my death in the eye from the back of a horse than chase it round the ocean on a raft."

"Aaaah," said Stewn, "I prefer a conveyance without a tiny brain of its own."

The door closed behind them, just as Camma came up the hall with her arms full of roses. She heard a roar of laughter from behind the door, and shook her head. She hoped she'd be able to sleep with all these Sairish in the house. Drunk already, and it was barely past tea, she clucked to herself.

As she approached her mistress's study, loud voices spilled into the hall; the princess and her sister were still bickering. Camma sighed. No reason to worry about the Sairish keeping her up when her mistress was liable to do it on her own.