~ TASHA ~
Tasha woke to a cool breeze blowing across her face. She lay for a while with her eyes closed, so her brain could switch on. Why hurry up? There was nothing for her to do but enjoy the day. And she’d been having such a wonderful dream. Aunt Danyer had been there, showering her with gifts, “for you and your brother”. If she stayed in bed, perhaps she could return to the dream...
Someone was walking nearby. She could hear the heavy sound of leather boots on wood. The floorboards creaked loudly—she’d have to speak to Oliver about that, so he could get somebody to fix it.
Tash opened her eyes to stare at the ceiling, plain and wooden, glowing where the sun shone onto it. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her door swinging open.
“I’m so sorry, Mistress. I didn’t mean to wake you. I thought you’d be up by now—it’s nearly midday.” Young Eva Renet was standing in the doorway, her eyes wide.
Tash propped herself into a sitting position. “It’s alright, Eva, I was just getting up now.” The girl nodded—or was it just a tremble? The movement was so slight it was difficult to tell. And she stood in the doorway, watching Tash. “Can you give me five minutes?”
Eva nodded frantically now. “Oh yes, of course, Lady. I’m sorry.” She bowed her head and left the room.
“You don’t need to keep apologising,” Tash called after her, in case Eva heard, but the door was shut. She sat for a few seconds more on the bed, her dream gone for good now.
The floorboards creaked a little as she climbed out of bed. The wood, heated by the morning sun, was nice and warm beneath her bare feet. Not at all like the chilly stone of Tol Manase. No, this would be a far better place for little Jem to grow up. And, eventually, the half-dozen brothers and sisters that would surely follow.
She thought back to the man in the hospital bed, the one who called her ‘mama’. Had his life been happy? Had she done right by him? Would she do right by him? She liked to think she would.
But then, she’d always assumed she’d pass medical school with flying colours, become a doctor and fix her family’s problems. As if they could be fixed.
She padded across to the wardrobe, ignoring the onset of growling from her stomach. There was an order to these things. Clothes always came before breakfast. She wanted something light and flowing, something that would preserve her modesty but keep the heat at bay. Opening the wardrobe, she found herself spoiled for choice. She’d never been good at picking the right dress. For the longest time, Mother used to set something out on the table beside her bed. When she was too old for that, she’d enlisted Tema’s help. Mother had told her to stop it, that she was only encouraging Tema’s perversions. But she’d never meant to encourage anything. Tema just had a good eye for fashion, that was all. How was Tash to know that Tema was going to decide she was really a woman?
Knock, knock. “Are you decent, Lady?” called Eva through the door. She wasn’t decent. She was all but naked, wearing nothing but a thin cotton nightdress, staring at a lifetime’s supply of fine gowns.
“I’ll tell you when I’m decent, Eva. You don’t need to keep on knocking.”
“Sorry, Lady,” came the sullen reply.
Tash returned her gaze to the clothes. Hers was the conundrum of choice. Every one of these dresses had seemed so darling when she was purchasing it from the dressmaker. Now, every one of them was wrong. Still, she had to wear something. She grabbed the first one her hand reached and pulled it on at record pace.
Eva shrank back when Tash opened the door, out of the way. “You can clean in there now. I shan’t be returning for a while.”
“Of course, Lady,” said Eva, nodding timorously.
She left Eva to clean the bedchamber, and made her way down the stairs. Comestine the cook was in the kitchen, bent double over a pot on the fire. “Morning, Stini,” Tash said.
“Good morning, Lady,” Stini said, standing bolt upright and turning to face her. In doing so, she hit her head on a hanging brass pan, causing it to fall to the ground with a clang. She cursed loudly and surprisingly colourfully, then caught herself. Her cheeks flushed. “Sorry you had to hear that,” she said. “I’m not used to this new kitchen.”
Tash laughed. “It’s quite alright, Stini. There’s quite a lot I’m not used to yet. Having staff, for a start. I love it, but it’s a little strange.”
“You didn’t have a cook before, Lady?”
Tash shook her head. “I did all the cooking myself,” she said, leaning against a counter. “Not that I was any good. I’m surprised Oliver didn’t starve, the sort of meals I was making for him.”
“Pardon me, Lady, but did he really leave the cooking to you?” Stini’s helper Nickie had been stood flush against the kitchen door. Tash hadn’t even noticed her until she spoke.
“He didn’t make me cook, Nickie. He’d have done it if I asked him to. I had this naïve idea that I could get good with enough practice—but some people just aren’t born to be cooks.”
She looked around the kitchen. Stini kept a tight ship. Everything was neatly organised. Wicker baskets on the counter held all manner of foods, every one labelled by a calligraphed card. Juicy pears and plump oranges were bursting out of their containers. The apples were wrapped in brown paper. “What’s going on with that?” Tash asked. “I always thought you could keep apples loose.”
“You can,” Stini nodded. “That’s just for my protection. Apples play havoc with my allergies. Apples and celery and a few others besides. When I use them in a recipe, Nickie has to prepare them for me.”
“I’m basically the apple girl,” said Nickie.
“Well then, apple girl,” said Tash, liberating one of the apples from its pulped cocoon, “do you mind if I have one?” She wandered towards the main room, biting into the apple as she left the kitchen. Tart juices flowed, and she took another bite. By the time she sat herself down, only the core remained.
She spent an hour or so with herself, reading from a book she’d found. It was one of Oliver’s, a dull treatise on old merchant tariffs dressed up as a grand seafaring adventure. Boring, for the most part, but she’d become engrossed in the story of the heroine’s lovelorn best friend. She read to find out the resolution, and she hated every minute of it. But she had to know.
Eventually Sesi appeared, to relieve her from this chore.
“I need you to run an errand for me, Sesi,” said Tash, as her ladiesmaid crossed the threshold of the room.
Sesi frowned. “Me, Lady?”
“Who else can I trust? I’m in need of some new clothing. Fine dresses, befitting of my status, and a caul as well. If I’m to fit in amongst the ladies of society, I need the attire.” Tash gestured to a rosewood chiffonier in the corner of the room, beneath a particularly extravagant death mask covered in tricoloured feathers of ceramic paint. “There should be money enough in there. Spare no expense.”
Sesi trotted across the room. “You’ll be most enamoured with my picks, Lady, I promise you.” She fumbled in the sideboard and produced a leather pouch, jangling with coins. There were near to a hundred bushels in there, money enough to clothe everybody aboard the Eia—provided cheap rags were sufficient. For Tasha’s tastes, the extra expense was a necessity.
She watched Sesi go, and sat back to await her new parcels. Oliver was sure to adore them, and her in them.
Goodwife Mabeth came into the room in the early afternoon. Tash had been resting her eyes, nestled beneath her blanket, when the old woman entered. She woke slowly. Rays of golden sun were pouring through the empty windowpanes, bathing the room in light and highlighting all of the particles of dust that floated through the air.
“Have a word with Eva, please,” Tash muttered, only half-seeing Goodwife Mabeth. “She really should be dusting better.”
“It isn’t all that untidy,” came a male voice. Tash sat up. Following behind Goodwife Mabeth, his hair slicked back neatly and his face shaven microscopically close, was the Governor himself. Tash knew Chris Ballard by sight, and recently Oliver had been praising him often and loudly, but she’d never had the honour of meeting him before. She wished he’d announced his coming in advance. That way, she might have tidied herself up a bit. Her hair was certainly messy, just as it always was when she’d been sleeping on it, and Sesi had not done her make-up today. Her clothes were wide-fitting, made to be comfortable not to be looked at. Baggy fabric hung loosely off her. At the wrong angle it made her look twice the size. With her swollen belly, she was big enough already.
She sat up abruptly.
“There’s a man here to see you, Lady,” said Goodwife Mabeth, too late.
“Governor Ballard. I’m sorry, I’m in no fit state to receive you. If only you’d said—”
The Governor raised a hand, with a genial grin on his face. “Don’t worry yourself. My wife has been pregnant herself.”
“Right.” She didn’t realise Governor Ballard had children. Goodwife Mabeth was stood beside him, waiting for instruction from Tash. “Send for some cakes from the kitchen please, Goodwife Mabeth. A few of those ones with the blueberries in, if there’s any left over.”
Goodwife Mabeth’s skirts rustled as she curtsied stiffly and bustled out of the room. The younger women were content to wear just a few layers, but Goodwife Mabeth was of a different time. She insisted on the full uniform, exactly as it was centuries past, girdle and petticoats and all. Tash liked the aesthetic, but Goodwife Mabeth would often be seen sweating by mid-day.
Governor Ballard took a seat across from Tash, unbidden. She became suddenly aware that she was exposed. Expecting only female company until Oliver’s return, she’d dispensed with her underwear before settling on the sofa. Beneath her dress she was naked. She pressed her legs tight together and pulled the blanket up to cover them. The Governor seemed too interested in the masks hanging from the wall to notice.
He was fixated on one in particular. The white porcelain was decorated by just a stroke of red lacquer, running down the middle of the face from top to bottom, and grey-black pits of paint around the eye-holes. “Death masks are a rather macabre sort of decoration,” he said. “I hope you won’t think me rude for saying so. Some of these designs seem familiar. I daresay I’ve seen this one before.”
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
She nodded. “You might well have done. A replica of the one made for Hester Macallan.”
“A museum piece,” said the Governor, approvingly. “And hard to come by on the buyer’s market, I believe. Though it’s been a while since I searched.”
“It’s an heirloom. An ancestor of mine was at Cook’s Hold,” she explained. What happened two hundred years ago at Cook’s Hold, a minor fortress on the old Manaser frontier, had made martyrs of many. Hester Macallan was but one, a young officer of growing renown who had been murdered by the outlaw warchief Holis for the crime of being in love. Her mask was based on the traditional make-up of her hometown on Belaboras, and it was said that only a single ceremonial copy was made before Hester and her mask were burned. “Her mother’s tears have soaked into the ceramic. They say she shed all her tears over her daughter’s body, and she never could cry again.”
Governor Ballard sighed. “I didn’t come here today to talk about Cook’s Hold,” he said. “I came to talk about you.”
“Me?” Tasha wasn’t aware that Governor Ballard knew who she was, beyond simply ‘Oliver Wrack’s wife’.
“You. Look at you. A woman in her prime, with child. The miracle of birth is coming to you. What is the saying? ‘The Lightness guides she who births a nation’.”
“And.”
“I’m sorry?”
“‘The Lightness guides she, and births a nation.’ It’s from the second part of Mordant’s Testimony. When he’s recounting the story of the Mother.”
A nod from Ballard, whose eyes were glazed. “I’m not too clued in on my theology,” he said, “but I think the sentiment comes across nonetheless.”
Just then, they were interrupted by Mam Argent’s girl Nickie, who came in laden with trays full of goodies. Nickie blushed at the sight of the Governor. That was unsurprising, really. It didn’t take much to make her redden, and her face was crimson more often than not. She set the trays down on the table in front of Tash, and curtsied. “Mam Argent wanted to apologise, Lady, but she has no more of the blueberry cakes. There’s some with currants, and some sugar-baked.”
Tash thanked Nickie and returned her attention to Governor Ballard. “Have one, please. Mam Argent is very good.”
“I won’t, if it’s all the same to you,” Governor Ballard said. “Myself and cake have a... complicated relationship.”
“Suit yourself.” She stuffed one of the currant cakes in to her mouth. “More for me.”
Governor Ballard watched her intently as she ate. It was more than a little off-putting, and she found herself swallowing too quickly to stop it. She spluttered. Moist crumbs of half-chewed cake sprayed over the table and over the Governor, who didn’t even blink as he brushed them from his jacket.
“Your husband is devoted to you,” he said, once she’d stopped coughing. “He’s told me more than once that he thinks the world of you.”
“Oh.” She avoided eye contact. Governor Ballard undoubtedly expected her to say more than just ‘oh’, but she didn’t know the right words.
“He tells me that you come from a noble line?”
She nodded. “I’m a Caerlin by birth. There’s also some blood in there from the Dalls, the Balketts, and the Eyrins, that I know of. Probably a dozen more if you look back far enough. I’m told the family used to own much of Tol Manase.”
“Fine heritage indeed.” Governor Ballard clasped his hands together. “A few hundred years ago you’d have a strong claim to much of the Unity. Of course, the old blood doesn’t carry the weight it once did. There are no kings, no dukes, no lords, just number cards plucked from the deck by a mob conditioned against the lines that made man great. I shouldn’t complain. My ancestors were merchants at best. There was a time when it would have been an impossibility for me to be in my position.”
“Times change.”
Governor Ballard beamed. “Times change. And with the right will they can change back. I’ve not read the holy texts since my mother stopped dressing me, so I might have it wrong, but I seem to recall kings being unmade on more than one occasion, and every time being made again.”
“That is true.” Her hand wandered to her belly. She held onto it protectively, as if the Governor’s words might hurt the foetus. “The revolutions were always bloody though. Both ways.”
Ballard chuckled. “You know your history. Yes, circumstances often call for blood to be spilt. It’s a fact as regrettable as it is unavoidable. In this case it’s necessary. The Unity has stagnated. The system is regressive. I have spoken at length about this with certain key advisors, your husband among them, and we have agreed upon a plan. But that’s not why I’m here today. Lady Tasha, I assume you’re aware of what your status means?”
“My status?”
“Yours will be the first child born within my colony. He, or she, will be a figure of historical importance. The day of her birth will be a landmark, a moment all of Essegena will come together to celebrate. As the mother, you’ll find yourself suddenly in possession of a good deal of influence, and your child will go on to great things. My wife is of noble birth, just as you are. Her family were kingmakers in the old times. I would very much like you to make her acquaintance.”
Tash was dubious. The society ladies she’d encountered were without exception haughty bitches, every one of them impeded by a stick jammed far into their arses. And they were only reeves, or the wives of reeves. She’d not been born rich, not like they had, so they judged her unworthy. If they’d known that she was their better, they’d have begged her to befriend them, but they were all so blind in their convictions that they did not see. The Governor’s wife was likely just as bad, maybe worse. It wasn’t her idea of fun to suffer the company of someone who despised her.
Still, the Governor’s hand was stronger than hers. If she refused him, he could punish Oliver. He could strip Oliver of his reevedom and his home. Then they’d be poorer than Tash’s parents.
“It would make me very happy if you and your husband would join my wife and I for dinner, two nights from now. You and Caroline will fast become friends, I have no doubt.”
“I’ll have to talk to Oliver—”
The Governor waved her aside. “Naturally. My residence has not yet been completed, so the dinner will take place at my quarters aboard the Eia. There will be no need to bring any of your guard along, the security will be well in hand.” He got to his feet, and in a few long strides he was at the door. He turned before he opened it. “But please bring your Mam Argent. Caro will want to try a currant cake, I know. They’re a favourite of hers.”
He was gone so quickly that she didn’t think to get up and escort him to the exit. She didn’t have the time to think. He hadn’t given any quarter to the possibility of Oliver not wanting to go—not that she could envisage her husband turning down the event. She wondered if perhaps the Governor had already broached the subject with Oliver.
The Governor had left the door slightly ajar, and it remained that way until Sesala Roe arrived, an hour or so later. She had nothing in her hand but the pouch of coins she’d taken, now as good as empty, and a linen wimple, plain white. It wasn’t as elaborate as those the ladies in the grove had worn, but it was a start.
“It’s finer than it looks,” said Sesi, taking the caul and fitting it on Tasha’s head. “The merchant’s name is Dravis, and the fabric’s a rare silk.”
“I hope you didn’t spend all the money on it,” said Tasha.
Sesi laughed. “Of course not, Lady, you asked for dresses. Fine gowns.”
“Where are they?”
“The seamstress has your measurements, Lady, and an order. But it will take time for the dresses to be made.” Sesi reached over and squeezed the tip of Tasha’s nose. “You tease me, but I can only do as bid. I cannot conjure the impossible, I’m sorry.”
So much for her planned evening of losing herself in pretty new clothes. What was she to do now? Read more of Oliver’s dire book? She’d just expected Sesi to pull some items from the clothier’s shelf. “How long will it take?”
“The woman said a week, or thereabouts,” said Sesi.
“A week?”
“If you’re short, I can see to it that your dirties are cleaned for you. I thought I’d seen Emmy doing laundry yesterday, but if I was mistaken—”
“I don’t need anything washed,” said Tash. “I’ve got plenty of clothes in my chambers. I’m just bored of them.” She sighed.
“Lady, you seem disinterested.” Sesi sat on a seat next to Tash. “Are you feeling well?”
No. Tash shook her head in silence. She wasn’t ill. Physically she felt fine, as good as ever. For a while now, though, she’d been overcome by some strange lethargy. It was an effort to work up the energy to do anything, and when she did she found herself getting easily bored. Everything was boring. The evening had well and truly descended on this day, and she’d spent much of it sedentary on a chair by herself. “I’ve just had a visit from the Governor.”
“The Governor?” Sesi’s mouth dropped open. “Lady, that’s an honour.”
“It is. It should be. But I’ll tell you, it doesn’t feel like an honour. It feels like a chore. I just wanted him to hurry up and go away, so I could go back to wasting the day in peace.” She was sobbing like a squalling infant, suddenly. She hoped Oliver wouldn’t come back now. It would be humiliation if he were to see her like this.
Sesi patted her on the back. It was a comfort to feel the maid’s soft hands. “It’s just a funk, Lady,” she said. “It isn’t to be ashamed of. We’ve all of us had them.”
“I’m not like you,” said Tasha. “I’m not a servant. I’m not a maid, or a cook, or anything like that. I’m a Lady. Why should your feelings have any bearing on mine?”
She felt Sesi draw away. Don’t go, she thought. Don’t let me be alone.
“Do you think you are to be a Lady forever? My father was a reeve, a powerful man who was very good friends with an ambitious ealdorman. Mine was the lot of a Lady like you, wife to a lordly man and mother to his children. And yet I came to be at the bottom.”
Tasha had never heard this before. Oliver had vetted the staff before he hired them. Tash just assumed he’d pass on anything interesting to her, but obviously he didn’t see the story of a wealthy woman gone broke to be all that relevant. “How could you go from the top like that?”
“Bad fortune,” Sesi shrugged. “Too many reeves had too many children. There’s not enough money for us all to be rich. I missed out, Lady.”
“And you came to be in my service?”
“Mine was an uncommon road, Lady,” said Sesi. “I started my trade as a cleaner for hire. The brothels at Galleon’s Wake pay a handsome wage for one willing to scour the stains away. In time I moved into personal service, as a scullery maid and then a chambermaid. For a short while I was ladiesmaid to Lady Felterran, while the woman in the post was away pregnant.”
“Lady Felterran?” Tasha couldn’t help but whistle. Felterran was a rich land, and a quiet one. Such was the dearth of suitors there that an eligible maiden even in service had a decent chance of marrying into the family. The dowries for even First Floor girls were larger from Felterran than any other family. One of Tasha’s schoolmates, in her Rindehall days, had forgone a lucrative posting with Unity accounting in favour of chancing her hand at a Felterran marriage. She wondered if Delys had made more of herself than a maid yet. Maybe she’d known Sesi. “I had a friend in service to Lady Felterran,” she said. “Delys Redwood. Squeaky girl, with a huge nose.”
A funny smile ran across Sesi’s face. “I was with Lady Felterran only a short while, Lady. I never came to know her staff.”
“I hope you don’t mind all the questions, Sesi. I don’t mean to pry. It’s just nice to have a conversation.”
Sesi shook her head. “You mustn’t worry yourself about me, Lady. I’m here to serve you. And if I might be frank, there’s none I’d rather serve than you. Lady, you are a gem. You should be a queen.”
“The Governor agrees with you. I mustn’t kid myself, Sesi, I’m not a queen. Queens are born for ruling. If there was a Temperance College left they’d probably seek me out to reject me.”
“Who would be better?”
Tasha laughed. “I hardly think that’s important, Sesi. There doesn’t need to be anybody. The universe has survived for hundreds of years without kings and queens, it can survive a time longer.”
“Might I offer some advice, Lady?” Sesi was getting to her feet, smoothing out the skirts of her dress. “You shouldn’t be so keen to settle for your own rung on the ladder. In my experience, you rarely get the opportunity to climb. It’s so easy to fall away, and so hard to get higher again. If you don’t move up now, you might never get the chance again. Would you be happy dying the wife of a reeve?”
Tasha scowled at Sesi. If she was trying to insinuate that Tasha was somehow unworthy, that there were others who were better, she was in need of a reality check. Her mind wandered to her old daydreams. Bessily and Marguerite, Anna and Adelina, Frevisse and Eleanor. The old queens had lived forever in history, but those below them had been forgotten. Who had served in the court of Marguerite? Tasha could remember no names. Maybe a few were preserved in old texts in a dusty library somewhere. And what of their wives? They’d been forgotten the moment their gravestones wore smooth. In time she’d be forgotten, if she carried on as she was. She didn’t want to be forgotten. It would be such a waste of all her life spent making memories. “I always wanted to be a queen,” she whispered, so softly she thought Sesi couldn’t possibly hear it.
But Sesi did hear. She tossed her auburn hair aside and smiled that narrow smile at Tasha. “Then be a queen, Lady.”