“When isn’t he?” Marlo pursed his lips, throwing Lenna a knowing look. “After I dropped off his glass, I hung around the hall. I heard him start yelling at her, and then I heard a glass break–which made Orla cry. He started laughing but I think Orla hit him right after because he started cursing at her.” Marlo rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. “Orla left the room a few moments later, her shirt was ripped, and she was cradling her face in her hands–scurrying back to the servants’ quarters to cry to her wretched mother.”
Lenna gingerly dismounted the mare and led her over to a wooden fence dividing plots of vegetables. “Olivera never seemedvery motherly to me,” Lenna mused, expertly tying the horse’s reins to the squat post. Wrapping her arms around herself, she meandered down the line of planted carrots, her boots shuffling through the soft soil at the edge of the raised earth. Soothing aromas of dirt and herbs wafted through her nose as she put her hands on her hips and took a deep breath, committing the delectable smells to memory in case her headaches came back with a vengeance and kept her bed bound for another month. “Some sick part of me wishes Orla hit him harder–maybe knock some sense into that balding head of his.”
“The day Leon sees sense, I swear to the gods and goddesses above and below, I will quit this job and run all the way to Bardon. I don’t want him finding out I swap his expensive brandy with the cheap stuff,” Marlo laughed. “It’s my little satisfying ‘fuck you’ for how shitty he treats you.”
Lenna gaped at Marlo. “You do not. Do you really?” Leon was extremely picky about the alcohol he put down his throat nightly. She had witnessed him hurl half full bottles that didn’t meet his expectations into the fireplace in rage. One time, he narrowly missed her head as he threw a subpar bottle to the flames after one of their more harrowing fights.
Marlo grinned, his blue eyes twinkling with barely leashed mirth. “Oh, I absolutely do. He’s none the wiser, and I don’t feel bad that the good stuff is warming my belly at night instead of his.”
Linking arms, the two wandered the gardens and greenhouses, the conversation veering from Leon to the other servants and their debauchery. Marlo knew so much in the little time he had been at the Manor–who was sleeping with who, what drama was going down with the laundry staff, which servants seemed awkward around each other insinuating there were secrets being kept. Lenna drank it all in greedily, giddy as a sense of happiness flooded her.Being stuck in the Manor for a month drained so much of her cheer. Talking and laughing with Marlo truly brought color back to her cheeks.
Stopping at a line of blooming pink flowers, the conversation ebbed, and they stood in comfortable silence–so different from the heavy, tension-filled quiet the Manor demanded. Lenna breathed in the summer air, the tickling perfume of flora washing over her. She closed her eyes, turning her face towards the sun. When she looked at Marlo, he was staring at her with a concerned look on his handsome face.
“How are you feeling? Are you having any more of those terrible nightmares?” Marlo’s brows knitted together as he surveyed her. “I haven’t seen you lately and…I’ve been worried. The house seems emptier without you around–like it lost its only sparkle.”
Lenna smiled tightly, squeezing his arm. “You’re a sweetheart to worry about me. I’m sure the healer’s right, and the headaches are merely a side effect of getting older.” She sighed, fiddling with her scarf. The heat was turning her curls into a sweaty mess atop her head, and the thick fabric did little to allow small breezes to cool her neck. “I did want to talk through my latest nightmare with you. I had one last night, but it was…different. Like I was there–instead of past ones where I just saw flickers of images. This was closer. More…real.” It was hard to explain. How could she tell Marlo she had nightmares so ominous she woke up more exhausted than when she went to bed? How the terrors from her dreams brought so much stress and discontentment into her waking moments?
Since the headaches started, she avoided everyone in the house. Weeks passed with Lenna confined to her room, trying to rest, forsaking meals in the dining hall, preferring the solitude of eating alone. The loneliness had encapsulated her.She rarely left the bed to do anything since the fatigue lasted longer than the migraines themselves. The walk to the bakery yesterday taxed her, and the frustration that she was not getting better was beginning to frighten her.
She dove into the elements of the nightmare, describing the frigid dungeon, the wings, the flashes of light. How that coldness stayed in her bones even after she woke. The dead eyes of the old man with the dirty white hair still haunted her, and she left that detail out as she recanted the rest. Marlo hung on to every word, his eyes widening as Lenna rehashed the dream.
“Gods above,” Marlo breathed after she finished, “I don’t know where to begin interpreting any of that. It’s no surprise you’re having a tough time getting rest. Those nightmares would keep even a hardened soldier of King Dalen’s court awake at night.”
“Theyarejust dreams, but they show places I’ve never seen. I don’t know how my mind conjured up those images.” Lenna picked at the scarf on her head as she settled down into the grass before absentmindedly digging her fingers through the dark soil. Marlo plopped down next to her, stretching out his long legs and crossing them at the ankles. Lenna murmured, more to herself than Marlo, as she pulled a stray weed from the bed, “I just felt good this morning and wanted to get out of the house. I don’t know when I’ll feel able to do this again, and it’s nice to have someone to talk to.”
Marlo leaned back in the grass. Lenna propped her hands on her knees and stared up at the sky. Neither of them spoke as dark clouds rolled in, pushing away the beautiful summer weather and the calming sun.
“Another storm’s going to break soon,” she stated. “Let’s get back to the Manor. As much as I love being outside, I don’t want to get stuck in the rain.” Marlo groaned in agreement as he stood, extending a hand to help Lenna get back on her feet.They untied the horses, galloping to the stables just as the first threatening booms of thunder filled the sky above.
After turning over the horses to the stable hand, Lenna and Marlo bolted through fat rain drops to the servant’s entrance, earning a reproachful glare from a passing laundress, her hands filled with neatly folded linens. She took one look at their clothes, soaked and dripping on the floor, and muttered a prayer to the gods below before stomping off. Lenna and Marlo exchanged a sheepish smile before parting ways, both returning to their own, very different, worlds to prepare for dinner service.
Captains that already completed the run from Bardon and offloaded their wares were coming to speak with Leon tonight. They would collect their wages from their last shipment, work through budgets, and plot future shipping routes.
And drink–a lot.
Lenna knew she was expected to join, though Leon never asked directly. As the “Lady of the Manor” she was to dress modestly, welcome the men to her home, and play the role of Leon’s subservient and gracious wife. She had hosted these dinners numerous times over the years, growing quieter and more invisible with each one.
Reaching the doors to her bedroom, Lenna found Olivera filling the tub with warm, soapy water. As Lenna began undressing, Olivera wrinkled her nose in distaste, her narrow eyes tracking Lenna’s every move.
“You smell like horses,” the housematron grumbled disapprovingly, shaking sweet smelling oils into the steaming tub. “And you have to be presentable in less than an hour.” The scents of jasmine and mint hit Lenna’s nose–so powerfully fragrant that the first warning pulses of a headache threatened. Her stomach sank.Was another migraine on its way already?
“I’ll be fast,” Lenna swore, ignoring the slight pang in her temples. For emphasis, she made a show of shucking off her boots quickly. But as she wrestled with the too-small breeches, an errant movement caused her to trip slightly over the discarded shoes.
Olivera sighed harshly through her nose as she watched Lenna stumble, crossing the room and throwing open the rickety doors of the wardrobe. The handmatron turned shrewd eyes to the paltry array of dresses Lenna owned, exhaling dramatically once more. Lenna loathed choosing what to wear for social occasions and had deferred that task to Olivera years ago. For the Captain’s dinner, Olivera’s selection was a dove grey, long-sleeved dress with small frills around the neck. The silhouette was billowy and simple at the bottom. A modest choice for a modest woman.
Lenna hated it.
It didn’t hug any of her curves and made her feel like she was wearing a frumpy potato sack.
Knowing this wasn’t a fight she would win, and cursing herself for skipping her last appointment with the only seamstress in town, Lenna dismissed Olivera to finish setting up the dining hall before the guests arrived, waiting until the handmatron had departed before easing into the tub.
The hot water did wonders for her aching thighs. Getting back onto a horse felt great at the time, but it left her sore in muscles she hadn’t used for the last month. The ride tuckered her out, and the news Marlo relayed about Orla saddened her now that the elation of getting out of the Manor had worn away.
It had been years since she felt any love towards her husband. Lenna’s worry was directed towards Orla, who was playing a very dangerous game with an ill-tempered man. Lenna leaned her head back in the tub, the water swirling around her breasts and knees as she adjusted her feet against the porcelain. She could close her eyes for a second... Then she would get dressed… Then she would play the role of the sweet little wife who had no twisted thoughts to be otherwise.
Lennastoodoutsidetheruined temple that lay half-buried in snow.
Bone cold.
