“Brave? I could not let you suffer in the storm.” She paused, her eyes tensing. “Although I’m afraid I cannot offer to let you stay inside the house.”
Ian stood from the table. “We would not dream of imposing such on you or your master.” He swung his cloak over his shoulders. “Thank you for your kindness. I’m going to try and catch some sleep.” With a light smirk at Onric, he slipped out the door. The small kitchen immediately felt more comfortable.
“You do not have to stay, sir. You are surely tired.” The maid was looking up at him again.
“As are you,” he responded. That brought out another smile.
“Oh! I can warm this for you.” She removed her hands from the soapy water and wiped them on her apron before retrieving a length of brown fabric from a basket and spreading it near the fireplace. It was marked with several holes, and it looked quite homely spread out next to his fine cloak. But her gesture of thoughtfulness caused the muscles in his chest to constrict, and for a moment he found it difficult to breathe.
Sometime later, when he had helped the tired girl to wring out every dress and dishrag, he wrapped himself in his cloak and added the extra layer of the warm wool around his shoulders. Bidding her a sleepy goodnight, he went out again into the pouring rain to join his brother in the barn.
Chapter 3
Having woken before dawn, Ashlin went to check the barn. But the kind young man and his brother were gone. They had folded the brown wool and placed it on the side of a stall, off the muddy ground. Two more gold coins were nestled on top of the folded fabric. Pocketing the coins, she smiled at the memory of... Her thoughts stopped abruptly.
She did not know his name!
After the first awkward moments, they had begun conversing so quickly, as though they had always been friends. Then they had spent the rest of the night laughing over the washing. He had wrung the water from each item after she scrubbed it, which made the entire task go by quite quickly. With another smile, she realized that her arms were not aching, as they usually were after washing day. Afterward, he had merely slipped sleepily out the door with his newly dried cloak and the warmed wool as an extra blanket. She had completely forgotten to even ask who he was. She had known he was a nobleman as soon as he had knocked on the door. His jerkin was a deep purple, one of the reserved dyes. There was also something kind and honest in his eyes, which she trusted right away. Her stepmother always said that she trusted too easily, which was probably true.
Even if she did not know his name, at the very least she could relish her memory of the previous night. Those happy thoughts remained with her as she walked to the palace to inquire about work. After being directed to various people, she eventually found herself trailing the man in charge of the day-to-day operations of the castle, Steward Daniel. The middle-aged man, who was short in stature and had a round face and short nose, was inspecting barrels of beer in the buttery. He held a ledger on which he marked the contents of each barrel.
“Looking for work? Everyone is these days,” he muttered, having barely glanced at her.
“Yes, sir. I work hard and do not complain.”
“We are in need of a few chambermaids, but we cannot go passing those positions out to anyone who walks in off the street. Never know when a Majis will try to infiltrate the castle.” He stopped then and looked at her, eyes pinched in scrutiny. “You aren’t a Majis, are you?”
“No, sir.” Ashlin shook her head emphatically. She had never seen a Majis, as they had been exiled from the five kingdoms for one thousand seasons. But legend said they were monsters, tall and cruel. The thought that someone would mistake her for one was ludicrous, but the steward was still glaring at her, so she elaborated, “My name is Ashlin Cabril. My father was Lord Cabril...”
The scrutiny in the man’s eyes dissipated. “Ahhh. A sad affair that was. Who could have predicted such a storm in the middle of goldenreign? Nonaturalexplanation. It’s a good thing the castle wasn’t built near the sea.” He paused, bringing himself back to the matter at hand. “You are the first nobleman’s daughter to come looking for work here, but if this frost does not break soon, you won’t be the last.” He shook another barrel to gauge its contents. “I’m willing to give you a try. You look like an honest one, and I can’t say that about everyone here. What with the exile being almost over, the Council says we cannot be too careful. Surely they’ll be back for vengeance, and what better place to start than within the royal palaces themselves...” He paused, looking back at her again. “Here I am blabbing on to you about things I should not be opening my mouth about. Don’t go chatting about this now, and I won’t let anyone know that a lord’s daughter is scrubbing the floors. You can scrub floors, right?”
“Of course, sir,” she responded. “Quite well, actually.”
“Good. Come back this evening, an hour before sundown. You’ll be on the evening crew. Half days, but working after dark. One copper a day. Remember your station while you’re here and we won’t have any trouble.”
“Thank you, sir!”
Ashlin practically floated home after that, and the smile from her stepmother when she shared the news kept her energy high for the rest of her regular duties.
Upon returning to the castle that evening, she was given a wooden pail of warm, soapy water and instructed to follow the steward. While she was excited to see the interior of the royal palace, so far all she had seen were the kitchens, the buttery, and the current undercroft they were walking through to get to the other side of the castle. While the working rooms were larger, busier, and more efficient than anything she had ever seen, they were surprisingly simple and functional.
“This staircase connects the royal living quarters to the interior courtyard,” the steward said as he led her back up to the ground level, “but since it isn’t used in the evenings, it’s a good place for you to start. You are not to speak to the betters, though ’tis unlikely that you will see anyone. Hommlyn will be along shortly to light the torches during his rounds. When you are finished, come find me.”
Ashlin nodded in understanding, but the busy man had already trundled back down to the lower passageway.
She set the heavy bucket on the bottom step and knelt beside it.She was excited to begin her new responsibilities, which made her smile. She had never been excited to work before.
The staircase in front of her was made of solid wood slabs that had been polished smooth by years of use. Closed doors at both the top and bottom helped to insulate the cold air from the living quarters. While she was deep in the interior of the castle and the walls around her were stone, she guessed that she was still not in the original castle itself. That part of the royal palace was said to be little more than ruins and was no longer in use. The newer wings of the current palace had been built around the original castle.
The large wooden slabs in front of her were caked in a fine layer of mud that had been tracked in from the courtyard. Twisting the excess water from the rag in the pail, she began to scrub the bottom step, then realized her mistake. If she started from the bottom, which was the dirtiest, the water in her pail would quickly turn into a muddy mess. Lifting the pail again, she carefully made her way to the top step and started over.
By the time she was a few steps from the bottom, all semblance of daylight was gone but no one had come to light the torches yet. She could no longer see what she was doing and was unsure of how to continue.
She considered finding her way back to the kitchens, but she was not entirely sure she could navigate back there on her own. And she did not want to complain without first trying to solve the problem.
The stairwell had three iron candle holders on either side. Each one held a thick tallow candle surrounded by a cast iron cage. The iron bands around the candle were supposed to act as a safety measure so that nothing could fall into the candle flame and catch fire. Though, each also had an opening at the top so that the candle could be lifted out and replaced.
Ashlin reached towards the candle closest to her, but she was too short to grasp it.
