While Beauty Slept (5 page)

“My mother . . .” I began, then found myself without words.

“How does she?”

The despair that washed over my face conveyed the message I could not utter aloud, shaken as I was by silent sobs. Aunt Agna nodded slowly, her wary expression unchanged.

“What happened?” she asked.

I sniffled and got hold of myself. “The pox. It took four of my brothers as well.”

She walked around the table and halfheartedly patted my shoulder. “Poor Mayren. She deserved a better fate.” She spoke briskly, without sentiment. Still keeping her thoughts in reserve, as if she had not yet made up her mind what to do with me.

“I had hoped to find a place at the castle, as my mother once did,” I said nervously. “If I could impose upon your hospitality for this evening, perhaps tomorrow you could tell me the best way to proceed.”

Agna shook her head quickly. “Nonsense. They’d never accept you, looking like that. Stay with us for a spell, and I’ll see you’re properly prepared.”

“Thank you.” The relief was so intense that I came close to relapsing into tears.

“Was it your mother’s wish that you seek me out?” Agna asked.

“Your name was one of the last words she uttered,” I said. The revelation momentarily broke through Agna’s reserve, and she sighed deeply. In her eyes I saw the pain that comes from regrets that will never be lifted.

“She said one other thing before she died,” I added. “Perhaps you might know what it means. A word that sounded like ‘pell,’ although that makes no sense—”

“Pelleg,” Agna interrupted. “She was a friend of Mayren’s, at the castle, though she’s improved her lot since then. She’s known as Mrs. Tewkes now, the head housekeeper.”

Now I understood why my mother had so labored to utter that one final word. With her dying breath, she had given me permission to go, directing me toward a person who could guide my way at court. A person who could protect me, after she was gone.

Or so I thought. Now, with the wisdom of my years, I cannot help seeing my mother’s actions in another light, one more in keeping with her character. All her life she had dissuaded me from imagining a life at the castle, switching the subject whenever I spoke of it. Is it likely she changed her mind on the point of death? Or had she invoked her friend’s name as a last desperate attempt to save me, hoping Pelleg Tewkes might be the one person who could dissuade me from entering that treacherous world?

I will never know.

“The first thing we must do is clean you up,” Agna said, looking disapprovingly at my clothes. “If you expect to be hired at the castle, you must look the part, as well as understand how things are done there. I will tell you all you need to know, in good time.”

Relieved, yet still uncertain as to my place in the household, I waited for further instructions. Was I to stay in the family quarters upstairs? Or in one of the small servants’ rooms I glimpsed off the kitchen, as befitting a penniless orphan?

“Come, I will introduce you to your cousins,” Agna said, taking me by the arm. Her mouth curved into a wry smile. “Don’t look so worried. I’m not heartless, no matter what your mother might have said.”

In fact, my mother had spoken very little of her sister. There were fleeting similarities between them: Agna had the same curly hair that bobbed in tendrils around her face, and her eyes turned downward in a way that gave her a melancholy air, as had my mother’s. But, seen side by side, the two women would never have been taken for sisters. My mother, married to a poor, belligerent farmer, hid her strength beneath a cowering posture and cautious utterances. Agna, the wife of a wealthy cloth merchant, carried herself with the assurance that her words would be obeyed. She kept order among a staff of bustling servants, three children, and a husband without ever raising her voice. My uncle may have been head of the household in name, but my aunt wielded the power within those walls.

During the two weeks I lived under her roof, I learned that kindness lurked beneath my aunt’s brusque manner. She bade me sleep in the same bed as her daughter Damilla, a few years older than me and already engaged to be married, and insisted I take a bath with heated water each Sunday, just as her own children did. My cousins, accustomed to such indulgences, were polite but indifferent to my presence, and I suspected that my lack of polish made me a figure of fun behind closed doors. Had they known the heights to which I would rise, would they have treated me differently? It is tempting to envision a comeuppance for those who have slighted you. And yet, knowing what their family was to suffer in the years to come, I cannot nurse a grudge. It is truly a blessing we are spared foreknowledge of our ultimate ends.

Agna, who had worked at the castle alongside my mother before her marriage, instructed me in courtly etiquette and the servant hierarchies. She had one of Damilla’s old dresses altered to fit me and clucked in disapproval at my shoes. I owned only a single pair, made from wood and bark by my father. At home I went barefoot most of the year.

“You can’t be seen in those,” she declared. “Hannolt will make you a pair.”

Hannolt, I soon learned, was the shoemaker whose shop stood on the ground floor of my aunt’s house; it was common for homeowners to rent out their lower levels, since no decent family would want passersby staring into their windows. The top of Hannolt’s head barely reached my shoulder, but he made up for his lack of size by creating a storm of activity around himself and speaking in a loud yammer.

“My niece should have a good, stout pair,” Agna told him as we stood in his shop. “Leather, of course, but not extravagant.”

“Yes, yes, I understand,” Hannolt said, nodding. “Something that will withstand hard wear. Still, a young lady deserves a touch of beauty, does she not? Some embroidery, perhaps?”

Agna shook her head firmly. “There’s no need for such frippery.”

“Well then, we shall take her measurements. Marcus!”

A young man pushed through the curtains that hung across the back of the room. I wish I could tell you exactly how he struck me on first sight; were this a different sort of tale, I might recall his soulful eyes or the crush of longing that weakened me upon seeing his face or some other foolishness. But I have vowed to tell the truth. On that day I noted only that he was a young man of about my own age, considerably taller than his father but far less effusive. He said nothing as he knelt before me and reached his hands toward my legs. I was so surprised by the gesture that I flinched backward and almost lost my balance.

“Let the girl be seated first!” Hannolt laughed.

He ushered me to a bench along the wall, then motioned Marcus forward. The boy cautiously pulled one of my feet out from under my skirt and slid off the slipper I had borrowed from Aunt Agna. I could barely feel the weight of his hands through my stockings as he placed my foot on a flat piece of wood, engraved with foot tracings of various sizes. He looked at his father and pointed to the line where my foot matched up, then took a thin leather strap from around his neck and wrapped it around my foot from bottom to top, then around my ankle. He removed the strap and nodded toward his father. Still he said nothing. I wondered if he was dumb. Or perhaps he had given up hope of being heard above his father’s prattling.

“Done?” Hannolt asked. “Good. Now, about the color.” He waved his hand toward samples of leather hanging from hooks above my head.

Agna scanned the choices and pointed to a dark brown piece. “That one.”

I reached into the pocket of my apron and drew out one of the coins my mother had given me. “Will this do?”

Agna took hold of my fingers and wrapped them around the coin. “This is my gift to you. A fine aunt I’d be, sending you off to the castle in those wooden shoes.”

“The castle?” Hannolt’s eyes lit up with surprise. “Are you paying a visit, miss?”

“She’s to be in service,” Agna said.

“We’ll be going there ourselves in a few days,” Hannolt said. “One of the finest ladies at court buys her shoes from us, ten pairs at a time. Would that all my customers were so free-spending!”

“Perhaps you could escort Elise when you go?”

“It would be a pleasure. She’ll arrive safe and sound, you have my word.”

I had thought my aunt would bring me to the castle herself, and I felt a stab of disappointment when she pawned me off on the shoemaker. How would I navigate my way through those massive fortifications without her guidance? Self-centered, as girls of that age can be, I never considered that Agna might have had a good reason for avoiding the place. Those who have once been servants can be sensitive about their formerly low rank, as I would one day know only too well.

“Send word of your departure, and I’ll see she is ready,” Agna said.

“You’ll arrive at the castle a lady,” Hannolt assured me. “Your shoes will be as finely made as any, though the queen, they say, has hers encrusted with diamonds. . . .”

Following a loving description of the queen’s footwear, Hannolt continued on to a detailed examination of court fashion, ignoring Agna’s attempts to take her leave. I momentarily turned toward Marcus, and he smiled almost imperceptibly, just enough to make me notice his dark eyes, crinkled with amusement at his father’s chattering. Enough to make me think he might be more than a dumb shopkeeper’s son.

During the weeks I spent with Aunt Agna, I wandered no farther than the shops nearest her house. On the day I finally accompanied Hannolt and Marcus toward what I hoped would be my new home, I had only the vaguest notion of what the castle looked like, based solely on the glimpse I’d seen during the ride into town.

I expected it to be large and well fortified. But when we finally emerged from St. Elsip’s warren of crooked streets, I was overwhelmed by the sheer mass of the fortress that sprawled defiantly atop the hill before me. Thick walls of rugged stone seemed to have burst forth from the earth to encircle the jumble of towers within. Behind the battlements, turrets stabbed the sky, with a few narrow windows giving the only indication that people lived within. For a moment the weight of it chilled my spirits, and I was seized by a sudden reluctance to enter. Raised in the open air, with land extending in all directions, I had never considered what it would mean to live enclosed within walls.

Hannolt and Marcus had continued ahead, joining a crowd of carriages, carts, and fellow travelers along a steep upward path. I forced myself to shake off the foolish presentiment of danger and hurried to catch up with my companions. The castle’s grim exterior must hide wondrous luxuries, I told myself, else why would the king live there? Though I was seduced by the beauty within soon enough, I was never able to forget that first visceral reaction. Most saw those walls as protection from danger, but I had recognized, somewhere deep in my soul, that not all threats came from without.

The press of people moved toward an arched gatehouse, with guards posted at either side.

“This way,” Hannolt said, pushing me in front of him and jerking Marcus to his side. Marcus stared straight ahead, as he had done since we left my aunt’s house, seemingly aloof. He had the slight build of a boy some years from manhood, but his straight nose and clear skin presaged future good looks. His thick, dark hair was raggedly cut and fell unevenly over his forehead, and his eyes intrigued me with their seriousness. The few boys I had known in my village had been either braggarts or awkwardly shy when conversing with girls their own age. None had ever appeared so at ease in my presence as Marcus did. Even his silence, so disconcerting at first, had become oddly comforting. His father babbled enough for the two of them.

Hannolt nodded to one of the guards and pulled the sack he was carrying off his shoulder. Opening it, he began lovingly describing the shoes inside. The guard glanced into the bag with scant interest and waved us through the gate.

We stepped into a large courtyard, so filled with activity and shouting that I did not know where to set my eyes first. Carriages swept by so close that I could feel the whip of wind as they passed, while my way forward was blocked by a circle of men boastfully comparing swords. Servants dressed in royal livery were shouting out orders to a group of workers—masons, by the look of their tools. I peered up, above the mass of people before me, and saw the castle rising toward the sky. A soaring vision of gray stone bordered by four great towers, each standing guard over the tiny figures swarming below. How well I remember the moment I paused there, face-to-face at last with the object of my dreams! I can still summon the tingle that ran from my scalp to my toes, that exhilarating mix of fear and anticipation, as I stood on the threshold of a new life. My earlier doubts cast aside, I longed to join in the drama surrounding me, to play a role—no matter how small—in upholding such magnificence.