The Silent Songbird (Hagenheim #7)(17)

“And do not worry about the reeve,” she said quietly, for Evangeline’s ears only. “We are bandaging the scratch on his side and he should be perfectly well.”

Evangeline expelled a breath of gratitude.

They walked through the house and out the back door to a stone kitchen a few feet away. Inside, a woman held a large piece of some kind of bloody raw meat. “Lady le Wyse, good morning to you.”

“Golda, this is a new helper, Eva. Eva, this is our head cook, Golda.” Two other maidens working in the kitchen turned their attention to Lady le Wyse. “Eva does not speak, but she hears and understands what you say to her. Do you have some work she can do?”

“Can she shell peas?”

Lady le Wyse looked at Evangeline. How difficult could it be? At least she couldn’t hurt anyone with a pea pod.

Evangeline smiled and nodded.

After getting Evangeline a basket of peas, Golda cocked her head to one side to indicate the door since her hands were occupied. “Lora, show her where the others are shelling.”

A maiden with brown hair tied with a gray piece of wool and small eyes put down her knife and left the vegetables she was chopping. She motioned for Evangeline to follow her outside.

Out in the sun, Lora led Evangeline around the side of the kitchen. “Why can’t you talk?”

Evangeline pointed at her throat and shook her head.

“Did you get your tongue cut out?”

Evangeline shook her head.

Lora headed toward a large shaded area. Three maidens, one of whom was Nicola, sat on stools while Sabina hovered nearby, smirking, and eyed Evangeline as they drew closer. Then Sabina drew an unoccupied stool up and sat beside one of the servants. Lora only stared for a moment, then walked back toward the kitchen.

“Everyone, this is Eva. She just arrived last night, and she can’t talk. I think she can hear what we say, but she can’t say a word.” Sabina spoke with a gleam in her eye, as if Evangeline were not even present.

“Westley brought her back with him. I suppose he felt sorry for her.” Sabina said the words in a hushed tone.

Evangeline sat on the stool, holding her head up as her spine stiffened. The other girls stared at her with wide eyes. She looked down at the basket of peas in her lap, picked up a pod, and stared at it.

“Should we ask her if she sliced off Reeve Folsham’s ear?” a blonde maiden asked.

“It wasn’t his ear, Cecily,” a dark-haired maiden said, and they laughed raucously.

Evangeline’s cheeks burned as she fumbled with a pea pod.

“You are all being rude.” Nicola, who sat on the other side of Evangeline, spoke up. “How would you feel if someone was laughing at you while you were sitting there listening?” She turned toward Evangeline. “Don’t pay them any attention.”

Evangeline gave her a tremulous smile. Her kindness made tears sting her eyes.

“My name is Nicola, in case you don’t remember. And that is Sabina, Cecily, and Berta.” She pointed to each girl as she said her name.

Evangeline nodded to show she understood.

“I saw Reeve Folsham a few minutes ago walking back out to the field, and he didn’t look hurt at all.”

Evangeline mouthed, Thank you.

Nicola smiled.

The others were silent except for the faint sounds of the pea pods being snapped open and the peas hulled, then the pods thrown into buckets at their feet.

Evangeline surreptitiously watched out of the corner of her eye as Nicola transformed a pea pod into an empty shell that she tossed into her bucket. It happened so quickly, Evangeline had no idea how she did it. She watched again, but Nicola’s fingers moved too fast.

“Eva has a friend, Mildred”—Sabina rolled her eyes toward Evangeline’s basket—“who’s helping in the house.”

The other maidens murmured awkwardly, as if unsure what cue Sabina was sending them.

“I could help you with shelling your peas. I used to be the fastest pea sheller in my household.”

While Sabina was boasting about her speed and skill, Evangeline concentrated on trying to break the side of the pea pod, but it wouldn’t break the way Nicola’s had. Out of frustration, she used her thumbnail and tore a hole in the pod. She tried to get the peas out but had to rip the pea pod into shreds. She ended up picking out the bits of hull and throwing them into the bucket she shared with Nicola.

“I see you’ve never shelled peas before. I’ll show you.” Sabina stepped over to Evangeline, picked up one of her pea pods, and held it out. “You hold it like this and snap off the end, like this. You hold the broken end in this hand and break it open with this thumb. You push out the peas with your thumb, then throw the pod and the end away.”

Sabina picked up another pea pod and did it again, only faster. “Can you do that?”

Evangeline gave a stiff nod. She picked up a pea pod and tried to do what Sabina had just done. Her pod was more crushed than broken, but within a few moments, she had all the peas out of the pod and into her basket.

“It just takes some practice,” Sabina said. “I’ve been shelling peas since I was five years old.”

Evangeline nodded to show she was impressed, cautiously eyeing the girl who went from mocking to helpful in less than one minute.

As they sat shelling, Cecily and Berta challenged Sabina to a competition to see who could shell the most peas. They took more pea pods into their baskets. Sabina loaded a basket with peas for herself, then cried, “Ready? Go!”