Incendiary (Hollow Crown #1)(70)
“I’ve had worse,” I say, and find myself genuinely smiling. “I’m Renata.”
“What’s a miss like you doing down here?” Frederica asks. Her sharp eyes dart to where Sula adds my not-so-dirty sheets into the vat. “I can’t have the justice think I’ve put you up to this.”
There is one way to ingratiate myself with someone like Frederica, and that’s to show her I can work.
“I don’t belong up there,” I say, and that’s the truth. “The courtiers aren’t going to want me to share their supper table. I’m good with my hands. Despite evidence to the contrary.”
The majordoma throws her head back and laughs. This might be the first time at the palace that someone has laughed with this kind of warmth. I’m not a joke to her. I don’t know what I am, but perhaps I’m a girl who wants to be useful. Lost in a place she doesn’t belong. Trying to complete a mission that seems to slip further from her grasp.
“See the firebush there? That’s Claudia. Help her make the lye. Do you know how?”
Lye is awful work, but it’s a good thing I’m wearing at least one glove. “I do.”
“Then why’re you still talking to me? Go on and make yourself useful if that’s what you came down here for.”
I find the redheaded girl Majordoma Frederica crassly pointed to. Her brown eyes flick from my feet to my face, then to my hands. She wipes her own hands on her apron, and I notice an old burn across her forearm, not that it’s hard to come across that in this line of work. Looking around I see many others with similar marks, but the most striking is on a thin older maid.
Everything about her is so drained of color that for a brief moment, my eyes register her as a memory that’s escaped from the Gray and come to life. It’s the vicious red scar that runs from her mouth across her cheek that reminds me that she’s all too real. I can see from her fine bone structure that she was beautiful once. What happened to her? She keeps to herself, the other workers moving around her like a permanent fixture not to be bothered.
The redheaded girl clears her throat, snapping me back to the task at hand.
“Who’re you?” she asks, a voice hardened for someone so young.
“Renata,” I say, tucking the loose strands of my hair into a low knot. “Have you got a system?”
“Did. Three of my girls are sick to their stomachs with an illness going around. But if you ask me, at least one of them’s not drinking their irvena tea and will wind up here again in nine months with a babe strapped to her back.”
Another just sidles up beside her and flaps her hands. “Father Dragomar says that tea should be forbidden.”
“Of course he’d say that, Jacinta,” Claudia says, rolling her eyes. The gesture reminds me of Margo, and I’m surprised that I find myself missing her. It only lasts a moment. “It’s hard to fill up a cathedral when near half the population went to the plague heap and the rest to the war against—you know who.” Claudia points at me, and it’s almost comical the way she does it.
“Claudia, she’s right here.” Jacinta’s pretty brown eyes crinkle, and then they laugh. A heart-shaped birthmark covers her clavicle and chest. There was once a time when a mark like that would have gotten her accused of being Moria.
“I can carry the oak,” I say.
“We don’t use oak ash for the lords and ladies, and, well, you,” Jacinta says. “Seaweed. Use these baskets for hauling. Don’t forget an apron.”
I get to work with the others, sweating through the simple blue dress Leo stuffed me in this morning. I load baskets full of seaweed and bring them to be burned down to ash. The other servants eye me with reservation, but I keep quiet and work. It reminds me of doing chores in ángeles.
Once my task is done, I fetch water to boil and help them strain the ash without being told to. The soap’s finished just in time for the next cart of linens to be rolled into the courtyard. As the sun moves across the sky, the discomfort I sensed from the other servants seems to wane.
I wish I had learned more of Sayida’s and Dez’s easy charm. They could walk into a room and disarm anyone, even without the use of their powers. How do I find the person who tends to Castian’s rooms? Though, at the rate Claudia hands out her opinions, I may just have to stick around her and wait.
While the water is being changed and the fires rebuilt, the scarred older maid steps into the courtyard. Claudia immediately approaches her, helping the woman carry the food out. I watch Claudia say a few words, but am unable to make them out. The older maid only smiles in return.
“Come on and eat,” Jacinta says. It takes me a moment to realize she’s talking to me.
Under the shade of a spindly tree, Claudia offers me a bowl of vegetable soup, and I wish this gesture didn’t make my heart ache the way it does. Not even during my years at ángeles, among my own people, was kindness offered this easily, and now here, in my enemies’ kitchen, I’m handed a bowl of it. I bite back the bitterness that wells up in my heart and breathe in the savory scents of oregano and rosemary.
As I dig in, I notice the older maid sitting far away, by herself. Claudia follows my concerned gaze.
“It’s not polite to stare,” Claudia teases.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”