Chapter 3 #4
the outside ovens and roasting pits. There were six women working
at the grain table rolling out flatbreads to be baked for the
morning meal, and another four going through baskets of pears and
apples, while three of the younger serving maids were busy
scrubbing the meat table clean. A tall, slim woman in a plain tunic
and skirt covered by a crisp work apron, her gray hair pinned up in
a tight bun, turned around from inspecting the cheese larder as the
women’s lively chatter slowed and quieted. Spying Sahar and Aleksi,
she stopped and stood still for a long moment before greeting them.
“Princess Sahar,” she said with a dip of her head. “This is
Maksimillian’s son, Aleksandr?” the woman asked.
“Yes, it is. He’s come to speak with you, if
you have the time.”
“I do.” She stepped from the side of the
table and held her hand out to Aleksi. “It is a pleasure to meet
you, Aleksandr,” she said with an open smile. “I’m Anya, and I
thank you for taking the time and trouble to speak with an old
woman about her homeland.”
“It is no trouble, mistress. I wish to thank
you for the goat milk you have spared for my little Kiska.”
“A kitten?” she said, glancing from Aleksi to
Sahar. “That’s who the milk was for?”
“I have a soft spot for kittens,” Aleksi
said, winking at Sahar, whose tawny cheeks flushed instantly
pink.
“Do you?” Anya asked as a fat, orange tabby
wandered over and wrapped itself around her ankles. She shuffled
the cat aside and then indicated a small table with four chairs,
the closest thing to a quiet corner in the kitchen. “Let’s sit and
talk. Can I get you anything to eat or drink?”
“Oh no, thank you.” Aleksi rubbed his belly.
“I ate too much supper as it is. Compliments to you and your staff
on the delicious meals you serve.”
Anya took the seat beside Sahar’s. “I’ll be
sure to tell them. It’s always good to hear that our efforts are
appreciated.” She glanced at Sahar with a quick smile. “Something
the queen is generous and gracious about.”
Aleksi sat and straightened his legs to
better to help his overfed belly digest. “The princess tells me you
and your family came here from the Northern Steppes some twenty
years ago?”
Anya nodded. “Yes, my husband Yuri and I,
along with our son, Arman, who was but a babe at the time, though
it is closer to twenty and five years now since we left.”
“What part of the Steppes are you from?”
“We both worked at Maksimillian’s palace,
which was how we met. I was a maid servant and Yuri a smithy.”
“You knew my father then?”
She nodded. “We did, and the queen and her
daughters.”
“Did you know my mother?”
The question seemed to surprise her, almost
as much as it surprised Aleksi that he had asked it.
“No, not that I remember,” she said. “Why do
you ask?”
Aleksi glanced at Sahar, who was listening
intently. “I never knew her either,” he said with a voice of
practiced indifference. “She left when I was but a day old and was
never spoken of again, at least not to me. I never even knew her
name.”
He’d never asked. Growing up in the palace,
he’d never really felt the lack of a mother he had never known.
When he was a stable boy, what good would knowing her name have
done him?
Anya laid a work-roughened hand on his
forearm. “Did they treat you well?” she asked. “The king and his
wives?”
“I was raised as a prince until I was ten and
two,” he told her. “Then my father’s second wife gave him a
legitimate princeling and heir. I was made a stable boy, and worked
with Serge and Pyotr, who travelled here with me.”
As a boy, Aleksi had never considered why his
father had arranged for Serge and Pyotr to become stable boys
alongside his bastard son. For them, coming from families of poor
field workers, the positions had been a step up, while he had been
brought low. But now, as a man, Aleksi understood that his father
had given him the gift of camaraderie and friendship. What he did
not and never would understand was how his father could have
deprived Aleksi of his mother’s love, and then his own.
“That must have been hard for you,” Anya
said.
Aleksi shrugged. “It kept me out of the
queen’s sight and reach.”
“She always was a right bitch, that
Theodesia,” Anya said, and then clapped her hand over her mouth,
her eyes wide with horror.
“Ha.” Aleksi burst into laughter while Sahar
watched them both, saying nothing. “Her daughters are no better.
Nothing and nobody can please them. I swear the heavens could rain
nectar down on them and they would complain it was too sweet.” He
eyed Anya, a still handsome woman with sad grey-blue eyes whose
youthful good looks would have no doubt raised Theodesia’s ire.
“Was she why you left?”
Anya nodded, slowly, thoughtfully, her
serious gaze on his. “She was one of many reasons,” she said. Then
she glanced at Sahar and her expression brightened. “It was for a
better life that we came here to this city, and here it was we
found it and lived it until my Yuri passed from this life three
years ago last winter.”
“I am sorry,” Aleksi said. “He was a good
man?”
“He was, and his son, our son, Arman, is much
like him.”