8. N #6
The four passed through the line with Ylana keeping up a running commentary.
Once their turn came, each took a bowl of food, with the tallyman carefully noting their names and work sections.
Ylana seemed to know the cook, and a quick question about the fit of a child’s frock netted a slightly larger spoonful for them all.
Not enough to pronounce overt favoritism, but certainly a bit more than the others received.
Triana followed the three to a table, and as they sat she gave the gray and flavorless stuff a long look.
Nora had taught her the proper name, based on a fancy-sounding dish that no one had eaten in a long time, but which Triana just thought of as “gruel.”
The fourth woman, who Triana had learned during one of the (infrequent) gaps in Ylana’s monologue was Emina, passed around a small bag of green herbs that each sprinkled on their meals.
Emina’s herbs held the savor of meat, and made the gruel quite tasty.
Ylana had long since mastered the art of eating and talking, and barely broke stride to consume her meal.
The more they chatted, the more Triana got drawn in, and was soon laughing at the stories and absurdities.
Ylana and Nora both told stories well, and for Triana, it served as quite an education.
Along the way, it occurred to her that the dramas of the servants’ lives, so well told (and embellished) by Ylana, did a pretty good job of also describing the elven lords’ constant scheming …
the politics, the games, and ups and downs, and the backs and forths, were all the same as those she played with (and against) the other lords.
The stakes might be very much different, but the games seemed the same.
She drifted out of the conversation to chew on one unsavory detail.
She had never considered servants as being anything other than, well …
servants. They did as they were told, and then who went away until summoned.
The idea that they had lives, loves, and …
drama … (so very much drama … according to Ylana), hadn’t really occurred to her.
Triana also had a front row seat as the women’s discussion of their own lords …
Haldeen and his ladywife barely spoke these days.
Emina often took them their breakfast, and she described relations as “frosty.”
Ylana’s cackle that she had no worries about letting out the ladywife’s seams anytime soon appeared to Triana to be both accurate and unseemly.
Other stories flowed. Part of her listened, while the rest worked on what she had heard.
Gladiators and champions had filled her bed, and satiated her when her body needed physical release, and she had had her favorites …
what was his name … the one with the crooked grin, whose embrace could make her feel safe when she felt lost.
No. None of that mattered. He was just a slave. No more.
She shut down that line of thought, before it got out of hand, and focused on Ylana.
“Haldeen’s always been odd, but he’d been behaving very oddly recently. Strange hours and secretive comings and goings. With him and the ladywife on the outs … maybe a quick pass through the upper servant’s quarters, a quick midnight tryst in one of the private rooms?”
Ylana glanced meaningfully at Nora, who gave away nothing.
Ylana held the moment a few seconds, then moved on once all three saw Nora would not be drawn.
Ylana moved on then to discuss the current gossip, about the scullery trading favors for extra food.
Triana did notice that Nora remained tightly focused on any gossip about Haldeen. She kept a light smile and laughter on her lips, but her eyes remained focused and attentive.
Triana wondered if her own servants, and even slaves, gossiped about her this way.
Her initial response served up an indignant, They wouldn’t dare.
A more honest appraisal suggested that they very much did dare, and that few things an elven lord did would remain secret for long.
Her penchant for keeping her business to herself meant that the servants’ gossip could describe the “whats” of what she did, but not the “whys.” Still, something to ponder.
Nora caught Triana looking at her, and shifted, relaxing and smiling as she circled to the gossip about the chambermaid and the elf they called “Shoulders.”
Nora drew her in after that, and coaxed Triana into a few stories of her own.
She told them badly, stumbling over unfamiliar words and local slang, and had to have Nora step in and save her when she got blank expressions.
Nora’s quick explanation yielded honest laughter.
Later, as lunch ended, and the women returned to their work tasks, Triana found herself dozing in her chair.
She blinked, confused, as the others rose.
Once the others left, Nora gave her an appraising look.
“You look like you are about to fall over. How about if I take you back, and give you some time to do some ‘reading,’ and I’ll see you in the morning?”
Triana stifled a yawn behind her hand, and nodded.
It wasn’t until Nora had locked her in, and she lay on her bed that she realized that the tutor had never answered her question about how magic worked here.
“I’ll be damned,” Triana swore. “She changed the subject.”
She nodded off a few moments afterwards.