Chapter 4
Chapter four
Lenna
“M’Lady!” Olivera’s curt shout jarred through her subconscious. Lenna jolted back into reality a millisecond before the stone gargoyle’s maw would have wrapped around her throat.
Water surrounded her.
Cold water.
“Did you fall asleep? The captains are already here, Leon is asking for you,” the handmatron hissed, grabbing a towel as Lenna stood up from the tub on shaky legs.
Reeling from the nightmare, she chanced a dazed look around the room, but no giant beasts came into sight. “You need to get dressed now.”
Lenna couldn’t form a single word as she snatched the towel from Olivera and scrambled out of the water. Another nightmare. How had she drifted off? How long had she slept? She hastily dried her body, squeezing out the water from the ends of her curls.
“Shit,” Lenna gasped, expertly conveying the gravity of the situation.
Wrapping the towel around herself, she bolted towards the dress and undergarments neatly laid on the bed while Olivera waylaid two younger housemaids from the hall, snapping at them to start working in sections to dry Lenna’s hair and to put light make up on her.
“Just use the comb and towel to dry, and your fingers to twist the ends of the curls. Thankfully, her whole head isn’t wet.
” Olivera instructed the first maid, a scrawny dark-haired girl no older than sixteen.
The maid threw an insolent look in Lenna’s direction.
“You,” Olivera snarled, pointing at the older maid, “light rouge, light powder, on the Lady’s face.
Grab the sapphire necklace from the jewelry box and don’t even think of pocketing any of it. I am watching you.”
Olivera was in her element. Lenna sat stiffly as the two maids blanched in front of the snarling matron before rushing around the room, starting their assigned tasks and not daring to utter a word.
The two girls did well considering the pressure of Olivera constantly breathing down their necks while they worked.
Lenna stayed quiet the entire time, as if Olivera’s sharp tongue would snap at her if she moved or opened her mouth, but she kept replaying the words the gargoyle whispered to her. “I am looking for you.”
It was not real. A bad dream, she reassured herself firmly, as Olivera flitted across the room, unbuckling straps on low heels for Lenna to slide her feet into.
Gargoyles were a symbol of the gods’ protection.
Besides the ostentatious paintings Leon revered, gargoyles were carved and chiseled on temples by master stoneworkers, their likeness pressed reverently upon the spiritual books Lenna emotionlessly chanted from at service each week.
Some shopkeepers even purchased statues of the horrendous beasts to keep the sea birds from roosting on their roofs.
And the only monsters Lenna knew were very much human.
After the maids were finished, and Olivera appraised Lenna up and down, clicking her tongue with approval, Lenna hurried to the dining hall to begin her act of dutiful wife.
“Ah, there she is. Finally,” Leon slurred, as she opened the wooden door to the dining hall and gave him a small curtsy as an apology.
Leon and the captains lounged at the table, heaps of pheasant and roasted vegetables neatly spread out around them.
Even with the delicious smells coming from the large platters, the men were more interested in the three bottles of rum illuminated by candlelight.
Seeing as Leon’s poison of choice was brandy, Lenna speculated the captains provided the rum to get him good and drunk before talking salary expectations for upcoming travel.
“Many apologies, husband,” Lenna mumbled as she slid meekly into the seat to the right of Leon, who leaned back in his chair at the head of the table and ignored her in favor of the rum.
Three of the captains barely looked up or acknowledged her presence as well.
However, the fourth burped loudly as his eyes roved Lenna’s body, surveying her ample hips, her hair, gently curling from the bath, and pausing to stare at her supple breasts.
He was easily the oldest captain, all white-haired and fat, with a huge grey mustache and soulless eyes.
The captain grinned hungrily, revealing teeth missing from his top gums, making Lenna recoil.
Lenna was suddenly very grateful to Olivera for choosing such a modest outfit.
It was apparent in the man’s demeanor that she was no more than property to claim.
She shrunk back into her chair, trying to make herself smaller, to disappear completely from his leering view.
Four captains had come to talk with Leon, all bigger, louder, and hairier than the last. With Leon’s slicked back hair trying desperately to cover bald spots, and a thin frame from many nights of alcohol instead of dinner, these men looked beastly by comparison.
Thankfully, the conversation of shipping vessels and route timelines snared the white-haired captain’s attention, breaking his predatory stare from Lenna.
He roared with laughter after Leon uttered a dirty joke on timing the tides and how they compared to women, pouring himself a hearty swig of rum.
A twinge of pain shot though Lenna’s temples, causing her to grit her teeth.
She hoped it was due to the din of Leon and the captains talking over each other and not the start of another headache that would end in a nightmare.
Contemplating ways she could excuse herself, she stared down at her hands neatly folded in her lap.
Nothing came to mind that wouldn’t pique interest or divert all eyes her way.
It took all her willpower to not stand up and leave, excuses be damned. Frustration reared through her before she tamped it down swiftly, resulting in another jab of head pain.
She hated this.
Hated the man her husband had become.
Hated these disgusting captains with their raucous voices all trying to vie for Leon’s favor.
She hated that she had nothing to contribute, no voice to express any thought or conversation.
Besides the short visits to town to politely chat with shopkeepers, and the few and far between conversations with Marlo, Lenna couldn’t remember the last time she felt heard.
The crushing realization made her screw her eyes shut, forcing out a short breath.
Which in turn, made her head throb again.
Lenna’s thoughts subsided as Marlo appeared, silent as a ghost. He placed a plate in front of her that held a good helping of pheasant meat that had been set aside, avoiding the groping and ripping by the captains and Leon, who were now passing around the platters, wolfing down the pheasant with their fingers, snapping the bones and sucking the small remaining fragments of meat off.
With a sympathetic look, Marlo slid out of the dining room.
The rest of the meal went by without a single word from Lenna.
After the pheasant was rendered down to its bones, and the rum bottles lay empty, Leon suggested they take this “meeting” to the study while boasting about his prestigious brandy collection, earning boisterous approval from the captains, who all stood when he did.
A couple swayed a little–as if they were still on a boat and readjusting their limbs to land.
Drunks, the lot of them, Lenna thought, biting down on her lip to keep disgust from showing on her face. As they all stumbled out of the dining hall, not even one turned back to look her way.
The voices grew distant, and Lenna did not dare breathe until she heard the satisfying thud of the study door shutting, muting out the rowdy group.
Lenna forced herself to relax, unclenching her jaw, loosening her hunched shoulders.
Servants were not in the room yet to clear dinner, so gathering her wits back about her, Lenna began collecting the platters.
The dinner had been so delicious, and she wanted to personally thank the kitchen staff for all their hard work.
Leon wouldn’t.
As Lenna carried dirty cutlery and empty bottles to the cart in the corner, the door to the kitchen creaked open. She looked up, expecting to see Marlo peeking into the room.
She was not expecting to come face to face with a bruised Orla.
Lenna gasped, dropping one of the bottles in her hands.
It clattered to the floor, the noise causing the woman in the doorway to flinch.
Orla’s face was a mottled mess of bruises, her stormy grey eyes bloodshot and puffy.
Her black hair was slicked back and tied in a low bun against the nape of her neck, where ringed bruises that looked like handprints marred her throat.
Orla lowered her eyes, embarrassment heating her golden-brown cheeks.
“Orla,” Lenna breathed, all thoughts eddying out of her mind as she beheld the woman in front of her, “did Leon do this to you?” Heart pounding, she reached her hand out. Orla did not meet her gaze or take her hand.
Olivera had lied.
The thudding in Lenna’s head grew into a roar.
Orla hadn’t been sick. She’d been hiding out of Lenna’s sight so Lenna wouldn’t see the damage her husband did.
Lenna’s blood turned to ice in her veins, her ears rang as she took in the wraith-like young woman in front of her.
Lowering her voice, Lenna slowly took a step towards Orla.
“Tell me what happened. You won’t get in trouble.
I just… I need to know.” Without any fuss, Orla allowed Lenna to steer her over to the table where Lenna quickly pulled out a chair.
Orla took it, grimacing when she sat, still not meeting Lenna’s worried expression.
Lenna took the seat next to her, clasping her hands in her lap.