10 #2
“Yes, Dama,” he said, casting his eyes down.
The woman servant flicked her eyes to Braithe and then to Morgana, and Braithe could have sworn she caught a flash of amusement in them, but she pursed her lips and didn’t speak.
She brushed past Braithe with her empty tray and left the house.
The half-blood backed out through the door, barely making it outside before Morgana spoke the new cantrip, shutting the door in his face.
Braithe glared after him. “Now I see how it is.”
“Do you, brat?” Morgana asked.
“I don’t,” Idhri said.
“You did very well, Idhri,” Braithe said. “I felt protected.”
“Did you need protection?” Morgana asked, as she crossed the hall and went into the kitchen. “They were servants, were they not?”
“They were. And one of them is very, very angry.”
“You know why, I gather.” Morgana was already taking her seat at the table and reaching for the round of cheese that rested on a small, beautifully carved bogwood board. She wondered how old the board was, and if there were still carvers working in the city, or if they had tired of that, too.
“I do know why.” Braithe nodded to Idhri, and the two of them joined the priestess at the table.
“The woman is human. She expects nothing from the fae, and I feel sorry for her. But the half-blood—” She gave Idhri a look of apology, but he didn’t look offended.
“The man, Adamo, is half fae, and he hates being a servant. I sensed how furious he was at having to wait upon me, a mere human.” She took care not to say the word slave, but she was thinking it.
A man as angry as Adamo would hardly do work he loathed if he had a choice in the matter.
“I suspect you are correct,” Morgana said. “This is not a happy place, is it?”
“I begin to wonder,” Braithe mused, “if it ever was.”
No one slept well that night. Idhri found himself tossing on his cot.
He drowsed off and on, but his sleep was plagued by nightmares of Skye and then Adamo, and it seemed better just to lie awake.
He heard movement in the kitchen and drew back his curtain a little, enough to see Priestess Morgana lighting the fire and filling the kettle at the sink.
Her long white hair hung over her face, so he couldn’t read her expression.
He didn’t dare ask why she wasn’t in her bed.
He let his curtain fall closed and lay down again on his cot.
It comforted him to know someone else was awake, someone who would know if anything happened in the night.
Hours later, wakened by sounds from the bedchambers, he was surprised to realize he had finally drifted off.
Beyond his makeshift curtain, the early summer sun brightened the kitchen, and he hastened to rise, wash his face at the sink, brush and braid his hair.
Two cups sat beside the sink, and he guessed Braithe must also have woken in the night.
She came in even as he thought of her. “Good morning, Idhri,” she said in a tired voice. “I hope you slept better than the priestess and I.”
He didn’t think he needed to confess everything, and he wanted more than anything to appear strong for her. “I slept fine,” he said. He wasn’t telling her an untruth. In the end, after he knew someone was awake and aware, he had slept fairly well. “I’m sorry you had trouble.”
“We have lost valuable time,” Braithe said. “Two days here already, and we are no closer to our solution. Every delay harms our people.”
“What can we do?”
“Priestess Morgana wants to go to the woods,” Braithe said. “Fields and grass and running water.”
“That will make her feel better?”
“That will make her feel like herself. She needs that.”
“That means going out of the city.” The idea of escaping these bland white walls and monotonous streets pleased Idhri.
He wouldn’t mind woods and grass, either.
The city, though beautiful, was oppressive.
He wouldn’t presume to compare himself to the priestess, but he could understand how it depleted her energy.
“We’re going to go now, before the meal arrives. Do you mind?”
“I’m going with you?”
Her dimples flashed. Idhri loved her dimples. “Of course you are,” she said. “We would not leave you behind.”
“Thank you.”
“You wouldn’t care to stay here on your own.” Her smile vanished. “I wouldn’t, either. Be sure you’re wearing your charm.”
He lifted it in his fingers to show her, then went back to his little room to tie on his sandals.
When he returned to the kitchen, the priestess was there, dressed in her usual black robe, but this time with her hair plaited into a thick braid.
Braithe had done her own hair, too, although curling wisps escaped the plaits.
She had added a bright blue ribbon, and it was nice to see the color.
Perhaps, Idhri thought, if the fae would paint the buildings or grow brighter flowers, they would remember what joy felt like.
He could contemplate that on their walk.
He would never presume to speak it aloud.
It wasn’t far to the outskirts of the city.
The priestess seemed to know exactly where to go, and they soon left the buildings behind, having seen no one except three servants in brown tunics sweeping streets.
The sun was a handsbreadth above the eastern horizon when the three of them reached a road of packed dirt and gravel that led to well-tended fields.
Many laborers, in the drab brown servants’ clothes, were already working.
It was more people than they had seen in one place since their arrival.
There were dozens of them, bending and digging and hauling.
In the gardens around Camulod, people chatted and sang and laughed as they labored.
Here the servants worked in silence as they pulled weeds, tilled the soil around corn stalks and potato plants and what Idhri thought must be squashes.
Berry thickets stretched beyond the cultivated fields.
Idhri took all of this in, realizing the food for the city was grown and harvested here, by servants. There were no fae that he could see.
He eyed the laborers as he passed them, wondering who they were and why they were here.
As far as he could tell, they were all human but one.
He was apparently some sort of overseer, a tall, lean man, a half-blood.
He didn’t dig or weed but paced among the workers, pausing now and again to speak to someone.
Something about the scene gave Idhri a fresh rush of anxiety, and he averted his gaze.