Ama nodded, imagining a room full of pallets, each with a girl upon it.
“Of course, it has its drawbacks,” Tillie said, growing more conversational with the passing minutes. “Like when one of the girls gets a midnight guest and the rest of us have to lie still, pretending to be asleep. Why, not long ago, Fabiana—”
But then she cut off suddenly, as if she had remembered to whom she was speaking.
Ama pressed gently. “Fabiana? She is one of the kitchen maids, yes?”
Tillie nodded. “Yes, lady.”
Ama remembered the glares she had gotten from Fabiana, the particular weight Fabiana had given to her words that morning.
“Fabiana, I think, does not like me much,” Ama said.
“Pay her no mind, that one,” Tillie said. “She is just jealous, and fancies herself more important than she is.”
“Her midnight guest,” Ama began, “that wouldn’t be King Emory, would it?”
Tillie coughed suddenly, and in the candle’s dim light Ama could see from her wide eyes, casting about, how uncomfortable the question had made her.
“It’s perfectly fine with me,” Ama said quickly, in an attempt to lessen Tillie’s discomfort. “I don’t mind at all that Emory has visited Fabiana. It’s only that I wonder . . . well, that is to say . . . if she is jealous of me, as you say, does that mean that she . . . enjoys it? His . . . visiting?”
Tillie barked a sudden laugh. “From the sounds she makes, I’d say she does.” As soon as the words were out, Tillie gasped and slapped her hands across her mouth. “Oh, lady,” she said, jumping from the bed. “Please, I beg your pardon. I forgot my place, is all.”
“Not at all,” said Ama, reaching for Tillie’s hand and squeezing it. “You answered a question, that is all. I am not angry.”
Tillie searched Ama’s face, and she must have seen proof there that she had not upset Ama, for her own face relaxed, her shoulders dropped a little, and she said, “Well, that is a relief, lady.” She turned as if to go. “If that will be all, I should leave you to your second sleep. The queen mother expects you in the morning, she does, and you won’t want to look worn out for that meeting.”
Ama wanted to compel Tillie to stay longer, but clearly the girl wanted to leave. Ama bit back her sigh and said, “Yes, Tillie, thank you.”
Tillie gone, and her candle with her, Ama stared blindly into the dark. She imagined Emory and Fabiana. She pictured his mouth on her face, on her breasts, as they had been on Ama, and she imagined his fingers parting Fabiana between her legs, as they had parted her. She wondered what Fabiana felt inside her flesh, if she truly did feel pleasure beneath Emory’s hands and body.
Was it like the pleasure she felt from the warm press of Sorrow’s sleeping form, up against her side? Was it equal to the pleasure of a good meal eaten? Or the relief of moving one’s bowels? Or could it possibly be the way Ama felt when she sat, as near as she could, to the warmth and radiance of a well-built fire?
Settling back against her bolster, Ama closed her eyes and resolved that, come the morning, she would find out.
The King’s Yard
The kitchen was crowded.
Ama had risen early, before Tillie had come to her, and had left Sorrow tucked in bed. She’d thrown her cloak across her shoulders and drew on a pair of silk slippers before leaving her room and clicking closed the door behind her.
I am not leaving the castle, Ama told herself to quiet her pounding heart. The king could not be angry about me just wandering inside the castle walls.
Feeling rather like a thief, Ama stole down the stairs and found her way to the steamy heart of the castle. There, in the kitchen, fires were alight in several places—under a great oven, cooking bread; beneath a vast pot, its mouth as wide as a doorway; in the expansive hearth, where several blackened pots hung, stewing various delights.
Two women and a boy no older than ten worked at rolling out great slabs of dough, puffs of flour rising from their labors. A young girl stood in front of a large bowl, cracking egg after egg into it, ropy strands of membrane hanging from the broken edges of each shell. By the hearth, Ama saw Tillie’s aunt Allys, bending to add some spice or salt into one of the three hanging pots. Allys looked up at Ama, her one green eye seeing her straight through.
Ama looked away. Tillie’s aunt scared her, though she couldn’t quite say why. Instead, she approached the girl with the eggs.
“Excuse me,” she said, and the girl drew in a quick breath, startled. The egg in her hand slipped from her fingers, cracked against the table’s edge, and fell to the floor, a mess of yolk and slippery membrane.
“Watch yourself, girl,” barked one of the two women who worked at the dough, troubling herself to come over just long enough to slap the girl’s head, hard, across her ear.
The girl’s head snapped to the side, and she grimaced, but she did not cry out, maintaining the air of practiced acceptance of someone well used to such treatment.
“Forgive her, lady.” The baker who had struck the girl bowed. “How can I serve you?”
Ama glared at the woman. “You could serve me well by going back to your work and leaving this child alone.”
The baker’s eyes widened, and she made a short curtsy before backing away. “Forgive me, lady,” she said, as if it had been Ama’s ear she boxed and not the child’s.
When the baker was gone, Ama said to the girl, who had knelt and was mopping up the egg, “I am sorry I got you into trouble.”
“’Tis nothing,” the girl answered, rising, and remembered her manners with a curtsy, the egg-soaked rag still in her hand.
“I am looking for Fabiana,” Ama said. “Have you seen her?”
The girl nodded. “She is in the larder, counting stock.”
“I see,” said Ama, but she had no notion of where the larder was.
The girl waved her in the direction of a far door, and Ama thanked her.
She walked quickly across the kitchen, remembering to hold her head high, as the queen mother had advised her to do, ignoring the questioning aura of everyone in the kitchen.
Then she found herself in the larder’s doorway, and she stopped abruptly, blinking into the sudden darkness as her eyes adjusted. At last she could see her surroundings, though dimly—the bundles of spices hanging from the ceiling, the shelves of dried meats, the baskets of root vegetables, the heavy bags of flour.
And there, way in the back of the larder, was the body of a woman—unmoving, collapsed upon the floor.
Stunned, Ama took a moment to find her legs, but when she did, she rushed forward and dropped to her knees beside the fallen figure. Fabiana—if it was, indeed, Fabiana—lay on her side, her back to Ama, her face obscured in shadow. Ama’s hand hesitated, then dropped to Fabiana’s shoulder and shook it.
A garbled sound came from Fabiana, and she stirred, batting away Ama’s hand. “A quick nap,” she slurred in her half sleep. “Leave me be.”
Ama sat back on her heels. Just sleeping, then. She wondered if maybe she should tiptoe away and leave Fabiana to her rest, but the nagging question of why the girl was already so tired at this early hour moved her hand forward once again.
This time, she shook Fabiana’s shoulder hard.