Remembrance

Opening the door, Alida called to a passing maid. “Where is Penella?” she asked.

The girl was young and new. “Penella?”

“In the kitchens, ma’am,” said a woman peeping around a corner. “You sent her to the kitchens years ago.”

“Send her to me. Instantly.” Knowing that her time on earth was limited made Alida want to make amends for the bad that she had done in her life. Penella had been a good maid, a loyal one, but she had betrayed that loyalty once and Alida had not been able to forgive her. But now Alida felt that perhaps Penella had learned her lesson, and besides, Alida needed someone she could fully trust.

“Can I trust you?” Alida said, her voice cold as she looked at her former maid, standing as close to the fire as she dared. In the years Penella had been in the kitchens, she had aged centuries. Alida would not have recognized her: emaciated, grizzled hair, raw hands, deep lines in her face, stooped shoulders.

When Penella looked into her mistress’s eyes, Alida saw begging, no pride at all. She had been well punished for what she had done that night so long ago when she had warned the peasant man that he was about to be set afire. There had not been a day of her life that she had not regretted what she had done.

“You may trust me to the giving of my life,” Penella said with feeling in her voice, meaning every word she said. For a comfortable bed, for warmth, she’d now kill the peasants herself.

“Sit,” Alida said warmly. “Eat all you want.” When Penella was seated, her trembling hands reaching for the food on the table before the fire, Alida said, “I want you to tell me everything you overheard from the old woman who came here that night. She told me about this Talis and my daughter. I want to know what you remember. Every word.”

For a moment Penella thought she should protest that she had obeyed her mistress and left them in privacy, but one look at Alida’s face told her that now was not the time for pretense. She had eavesdropped on every conversation her mistress had ever had.

It wasn’t easy to clear her head enough to remember all of it, but with each delicious bite of proper food—whole food, not the leavings of others—she knew that the continuation of such food depended on what she remembered.

“She said they are two halves of a whole. If something hurt one it hurt the other. They want what is best for the other, will sacrifice personal wants for the other’s good. They cannot be separated; separation will destroy them. They are very jealous, especially the boy. He cannot bear for the girl to give her attention to anything but himself. The girl worships him, lies for him, would steal, and possibly even kill, for him. But he has a sense of honor and will commit no foul deeds for anyone.”

At this Penella could not resist thinking that a few years in John Hadley’s kitchens would knock the honor out of anyone. It was honor that had made her warn that peasant; she’d thought that what was being done to the innocent children was not “right.” It was amazing what an empty belly could do to a sense of honor. Now she’d no doubt set the fire herself if it meant a few days without hunger.

“Good,” Alida said, and poured her maid some wine. Over the years she had almost forgotten Penella’s remarkable memory. “I need your help. I need your complete discretion, but I need to be sure that I can trust you to be loyal to me and me alone.”

For a moment Penella looked up from the food, her eyes glittering. “I will do whatever you desire of me,” she said, and the words came from inside her soul.

“I want to get rid of the boy,” Alida said.

Penella put down her plate of food. “I will kill him.”

“No!” Alida said sharply. “I want to send him back to his real father. I do not want him connected to this house.” She lowered her voice. “And I have a secret that must be kept. I am dying. I have two years at the most.”

Penella did not so much as glance up from her plate at that, and Alida knew what she had lost. At one time Penella would have done anything for her mistress out of love, but now her only love was in survival. But Alida had no time for sentiment. She had to save her family, and, like Penella, she would do anything to accomplish that purpose.

28

Yes, yes, Edith,” Alida said irritably. “I know the girl is pliable, that she gives you few problems. And I know you are doing the best you can with her and I am pleased with you, but I wanted to know what you thought of her as a person.”

Edith looked blank at this, not knowing what her mother was talking about. She liked reporting accounts to her mother, liked making lists. “She chases after that boy. I mean,” she said, lowering her head and blushing, “our brother.”

“Oh, Edith, you are a mother’s dream of a daughter.”

Edith’s head came up at this. She wasn’t sure she’d ever before received a compliment from her mother. At least not like this. If she turned in account charts and managed the servants perfectly, with no flaw at all, her mother might utter a “good,” but that was all. It was a great deal more than her father, who Edith wasn’t sure knew who she was. “Thank you,” was all Edith could manage to say to this fulsome praise.

“Here your father has set down in your midst a girl like that and you have taken her under your wing and given her the best of treatment. You act as though she were your…your equal.”

Edith could make no reply to this, as she’d thought the girl was her equal.

“I can see that you are so good-hearted that you don’t even see the differences. Does it not bother you that her talk is that of a farmer? She has learned nothing of importance in her life—unless one counts growing beans as important. Perhaps she would be good at tilling the soil, since she has no hands for the lute. Did you ever see such hands! They are as wide as a plowshare. And her feet! Do you think she has ever had on a pair of shoes before now?”

Alida smiled at her wide-eyed daughter. “Look at you! I can tell you never even saw these things. You are a good daughter, Edith, the best.”

Alida walked to the window. “Edith, my dear, dear daughter, may I trust you?”

“Yes,” she said, then her voice broke. She’d never seen her mother like this, so open and kind, so needy. Edith felt tears prickle at the back of her eyes to think that she’d sometimes thought that her mother cared nothing about her, that mayhap her mother didn’t even like her. “Yes, you may trust me.”