The Wretched of Muirwood (Legends of Muirwood 1)

“Happy? I have been sick to my stomach for days. If I had a bucket, I could retch in it right now.”

“Retch in the flowerbeds instead, thank you kindly. Just do not retch on me. I cannot help it if you are always nervous about everything.”

Sowe was silent after that and they both walked, their shoes sodden from the dewy grass and they approached the kitchen from the rear. They could hear the pots clanging like bells, and Lia could tell Pasqua was furious. She had a way of making the whole kitchen mime her moods.

Lia pulled open the door and gusts of warm, yeasty air engulfed them. Pasqua was laboring over a huge bowl, and she turned with iron in her eyes.

“Here they arrive at last, all damp and tired. I ought to take a switch to both of your skinny legs as I promised last night. Leaving the kitchen together! Letting some pack of hungry-eyed learners sneak in here and steal from the Aldermaston’s stores. I have a mind to make you churn butter all day long so that your arms are sore for a week. Cheeky little waifs. Off you were, flitting about in the morning when you were supposed to be at your chores, and now someone has come in and made off with things they would be ashamed to confess.”

Lia rolled her eyes and shut the door. Sowe took their cloaks and hung them from two pegs to dry out. Lia hid the Cruciger orb behind a barrel beneath the loft.

“Were we gone that long?” Lia said with a yawn. “It did not feel like it. Did it feel like it to you, Sowe? On a misty morning like this, it is hard to tell how late it is.”

Pasqua jammed a wooden spoon into the huge bowl and gave it furiously circular strokes. “Have you been gone long? Gone long? Why if that is not a sooty lie…look over there at the Aldermaston’s breakfast, which I made myself, and now it is nearly cold to the touch. Look at your hems, deep in mud. You will be at the laundry scrubbing them clean, for I will not have you tracking in filth. I am sorely vexed with both of you, especially about the gingerbread we made yesterday that is gone. Whitsunday will soon be here, and I have a mind to insist that the Aldermaston forbid to let you dance around the maypole.”

Lia stopped. “What about the gingerbread?” she asked, confused, for they had not snitched even a crumb of it.

Pasqua’s eyes were nearly bulging and she thumped the spoon as she thundered, “Have you not been listening to what I told you? Someone has been in the kitchen while you were gone, stealing up scraps and taking this and that. It is shameful, it really is. Here, at Muirwood, that someone can feel justified in stealing what others labored to make. I am only glad there is none of any Gooseberry Fool done, or it would be missing too.”

Lia tied on her apron, her mind dancing with thoughts, her stomach starting to wrestle with queasiness. She looked around the kitchen, and it did have a different feel. There were the stools, the brooms, the pans, the sieves, the sacks, the smells – but an underlying sense of wrongness as well. Fluttering memories darted here and there, and she snatched at them. Stolen things. Missing victuals. When the knight-maston brought Colvin that first evening, he had freely taken victuals for the road. Without asking, he had sliced off a piece of meat. He had swiped a tub of treacle. In fact, as she thought back on it, his actions had been deliberately subtle. He made excuses when she noticed, but it was as if he was trying to steal them without her knowing it. Why would a knight-maston steal?

She cinched the knot of the apron behind her, her thoughts spinning so fast that they blurred Pasqua’s words into gibberish.

Why would a knight-maston steal? Would not a knight-maston, a true one, ask for victuals? Be grateful for what he was given instead of sneaking it? But the knight had not entered the kitchen – Lia had not let him in. Was someone else to blame? A learner, perhaps? Getman stealing the gingerbread to get her into trouble?

Other thoughts. Other possibilities. Maybe the knight had entered after she and Sowe had left. Without someone to stay behind, there was no way to secure the crossbar over the door.

“Why are you standing there paler than milk? Get to work, girls! There are messes plenty to tidy. Sowe – take the Aldermaston his meal. Lia – fetch the broom and sweep up that spill over there. Now, girls, before I fetch a hazel switch in earnest!”

Lia walked, dreamlike, to the broom, trying to put the pieces together in her head. She clutched it and walked over to the corner and began sweeping. Had the knight-maston entered the kitchen after they left to get Colvin and stolen the food? Was that all he had stolen? A sick feeling washed over her. She swept and stepped over to the corner beneath the loft where the loose stone was where she hid her treasures. When Pasqua’s back was turned, she pried at the edge with her fingers until it budged. Lifting it, she stared into the hole.