Lord of Snow and Shadows (5 page)

Suddenly she felt herself tumbling out onto the floor of the dressing room. Her head hit the floor—and the room about her seemed to explode into little stars of pain.

“Kiukiu. Kiukiu!”

Someone was shaking her. She wished they wouldn’t. It only made the aching in her head worse.

“Don’t . . .”

She looked up and saw Sosia’s face frowning down at her.

“What happened?” Kiukiu asked, trying to sit up. Her head only ached more; a dull throbbing spread from the back of her skull to her temples. She closed her eyes again.

“What happened? I come in to find why you’re not in the kitchen and there you are, stretched out on the floor and the mirror broken. Now you tell
me
what happened, my girl! Is it your monthlies?”

“No, Auntie.”

“Look at this mess! Glass everywhere. You’re lucky you didn’t cut yourself.”

Kiukiu blinked. Shards of mirror glass lay on the floor, on her skirts.

“You’ll have to do extra work to pay for this, Kiukiu. Mirrors don’t come cheap!”

“I—I’m sorry . . .”

“Have you eaten? I can’t have my girls passing out. Not today of all days, when Lord Gavril is expected. You’ve got a nasty bruise on your head; go and dab some of my witch hazel on it before it swells up into an egg.” Sosia gave Kiukiu her hand and pulled her to her feet. “At least you had the foresight to faint after you’d finished changing the bed.”

Kiukiu looked about her warily. What had happened? Had she brought the shadow through? Did the dressing room feel any different? Colder, maybe; the kind of unearthly cold that made the little hairs rise on your arms. And was there a slight taint of gravedust in the air?

But everything looked just as it had before—except for the shattered mirror.

“Fetch your dustpan and sweep up this mess.”

It must have just been a trick of her imagination, a vivid illusion brought on by a blow to the head.

“Don’t dawdle, Kiukiu!” Sosia called back sharply. “There’s work to be done.”

“Coming . . .”

Kiukiu hesitated—then took up the carefully folded cloth and draped it over the mirror frame. Just in case . . .

“What’s the matter with you, Kiukiu?” Ilsi glanced up from the herbs she was chopping—but not at Kiukiu, over her head, catching Ninusha’s eye. “Cat got your tongue?”

Kiukiu, cheeks hot with the rising steam from the beetroot soup she was stirring on the great cooking range, sensed that Ilsi was out to cause trouble. Ilsi and Ninusha found baiting Kiukiu a perpetual source of amusement. Kiukiu had patiently endured their taunts since they were children. She had always been the odd one out when it came to games and choosing friends. Their scornful teasing had caused her many tears when she was little, the youngest, unwanted one, tagging along behind the older kastel children, begging to be allowed to join in.

“I’m tired,” she said, squeezing some lemon juice into the rich, red soup. She hoped that would stop them pestering her. Besides, her head still ached.

“Sosia’s favoring her sister’s child again,” Ninusha said to Ilsi. Talking about Kiukiu as if she were not present was another childhood torment that had carried over into adulthood. “Letting her prepare Lord Gavril’s bedchamber. Such an honor.”

“Lord Gavril. They say he’s not much above twenty. Good-looking, too.” Ilsi gave a coquettish little shake of her fair curls, twisted into bunches like yellow catkins.

“Think you can compete with Lady Lilias?” Ninusha said with a giggle. “What’s the odds that she’ll be fluttering her lashes at Lord Gavril within a day of his arrival?”

“Lilias?” Ilsi gave a snort of laughter as she scraped the chopped herbs into the bowl of salad leaves. “She’s as fat as a farrowing sow these days. He won’t give her a second glance.”

“And won’t she just hate that?” Ninusha said, breaking into delighted giggles.

“Ninusha!” cried Sosia, appearing with a tray which she put down on the table with a crash. “What possessed you to sprinkle cinnamon on the lady Lilias’ dish of sutlage? You know she can’t abide the smell or taste of it! Whatever were you thinking of? Now she’s in a temper and blaming me.”

“Must’ve forgotten,” Ninusha said with a shrug. “Everyone else has cinnamon on sutlage. Why does
she
have to be different?”

“Pregnancy affects you that way,” Ilsi said. “My mam said she couldn’t be in the same room as anyone who had eaten garlic when she was carrying me. But I love garlic!”

“You’ll just have to prepare some more.”

“Pregnant women and their stupid little fads. That’s the fourth bowl she’s pigged today. She’ll turn into sutlage if she goes on eating so much of it. White and
glutinous . . .”

“Perhaps she’ll stay fat after she’s had the baby,” Ilsi said with a malicious little smile. “Lolling around all day, making us wait on her hand and foot. Who does she think she is? He never married her. She was only his whore.”

“Ilsi!” Sosia slammed her fist down on the kitchen table, making the pots rattle. “That’s enough. I won’t have idle gossip in my kitchen. You’re here to work, not chatter.”

Kiukiu glanced up to see Ilsi pull a sour face at Sosia behind her back.

“Here’s Lady Lilias’ pudding.” Ninusha slopped some cold sutlage into a clean bowl and slammed it down on the little lacquer tray.

“Don’t forget the chopped pistachio nuts,” Sosia said, not even glancing up from the pastry she was rolling.

Kiukiu was looking longingly at the rejected bowl, with its brown sprinkling of powdered cinnamon. To throw it away would be a wicked waste. She loved the smooth, creamy taste of the ground-rice dessert; she loved the subtle sweetness of the precious rose water Sosia used to flavor it. No one would mind, surely, if she just took a spoonful or two . . .

“Talking of greedy pigs,” rang out Ilsi’s voice spitefully, “look at Kiukiu. Caught with her nose in the trough!”

Guiltily, Kiukiu gulped down a mouthful of pudding, wiping the back of her hand across her mouth as if she could erase the sweet, sticky traces of her crime.

“You know the rules of my kitchen, Kiukiu,” Sosia said, shaking her rolling pin at her. “No women servants to eat leftovers from the Drakhaon’s table until the men have had their fill. Have you any idea how much rose water costs these days? Or pistachios? Or lemons?”

“No supper for you tonight, Kiukiu,” whispered Ilsi.

“I could make rose water,” Kiukiu protested. “It can’t be that difficult.”

“Don’t change the subject,” Sosia said. “Besides—where would you find the rose petals? And when was the last time roses bloomed without blight at Kastel Drakhaon?”

“It just looked so good,” Kiukiu said contritely, “and I was
so
hungry.”

“
So
hungry,” mimicked Ninusha.

“Listen!” Sosia lifted one floury hand for silence. “Horses.”

Kiukiu, glad of the distraction, ran to the window, opening the shutter, peeping out into the dark courtyard.

Torches flared; the black shadows of mounted warriors came clattering in over the cobbles beneath the archway.

“The
druzhina,
” she cried excitedly. “Lord Gavril’s here!”

“Out of the way!” Ilsi and Ninusha elbowed her aside, eagerly peering out into the night.

“Silly girl, it’s just the vanguard,” Ilsi said. “There can’t be more than twenty riders. Look, Ninusha, there’s Michailo! Michailo! What’s the news from Smarna?”

Kiukiu, standing on tiptoe behind the two maids, saw the young man leap down from his mount and wave.

“Lord Gavril will be here within the hour. Tell Sosia.”

“You look well, Michailo,” Ilsi said, simpering.

“I’m famished!” cried Michailo, laughing. “Tell Sosia we’re all famished.”

“You hear that, Sosia?” Ilsi said. “Within the hour!”

“Ilsi, put this dish of carp in the bakeoven. Watch it like a hawk and don’t let it burn. Ninusha, finish this pie off for me. And Kiukiu—you’d better take this bowl up to my lady’s rooms now before her bell starts jangling again,” Sosia said, wiping her hands on her apron.

“Me?”
Kiukiu said, horrified.

“Give it to Dysis. My lady need never know who brought it.”

“Make sure you don’t spill it, Kiukiu,” mocked Ilsi.

Flustered, Kiukiu took up the tray and set out toward the lady Lilias’ rooms. The dark-paneled corridors and echoing hallways of the kastel, which had been empty and silent for weeks, were now filled with men. Warriors tramped up and down the polished stairs, the air echoing to their shouts and the clatter of their boots. Only the most trusted members of the
druzhina
were allowed in the Drakhaon’s wing of the kastel. Volkh had personally selected those who stood guard. But since the Drakhaon’s—Kiukiu shuddered, hardly allowing herself to even think the word—since his death, the old guards were gone. Put to the question first by Bogatyr Kostya, then brutally executed. No mercy shown.

If any of them had been part of a conspiracy, none had revealed it. They had gone to their deaths tight-lipped, silent—except to declare on the scaffold that they deserved death for not protecting their lord in his hour of need. His murder dishonored them. And what was one of the
druzhina
without his honor?

So she hurried past the warriors, eyes cast down, careful not to trip and spill Lilias’ sweet rice sutlage. The honeyed scent of the beeswax polish she had rubbed into the paneled walls was overlaid by the musky animal smell of men. The invasion was at once alarming and exhilarating. Yet she knew no one would notice her; she was only dumpy, frumpy Kiukiu, after all, not dark, languorous Ninusha or fickle Ilsi—or Dysis with her charming Mirom accent and refined manners.

Long before she reached Lilias’ room she could hear the petulant tinkling of Lilias’ silver bell. The Drakhaon had given his mistress fine rooms on the first floor of the kastel, overlooking the neglected kastel gardens with a view to the distant mountains beyond.

She reached the door to Lilias’ anteroom.

Please let Dysis open,
she prayed as she tapped at the door.

From behind the heavy door she thought she caught the sound of a woman’s voice raised, harsh and shrill, ranting.

She tapped again, a little louder this time.

Within came the sudden sound of smashing crockery.

Kiukiu stepped back from the door. Perhaps she should go away. . . .

The door opened a crack. To Kiukiu’s relief, Dysis’ face appeared. But the maid’s face was flushed. Her little lace coif, usually perched neatly on her immaculately arranged hair, was awry, stray wisps of brown hair escaping from the lace.

“Sutlage for my lady,” gabbled Kiukiu, thrusting the tray forward. “Without cinnamon.”

“It’s true, isn’t it?” Dysis said, her voice a little breathless. “The new Lord Drakhaon is here.”

“Within the hour. So Michailo says.”

Dysis’ pretty mouth briefly twisted into a grimace. She took the tray from Kiukiu and closed the door before Kiukiu could say any more.

As Kiukiu turned to go back to the kitchens, she heard a muffled shriek—and then another crash, sharp with the shards of shattering porcelain.

Kiukiu winced as she crept away. All that sweet, rich pudding wasted, reduced to a splatter of slimy, sticky mess to be painstakingly wiped away by poor Dysis.

Poor Dysis? She stopped, wondering at herself. She had never pitied Dysis before. She had always envied Dysis her elegant Muscobar ways, her pretty looks, her efficiency and neatness. What did it matter that her mistress Lilias happened to be difficult to please? Surely the rewards of service to the Drakhaon’s mistress outweighed the discomforts. The discarded clothes alone must make it worthwhile, the silk gloves, the lace petticoats, the gowns worn once or twice then tossed aside! Kiukiu looked sadly at her patched, stained gown, a hand-me-down from Sosia, which had faded from brown to an indeterminate shade of gray with many scrubbings. She had another gown, more discreetly patched, kept for “best.” It had once been blue, a clear sky blue like flax flowers. . . .

“Kiukiu! What’re you dawdling up here for?” Sosia was standing in the hallway below, glaring up at her. “Get back to the kitchens and baste the roasting fowl. Lord Gavril won’t want to eat a plateful of dry leather!”

“I’ve had tables set in the paneled dining room.” Sosia’s voice was becoming cracked and hoarse with issuing orders. “Kiukiu—go and make sure Oleg’s drawn ten flagons of barley beer, as I told him. Make sure he’s not still in the cellar, sampling the new keg. Tell him to get upstairs and brush off the cobwebs.”

Kiukiu sighed and opened the door to the cellar, only to hear Sosia saying, “To wait at table—Ninusha and Ilsi.”

Ninusha and Ilsi. Not Kiukiu.

“Sosia, can’t I help?” she said plaintively.

Sosia gave a sigh. “What are you still doing here? Go get Oleg. And no, you can’t wait at table, Kiukiu, and you know why.”

Because I’m too clumsy,
Kiukiu thought angrily, fumbling her way down the dank cellar steps by the greasy rope rail.

At the bottom of the stone stairs hung a lantern, faintly illumining the clammy air, which was stale with the smell of old ale.

“Oleg?” Kiukiu called into the darkness, a little uncertainly. Dusty webs clung to the stones. There were great-granny spiders down here as big as her fist; she had seen them.

Around the corner of the archway, she came upon the massive barrels of oak: beer on one side, the smaller barrels of rich, red wine imported from the sun-baked vineyards of Smarna on the other.

Oleg, the Drakhaon’s butler, stood with his back to her, surreptitiously sampling the beer from the farthest barrel. Obviously he had not heard her—or Sosia.

“Oleg!” Kiukiu said again.

He started, turning around with a telltale froth of beer foam whitening his gray moustache.

“Kiukiu,” he said, grinning leeringly at her. “You won’t tell Sosia, will you?”

“She wants the flagons in the lower hall. Ten.”

“She’s a slave driver, that woman. Ten flagons! Come here and give your old Uncle Oleg a hand, Kiukiu, there’s a good girl.”

Kiukiu came forward reluctantly. Being alone with Oleg in the cellar where no one else could hear made her feel very uncomfortable. She didn’t want to be pawed by the lecherous old man. Besides, he was not her uncle. He was no relation to her at all.