The palace itself had a great hall and several wings, one of them fully three stories tall, added on over many years. Anna made her way around to the carters’ entrance and was admitted to the servants’ hall, a goodly chamber busy with women sewing up rents in linens, mixing cordials, binding up sachets of aromatic herbs to relieve the smell in the closed-up winter rooms, and polishing the mayor’s silver plate, salvaged in the headlong retreat from Gent.
Frederun had become chief of the servingwomen of the palace mostly because Lord Wichman had quickly singled her out when he’d taken over the lordship of Gent after the great victory over Bloodheart and the Eika. She had a chair set at the largest table, the seat of her authority, and when she saw Anna, she beckoned her forward and took the cloak from her. Standing, she shook it out. Work in the hall came to a halt.
“Truly,” said Frederun, “Mistress Suzanne has outdone herself this time!” The cloak had a rich scarlet hue, fur lining, and a beautifully sewn trim in a fanciful design of elegant dragons outlined in gold-dyed thread.
“Surely that’s not for you, Frederun?” demanded an older woman whose face bore an unsightly scar, the mark of an Eika ax.
“Nay, it’s for Lord Hrodik. Now that Lord Wichman is gone, he fancies himself the proud defender of the city. It’s to go over his armor.”
The women laughed.
“His sister’s armor, you mean,” continued the scarred woman. “He’ll never be half the fighter Lady Amalia was, may God bless her name.”
All the women there drew the Circle of Unity at their breasts and murmured a prayer for peace. Many of them remembered the noble lady who had died of her wounds after the battle for Gent that Count Lavastine and King Henry had won.
“No sense in calling the poor young man names, for all his faults,” scolded Frederun. “The rats have fled the nest, and the mouse that’s left us is a kinder master than they ever were.”
“True-spoken words,” agreed the scarred woman, resting a hand on Frederun’s shoulder. “You took the brunt of it, friend. We’ve none of us forgotten that.”
Frederun traced the outlines of dragons embroidered along the edge of the rich fabric. She had dreamy eyes of a limpid brown, the kind one imagined gazing into a lover’s ardent gaze, set off by light hair caught back and covered by a shawl tied so loosely that curling strands of hair had escaped to frame her pretty face. She was, everyone agreed, the second handsomest woman in Gent.
“Come, now,” she said, shaking off her reverie impatiently without responding to her companion’s comment, “here’s these two lasses who must be cold from walking outside in that wind just so Lord Hrodik can have his cloak the instant he desires it! Here, child, let you and your sister come in and have a bit of hot cider to drink for it’s that cold out, isn’t it now? Sit by the hearth.” She addressed one of the younger servants. “Give them a slice of apple, and be sure they have a bit of cake from the lord’s table as well.” She clapped her hands sharply twice. “Back to work! Let’s have no sleeping in the hall. We’ve little enough light these months as it is. Fastrada!” The scarred woman had taken the cloak from her to fold it up. “I pray you, will you see that the cloak is delivered to Lord Hrodik?”
“Truly, Frederun, you know how he will complain if you’re not the one to deliver it to him.”
Frederun exclaimed sharply on a gusty sigh, but she reached for the cloak and finished folding it with practiced ease. She had strong hands from years of hard work, although certainly she couldn’t have been more than twenty years of age. “Why must he believe he is owed what Wichman took?”
No one else appeared to be listening, perhaps only because of the boring familiarity of the situation. “Can you not speak to Biscop Suplicia?” asked Fastrada.
“She is kin by way of certain cousins to Lord Hrodik’s family. Why should she feel any compassion for a bond servant like me? Do I not owe service to their noble house?”
“I thought you served at the mayor’s palace, not in the lord’s bed.”
“You know as well as I that Mayor Werner was the last of his family. Nay, the noble lords have hold of Gent now, and they won’t give it up.”
The older woman frowned sourly. “Very well. I’ll take the cloak up to him, and let him bleat as he may.”
Frederun cast down her gaze, as though in exhaustion. “I thank you.” She straightened one of her sleeves and wiped a fleck of ash, floating out from the hearth, out of an eye. “He has grown worse—”