Esta was meticulous in her work and never complained. The combination of the two made her all but invisible.
Very little changed for three years until the King returned and brought his three young captured wives, all of them of various royal blood.
The first queen, older than them by at least two decades, still held the place of power since she'd given the king four royal sons. However, she did look askance at the 'girls' as she called them. The girls formed their own little group, and The Queen did not dine with them.
The servants were all run ragged for those first few months when nothing was good enough for the girls and too much wrong for the queen.
Esta did her best.
Days passed into years with hardly a notice of passing seasons. The Queen and the girls formed an alliance that benefited them all when dealing with the king.
How many times had she scrubbed these stairs?
A pair of boots started down the steps -- she never looked higher as she grabbed rags and bucket out of the way.
"Careful, sir," she whispered. "Wet stairs."
The man grunted in reply, slowed, and then stopped on the stair above her.
"That was not polite on my part," the man said.
Esta looked up in shock, knowing the words were directed at her.
"Thank you, sir," she stammered and grabbed her rag, crushing it in her fist. Dirty water ran down her arm.
The man looked at her for a moment longer, nodded once, and went past. He was careful on the steps.
The encounter had shaken her. Esta couldn't say why except that, for a moment, she had felt like she wasn't just another stone on the stairs.
She scrubbed harder.
Four days passed -- she had counted them -- until she saw the man again. He was, she realized, one of the castle guards and assigned to the South Wing, where the four women ruled. Esta had been transferred there for a few days during the summer festival.
Having worked in the castle for several years now, Esta could easily recognize the servants. She also could spot the one she'd never seen before.
He was well-trained to look like a servant, although he walked too well and had a furtive glance that went right over her.
She cleared a few things from a lower-level table and looked around for a guard. She shoved the tray into the hands of a startled kitchen boy and went on past him.
Esta couldn't reach any of the guards in time. The assassin was taking purposeful steps toward the queens. A shout would be lost in the noise of merrymakers.
Esta charged.
She heard yells and screams but never looked away from her goal. She almost thought time had slowed down, but Esta knew that only came from extreme focus.
Someone got in the way, but she dodged that obstacle. That came from her work as a servant. People were always getting in the way.
Screams, yells -- the assassin looked annoyed and then surprised when a servant threw herself across the table, and they both landed on the floor.
Esta was aware of blood on her arm before she realized she'd been injured. Then it hurt, but she hardly had time to make note of it. Someone grabbed her by the other arm and dragged her out of the way and under the table.
She had just enough sense left to realize there shouldn't be this much of a battle with only one assassin present. Some high-ranking visitors from the east were newly allied with the king. Or maybe not.
This was something big. It was also chaotic. Esta crawled to the edge of the table. Guards were fighting a plethora of men who were attacking with dinner blades. If there hadn't been so many of them, the guards would have had no trouble at all.
The queens had been herded to the wall with a shield of guards and the king protecting them. The guests who were not wounded were leaving. The servants were dealing with the wounded.
The servants.
Although he had shed a wig and turned his shirt inside out, he was still among the servants. Esta recognized him as someone who still did not belong.
He inched closer to the king, who was just putting away his sword.
Esta somehow launched herself from under the table and brought him down.
Yelling and chaos spread again. Someone kicked her in the arm, and she cried out --
"She had it right, sire," a guard said as everything grew quieter. "I don't know how, but he was an assassin and fully armed for the job. Here are another six small daggers in his sleeves. We best get her arm tended."
The guard she had met on the stairs knelt before her as someone tied off a bandage on her arm.
"Yes," the guard said to someone else. "I met her when she was scrubbing the stairs on the south tower."
"She's a servant," Queen Guada said. "She's been here longer than me."
"What's your name?" the guard asked.
"Esta."
She heard a whisper of words as others nearby admitted they had never known her name. The guard ignored them.
"Why did you mistrust him?" he asked.
"I didn't recognize him. He didn't move like a servant. He watched the guards with too much worry."
The guard nodded. "Well done."
The next day Esta moved from the servants to the guards and trained to serve the queens in a new way.
No comments:
Post a Comment