Discovery

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Sir James all but dragged her back to his rooms without speaking a word to her or anyone else. He slammed the door to the hallway shut and snarled, “I would never have believed something like this would happen here. There will be hell to pay.”

He paced the room while Hannah remained standing, wondering at her impertinence to speak to the King’s Knight as she had, and in front of a hundred witnesses. Now the tales of her poor upbringing would spread like flames along an oil spill.

Besides all that happened, her stomach growled in protest at nothing to eat. She saw an apple beside a bowl of fruit and reached for it. Sir James noticed her and adjusted his pacing to take him past the bowl, too. He selected a handful of grapes.

Sir James sat in a padded chair; his shoulders slumped, with a dejected look on his face. He said, “Okay, I’ll go interview your attacker in the marketplace. But I’ve also been thinking about your education, and it falls into four major areas. This is not going to be easy on you.”

“Four?”

“First is basic reading and writing. That includes history, geography, math, and maybe ten more formal subjects. You also need to learn Royal protocol, manners, palace intrigue, and behavior in meeting your equals, and others.”

“That sound like more than four to me.”

“It’s only the first two. You will also need to enter your father’s quarters and begin to learn the basics of being a mage, without anyone knowing, and you will have to teach yourself, at least at the beginning. Oh, we might be able to find a closed-lipped instructor later, but not right away until I know who to trust.”

“That’s three.”

“Yes. The fourth and last is learning to protect yourself.” He stood and threw a pillow at her head.

She ducked.

He charged.

She darted away.

Sir James nodded in approval. “Only a fool would stand and fight someone five times as large unless he held a weapon he felt sure would win. That’s your first lesson. Learn when to fight, not how.”

“I want to learn how to fight, not run away.”

“Running should be your first option. Always. No matter who you fight, slip on a wet floor or misjudge the thrust of a rapier, and your part will end unfavorably.”

Placing her hands on her hips, she scowled at him. “You talk, but don’t teach me.”

Sir James stood and towered over her. He walked to the bowl of fruit and ate more grapes as he said, “I must go to the dungeons, but upon my return, we will talk further.”

Hannah watched him walk stiffly out the door, wanting to apologize, but not know how. When he came back, she would tell him. In the future, she would try to obey, and she would take up the studies he wanted. She was still staring at the door when a soft knock sounded.

She opened the door to find a pair of girls not much older than her, standing in the hallway. They wore dresses that were more evening gowns than day-dresses, each adorned with fancy stitching and made of colorful material. Their brown hair curled, their faces held traces of powder, and both wore the sweetest false smiles Hannah had encountered outside of the kitchens at her old job.

“Oh, you must be Hannah, the new girl we’ve heard so much about,” the taller of them said, whirling her way into the suite as if she owned it.

The other girl giggled and said as she also brushed past Hannah, “They said your dress is like those the servants wear, but they didn’t’ say it was a dirty one.”

“My name is Mena,” the first to enter declared, “and this is Trillian, your cousin, I believe if you are indeed related to us, which I doubt after getting a look at you.”

Trillian, the shorter one who claimed to be related said, “Everyone is talking about you.”

Hannah glanced at the nearest guard. His face remained as blank as the wall behind him. She said to the girls in a flat voice, “It’s very nice to meet you.”

“It’s very nice to meet you, too,” Mena echoed, copying Hannah’s accent perfectly before both girls fell into more fits of laughter.

Trillian whispered behind her hand, “Bumpkin.”

“Told you so,” Mena laughed, not caring that Hannah heard the exchange.

“Where’d you get that dress? From a chimney cleaner?” Trillian snickered while adjusting her perfectly fitted dress.

Hannah had yet to force a smile, but she hadn’t allowed her temper to flare, either. Compared to the kitchen cooks, these girls were benign, barely beginners at waspishness. Hannah stood a head shorter than either but understood the guards would prevent any physical attacks. They were still laughing, but it sounded forced and more taunting than humorous.

She allowed herself to smile as she took a step closer to them. “They attacked me in the market, and my dress got torn and dirty when I was knocked down, but maybe one of you can help me since I’m new here.” She held their eyes as if asking for personal help, and opening the door for more teasing.

Trillian said, using an earnest voice that drew more giggles from Mena, “We’d love to help you, Hannah.”

“Well,” Hannah sighed, “it’s about manners, you see. I think the King said that only a few people are ahead of me in line for the throne, so does that mean the two of you should kneel or bow in my presence? I don’t understand all the rules yet, but I am learning.”

Shocked expressions filled their faces, but Trillian recovered and snarled, “Ladies courtesy, we do not bow. You don’t know anything.”

“Then curtsey,” Hannah said the word softly, knowing full well what the word meant and the difference. She’d been required to curtsey when encountering Royalty her whole life, along with the other servants. Women of lower social class always curtsey to their superiors.

“What?” Mena asked.

Hannah took another step forward and stood only a single step away. “I ordered you to curtsey.”

“I will not . . .”

Without breaking eye contact with her, Hannah raised her voice slightly, “Guard, do I have the power to have these two arrested and disciplined for their disrespect?”

“Arrested?” Trillian shouted, her eyes flashing as she raised a hand as if to slap Hannah.

The guard, already moving closer to protect Hannah, said firmly, “Yes, you may have them arrested, Lady Hannah. I am your witness to their disrespect to the crown.”

“Wait,” Mena said to the guard, then made the smallest of curtsies.

Trillian’s hand lowered as if she’d never raised it, and she also curtsied, but her eyes were hateful, and she wore a snarl. Hannah nodded her thanks to them, “If you two will excuse me, I have to meet with important people today and must dress for them accordingly.. Thank you for stopping by to say hello and please try to remember your manners on your next visit.”

Instead of waiting for an answer, she did as she’d seen one of the Royals at the Earl’s Palace. She turned her back on them and waited to hear them retreat.

“They’re gone,” the guard she faced said, withholding his smile. “You certainly put them in their place.”

She sighed, “But they’ll always remember. I could use a friend.”

“Not either of those two,” the guard said, then added, “Not my place to say that, please excuse my impertinence.”

She waved him off and sat heavily in a chair covered with material so soft and slick she almost slid off. The pattern woven into it reminded her of ivy growing on a wall. William entered and said, “You are a mess. Maybe your guards can escort you down to the first floor where the seamstresses work. When you get there, ask for Molly. She’s my wife, and she can get you set up with a decent wardrobe for everyday wear.”

Hannah remembered the second dress, the simple one. She quickly went into the bed-chamber and noticed someone had removed the copper tub and buckets, but the dresses lay where she’d placed them on the bed. She slipped out of the torn dress and pulled another over her head. Her stomach rumbled. Aside from two bites of the meat pie before the knife attack, she still hadn’t eaten.

She remembered the bowl of fruit. She ran back into the sitting room and flashed a grin at the single guard. William was in the chart room, giving orders to workers setting up her bed and storing scrolls, maps, and papers.

At the fruit bowl, she reached for the grapes. They glowed a faint bluish color, rippling slightly on the surface. She’d seen a similar effect before. Where? Her mind seized for the time and place. Inside the hollow tree when the sorceress mixed the compounds together the last spell glowed in the same manner. It looked like a thin layer of green flame when Evelyn did it. The grapes looked coated in shimmering blue.

She drew her hand away and stepped back, drawing William’s attention. He said, “Something wrong?”

“The grapes. I think they’re enchanted.”

“How could you possibly know that?”

She quickly told him she’d seen it before. William shouted, “Sir James!” He turned to the guard, “You! To the dungeon and fetch Sir James.”

The guard lumbered off. Hannah demanded, “Who has been in this room since we left?”

“Nobody. I’ve been here the whole time. The seamstresses left with you, and I have not called the maids back.”

“This bowl of fruit was not here earlier.”

“It must have been. I spent most of my time in this room and only went into the chart room just before you came in. Maybe those two girls brought it as a welcoming gift.”

The girls had brought nothing but dire attitudes. Hannah turned slowly, looking at the room and how a bowl of fruit might suddenly appear. She paused, her eyes on the doorway leading outside, and said aloud, “The terrace.”

She leaped to the door and threw it open. Nobody stood outside on the terrace, but she made a full turn and pointed. A rope hung from the roof to the corner of the terrace. She stalked to the rope. Hannah looked up at the edge of the roof. A shadow moved, the barest glimpse of someone peeking over the side. A faint blue glow about the head told her when and where the intruder moved, and her eyes tracked him, or her, despite being obstructed by stone walls. The glow moved near the edge of the roof, well out of sight of the others, but the faint blue glow around the head identified where it went to Hannah until it disappeared as if it ran to the other side of the roof.

William pointed and said, “Scuff marks on the wall from shoes. Someone climbed down, left the bowl of fruit, and then climbed back up.”

Hannah returned to the bowl. Only the grapes held the peculiar blue glow, but she didn’t dare eat any for fear of unleashing an unknown spell.

William asked, “The spell you spoke of earlier. It was the no-see spell?”

“But it was green instead of blue.”

“You’re sure the grapes were enchanted?”

Hannah turned to William, hands on hips. She shook her head. “No, I am not sure. The only things I am sure about is that the grapes have a similar shimmer and glow as what the sorceress mixed, and that somebody felt it so important that they climbed down a wall from the roof to place them here.”

The door to the hallway burst open, and the guard they sent for Sir James, stumbled inside. His eyes were wild and his words hoarse, “Sir James is dead.”