The Grass King’s Concubine (7 page)

It wasn’t fair. Heels clattering on the wooden floors, Aude ran down the stairs at full tilt and headed for what must be the doors to the weaving shed. Surprised male faces looked out at her from office doors as she passed. She ignored them, focused on what she had seen. The final door banged behind her as she whisked through. The foreman had his back to her. Before he could try to turn or react, she grabbed hold of his arm and started tugging. “What do you think you’re doing? You’re hurting her. Let her go.”

“None of your…” The man twisted to face her, dragging his captive with him. Taking in Aude’s curled hair and fine wool pelisse, his words stumbled into silence, as his jaw hung open.

Aude repeated, “Let her go.” A murmur ran through the line of women.

“Now, Mademoiselle, I know you mean well, but…”

“This is
my
mill. I won’t have you mistreat her.”

The foreman looked up over her head, hunting, no doubt, for the manager. The young woman still in his grasp stared at Aude. Tears hung in the corners of her eyes. Her face was too thin and pinched about the mouth, and her coarse dress hung loose from her shoulders. It was hard to believe she had the energy to work one of the vast looms, let alone plot and carry out whatever crime it was the foreman
suspected. One of his hands was twisted into the back of her collar, causing her to told her head at a painful angle. The other grasped both her skinny wrists. Holding Aude’s gaze, she mouthed something.

It looked like a plea. Aude dug her fingers into the foreman’s arm. She said, “I’m ordering you to release her. Now. Or you’ll be the one whose job is in question.”

The foreman shot one last look at the gallery, and then, receiving no assistance, he shook his head and let go. The young woman stumbled forward, rubbing at her neck. The man said, “She’s not what you think, Mademoiselle.”

Aude ignored him. Fishing in her pocket, she found her handkerchief and handed it to the girl. “Here, take this.” She turned to the knot of women. “Is there somewhere she can sit down and rest? A parlor?”

Someone tittered. There was a moment’s silence, then one of the older women said, “There’s nothing like that here. We’re not a girls’ school.”

“One of the offices, then. She needs a rest and something to drink, some tea or a posset.”

This time the titter was louder. The foreman, recovering a little of his bullishness, said, “Now, Mademoiselle, I let her go. Best you go back to your friends now.”

“Not until I’m sure she’s all right.”

“Oh, she’s all right. Her kind always are.” The resentment was clear in the man’s voice. “Don’t let her fool you—look at this.” He waved something at Aude, a scarf or kerchief in a dirty gray, printed with a pattern of black birds.

It looked nothing like the cloth on the looms. Aude said, “I don’t see…”

The young woman grabbed hold of her. Though there were still red marks on the woman’s wrists where the foreman had held her, her grasp was strong and tight. Into Aude’s ear, she whispered, “Now, be a good young lady and do what I say.” Something cold pressed into the side of Aude’s neck.

A knife.

A gaggle of clerks crowded the hall in front of the weaving shed, attracted by the noise. Jehan grabbed the nearest and sent him out to the yard to fetch the rest of his soldiers. Then he elbowed his way through the pack to the doors. Curse the girl! Did no one ever teach aristos any common sense? No woman bred here in the Brass City would charge in like that. Mill workers were notorious for their volatility. Two months ago, a group of them had mutinied and murdered an overseer in one of the noisome alleys behind the Old Palace. It had gone worryingly quiet behind the door. That was never a good sign.

If the stupid girl got herself hurt, it would be his career on the line. A handful of armed men should, in theory, find it easy to master a group of angry women. Except, of course, that firing a gun in a weaving shed was a shortcut to death or serious injury, with all the lint that filled the air. And a sword could only do so much against a mob.

Not that he had much choice. Straightening his shoulders, he pushed through the door. The foreman turned to gawp at him, a dirty scarf hanging from his hand. Jehan recognized its pattern right away, the gray and black of the Eschappés, the troublemakers who stirred up workers with talk of higher wages and shorter hours and worse. No mill owner wanted anyone who sympathized with that movement working on their premises. Not, doubtless, that Mademoiselle Pèlerin des Puiz had the least idea about that. They never did, the nobles in their fine houses. They knew nothing at all about the world that sustained them. This example of the species, with her smooth skin and fancy clothes, stood as if turned to stone with a short knife pressed into her windpipe. The young woman who held her was smiling, exposing broken front teeth. She was probably younger than her captive, but work and poverty added years to her age. She met his eyes and said, “Going to blow us all up, soldier?”

“I’d rather not.” Jehan kept his hands away from his weapons. “Let the young lady go before you get into more trouble.”

“What, and let you arrest me? I’m not stupid.”

“I have half a platoon with me.” That was an exaggeration, but it might help.

“Then this one will get me past them, won’t she?” The girl began to move toward the door, pushing Aude before her. Her colleagues from the weaving shed stood and watched. Nothing about the situation was good. Jehan wondered if Aude had the least idea what her actions had done. However this came out, authority in this mill was compromised for the foreseeable future. The foreman was probably out of a job. And that meant…

The foreman lunged at the two women, his face distorted into a snarl. Aude let out a squeak as the mill girl tightened her grip. A thin thread of blood trickled down her throat. The foreman had his hands on the mill girl’s waist, tugging at her. She spat at him and let go of Aude’s shoulder. Her foot tangled with the hem of Aude’s pelisse, and she staggered. Both women went down in a knot of fabric and panic and limbs. The foreman yelled something incoherent, fists clenched ready to strike.

Jehan kicked his legs out from under him. The foreman crashed to the floor a few feet away and lay there, gasping. The mill girl, more used, perhaps, to fighting, had already got her feet back under her and crouched over Aude, the knife still in her hand. Her eyes, meeting Jehan’s, were feral. He hesitated, and she lunged for him. Sidestepping, he grabbed for her wrist as she struck. She pulled away, dragging him off balance. He staggered, holding on. With her free hand, she tried to pull his fingers loose.

Behind him, the door banged open. Boots thudded on the floor. Two soldiers laid hands on the mill girl and dragged her upright. Jehan shook himself and went to check on Aude. She lay curled on her side, one hand pressed to her throat. Tears streaked down her cheeks. She turned to look at him, and she bit her lip.

He held out a hand. She took it and climbed slowly to her feet. Very quietly, she said, “I’m sorry, Lieutenant.”

He escorted her to the door in silence and handed her over to her uncle.

Her uncle was furious. Noise filtered into the carriage from outside as they rattled their way back to the townhouse, but inside silence held sway. Aude kept her handkerchief pressed to her throat, avoiding the eyes of her maid. Her uncle sat with his back poker straight, eyes fixed on the window. When they reached the house, he marched inside, throwing his coat to the footman, and slammed the door of his study behind him.

The footman stared. He was one of the new servants, hired to add glory to the new town life. Ketty helped Aude off with her pelisse and glared at the man until he blushed. She said, “I’ll be wanting a bowl of warm water and clean linen in Mademoiselle’s room.” She looked at Aude, then added, “And the brandy decanter.” For an instant, it seemed as if the footman might object, then he nodded and took himself off.

“Well,” said the maid. And then, “Come upstairs with me, Mademoiselle, and let me look at that cut.”

Aude wanted to run away, to curl up in her old safe bed at home or in her secret shrubbery hideaway. She wanted to bury her face in Nurse’s broad familiar lap and cry. She could do none of that. She had no one left who knew her, who helped or sustained her. She bit her lip and kept her face averted. Once in her room, the maid led her to the low stool that stood in front of her dressing table, tilting the mirror so that she could not see herself. A low knock heralded the arrival of a chambermaid with the requested items. Ketty took them and waved the girl away.

She set the bowl on the table. “There. Now, Mademoiselle, let me see.”

Aude swallowed. The handkerchief was sticky with her blood when she pulled it away. Taking it from her, Ketty dropped it onto a small card tray, then began to bathe the cut with a damp fresh cloth. Her hands—so harsh on Aude’s hair every morning and night—were light and kind. She said, as if they had talked all the way back from the mill,
“It’s a hard place to work, a mill. Those that work there…They get worse than this, often as not.” Her voice was kind. Surprised, Aude turned to look up at her, and the cloth smeared across her cheek. Ketty shook her head. “You need to keep still, Mademoiselle.”

She could not know what had happened. Aude’s uncle had whisked her into the carriage with barely a word to the lieutenant, and he ordered the coachman to depart straight away, before Aude had a chance to protest or question. The maid was a stranger, or as good as, paid to ensure Aude looked as was appropriate to her rank and wealth. She finished washing the cut, said, “That doesn’t look so bad. We’ll tie a fresh kerchief over it for now and keep it clean for the next few days, and it should heal clean.”

Aude’s voice felt strange to her. “Don’t you…Don’t you want to know what happened?”

Ketty poured a measure from the brandy decanter into a small glass and handed it to her. “Drink this.” And then, as Aude sipped, “The Brass City isn’t an easy place, Mademoiselle. Most young ladies…Well, they don’t go there.”

The brandy was sour in her mouth, but in her stomach it was warm and comforting. Aude put up her chin, “Why not?”

Not proper
, her uncle had said, when she had expressed a desire to see the old temples of the Brass City as a birthday outing. But she had stood her ground. They were truly old, older than anywhere she had ever been, and she had hoped that somewhere within their precincts she might catch at least a hint of the shining place. Instead, she had found dank stone and unswept rooms and priests whose attention was compelled more by the hope of patronage than any apparent love of the gods and their mysteries. The mill had been added almost as an afterthought, to convince her uncle of her interest in the workings of her fortune. She did not know what she had expected from that. She had had no knowledge at all of cloth making, other than hazy memories of village women spinning with a drop spindle. But the noisy, dirty weaving shed with its rows of stooped
workers had been something beyond anything she had imagined. It was proper, it seemed, for those girls to work there. But not for Aude to see it.

Ketty said, “Down there…It isn’t nice to see, sometimes. Your…Noble ladies shouldn’t see such things.” She spoke to the water bowl.

Young ladies owned mills. Aude said, “There was a girl there. The soldiers took her. What will happen to her?”

Ketty gathered up the used cloths and the bowl. “I can’t say, Mademoiselle.” Her voice was suddenly curt, as if she wished to end the conversation

“Will they hurt her?” Aude’s hand went to the neat bandage at her throat. If she had not been there, or if she had not intervened, there would have been no soldiers. She said, “I don’t want them to hurt her.”

“They have to do their duty, Mademoiselle.”

“I’ll ask my uncle.” But her uncle was angry. The officer had been angry, too, and the foreman. Aude said, “It was my fault.”

Ketty looked up. “Faults are easier to overlook in some people than in others, Mademoiselle.”