Old Dark Things

-oOo-

  "Good ev'ning, lady Rosa."

  Rosa glanced over her shoulder. "Margit, how are you today?"

  The woman shuffled through the door, and her small, blinking eyes flickered about rapidly. "Well, this wet weather is no good for my knee. I will be sore as sore tomorrow. The joint is already turning puffy and red. But, I am just a-popping in to bring some edibles for you and do a bit of tidying up." Margit was old before her time. Her lank hair was quite lustreless, her face marked with pox scars, and her knee injured in a tumble down the stairs a few years back.

  "Of course." Rosa smiled. "I have been expecting you. You do always call about this hour to do your quiet work. Here, I have a kettle of tea on the hearth. I would so like to talk for a bit. I need to talk to someone. Please, take some weight off, enjoy a little mug of tea."

  "So kind of you, miss. So kind. That is what I always say. M'lady Rosa, she is the kind one. Always offering to have a chat over a sip of tea. So kind."

  Rosa lifted the copper kettle from where it hung, hissing and pipping, from a hook above the fire, and poured out two cups of hot tea. The steam that boiled up in a cloud smelled of rich and aromatic.

  "Here, let me take that shawl. No need for it in my cosy little room is there?"

  "Thank you m'lady."

  Rosa took the woollen shawl, and draped it carefully over a stool as Margit eased herself down into the one of the high-backed chairs in the room, then vigorously rubbed her swollen knee through a threadbare stocking. The chambermaid took the tea gratefully in thin, pale hands, and her face became a smiling pattern of fine lines; a map of deep wrinkles yet to come.

  "Ever so kind of you. Ever so kind of you."

  "Now, tell me Margit, what is the gossip? How is my father faring?"

  "Ah, not good m'lady. Not good." She took a sip from the tea and smacked her lips. "Ooh, too hot. Let it cool a little. But, as to the flapping tongues: we all heard about you and Lilia having a... er... falling out. And you accusing her of trafficking with unwholesome things in the woods. Some say you caught her adding a suspicious liquor to the Eorl's food. There are three guards down in the kennel's watching an old mutt like hawks right now, even as we chatter away up here in the tower. They have gone and given Lilia's potion to the dog, as I've heard it. Funniest sight you ever did see. Regal thane's in their livery standing guard over a mongrel. Tch, tch, tch."

  "And Lilia?"

  "In her room. Sobbing. Poor soul." She hurriedly added, "Not to say I am sorry for her, should it turn out... well you know... the darker truth of it. Always been something quare about your sister. Like she was never quite present. I mean no offence by that, mind."

  "None taken." Rosa toyed with the velvet folds of her dress and ran a long graceful finger around the rim of her mug. Threads of steam twinned in the air and vanished like so much smoke.

  "Oh dear," said Margit. "I am far too tired at the end of a day, you know. Ought to go and live out my days with my brothers on the family farmstead. I sit down for a moment and I begin to fall asleep."

  "Ermengarde works you too hard. She may be getting on a bit, but she can still run up and down the stairs like a deer." Rosa leaned forward and laid a gentle hand on the maid's arm. "She forgets the difficulties of others."

  "She does, she does, and here I can barely keep my eyes open."

  "Well then, here let me take that tea from you before you spill it over yourself. Maybe you should rest for a bit?" Rosa leaned forward and gingerly lifted the earthenware mug of tea from between Margit's slack and soap-abraded fingers.

  "Too kind," murmured Margit, "too kind, that is what I always tell 'em. That Rosa, she is the kind one..." and her eyes slowly closed.

  Rosa stood, laid the mug aside, and walked with delicate care to the mirror. She stared at the silvery reflection, an intensity grew in her eyes. "Now", she said to herself, "now is the hour that I must go in secret," and slowly, very slowly, she felt the fist twinge of enchantment running through her blood.