***
The opportunity came to Emelia more easily than she had been expecting. Her mind had been racing all morning, entertaining a dozen fabrications and schemes to try to get to the upper floors whilst the steel within her soul remained sharp. Mother Gresham had kept the girls so busy that none had time to brood, and in the bustle of allocating tasks she had received an order for refreshments to be taken to the upper Keep.
Emelia had stepped forward, rather too keenly, but Mother Gresham looked too weary to argue. A flicker of guilt came to Emelia as she ascended the stairs. It was possible that the rotund matron may well catch some of the brunt of the inevitable furor that she was about to unleash.
Her athletic legs took two steps at a time, hastening to the third floor in which the lord’s chambers began. The numerous halls, rooms and studies that the Ebon-Farrs occupied were spread over the third to fifth floors of the building. Emelia paused at the landing, catching her breath and steadying her heartbeat.
A figure further down the long corridor that ran perpendicular from the landing made her linger and then step back into the concealment offered by a tarnished suit of armour. Lord Ebon-Farr was thirty feet away and stood at a door with no apparent handle. He had extracted a golden key on a leather thong from his shirt, but rather than use it on this unusual door he simply spoke his name. The door swung open with a faint glow, like the glint of moonlight on a pool. The door closed and sealed silently behind him once he had passed through. With a start she recalled the conversation with the Arch-mage she had overheard: that must be the room situated below his day chamber.
Emelia continued on her journey, thinking little more of Lord Ebon-Farr, but rather of his son Uthor. A nag of doubt was in the back of her mind; how did she think this whole scenario would play out? What would make anyone actually care what she said? Servants were rarely permitted to say anything at all in the same rooms as the nobility.
It matters not, she thought. I do this for my friend and for the life that was stolen away from her.
Emelia was stood outside the door of the lord’s day chamber before she knew it, awaiting the arrival of the refreshments within the dumb waiter. Her heart was pounding now and she steadied herself on the firm wood of the sideboard. The platter arrived with a creak of rope and Emelia took a deep breath, then had a sudden strange sensation that someone was stood beside her, watching her. She looked around in confusion, praying to Torik that this time her mind would not let her down and make her flee. She had this task to do, to lay Sandila’s soul to rest. She rubbed the smooth hard edges of her shell pendant nervously. She wished, not for the first time, that she were back on that golden beach with her parents and her sister. Emelia removed the tray from the cavity and then knocked before entering.
The day chamber was much the same as it had been six weeks ago in Harvestide. The rich smell of wood smoke filled the chamber. Even with the fire on full blaze Emelia suppressed a shudder at the chill demeanour of the chamber. Its décor included bleak tapestries and rows of shields and swords mounted on its walls.
In the centre sat Uthor, sprawled idly and lost in thought as he stared at the flickering fire. He was attired in a black and silver padded long shirt, the garb of the Knights of the Air. He sipped a beaker of red wine, its tannins staining his mouth with a vampyric smile. The silver of his hair gave him a cold and harsh look despite his handsome features.
Uthor barely spared a glance as she entered the chamber. Emelia’s yarkel-wool pinafore felt stifling in the heat from the fire. Her scalp itched with the grease and ash.
He gestured nonchalantly at the table. “Put it there and be gone.”
Emelia walked to the set of tables by the high backed chairs and lowered the tray. The two bottles of red wine had made it a heavy load. Nine years of habitual deference glued her eyes to the floor and she began to shuffle back. Then she halted and stared at him, her eyes narrowed.
Uthor became aware of her presence after about half a minute; his lip was curled as he turned his head. His glare melted into one of curiosity as he recognised the unusual glitter of her eyes and saw her face contorted in disdain.
“What in Torik’s chill peaks is the meaning of this, girl?”
“What did you do?” Emelia asked.
“What? How dare you address me thus! Etiquette demands you say only ‘m’lord,’” Uthor said with a splutter, wine and spit flecking his chin.
“You said to yourself when you came down the corridor, ‘What have I done?’ The day she died. The day my friend died. Well, m’lord, what did you do?”
Uthor looked astonished, partly at the impudence of a housemaid addressing him thus and partly at the inference of her question. He surged from his seat, his goblet falling to the wooden floor. Emelia stepped back to maintain some distance between them. The wine spread in a pool on the floor and an image of Sandila crumpled and broken on the cobbles sprang unbidden into her mind.
“How dare you talk to me. I have no idea what you think you heard but I should think very, very carefully about the things you say.”
He began to move towards Emelia, his normally blotchy face red and livid.
Emelia smoothly stepped back, not through fear but from a desire to speak her mind.
“Oh, I’ve thought carefully, m’lord. Every night I think as I lay in bed. I think of my friend, with a child in her belly, laying on the uncaring cobbles. I think of what it must have been like as she fell towards her death. I wonder what she felt as her body smashed on the stones like an unbalanced pot. I think how in Torik’s name she could accidentally fall over the battlements when she had the best balance of any of us girls. Then, master Uthor, I think how unjust it was that you had only yourself to confess to.”
Uthor’s face darkened. “I know you. Yes, I know you. You were that little whore’s friend. You’re the one I saw in Cheapside, all over that drunken sot. Is that how you servants earn an extra crust? Is it? On your back, in some alley, down in the slums?”
Emelia stepped forward and slapped Uthor with all her strength, the sharp crack echoing. He staggered, clutching his face, a look of horror written across it. Then he lunged, grabbing her wrists and shoving her back into the table that abutted the inner long wall. Emelia gasped in pain as the table edge struck her hip and she was pressed off-balance with Uthor’s weight.
His leering face dominated her vision, his dilated pupils glaring into her own eyes. The wine on his breath smelt sickly sweet as he panted, excited by the struggle with Emelia, who was two stone lighter though nearly as tall. Emelia felt a sudden surge of fear at what this evil man may do to her in this lonely room and her feet desperately tried to gain traction on the floorboards. His hand jumped to her throat and as she struggled she felt her pendant snap and clatter back onto the table.
Uthor pushed towards her face, mouth opening to kiss her. “I recall when she wriggled under me like this. Give up and shut up. If you breathe a word I’ll kill you.”
“Like you did Sandila? I don’t fear you and I don’t fear death. I’ll be gone from here soon enough and we’ll see what the mages have to say when I tell them.”
“And what would they care,” he said, spittle flecking Emelia’s face. “They’d not believe a little harlot like you. And don’t think you’re safe there—I know enough people in the Enclave to arrange a little fall of your own.”
A roar exploded through Emelia, surging from deep inside like a tsunami. Nine years of frustration and anger; nine years of fearing to tread the wrong way; of not knowing whether she was valued more or less than the hounds that bayed in the garrison in the evening, burst the dam of her control. She shoved forward with all her might, yet this in itself may not have been enough save for the pent up rage flowing from her hands.
The air rippled, as if a heat haze had leapt from the fire and interjected between Emelia and Uthor. He was lifted from his feet and flew across the chamber, like a leaf in the autumn winds. His black and silver clad body crashed into
the table, sending the two wine bottles smashing around him and drenching him in red liquid. For an instant Emelia thought she had killed him, but then he moaned and began to try sit up.
Panic came upon her as she moved sideways towards the door. What in Torik’s name had happened then? How had she managed to send him sprawling fifteen feet across the floor? A mixture of elation and fear pulsed in her arteries and she realised with a jolt that she could have slain this man. Indeed she still could whilst he lay on the floor.
He’d deserve it too, Emelia, Emebaka snarled.
The door burst open and three figures entered the chamber: Lord Talis, Lady Heler and Sarik. They looked in astonishment at Uthor trying to regain his feet and Heler strode forward to help him.
“What in Coonor’s mighty spires has happened to you, my darling?” Heler asked.
“My lady, I can explain,” Emelia said.
Lady Heler flushed and whirled, glaring at Emelia.
“Silence! I care not to have our noble ears muddied by your common utterances. I spoke to my son and your lord. You will wait there until I ask you.”
Emelia blushed and began to curtsey, then stopped herself.
“I’d suggest that it’s your filthy son that muddies this room, my lady.”
Talis, Heler and Sarik all gasped simultaneously as Uthor began to regain his feet.
Lord Talis, his features stern, stepped forward.
“That is enough, young lady, you will remember your place. Sarik escort her to the kitchens at once and be thankful it is not straight to the yard for the sting of the birch.”
Sarik took Emelia’s arm firmly and pulled her from the room.
“Thank Torik you’re on your way tomorrow,” he said in a whisper. “Few cross the Jackal and live a happy life thereafter.”
Emelia was shaking with the adrenaline as they left the room and her eyes were moist with tears. There was no choice now: she would have to leave tonight.