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It’s not Adela’s first employment as a maid, but it is her first time working alongside convict-laborers. At first it was a shock to learn that the Chamberlain regularly used the labor of criminals who worked off their sentences in the castle rather than languishing in jail, and in her first months she was skittish and wary of anyone who looked like a potential convict, her mind conjuring images of murderers and rapists lurking around every corner of the fortress, barely kept in check by guards and knights. One of the cooks mercifully set her straight after a while – it was only petty criminals that the Chamberlain let into the castle, cabbage thieves, tavern brawlers, curfew evaders and such, local lads who ticked off the bailiff one time too many and got put to work as punishment. It calmed Adela some, to know that they’re not likely to go on a rampage that she would have to clean up.
The latest group was delivered to Trosky straight from the big wedding at Semine, nursing fresh hangovers and wincing at newly formed bruises from a massive brawl that erupted at the tail end of the feast, as Adela learned from cook Fanka, when one of the guests attempted to seduce the bride at her own wedding, and another jumped in to protect her honor.
Men. It was incidents like this that made Adela realize she had no use for them whatsoever.
Adela passes three new laborers assigned to carrying charcoal sacks on her way to the kitchen, and only one of them attempts to chat her up, so this bunch is at least more civilized than the previous ones – last week, one of the laborers managed to get his sentence upgraded for harassing one of the younger cooks instead of digging latrines, so everyone was wary of what could happen with the next group.
She is able to do her chores in relative peace well into mid-morning, until chamberlain Ulrich comes to the kitchen to ostensibly oversee the work, but in reality to bother everyone because his stomach is hurting him again. Adela sighs discreetly, and moves to a corner in hope of avoiding his gaze, the last thing she wants is to listen to a man who has never cleaned a table in his life tell her how to do it. She feels for him whenever his illness acts up, she really does, but it would be so much easier for everyone if he chose to suffer in his bed like a proper noble.
The chamberlain is mid-rant when one of the laborers comes in, and it’s one who did not pay her any undue attention in the morning, so Adela hopes she will not have to endure any now.
Thankfully, he seems to be more interested in the chamberlain. Oof, poor boy, she thinks, clearly he doesn’t know that appealing to Ulrich will not do anything for his sentence, and with the chamberlain in a poor mood, it might just worsen it instead. If she were a betting woman, she would have put her money on the laborer being assigned shit-shoveling duty for his audacity.
She is left astonished when, in the course of one conversation, the boy manages to not only convince the chamberlain that he is a medical student from Prague, but also talk him into letting him diagnose the illness and then go brew medicine for Ulrich’s stomach issues. Well, good for him, and for everyone else in the castle if he actually succeeds.
Adela’s musings are interrupted when Fanka thrusts a tray of gruel and stale bread at her, with an order to deliver it to the prisoner awaiting execution in the castle jail. She’s not sure what’s the point, since he will hang by the end of the day anyway, but she supposes they do live in a civilized society after all, and even dead men deserve a final meal, meager as it is.
Upon descending the stairs into the jail, she is surprised to see the young laborer there again – didn’t he just go upstairs to prepare a stomach remedy for the chamberlain? Not to mention, the guard she passed on the way down didn’t seem to be alarmed at all, despite a definitely unauthorized visitor being down in the cells.
She stills to avoid being detected – the boy seems to be relatively harmless, or at least not inclined towards violence, but she knows better than to lower her guard, since even the nicest people can react unpredictably when startled in a dangerous situation – and leans around the corner to hear what he is saying better.
“Don’t worry, Hans,” he says earnestly, presumably to the poacher who is set to hang by the end of the day, “I know how to get you out, I just need some time. I’m sure it will work though, I know exactly what I need to do.”
His hand is on the door separating him from the cell, and he’s leaning in as close as possible. Adela can’t help but think the moment looks tender, despite the circumstances – the other man must be a good friend of his. She can’t hear what the prisoner says in reply, but the laborer chuckles and pushes back from the door. “Not exactly. I shouldn’t be here, and if they catch me, the game’s up,” he replies, scratching the back of his neck, “Had to come and see you though, and let you know I have a plan.”
The prisoner’s answer seems to be agitated, and the laborer nods along. Adela thinks that even though it was nice of him to come reassure his friend, no matter how futile – how can he stop the execution, when others are already almost done building the scaffold, and the chamberlain is not in forgiving mood? – but if he gets caught, he might get thrown in jail and onto the scaffold along with him.
In a moment of fancy, Adela imagines the laborer staring a grand breakout, defeating the guard despite being unarmed, and stealing a horse to ride out into the fields while dodging arrows and pursuers. That would be something!
“Can you try to distract him?” the laborer asks, bringing Adela back to the present, and she presumes he means the guard, “I’ll hide in the meanwhile.”
What follows is a bout of the absolute worst singing Adela has heard in her entire life, including whenever her father got drunk on home-brewed ale and attempted to serenade the neighbor’s wife... both his singing, and then the yelps when her mother was chasing him with a broom. If it were up to her, and if it was not pointless as the man is getting executed soon anyway, she would sentence him to at least some jail time for crimes against her ears.
The guard rushes past her to silence the wretch, and with the corner of her eye she can see the laborer sneaking by upstairs, presumably to implement his plan. He is good – if she didn’t know he was there, she’s not sure she would have noticed him.
Adela delivers the meal to the now thankfully silent prisoner and leaves in a hurry, in case he decides to sing again.
---
The next time Adela sees the young laborer and the maybe-noble poacher is when they are being led away from the execution scaffold into the castle, and she is ordered to bring them a change of clothes (one noble, one common but ‘not rags’, as instructed by the chamberlain) and a small meal to tide them over before they can dine with lord Von Bergow. Quite an upgrade for both of them, from the forced labor and the rope to the lord’s table.
That is certainly an outcome she was not expecting when she left the kitchen to watch the execution – the prisoner has been yelling something about being a noble and deserving proper treatment all day, but everyone thought it was simply a desperate attempt at staying the executioner’s hand. It could still well be, but if the lord of the castle was convinced, that’s enough for her, really.
After gathering food from the kitchen and clothes from the storage, Adela walks up to the guest rooms in the Crone, the medium-nice ones reserved for guests Lord Von Bergow is unsure about. They’re better than the please-go-away rooms designated for unwanted visitors, but nowhere near as lavish as the suite given to important nobles and allies. Which is better than she would have predicted, considering the implausibility of the story presented by the young possibly-noble-definitely-poacher. Well, not her place to argue.
When she arrives at her destination, the doors are slightly ajar, so she peeks in before entering, just in case – as she has learned to do after a few years at Trosky. In this castle, one never knew what one could walk into. From young Von Bergow with another poor girl, Sir Bartoschek entertaining another knights, or the cursed sight of the chamberlain in bed with one of the bathhouse girls and…. no. Even though it’s been months, even thinking of that still makes her mildly nauseous. In Trosky, it was definitely better not to walk into any rooms unannounced without checking the situation first.
Leaning around the doorjamb, she sees the two men are already inside. The probably-noble is sitting on the bed, with his head in this hands, the other man down on one knee before him, seemingly offering comfort and grounding through a gentle grip to the other’s shoulder. She cannot hear what is being said, as they are speaking softly, but it’s not hard to guess that the young man is shaken by his near-death experience and the other is only slightly less bothered by it.
“If you hadn’t been there, I-” she hears the blonde say as she leans a bit closer, his voice breaking in distress as if he was still growing into it, slightly muffled by his hand partly covering his mouth, “They were really about to hang me! Me!”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t get you down before they put the rope on you,” the laborer answers, “Even with my best fever tonic, the captain was not in any state to testify, and…”
The noble lets out a derisive snort at that. “Don’t think it would have helped anyway, that fucker was clearly drunk on his power, playing the lord in Von Bergow’s absence…!” He ends his complaint with a sigh, angry but too tired to continue.
“Just wait, we will get back at them from this indignity you suffered, Hans, I swear to you.”
Adela would not want to intrude, but she knows she would be in trouble if she does not fulfill her orders, so in a maneuver known and perfected by the most experienced of servants, she takes two nearly-inaudible steps into the room, deposits both of her deliveries on the table and leaves just as quickly, before either of its occupants can even notice she was there.
As she leaves to go back to the kitchen, she looks back into the room and sees that the laborer has risen to his feet and is now bending down to help his companion to his feet as well, and her presence there was missed completely, just as she wanted.
---
Over the next few days, Henry, as Adela learns is the name of the young laborer, makes himself busy around the castle, and can be seen both running errands for his lord and helping out whoever happens to ask him for something. He even agrees to perform the silly demon warding ritual – as if water could chase them off! Even village idiots know that it takes herbs soaked in consecrated wine, what would any proper demon have to fear about water, even if it was prayed over by a priest? – so he can be seen running around both towers, and takes that opportunity to acquaint himself with every servant, knight and noble willing to spare a few minutes to talk to him. Adela finds him very endearing, especially since he seems to be doing all that with no ulterior motive of dragging any of the maids off for a tumble.
The remedy he prepared for chamberlain Ulrich back on his first day of labor must have worked well, because when the castle surgeon has to leave again, this time to deal with an outbreak of fever in one of the more remote villages in the region, Henry can be found in his study once more, brewing digestive tonics and handing them to the maids to deliver to the chamberlain’s bedchamber. Usually this task falls to Adela, so she becomes very familiar with its herbal scent, tinted with a bit of smokiness. It’s a bit of a pain, walking from the tower to the nobles’ quarters every day, but it is definitely worth the effort, as the chamberlain becomes almost pleasant during Henry’s stay at Trosky, which she ascribes to his stomach no longer giving him trouble. Why, he becomes almost cheerful, and most importantly, does not bother kitchen staff in his free time. For that, Henry gets a snack whenever he passes through the kitchen on one of his endless list of errands.
A few days after his arrival at the castle, Henry delivers the potion to the kitchen himself in the early morning, shortly before Adela would have made the trek to the surgeon’s chambers to pick it up from him.
“I am leaving for Nebakov with my lord soon,” he explains, handing over the potion vials carefully, “and I didn’t want to leave this up in the tower, just to make sure it would not be confused with anything else in there. It’s a special brew just for the chamberlain, wouldn’t want anyone else to drink it by accident!”
Adela takes it gladly, happy to be spared the winding stairways and the stress of having to identify the potion among others. The castle surgeon has never been a fan of order or clear labeling, and has forbidden the maids from moving anything or even cleaning up his workspace, so his chambers are a perpetual mess. “What’s so special about it?” she asks, out of curiosity – she has heard on that first day that Henry is a medical student, but to create custom medicine would require some real skill and knowledge.
“Just stronger than usual, that’s all. If someone doesn’t have the same issue as him, it could give them some, ah, unpleasant side effects.”
She nods, and makes a note not to bring the potions back to the surgeon’s general supply even if the chamberlain does not drink them all – the last thing they need is if someone got poisoned and Henry was blamed for it. Still, it would be good if Henry returned before the potions run out, so that he can keep the supply going. “Will you be gone for long?”
Henry shakes his head, “Nah, it’s not that far from what the chamberlain told us, and I hope sir Hans will be able to finish the negotiations promptly. No danger to be found there, unless we meet some roving bandits on the way.”
“I pray God will save you from that, then! We could get used to having you around here, Henry, if you ever want to look for new employment,” she jokes, and can see it in his face that he would never, “Though it will be nice to have your lord out of the castle for a day, at least.”
Henry gives her a confused look for that, and sweet Lord, she is glad her interest don’t run towards strapping young men, because this boy has no idea how much power he could have, “Has he been giving you any trouble?” he asks, with a little frown, “He’s a big flirt, but he would never seriously harass any young ladies, I hope.”
“No, nothing like that! He’s been perfectly polite, but whenever he broods on the battlements or walks around the gardens, some of the younger maids tend to get… distracted, you see.” And at least one of the knights, too, she thinks, but does not say that part out loud.
Henry huffs out a little laugh at that. “He does tend to have that effect on women, and the opposite on their husbands!”
She can imagine that all too well, angry nobles, peasants, and burghers wanting revenge on a young dandy who turned their wives’ and daughters’ heads without even having to try. It’s a good thing he was not paying much attention at all to the Trosky maids, or there would be no work being done whatsoever, whenever he was around.
When Henry leaves, packs him a skin of nicer wine than is usually given to guests, and hopes they will indeed return without trouble on the same day, so that the chamberlain doesn’t have to go without his mood-saving tonic for too long.
She misses their return, and servants are not given news about the movements of lords unless they happen to overhear them while pouring wine at an important meeting, so Adela has little idea why half of the castle is suddenly preparing to ride out to battle a few days later. The kitchen staff exchange bits and pieces of information as they happen to come by them, and a picture forms of Nebakov being overtaken by a violent band of hardened criminals, who cut down its rightful inhabitants and turned the place into their lair of depravity and lawlessness. The war party forming at Trosky will liberate the fortress, restore order, and punish the bandits for daring to go against lord Von Bergow, it seems. Good for them, she thinks, but for the cooks, maids and other servants it means extra work to prepare the banquet on the eve of the battle, the equipment, and sleeping arrangements for all the vassals who came to Trosky to join the war party.
For the entire day, she has been running up and down the stairs from the cellar to the banquet hall, hauling cutlery, cups, ale barrels and spare chairs, so when she sees Henry approach with his usual set of potion vials, it takes all of her strength to stop the groan she wants to let out. While she know it will be worth it, to have the chamberlain pain-free and jolly for the feast, she is so behind on her tasks that the head cook might actually fire her when this is over.
Henry, seeing the hopelessness on her face, lets out a chuckle and shakes his head. “No worries, I’m delivering it myself! I just thought the chamberlain might be here, have you seen him?”
“In the kitchen with Fanka, last time I saw him,” Adela answers, shifting the wine jug propped against her hip, “Could you-”
Henry immediately steps up to her and helps with the weight of the jug, like the absolute treasure he is, and together they carry it upstairs, where she deposits it on the kitchen table.
The chamberlain is indeed still there, and Henry walks up to him with his own delivery of stomach tonics. “This one first, and then I made these milder this time,” she hears him explain while pointing out to the vials, “so you can sip them throughout the feast whenever the pain flares up. The taste will be a bit different, but that’s just something extra to help with alcohol, so that you will be ready for tomorrow even if you indulge in drink.”
Ulrich takes the vials with a grateful but distracted nod, busy with the preparations, but that does not seem to offend Henry – the young man smiles, gives a shallow bow, and leaves the kitchen, presumably in search of his lord.
Adela sighs, picks up the next delivery, and starts another slow trek up the stairs.
The next time Adela has a moment to herself, it is a few hours into the banquet, when all the nobles are either drunk and sleepily trying to avoid falling face-first into the plates, drunk and getting handsy with the help, or drunk and challenging each other to duels over politics or other nonsense. This is when her and other servants get to fill their bellies with leftovers after carrying them out of the dining room, and even sneak a drink or two, if there happens to be any left.
It does not seem like that would be the case this time, however, judging by the state of the gathered guests.
There are only a few men left in the dining hall, and even fewer of them look anything other than completely sloshed. Some of the men have gone to bed already, to prepare for the departure on the next morning, but she can see Sir Otto and Father Nicodemus discussing something in one corner, a group of young knights exchanging tales with drunken exuberance – the amount of wine spilling on the floor from their intense gestures will be hell, the room will stink for days! – and there goes chamberlain Ulrich, being apparently escorted to bed by a guard, who happens to be the only thing keeping him upright.
For the sake of the battle on the morrow, Adela hopes that the surgeon – or Henry – had the forethought to brew up a supply of hangover remedy, otherwise the entire party will be fighting both the bandits and their headaches.
That’s a problem for another day though, first she needs food and then a good rest.
---
In the morning, Adela is woken entirely too early by Manyeta, and told to help with breakfast preparations for the departing knights. The kitchen is already bustling with activity, half of the staff busy with cooking, half with packing supplies for the road, and the situation is not helped by the pages and squires of various noble sirs getting in everyone’s way because each of them has an order from their lord to grab wine or food, as if the kitchen wouldn’t provide that for everyone anyway.
When the order comes for someone to go wake up chamberlain Ulrich, the maids exchange looks among each other, wary as always. It’s not that the chamberlain was particularly unpleasant in the morning, or anything, just… you never know what you may see in his room, is all. Mornings are safer than evenings, sure, but still, this is a task no one usually volunteers for. But this morning Adela is fed up with the chaos of the kitchen, and she could use a favor or two from the others as well, so she grabs a tray and loads it up with some of the nicer pastries, then walks up to the chamberlain’s quarters.
He does not reply to a knock or a call, which does not give her any pause – it would not be surprising if he was still deeply asleep after the party last night. The bedroom is dark and musty when she walks in, window closed and a heavy curtain drawn, so after depositing the tray on the table, Adela walks up to the window to let in some fresh air and sun. Despite the noise and the bright light shining directly on the bed, the human-shaped lump on it does not stir.
Adela sighs – hopefully he is alone and presentable under the mountain of pillows and quilts, because she really, really, really does not want another incident like when poor old Lucia had to wake him up and saw– ugh, no, better not think of that in the morning.
“Sir, I was sent to wake you up, everyone will be riding out soon,” she says in the direction of the sleeping man, but gets no reaction, not even a stir. With a grimace, she walks closer and puts a hand on his quilt-covered shoulder to gently shake him.
Still nothing.
She shakes a bit harder, and in doing so, her hand slips enough to brush Ulrich’s bare skin above the collar of his night shirt, and, well. Adela has never touched a dead body before, but no living person could be this cold and stiff.
There is absolutely no chance of stopping the scream that tears out of her chest.
A moment later, a few guards, Sir Otto, Sir Bartoschek and the Trosky surgeon, apparently just returned from the neighboring village, are gathered around Ulrich’s bed, and Adela is ordered to stay in the room as well in case they have questions. With no one to lead the party, the departure of the Nebakov force seems to be on hold, as no one knows who should take over, and the hour becoming too late to set out safely.
From her position in the back, with the windows now all fully uncovered to provide the best light, she can see a puddle of blood mixed with vomit on the floor beneath the bed, previously invisible in the dim room. There is also a massive bloodstain on the bed and the chamberlain’s night clothes, which lead the surgeon to the conclusion that he must have bled from the stomach so much that not enough blood was left inside to sustain him, similarly to a wound. “I have seen similar cases”, he says after examining the body, “when the stomach humors get so out of balance that blood will come up along with vomit, because the excess of bile encourages it to leave the body as well. Multiple times I warned,” he continues in a defeated tone, “that unless he fixes the balance, he may get worse… And as you may know, strong alcohol affects the balance of the body as well as of the humors.”
The surgeon and Sir Otto both shake their heads, disappointed – they have both seen chamberlain Ulrich indulging in his fair share of drink during their previous evening. Why, he had to be helped up to his chambers by a guard, unable to walk straight on his own, clearly unbalanced.
Following the examination, the guards are ordered to take the body down to the infirmary, where Ulrich will await burial, and Adela is left with the task of cleaning up, along with two others called up to help with the mess.
When she is collecting the leftover digestive potion vials, she notes that they smell a bit different – the usual smoky herbal scent is undercut with a hint of berry sweetness, and something earthy reminiscent of mushrooms, and remembers Henry mentioning that he added something to help with alcohol.
Poor boy, she thinks, he will be so sorry to hear that his efforts were in vain. Even though the chamberlain has been sipping the potions all evening, as instructed.