Arlen’s retort died on a sniffle. He bit his lip, determined not to cry. Margrit noticed, and immediately softened her tone. “These are healing well,” she said of his wounds. She took a cake of soap and began to gently wash them. Arlen gritted his teeth. “When you’re done in the bath, I’ll prepare a poultice and fresh bandages for you.”
Arlen nodded. “Are you Elissa’s mother?” he asked.
The woman laughed. “Creator, boy, whatever gave you that idea?”
“She called you ‘Mother,’” Arlen said.
“Because I am,” Margrit said proudly. “Two sons and three daughters, one of them soon to be a Mother herself.” She shook her head sadly. “Poor Elissa, all her wealth, and still a Daughter, and her on the dark side of thirty! It breaks the heart.”
“Is being a mam so important?” Arlen asked.
The woman regarded him as if he had asked if air were important. “What could be more important than motherhood?” she asked. “It’s every woman’s duty to produce children to keep the city strong. That’s why Mothers get the best rations and first pick of the morning market. It’s why all the duke’s councilors are Mothers. Men are good for breaking and building, but politics and papers are best left to women who’ve been to the Mothers’ School. Why, it’s Mothers that vote to choose a new duke when the old one passes!”
“Then why ent Elissa one?” Arlen asked.
“It’s not for lack of trying,” Margrit admitted. “I’ll wager she’s at it right now. Six weeks on the road will make any man a bull, and I brewed fertility tea and left it on her nightstand. Maybe it will help, though any fool knows the best time to make a baby is just before dawn.”
“Then why haven’t they made one?” Arlen asked. He knew making babies had something to do with the games Renna and Beni had wanted to play, but he was still vague on the process.
“Only the Creator knows,” Margrit said. “Elissa might be barren, or it might be Ragen, though that would be a shame. There’s a shortage of good men like him. Miln needs his sons.”
She sighed. “Elissa’s lucky he hasn’t left her, or gotten a child on one of the servant girls. Creator knows, they’re willing.”
“He would leave his wife?” Arlen was aghast.
“Don’t look so surprised, boy,” Margrit said. “Men need heirs, and they’ll get them any way they can. Duke Euchor is on his third wife, and still only daughters to show for it!”
She shook her head. “Not Ragen, though. They fight like corelings sometimes, but he loves Elissa like the sun itself. He’d never leave. Nor Elissa, despite what she’s given up.”
“Given up?” Arlen asked.
“She was a Noble, you know,” Margrit said. “Her mother is on the Duke’s Council. Elissa could have served the duke, too, if she’d married another Noble and got with child. But she married down to be with Ragen, against her mother’s wishes. They haven’t spoken since. Elissa’s Merchant now, if well moneyed. Denied the Mothers’ School, she’ll never hold any position in the city, much less one in the duke’s service.”
Arlen was quiet while Margrit rinsed out his wounds and collected his clothes off the tiles. She tsked as she inspected the rips and stains. “I’ll mend these as best I can while you soak,” she promised, and left him to his bath. While she was gone, Arlen tried to make sense of everything she had told him, but there was too much he didn’t understand.
Margrit reminded Arlen a little of Catrin Hog, Rusco’s daughter. “She’d tell you every secret in the world, if it let her hear her own voice a moment longer,” Silvy used to say.
The woman returned later with fresh if ill-fitting clothes. She bandaged his wounds and helped him dress, despite his protests. He had to roll up the tunic sleeves to find his hands, and cuff his breeches to keep from tripping, but Arlen felt clean for the first time in weeks.
He shared an early supper with Ragen and Elissa. Ragen had trimmed his beard, tied back his hair, and donned a fine white shirt with a deep blue suede jacket and breeches.
A pig had been slaughtered on Ragen’s arrival, and the table was soon laden with pork chops, ribs, rashers of bacon, and succulent sausage. Flagons of chilled ale and clear, cold water were served. Elissa frowned when Ragen signaled a servant to pour Arlen an ale, but she said nothing. She sipped wine from a glass so delicate Arlen was afraid her slender fingers would break it. There was crusty bread, whiter than he had ever seen, and bowls of boiled turnips and potatoes, thick with butter.
As he looked out over the food, his mouth watering, Arlen couldn’t help but remember people out in the city begging for something to eat. Still, his hunger soon overcame his guilt, and he sampled everything, filling his plate again and again.
“Creator, where are you putting it all?” Elissa asked, clapping her hands in amusement as she watched Arlen clean another plate. “Is there a chasm in your belly?”
“Ignore her, Arlen,” Ragen advised. “Women will fuss all day in the kitchen, yet fear to take more than a nibble, lest they seem indelicate. Men know better how to appreciate a meal.”
“He’s right, you know,” Elissa said with a roll of her eyes. “Women can hardly appreciate the subtleties of life as men do.” Ragen started and spilled his ale, and Arlen realized that she had kicked him under the table. Arlen decided he liked her.
After supper a page appeared, wearing a gray tabard with the duke’s shield emblazoned on the front. He reminded Ragen of his appointment, and the Messenger sighed, but assured the page they would be along directly.
“Arlen is hardly dressed to meet the duke,” Elissa fussed. “One does not go before His Grace looking like a Beggar.”
“There’s nothing for it, love,” Ragen replied. “We have only a few hours before sunset. We can hardly have a tailor come in time.”
Elissa refused to accept that. She stared at the boy for a long moment, then snapped her fingers, striding out of the room. She returned soon after with a blue doublet and a pair of polished leather boots.
“One of our pages is near your age,” she told Arlen as she helped him into the jacket and boots. The sleeves of the doublet were short, and the boots pinched his feet, but Lady Elissa seemed satisfied. She ran a comb through his hair and stepped back.
“Good enough,” she said with a smile. “Mind your manners before the duke, Arlen,” she counseled. Arlen, feeling awkward in the ill-fitting clothes, smiled and nodded.
The Duke’s Keep was a warded fortress within the warded fortress of Miln. The outer wall was fitted stone, over twenty feet high, heavily warded and patrolled by armored spearmen. They rode through the gate into a wide courtyard, which circled the palace. Dwarfing Ragen’s manse, the palace had four floors, and towers that reached twice that high. Broad, sharp wards marked every stone. The windows glittered with glass.
Men in armor patrolled the yard, and pages in the duke’s colors scurried to and fro. A hundred men sweated out in the yard: carpenters, masons, blacksmiths, and butchers. Arlen saw grain stores and livestock, even broad gardens far larger than Ragen’s. It seemed to Arlen that if he should close the gate, the duke could last forever in his keep.