Thank you so much for the comments so far! I can get stuck into a much bigger re-write than I'd envisaged now. I'll post all the chapters to the novel. If you have any further feedback, I would be very grateful. Diolch yn fawr!
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Clair stood with his hands deep in the sink of soapy water, staring mindlessly out of the big scullery window at the sunny kitchen gardens. Gently he turned bowls and plates, wiping them clean then handing them to that scallywag of a pot-boy Caja who rinsed them in hot water and put them on the draining board.
Lord van H'las had been gone a week. Pava had finally set off for court (his black eye had faded to his relief). Vadya and Tashka were packing to rejoin Sixth H'las. Arkyll and Hanya were 'helping' Tashka. They ran eagerly around her, dropping piles of freshly laundered clothes on the floor and treading on her papers. Tashka pretended to be a fat, old and unreasonable General, barking orders at them and sending them on missions for things she did not need so she could actually get some of her gear stowed.
Clair was distraught to see Tashka go. He had hoped he might not take it so badly since she was no longer at risk of being hung for spying. But when he woke, he knew it was going to be a bad day. He sent a feeble excuse to the meeting which Arianna had asked him to attend.
The castle servants had been on the watch for him. They were always ready to take pity on him when something was happening which might upset the delicate balance of his mind and emotions. When he arrived in the kitchens, glaring sulkily from narrowed slanted grey eyes, the cooks merely continued in their duties and when he sidled into the scullery like an intruder in his own home Caja just moved aside so he could join him at the sink.
At a time like this a simple task was such relief. It passed the time, usefully. Clair could handle the bowls and plates gently as he wished he had been handled in life. The sunny view of the orderly rows of vegetables going back down to the fruit bushes in the kitchen gardens was soothing to his tortured heart. After an hour he would look at the pile of clean dishes and feel as if his life had some purpose after all.
When they had finished the washing up, instead of going straight to dry the dishes that lazy dog Caja jerked his head to the door into the gardens. Clair followed carelessly. In the mood he was in it was nothing to him that Caja should take advantage of his being there to sneak out.
Some of the kitchen maids were taking a well-earned rest on a sunwarmed beam of wood put beside the kitchen door in amongst pots of herbs. Caja sat down with them and lit a pipe of foul cheap tobacco which he passed to Clair. The rank smoke of Caja's evil weed caught the back of Clair's throat and made him cough and tears come to his eyes but that too was a sort of comfort. He sat wordlessly by Caja in the sunshine, hearing the kitchen maids chatter like birds and staring away at the vegetables and fruit, the old grey wall at the back of the gardens, the hills climbing up in green and purple sunlit heights beyond.
He could hear a commotion in the kitchens behind him. As he turned his head, Arianna burst suddenly through the door into the herb garden. Clair jumped and breathed too much smoke in, coughing and spluttering he looked nervously up at her.
She stood tall and ice-eyed above him, her hands on her hips. Lisette had put her into an elegantly cut suit of black linen, a narrow collar of white lace flowers fell over the lapels of the jacket, she had diamonds in her ears and on her fingers. The black and the diamonds made an intimidating beauty of her; with the narrow glare on her face she looked like the Angel of Judgement.
"M-my Lady," Clair spluttered, starting to get to his feet. "Er, how was the meeting?"
"What does't think?" Arianna spat out at him. "We set this meeting up for your benefit and sents't to say," her voice took on a mocking whine, "was't ill with the stomach ache! What was I to tell them? How coulds't do it to me!"
"But ...," he hesitated, looking at her uncertainly. "I did not know. It was only with some merchants. You did not say ..."
"'Only some merchants'!" she mimicked him. "Ar't so stupid about politics that wills't say: 'only some merchants'!"
Clair's eyes narrowed into slits. He felt his temper rising and pushing the tears up with it. "Do not tell me I am stupid at politics!" he hissed. "I have been offered a place on one of the King's Councils."
"Oh which one," she drawled. "The Council for hunting and flirting?"
His eyes opened suddenly wide but he gritted his teeth and said to her: "I will not talk to you in this way." He turned to the kitchen door to go.
"There is a messenger come for you," Arianna said abruptly. She held out two white packets of paper both addressed to him in the same curling and clearly feminine hand.
Clair looked blankly at the paper packets with the green ink address flowing down them then he looked up into Arianna's blazing blue eyes.
"Sweet Hell!" he said savagely. "I suppose I may receive a letter, may I not? Is that a crime now, to have a correspondence with a friend!"
"Take them!" she shouted and flung them onto the flagstones among the blue and green decorated clay pots of herbs.
Clair turned his head about, his eyes moving from the letters to her furious face. She was livid with rage, her eyes as hard as her diamonds. The corners of Clair's mouth started to pinch up with temper, his eyes narrowed again to slits.
