Young Stefan has won the mysterious Lottery and been taken from his small village to the Black Queen's castle. There he is but one servant among many, and the Queen's true intentions for him are yet unknown...
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For Stefan the next week was spent in a haze of endless labor. He was worked like a beast, but the kitchen matron told him it was the same for everyone during the first few months.
"They do it to test your mettle," she confided. "Do well and you'll go on to better things."
He began to learn the ways of the castle, noting that new arrivals like himself were always dressed in gray while the other servants wore garments of brown or black. He also discovered that skittish little Yvonne was one of the new scullery maids, and though she was almost pathetically eager to please, she also proved to be dreadfully clumsy. She was always spilling baskets and knocking things over, and after a few days her nerves were so rattled that Stefan found her huddled in the cellar, sobbing, certain that she was going to be whipped. But the matron took pity on the girl and gave her simpler tasks like washing the floors and linens, and Stefan was glad to find that there were at least some in the castle who were not cruel.
In the following days he noticed a growing sense of excitement in the kitchen as supplies began to arrive by the cartload. The matron informed him that the Queen's Tournament was approaching, a grand affair that drew great numbers of knights and nobles from far across the realm. By her account it sounded like an event of bloody, frenzied abandon with all manners of debauchery and wild carryings on. Stefan was immediately intrigued.
It was not long afterward that the Queen's Chamberlain arrived to inspect the kitchens. He was a smaller man than Stefan would have guessed, and he had an odd habit of smoothing his black mustache and beard as if he were preening himself. He surveyed the cooking area with the matron following anxiously behind, seeming to fear the little man's displeasure. But everything appeared to be in order, and Stefan breathed a sigh of relief as the Chamberlain left to survey the cellars with the matron still in tow.
Then, disaster struck. The Chamberlain had been gone for barely a minute before Yvonne, who was even more nervous than usual, tripped as she was hurrying to empty her wash bucket. The bucket rolled into a bundle of heavy iron skewers, knocking them over, and the falling skewers clipped the handle of a spit where a great roast had hung all morning over a low fire. Already bent under the weight of the meat, the spit fell, sending the roast into the coals with a heavy thud and a puff of sparking ash.
Stefan stared, frozen in the middle of sweeping the floor. If he hadn't seen the spectacle for himself, he would not have believed it. Yvonne lay where she had fallen, her face a mask of horror. The other servants scattered as the voices of the matron and Chamberlain grew louder from down the hall.
Without pausing to think, Stefan pulled Yvonne to her feet and told her to flee. She stood rooted in place as if stunned, but after a gentle shove and a slap on the backside she retreated from the room just as the Chamberlain arrived. An inquisition swiftly began, and seeing no other way, Stefan stepped forward to claim responsibility for the spoiled roast. The Chamberlain smiled thinly and stroked his beard, seeming pleased by the quick resolution. He then summoned a footman to take Stefan away.
"Give him, oh, twenty lashes," the Chamberlain ordered dismissively. "Perhaps that will cure him of his carelessness."
Resigned to his fate, Stefan did not protest as he was led through the halls to the courtyard where his punishment awaited. Having taken his fair share of beatings, he thought he would be able to face it as stoically as always. He was wrong.
The rough leather whip cracked again and again, each blow stinging horribly and cutting his back like a salted razor. The lashman was a master of his craft, and he was in no hurry. He allowed several moments to pass between strokes for the pain and anticipation to build, and after only the third lash, Stefan cried out. The agony was nearly unbearable. The only thing that steeled him was the thought that fragile little Yvonne might not have survived such treatment.
Stefan took ten lashes, each one worse than the last. He sagged against the ropes that bound his wrists, gasping, his shoulders aflame. He felt the warm trickling rivulets of blood snaking down his back and wondered how he could possibly endure more without going mad. He tensed himself to await the next blow, but it never came. From behind came the sound of voices, and craning his neck, he could just make out the bulky frame of the kitchen matron as she conferred quietly with the scowling lashman. Then she departed, and to Stefan's surprise he was untied and led to the stocks.
"It seems yer too good fer the whip," the lashman grumbled as he locked the bar down over Stefan's neck and wrists. "But perhaps a night in this'll teach you just as well."
For a time, Stefan was jubilant to have escaped the agony of the whip. But soon his limbs began to stiffen and cramp, and he would almost have preferred the lash to the slow, ongoing torment of the stocks. He stretched his legs as best he could, passing the time with fond thoughts of Maggie and her lusty farewell embrace.
By afternoon it had begun to rain and he was soon soaked and miserable. From time to time a servant passed, but none spoke to him and the few who dared to meet his eyes did so with a scornful smile. Evening came and the rain stopped, but the night brought a chill that left Stefan shivering so violently that he began to fear for his life.
He was nearing despair when the white handmaiden came suddenly out of the mist like a ghostly apparition. She carried with her a thick woolen blanket, and this she wrapped around him snugly. Even as Stefan thanked her she turned and walked away, disappearing as swiftly and silently as she'd arrived.
Eased at least from the cold, he dozed fitfully on his feet like a horse. He tried kneeling but the strain it placed on his neck was unbearable, so he soon resigned himself to his discomfort. When he lifted his head he could just make out the flickering lights of the castle towers, and he imagined the Queen looking down on him and laughing at his misery.