Chapter Text
She could hear crying.
Whispered, secret sounds were not unusual at Court; anyone who walked the corridors could pass by rooms where deals were made, plots thickened, covenants betrayed. Lady Amber’s fellow inhabitants of the palace were politicians, after all. But even at their most overwrought, the Royal Court tended more towards arguments and recriminations than tears. The quiet whimpering drifting from the farthest end of the corridor was uncommon enough to catch her attention.
Lady Amber had escaped the tedium of the schoolroom a few minutes since to steal a moment’s peace. Young Isabelle was sweet, but so much still a child. They had spent the morning in the gardens, Amber setting the example of a well-born lady just out into society with a sedate strolling pace and occasional comments on the beauty of the clematis, and ten-year-old Isabelle rushing ahead to show off her cartwheels and skill at climbing trees until Miss Fletcher had been forced to raise her voice to bring the princess to heel. The lady in waiting had followed the princess and the governess back to the schoolroom when Isabelle refused to behave herself, but sitting through the punishment of an hour of Terrasovran grammatical exercises was more than she could bear. Amber left on the excuse of practicing her pianoforte, but her actual destination was the library, where she was patiently working her way through a collection of gothic romances amassed by the late queen. The romance side of things still had not made much impression on the young lady, but the mysteries were intriguing.
She paused outside the library door, looking along the corridor towards the unexpected sounds. The door from which they came was a small sitting room, rarely used unless it was assigned to a visiting delegation. By rights, there shouldn’t have been anyone in there.
Amber never could resist a mystery.
The girl on the other side of the door was a slip of a thing, wearing the plain dress and apron of the household maids. Mostly wearing it, at least; something seemed to have happened to push the bodice slightly askew and untuck the chemisette. She was huddled on a chair, hunched over, but she started up when Amber entered and tried to hide behind a handkerchief.
“Sorry, ma’am, I was – just dusting. Made me sneeze, that’s all.” Her voice croaked raw. “I’ll be out of your way now.”
“No, wait, girl,” Amber said, putting all the authority she could into a voice not yet fully grown from childhood. “I would not rush you back with work with reddened eyes. What ails you?”
The maid scrubbed at her wet lashes with the handkerchief. “Nothing, ma’am. Nothing to concern you.” But Amber saw now the maid’s mouth, her lower lip bruised and swollen, the corner harshly red, as though a blow had cut it open against her own teeth.
Amber took the girl by the shoulders to keep her from running from the room. The maid’s tears started to fall again and her swollen lip struggled around her words. “Please d-don’t tell – tell anyone. I’m a good girl, I swear, I didn’t mean – I’ll be recovered directly. Please let me get back to work, I can’t afford to lose this job.” Though she tried to struggle, she was crying now in earnest and Amber had no difficulty in pushing her back into the chair.
“No one will take your job from you,” Amber assured her with all the confidence she could muster, faced with unprecedented circumstances. “But tell me, my girl – who did this to you?”