Dullahan

10 - Alone - 1

THE MORNING WAS COLD again, the blanket and Ness's shirt just enough to stop him from shivering after he'd pulled himself up into a fetal position.

When the knock at the door came he waited, curled up beneath covers with only his face exposed to air, until he heard Wyn's hesitant footsteps as the boy retreated back through the corridor. After a count of five, Eldred reluctantly pulled himself out of the bed.

He took his time eating the food on the tray, pulling out the book he had left half-read the day before and spreading it open on his lap, the blanket pulled over his shoulders as he flicked through its pages.

After he had finished the bread and drained the mug of water he set aside the book. His clothes, draped haphazardly on the room's furniture, were damp to the touch but no longer soaked. Reluctantly, he pulled them back on, shivering as they sapped the heat from his skin.

Fighting the urge to crawl back underneath the warm blanket, to spend the day curled up in the familiar warmth, he made his way out of the room and started down the hallway. He had decided to roam the castle grounds in the mornings, when he was certain the other children were occupied with chores and work. He didn't want to spend his entire day within the room, even with the company of the books. He didn't know how long Ness would be gone, or even if there would be much else for him to do when she returned. He didn't want to reach the end of the books now, didn't want to be left staring at familiar pictures with little else to do. No, he had decided that he would try to savour the pictures and writing within the tomes, that he would ration them. He was sure that the mornings, at least, were safe from the others.

As he moved he started to warm, the dampness of his clothes bothering him less as he moved between interior and exterior, darting down corridors and running across courtyards. His first port of call was the laundry room, although he didn't remember the laundry maid's words from the day before until he was passing the turning in the corridor on his way to the gardens.

He walked down the short staircase, a wave of heat and humidity hitting him as he descended. The strong scent of soap hit him like a wall as he approached the open door, billowing clouds of steam drifting from within. He poked his head around the corner, amazed by the scale of what was taking place before him. He'd helped his mother with laundry many times, the pair of them working together to scrub the dirt from their clothes, to wring the water out and set them out to dry. The water had almost always been cold, or lukewarm at best, and their washing tub had been just big enough to fit his mother's dresses and his shirts and trousers within. What he saw before him were huge vats of steaming water, multiple washerwomen at work scrubbing and working at the clothes in unison. He stood in the doorway for a few minutes, watching them, when the same laundry maid from the day before approached, her steps hurried, a frown on her face.

"Out of here, stop gawking," she scolded, shooing him back out of the door. "Come back later, there's been a change of plans." When she had driven him half-way back down the corridor she turned back, satisfied that he was no longer a distraction.

Eldred maintained a little of the momentum from the woman's direction, hurrying as far as the base of the stairs before he stopped and turned back, watching as she disappeared back into the laundry room.

Well, he thought to himself, at least he had something to do later. Idly he wondered what could have disrupted the laundry process, but his attention was quickly diverted back to his second destination: the castle's gardens.

The laundry room wasn't far from the kitchen and the gardens just beyond them. With growing familiarity, he found his way back to the former, pointedly skirting along an exterior path around the hub of activity. It was busier today, more bodies moving in and around the main room, servants dressed in formal attire passing him even on the outside path carrying platters of food and trays of drinks. He kept out of their way as best he could, sticking to the edges of the pathways. He found his way back out into the winding pathways of the kitchen gardens eventually, beginning his aimless wandering through the hedges and flowerbeds.