The High Road (On Hold)

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Elicia woke the next morning to a series of knocks upon the door to her room. It did not wake her up immediately, for she was used to sleeping amidst loud noise from her days in the slave markets. It did wake her eventually, however, and she scrambled to dress quickly before answering the door, pulling on a green woolen gown from the wardrobe over her smallclothes.

When she finally opened the door, she was standing in the shadow of the tall maidservant who’d shown her to these quarters. Her hard face was empty of emotion and blank of expression, plainer than any she’d ever seen. Nothing about this woman, with her short-cut grey hair and plump cheeks, would make her stand out in a crowd, apart from the abnormally low voice for a woman that she used when she spoke. “Wake up,” she said, despite the fact that Elicia was obviously already awake and prepared. “There is work to be done. Follow.” This last was a command, and one that Elicia dared not disobey.

When they were in the hallway, and walking towards the stairs that led down to the first floor, the older woman began speaking. “Father Siamorn will be wanting to speak to you, girl, most like to give you a job.” She continued speaking, but it was in a low mutter that Elicia could not understand. From the few words she could make out, Elicia gathered that the older woman was complaining about the presence of yet another servant in the house of the priest.

Elicia did not care, though, she was too nervous about getting her first assignment to mind the ramblings of an old plain servant. Whatever the job was, she hoped that it would be something she was at least adequate at. That ruled out sewing, for she was possibly the worst sewer in Cross. And if Father Siamorn gave her a cooking job, her terrible food would be like to kill everyone in the manor before her second day.

She really did not know what sort of job she would prefer. She was not used to having to work for her survival, as the daughter of a proud lord and lady on the Tail. She did not know of anything she was particularly good at. She did know her letters, though, and she was proficient at calculating sums. That might be useful, she knew, in getting herself a decent task. Maybe she could write letters for the Father.

She had just begun wondering what sort of letters a priest would write, when the two of them arrived at the door to the Father’s private study. The plain-faced woman, whose name Elicia still did not know, opened the door for her and watched as the new servant walked towards the priest.

Father Siamorn was busy scrawling words on parchment when she arrived, and despite her entrance he continued writing. Neither of them said anything until the crumpled white page was nearly full of words. “Good morning to you, Elicia,” the Father said, still not looking up at her. He dipped his quill into the inkpot and continued writing, this time opting to speak as he wrote. “I shall have to thank Nariam for going to fetch you this early in the morning. I apologize for waking you so soon, but I could not wait to tell you what your job will be.

“I received word from Castle Cross late last night, after you’d gone to bed. Apparently, some fool boy tried to rob a lord’s wife of an expensive necklace, but he was caught staring deep into the thing. He tried to lie about being in there, but now it seems he’s ready to confess. I will be going to the castle later today to meet with the boy, to copy down his confession and then pronounce Kythanus’ sentence upon his soul, whether he’ll be damned to hell or not. He’ll likely die either way, but it can be comforting to know where you’re going.

“Do you know your letters, Elicia?” he asked then, straying from his story.

She nodded.

“Wonderful. You shall come with me to the castle and write down what he says. I will ask the questions, you will write his response for me on a piece of parchment. Writing makes my hands ache more and more nowadays, and you’re young enough that it’ll make no matter to you.” He stopped writing to look up at her, his chubby face bearing an odd look. “I trust you have no problems with this duty?” he asked.