Chapter 19 book 3 is live!
...and I'm sorta back on schedule! yay me!
Biddings:
Twenna Shelstone looked around her new rooms in despair, her trunks still where they’d been left on Nerrday. Living at the Keep was something she’d dreamed about since girlhood; she would look up at its towers, spires and turrets, and fantasize about handsome princes and grand balls. And here she was, she thought, really living at the Keep, but hardly as she’d dreamed. Her drafty rooms were in the farthest corner of the Old Residence wing, looking out not on the pleasant vistas of the pleasure gardens and the Woods beyond, nor even onto the city, but instead onto the poultry yard. No opening the windows with that beneath them, she thought. The floors were creaky, and the chimney smoked more than a bit. The furnishings were solid enough, but just a little on the shabby side, the upholstery faded, the hangings discreetly patched, and they’d still been covered in great dusty shrouds when she’d arrived. She hadn’t ever thought of a castle having an attic, but this was what one must be like.
There was no bathroom in her suite; she had to go down the hall to the old baths instead. Or she would have, if they had been working. It had been so long since anyone had lived in the Old Residence wing that the water had been turned off, and the workmen had not been round yet to open the taps back up. And so poor Twenna was forced to rely on hot water brought up to her rooms for her morning washing, and to use the chamberpot.
But often the water arrived tepid, and rarely was the pot emptied. The staff openly reviled her. Oh, they were all polite to a hair, but her needs and requests were often met with deaf ears and slow feet. No one came to help her with her morning toilet, though that dreadful, haughty little man Winmer had made her leave her maid behind: “We will have someone assigned from the staff to take care of you, My Lady,” he said in that--that superannuated way he had. Well, no, they had not, she fumed to herself as she struggled with her corset laces. Bad enough they were all spying on her, just like the staff at Middlemont, but now she had to suffer the--the exigencies of these people all by herself!
What had she done, after all? Only what everyone had bid her to do. First she’d obeyed her parents and married Shelstone--and there was a relief at least, she thought, having Elbig packed off part and parcel to Callant, wherever that was. Oh, how he’d squawked!--And then she had obeyed Elbig and charmed her way into Harsin’s bed. That at least hadn’t been--been opprobrious. And now she’d done what Harsin had commanded and moved into the Keep with as little noise as possible. And what had it gotten her? A smoky, drafty old room in the oldest part of the castle, despised by everyone, that’s what, she huffed to herself, on top of an unwanted baby. And here she’d done nothing to deserve any of it, especially the baby!
Biddings:
Twenna Shelstone looked around her new rooms in despair, her trunks still where they’d been left on Nerrday. Living at the Keep was something she’d dreamed about since girlhood; she would look up at its towers, spires and turrets, and fantasize about handsome princes and grand balls. And here she was, she thought, really living at the Keep, but hardly as she’d dreamed. Her drafty rooms were in the farthest corner of the Old Residence wing, looking out not on the pleasant vistas of the pleasure gardens and the Woods beyond, nor even onto the city, but instead onto the poultry yard. No opening the windows with that beneath them, she thought. The floors were creaky, and the chimney smoked more than a bit. The furnishings were solid enough, but just a little on the shabby side, the upholstery faded, the hangings discreetly patched, and they’d still been covered in great dusty shrouds when she’d arrived. She hadn’t ever thought of a castle having an attic, but this was what one must be like.
There was no bathroom in her suite; she had to go down the hall to the old baths instead. Or she would have, if they had been working. It had been so long since anyone had lived in the Old Residence wing that the water had been turned off, and the workmen had not been round yet to open the taps back up. And so poor Twenna was forced to rely on hot water brought up to her rooms for her morning washing, and to use the chamberpot.
But often the water arrived tepid, and rarely was the pot emptied. The staff openly reviled her. Oh, they were all polite to a hair, but her needs and requests were often met with deaf ears and slow feet. No one came to help her with her morning toilet, though that dreadful, haughty little man Winmer had made her leave her maid behind: “We will have someone assigned from the staff to take care of you, My Lady,” he said in that--that superannuated way he had. Well, no, they had not, she fumed to herself as she struggled with her corset laces. Bad enough they were all spying on her, just like the staff at Middlemont, but now she had to suffer the--the exigencies of these people all by herself!
What had she done, after all? Only what everyone had bid her to do. First she’d obeyed her parents and married Shelstone--and there was a relief at least, she thought, having Elbig packed off part and parcel to Callant, wherever that was. Oh, how he’d squawked!--And then she had obeyed Elbig and charmed her way into Harsin’s bed. That at least hadn’t been--been opprobrious. And now she’d done what Harsin had commanded and moved into the Keep with as little noise as possible. And what had it gotten her? A smoky, drafty old room in the oldest part of the castle, despised by everyone, that’s what, she huffed to herself, on top of an unwanted baby. And here she’d done nothing to deserve any of it, especially the baby!
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