The Familiar

by Leigh Bardugo

“You’re not wise enough for beauty, Luzia. You’d spend it like coin.”

She had no heavy silver candlesticks, no fine musicians to play for her guests. She could not serve pheasant or peaches in saffron.

She hoped that Marius was right, that it wasn’t beauty life required, but will.

When a rich man approached a servant, he could want only one thing.

You think you know hardship, but men have a gift for finding new ways to make women suffer.

Maybe there really was a demon inside her. One that craved feather beds and fine food and applause.

A master could never truly know a servant. But a servant must know his master well,

But he was a captive, and a captive’s only thought could be of freedom.

“Who has more power in a house than the woman who stirs the soup and makes the bread and scrubs the floors, who fills the foot warmer with hot coals, and arranges your letters, and nurses your children?”

These were the ways women entered the body, through the kitchen, through the nursery, their hands in your bed, your clothes, your hair. There was danger in such trust, and a wise man learned to respect the women who tended to his home and heirs.

She liked the feeling of his concentration on her, the pleasure he seemed to take in her success.

They were wrapped in muslin, bundles of lavender and rosemary placed between the layers.

A man is stronger than iron and weaker than glass.

small dishes of water scented with lavender with which to rinse their hands.

Partridge simmered in milk; peacock dressed with bacon and minced almonds;

“All empires are the same empire to the poor and the conquered. But not all empires are the same.

She looked like a ship about to set sail. She looked like prosperity.

And why did every path before her lead to servitude?

Was it perverse to want to be longed for by a man she didn’t love?

“People forget the work it takes to make wine. They drink it down and wonder why the cup is empty.”