Secrets and kisses
This morning, Kettricken woke up filled with energy. A few months has passed since she organised the tea party, and Spring was here. Coming from a cold country, the mountain girl was filled with joy everytime she stepped outside and felt the sun warm her face. Verity, her husband, had grown distant again, but he also gave her a present she cherished. Up on a high tower, was an open space that used to be a garden. It has been abandoned, empty and desolated, but the Queen-in-Waiting had remade it. Now benches stood close to lavender bushes, laurel, hawthorn and thyme.
Kettricken grew up surrounded by plants, and knew how to tend them and use them. She cultivated them to give them to the healers of the Castle, another part of it she gave to Lady Patience. Some of it like laurel and thyme she gave to Azèle. The young woman often asked for other medicinal plants, that made Kettricken uneasy, but she never asked why Azèle would need them. Molly also came up once in awhile to collect plants for her candles, and stay to chat on some afternoon. She kept coming for dessert the night she delivered candles, but it was more erratic now. She often got sick.
Sadly, Verity didn’t visit often. He often walked up there late at night, just to find her sitting on a bench facing the sea. He would sit next to her, as if meaning to say something, but they always end up staring silently at the distance. Verity’s nephew, FitzChivalry, came by very often. He was a very nice and smart young man, and was very knowledgeable in plants, and he helped her a lot. Lady Patience adored him and could spend hours talking about him. The two of them bickered every time they were working together in the garden, which made the Queen-in-Waiting laugh a lot.
Kettricken rose from her bed and dressed swiftly, leaving her room to go down to the kitchens before her maids realised she was up and brought her breakfast. Walking down the stairs, she put her hands up in her hair and tied them in tight braids around her head. As she arrived close to the kitchen quarters, she felt the sun pouring in from every open window and door warm her. The perfume of flowers and grass was in the air, mixed with cooking smells.
Azèle, the kitchen aid, was walking in the hallway and carrying two large flour bags when she noticed the Queen-in-Waiting staring out from a window and called her.
“Your Majesty! My, you are early this morning. Your breakfast hasn’t been sent upstairs to be served yet.”
Kettricken smiled and walked toward the young woman. “Good morning Azèle. There is no need to do that. The weather is so delightful today. The weather is always changing in this place, we have to enjoy it while it lasts. I will grab a basket and bring it up in my garden, do you think the cooks will mind?”
“They will be delighted, your Majesty,” replied Azèle. “I will bring it to your myself as soon as it’s ready.”
“Thank you so much for the trouble, and perhaps tell them it will take you a long time to climb all the way upstairs, so they shouldn’t expect you to be back before a while.” Kettricken whispered and winked.
Azèle laughed and bowed before dragging the flour bags into the kitchen. The mountain girl climbed slowly to her garden, enjoying the sounds of activity made by the people waking up in the Keep. As she arrived, she sat on one bench facing the sun and let herself bask in it. Azèle soon arrived, and the two of them sat while Kettricken ate her breakfast. The kitchen aid already had eaten earlier in the morning. The Queen-in-Waiting listened to her chatting about her work in the kitchens, and whom she was fancying at the moment, and who had kissed who in the pantries.
Kettricken stopped eating asked : “Tell me, I’ve noticed the herbs you’ve been asking me. I don’t mind giving them to you, of course. I know we all have been using them at some point but… You’ve been taking a lot of them. It worries me… They can get you very sick.”
“Oh my Queen!”, exclaimed Azèle. “Do not trouble yourself. I…” The young girl looked down and stared at her hands. “It’s not for myself.” She took a deep breath and kept on. “I have a family recipe, that is supposedly better than the others. So I make some and give them in the Keep in exchange of little favours.”
Kettricken was shocked. “In exchange of what?” Her words were sharper than she intended. But things needed to be said.
“Oh nothing bad, your Majesty!”, squeaked Azèle. “A little help when I have a hole in my clothes, or things like that. I’m sure people would do it anyway, even without my medicine.”
Kettricken let out a sigh. “Of course Azèle, of course. I didn’t mean to make to accuse you, I’m just surprised. Where I come from, we just go into the gardens and take what plants we need.”
The kitchen aid looked up, smiling but a bit white in the face, and talked slowly. “Well, we don’t have that here.” A mischievous grin appeared on her lips. “You know Lady Patience’s maid, Molly, the girl that makes candles?” Kettricken nodded. “She was giving me scented candles to remove the scent of the kitchen food off my clothes and hair. And I give her my plants. When we met, you asked me to make her a cake, because she gave you candles, remember?” Kettricken nodded again, as she felt a slight blush appear on her cheeks. “I thought she dumped whoever she was with to be with you, then, because of the flowers. Roses means love in the Six Duchies. But she kept asking me for the plants, even after it got her sick on multiple occasions. I understand why she keeps taking them, because the alternative is so much worse but…”
Kettricken stopped listening. She felt cold creeping in her chest. The warmth of the sun was gone. Things she’s been denying for so long suddenly made sense, but instead of making her feel happiness, the only emotion she sensed was dread. Molly liked her. She has known that for a long time now. Molly was not sick. She was taking plants to prevent a pregnancy, and her body was not taking it well. Anger roared in the Queen-in-Waiting ears. She knew Molly was still with her mysterious lover. They often talked about him, and about what they did in bed. But in his selfishness, this noble man kept getting involved with Molly even if it made her unwell, sometimes for days.
“My Queen?” Kettricken was gripping the tray of food hard. Azèle called her name again. “Lady Kettricken? It was not my intention to ruin your breakfast with such an awful subject.”
“Please, it’s fine, my friend.” The mountain girl put the trail aside and hugged Azèle. “Can you please go and get Molly for me? I’m most worried by what you told me, and I’d like a word with her. I would go myself, but I don’t want to cause a ruckus in the castle. Imagine if the Queen-in-Waiting wandered around, looking for another Lady’s maid…”
Azèle looked saddened and squeezed Kettricken once before letting go and running to the door. She stopped before leaving the garden as if to say something, but she just bowed and left.
Kettricken was left alone to wait. She reorganised the food on the tray, trying to finish what was left of it. Then she sat very straight, facing the sun, trying to shake away the freezing feeling in her chest. Her lips were tight but her face remained unmoved.
After a while, she heard the door of the garden creaked open. The sounds of footsteps behind her back reached her but she didn’t move. From the corner of her eyes, she saw Molly walking around the bench, moving the tray of food to the ground and then sitting next to Kettricken.
“Good morning, Ket’. Azèle told me what she said to you. You shouldn’t scare the poor girl like that. I reassured her but she was almost crying. I don’t like being woken up so early in the morning by crying girls.”
The Queen-in-Waiting turned her head and opened her mouth but Molly raised a finger.
“Listen to me. I know how things were back in the Mountains. But you’re not there anymore.” The young woman spoke without raising her voice but her expression was stern. “You are here to be our future Queen, and as such, you hold power over the people living here. If you act like that around them, they will react differently as your friends or relatives you had back home. Before stirring such drama in the Castle, have you ever considered that?”
Kettricken was left stunned and gaping. Molly looked her hard in the eyes then took the mountain girl’s hand. “About the plants i’m taking. You know I’m with a man. We have sex. But I can’t get pregnant. I’m not married, I don’t know if we will get married one day. If I get a child, he will be a bastard and I will be shunned.” She took a deep breath and squeezed the Queen’s hand, as if to reassure her. “If you get pregnant, everyone will celebrate it. But I can’t have that. I can’t.”
Said Queen was starting to have teary eyes and was silenced by shame. The cold dread she felt earlier was gone, replaced only by the words “foolish girl” playing in repeat in her head. She had put her personal concerns get in the way of how she was supposed to behave with her new subjects. She had to focus on her duties and not on her foolish half friendships with people she was supposed to rule.
“My Queen Kettricken,” whispered Molly. She extended her hand to put it against Kettricken’s cheek. Her hand was soft and warm, and the mountain girl felt like she was about to cry. Molly softly stroked the blond girl’s cheekbone with her thumb in a soothing motion. “You know we are many here that are here for you. One of our tasks, as friends, is to keep you from doing mistakes.”
Kettricken shuffled closer to the young girl and put both of her hands around Molly’s face. Everything about her was striking, her black hair shining in the morning sun, her brown skin glowing under Kettricken’s white fingers. Then, the Queen-in-Waiting leaned forward and pressed her lips against Molly’s, closing her eyes doing so. Molly’s lips opened at the soft touch, and she wrapped her arms around Kettricken’s waist, putting her opened hands on her back and rubbing gently.
They both retreated and bit and smiled softly at each other. Kettricken’s hands were still enclosing Molly’s face, and the Queen was still in the maid’s arms. The two young women stayed embraced for a little while, enjoying the sun and the other’s presence.
Molly rose slowly after that and whispered quietly. “I have to go, Lady Patience will be waking up soon. I’ll ask her for an afternoon free soon, so we may discuss these complicated topics further.”
“Molly,” said Kettricken. “Thank you.”