Bondmaiden (2 page)

They came to a larger room that was full of steam and almost unbearably hot. A row of cauldrons hung over a fire as big as the one in the kitchen, and there were several wooden tubs full of water. A woman was wringing out wet clothing, and as they entered she wiped her hands on her apron and came forward to meet them.

‘Lia, this is Kerta,’ Durwin said. ‘Holmann sometimes sends us here to lend a hand, when he can spare us from the kitchen.’

‘Aye… sometimes,’ Kerta said with a tired smile. ‘I could wish it were more often.’ She looked weary, and Lia guessed that the work in the laundry was hard. Kerta was middle-aged and slender, with dark-brown hair tied back from her rather plain face. She went into a small side room and returned with two grey smocks, neatly folded, a pair of leather slippers, a washcloth, and a clean square of linen for drying oneself. As she handed them over Lia saw that her hands were red from all the washing.

‘Two smocks,’ Kerta said, ‘one to wear, one to wash. Drop it off here in the morning and I’ll have it washed and ironed and ready for collection by noon. The same goes for towels.’

‘You have to keep clean when you work in the kitchen,’ Durwin explained. ‘If your hands or smock are dirty you’ll be punished. He’s very strict like that, our overseer.’

But Lia was clean by habit and inclination, bathing every day as Helma had taught her, and with her new clothes in a bundle under her arm she followed Durwin along another passageway to the dormitory, a long, low chamber with two rows of beds and a screen of willow hurdles down the middle.

‘Men on the left, women on the right,’ Durwin said. ‘All the downstairs servants sleep here, not just the kitchen staff. Right now there’s two men and six women, including you. It should be seven, but Jensine’s just had a baby. She’s staying in the town with her sister till she’s strong enough to come back to work.’

There were gaps in the screen, Lia saw, so there would be little or no privacy.

‘The washroom’s at the far end,’ Durwin went on. ‘The newest servant – that’s you – has to fetch two buckets of water every morning from the well so the others can have a strip-wash. Tomorrow morning someone will show you what to do: Tilda, probably, as she was newest till you arrived. Once a week we go down to the river to bathe properly and wash our hair, but not all together. I’m with the Friday lot; that’s me, Kerta and Clady, who you haven’t met yet. Clady’s the seamstress. I don’t know which group you’ll be with; that’s for Holmann to decide.’

He pointed out a spare bed and Lia put her bag underneath it. ‘Get changed,’ he said, ‘you have to wear the proper things here.’

Lia waited for him to leave or turn his back, but he just stood there, hands on hips, a faint smile on his face. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘you haven’t got anything I haven’t seen before.’

Lia stripped off her things, feeling heat rise to her cheeks, but before she could put on her new clothes Durwin stepped closed. ‘Better check to see if you’re clean,’ he said. ‘Show me your hands.’

Lia held them out and he took them in his own, turning them over. ‘Hmm… not bad. Turn around.’

She did so, and he unfastened the plaited grass ribbon that tied back her hair and stroked her long tresses. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Keep it as clean as this and you’ll be all right. Turn back this way.’

She turned around to face him, and he put his hands on her breasts. She gasped and tried to step back, but the edge of the low bed pressed against her calves.

‘Stand still,’ the young man said. He kneaded her breasts, pushing them up and together like the soldiers did to Helma. ‘Nice…’ he drooled. ‘Lovely and firm… and bigger than Dagna’s, even. You’re prettier than she is, too, and she won’t like that, so you’ll have to watch out for her.’

Lia was too flustered and embarrassed by what he was doing to ask who Dagna was. No one had ever touched her like this. No one had seen her naked, except Helma. Then Durwin’s right hand slid downwards, over her flat belly and between her legs. She gasped and jerked her hips back.

‘Keep still,’ he said sharply. ‘Don’t be silly; I know the rules about not deflowering virgins.’

Lia forced herself into immobility, and Durwin’s fingers began rubbing up and down her sex. She was trembling as though she had the ague, and despite his assurances she was terrified of what he might do, with the overseer’s threat still ringing in her ears.

‘Such a lot of fuss over a quick feel,’ Durwin said, more softly now. ‘Others won’t be so gentle. You’ll be getting a lot worse than this soon, believe me. A lot worse.’

He continued to rub her for several minutes, and something strange started to happen. She felt a tingling between her legs that she didn’t understand at all. Though she was ashamed at what was happening, and afraid of him, somehow she didn’t want it to stop.

But Durwin abruptly took his hand away and told her to dress, and she did so hurriedly, relieved to be able to cover her nakedness. He took her back to the kitchens, pausing briefly to point out another door along the way.

‘This is Holmann’s room,’ he said. ‘He likes to be close so he can keep an eye on us.’

The overseer rounded on them the instant they showed their faces. ‘And where have you two been all this time, eh?’ he snapped. ‘Idling about, I’ll warrant. I swear, lad, if it wasn’t for the fact there’s two baskets of vegetables to wash and chop I’d have the hide off you. Get on with it, cockroach, before I change my mind!’

‘Yes, master,’ Durwin mumbled as he scurried off back to his chores.

‘As for you, my girl,’ the overseer snapped, glaring at Lia, ‘you’ve just earned yourself a taste of the rod. Get them clothes off, and be quick about it.’

Lia undressed, her cheeks burning worse than before. The plump old woman paid no attention, seeming more interested in the cooking, unlike Durwin and the young woman. They kept sneaking glances when they thought Holmann wasn’t looking, while the black-haired woman stared openly. She stood beside the overseer, who draped his arm over her shoulder as though she was his property.

‘Is this what they’re sending us now?’ she sneered. ‘Village scum who doesn’t know left from right? Should have stayed with the pigs where she belongs, I say.’

‘You never spoke a truer word, Dag,’ Holmann agreed. ‘Why is it me gets all the stupid ones to train, eh? There’s no justice in this world.’

Lia was naked now, shivering, eyes downcast while the two of them continued to pour scorn on her. She tried to turn away to hide her shame, but Holmann was having none of it. He caught hold of her wrists and jerked her arms up, turning her this way and that to get a better look at her. His fleshy lips parted in a leer as he eyed her greedily. The woman noticed this and shot Lia a look of pure spite.

‘Where are you from, pig-girl?’

‘Th-three Elms village, mistress.’

‘You trying to be funny?’ she snapped indignantly. ‘Who are you calling
mistress
?’

She pinched Lia’s nipple and twisted it cruelly, and Lia squealed at the sudden pain and tears sprang to her eyes.

‘It’s
Dagna
to you, bitch. Don’t you know anything? You only use
mistress
to the queen’s ladies-in-waiting. You use
my lady
to the queen and the princesses, and
my lord
to the king and Prince Baran. Not that you’ll ever see the royal apartments, not in a thousand years. They don’t want some pig-girl showing her face where civilised people live.’

With a final agonising twist she let go of Lia’s nipple. Holmann released her wrists and turned to a gangly young man with ginger hair who had just walked in with a basket of fish.

‘Jarold, come hold her,’ Holmann called out. ‘She hasn’t the sense to stand still for a beating, this one.’

With a grin the young man approached, wiping his hands on his tunic, then turned away and bent his knees. Lia was made to lean her front against his back, with her arms over his shoulders; he then grasped her wrists and straightened, lifting her feet off the floor. He then leaned forward so that she was held at an angle.

‘The heavy stick, Holmann?’ she heard Dagna say.

‘I’m tempted,’ Holmann said. ‘But no; the light, for a first offence.’

‘You’re too soft,’ Dagna said, sounding disappointed.

Lia heard footsteps. Not knowing what was happening was simply unbearable, and she turned her head in time to see Dagna hand Holmann a stick the length of his arm and as stout as his thumb. The overseer took a step closer.

‘Hold them wrists tight now, Jarold,’ he said. ‘Have you got her?’

‘I got her, master,’ the young man confirmed. ‘She won’t get away from me, never fear.’

‘Good lad.’ Holmann raised his arm and whipped the stick down, and Lia gave a yelp of shock at the fierce, stinging pain. More strokes followed, equally cruel, and soon her bottom was on fire. She had never been beaten before, and hadn’t been prepared for how much it would hurt.

‘Keep them legs down!’ Holmann snapped, striking her calves, her heels having risen of their own accord in response to the burning pain, but she hurriedly straightened her legs and Holmann resumed the beating.

‘It’s like you said, Hol,’ Dagna muttered. ‘Stupid, right enough.’

The black-haired woman was standing beside him watching the proceedings with a satisfied smirk on her face. Lia closed her eyes, wanting to shut it all out, but darkness brought no relief from pain and she sobbed as she squirmed on the scrawny accomplice’s back.

At last it stopped and Jarold lowered her to the floor. She rubbed her burning bottom, hanging her head in shame, and Holmann told her to put her things on. When she was dressed he pushed her over to the sink in the corner and set her scrubbing cooking pots with a damp rag and a box of fine sand.

‘I want to see my face in them pans,’ he said, ‘or it’s the stick again for you, understand?’

‘Yes, master,’ she said miserably.

He left her, and she picked up the first pot. She dipped the rag into the sand and began to scrub. The grime was baked on and she had to rub hard. Soon her arm was aching and her fingers were sore, for the sand chafed her skin. But she daren’t stop, remembering his threat. She rinsed off the first pot and started on the second.

That night Lia couldn’t sleep. The pain from the beating had receded, and it wasn’t that which kept her awake. She was afraid of this place, and afraid of Holmann and Dagna. She thought with longing of her home, and would have given anything – everything – to be there right now, snuggling close to Helma, warm and safe.

In the dormitory the sounds were strange. Beyond the partition, in the men’s half, someone was snoring. Two beds away to Lia’s left a girl muttered and groaned as though having a nightmare. Perhaps Lia would have bad dreams too if she’d been able to sleep. But she couldn’t, not a wink. She lay awake, listening to the others and fighting back the tears that threatened to engulf her.

Then she heard a new sound: the padding of bare feet on the stone flags. Someone came to her bedside, and a single rushlight burned at the far end of the dormitory and cast just enough light for Lia to see a figure leaning over her. She shrank away, clutching the blanket tight, and then the figure spoke.

‘It’s me, Durwin,’ he whispered. ‘Don’t be frightened, I won’t hurt you.’ He lay down beside her and tugged gently at the blanket. ‘I only want to cuddle. I won’t hurt you, I promise.’

She stared at his dark shape, and finally relaxed her grip on the blanket. He slid underneath and wriggled close to her, his hands crawling straight to her breasts.

‘By the saints, you’re freezing,’ he whispered. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll soon warm you up.’ He mauled her, and she gasped. ‘Nice, huh?’ he murmured. ‘You like it, don’t you?’

While his left hand continued squeezing her breasts his right slid down between her legs. She wriggled and whimpered in protest as his finger sought her sex, but he hushed her, sounding anxious, and she guessed this nighttime tryst was against the rules. She wanted him to go, fearful of what would happen if they were caught, but he began to stroke her and any resisting words stuck in her throat. His fingertip found the little nub of her sex and flicked it rapidly and soon she was panting, but then he stopped, leaving her disappointed and wanting something more, though she didn’t know what.

‘My turn now,’ he whispered.

He showed her what to do, pulling her hand to his cock. She gasped and recoiled, for she’d never touched a man there before. She’d seen one before, lots of times, for the three who came to use Helma always stripped off in front of her. They laughed when they caught her sneaking guilty looks at them, and wagged their stiff cocks in her face, inviting her to pull on them or worse. She hated the soldiers, but this was different. Durwin had been nice to her, so now she grasped him tentatively and felt his cock become hard as stone. He held her wrist and moved her hand up and down while she squeezed his shaft. He let out a long, soft groan of pleasure and began to move his hips.

Suddenly, without a word, he pulled away and rolled out of bed. She heard him scurry back to his own bed, and then a few moments later she heard a heavy tread coming along the passageway. Holmann appeared bearing a lantern. He prowled along the women’s beds, stopping at each in turn and briefly lifting the blanket. When he came to her bed Lia closed her eyes and feigned sleep. She felt the blanket move, and felt the creep of cold air against her skin. It seemed an eternity before he covered her and moved on. He reached the end of the row and came back, pausing briefly at Lia’s bed before moving on again. Finally he left, to her relief.