Lilah by Gemma Liviero Page B

time.
    I sat against the wall. The bricks were warmed
from the sun and I pressed my back against them. It wasn’t long before I dozed.
    Then I was shaken roughly by the same girl and
taken past the galley. The cook ceased chopping the limbs from a hog with a
cleaver, her face red with exertion and droplets of sweat dripping from her
forehead. She looked at me with her mouth pursed and I felt a hostile air in
this house. The servant led me down long basement stairs. Behind a small door
was a small room with two cots. She indicated me to one of them.
    ‘This one’s mine.’ She sounded annoyed. She no
longer had any privacy and for a moment I felt some pity towards her.
    ‘Lady Köszegi will see you now.’ She instructed
me to follow her. We reentered the ground floor through another flight of
narrow stairs and followed thickly woven rugs through long and narrow hallways.
I could hear music playing somewhere in the house, the sound increasing as we
progressed. Passing a sitting room, I saw a girl close to my own age playing a
flute. I had heard this instrument before, from a man in Güs whose window I
passed on the way to the market. I would often slow my pace so I could catch
the melodic sounds that mimicked the tunes of the lark.
    I wished for several minutes to sit and listen.
The girl had the same fair hair as Arianne and large round eyes. She stopped
when she saw us. We continued walking until we reached the foyer crossing over
to enter another larger sitting room at the base of a winding staircase. Large
paintings of the apostles, bordered by gilded filigreed frames filled up most
of the spaces on the walls.
    ‘What is your name?’ I asked the girl. She
knocked on the door.
    ‘Danika,’ she said solemnly, not caring whether
I heard her or not. ‘Remember to curtsy.’
    ‘Why? Are they royalty?’
    ‘No. But they think they are.’ Someone called
out ‘ enter’ and then Danika opened the door.
    The room was spacious and overly warm. We
brought with us a gust of air ; billowing the curtains
at a front window enclave. There were several people here all of some authority
and my mouth felt suddenly dry, a lump forming in my throat that threatened to
end further speech.
    Lady Köszegi sat in a high backed chair
upholstered in floral tapestry. Two male persons were beside her. One was quite
tall and darkly handsome with narrow eyes and a fixed grin ready for my entry.
The other was shorter, with fair hair and a pale complexion with dark patches
beneath his eyes. He did not seem interested in who was entering the room but
dreamily looking at something through the sunlit windows ; imagining somewhere else.
    Danika curtsied and quickly left. I felt
exposed when she had gone. I barely knew her but wished she had remained beside
me.
    ‘Come here,’ ordered the lady.
    I walked forward, lowering my head and
curtsying as I had seen Danika do.
    She looked me up and down and I found it hard
to meet her glaring appraisal.
    ‘Stand up straight,’ she commanded. ‘Don’t walk
around like a meek lamb. That won’t do in my household.’
    I surmised immediately that this woman could
prove quite difficult to work for, that her expectations would be high, but in
that moment also, I recognised her fragility and fearfulness. Whether I had
sensed this with my skill or by ordinary observations, I could not say.
    She held the letter from Arianne in her hands.
‘How is my daughter who tells me nothing?’
    Words tumbled out awkwardly as they often did
when I was nervous. ‘She is very well. She ably cares for the poor and is
looked upon with respect by many. As you are probably aware, she is being
groomed to become second in charge.’
    ‘No. I am unaware of anything that she does any
more. This is the first letter I have had from her in years.’ She spoke without
looking at me directly and I detected a hint of regret at their separation.
    ‘Oh,’ I said, not knowing whether to express my
pity for such a fact, and stunned that