The Crimson Shard by Teresa Flavin Page B

the house and picked her way along a short, dingy corridor. Edging carefully into the kitchen, she placed her burden on the first clear surface she could find.
    Two familiar figures sat in wooden chairs on either side of the blue-and-white tiled hearth, one warming his mantislike legs and the other smoking a long-stemmed clay pipe, his eyes following the shapely cook. The packages they had taken from Jeremiah leaned against a bit of wall underneath one of the shuttered subterranean windows.
    “’Tis the new apprentice,” said Fleet. “Or is you rather the new maid?”
    “Both,” said Sleek, his pipe smoke curling up toward the low ceiling.
    “I wish he was the new maid,” said Mistress Biggins, as she laid out jellies, syllabub, and potted cheeses on the large table. “Mary is obliged to do the work of three and does not even manage to do the work of one.”
    The heat blasting from the fire and oven sent Sunni cowering to the far wall. The sideboards were heaving with picked-over skeletons of pigeon and carp, bowls still green with slicks of pea soup, and the discarded peelings from potato pudding. To Sunni, the smoke-stained ceiling seemed to grow lower and lower, as if it would flatten them all.
    “Mary!” said Mistress Biggins. “Upstairs with all this — now!”
    The serving girl hung her head and began ferrying the sweets upstairs.
    “Boy,” said Fleet. “What do they call you?”
    Do I tell them the truth?
Under the men’s scrutiny, she lost her nerve.
    “Sunniver,” she murmured.
    “Singular name.” Sleek puffed his pipe.
    “Which parish is you from?”
    Panic slithered into Sunni’s stomach.
Parish — what’s that?
Hoping this was just an old-fashioned way of asking where she was from, she replied in her best imitation of an English accent, her tone lowered to sound more boylike. “Outside London.”
    Sleek gave his companion a knowing look.
    Fleet leaned forward on his bony knees, poised to ask more questions.
    Mistress Biggins interrupted before they could continue. “This boy needs his bed. Come with me, Sunniver.”
    She took a candlestick and bustled Sunni out of the kitchen to a nearby door in the dingy corridor. They entered a cavelike room, the single flame barely illuminating a couple of rickety cots and a cold hearth. As in the kitchen, the bottom half of its window was below ground level and dankness hovered in the air.
    “That’s your bed, the far one. Mary sleeps in the other.”
    “Where do you sleep?” Sunni asked, hoping this hearty, rosy-cheeked woman would be nearby.
    Mistress Biggins laughed. “There is no room for me in this crowded house. I lodge but a few streets away.”
    She set the candle down on an upturned crate next to Sunni’s cot and plumped the bedding. “I’m to wake you before I leave. Mr. Starling’s orders.”
    Sunni hesitantly sat down. Dampness wafted up from the covers and made her want to gag. From under the bed Mistress Biggins pulled out a chipped china pot that would serve as her toilet.
    “Thank you,” said Sunni miserably.
    “Pleasant dreams, Sunniver.” The cook pulled the door shut, and Sunni was left in the dim light of the sputtering candle.
    She yanked the bedding off and shook it till her arms ached. If any vermin were hiding in the mattress, they’d soon be squashed; she went over every inch, top and bottom, holding the candle close to the stained fabric. Last, she peered under the bed and, finding nothing but torn spiderwebs in the corner, she remade the bed and lay down on it, fully clothed. Hot tears came, and she punched the rancid pillow.
    All trace of tiredness was gone, replaced by anger and a need to do
something
to get home.
    She sat up. The dampness tickled at her throat, and the food smells from the kitchen teased her half-empty belly.
    The two men and Mistress Biggins were having a lively conversation in the kitchen. Sunni wiped her face and crept out of the room, inching along the wall of the corridor till she came