Midday Meals | Percy & Eilionora
Percy wondered how long it had been since he had laid eyes upon the Queen. Weeks, certainly, but perhaps it had been even longer than this. It seemed that the Emperor was allowing her time outdoors to be less and less and the areas to which she was allowed seemed more restrictive. Had he been growing impatient with her or was this all in Percy's mind?
What he did know, was that the lack of her presence was keenly felt by all of the servants who still held their place in the palace. For a person who had so many other important things to occupy her thoughts, Eilionora had always been known to still find time to take an interest in her servants. He didn't think that there was anyone who worked at the palace that she did not know. More than once, he discovered that the Queen had learned of some misfortune that had befallen her servants or their families and she made efforts to rectify the situation, however she could.
Eilionora had always been a kind and considerate ruler and her people missed her, desperately.
Whatever illness had befallen Harry had seemed to infect half of the kitchen staff, and the servants up at the castle were now horribly understaffed. Instead of letting this information finding its way to Roderick, himself, the servants all reshuffled their duties, as best as they could, to help each other wherever possible. They were afraid that Roderick would find any excuse he could to rid the palace of any remaining Astairans.
And this was how Percy found himself bringing food to Eilionora Stafford for her midday meal.
"Oy, where do you think you are going?" One of her guards asked her, eying him suspiciously.
"I have the Qu -- " Percy cleared his throat. As much as he disliked referring to Eilionora as anything but the Queen, he knew that this was likely not the time nor the place, " -- her lady's luncheon,"
"You aren't the usual boy."
Holding back a sarcastic quip about the guard's extraordinary skills of observation, Percy only replied with, "I'm new."
The guard paused, as though considering this, and then with a roll of his eyes, he let him pass, "Hmm, well get on with it then."
Percy knocked upon the doors to her chambers and, after being admitted to them by one of her attendants, Percy began laying out her plate and cup upon the small table that was situated by the window.
He turned to leave, when he saw Eilionora emerge from the next room. His instincts demanded that he bow before her and it was only after he addressed her as, "Your Highness," did it dawn on him that perhaps her attendants were just as suspicious of him as the guards had been.
No matter. If he was to be beheaded, it could be for worse things than addressing Eilionora Stafford as his queen.
"Is there anything else I can bring you?" Aside from a key to the front gate?
Eilia heard his voice outside, and it was one known to her. Percy had long served in her household, and he was one of those who had not forsaken it even after she had deserted her own regal post. Whatever else he might be, Percy had always proven himself reliable, and sucking in a deep breath, Eilia made a decision. Sending her attendants into the next room to see to whatever disturbance was occurring at the doors, Eilia quickly scribbled a note on a scrap of parchment, folding it into a tiny piece in her hand while they were distracted.
Her attendants were Varmont spies. From the moment of her surrender, all her remaining ladies had been immediately dispelled and replaced with women of Roderick's own choosing. Though supposedly serving at Eilia's pleasure, her suitor's purpose was unmysterious. And, entering the outer room where they were all gathered by her own command, she felt sharp eyes fall upon Percy as he bowed and addressed her.
"You forget," said Eilia, quickly but not without warmth. "Years of service forge habits difficult to dissolve, I know, and it does you credit to show obeisance in the home of His Imperial Majesty, our great Emperor, but the truth about me has been found out: I am queen no longer."
She could not deny that it hurt her to say. In her mind, to own even in this manner and without choice, that her father's honor could ever be contested, was folly...was sin. That her parents' match had not been one of passion was no secret, but his honor? His honor was another thing, and sacred. Whatever else he may have been, her father had always been an honest man. He would never so deceive his wife, his children, his country. It was a cruel and unthinkable insult and, besides, had no legal bearing upon her own regal status -- only potentially her role as Evenstar -- but that was not a thing Roderick seemed capable of understanding.
"Though," she added, approaching him and taking one of his hands -- and subtly slipping the note into it -- in hers, she smiled. "It is good of you to think that one so lowly as I could ever be so worthy of His Majesty's attentions as to hope I might someday be his queen."
Apparently contented with this speech, her attendants got on with their chores, and Eilia slipped back, her note safely conveyed to Percy.
Eilia glanced quickly behind her, glimpsing their return to her bedchamber, where they were to make up her bed. They could no longer see them, but she had little doubt they listened, still. She turned back towards Percy with an apologetic smile -- it had hardly been her wish to set him down.
The note was short, just a quick line or two: it said that it must be destroyed and kept most secret. It said that it would be a great danger to him to undertake the charge she was passing to him, and no one could blame him if he did not dare intervene, but it asked him nevertheless to consider recruiting Lady Calleary, in Eilia's own name, to help wanted rioters escape to other shores, before Roderick could find them, by whatever means she could contrive. Even in her current relocation, she knew the people of Hanthom well enough that she might find access to fishing boats and the like.
"I know all is chaos downstairs," she began, alluding in truth to the contents of the note, but attempting to couch them in a way that might sound merely a servant's duties to any who might overhear. "And so you may not have liberty to perform the task, but if you find yourself able to do it, I should be deeply grateful to you." She realized she had not audiably given him any directions. "I do wish for...another cloak, if you are able to get it."
It was rather chilly in these new rooms, (as they had only ever been intended as summer rooms,) and she had not yet been permitted to leave them since the riots earlier. No one would consider this a strange rquest.
"Whatever you do or do not do, Percy, I thank you just the same."
Percy’s throat tightened at her words, and for a heartbeat he hated the careful, dutiful shape of them: hated that she had to say queen no longer in her own home. He kept his posture properly bowed, kept his hands still, but his eyes lifted to hers with a steadiness that was almost defiant. “You will be Queen again, my lady,” he said softly, in a voice that he hoped his words could be mistaken for her being Queen as Roderick's bride. But Percy didn’t mean his Queen. The look he held a moment too long said plainly what his mouth could not: as is your right.
Her fingers closed around his hand, and when the scrap of parchment slid into his palm, Percy felt the weight of it like a stone dropped into a river. He didn’t react, at first. It was only when he turned slightly, as though to adjust the napkin at the tray’s edge, did his eyes flick down and race across the hurried lines.
He understood enough. Without a word, he crossed to the hearth with an unhurried pace and tossed it into the fire, watching the flames curl around it. When he turned the message was ash.
Percy returned to her, hands folded respectfully before him. “I shall be glad to give you another cloak, my lady,” he said, “You’re right -- belowstairs is busy, just now.” A pause, carefully measured. “But if it cannot be me, then perhaps the serving girl newly hired on from Lorcan might run it for you.” He did not say Saoirse aloud. The walls here had ears; the women in the next room had sharper ones, but he hoped she would know that he meant to have her note passed to Lorcan as soon as it could be gotten there by trusted means.
He hesitated, searching for some safe way to give her what she truly needed: something to steady her heart without giving anyone a thread to pull. Then he found it, and he let a faint laugh slip out, the sort a servant might share over foolish village gossip. “Conor, the boy who usually brings your meals, came through the lower corridor this morning in a state,” Percy said, shaking his head as if amused by the triviality. “He’d lost his dog. Swore no one would ever find the creature again.” His eyes met hers, and the humor in his mouth did not reach them. “But then -- would you believe it? They found him safe, roaming the mountains near Lorcan. No one ever thought he’d wander so far… but there he was.”
Percy’s smile flickered, quick and practiced, in case someone was watching closely for too much seriousness. “Conor said if ever he meant to play hide-and-seek, that’s where he’d go,” he added lightly, as though it were only a boy’s foolish thought. Then, lowering his voice by the smallest degree, he finished, “So, perhaps you needn’t fear the worst, my lady. Not today.”
Eilia caught his gaze, held it, the softness of gratitude shining in her eyes. Not for a moment did she believe he alluded to the state of wedding un-bliss with the emperor. Percy, though employed in a servile role, was more of a friend to her than that, really. Had they not all played together as children at Hanthom on those hot summer days when her mother retired to her nearby seaside cottage? To them, a servant had been as respected a role as a queen, for all positions required doing and, therefore, were worthy of dignity. The current regime seemed to hold differing views on that, too, but it in no way diminished Eilia's own perspective and, true to himself, it seemed his own had not been dinted as to herself.
Yes, Eilia knew him too well to mistake, and she smiled softly. "You are too kind, Percy. And I confess, I, too, hold that hope."
Eilia watched blankly as the evidence of her little treason went up in smoke. Slowly, she exhaled. Her hands felt clammy. Her worries, now, were for him.
Yet, she felt lighter at his words, hope blossoming somewhere in her chest as she breathed out, and in again with a smile. She nodded seriously as he explained he might pass it off -- and she knew to whom he referred. Either way, she knew he would see it done. "Thank you," she said with warmth. "I am so grateful. To whomever brings it, as well as to you for conveying it, whatever happens after that."
It was a dangerous charge she had given him, after all, but it was a burden off her mind to know that the message would be conveyed. She trusted in them all well enough to feel certain these wishes would be carried out. She hoped now only that she would hear nothing whatsoever about it, again. If she heard nothing, it had gone well. If she heard something, however, it meant they had been caught.
Guardians keep them, she prayed.
"Lorcan," she breathed. Of course. It was brilliant. The one untaken stronghold in all of Astaira whose unmined depths were rumored to be fathoms deep, able to conceal almost unlimited supplies -- and people. Her eyes gleamed. "What a brave creature," she said softly, hoping her note of thanksgiving would be taken for what it was. "And what a clever master to have found his place there. One never appreciates one's ingenuity till its put to the test, and so far away...I doubt as anyone else would have thought to look there." Roderick, certainly -- she did not believe -- would think to look there. At every turn, it seemed, the emperor underestimated his people. She was glad that, in that at least, they'd found one virtue in their new overlord.
"I could not be more grateful to know that poor Conor found his dog," she said, smiling, raising her eyes to his, grateful he'd found a way to tell her. Her gaze flicked towards the other room and she added, "Such tales have a way of warming the heart."
“So, perhaps you needn’t fear the worst, my lady. Not today.”
"No," she agreed, smiling. "Not today."
Her cousin, Rian, it now appeared, was their most troublesome obstacle in all of this. But he was easily dealt with, she thought, with the smallest of smirks. "I don't believe anyone, in the history of the game, has ever excelled so well at hide-and-seek as Conor," she began softly. "But I do not think my cousin would much approve. Tell him, if Rian means to make trouble for him on that account, he can always ask Lord Calleary to pay him a visit." She laughed, as thought it were indeed all fun and games. "I do believe he'll spend so much time attempting to dodge him, that Rian won't have any spare time enough to chastise the poor boy at all -- if he even notes what he's about, given that."
In a way, she meant this literally -- Cormac Calleary was deeply distracting and, she felt sure, her cousin would do all in his power to avoid him as much as possible. But she meant it more so in the abstract. Rian was a careful, watchful sort, but if one managed well enough to divert his attentions elsewhere, well, much could then be accomplished unobserved. And she believed she knew something which would, indeed, draw his notice, while failing to garner Roderick's.
"But, tell me, how fares my cousin, Garbhan? Last I heard, poor Rian was quite beside himself as regards his habits. I don't suppose he's managed to resurrect his brother's character, just yet?"
