Chapter 19

“Freja, will you meet me in my room later?”, Martha asked as we stepped out from the morning discussion with Mother.

I nodded, surprised. She hadn’t brought up anything this morning that would need a private conversation. Maybe something had come up that wasn’t important enough to discuss with Mother.

“Of course”, I replied.

I walked back to my room, wondering what she would want to talk about. Apart from organising the traders and their soon-to-be travel further up North to visit our villagers, there wasn’t much happening. The fortress was preparing for winter, and everything was slowing down. It would be a long couple of months. With my new duties as the next High Lady, Mother wouldn’t let me play with the stable boys any longer, or take the horses for a ride to explore the forest. It would mostly consist of occasional meetings and listening to lengthy discussions about spring and the latest news from the war. I wished Father and my brother were still here, and we would still be a family like we used to.

I sat down by the window as I returned to my room. The courtyard below was bustling with soldiers and horsemen, preparing the stables for the coming months. I always used to help them, back then, when I wasn’t preparing to become the next High Lady. I sighed and turned away. It was no use thinking about it, but it didn’t make my days any easier. What I had was gone, and I knew Mother wouldn’t allow me to return to it.

There was a knock on the door, and a servant stepped in.

“Martha will see you now”

I nodded and followed her out. At least Martha was still kind to me, and as one of the stewards alongside Holger, that meant I wasn’t fully ignored like with the rest of the staff. The servant halted before Martha’s door, bowed and left. I knocked and stepped inside. She was sitting by her desk, but she rose as she saw me and came over to me.

“Freja”, she smiled. “How are you doing?”

She knew how Mother treated me, of course, and I suspected she tried to take the worst blows off it, but I knew she couldn’t hinder it altogether.

“I’m okay”

She put a hand on my arm and led me to the chair by the desk. She sat down opposite, folded the letter she had been writing and looked at me.

“Have you been meeting with our new guests?”

I looked at her, surprised. I hadn’t been ordered to meet them, and seeing them without Mother’s explicit approval would only have brought her reproach upon me. I shook my head.

“I have not”

She nodded to herself.

“You know, you will need to practise your skills as the next High Lady”

I nodded, not sure where she was going with this.

“What would be a better opportunity than socialising with our guests from the different Kingdoms?”

“What do you mean?”

She smiled.

“Oh, you know, it will be very important for you to understand their culture, maybe even their different languages”

“You mean..?”

“Yes, befriend them. You never know what you will learn. I will talk to the Lady, she will see the use of it.”

She got up, as if the conversation was finished. Become friends with them… At least I would have something to do, and maybe I didn’t need to spend so much time in the meetings with Mother. I nodded.

“Thank you…”

Was this one of her ways of intervening with Mother’s treatment of me? She would never tell me even if I asked, so I let her escort me out of the room without another word.