Audacity

“You wish what of me?”

I stand before Goodwife Elizabeth by the kitchen hearth as she pauses in her assistance of old Olyver in scrubbing the morning dishes of our broken fast. Against the cookware she gently sets her brush down while I refrain my request.

“I wish for you to teach me how to speak with boldness.”

She looks to her husband, sharing a one-sided look of puzzlement with the man who merely continues about his task in deliberate silence as though neither of us are there.

“Well,” she begins, clearing her throat. “I suppose that is not out of the realm of how a young lady ought to behave. Perhaps, after all of this excitement, tomorrow we might—”

“No,” I say, “it needs to be as soon as you are able.”

I would feel as though it were a clear request, for my words were pointed enough, yet she looks upon me as though I were speaking in tongues.

“Lady Ellie…”

My pet name again.

“...I know not why you might wish so suddenly for this but there's much to do and we've little time to depart for the cathedral.”

I shake my head.

“But that will not do! I am in need of this today! This moment!”

The older housekeeper brings her hands to fix the long girdle of her waist and the pitying look about her face only serves to sour my mood.

“Whatever is it for that you need this on such short notice?” She questions.

T'is a fair question but also one that I fear the answer of might only come to invite more until I've all but exhausted my time devoted to Larkin. I cannot trust that she will simply understand and ask no further of it, as I might with Maud.

And so I refrain from divulging the entirety of my intentions.

“I must speak with Lord Edmund of logistical matters in regards to my brother's knights.”

She may see this as interfering, perhaps even meddlesome, but far better still than if she were to know what I so truly intend.

But the housekeeper simply deflates with a sigh.

“A lady ought to consider the household, yes, but on days like this, perhaps the lord duke might—”

“—Oh won't you please, Elizabeth?” I interrupt. “I simply must speak with him!”

The woman frowns, appearing to look at her husband in search of some kind of approval only to find him still strategically focused upon his task. She instead returns her attention to me and I find only disappointment for what response she has to give.

“...My lady, you had ought to consider a better use of your time.”

T'is such an unfathomably frustrating answer, and one that I hate to relinquish my request upon…

“...Then so I shall,” I declare, and then make my leave of what can only lead to greater disappointment and a wasting of what little precious time I have. If only she truly knew just how little of it I have to devote for this futile endeavor.

It cannot be so that my roguish beloved was right in his critique of me! But yet here I am unable to convince my brother's own staff to do something minorly inconvenient for me. I only find it ever more maddening the longer I dwell upon it as I march about my brother's property and find Maud in her usual place about this time of day.

As always, she is at careful work in the main hall, masterfully sewing her annual fabric allotment into clothing for herself. So intent she is upon her task that I am almost successful in evading her attention.

“My lady? Is everything well?”

I want to continue marching away from her, the scowl bitterly upon my face, and I am quick in my attempt to curb her inquiry.

“I am perfectly well,” I say, mustering the finest voice that I might, although it succeeds not in convincing the dressing maid of its genuinity.

“Lady Ellie…” she beckons and, with a tired sigh, I face her to reveal the expression I had been hiding.

“I wonder how you so do it, Maud,” I lament.

“Well, you are hardly a closed book, my lady.”

“Not that!” I say in frustration as I finally commit to entering the hall.

“I mean…” I sigh, approaching the table at which she is seated. “...How do you just…do that?”

She looks puzzled back upon me.

“How do you mean, lady?”

“Speak with such challenge,” I say, taking a seat next to her on the bench. “You’ve such a small presence—you've always since the very day you came into my service…and yet I find that you speak so boldly in the most particular of moments.”

T’is Maud's turn to become flustered again as she inches to retreat away from me in her seat.

“M-my lady, I-I know not what—”

“Maud, please!” I beg, looking at her with a heartfelt sincerity that seems to tentatively break through her hesitance with a wince.

“You surely do not believe that I harbor such nerve, lady…” She replies, defensively.

“But you do,” I respond. “Just now, and even in this morning when you so inquired about my exhaustion! And many such minute instances before this day!”

Particularly when you so sternly confronted me about my ordeal and nearly chased me into the mirror. You might be unable to remember it but never shall I so easily forget about that.

The mousy woman drops her garmented hands into her lap, sheepishly averting her gaze from me as I press harder.

“Maud, please. I just need to know how you so do it…”

The woman exhales, her gaze returning to mine.

“But…But it just comes naturally, my lady! I just—…”

She shakes her head.

“...I worry for you, Lady Ellie! I always have but, of recent, more-so than ever!”

Maud reaches to me and I let her find my hand, taking it firmly within her dainty fingers.

“I care if you sleep not, I worry when you are unwell!”

She squeezes tighter.

“And perhaps that concerns me far more sometimes than I feel I can idly watch.”

I almost blush at her sincerity. Perhaps I even do a little as Maud seems to have a flicker of regret and retracts herself away again.

“I—…M-my lady, I'm sorry, I must have—”

I dare not let her finish, pulling her tightly into an embrace.

“Nay, perish that thought,” I say, pulling back to look upon her again. “For I am most fortunate to have such a friend in my service.”

I hold her once more, for again I feel that she is exactly right.

I must remember for whom I am speaking in my endeavors, for it is in that desire that I might find the will to succeed…

But now I must go forth and put it into practice.

“My lady?” Asks Maud as she pulls from me. “Why do you wish to know of such things?”

I puff out my cheeks in an impotent frown.

“Because Goodwife Elizabeth would not even listen to me,” I say bitterly.

…There is a short moment of silence before my dressing maid seemingly begins to giggle at me. I could hardly believe her audacity if it were not before my very eyes.

“S-stop that!” I say, entirely flushed.

“But Lady Ellie!” She says through her fit. “T’is not as though she would listen to me either! I only find it amusing that you came to me for it!”

I frown at her all the way through until she returns to her senses with the clearing of her throat.

“I would wish you luck, my lady, for surely there is nothing so dire to speak with Goodwife Elizabeth about.”

…But that is where Maud would be wrong.

For there is nothing more important on the line than what shall happen with every further day that comes to waste…

—

When next I return again from relinquishing my beloved into the waiting maw of my worst fears, I travel back to the city cathedral. So tired I am of it, that I feel emboldened by the revolving pain of my continual sacrifice into the jaws of fate; my most valued treasure uncaringly discarded by his betters and the impotent hands of the woman he so trusts most.

It suffers me. Every time it does.

I will not let my own family's household servant stand in the way of halting this again.

I find the collection of my household staff where they always choose to congregate in the nave and I pick out the larger form of the elder woman who serves as my brother's housekeeper, walking forward and then grabbing her attention with a touch of her shoulder.

“Elizabeth,” I say, “I wish to speak with you privately.”

The woman looks up with an expression of minor curiosity but seems to dismiss it before coming to her feet and following my lead to just outside of the main door in the front.

“How may I be of service to you, lady Ellie?”

I clench my fists in anticipation.

“Now is the time. Again, I wish for you to teach me to speak with confidence,” I say.

But the old housekeeper seems as set in her answer as ever.

“My lady, a woman of your position certainly ought to be offering her prayers for the men of her household in such a time as this. Now, come with me and we shall—”

“Nay!” I say with conviction. “It must be now, for I will have no other time for it.”

I've not come here to waste minutes. The opportunity I have is for now and I cannot afford to let it pass once more, even if Elizabeth would so have it that way.

“Let us discuss this later, my lady,” she suggests. “Now is not the—”

I recall the broken body of my beloved once more and remember exactly for what stake my efforts are going to.

“I will not discuss this with you later, nor shall I discuss this with you now,” I say, my eyes locked upon her own.

“Today I've done all that I must as a lady, a lover, and God-fearing woman. I have seen my beloved off to war and my brother's knights along with him. I have readied myself for what shall come and I have prayed far more this day than you have ever so done in a hundred!”

I stand taut before her, advancing as one with fears forgotten in the face of my resolve.

“I have so prayed enough and now I seek to bring about the answers I have prayed for, where in no cathedral I shall find them!”

I pinch the sleeve of the housekeeper between my fingertips, holding her to where she stands.

“Goodwife, I shall have you instruct me or I shall be rid of a servant who takes not the strength of my word seriously!”

…I stare down intently upon her, my ultimatum laid bare. Whether it is reasonable or not from the perspective of Elizabeth's own circumstances, alea iacta est. I am not averse to progress and I would so cast her from my brother's household in a thousand rounds of this day if it afforded me what I so needed to make it all end.

Elizabeth meets my gaze at first not with fear, but what appears to be apprehension, and then indignation as I ready myself for what I might have to do next…

…But then her expression changes once more into something else.

She huffs.

“...You speak as though you have already found your strength, my lady,” she says. “I would dare say that your mother would be proud.”

Was that…a compliment?

From Goodwife Elizabeth?

I am taken so aback by her comment that I fail even to notice as she pivots and begins to withdraw herself toward the cathedral's outer perimeter, only gaining my attention when she finally speaks to claim it.

“Well? Are you wanting to learn to speak for yourself or are you not?”

I wince at the challenge but reclaim myself, for I now have my road to progress.

All that is left for me is not to leave it untrodden…

—

“Surely you do not intend to speak to the lord duke of such a matter!” Maud nearly cries as I wave a hand of failed moderation between us.

“My lady, that man is a force unto himself. Is that not a bad idea?

I shake my head.

“That man is my brother's liege and was my father's before him. He's known me since I were a girl.”

But Maud does not seem to be having any of it.

“And you believe that it shan't make it worse?” She questions, her hands fiddling together nervously. “Lady Ellie, what is to say that Lord Edmund even should see you as anything but that child? What is there to stop him from merely ignoring you?”

Dear Maud, you know not just how aggravatingly accurate your concerns happen to be. But, for that, I am now prepared…

“Worry not about it, for I've prepared a strategy against that. However, what I need in this moment is a firm plan of what to say once I have gotten his attention.”

I clasp hold of the dressing maid's hands as she finishes buttoning my cotehardie. “That is why I've come to you now, to convince him however I may!”

It would always be a stretch to ask her this. I need not to have had multiple goes at this to anticipate that and she makes it clear enough on her own.

“My lady, I am only but your dressing maid. How even do you suppose I am to help with this?”

“But you are also my dearest friend,” I counter, “and the only one who I can come to for help in this.”

You also have a deceptively better head on your shoulders then you could know when I have come to you for help.

…And it just so happens that you yourself have taught me how best to ensure that I get it.

I stiffen myself.

“I only hoped that you would have helped me, but the matter cannot wait upon what assistance I manage to gather and I shall be speaking with Lord Edmund whether you have aided me or not.”

Just as she has suggested to me, her strength of courage is born of the ones she cares most about.

And she cares about me.

The mousey girl shakes her head in frustrated reluctance.

“Then…then I suppose I am left with no other choice but to offer my help to you in this…”

The morality of using the curse I am afflicted with for what I may, in another life, have considered to be manipulation is not particularly lost on me…but it is only convincing her to help me with planning, right? T'is only innocuous play—not as though I am bringing her to harm.

I am certain, had she the ability to know of all that has happened to me this day, she would have come around to aiding me regardless.

“Wonderful,” I say.

I might ask God for forgiveness but, until he provides me with the guidance I would hope for, I am afraid this is the best route I am able to consider…

I clasp my hands together.

“Then allow me to explain what it is that I am hoping to accomplish…”