Emily, the Maid

Maybe the goddess had taken pity on me. Maybe she didn’t understand the extent of my newfound powers to make radical changes to the design of Lady Greymoor’s character menu. Maybe it was an elaborate joke. But either by intent or by serendipity, I had been afforded a divine opportunity to take an active role in Lady Greymoor’s progression.

I refocused my attention to the real world. Vivian, Stefan, and Vladimir were all still seated beneath the gazebo. The sun had risen to noon with clear skies and a pleasant wind heralding a new start to this magnanimous day.

Emily had returned from the pantry and had set a cup of coffee on Vivian’s side of the table, along with a thin plate topped with a miniature jug of cream and three cubes of sugar.

“Thanks, Em,” Vivian said, but the maid returned nothing but a despondent nod and took her spot by the south handrail overlooking the flower garden.

I recognized something familiar in Emily’s posture. The specific curvature of the bow offered to Vivian emphasized a certain mix of subservience and deference.

It was a technique I showed to my office managers at work quite often. But unlike my mechanical apologias, there was an unexpected heartache in the maid’s shaky hands and a sorrow in her oblong gaze.

“Well, setting aside the artifact for a moment,” Stefan said, trying to break the awkward silence, “What are you planning to do when you see the prince again?”

“A-Again?” Vivian asked, “Why would I see him again?”

“Come on, Viv, at the Royal Ball? The one all of us are attending?”

“You don’t think he’ll be there, do you?”

“What’s the name of the event again, Viv? Do you think that maybe someone of, say, royal blood, might attend an event with –”

“Okay, okay, fine, I get your point,” Vivian said, “I just thought, maybe, with all the drama, he would lay low for a while. Not all the aristocrats, or commoners for that matter, are happy that he’s mingling outside his station.”

“Prince Pendragon’s a royal, even marrying an aristocrat is outside of his station,” Vladimir scoffed, “And the royal court won’t care, they’re just happy they can mix with someone with Avalon’s blessing.”

“Vladdy, you make it sound so clinical.”

“That’s because it is.”

“Not in my bedroom, it isn’t,” Stefan pouted, “Still, it’s a little hard to believe that he actually did it. Arty, I mean. He was such a coward when he was a lad. Who knew he had it in him to break tradition like that? Viv, you remember, right?”

“Remember what?”

“Arty, when he was a kid. How cowardly he was.”

“That was a long time ago, and I probably have fonder memories of him than you do,” Vivian said.

“Oh right,” Stefan groaned, “Because you actually liked the guy.”

“Granted, we all knew it was a political marriage,” Vivian blushed, “But we were friends since we were children, and towards me, he had these ways of…doing things.”

Vivian spoke about the prince with a special kind of cadence and rhythm, like a ballad or a song with whimsical delight. She had never spoken this way about Stefan or even her father, and the special treatment left me ever so slightly aggravated.

“Until he cheated on you with that commoner girl with a rare magical archetype.”

That’s right, Stefan. Put Vivian in her place.

"You didn't have to put it that way."

"Better than you moping over a crummy prince," Stefan said, "I know what you're thinking already. I disagree, but I'll support you. Let's go to the Royal Ball and let's avenge you and your stubborn honor. But afterwards, it'll be time to move on. Vlad, don't you have a brother?"

A crash. Everyone turned and looked at Emily, who had dropped a porcelain pot onto the gazebo floor. It shattered into pieces, and the tea within perfumed the wooden boards with fragrant notes of chamomile.

"Em!" Vivian cried, rushing to the maid's side, "What happened, are you okay?"

"I'm sorry, Lady Greymoor, please excuse me," Emily sputtered, falling on her knees and scavenging for sharp fragments.

"Stop it, Em, at least put on some gloves!"

But Emily wasn't listening, frantically shoveling large pieces of porcelain onto her skirt as if it was a makeshift garbage bag.

"Em, please just settle down and listen – ow!"

Vivian reached forward at the moment Emily was scraping several sharp shards onto her dress skirt. A loose piece dashed across Vivian’s wrist and drew blood. She recoiled and Emily’s face sank from frenzy to despair. The maid cupped the hems of her tear stained dress to hold what fragments she had already collected and dashed out of sight, still leaving a handful of porcelain scraps strewn across the gazebo floor.

“Wait, wait,” Stefan yelled, “Before you go after her, have Vlad take a look at that.”

Vladimir stepped forth and took Vivian’s hand into his own. The wound didn’t seem very deep, and Vlad held the palm of his right hand over the wound and closed his eyes. A golden light burned over the bloody surface as if cauterizing it, but when Vlad’s hand moved away, there was no hint of a scar.

“Not quite a goddess’s blessing,” Vladimir murmured, “but it’ll do.”

“I need to go after her. Find out what’s going on,” Vivian shook her head, “Could you two clean up the rest of the mess? I’ll have her apologize later.”

Vivian took off in Emily’s direction, her heels kicking up specks of soil that stained her crimson dress.

I, too, pondered over Emily’s erratic behavior. Part of me felt guilty (though the other part of me felt justified) that my initial instinct was to be annoyed. How dare she throw a fit when I had just acquired these new powers over Vivian? We were about to have a breakthrough!

But perhaps my irritation stemmed from the fact that her attention, which had previously centered on knowing more about the bracelet, about me, had been so easily shifted to a person she cared about.

This behavior felt preposterous for me to entertain, so much so that while Vivian sprinted across the meadows along the eastern wing, I reviewed my document listing the Greymoor estate’s personnel. I fished for Emily’s dossier, where I had noted her emotional sensibilities, her cordial mannerisms with no hint of pretension, how only she, among the rest of the Greymoor’s maids and servants, had been trusted to wake Vivian and choose her daily outfits, and tried my best to understand what it was about her that made her deserving of Lady Greymoor’s attention.

“Emily!”

Vivian’s shout roused me from my wired stupor. She had caught up with the maid, who stood at the edge of the meadow. Her uniform had been muddied and the rest of the porcelain pot was strewn over the dirt.

“Stay right there,” Vivian demanded, crossing the last bit of distance between them until they stood face to face, “Why have you been avoiding me, Em? What’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yes, you should be sorry, but to Stefan and Vladimir, not to me. That’s not what this is about. Have I done something wrong to offend you?”

“No!” Emily viciously shook her head, “Absolutely not, Lady Greymoor, I would never suggest such a thing!”

“Then what’s going on? Why are you addressing me so formally?”

“Lady Greymoor…”

“Vivian.”

“Lady Greymoor, please!” Emily bit her lower lip, “Everything that’s gone wrong since the soiree, it’s been my fault.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s a maid’s duty,” Emily said, “to help a woman of your stature succeed. When the crown prince revealed his lover during the soiree, I realized I had made a grave mistake.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I saw the prince and his lover and never questioned it!” Emily cried, “He told me that she was a visitor to the court and he had been assigned as her reluctant guide.”

Really? She believed that?

“I watched in shame when the royal court made a mockery of you at the party. It was all my fault. If only I could lend you some of my powers, maybe he would’ve thought twice about it.”

Had I been Vivian, I might have torn into Emily for such a mistake. But Vivian instead chose to pull the crestfallen maid into a warm embrace. She laughed heartily and held Emily tight.

“Emily, you’re such a simpleton. Is that what this charade was all about?” Vivian sighed, “Forget about everything else for a moment, will you? Here, what are my allergies, Em?”

“B-Birchwood, my lady.”

“And my night time ritual?”

“A decaffeinated latte and a book from your father’s study.”

“See? No one else understands me as much as you do, Em,” Vivian whispered softly, “Sometimes, I wish I could just marry you instead.”

“Lady Greymoor, you can’t say that!” Emily blushed furiously, trying to squirm herself out of the hug.

“In any case, if the prince deceived you like he deceived me, that’s two members of the Greymoor estate he’s spurned,” Vivian’s tone chilled with subtle anger, “And that’s what makes what we must achieve at the Royal Ball all the more important.”

“Achieve what, my lady?”

Vivian flashed a devilish grin.

“Why, our revenge, of course.”