Just a Girl

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty

Training went well, and Winnie felt that both Mary and Liz would do ok for themselves. A few short days had passed. The troubadours were already outside of the castle, tooting their horns high in the air, which Winnie thought it to be very obnoxious. They read off a letter, which Winnie could not make out from her bedroom window.

Liz was forced to attend this, so Winnie waited anxiously for her to return back to her room. When she finally returned, she looked none too happy.

“That was absolutely awful!” Liz said her eyes brimmed with tears. “The war is going to be here approximately at nightfall. My father has chosen to bring all of the male servants here, so that they will be forced to fight.”

“How can that happen?” Winnie asked, knowing that no family would willingly give up their servants.

“My father is giving them a significant amount of coins. Definitely more than they paid for the servant, I’m sure.” Liz sounded disappointed.

“Where are they all going to stay?” Winnie asked, having a hard time wrapping her mind around this idea.

“They will fill the halls. You would be absolutely disgusted at how many servants will be here. And none of them will have any training at all. They will just get slaughtered out there. But no one seems to care about that.” Liz had gone straight to her father about it, but he disagreed with her and dismissed her as if she wasn’t even his daughter.

“Why are we even bothering to have them fight for us if they are just going to die?” Winnie asked.

“They will ‘provide a distraction’ for the trained knights. When you look for someone to attack, you always go for the weaker ones, knowing that you will have a chance. Unless of course you have hubris, but not many knights do.”

“So the distraction that the servants cause will make it easier for the knights to attack the enemy?”

“Yes.” Liz said. They both heard a banging on the door, and Winnie answered it.

“Excuse me, Princess and Ms. Winnie, I am sent by his majesty to come and bring you down to the main entrance. You are instructed to greet our guests and welcome them. Show them to the Parlor.” The butler turned and walked away, not even bothering to escort the girls down there.

“Let’s go,” Liz said, and they walked down there with her.

Winnie was the first one to admit that she was scared. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to expect as she walked the corridors with Liz to get to the main entrance. It was uncomfortable for Winnie. She felt so lost.

“They are in luck! We just redecorated our Parlor!” Liz exclaimed. It was obvious to Winnie that Liz had had a part in that.

“Is it nice?”

“Yes, very nice. I think it’s admirable of my father to allow the servants, whose lives are about to be taken, to go into the Parlor and be comfortable in the few short hours that they have left to live.” The worst part was, was that Liz was being completely serious. She said it with little emotion, too.

When they arrived at the entrance, the queen was standing at the door, greeting the servants and waving her hand. She had a smile plastered on her face, but it wasn’t her normal smile. It was an apologetic one.

They stood there and waved. Once the entrance hall was close to full, they took the servants to the Parlor. It was honestly a sad sight to see, all of the servants filing into the Parlor. There was so many of them. At least two hundred servants were sold to the king for this war.