The Dragonbone Petticoat

Chapter Five

"Renae! Renae! Renae! Renae! RENAE!" Although the nurse only said it once, she trusted her eyes less than her ears, which heard it four times, to which she added her own shriek of her name. Drowning in blankets, she cuddled them by flailing until she plopped from her own stink to un-die in a floor puddle, where light slipped into life.

When the nurse set down the jug for her daily bath, Renae felt her mind slip from the night side to the day side. One second, the jug budded from the water; in the next, the water beaded on the jug. As she breathed in the accepted order of things, she felt a little more herself, and this thought led to a relief more pathetic than proud, for though she was more Renae now than she was all year, she was still shattered several times a day: when she woke up; a few instants scattered in the evening when her mind dipped in and out of dreamland; and, whenever she opened her mouth, her meaning exploded into gibberish, and she lost continuity of consciousness for a moment, until she felt that she had picked up all the shards of Renae.

"Pain my grass," said Renae, and when the Brynnelmark smiled and waited for more, Renae poured water into the basin, dipped her hair, and pointed to her scalp. "Smoke. Pain my grass."

"I'll say you are," said the warrior nurse good-naturedly, then dunked Renae's head in the basin. While Lady Renae's skull and scalp had healed, and her hair was now nearly three inches long, closing her eyes under running water was too much like the streaming pain of the mace blow. One day she hoped to describe this to the hero nurses that wrestled her clawing hands to wash her hair, for while it was trying for them, it was so impossible for her to do it that if they had left her to herself, her head would still be caked with mud and blood. As Brynnelmark Wycera had taken to wearing gloves during Renae's ablution, today's wounds were limited to Renae's stinging pink eyes from the trickling soap. Today she had only opened her eyes one time.

"Ashes."

"Whatever that means. Do you understand me, my lady?"

Renae nodded.

"Starting tomorrow, you'll help in the kitchen."

Renae started at this, then shook her head.

"Your funds were cut off, my lady. Your husband died and never wrote a will. Since you were his second wife, the estate went to his son."

Renae shook her head vigorously. "Candles and frogs!"

The Brynnelmark could not help laughing. "At least you'll always be a lady, my lady. Your stepson agreed to visit so we could discuss your maintenance by way of an annual stipend. But from the sound of it, it won't be enough to keep you here unless you work to supplement it."

Renae lunged, but as Brynnelmark are selected for, among other intrinsic qualities, great height and strength, the massive woman pushed the angry and poor aristrocrat onto her bed.

"Syphillis!" Through her anger, Renae was excited. This was as close as she came to speaking what she intended in almost a year. She had meant to call the Brynnelmark a whore.

"Please, my lady. You are welcome to stay and deserving of our care. And if the terms of the arrangement are changing a little, it will keep you trim so you can land a new doddering husband. One that likes crazy--or is too deaf to hear what you're saying." Wycera snickered, held up a stiff arm to repel the furious Lady Renae, then closed and locked the door.

Renae was stunned. They had locked her in! While it wasn't the first time a Brynnelmark took that precaution, it had been months. As the shock quivered to a rage, Renae's neck drew taut under grinding teeth, and she seized the ewer and shattered it on the wall. Laughing and screaming, she turned to her dresser and end table, both of which she rattled, upended, and smashed.