When I was out of view of William, I started jogging. Moving as quickly as I could in the dress I was wearing, I thought about an excuse to quit working at the tavern. I would have to resign in the morning. I couldn’t put it off any longer.
When I reached Gwen’s, she wasn’t home. This didn’t surprise me, though. I had started to become accustomed to her odd working hours.
In the morning, I woke early and headed to the Tavern before Gwen was awake. I explained quickly to Fredrick that I would no longer be working there, I smiled politely, and I left without looking back. It was not difficult. I’d left people and places many times. Very few of them had I looked back on.
Because it was still early, I took my time getting to the castle. I went the long way through the city, enjoying the clean, fresh morning air. When I finally reached the castle, the town had begun to stir.
I asked a guard where to find the person in charge of employment and followed his directions.
By noon, I had found myself in the kitchen cleaning used pots and pans.
After a time of mindless scrubbing, I was drawn out of my thoughts.
“You missed a spot,” said a voice to my right.
I looked to see who had spoken. To my surprise, I found a young boy with tan skin and dark hair. He couldn’t have been older than twelve.
I looked down at the kettle I had just finished washing. “No I didn’t.” I turned it around to make sure I was correct.
“Yes you did.” He reached out with a hand that had been hidden behind his back and tapped the silver kettle. “Right there.” I looked from him to the kettle and realized that there was a muddy finger print where he had touched the kettle. I looked down at his hands to see that they were covered in mud. He smiled.
I laughed, dunking the kettle back into the soapy water. “It wasn’t there until you put it there,” I said. I took my wrinkled hand out of the water bucket and splashed the boy with a few droplets of water. “What are you doing in the kitchen with hands so dirty?”
The boy wiped the water off his face with his shirt sleeve before answering, “I like to annoy the cooks,” he explained. I found his truthfulness endearing.
“Well, the cooks seem easily annoyed.” I bit my lip. “Especially Audrey.” The head chef had not been completely happy to have a new face in her kitchen. She seemed a woman of routine and organization. I was not part of her routine.
The boy laughed and held out his mud-covered hand. “My name is Gracian,” he told me. “It means ‘beloved’.”
I wrapped my hand lightly around his wrist, avoiding the dirt on his hands, and shook it. “I’m Cleo. It means ‘to praise’.” I had never been sure why my parents had given me the name. Maybe they had just liked the sound of it.
Gracian smiled. “Did you start working here today?” he asked.
I nodded, setting the kettle aside and moving on to the next dish. Though I had been working for almost an hour, the pile of dirty dishes had not gotten smaller.
“I thought so, since I hadn’t seen you before.”
“What about you? How long have you been here?”
“Most of my life. My mother’s a maidservant, so I usually hang around the castle,” he explained.
“Do you know it well? The castle, I mean.” I’m sure it sounded like a strange question, but his young mind would suspect nothing.
“Inside and out like the back of my hand,” the boy told me. “I can show you around some time if you want.” He seemed to like the idea of showing me around. This was his home. Children are always proud of their home.
I nodded. “That would be nice. But not today. I have work to do today.”
Gracian nodded and smiled, excusing himself to continue with his pranks.
Later in the afternoon, I was sent to fetch water from the well. I was walking along silently when someone fell into step with me. I did not have to look up at his face to know that the chainmail-clad man was Sir William.
“I see you’ve gotten yourself a job in the kitchen,” he said. “Now I will not have to walk quite so far to see you.” I felt his eyes on me, willing me to say something.
“We both know that you will continue to visit the tavern whether I am there, or not.” I persisted to stare straight ahead, never looking at the knight.
William laughed. “This is true,” he agreed. “But now I have an excuse to visit the kitchen more often.”
“Audrey will not be happy with that,” I told him.
“Let her be unhappy,” he retorted. “She only ever cares about her food.”
“As if it were her own child,” I murmured. I had not intended for William to hear, but he did and he snickered.
“So you do have a sense of humor!”
I didn’t reply.
When we reached the well, he insisted on pulling up the water for me. As we walked back, he carried the bucket. My hands felt odd without something in them.
After a long silence, I forced myself to say something. I couldn’t figure out why, but I didn’t like silence between us. “Don’t knights have actual jobs to do?” I asked. “Something more than visiting the tavern and carrying buckets for servant girls?”
“Carrying buckets for servant girls is what we knights are all about!” William exclaimed. “Along with holding doors for people and helping old women across the street.”
I could not keep a smile off my face no matter how much I wanted to. “Then what’s the chainmail for?”
“Well you see, knights are very sensitive. If we so much as get stung by a bee, we could be in the infirmary for months. The chainmail is critical to our existence.”
I laughed. As we rounded the corner into the courtyard, Merlin appeared.
William and I both stopped walking.
“Afternoon, Mer—,” William started to say, but he was cut short by a ceasing gesture from the dark-haired young man.
“Excuse me,” Merlin said to William. “Can I borrow Cleo for a moment?” Without waiting for an answer, he grabbed me by the upper arm and pulled me away. He didn’t seem happy.
“I’ll just take this water to the kitchen for you!” William called after me.
When we were far enough away from other people, Merlin turned to me. “So you’re working in the castle now?” His voice was hard and unforgiving. “In the kitchen no less!”
“Yes,” I replied, though the question had not been meant to be answered.
“Well isn’t that convenient,” Merlin muttered.
“Excuse me?”
“I will not let you kill Uther.”
“I’m not going to!” I lied.
“Then explain why you now have a job in the royal kitchen! A job within reaching distance of the king’s food!”
“I didn’t ask to be placed in the kitchen,” I whispered
“But you did ask to be placed in the castle.”
“Is it that bad that I didn’t like working at the tavern?” I asked. This caught Merlin off guard. It hadn’t crossed his mind that maybe I just hadn’t liked my previous job.
Merlin took a deep breath. “Promise me you will not make a move against Uther.” His eyes were pleading. He wanted to be able to trust me. He wanted me to be different from the sorcerers who used magic to please only themselves.
I didn’t say anything for a long moment. “I promise,” I finally told him, looking him in the eye. If he wanted to believe it, I would let him.
“Swear on your life.”
“I swear I will not kill King Uther. I swear it on my life.” Of course, Merlin did not know how little my own life mattered to me.
He sighed. “I believe you,” he said after a moment. “You should get back to work,” Merlin told me.
I nodded and turned. Halfway across the courtyard, I stopped and looked back, only half forcing the smile that came to my lips.
He smiled back.