Page 21 of Hemlock & Silver

The next morning, I took full advantage of the bath and presented myself at Snow’s door, well scrubbed and professional. Hopefully professional. Professional-esque, anyway. I was staking a lot on those green scarves.

The person who seemed to be in charge of Snow was a tall woman with a long, rabbitlike face. She was smiling warmly, but I got the impression that she had been doing it for so long that it was simply her default expression.

“So, Mistress…?” I raised my eyebrows inquiringly at her.

“Oh please, just call me ‘Nurse,’” she said. “Everyone else does.”

“Well then, Nurse, if you could write down everything Snow eats in the course of a day, that would be very helpful,” I said, proffering a sheet of paper.

The nurse looked down at the paper but made no move to take it. “Oh… ah…” she said. The smile didn’t quite slip, but it frayed a bit at the edges. “I don’t know as I’m the best one for that, being so busy and all…”

I guessed at once that the woman was uneasy with her letters and revised my plan. “Oh, of course,” I said. “It was foolish of me not to realize how busy you are. Why don’t I sit here and take notes, and we’ll go from there?”

Nurse looked relieved. I looked around, found an overstuffed armchair by the balcony door, and settled in.

The odds were good that I’d have had to do this anyway at some point.

Nurse was probably entirely trustworthy, so far as good intentions went, and entirely untrustworthy as far as observations went.

She was simply too close to Snow and too used to the daily routine.

You’d be amazed the things that people’s eyes skip over as unimportant—flypaper, rat poison, a cup of warm milk before bed.

(Not that I thought Snow was eating rat poison, but the saints know that I’ve heard of stranger things.)

If you ever have the opportunity to sit in the corner and observe the morning routine of a twelve-year-old princess, I suggest you do virtually anything else. After about two hours, rat poison was starting to look good. The lives of kings’ daughters are exquisitely dull .

First, Snow had a long bath. Servants came up with ewers of hot water and poured them into a tub, in a bathing chamber off the main room.

The chamber was tiled in pink marble shot with threads of white, and probably I was the only person who thought that it strongly resembled a ham.

It was three times the size of the bathing chamber in my room.

(Mine also had a connecting door that indicated I was supposed to share it with the next suite over, although that door was bolted and locked.

But at least it had mirrored tiles on the walls instead of stone ham.)

I took samples of the bath oil, which was highly unlikely to be poisoned, since Snow would probably be covered in blisters if it were.

Then I retired back to the bedroom to wait.

The nurse went back and forth, bringing her towels and different soaps and cold water with fruit in it.

I interceded to ask where the water and the fruit came from and who had handled it, which flustered her badly.

I made notes to track it down later with the cook.

Servants came and went, delivering more hot water. I made more notes.

All this might have been less tedious if I’d been able to hold a conversation, but since I wanted everyone to do the things they’d do if someone weren’t watching carefully, I did my best to fade into the background.

Also, the chair was only just wide enough for my hips, which meant that I couldn’t shift my weight at all, which meant that my rear end promptly fell asleep.

Snow emerged from the bath an hour later and sat in front of the fire to dry off.

She brushed her hair, one hundred strokes, which she counted aloud.

Then she flung herself at the bed and flopped down on it, with a sigh of such world-weariness that it could only have come from someone under twenty.

I moved my chair a few inches so that I could watch her through the doorway.

She spent most of the next hour on the bed, staring off into space. Nurse rubbed her back for a bit. Snow eventually sat up, went to the balcony, and sat there instead, staring over the desert. Nurse brought her water. I wrote Listlessness? in my notebook.

A little before noon, she came back inside and applied makeup— See, I told you, I said to the absent king—then took it off again, then put it back on, slightly differently. She ate pastilles while she did it, so I had to take samples of those and ask where they’d come from.

“The city,” Snow said. “They’re violet flavored.” Her pale eyebrows drew down. “Why, are they poisoned?”

“Probably not,” I assured her. “Let me just take a few so that I can check.”

She stared first at me, then at the pastilles, then slowly offered me the tin.

I took a half dozen and slipped them into an envelope.

They were stamped on one side with a little violet flower.

I went back to my chair, but she didn’t eat any more of them.

(This is why I attempt to fade into the background.

Who knew what else she wasn’t eating because now she was thinking about it?

Which was good in the short term, if she stopped taking the poison, but bad if she started eating it again after I’d left.)

One of her maids laid out three different dresses, none of which met Snow’s approval.

Three more were laid out, one of which was apparently suitable.

Then jewelry had to be procured to match the dress, except that a pair of silver eardrops was missing from the box where it was supposed to be.

Snow was extremely cutting to the maid who could not locate them.

“Oh dear,” Nurse said, interceding. “Perhaps a different set?”

“No. I want the silver ones. There’s no point in even wearing this dress if I don’t have the right eardrops.”

“Now don’t take a pet, love,” said Nurse. “I’m sure they’re just misplaced.”

“ I didn’t misplace them,” Snow said. “So unless someone’s been going through my jewelry when I’m not here…” She stared very hard at the unfortunate maid.

“Miss, I wouldn’t—”

“ Someone did.”

“Now, now, let’s just take another look,” Nurse said. “If they’re not in the lacquer box here, perhaps they’re in another box. You’ve got plenty of them, after all! And such lovely things. Let’s try this one.”

“They’re not in that one,” Snow said coldly. The maid wrung her hands, looking as if she were about to be summarily executed. I cringed with sympathetic embarrassment.

“Then perhaps they’re in this one, with the clever little kitten on the lid.”

“I hate that one. I’d never put anything I liked in there.” She swatted it aside with the flat of her hand.

My sister Catherine went through a phase in her teens where she was rude to the servants.

I think she picked it up from one of her friends.

My father got wind of it and promptly gave everyone the week off with pay.

“This is skilled labor,” he informed us all, “and you will be as courteous as you would be to any other skilled craftsman, or you will do without.”

Catherine spent most of the week hiding in her room, which was wise, because neither Isobel nor I was inclined to be charitable.

I was used to dressing myself, but the loss of the cook was hard.

We lived on sandwiches for the entire week.

(The cook and her husband had a very nice vacation in Frithneedle in the nearby mountains and told me all about it afterward.)

Catherine was extremely polite to the servants from then on. But I suppose you’re not allowed to do such a thing to a king’s daughter. Even if it would probably be good for her.

At last the relevant jewelry was found in another box. “ I’m going riding with my father, the king, ” Snow announced, and swept out of the room.

Oh, thank the saints. I didn’t have to worry about her getting poisoned while in the saddle, certainly not with her father there. I could stand up and walk around until I could feel my left buttock again.

“Right,” said Nurse, once Snow had left.

“That’s at least two hours we’ve got free.

Clara, hang the clothes back up, then go get yourself something to eat.

” Her voice was suddenly much less fluttery, as if someone had pulled the flounces off a nightgown and left a rather more serviceable garment behind.

“Healer Anja, will you join me for lunch and some tea?”

“Oh Saints, yes,” I said, with real relief.

It was kind of Nurse to invite me to eat with her.

My position in the household was still very much in flux.

I was not quite a servant and not quite an honored guest. Eating with the king and Lady Sorrel put my rank quite high, but there were ladies-in-waiting in the larger court who could eat with the king and who were treated worse than the lowest scullery maid by the lady they waited on.

This was all important because if I was a servant, the other servants might talk to me, which could be very important—but if I was an honored guest, I could demand things be done in the course of Snow’s treatment that a servant couldn’t.

It was all very awkward, and I hated having to think about it.

Nurse’s invitation put me on the high-ranked servant side, which was where I’d much rather be.

“So tell me about Snow’s illness,” I said a few minutes later, my pen poised over my notes. The uneaten plate of sandwiches had been passed over to the maids, and another plate had been sent up as well. “She said there’s been some vomiting?”

“Well, yes,” Nurse said, “but I didn’t think anything of it at first. She always was a bit of a puker as a child.” Her lips twisted up. “You know how it is with some children. They get excited, or they forget to eat, or they do eat and then go for a carriage ride immediately afterward…”