“No one,” he answered, curt. “No one has occupied those quarters in years. They are locked off.”
“Why?” asked Mittie.
“It is the wish of the current duke. And that is all I know on the subject, so kindly don’t request that we venture into them. We will not. However, there are many, many other fascinating facts about Iverson to explore. Come along.”
He led us out of the room, talking all the while. I hung at the back of the crowd, as usual. I’d found I liked skulking behind the rest of the girls. It gave me the opportunity to disguise myself in their shadows. To the teachers I appeared proximate enough to be part of their group. The truth could be glimpsed only in the shifting, untouched space that stretched from the hems of their skirts to mine, never closing.
Good enough.
Everyone has a favorite something, and on that day I discovered that Professor Tilbury’s was castles. The eight of us trailed behind him in our sluggish, uneven line, but he was so enraptured with his subject he never noticed our dragging feet; he practically danced a wee gnome dance ahead of us.
We learned about great halls and granaries, moats and bowers. A buttery was not, as might be assumed, a place where butter was produced. But the kitchen hearth might, as would be assumed, be large enough to roast a pair of oxen for the great lord’s pleasure, should the need arise.
Oxen. We snaked only briefly through the kitchens, disrupting the hectic rhythm of the workers there, to their silent, tucked-chin displeasure. I saw Gladys arranging forks and white doilies on trays. Almeda was fussing over a cabinet of linens, snowy starched piles folded and stacked one atop another, towers of white.
A stink of blood and fried onions hung hot in the air. One entire counter was heaped with oozy plucked chickens; a sweaty brown-haired girl of about twelve was the plucker. Sticky bits of feathers dotted her apron and arms.
Everyone stopped what they were doing as we passed, dropping into half bows or curtsies, which my classmates regally ignored.
Only Gladys lifted her eyes to mine when I walked by. Her mouth hardened, taking on a scornful slant. I could tell exactly what she was thinking: Just you wait, governess.
It shamed me for some reason. I don’t know why. My world was a hidden blossom of gold and Jesse and the promise of searing magic, but through no fault of her own, stick-skinny Gladys would likely only ever be what she was right this minute. A servant.
I dropped my gaze from hers. For the rest of the tour of the kitchens, I kept it fixed to the floor, stepping over errant feathers.
Frankly, even before Tilbury’s outing I’d experienced rather enough of Iverson’s unspoken motto of We few versus the masses. The jolt of coming from Blisshaven to this cool and sparkling place had been shock enough for me.
I heard sighs of relief from both sides of the Great Class Divide when our tour snaked out the kitchen doors again.
Upward we climbed. Flying buttresses. Lacy Gothic wings of marble arching over us, fantastical and airy enough for an angel’s delight. I began to sense that peering at the minutia of Iverson was like peering at a slice of petrified tree. Every ring from the past had been crystallized in situ, held frozen in place for all time. Had there ever been any real changes, they were unseen, fissures invisible to my naked, untrained eye.
Anything new was simply rough bark on its way to transforming into stone.
It would petrify. Someday.
We ended our tour at the tip-top of the keep, emerging from a winding, enclosed set of stairs to the relative brightness of a section of the roof.
It was flat and scalloped with stones along the edge, designed for protection. For archers to run along and duck behind.
“Note the relatively small size of the merlons,” Tilbury enthused over the gusting wind. “Imagine fitting oneself against this sole slab of limestone between taking shots, knowing that it is all that stands between you and a very messy death. There are pockmarks still discernible on Iverson’s outer walls, even after all these centuries.”
Mittie had hugged her arms around herself and was giving off fake shivers.
“I think it’s perfectly dreadful,” she complained to no one in particular. “We shouldn’t have to see such things. We’re ladies, not beastly knights or soldiers.”