The kitchen girl

Esme

By dawn I am at the scullery sink, wrists deep in grey water, scrubbing soot from the heavy-bottomed pans until my palms sting. The heat fogs the air and I force my focus into the work. The cloth turns black, the water turns darker, and the memory of the great hall keeps tugging at the base of my ribs until I grind the rag harder against the metal.

Orders roll from the main line and knives answer on the boards. Hara calls for more onions and Kai’s laugh carries across to the ovens. Marek moves through it all with the same steady attention he gave yesterday and the day before, catching mistakes before they turn into trouble, keeping the rhythm even when the rush wants to break it.

Marla drops onto the low stool beside me with a pot that could swallow a child whole. “You look like a rabbit that saw a hawk,” she says, eyes bright, elbows on her knees as if she plans to camp there until I give her something to tease.

I try to lift my mouth, but the muscles at my throat are too tight. “Long night,” I manage, and set my shoulders back to the pan.

She bumps me with her shoulder. “We all had one but some of us still remember how to blink.”

Before I can answer, a towel snaps against her arm. Kai appears with a tray balanced on his hip and flour dusted into the lines of his knuckles. “Leave her be,” he says, half stern and half amused. “You scare the scrubbing out of the pans when you lean over them like that.”

Marla huffs. “You’re only brave because you stand behind bread.”

“I am brave because Marek will use me for kindling if I don’t keep the ovens fed.” He lifts his chin at me. “Do you need anything?”

I shake my head. He lingers anyway for a second, measuring the curve of my shoulders, then nods and carries the tray toward the door. The exchange is small, no more than a few words, yet warmth touches a place in me that has been cold so long I forgot how to name it.

I rinse the pan and set it on the rack. For a second I let the sound of the kitchen hold me as bread thumps from molds to boards and the soup ladle knocks against the rim of the pot. The water haulers grumble about the weight and then shoulder their yokes anyway. For that moment, I am a girl who works hard and will sleep harder, and there is nothing beyond the next pan and the next order.

Then Father’s voice cuts through memory so clean it burns. “Never forget what you are.”

The cloth slips in my hand and the pan clatters against the stone lip but I catch it before it falls. Marla gives me a look that holds more curiosity than malice and I turn my face back to the water and keep moving.

I’m no maid and I’m no friend. I am the blade he honed for a single throat.

When the first bell passes, Marek sends me with Kai to run to the lower hall. The basket is warm against my hip as the bread scent settles into my sleeves. We move along the corridor’s darker band where the court won’t walk. Kai walks with a pace that saves breath and legs both.

“Head down through the guard tables,” he says. “They like you better if you don’t look like you might talk back.”

“I don’t,” I say.

He eyes me with humor. “That’s what makes them like you.”

We set baskets along the trestles and hands reach. Coins clink in a jar as voices layer without turning into chaos. The guards here watch everything without moving much and I feel the weight of their attention without letting it knock my own out of place. Kai chatters enough for both of us, trading two lines about the ovens for every three loaves he places, smoothing small frictions before they gather.

“Back way,” he says when the baskets are empty, and we cut through a service turn that smells of soap and damp wood. As we step into the long passage that returns to the kitchen, the sensation I have been beating back since dawn climbs my spine. The sense of being watched is not new as I grew up in a house where a mistake was an invitation and every shadow hid a test. This is not that, this is measured and constant. I keep my eyes on the floor and count my steps as if numbers could swallow it.

We pass the carved screen that throws patterns across the stones when the sun reaches the right angle. Light has not yet moved there, but my body knows the shift in the air where the corridor opens, the faint change in sound where the north foyer begins. I don’t look, I don’t need to. The pull tightens under my ribs and my breath shortens. Kai says something about the second rise on the rosemary loaves as I nod and hope it looks like listening.

Back at the ovens, Marek meets us with a small ledger under his arm and a glance that takes in more than he says. 

“You’ll finish scullery after you run salt to Hara,” he tells me. “Kai, take the next batch to the guard stair.”

“Yes, sir,” we answer together.

I carry the salt to Hara and she points with her chin to the herbs and I fetch a handful of bay to crush between my palms. The scent is clean and sharp and it clears the last of the soap from my nose. Hara accepts it with a nod that might be thanks.

The morning moves its weight from the first rush to the second. Trays clatter, then settle as Marla declares war on a pot that has suffered a lifetime of fires and will not give up its crust. She talks while she scrubs and somehow scrubs harder for it as I rinse stacks until my fingers wrinkle and Kai circles back, drops a heel of bread into my apron pocket, and vanishes as Marek calls him to the door.

I keep working, and the feeling of being seen keeps pace as it follows down the line and through the short corridor to the troughs. It lifts for a few seconds when Marek checks the drain, then settles when he moves on. I tell myself I’m imagining it, I tell myself I’m holding a ghost of the hall but It doesn’t answer to either.

Near midday, Rastin appears at the edge of the scullery with a list in his hand. His expression is the same polite blankness he wears when Marek’s near. 

“Delivery to the west store,” he says, voice even. “Two baskets of bread and a crate of dried fruit. Esme runs and Kai escorts.”

Marek looks over from the spice bench. 

“Kai’s already sent.”

“Then she runs with Joren,” Rastin replies.

Marek’s gaze holds a second. 

“Esme can carry both baskets,” he says. “Joren takes the crate, go and return. No detours.”

“Yes, sir,” I answer, setting down my rag to collect the baskets. Joren arrives with the crate and an eager nod that looks like pride in new work. We cross the yard where the herb shed hangs its bundles and the cat sprawls across the threshold like it owns the stone.

The west passage is cooler as the air tastes of old grain and river damp. I count steps to the store and fix the turns in my head, because I may need them later for reasons that have nothing to do with bread. We deliver to the storeman, confirm the tally, and start back. Joren talks about the height of the outer wall and how he wants to see the view from the top. I give a quiet answer and let him fill the space.

When we return, the line’s edging into the midday feed. Marek sets me back on pans while Kai catches my eye over a tray and lifts his chin in a conspiratorial gesture that makes a small smile tug in the corner of my mouth. Marla nudges my hip as she squeezes past with bowls. 

“You’ll learn to walk and laugh at the same time,” she says. “It makes the day shorter.”

“I’ll try,” I say, the most honest thing I can manage.

The sense of being watched doesn’t fade, it threads through the hours between orders and sits across my shoulders when I move with trays beside Kai, and draws tight each time I pass the opening to the north foyer. I don’t look, I don’t have to. 

By late afternoon, the heat thins. Marek checks the doors, counts knives back to the rack, and tells Hara to bank the soup for the night line. The kitchen eases into the change of hour.

A horn cuts the air from the outer wall.

It isn’t the kitchen bell or the council signal. It carries through stone with a depth that moves people before they name it and the room pauses long enough to hear the next note. A second horn answers, closer, sharper and boots strike the corridor beyond the door.

Marek’s already giving orders. 

“Salt down, buckets up and runners to the west yard. Bread for the watch. Hara, keep the pot high, Kai, with me.”

He looks at me and doesn’t need to add a word. I’m already lifting the nearest basket. The air tastes different, faint smoke under the heat of the ovens. Joren grabs the other handle without waiting.

We cross the threshold at a fast walk as the corridor carries the horn’s vibration. The pull in my chest tightens until my breathing shortens. I keep my steps measured, my head down and my grip steady.

If trouble’s reached the wall, I’ll be near it in minutes.