The women spend an awkward afternoon
“Isn’t it wonderful news that the Countess has finally awoken?” Lisbet said brightly, trying to alleviate the awkward silence.
The room was so quiet one could almost hear the soft rustle of the thread running through the fabric as they sat with their various tasks. Lisbet was carefully embroidering a pattern of horses on a tiny white gown. Every so often she would pause to marvel at its delicacy, the miniature sleeves flaring out from the smallest of holes meant for chubby little arms. She could scarcely believe that soon she would be holding the creature small enough to dress in such an item.
She gazed across at Cindra who was sitting opposite her, her features set in an uncomfortable smile, nodding her head in agreement.
It was Cindra who had convinced her to come along and she felt sorely out of place amongst women of such a higher rank than herself. But Cindra had whined and pleaded until she had finally agreed but she was definitely beginning to regret that decision as she waited for someone to reply to her desperate attempt at conversation.
“Hmmm… yes I’m sure that the Count is going to be very pleased about that fact… and do you know what else I think?”, Nyawe spoke up.
Lisbet bristled, there was nothing she could not stand more than that women. At least the addition of Nyawe to the small party meant that she was not of the lowest rank, but even so Lisbet wished she were not there. Most of the women despised the Queen’s maid, wife to the King’s steward. But the Queen was very fond of her, and so she was often included where she should not be.
And she knew that they only despised her because of the way she could transfix a man merely by sashaying past him. And she did not like the sideways glances Nyawe threw at her husband with her catlike eyes when she thought Lisbet was not looking.
Cindra spoke up, her tone flat and her eyes flaring, “No, actually Nyawe, I don’t think anyone is particularly interested in what you think”.
Lisbet knew that her friend hated the woman. She had once found her chatting flirtatiously with Garrick in the kitchen during one of his drinking binges and now she could barely stand to be in the same room as her.
“Oh shush Cindra, don’t be silly”, the Queen snapped, “of course we want to hear what you think Nyawe. Please do go on”.
“Well…”, she paused for effect, “I think he’s not the only one who will be pleased. I am under the impression that there is something going on between the lovely Countess and our pious Father Harndall”.
“Have you seen the way they look at each other? I mean, during his sermons his eyes always fall on her and once they are there they are stuck for good. Although I am not that surprised with that dress she often wears. Any man would find it hard to look away when greeted with a sight like that”.
Her eyes flicked down for a moment, probably to make sure her own dress was displaying her assets to advantage.
“Not only that”, she continued barely drawing breath, “but I heard that when they were found the Father had his arm around her. Which begs the question why were they together in the first place doesn’t it?”.
Lisbet could feel anger boiling up inside of her. She glanced at the Queen whose expression suggested she was definitely wishing that she had not encouraged Nyawe to speak.
She was about to open her mouth and speak when Isaura began to cough, a dreadful hacking sound which shuddered through her tiny frame and burst from her mouth. She paused for a moment and an inaudible relief washed through the room. Then suddenly it began again, her mouth open as her frail hands flew up, trying to hold it in, her swollen belly heaving with the effort.
When it finally ended she dabbed her lips with a handkerchief held between her shaking fingers. Lisbet was distressed to see bright splatters of blood staining the petals of the tiny flowers embroidered there red.
“Oh dear, I’m so sorry about that”, the poor thing raised her face, obviously embarrassed although there did not seem enough life left in her to let a blush rise in her pale cheeks.
“You poor thing, don’t you be worrying your dear heart silly”, Cindra reassured her, “it is not trouble”.
She looked at Lisbet with an overly, wide-eyed innocent look, “Now what were we talking about, oh that’s right, Nyawe was saying how she was sure that Father Harndall was behaving in a undignified manner with the Countess. Isn’t that right?.
She could feel her friends gaze directly upon her waiting for her reaction and she knew Cindra was just stirring her up because she was bored, but she did not care. The return of anger was a familiar fiery rush in her belly, and she did not try to fight it.
“Yes, that’s right. Nyawe was just slandering the good Father for her own amusement. Shall we continue with that?” Lisbet spat.
Nyawe looked up at her, with a shocked expression but it did not deter her. She could not bear to hear such rumours spread about the kind, gentle Father who had held her hand while she sobbed and comforted her while they prayed together over her dying husband’s bed. He was a good man and it was wrong to say such things as this.
She noticed that the Queen was staring at her rather icicly but she did not care. Somebody needed to put Nyawe in her place and she was going to be the one to do it.
“I mean, have some decency woman! You are speaking of people who have been extremely ill… nearly died in fact. And you come in here saying these dreadful things as though you knew them to be true”.
“You only think the worst of people because perhaps that is the way you feel inside. Maybe you have no qualms about making eyes at other women’s husbands but that does not mean that everyone is like you!”.
She looked up to see Cindra making a pained face at her and she knew she had gone too far but she was so infuriated she was beyond the point of caring.
“You come in here and sit with us, and pretend to be a lady but all that comes out of your mouth is filthy lies about good people. And Father Harndall is a good man. He does not deserve such treatment and neither does the Countess. Just because you spend most of your time entertaining men who are otherwise, does not mean that standard should be applied to all of them”.
“That’s enough Lisbet!”, the Queen hissed, “You have no right to make such claims about her. In making them you bring yourself down to the level of the common gossip you claim to be standing so far above”.
Lisbet was about to retort, about to reply, to challenge the Queen even though Cindra’s frantic eyes signalled wildly to her that it was a stupid idea. But she was angry now and Lisbet was not a woman who was good at controlling herself when she in this state. Who cared if she burnt bridges? Who cared if she was not welcome in the Queen’s society anymore? It didn’t matter as long as she proved her point.
She drew breath and was about to speak when suddenly Isaura began coughing again, this time so hard that her body was bent over, her breath wheezing painfully between her teeth, a small dribble of bloodstained spittle drooling from her mouth.
“Oh for goodness sake”, the Queen said curtly, “Nyawe would you be so kind as to get the poor Duchess a tonic from my room”.
Nyawe gracefully rose to her feet standing before them, her hips tilting defiantly but her features soft and her voice as placid as a kitten’s mew, “Of course Your Highness. I will only be a minute”.
And with that she turned, slinking out the doore her hips swaying rhythmically, a habit so entrained that she did it automatically despite the lack of a male audience. Once again the room was silent.
That gave me shivers. What a horrible, tense atmosphere to be living in.
That Nyawe is a capital-B Bitch though… gossiping about a Countess and a priest! In front of nobility! I have to wonder how the Queen puts up with her… she must have Her Majesty wrapped around her little finger. Does she not flirt with the King?
I was totally rooting for Lisbet… she went a little far with some of her accusations against Nyawe, but she was right to attack her. Even if Nyawe is correct with her gossip… since I bet Lisbet is correct with her accusations, too.
Nyawe is beautiful, though. Too bad she seems to know it. I am wondering about the King’s steward now… I can’t help but think of mine — imagine poor Ralf with such a cat as that!
I love that picture of Isaura after “blush rise in her pale cheeks”. She looks so cadaverous all the time (and even in that picture) but in that picture you can see that she must have been beautiful once. It’s too bad… it really looks like she’s on her last legs. I hope she manages to deliver her baby.
And BTW how do you pronounce Nyawe? I want to get the authoritative pronunciation before I make something up and find myself unable to unstick it from my brain.
Goodness, you could cut that tension with a knife! But that only made it all the more a good read. It was really amusing how they all were targeting Nyawe. I loved her reaction to it… a bit of a slap in the face. I’m wondering how long it will last, though. You can’t run about flirting with every man you see without getting some sort of a universal stigma attached to your name.
Poor Isaura… I wonder how much longer she’s going to hang in there. She really does look a bit like the corpse bride right now.
I’m glad that the whole Harndall/Valeriya scandal is coming out. I can’t wait to see the reactions once they see the truth in the otherwise questionable maid’s accusations.
I know what you mean Lothere… there just aren’t that many people who really get along with each other. And they are stuck on an island together where weird stuff is happening. It doesn’t make for a happy bunch.
Nyawe and the Queen are actually quite close because they are both from a different country, Lomorrad. Most of the other characters (if not all) are from Branwhuld. Madlenka is a princess of the Royal family of Lomorrad so she was shipped off (rather crossed the mountains) to marry Eallair. She brought with her, her maid Nyawe, so in a way Nyawe is a little piece of home and they grew up together. So Madlenka is quite good at turning a blind eye to Nyawe’s escapades, which is quite a big fault of hers. Oh, and Nyawe doesn’t flirt with the King, she draws the line at that because Madlenka is her friend and she is actually quite loyal to her.
She’s gorgeous though isn’t she? I just wanted to make the steward and his wife in case I wanted to use them, but then I got her (2nd gen) and I decided I had to factor her in somehow and I have the perfect way. More on that next post. It is pretty terrible because her poor husband Garald is a bit of a wuss and he really has not idea how to handle a woman such as her.
Hmmm and as for pronunciation, I am terrible at phonetics but I have been pronouncing it like this Knee-ar-wee. Does that make any sense to you? I am so bad at this
You’re right Mao… she does look rather corpse-bride doesn’t she poor thing. The funny thing is, I did some trial kids for her and Lochan to see what they would look like thinking I would need to do some serious chin editing there. And you wouldn’t believe it but they are the most gorgeous of all of the kids I have checked out so far. Seriously good-looking children. Who would have thought?
Oh I love Lisbet and Cindra. That woman is foul even if she is gorgeous! When I first saw her I though “Oooo whose that pretty lady!” And then Lisbet declared her disdain for her and I thought awww shucks. But it makes for good dialog. Poor Isuara, I hope she lives, maybe there will be good happy miracles on the island along with creepy vampires! Oh and Medlanka is so exotic looking! I’ve always thought so but forget to mention it. Are all the women from Lomorrad so pretty?
Not all the women are so pretty, these two just happen to be gorgeous
. Actually Madlenka has very unusual looks for someone from Lomorrad. They generally look more like Nyawe, dark hair and dark eyes, but Madlenka’s mother Laela, who we saw in this chapter, is from another country so Madlenka inherited her looks. Same princess swapping deal 
.
Knee-ar-wee? This must be the Austrialian pronuncation.
I’ve been pronouncing it nee-AH-way. It looks like a word out of an African language… like one of the Bantu family, so I’m extrapolating from the pronunciation of “Zimbabwe”. But you’re the author.
Still, as an American, I’m going to skip the intrusive R.
Madlenka’s relationship with her maid makes perfect sense now… it’s even a little sweet. Poor Princess, gone away with no one but her maid. That must be tough for the maid, too, for that matter.
Ugh… there again is my awful Australian arrr. Back in Australiarrr I don’t have a very strong accent (actually now when I meet Australians they think I am from Northern England). But here in Sweden I feel like I have such a strong accent… all I can hear is arrr arr arrr when I talk
. I think the American is more and errr err errr 
. Or at least my cousins who have moved to America and picked up the accent speak like that but I don’t know if that is the Californian way. My cousin Heather is now cousin Heatherrrrr where she was Heatharrr before 
.
Please feel free to pronounce it as you choose. I didn’t make it up, I found it on a female fantasy names site. It could well be an African name. And to be honest, as your phonetic skills far surpass mine (mine consist of trying desperately to come up with the word that sounds like the noise I want to make). It does actually sound more like the way you wrote it, in my mind. The ar isn’t so ar as ah. And I have been prounouncing the ‘we’ somewhere in between what you said and I said
.
That ‘r’ is a whole phonetic topic to itself. Some dialects of English, including Australian, tend to omit r’s where there should be r’s, and contrarywise introduce them between a word that ends with a vowel and a word that begins with one.
It’s quite rare in the States, mainly to be found in coastal New England and most famously Boston. My grandfather is from New Jersey and he always used to make us Ohio-raised grandkids laugh with his pronunciation: “qwah-tah” for “quarter” or “pian-er” for “piano”.
AFAIK it’s nowhere to be heard on the West Coast. We Americans have a funny, ugly R of our own that makes Frenchmen cry. Heatherrrr is probably about right, unless you are my grandfather, in which case it is Heath-uh. Our big vice is eliding our d’s and t’s in the middle of a word, like “twenny” for “twenty”. That makes Frenchmen cry more than anything.
And that’s more than you wanted to know about that. We can talk about rocks now if you want.
Oh Heathuh is so cute, and qwah-tah
And it is not more than I wanted to know, I find that I spend so much time making language comparisons now that I live in Europe. Everytime you meet a new group of people from various countries you somehow end up comparing languages. It is quite fun to see the differences.
It is also quite fun to see the similarities.
I think that’s why, the more languages you know, the easier it is to learn new ones.
It also means that hearing Swedish drives me crazy, because it has certain sounds (and even certain words) that are close to German, which makes my brain kick into German-comprehension mode… and then it fails to comprehend, even though I feel like it should, and I get a taste of what aphasia must feel like. Ingmar Bergman films are a guaranteed headache! (Though that might have been true regardless.
)
It is so confusing with the German-Swedish thing. When I came here the language I knew the most from before was German. And for ages every time I tried to say anything in Swedish it came out German. But now it is the other way, when I was visiting Germany earlier this year, Swedish would always pop out of my mouth. But I think I understand a lot more German now from learning Swedish.
Wow. Tense. Lisbet is such a fiery one. I like her. Nyawe on the other hand. Damn, she’s quite the beast. I’m glad I’m not forced to spend time with her! When I was going through the posts to get back to where I left off I caught a glimpse of the next chapter’s title… look forward to seeing what’s in store for her.
I have to admit I had a good chuckle at Lothere’s description of her grandfather talking (tawking). That’s what I sound like! We always teased my mom because she’d refer to my sista Donner instead of sister Donna.