This is today's offering (day 152) for @mydivathings' #365daysofwriting challenge (click here to see her current post)
Today's picture prompt (below) is a Photo by Stefan Grage on Unsplash
This can be read alone or, if you missed them, you can read the first two parts
Part one: @felt.buzz/outwitted-a-little-bit-of-fiction-for-365daysofwriting-challenge
Part two: @felt.buzz/outwitted-part-2-a-fictional-tale-for-365daysofwriting-challenge
The bath was hot, and smelt strongly of spices. I hesitated before removing my cloak, and handing it to the young serving girl who stood waiting patiently, eyes lowered. It was not through embarrassment nor modesty that I was reluctant to hand over my possessions to my sisters servants. The cloak contained items, within hidden pockets, that I would rather not be found. I could not bathe in it, and I was not in a position to refuse to attend to personal hygiene - even I was offended by my odour! So, I slipped the cloak from my bony shoulders and handed it to the girl.
“Take care of it,” I said, my voice gentle. “Do not wash it, or throw it away.” I waited until her eyes met mine. “Please.”
She nodded, shyly and walked off with it. My underclothes where worn, and tore as I removed them. Those I would not be able to reuse, and I threw them to one side. I climbed the marble steps up to the bath, which was huge, and reminded me of the pool my mother had dug out, and lined with glazed tiles from across the seas, when we moved to The Big House. There were no bubbles, but I could see oils shimmer on the surface. The wine had gone to my head, and I knew that the bath was likely to cloud my head further. I imagined this was what my sister hoped for. I inched into the hot water, wincing as it climbed my body, scalding the sores and scars of my long journey.
It took me ten minutes before I was sitting on the smooth tiled surface, water up to my ears, my eyes open trying to make out details of the mural on the ceiling above the bath. I sat up in shock, when a thick cloud of steam dispersed and I realised it depicted my father’s funeral. My mother weeping over the coffin of my father, Grevyl standing beside, her with his staff. A young boy holding the hands of an older child, both heads bowed in grief.
My father had died only a few short years after our move to the Big House. He, of course, was never comfortable in this new abode, and left my mother to organise the work and the servants. He, as ever, preferred the company of his books, and spent much of his time in the city, meeting merchants who supplied new works for the library, or travelling to far flung corners of the kingdom in search of a rare manuscript that he had heard had survived the War.
Grevyl was spending more time with us at the Big House. Father was never a good judge of character, particularly if the character in question was a fellow scholar, and at first he encouraged the old man’s visits. At first Grevyl would come every two or three months, armed with books for myself and Mathilde, books on monsters and ancient wars for me. The books he gave to Mathilde she secreted away, and would not show me. When she went riding, or to tend her horses, I would creep into her room, and spend hours scouring it for her secret hiding places. But I never found them.
Mother, of course, caring nothing for books, asked no questions, and dismissed me when I whined to her about it. When my father was sent on a diplomatic mission, overseas, on behalf of his King, Grevyl’s visits became more regular. He brought mother bunches of rare herbs, and pomades that promised to help keep her young, or to relieve this ailment or that. And he and Mathilde would shut themselves away in the study for hours. I listened at the door, but could hear nothing, but the murmurs of their voices, and the occasional thuds. At this time, my mother seemed more distant, spending more time in her rooms - sometimes I would not see her for days. With my sister occupied with the old man, I was lonely, and soon made friends with Jake, the son of the blacksmith. He was older than me, and I would watch him help his father and then, his chores finished we would run into the woods, to climb trees and re-enact battles of the War.
Looking back, those days were some of the best of my life. It was when my father returned, unexpectedly early - his diplomatic mission failed, and the threat of war once more upon the kingdom - that the real problems began.
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Next part: @felt.buzz/outwitted-part-four-a-work-of-original-fiction-for-365daysofwriting-challenge