whisper sounded so close to Freya’s ear that she felt as if she was swimming from fathoms’ depth of sleep to meet it coming the other way.
‘Of course not, silly, that’s a fairytale,’ a slightly less shrill, but still very young voice replied scornfully. ‘She’s probably dead.’
She wondered if the second child might be right for a fleeting second as she tried to make sense of an unfamiliar bed and a world she’d forgotten to be terrified of while lost in slumber. The throbbing pain in her ankle, half-a-dozen lesser ones and the stiffness of her aching limbs made her feel half a century older than she was, but informed her she was alive and suffering for all the things she’d done yesterday to stay that way.
‘Is not so, she just blinked.’
Freya felt the second child’s breath on her cheek as he, for somehow she thought he sounded like a boy, stood on tiptoe to peer at her inquisitively, as if he rather hoped she might be his first real dead body and his sister was imagining that movement. Forcing open eyes heavy with sleep, she met the boy’s brilliantly blue eyes at very close range and wondered if she might be in heaven after all. At first glance he could have sat for a cherub on an altarpiece; a second look showed the mischief and verve in his bright blue eyes and told her a very human boy was gazing at her as if he’d never seen anyone quite so odd.
‘Move,’ the tot at his side ordered and swatted him with the carved dog in her hand with such vigour Freya winced on his behalf. ‘I can’t see,’ the little girl explained as if it justified anything she must do to change that sad state of affairs.
‘I’ll put Pod in the bonfire next time we have one and burn him to cinders,’ the boy said as he rubbed his bruises and tried to grab her weapon.
‘No, you won’t, you won’t, you won’t,’ the furious little girl ordered at the top of her voice and seemed about to bellow herself into a storm of tears at the very idea.
‘I thought I told you two limbs of Satan to let the lady sleep,’ Freya’s rescuer of the night before interrupted what might well be an inexhaustible tantrum, given the way the tot had screwed up her face and seemed about to settle into a fine dramatic performance.
‘We did, Dada, we did,’ the little girl said with such a purposefully winsome smile Freya felt her heart melt at the sheer brass-faced audacity of her.
‘I dare say you did, for a whole minute after I took my eyes off you so I could take that thorn out of Atlas’s foot you said you were so upset about. Next time I shall have to leave it in, if that is what you get up to as soon as my back is turned.’
‘Oh, no, Papa,’ she begged and real emotion in her clear green eyes revealed what a fine little actress she was the rest of the time.
‘No, for I wouldn’t let a kind and decent animal like Atlas suffer for the misdeeds of a naughty little girl and her big brother, both of whom are old enough to know better.’
‘We wanted to see if she was dead or not,’ her brother said earnestly.
‘As you woke her up to find out, you now know otherwise and may say your best hello, then beg the lady’s pardon,’ the now clean-shaven and disturbingly attractive Orlando said as coldly as he could with two pairs of wide and innocent eyes gazing at him as if their owners never had a wicked thought in their lives. ‘I’m your father, don’t forget. I know you two imps were sent from Hades to plague the rest of us, so there’s no point pretending to be little angels with me. Make your curtsy, Sally, and you, young man, can give the lady your best bow for waking her when a big boy of more than five ought to do as he’s told by now.’
‘We’re very sorry for disturbing your rest, lady,’ the boy said with a quaint courtly bow that instantly enslaved Freya.
‘Sally?’ the tough little girl’s father prompted and it looked for a moment as if he might have a revolution on his hands.
‘We’re thorry,’ she said, as if expecting them to fall for the lisped sweetness of her false words so hard they would forget the rest.
‘And?’ her father prompted ruthlessly.
Sally sighed, a long-suffering gust that said Do I really have to? A quick nod from her father told her she wasn’t going to get away without one, so she attempted a wobbly curtsy before plumping down on the floor with an annoyed huff.
‘I can’t do it,’ she informed them crossly and sat there with her arms folded over her chest and a furious frown on her face as if it must be someone else’s fault.
‘You’ll learn, if we both live long enough,’ her unsympathetic father said and plucked her up, set her on her feet, then ignored her mutinous expression as he frowned at Freya.
‘Go back to sleep,’ he ordered brusquely before leaving the house with his children firmly in tow.
‘Well, really,’ Freya huffed at Atlas, who decided he preferred peace and quiet to being with his master this morning and settled on his rug with a relieved sigh.
Reluctantly amused by him, his master and the determined son and daughter of the house, Freya lay back and almost did as she was told. Deciding after five minutes she was now fully awake, she fought her many aches and pains to sit up in bed and wondered if the room would spin round or not if she tried to get up. When it stayed obligingly as it was, she risked pushing back the covers and, examining the grubby hem of her shift, she marvelled at herself for sleeping in all her dirt even after such a demanding day as she had had yesterday.
Wrinkling her nose at the idea of somehow getting herself clean, then having to put the mired and torn gown of yesterday back on, she carefully slid her good foot to the floor and stood on one leg. Her body felt stiff and sore and her ankle throbbed sickeningly, but she was whole and alive and the rumble in her stomach reminded her she was also desperately hungry. First she needed soap and water and a comb—oh, and a privy, her body reminded her as normal everyday needs collided with brisk reality. The expectation that all those necessities would be provided for Lady Freya Buckle without question made her feel alien and suddenly very alone and forsaken in this cramped cottage in the woods. She looked about for inspiration and saw only that the place was neat as a pin and surprisingly free of dust and dirt.
Hopping to the door ‘Orlando’ had opened last night to fetch cold water and binding for her foot, she opened it and found a spartan lean-to scullery with a cold and empty copper and two large buckets of water standing on a scrubbed deal table. There was an empty bowl and a metal cup on a long handle that she supposed must be used to scoop up water without the risk of spilling most of it by tipping the heavy bucket. Her nose wrinkled as she wondered how it would feel to wash in freezing cold water and she shrugged and looked about her for some soap and anything to use as a towel because even that was preferable to staying dirty for another minute. Cursing her absent host for being so remorselessly tidy, she ran a half-used washing ball that smelt of lavender and summer to earth in a box on the windowsill, then wondered if she could hop back to her bed and draw the curtains while she washed, or simply do so here when that would mean spilling most of the contents of the bowl on her way.
Improvising with the rough piece of unbleached cloth he probably used for wiping the dishes for a towel, she made sure the door was firmly shut before unlacing her short corset and stripping off her ragged and dirty shift. The blessed relief of cool water and remarkably good soap on her skin made her sigh with pleasure and she washed the sweat and fear and grime from her face and upper torso before attending to her filthy and scratched legs and feet. It wasn’t easy to get yourself thoroughly clean while standing on one leg,
