Her Journey Beyond the Script novel · Chapter 2 of 24
Chapter 2: Five Death Flags
Her father strikes her for shaming the house and orders her to kneel to Perdita, Aveline stops his hand before the servants, and a pot of rose tea arrives as a gift, a day before the book's poisoning.
Her maid's hands shook so hard the laces would not come loose.
"Hold still, my lady," the girl whispered. "Please. I'll be quick."
Aveline stood in the middle of a bedroom bigger than her old flat, in a corset.
The room had a canopy bed, a fire, and a mirror taller than she was.
The woman in the mirror had auburn hair, green eyes and a small scar through her left eyebrow.
She was twenty-two years old.
She was not the woman this body had belonged to, but she was stuck in it.
"What month is it?" she asked.
The maid froze. "Midsummer, my lady. You were at the banquet."
"Yes. I remember."
She remembered the whole book, which was the problem.
She held up her left hand and counted the death flags on her fingers.
The poisoned tea, the push on the stairs, the tower, the trial.
Gallows Green.
Her thumb stayed folded over the last one.
She did not need to count the last one.
The door banged open without a knock.
A man in a plum velvet coat strode in, and the maid dropped into a curtsey so low she nearly fell.
Duke Gareth Varrick, fifty-two years old, her father.
The book gave him one line.
He was a vain man in debt who would sell his daughter if the price was right.
"Out," he told the maid.
The girl fled.
He crossed the room and slapped Aveline across the face.
The crack of it echoed off the ceiling.
Her cheek burned, and her ear rang.
Behind him, through the open door, two footmen and a gardener's boy froze in the corridor with their eyes on the floor.
"You have shamed the house of Varrick," her father said.
His voice shook with rage.
"In front of the whole court. In front of the Queen."
"I didn't throw the wine," Aveline said.
"You gave back the prince's ring!"
"I did."
"At dawn you will go to Lady Perdita's room and kneel," he said. "You will beg her pardon. And then you will beg the prince's."
He raised his hand again.
Aveline caught his wrist in midair.
She had never caught anything in her life.
But she had spent four years of her old life handling men who shouted across a desk, and her grip held.
"No," she said.
She said it quietly, so the servants in the corridor would lean in to hear it.
"I won't kneel to anyone."
"Let go of me."
"You hit me in front of three servants, Father. By tomorrow noon it will be in every kitchen in the palace."
His face went from red to grey.
"The Queen's ladies hear everything from the kitchens," she added.
"They'll want to know why the Duke beats his daughter on the night the prince refused to let her go."
She let his wrist drop.
He pulled his sleeve straight with fingers that wouldn't stay still.
"You've changed," he said.
It was almost a question.
"I've woken up," she said. "Good night."
He turned on his heel and left, and the door slammed after him.
Aveline crossed to the window and pressed her cheek to the glass.
It was cool, and it helped.
Down in the courtyard, the Duke's coach waited under a lantern.
A fat man in black with ink on his rings stood by its step, talking low to a steward in the Chancellor's grey livery.
The steward handed up a leather bag.
It was heavy enough that he used both arms.
Her father took it, weighed it in one hand, and climbed into the coach without looking back.
Aveline watched the lights go out of the courtyard one by one.
She had no idea who the fat man was.
She had a very clear idea what the bag was.
When the maid crept back in, Aveline asked her for ink, paper and the brown lap desk from the sitting room.
She found what she needed in the third drawer.
It was an old leave pass, signed by her father, stamped with the Varrick seal.
It let a member of the household visit the Convent of Saint Marrow on the east road.
She copied the hand twice on a spare sheet until it looked right.
Then she wrote a new pass on a clean one, with her own name.
The wax seal she warmed over the candle and pressed with the Duke's own ring, which he'd left on the table in his rage.
It was crooked.
It would do.
"Is that allowed, my lady?" the maid breathed.
"No," said Aveline. "Don't tell anyone."
She folded the pass into her sleeve.
Tomorrow night, she told herself, the laundry door, the east gate, and the open road.
She would be three days out of Hallowgate before anyone noticed.
Someone scratched at the door.
It was another maid, a stranger, carrying a covered tray.
"A gift from Lady Perdita," the stranger said, curtseying. "With her love. She hopes you will take tea with her tomorrow and make peace."
Aveline lifted the lid.
A small white pot of rose tea sat steaming on a saucer.
Its scent filled the room, sweet and heavy.
It was a day early.
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