Sold to the Alpha novel · Chapter 2 of 24
Chapter 2: The Scullery
At Brenmoor Hold the head scullion tries to break her on the pots and Thyra puts the bully in the grease trough; that night Ketil sets his rule: she climbs out on her own work or not at all.
It took six days in a supply wagon to reach Brenmoor Hold, and the Alpha did not speak to me once.
He rode ahead on a black horse with his back to me, and every time the road bent I felt his heartbeat tug at mine.
The Hold stood on a bare moor, a gray stone fortress with a long cobbled yard in the middle.
Chimneys smoked along one side.
That was the kitchens.
A guard in a wolf-head badge marched me through a steaming door and down three steps to a stone room with a drain in the floor.
"Scullery," he said. "Pots, pans, floors, ash pails. You sleep behind the copper."
He left.
The room held a trough, forty greasy pots, and a girl of about nineteen with thick red arms and a smirk.
"You're the Alpha's new debt," she said. "I'm the head scullion. You do what I say."
"I'm Thyra."
"You're a bucket. Start on the big stew pot."
She pointed at a cauldron big enough to bathe a child in, crusted black halfway up.
I pushed up my sleeves.
My forearms are crossed with old burn scars from seven years in the Gilded Ladle's kitchen, and the head scullion saw them and did not care.
"Lye is under the sink," she said. "You'll scrub that till you can see your face. Then the next one."
I scrubbed.
I scrubbed until my fingers split and the water went gray.
Around me the kitchen ran.
A round woman with a gold tooth shouted orders from the ovens, and flour hung in the air.
She was watching me, though.
She never stopped watching me while she shouted.
At noon the head scullion tipped a bucket of dirty water across the floor I had just cleaned.
"Oops," she said. "Do it again."
I looked at the puddle.
I looked at her smirk.
Then I picked up the cauldron's scrubbing brush, still full of lye and grease, and walked over.
"What are you doing?" she said.
"Washing something."
I took her by the wrist, hard, and pushed her hands down into the grease trough up to the elbow.
She screamed.
The whole kitchen stopped.
"You'll scrub that trough yourself," I said, loud enough for every cook to hear.
"I came here to work, and I'll work.
"I did not come here to be someone's bucket.
"Touch my floor again and you'll go in to the neck."
The head scullion tore free, sobbing, flinging grease on the walls.
The round woman with the gold tooth walked over, wiping her hands.
"Hetta Dunn," she said. "Head cook. That was a stupid, stupid thing to do."
"I know."
"She's the steward's niece."
Something cold went through my stomach.
"Is that bad?"
"Not for me," said Hetta, and the gold tooth flashed.
"For you, maybe.
"But the oven wants flour, and you've got decent forearms.
"Come stir."
Before I could answer, a smooth, gentle voice spoke from the doorway.
"Is there trouble, Hetta?"
The man who stood there was slim and neatly bearded, with thin silver-streaked hair combed flat and a ring of keys at his waist.
His hands were soft, and he held them clasped before him.
"Steward Haugland," said Hetta. She had stopped smiling.
"A new girl," said the man, and his eyes went over me from my torn smock to my split fingers.
"Odd Lorne's daughter, I'm told.
"I hope you find us welcoming, child.
"We try to be fair to those who owe."
He said it so kindly that I almost thanked him.
Then I noticed his niece, standing behind him with grease up to her shoulders, and the way she wasn't crying anymore.
He turned and went, and she followed.
I went back to the cauldron.
That evening, as the last pot dried, the kitchen yard door opened on the cold.
The pull in my belly woke like a hound.
The Alpha stood in the doorway in his black coat, just outside the light.
He did not come in.
I stood with a wet cloth in my hands and let him look.
He looked for a long while.
"I heard," he said at last. "The grease trough."
"She had it coming."
"Perhaps." His voice was low and even.
"Here is how this will go, Lorne.
"You will not climb out of this room because I like your face.
"You will climb out on your own work, in front of everyone, or you will not climb at all.
"I will never help you."
I wrung out the cloth slowly.
"Good," I said. "I didn't ask you to."
His mouth moved, just slightly, at one corner.
Then the door closed and the cold went with him.
My heart kept pounding for a full minute after his footsteps had gone.
Two hearts, I thought, and only one of them was mine.
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