Chronicles Of The Empress Book 1: A Tale Of Two Castles

Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

Early the next morning, Lady Bronwyn's bedchamber was a hive of activity with several capes, smocks, corsets, surcoats, hoses, girdles, shirts, gowns and leggings splayed across the four-post canopy bed. Bronwyn herself - only wearing the most essential - scuttled back and forth between the closet and the bed, depositing further garments on top of those that were already there while searching for the very special outfit she knew she had in her possession.

"Oh, Milady..." Tawna said and looked more than a little skeptical at the two pieces of dark green cloth Bronwyn had wrapped around her chest and hips, "I still cannot fathom why you would want to wear such scratchy, confining undergarments when you have such beautiful satin-"

"Simply because these are more practical while underway, Tawna. We depart at first light in the morrow and I prefer to have made myself accustomed to them ahead of time," Bronwyn said with her head buried inside the closet.

"Granted, but... still."

"Ah! Here they are," Bronwyn said and pulled out a pair of dark green, high-waisted ankle pants with straight legs and two-inch turn-ups. "Tell me, Tawna, will these not do nicely? I believe they will. I shall use these men's pants with my short riding coat and the heavy-duty tunic you sewed for me last year... or was it the year before?"

"It was the year before, Milady. But..."

"Yes?" Bronwyn said and held the pants up against her lower body so she could see how they fit her.

"You shall be gone for at least eight days, Milady. Surely a single pair of long pants cannot be enough! And not to speak of your unmentionables, oh my!"

Bronwyn slowly lifted her head to look her senior handmaiden in the eye - she hadn't thought of that particular aspect of the equation. "Oh... I fear you are right as always, Tawna. No... one pair of unmentionables will surely not be enough..."

"Have no fear, Milady," Tawna said with a knowing smirk, "while you go on today's introductions, I shall collect all the spare unmentionables I can find. My integrity and professional pride prevents me from sending my most esteemed Lady Bronwyn on such a perilous trek without clean undergarments."

A broad smile spread over Bronwyn's lips for the first time in days - a smile that eventually turned into a warm laugh. "I thank you, Tawna... and so does my delicate bottom."

---

Fully dressed in riding boots, the dark green, high-waisted ankle pants and her short riding coat over a double-stitched tunic, Lady Bronwyn skipped down the grand staircase to get to the entrance at the base of the keep.

Her father hadn't summoned her since revealing the terrible news, nor had she run into the ice cold Zai Allizadra - and for that she was eternally grateful - but the strutting peacock of a man who greeted her by the main entrance was almost enough in himself to make her spin around on her inch-high boot heel and walk back up the staircase.

"Lady Bronwyn," Bryce Cassian said and performed a deep bow. "It shall be my honor to escort you on your trip through the disgusting, filthy streets of your city."

"The city is not mine, Sir, it belongs to my father," Bronwyn said, crinkling her nose when she noticed Bryce's new, frilly jerkin was even more foppish than the one preceding it.

"A mere figure of speech, Lady Bronwyn."

"But of course."

After smoothing down his fashionable circular beard, Bryce put out his arm like he expected Bronwyn to hook her own inside it. The way he held it looked like he was trying to prove a point about the size of his manhood.