An Accidental Queen

Chapter 1

I DUMPED THE roll of linen into the river, icy water stinging my hands and rousing the twilight blue veins poking through my skin. After wetting the laundry, I soaked the cloths with the putrid-smelling chamber-lye in my wooden bucket to remove the stains, then rinsed once more.

The dull white bundle floated down to the parched, yellowed grass, and I used my washing bat to beat the fabric dry until no more moisture dampened my fingers. Beads of foam clung to my tunic, however, so I banished them with a swift brush of my hands. Foam also wafted into my eyes and ears, but I had grown used to this by now.

My duties were not enlightening or entertaining, but of great importance.

I was laundress for the mistress of the manor, which meant that the laundry I doused in chamber-lye, beat with a stick, and then rinsed with river water would soon be flat against her back, trimming her large canopy bed in the middle of her imposing crimson-walled chamber. If she were to find a spot or mark marring the crisp sheet or even a single strand of hair, my duty would be incomplete and my place in the manor compromised.

My eyes wandered listlessly to the other side of the gushing river, to green pastures and lowly serf's homes, poorly made from old timber and mud and reeking of farm animals that abided there with their human owners. The stretch of land was long and interrupted only by the mountains: white and grey peaks that acted like the jagged walls of a great fortress. The mountains were far too cold for any commoner to brave. Only nobles and knights with their horses could endeavour to accept such a feat as climbing up those rocky hills.

A fleshy hand clasped my shoulder, followed by a grim, strained voice, reading my innermost thoughts. "What a pity, dear Catherine. We all want the great wash to end."

I raised my shoulders slightly in a shrug, clearing the phlegm out of my throat with a slight cough. The winter had been cruel to me that year, and I had fallen quite ill. Though the sickness had passed, my throat still stung. "Yes. A great pity."

I should have been more grateful for the great wash, for it is what earned me the liberty to sleep in a sheltered place and eat aplenty, but the only reason I pulled myself through those long-winded, exhausting events was the liberation that my vivid imagination provided me. Pretending I was somewhere else, perhaps great Cologne or Constantinople, comforted me.

However, I was aware of the power of my kingdom and of how my fellow countrymen would scorn my desire to escape. Imagining I was someone else, an important lady with a velvet dress and deep fur cuffs, granted me hope. This aspiration was flawed, for I knew my place and had been taught that jealousy was a sin.

"Master will have company tonight. That means more mulled wine and cheese for us. We will enjoy even some oranges from the Southern provinces." Fleurine, another laundress from the manor, continued, hopeful to elicit a smile. Though she knew me as a mother knows her child, she could never understand my wandering mind. But by then, she supposed I had suffered a substantial loss as a child upon the death of my parents and was prone to strange acts.

"Tis wonderful news," I forced one sullen grin for her sake, then resumed with the wash, beating the linen as my palms bled and blistered from the splintering spikes of wood etched into the jagged handle of my washing stick.

The other women gathered around Fleurine as she gossiped about our master and his family.

I strained my ears to hear what they said but found it difficult as they wandered to the other side of the river to wash near a patch of pebbles and rocks when I allowed my thoughts to wander.

I had known Count Frederic of Toulouse and his wife, Countess Emeline of Navarre, since I was a child. Since I could walk, I had been laundering for them with my fellow countrywomen. They had been kind, godly, sympathetic, and good masters, though Count Frederic had grown old and sickly, and some said that he was nearing the verge of death.