The Axe and the Throne by M. D. Ireman Page A

Puerile though it may be, Crella reminded herself that she had surrendered more than just a kingdom.
    Crella shouted for her small staff of two, and they soon appeared before her.
    â€œHow is it that I have come to discover the conditions of these quarters without also finding you doing what is necessary to remedy them?” she demanded.
    Crella noted the honest worry in the eyes of the two old women, but she did not soften her own countenance. To be any less than dutifully firm, even with these two, would be an error. “Show an ounce of weakness to one, and all will take from you a pound,” Aunt Adella had told her. It was a lesson Crella did not truly grasp until she later found it to be true.
    The two servants dragged themselves inside as quickly as their decrepit bones could manage and began to haphazardly wander about the room shifting things in and out of place trying to both look busy and guess what tiny detail Crella wanted attended to.
    â€œThe pillow, please.”
    The elder of the two servants returned to the chair and righted the pillow, brushed it with a lint comb and righted it once more, still failing in her effort to ensure exact placement. Crella sucked at her teeth as if it was all she could do to not discipline the crone for having performed the task improperly but was letting it pass to demonstrate her leniency.
    These hags are simply not up to the task. It was true, a younger staff with keener eyes and more dexterous wrists would have seen the room cleaned twice as quickly and to a higher level of perfection. She had witnessed it firsthand while visiting her friend. Nora, married to a successful spice merchant, had her palatial estate cared for by a staff of three lady servants. Those dove-like girls flew around with fastidiousness, making sure every corner was cleaned, every pillow turned, every inch of fine fabric free of stray hair and lint. To say it irked Crella that the wife of a merchant would have a domicile better cared for than the princess and wife of the heir to the throne would be an understatement. She and Alther could easily afford the young servants, but there were other complications Crella sought to avoid. She did not like the idea of such creatures buzzing around her husband. One did not have an eye as keen as Crella’s without spotting more than just motes of dust and asymmetry. She saw the way men peered at the lovely birds from the corners of their eyes like wolves in a henhouse. Rabid wolves in a chickhouse, more the like .
    But there was more to it than the potential for her husband to stray. Gibes aside, his Rivervalian lineage made him more trustworthy than the Adeltian men Crella had come to know since the end of the war. Just as she did not believe him to partake in whoring, she did not truly fear that he would take a lady servant to bed. What difference would it make, should you see him peering at them? It was a conversation she’d had with herself already. You do not love the man. Nonetheless, the thought of seeing in his eyes that he desired another was not a welcome one. Crella could read a man by his eyes, and Alther’s hid very little.
    She could not so easily read a duchess , however. Crella had nothing but contempt for the pasty Duchess of Eastport. His every feature, from his grossly short-cropped hair to his pastel silken slippers, turned her stomach for reasons she could not fully define. Hiring lady servants meant having to meet with Cassen to select the workers and discuss the terms, and she had no desire to speak to let alone do business with him. Cassen had served as an apprentice to Crella’s late uncle, Calder, the former Duke of Eastport. It was a time of which she would rather not be reminded.
    It was certainly not customary for a duke or duchess to be involved in what was tantamount to running a high-end maid service; however, Cassen was certainly not a duchess bound by common custom. It was a bit of a mystery to all as to why