Post by devilinthedetails on Aug 10, 2019 1:27:48 GMT 10
Title: Drink Bitter, Taste Sweet
Rating: PG-13 for references to death and childbirth.
Prompt: Acquired Taste
Word Count: 3835
Summary: The first time Cythera has tea, it tastes bland, the second time it tastes bitter, or how Cythera acquired a taste for tea and court intrigue.
Drink Bitter, Taste Sweet
Cythera was five the first time she tasted tea. Her aunt Cecilia arrived in a grand coach, sending all of Elden castle into a flurry of polishing maids and sweeping footmen for days in preparation for her visit. Yet Aunt Cecilia barely seemed to notice the cleaning and shining that had taken place on her behalf, disappearing into the bedchamber where Cythera’s mother had lain for weeks, waiting for a child to be born and too weak to stir from her mattress.
Before she vanished into Mother’s room, Aunt Cecilia gestured imperiously for Cythera, who had trailed her like a lost duckling, to follow her into the bedchamber. Aunt Cecilia exchanged pecks on the cheeks with Mother, whom Cyhtera tried not to notice appeared even paler than she had when she had first confined herself to her bed.
“How are you doing, my darling?” Mother’s fingers closed around Cythera’s in a faint squeeze.
“Good, Mother.” Cythera forced a smile and lied even if her nursemaid Marta said lying was a sin against the Great Mother Goddess. It would’ve been polite to ask how her mother was feeling, but she was so afraid of what the truthful answer to that question would be that the words stuck in her dry throat.
“I trust you’ve been behaving for your father and nursemaid.” Mother’s fingers released Cythera’s as if even the light grip had been too much for her to maintain.
“Of course, Mother.” Cythera bobbed her head, eager to have a question she could respond to honestly.
“Tea to strengthen you, sister.” Aunt Cecilia bustled by Cythera to place a tray on the table beside Mother’s bed. Pouring a steaming cup from the pot, she offered it to Mother. “It’s infused with dandelion and nettle as your maids say the healer recommended.”
“Would you care for a cup of tea, Cythera?” Aunt Cecilia filled a second cup with tea.
“Yes, please, Aunt Cecilia.” Cythera had never drank tea before, but it sounded very ladylike to drink it, and she was excited at the chance to join her aunt and mother in this elegant behavior.
“Then here you are.” Aunt Cecilia slipped a warm cup into Cythera’s hand. The porcelain was hotter than Cythera had expected, and she gasped, stifling the reflexive urge to relinquish her hold on the cup. “Careful not to drop it now. That’s expensive porcelain imported from Jindazhen.”
Cythera watched her aunt pour a final cup of tea for herself, and then, cautious of the steaming brown beverage, copied the dainty sipping she saw from her aunt and mother. As she lifted the tea toward her mouth, she could smell the dandelion and nettle wafting toward her, and she believed that she would taste the dandelion and nettle that scented the tea. Instead all she tasted was boiled water.
“It’s so bland!” Cythera couldn’t contain her disappointed exclamation. “It’s just brown water!”
“Then don’t drink it and go pester your nursemaid, you ungrateful child.” With a sharp scolding sound of tongue against teeth, Aunt Cecilia snatched the cup from Cythera’s grasp and returned it to the tray. “Your mother is too ill to listen to your whining.”
Cythera found herself shunted out of her mother’s bedchamber by a bevy of maids before she could apologize, but she was brought back a few days later over her father’s thundering objections to witness the bloody agony of her brother’s birth. Aunt Cecilia insisted that it was time for Cythera to be initiated into the Great Mother’s mystery of childbirth so Cythera knelt by the Daughter who had been summoned from nearby convent generously donated to by the Elden family to attend this birth, chanting praise and pleas to the Great Mother as she fought not to cough in the incense the priestess swirled.
Despite their prayers, Mother bled out as the healer pulled Cythera’s brother from her womb, living only long enough to name the newborn Luca in honor of Cythera’s father.
Cythera felt a burning bitterness toward the Great Mother Goddess for ignoring her prayers–for not saving her mother. It was this need to know why her mother was sealed in a stone cold tomb rather than nursing a new baby against her warm breast that kept Cythera kneeling beside her mother’s memorial on the rainy, chilly March morning they laid her mother to rest in the Elden family mausoleum.
The cold and the damp seeped into her lungs, wracking her body with hacking coughs as she lay feverish in her bed, nursed by Marta.
“Tea to chase away the cold and damp.” Marta coaxed Cythera into an upright position on a pile of pillows and pressed a hot mug of herbal tea to her lips.
“I don’t want it.” Frantic, Cythera shook her head, dizzying herself. “It’s too bland and disgusting.”
“Not this tea.” Marta took advantage of Cythera’s open mouth to trickle tea down her throat. “It’s sweetened with honey, my dear.”
Cythera couldn’t taste a hint of sweetening honey, but she drowned on the bitter herbs that reminded her of how tea and prayer had failed to heal her mother. She sputtered up the mouthful of tea, scalding her throat as she coughed it into a bowl held beneath her chin by a chiding Marta.
After that, nobody forced Cythera to take another sip of tea until at ten she left for the convent in the City of the Gods where Daughters raised girls of the nobility to become proper pearls worthy to adorn King Roald’s court. For three months after she arrived at the convent, she was not subjected to any situation where she was required. Her first inkling that might change came at breakfast one morning when she saw that the table where girls her age ate was laden only with bowls of fruit rather than any more substantial fare.
“I thought our fathers were lavish enough with their donations that the convent wouldn’t scrimp with our food,” Cythera murmured to auburn-haired Gwynnen, who had become her best friend since she arrived at the convent.
“It’s not that,” replied Gwynnen in an undertone as she bit into a plum that dribbled purple juice down her chin that risked ruining her spring leaf green gown. “It’s that we’re having our first tea lessons today with scones and everything. The Daughters don’t want our waistlines growing so we don’t fit in our dresses.”
Before Cythera could comment on how drinking tea would likely make her sick as it had the last time she had attempted it, Daughter Agathe, who always watched the girls like a hawk ready to swoop down whenever someone picked up the dessert fork instead of the salad fork or otherwise forgot their manners, fixed her beady glare on Gwynnen. “For the hundredth time, Lady Gwynnen, please don’t talk with your mouth full of food. I assure you no one longs to see the entire process of mastication as much as you yearn to display it.”
Chastened, Gwynnen swallowed and ducked her head. “Yes, Daughter Agathe.”
“And wipe that juice from your chin before it stains your dress.” Daughter Agathe was plainly unappeased by Gwynnen’s acquiescence.
“Yes, Daughter Agathe,” Gwynnen repeated meekly, dabbing the juice off her chin with her napkin.
At that point, the Great Mother Goddess must have taken mercy on Gwynnen, because Daughter Agathe turned away to berate an unfortunate girl whom she accused of devouring a pear in large chomps unbefitting a lady.
Once she was certain Daughter Agathe’s temper had found a new target, Cythera whispered to Gwynnen, “I’ll be staining my dress soon because I’ll end up spitting up any tea I do drink.”
“Mother says tea is an acquired taste, but it helps if you drink it with milk and sugar,” Gwynnen spoke sagely, and Cythera felt a flare of sorrow that her own mother wasn’t alive to provide such advice and instead she had to hear it from Gwynnen’s mother secondhand.
Less than an hour later, Cythera was seated around a circular table with the rest of the girls her age. A pot of tea and platters of scones, sweets, and savories were placed in pride of place at the center of the table. The mingled aromas of the scones, sweets, and savories might have made Cythera’s stomach rumble in a most unladylike fashion if the smell of tea hadn’t created a nausea in her that overwhelmed her appetite. Tea reminded her of sickness and death. Trying not to think of her mother, Cythera forced herself to focus as Daughter Agathe began her lecture on the art of drinking tea.
“A lady’s ability to partake in civilized society is determined by how properly she can take and receive tea. It has even been said that a lady’s breeding can instantly be seen based on how politely she takes and receives tea.” Daughter Agathe’s gaze swept the table of wide-eyed girls. “You’ll learn the art of taking and receiving tea starting this morning. By the end of our lessons together, you’ll be fit to take and serve tea to the queen herself.”
The queen, Cythera knew, had once been taught a lady’s arts at the convent. Had she once sat at this table with her friends, instructing by an overbearing Daughter of the Goddess? Had she known then that she would one day become the most important woman in the kingdom–the one the Daughters would exalt as a model of virtue, grace, and sweetness?
“Napkins in your laps, ladies,” ordered Daughter Agathe. As the girls obeyed in a flutter of cloth napkins, she continued, “If you’re drinking tea at a table, don’t lift your saucer while you’re sipping your tea. Only keep your saucer in your hands while you’re drinking tea if you’re standing or sitting with no table before you. To do otherwise makes it seem as if you’re unclear about the purpose of a table in civilized society.”
“I can’t believe she’s insulting our intelligence by telling us to use a table when we have one,” Gwynnen whispered from beside Cythera, drowning out Daughter Agathe’s strictures about holding the teacup properly and not stirring the tea with too much excitement so as to cause a whirlpool in a cup.
“Lady Gwynnen seems to think she has learned all there is to know about drinking tea in polite society.” Daughter Agathe had obviously noticed Gwynnen’s whisper even if she hadn’t heard exactly what was said. “Perhaps she’ll be so kind as to enlighten the rest of the class as to whether milk and sugar go into a cup before or after the tea?”
“After, Daughter Agatehe,” Gwynnen responded so swiftly that Cythera could only assume this was something else her mother had taught her.
Daughter Agathe gave a short nod as if displeased she could issue no correction. “And what is the proper way to eat the food accompanying the tea?”
“Savory to sweet.” Gwynnen gestured at each of the platters in turn as she named them. “First the savories then the scones and finally the sweets.”
“That’s correct.” Daughter Agathe offered another grudging nod as she picked up the teapot. “I’ll begin our tea service. Tea, Lady Tabitha?”
“Yes, please, Daughter Agathe.” Tabitha barely had time to reply before Daughter Agathe had filled her cup with tea. “Thank you, Daughter Agathe.”
“Milk or sugar, Lady Tabitha?” Daughter Agathe went on demonstrating how a gracious hostess served tea.
Tea service proceeded around the table with each of the girls taking their tea with milk, sugar, and sometimes both until Daughter Agathe reached Cythera, who fought an ugly grimace as Daughter Agathe asked, “Tea, Lady Cythera?”
“No, thank you, Daughter Agathe.” Mustering the most courteous refusal she could, Cythera shook her head.
“Lady Cythera.” Daughter Agathe stiffened as if Cythera had offered the gravest affront. “Tea is a sign of your hostess’s hospitality. If you refuse her tea, you’re refusing the warmth of her welcome.”
“Yes, Daughter Agathe.” Cythera accepted the reprimand even as visions of sputtering up disgusting tea swam in her mind. “Forgive me.”
“Tea, Lady Cythera?” repeated Daughter Agathe and this time Cythera knew how she must respond.
“Yes, please, Daughter Agathe,” she answered in her most pleasant, toneless voice. “Thank you, Daughter Agathe.”
“Milk or sugar, Lady Cythera?” Daughter Agathe continued with the ritual in which Cythera had no choice but to participate.
“Milk and sugar please, Daughter Agathe.” Cythera remembered Gwynnen’s advice and thought that even if it did her no good, it would at least do her no harm in the present circumstances. “Thank you, Daughter Agathe.”
A stream of milk and a spoonful of sugar landed in her cup before Daughter Agathe moved onto the next girl and Cythera could emit a sigh of relief. When everyone was served and Cythera took her first tentative sip of tea with milk and sugar, she found the creaminess of the milk thickened the tea so it was less bland and the sugar disguised the bitterness. She still didn’t like tea, but at least she found it drinkable as apparently she would be expected to partake of it regularly as a future member of polite society at the king’s court.
Tea might have been an acquired taste as Gwynnen’s mother said, but by the time her sixteenth birthday and departure from the convent for the court neared, Cythera had acquired it. When Daughter Agathe summoned her to a private parlor for tea, she was able to accept the drink without so much as a flickering eyelash of hesitation.
“You always take your tea with milk and sugar,” Daughter Agathe remarked as she returned the milk and sugar to the table. “Some might say it indicates an inability to drink bitter on your part, but others might say you drank enough bitter when your mother died.”
“My mother died long ago, and the Daughters at this convent have been like mothers to me.” Cythera knew this was a lie, but it was a pretty, pleasant one perfectly suited to polite society. It said what people wanted to hear, not the truth.
“The Great Mother Goddess has a special spot in her heart for motherless girls, and we Daughters of the Goddess do our best to follow her example, advocating on behalf of the motherless girls who come into our care at the convent.” Daughter Agathe inclined her head in acknowledgment of Cythera’s comment. “We understand how difficult it is for a motherless girl to make the contacts she needs to establish herself successfully at court, so we have endeavored to ensure you have a place at court upon your arrival.”
“That’s very kind of you, Daugther Agathe.” Cythera sipped at her tea. “What place have you found for me?”
“A place in the queen’s service as one of her ladies.” Daughter Agathe’s eyes gleamed with pride. “We wrote to the queen on your behalf, entreating her to accept you into her service in the name of charity, and she was so gracious as to agree to take you into her service and in good time secure an advantageous marriage for you.”
“I thank Her Majesty and the Daughters for their charity.” Words that should have been sweet tasted bitter in Cythera’s mouth as she wondered when she would be powerful enough in society to not have to depend on the charity of others to secure her place in it.
“I trust you’ll not disappoint Her Majesty or the Daughters who educated you in a lady’s arts.” Daughter Agathe deftly employed this as a transition into her lengthy lecture on what Cythera’s duties as a queen’s lady would entail: entertaining the queen with pleasant conversation, playing music or dancing when the queen requested it, embroidering with the queen, attending balls and dinners as part of the queen’s entourage, and performing small tasks for the queen such as serving tea when requested.
Before Cythera had even made her formal debut at court, she was subjected to the test of serving tea for the queen in her parlor, the most elegant Cythera had ever seen.
“Serve tea for me please, Lady Cythera,” Queen Lianne requested as soon as Cythera had completed her curtsy and greeting.
Ordering her hand not to tremble and risk spilling steaming tea over the most expensive silk dress she had ever seen, Cythera picked up the teapot. “Tea, Your Majesty.”
“Yes, please, Lady Cythera.” Queen Lianne smiled as Cythera very slowly and very carefully poured tea into her cup. “Thank you, Lady Cythera.”
“Milk or sugar, Your Majesty?” Cythera placed the teapot back on the table, relieved that disaster hadn’t struck while she held it.
“Milk and sugar, please, Lady Cythera.” Queen Lianne’s soft smile grew. “Though I know the Daughters would say that is a sign that I never learned to drink bitter.”
“I’m partial to milk and sugar as well, Your Majesty.” Cythera risked a small smile at the revelation that she had something in common with the queen.
“When they wrote to me on your behalf, the Daughters praised your beauty, grace, and sweetness.” Queen Lianne lifted her teacup to her lips delicately. “Did they mention that to you?”
“No, Your Majesty.” Cythera shook her head. “They told me that you were so gracious as to take me into your service out of charity for a motherless daughter.”
“The Daughters wouldn’t have mentioned your beauty, grace, and sweetness to you. They would’ve feared it swelling your head.” Queen Lianne rested her cup on her saucer as she scrutinized Cythera. “I see the Daughters spoke true about your grace and beauty. I can only hope they spoke true about your sweetness as well. If they have, you might be able to surpass Lady Delia as the most beautiful woman at court, because she’s far sharper than she is sweet.”
From Queen Lianne’s tone, it was clear that she disapproved of sharpness in a lady. Cythera wondered what that meant for her friend Gwynnen, who had never learned to sheath her tongue despite the admonitions of the Daughters.
“Surely Your Majesty is the most beautiful woman at court.” Cythera felt as if she were over her head and drowning in her first conversation at court, which seemed weighted with subtleties and politics beyond her understanding. It was dizzying to go from the isolation of life behind the convent’s gray walls to the center of power and majesty that was the king’s court.
“I wasn’t even the prettiest flower at court in the bloom of my youth which has long passed.” Queen Lianne’s smile had a sad twist to it now.
“Then you must have been the sweetest flower then as you are now.” Cythera hoped her second attempt at a compliment to the queen would prove more successful than her first.
“Perhaps I once was the sweetest flower at court, but if you can be the sweetest flower at court now, you’ll find many young men buzzing around you like bees. Some of the young knights who’ll be eager to pay you court might even be from the Book of Gold.” What the queen was describing was a major leap up the social ladder who came from a Book of Silver family that was perpetually watching their coin. “Your beauty, grace, and sweetness will determine how far you rise in the world–what marriage my husband and I can arrange for you.”
With the queen’s advice in mind, Cythera ensured that she presented a beautiful, graceful, and sweet face whenever she appeared at any court function. The realm’s knights noticed and flocked to her like lambs around a shepherd. Perhaps too many knights paid court to her because less than a month after her court debut, Lady Delia invited her to a private tea in the Eldorne quarters.
“Tea, Lady Cythera?” Lady Delia offered a wolfish smile as if she would like nothing more than to devour Cythera as Cythera settled into a sofa with upholstery so thick it threatened to swallow her.
“Yes, please, Lady Delia.” Cythera provided the only and expected reply. “Thank you, Lady Delia.”
“Lemon, Lady Cythera?” Lady Delia very deliberately, very provocatively didn’t offer the traditional milk and sugar to accompany the tea.
“No, thank you, Lady Delia.” Cythera had no intention of adding sourness to her bitter tea.
“Lemon in tea is the newest fashion in Maren.” Lady Delia squeezed lemon juice into her cup and slipped the remainder of her slice over the rim in a manner Cythera didn’t doubt Daughter Agathe would call most unrefined. “It’s sourness makes it something of an acquired taste, of course, but I suppose you wouldn’t like it. You only like sweet things, or that’s what you want the entire court to believe, but truly it’s not so sweet how you have stolen the attentions of all the young men at court, is it?”
“I have no intention of stealing the attentions of all the men at court.” Cythera only wanted the attention of one young man but he was the heir to one of the oldest, richest families in the realm–as far out of her reach as the sky was the dirt’s–so she would never admit to Lady Delia that she had set her heart on a knight so far beyond her station. “Certainly I have no intention of stealing the attentions of your prince.”
She saw in the flush that flared on Lady Delia’s cheek that her arrow had hit its target.
“No.” Lady Delia’s eyes narrowed like cut emeralds. “Your intention is only to steal the attentions of his cousin, the Duke of Naxen’s son. That’s very ambitious of you.”
“Not as ambitious as stealing the attentions of a prince.” Cythera refused to drop her eyes despite the burning shame she felt at Lady Delia’s accusation.
“No.” Lady Delia waved a dismissive palm as if Cythera were a bothersome bug. “Not as ambitious especially since the Duke of Naxen looks as if he’ll live forever so his son may never inherit. Perhaps I was wrong about you, Lady Cythera. Perhaps there is no sharpness behind your sweetness, and I needn’t fear you at all.”
“No, you needn’t fear me, Lady Delia.” Cythera smiled, inviting Lady Delia to underestimate her, because somehow she sensed that her time at court would outlast Lady Delia’s. “I’ve no ambition at all.”
“You’ve a lamb’s brains.” Lady Delia’s laugh was so derisive Cythera couldn’t fathom why any man at court found it charming. No doubt they were truly the ones with a lamb’s brain. “I see now why you were a great favorite of the Daughters. They always love their soft, sweet little lambs, don’t they?”
“They always love women who are graceful, beautiful, and sweet, yes.” Cythera allowed her gaze to linger on Lady Delia, implying she was none of these things, before she sipped at her tea, discovering it tasted not bitter but sweet as triumph. She was, she decided, acquiring a taste for court intrigue as she had acquired it for tea.
Rating: PG-13 for references to death and childbirth.
Prompt: Acquired Taste
Word Count: 3835
Summary: The first time Cythera has tea, it tastes bland, the second time it tastes bitter, or how Cythera acquired a taste for tea and court intrigue.
Drink Bitter, Taste Sweet
Cythera was five the first time she tasted tea. Her aunt Cecilia arrived in a grand coach, sending all of Elden castle into a flurry of polishing maids and sweeping footmen for days in preparation for her visit. Yet Aunt Cecilia barely seemed to notice the cleaning and shining that had taken place on her behalf, disappearing into the bedchamber where Cythera’s mother had lain for weeks, waiting for a child to be born and too weak to stir from her mattress.
Before she vanished into Mother’s room, Aunt Cecilia gestured imperiously for Cythera, who had trailed her like a lost duckling, to follow her into the bedchamber. Aunt Cecilia exchanged pecks on the cheeks with Mother, whom Cyhtera tried not to notice appeared even paler than she had when she had first confined herself to her bed.
“How are you doing, my darling?” Mother’s fingers closed around Cythera’s in a faint squeeze.
“Good, Mother.” Cythera forced a smile and lied even if her nursemaid Marta said lying was a sin against the Great Mother Goddess. It would’ve been polite to ask how her mother was feeling, but she was so afraid of what the truthful answer to that question would be that the words stuck in her dry throat.
“I trust you’ve been behaving for your father and nursemaid.” Mother’s fingers released Cythera’s as if even the light grip had been too much for her to maintain.
“Of course, Mother.” Cythera bobbed her head, eager to have a question she could respond to honestly.
“Tea to strengthen you, sister.” Aunt Cecilia bustled by Cythera to place a tray on the table beside Mother’s bed. Pouring a steaming cup from the pot, she offered it to Mother. “It’s infused with dandelion and nettle as your maids say the healer recommended.”
“Would you care for a cup of tea, Cythera?” Aunt Cecilia filled a second cup with tea.
“Yes, please, Aunt Cecilia.” Cythera had never drank tea before, but it sounded very ladylike to drink it, and she was excited at the chance to join her aunt and mother in this elegant behavior.
“Then here you are.” Aunt Cecilia slipped a warm cup into Cythera’s hand. The porcelain was hotter than Cythera had expected, and she gasped, stifling the reflexive urge to relinquish her hold on the cup. “Careful not to drop it now. That’s expensive porcelain imported from Jindazhen.”
Cythera watched her aunt pour a final cup of tea for herself, and then, cautious of the steaming brown beverage, copied the dainty sipping she saw from her aunt and mother. As she lifted the tea toward her mouth, she could smell the dandelion and nettle wafting toward her, and she believed that she would taste the dandelion and nettle that scented the tea. Instead all she tasted was boiled water.
“It’s so bland!” Cythera couldn’t contain her disappointed exclamation. “It’s just brown water!”
“Then don’t drink it and go pester your nursemaid, you ungrateful child.” With a sharp scolding sound of tongue against teeth, Aunt Cecilia snatched the cup from Cythera’s grasp and returned it to the tray. “Your mother is too ill to listen to your whining.”
Cythera found herself shunted out of her mother’s bedchamber by a bevy of maids before she could apologize, but she was brought back a few days later over her father’s thundering objections to witness the bloody agony of her brother’s birth. Aunt Cecilia insisted that it was time for Cythera to be initiated into the Great Mother’s mystery of childbirth so Cythera knelt by the Daughter who had been summoned from nearby convent generously donated to by the Elden family to attend this birth, chanting praise and pleas to the Great Mother as she fought not to cough in the incense the priestess swirled.
Despite their prayers, Mother bled out as the healer pulled Cythera’s brother from her womb, living only long enough to name the newborn Luca in honor of Cythera’s father.
Cythera felt a burning bitterness toward the Great Mother Goddess for ignoring her prayers–for not saving her mother. It was this need to know why her mother was sealed in a stone cold tomb rather than nursing a new baby against her warm breast that kept Cythera kneeling beside her mother’s memorial on the rainy, chilly March morning they laid her mother to rest in the Elden family mausoleum.
The cold and the damp seeped into her lungs, wracking her body with hacking coughs as she lay feverish in her bed, nursed by Marta.
“Tea to chase away the cold and damp.” Marta coaxed Cythera into an upright position on a pile of pillows and pressed a hot mug of herbal tea to her lips.
“I don’t want it.” Frantic, Cythera shook her head, dizzying herself. “It’s too bland and disgusting.”
“Not this tea.” Marta took advantage of Cythera’s open mouth to trickle tea down her throat. “It’s sweetened with honey, my dear.”
Cythera couldn’t taste a hint of sweetening honey, but she drowned on the bitter herbs that reminded her of how tea and prayer had failed to heal her mother. She sputtered up the mouthful of tea, scalding her throat as she coughed it into a bowl held beneath her chin by a chiding Marta.
After that, nobody forced Cythera to take another sip of tea until at ten she left for the convent in the City of the Gods where Daughters raised girls of the nobility to become proper pearls worthy to adorn King Roald’s court. For three months after she arrived at the convent, she was not subjected to any situation where she was required. Her first inkling that might change came at breakfast one morning when she saw that the table where girls her age ate was laden only with bowls of fruit rather than any more substantial fare.
“I thought our fathers were lavish enough with their donations that the convent wouldn’t scrimp with our food,” Cythera murmured to auburn-haired Gwynnen, who had become her best friend since she arrived at the convent.
“It’s not that,” replied Gwynnen in an undertone as she bit into a plum that dribbled purple juice down her chin that risked ruining her spring leaf green gown. “It’s that we’re having our first tea lessons today with scones and everything. The Daughters don’t want our waistlines growing so we don’t fit in our dresses.”
Before Cythera could comment on how drinking tea would likely make her sick as it had the last time she had attempted it, Daughter Agathe, who always watched the girls like a hawk ready to swoop down whenever someone picked up the dessert fork instead of the salad fork or otherwise forgot their manners, fixed her beady glare on Gwynnen. “For the hundredth time, Lady Gwynnen, please don’t talk with your mouth full of food. I assure you no one longs to see the entire process of mastication as much as you yearn to display it.”
Chastened, Gwynnen swallowed and ducked her head. “Yes, Daughter Agathe.”
“And wipe that juice from your chin before it stains your dress.” Daughter Agathe was plainly unappeased by Gwynnen’s acquiescence.
“Yes, Daughter Agathe,” Gwynnen repeated meekly, dabbing the juice off her chin with her napkin.
At that point, the Great Mother Goddess must have taken mercy on Gwynnen, because Daughter Agathe turned away to berate an unfortunate girl whom she accused of devouring a pear in large chomps unbefitting a lady.
Once she was certain Daughter Agathe’s temper had found a new target, Cythera whispered to Gwynnen, “I’ll be staining my dress soon because I’ll end up spitting up any tea I do drink.”
“Mother says tea is an acquired taste, but it helps if you drink it with milk and sugar,” Gwynnen spoke sagely, and Cythera felt a flare of sorrow that her own mother wasn’t alive to provide such advice and instead she had to hear it from Gwynnen’s mother secondhand.
Less than an hour later, Cythera was seated around a circular table with the rest of the girls her age. A pot of tea and platters of scones, sweets, and savories were placed in pride of place at the center of the table. The mingled aromas of the scones, sweets, and savories might have made Cythera’s stomach rumble in a most unladylike fashion if the smell of tea hadn’t created a nausea in her that overwhelmed her appetite. Tea reminded her of sickness and death. Trying not to think of her mother, Cythera forced herself to focus as Daughter Agathe began her lecture on the art of drinking tea.
“A lady’s ability to partake in civilized society is determined by how properly she can take and receive tea. It has even been said that a lady’s breeding can instantly be seen based on how politely she takes and receives tea.” Daughter Agathe’s gaze swept the table of wide-eyed girls. “You’ll learn the art of taking and receiving tea starting this morning. By the end of our lessons together, you’ll be fit to take and serve tea to the queen herself.”
The queen, Cythera knew, had once been taught a lady’s arts at the convent. Had she once sat at this table with her friends, instructing by an overbearing Daughter of the Goddess? Had she known then that she would one day become the most important woman in the kingdom–the one the Daughters would exalt as a model of virtue, grace, and sweetness?
“Napkins in your laps, ladies,” ordered Daughter Agathe. As the girls obeyed in a flutter of cloth napkins, she continued, “If you’re drinking tea at a table, don’t lift your saucer while you’re sipping your tea. Only keep your saucer in your hands while you’re drinking tea if you’re standing or sitting with no table before you. To do otherwise makes it seem as if you’re unclear about the purpose of a table in civilized society.”
“I can’t believe she’s insulting our intelligence by telling us to use a table when we have one,” Gwynnen whispered from beside Cythera, drowning out Daughter Agathe’s strictures about holding the teacup properly and not stirring the tea with too much excitement so as to cause a whirlpool in a cup.
“Lady Gwynnen seems to think she has learned all there is to know about drinking tea in polite society.” Daughter Agathe had obviously noticed Gwynnen’s whisper even if she hadn’t heard exactly what was said. “Perhaps she’ll be so kind as to enlighten the rest of the class as to whether milk and sugar go into a cup before or after the tea?”
“After, Daughter Agatehe,” Gwynnen responded so swiftly that Cythera could only assume this was something else her mother had taught her.
Daughter Agathe gave a short nod as if displeased she could issue no correction. “And what is the proper way to eat the food accompanying the tea?”
“Savory to sweet.” Gwynnen gestured at each of the platters in turn as she named them. “First the savories then the scones and finally the sweets.”
“That’s correct.” Daughter Agathe offered another grudging nod as she picked up the teapot. “I’ll begin our tea service. Tea, Lady Tabitha?”
“Yes, please, Daughter Agathe.” Tabitha barely had time to reply before Daughter Agathe had filled her cup with tea. “Thank you, Daughter Agathe.”
“Milk or sugar, Lady Tabitha?” Daughter Agathe went on demonstrating how a gracious hostess served tea.
Tea service proceeded around the table with each of the girls taking their tea with milk, sugar, and sometimes both until Daughter Agathe reached Cythera, who fought an ugly grimace as Daughter Agathe asked, “Tea, Lady Cythera?”
“No, thank you, Daughter Agathe.” Mustering the most courteous refusal she could, Cythera shook her head.
“Lady Cythera.” Daughter Agathe stiffened as if Cythera had offered the gravest affront. “Tea is a sign of your hostess’s hospitality. If you refuse her tea, you’re refusing the warmth of her welcome.”
“Yes, Daughter Agathe.” Cythera accepted the reprimand even as visions of sputtering up disgusting tea swam in her mind. “Forgive me.”
“Tea, Lady Cythera?” repeated Daughter Agathe and this time Cythera knew how she must respond.
“Yes, please, Daughter Agathe,” she answered in her most pleasant, toneless voice. “Thank you, Daughter Agathe.”
“Milk or sugar, Lady Cythera?” Daughter Agathe continued with the ritual in which Cythera had no choice but to participate.
“Milk and sugar please, Daughter Agathe.” Cythera remembered Gwynnen’s advice and thought that even if it did her no good, it would at least do her no harm in the present circumstances. “Thank you, Daughter Agathe.”
A stream of milk and a spoonful of sugar landed in her cup before Daughter Agathe moved onto the next girl and Cythera could emit a sigh of relief. When everyone was served and Cythera took her first tentative sip of tea with milk and sugar, she found the creaminess of the milk thickened the tea so it was less bland and the sugar disguised the bitterness. She still didn’t like tea, but at least she found it drinkable as apparently she would be expected to partake of it regularly as a future member of polite society at the king’s court.
Tea might have been an acquired taste as Gwynnen’s mother said, but by the time her sixteenth birthday and departure from the convent for the court neared, Cythera had acquired it. When Daughter Agathe summoned her to a private parlor for tea, she was able to accept the drink without so much as a flickering eyelash of hesitation.
“You always take your tea with milk and sugar,” Daughter Agathe remarked as she returned the milk and sugar to the table. “Some might say it indicates an inability to drink bitter on your part, but others might say you drank enough bitter when your mother died.”
“My mother died long ago, and the Daughters at this convent have been like mothers to me.” Cythera knew this was a lie, but it was a pretty, pleasant one perfectly suited to polite society. It said what people wanted to hear, not the truth.
“The Great Mother Goddess has a special spot in her heart for motherless girls, and we Daughters of the Goddess do our best to follow her example, advocating on behalf of the motherless girls who come into our care at the convent.” Daughter Agathe inclined her head in acknowledgment of Cythera’s comment. “We understand how difficult it is for a motherless girl to make the contacts she needs to establish herself successfully at court, so we have endeavored to ensure you have a place at court upon your arrival.”
“That’s very kind of you, Daugther Agathe.” Cythera sipped at her tea. “What place have you found for me?”
“A place in the queen’s service as one of her ladies.” Daughter Agathe’s eyes gleamed with pride. “We wrote to the queen on your behalf, entreating her to accept you into her service in the name of charity, and she was so gracious as to agree to take you into her service and in good time secure an advantageous marriage for you.”
“I thank Her Majesty and the Daughters for their charity.” Words that should have been sweet tasted bitter in Cythera’s mouth as she wondered when she would be powerful enough in society to not have to depend on the charity of others to secure her place in it.
“I trust you’ll not disappoint Her Majesty or the Daughters who educated you in a lady’s arts.” Daughter Agathe deftly employed this as a transition into her lengthy lecture on what Cythera’s duties as a queen’s lady would entail: entertaining the queen with pleasant conversation, playing music or dancing when the queen requested it, embroidering with the queen, attending balls and dinners as part of the queen’s entourage, and performing small tasks for the queen such as serving tea when requested.
Before Cythera had even made her formal debut at court, she was subjected to the test of serving tea for the queen in her parlor, the most elegant Cythera had ever seen.
“Serve tea for me please, Lady Cythera,” Queen Lianne requested as soon as Cythera had completed her curtsy and greeting.
Ordering her hand not to tremble and risk spilling steaming tea over the most expensive silk dress she had ever seen, Cythera picked up the teapot. “Tea, Your Majesty.”
“Yes, please, Lady Cythera.” Queen Lianne smiled as Cythera very slowly and very carefully poured tea into her cup. “Thank you, Lady Cythera.”
“Milk or sugar, Your Majesty?” Cythera placed the teapot back on the table, relieved that disaster hadn’t struck while she held it.
“Milk and sugar, please, Lady Cythera.” Queen Lianne’s soft smile grew. “Though I know the Daughters would say that is a sign that I never learned to drink bitter.”
“I’m partial to milk and sugar as well, Your Majesty.” Cythera risked a small smile at the revelation that she had something in common with the queen.
“When they wrote to me on your behalf, the Daughters praised your beauty, grace, and sweetness.” Queen Lianne lifted her teacup to her lips delicately. “Did they mention that to you?”
“No, Your Majesty.” Cythera shook her head. “They told me that you were so gracious as to take me into your service out of charity for a motherless daughter.”
“The Daughters wouldn’t have mentioned your beauty, grace, and sweetness to you. They would’ve feared it swelling your head.” Queen Lianne rested her cup on her saucer as she scrutinized Cythera. “I see the Daughters spoke true about your grace and beauty. I can only hope they spoke true about your sweetness as well. If they have, you might be able to surpass Lady Delia as the most beautiful woman at court, because she’s far sharper than she is sweet.”
From Queen Lianne’s tone, it was clear that she disapproved of sharpness in a lady. Cythera wondered what that meant for her friend Gwynnen, who had never learned to sheath her tongue despite the admonitions of the Daughters.
“Surely Your Majesty is the most beautiful woman at court.” Cythera felt as if she were over her head and drowning in her first conversation at court, which seemed weighted with subtleties and politics beyond her understanding. It was dizzying to go from the isolation of life behind the convent’s gray walls to the center of power and majesty that was the king’s court.
“I wasn’t even the prettiest flower at court in the bloom of my youth which has long passed.” Queen Lianne’s smile had a sad twist to it now.
“Then you must have been the sweetest flower then as you are now.” Cythera hoped her second attempt at a compliment to the queen would prove more successful than her first.
“Perhaps I once was the sweetest flower at court, but if you can be the sweetest flower at court now, you’ll find many young men buzzing around you like bees. Some of the young knights who’ll be eager to pay you court might even be from the Book of Gold.” What the queen was describing was a major leap up the social ladder who came from a Book of Silver family that was perpetually watching their coin. “Your beauty, grace, and sweetness will determine how far you rise in the world–what marriage my husband and I can arrange for you.”
With the queen’s advice in mind, Cythera ensured that she presented a beautiful, graceful, and sweet face whenever she appeared at any court function. The realm’s knights noticed and flocked to her like lambs around a shepherd. Perhaps too many knights paid court to her because less than a month after her court debut, Lady Delia invited her to a private tea in the Eldorne quarters.
“Tea, Lady Cythera?” Lady Delia offered a wolfish smile as if she would like nothing more than to devour Cythera as Cythera settled into a sofa with upholstery so thick it threatened to swallow her.
“Yes, please, Lady Delia.” Cythera provided the only and expected reply. “Thank you, Lady Delia.”
“Lemon, Lady Cythera?” Lady Delia very deliberately, very provocatively didn’t offer the traditional milk and sugar to accompany the tea.
“No, thank you, Lady Delia.” Cythera had no intention of adding sourness to her bitter tea.
“Lemon in tea is the newest fashion in Maren.” Lady Delia squeezed lemon juice into her cup and slipped the remainder of her slice over the rim in a manner Cythera didn’t doubt Daughter Agathe would call most unrefined. “It’s sourness makes it something of an acquired taste, of course, but I suppose you wouldn’t like it. You only like sweet things, or that’s what you want the entire court to believe, but truly it’s not so sweet how you have stolen the attentions of all the young men at court, is it?”
“I have no intention of stealing the attentions of all the men at court.” Cythera only wanted the attention of one young man but he was the heir to one of the oldest, richest families in the realm–as far out of her reach as the sky was the dirt’s–so she would never admit to Lady Delia that she had set her heart on a knight so far beyond her station. “Certainly I have no intention of stealing the attentions of your prince.”
She saw in the flush that flared on Lady Delia’s cheek that her arrow had hit its target.
“No.” Lady Delia’s eyes narrowed like cut emeralds. “Your intention is only to steal the attentions of his cousin, the Duke of Naxen’s son. That’s very ambitious of you.”
“Not as ambitious as stealing the attentions of a prince.” Cythera refused to drop her eyes despite the burning shame she felt at Lady Delia’s accusation.
“No.” Lady Delia waved a dismissive palm as if Cythera were a bothersome bug. “Not as ambitious especially since the Duke of Naxen looks as if he’ll live forever so his son may never inherit. Perhaps I was wrong about you, Lady Cythera. Perhaps there is no sharpness behind your sweetness, and I needn’t fear you at all.”
“No, you needn’t fear me, Lady Delia.” Cythera smiled, inviting Lady Delia to underestimate her, because somehow she sensed that her time at court would outlast Lady Delia’s. “I’ve no ambition at all.”
“You’ve a lamb’s brains.” Lady Delia’s laugh was so derisive Cythera couldn’t fathom why any man at court found it charming. No doubt they were truly the ones with a lamb’s brain. “I see now why you were a great favorite of the Daughters. They always love their soft, sweet little lambs, don’t they?”
“They always love women who are graceful, beautiful, and sweet, yes.” Cythera allowed her gaze to linger on Lady Delia, implying she was none of these things, before she sipped at her tea, discovering it tasted not bitter but sweet as triumph. She was, she decided, acquiring a taste for court intrigue as she had acquired it for tea.
Maybe once we'd have seen it during Smackdown!