Chapter 40: Mistress Edith
"You best speak, young lady. I don’t have the patience for this. I will throw you into the dungeons and report to the Queen that you are nothing but a nuisance that should be severely punished," Mistress Edith said, stepping closer to Rose.
They were still in the confines of the small room. The open window and the dying candlelight were the only sources of light. Rose could barely see Mistress Edith’s face, but she could tell the woman wasn’t lying. If she didn’t defend herself, she would end up in a worse situation than she already was.
The front of the room was crowded with other servants who had been drawn to the commotion. Rose couldn’t hear what was being said, but there was a lot of snickering and shocked reactions.
Rose took a deep breath as she got ready to recount her side of the story.
"I received a few t’ings from ’ome," Rose winced at her dialect, but Mistress Edith didn’t even react. "A few clot’es and two carved pieces. One is a flute—I’ve ’ad it for a few years. The second is two swallows on a branch. Mi father made t’em for me. ’E’s a woodwrig’t. Martha took t’em from mi bag w’en I was in the dungeons." Rose’s eyes pooled with tears as she spoke, but she didn’t let them fall.
"I c’ecked mi bag after I woke up, and t’ey were missin’. I knew it was ’er immediately, and my guts were rig’t. I found the flute on mi bed in ’er bag, and..." Rose’s voice broke a little, "w’en I asked ye about the swallows, ye said ye burnt it!" She pointed her finger at Martha.
Gasps echoed through the audience, and a few people whispered about how cruel that was.
"It’s mi weddin’ present," she said as she wiped the tears from her face, "and ye destroyed it!" Rose glared at her, her anger far from subsiding. This wasn’t something she could forgive.
Mistress Edith’s brows furrowed, and she turned to face Martha. "Is this true?"
"Of course not!" Martha replied. "I didn’t even know she had carved pieces. She just attacked me out of nowhere." She wailed at the end of her words, trying to garner sympathy. "She’s crazy! See what she did to my face. She attacked me and clawed at my eyes."