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from what she understood, and though the rewards could be great, there could also be much disappointment.
    Much like serving the Order, she thought as she ran her cloth over the rickety side table and arranged a lace cloth over the top to hide the splintered wood. Vast potential for personal reward and also much disappointment.
    She judged the time by the growling of her stomach and assumed his would be as empty as hers. She slipped out of the room to head for the kitchen, where she found Florentine hunched over a pot of bubbling stew, her gray curls askew beneath her floppy cap and her broad, coarse face red with exertion.
    “Florentine, I need to make the master a tray.”
    “What?” Florentine stood up so fast her cap flew onto the floor.
    Quilla bent quickly to pick it up and handed it back. “A tray? For his midday meal.”
    Florentine snatched the cap from Quilla’s hand and slapped it back on her head. She snorted. “Master don’t usually eat midday.”
    “And he’s far too thin because of it,” replied Quilla. “I’m going to make certain he eats today. He can’t work all day long without food.”
    Florentine gave her a squinty-eyed glare. “No? He’s done it plenty o’ times afore.”
    Quilla put her hands on her hips. “Florentine, what, exactly, is your problem with allowing me to do my job?”
    The fat chatelaine sniffed, nose in the air. “I ain’t got a problem, Miss Fancy Breeches. None ’tall.”
    “Fine, then. A tray? I’ll be happy to fix it myself if you show me—”
    “You might be going to have your fingers in all of the master’s spaces, Mistress Fancy, but this kitchen is my place! I’ll fix Master Gabriel his tray, I will!”
    Quilla knew when to step back. “Very well.”
    She watched Florentine pull out a tray with carved wooden handles and set it on the thick butcher-block table in front of the fire. The cook ladled a generous helping of stew into a bowl, added a loaf of thick-sliced bread and a small crock of butter. Utensils. A flagon of ale. A small saltcellar, a luxury Quilla noticed but did not remark upon. The household couldn’t be in very dire straits if the cook had enough salt to send an entire cellar along on the tray without needing it in the kitchen.
    “Napkin,” Quilla prompted.
    Florentine raised a bushy eyebrow. “What?”
    “A napkin. Surely you have them?”
    “For fancy dinner parties, sure and I do.”
    “He’ll need one to wipe his mouth on from the gravy.” True patience, Quilla. “Surely you don’t expect him to use his sleeve?”
    “Nah, but I thought he might use your’n,” Florentine said slyly. “Or mayhaps you’d lick his mouth clean—”
    Quilla had been rearranging the items on the tray to balance the weight. At Florentine’s words, she slammed her hand down on the table hard enough to make the dishes jump.
    “You will not speak to me that way!” Her voice echoed around the room. She stepped closer to Florentine. The much larger woman took a step back. “You will accord me the respect I deserve, Florentine. I am a Handmaiden, and in the employ of your master. Beyond that, I have never done aught to give you reason to disparage me. Think you not because I am mild-tongued and calm of manner that I am some addlepated twit you can shove about to serve your own purposes, or insult without retribution. I have served in lowly houses and fine palaces. I have been Handmaiden to shepherds and to kings. And while you may not approve of my function, and you may not understand it, let not your own jealousy make a mockery of what I am and what I do. I accord you the respect your position demands. I ask you do the same to me.”
    “Or what?” Florentine’s sneer seemed halfhearted, the threat in her tone forced. “You’ll tell the master on me?”
    “Do you really think I’d have to?” Quilla regarded the other woman carefully. “Master Delessan impresses me as the sort of man who’d find out all on his own. Think you he’d be