The Young Duke

"The rumors are all around." Elara nodded after a pause. A maid should not have connections to know the truth. She could only depend on rumors to know about the family of the duke.

"Aah, yes! The rumors.. They are all over." The maid took a deep sigh as she stopped in front of the door. 

It was small with two beds, one mirror on the other side of the wall and two shelves. An old iron basket-like thing had small pieces of wood and hay burning near the window to make sure the servant would not choke on it. 

"We have come up with the idea to keep ourselves warm." the young girl smiled cheerfully. When Elara turned to her, she continued, "I am Cherry. You will like working here. The work is not much and the pressure.. You will not feel it at all." there was something unnerving in the voice of the girl but Elara did not care. She was not a real maid who cares about the things here.

It was her hideout. She was going to live here for a while and then disappear in the dark when she would find the chance. She had things to do which were much more important than mopping the floor.

"All the maids share a room here?" she asked, looking at her small bag. It contains all the papers she had stolen. If someone caught sight of them, she would be doomed.

"Yes, except the butler and housekeeper of course. Their rooms are large too with a small closet for their clothes and a desk to work on. Except that, we all have this but it is still better than many houses where all the maids are stuffed in a single hall. Each room had two maids or two manservants only." The maid had every right to be proud about it.

Society treats maids as cattle. Since they pay for their work, giving them lodging and free food was an extra perk, a charity that took a big part of their house since there were more servants than the members of the family. That was why the servants suffered.

"How many servants are there?" her intel told that there were fifty servants but many of them had left the job after the incident.

If she would find one room which was empty to hide things and then change the lock of the door..

"There are only ten for now." The girl's voice was so low that Elara would have missed it if not for the silence in the room. But ten? Only ten? It was the biggest palace in the town. A building you could find from the distance even in the dark. It was splayed covering a whole lane and this large building only has ten servants?

"There used to be many but they left recently." the girl explained but failed miserably, "you should take rest. The butler will explain to you in detail later. And I am sure you will get the job so you do not need to worry about it." She offered again and turned to lie on her bed.

Elara did not torment the maid. She was already kind enough to sacrifice her sleep for this long. If the building was so understaffed, they would have to work for a long time and…. Many parts of the building would be empty! Perhaps staying here would not be that difficult! Elara smiled as she laid on her bed, the exhaustion took her in minutes as she closed her eyes and succumbed to sleep.

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"Are you feeling better Killian?" Oscar asked again in a worried tone as the physician had already checked the child thrice and said he was fine but the child had not spoken a word since he was saved. He was only staring at a distance as if he was waiting for someone to come out of the darkness and hold his hand.

Poor child! It was not that Oscar did not understand the pain of the child who had lost his parents overnight. But he did not want the child to succumb to it when their master had already done it.

"Would you like to eat something?" he asked again as the carriage slowly rattled on the muddy road. It had rained a lot and the dark clouds had sucked all the moonlight. The streets were dark, wet and full of threats. The carriage was only moving slowly to make sure it did not suffer another accident. "I have cupcakes too."

"......" the silence continued to mock Oscar who sighed. He was a knight not a caretaker. He did not know how to cheer a child. 

"Killian…" the young boy held his shirt tightly until his knuckles turned white when he turned to look at the knight who was trying hard to force him to talk.

"I know that my parents died and my uncle is injured. If you are here to tell me that everything would be better, would be normal again then it would not so spare your breath Oscar. I am fine as much as a child who had been kidnapped an hour ago could be." with that he turned to look out of the window again leaving the knight shocked still.

Should that be a way a child should talk to? He was just seven, he should cry and ask for food. Or for mother, though Oscar was glad that Killian did not. 

"My lord.. I know it is hard but you are the lost hope of the duchy. After the death of your father.. The title will be passed to you soon. You have to be strong to handle it and for that.. You have to eat." Since coaxing was not needed, Oscar spoke facts with hard steel. There was no coaxing left in his voice when the child paused.

For a second Oscar felt guilty for hurting the child with such harsh words but to his relief and disappointment, the child finally nodded.

"Alright, get me some food."