“But Cook, look at me!” Vida cried. She held out a bony hand, her fingers like winter twigs.
Brona blinked her heavy-lidded eyes. Vida had been a beauty when she had arrived in June, the rose blooming on her plump cheeks, her hair shining like a raven’s wing. The Countess had selected her personally to carry the train of her gown from the dressing room to the vanity, where the pox-faced Zuzana performed her sorcery with lotions and unguents.
Now Vida looked as if someone had sucked the very lifeblood from her. Her breasts had withered flat against her chest, her face was gaunt, cheekbones pushing through her translucent skin. In the hollows of her eye sockets, her cornflower eyes, once so merry with spirit, had receded in the plummy darkness. Never very big, she seemed to have shrunk to the size of a child.
The other girls had secretly given her scraps from their own meager portions. A bit of meat or a piece of coarse bread would travel from lap to lap under the table until it reached starving Vida, hidden from the eyes of Hedvika, who would have stung their faces with a slap, and, far worse, informed the Countess of their treachery.
One day, when Hedvika lingered with the Countess in her chambers, hunger forced Vida to leave the table. The other handmaidens spoke not a word as she rose and walked to the cold larder at the kitchen’s portal. It was stocked with hanging fowl, smoked bacon, fresh eggs, cheeses, and wooden buckets of cream and churns of fresh butter. But most tantalizing of all was a large clay crock, filled with yellow goose fat, slick with translucent grease, creamier but more substantial than butter.
Her starving body shuddered with desire. Her thin hands flew toward the crock like birds to a perch.
“If you touch that, you will be severely punished,” said a gravelly voice.
Vida whirled around to see Brona watching her, in her hand a soup ladle, steaming in the cold air of the room. A few rich drops fell from the ladle to the granite floor and Vida dropped to her knees, her fingers sweeping up the meaty broth and plunging knuckle-deep into her mouth.
“I am starving,” Vida cried. Her shoulders began to shake and tears sprung to her sunken eyes.
“It is not my choice,” said the cook. “Come away from my larder.”
Brona extended her hand, scented with the smells of rich food, and pulled the starving girl to her feet. The cook’s fingers immediately met bone, the flesh on the girl’s arm emaciated. The old woman’s heart skipped a beat.
Brona led Vida into the kitchen where the pungent smells of cooking made her knees buckle.
“Sit there, by the fire,” she said. “It will warm your thin bones.”
Vida slumped onto a three-legged stool by the hearth. Her face crumpled, tears stained her reddening cheeks.
“But why would the Countess starve me?” she cried. “I have served her faithfully.”
The cook lifted a wooden spoon and beat it hard against the iron cauldron of soup.
“Your allegiance has nothing to do with this,” said the stout woman, shaking her head so the greasy wattles on her neck quivered. She leaned close and lowered her voice. “It’s your beauty that she hates. That is your curse.” Her meaty breath was torture to the starving girl.
“My beauty?”
“She chose you for it and now she will destroy it. And if you die, that is no concern of hers.”
“What can I do?”
Old Brona looked around and even up to the rafters, as if a spy might be perched above them.
“Flee, Slecna Vida. Leave Čachtice Castle and never look back,” she whispered quickly.
Vida’s eyes filled with tears.
“My mother is sick. The pennies I bring back keep her alive. There is no work for me in Čachtice, except as a prostitute.”
“Better to starve or sell your body than face the anger of the Countess.”
Hedvika strode in, demanding an extra rasher of bacon. She saw Vida and her face soured.
“What are you doing? Begging for food?”
“She has been given nothing,” said the cook. “What concern is it of yours, Hedvika? You eat more than a force-fed goose.”
“The Countess likes me plump,” said Hedvika, glowering. “But this one—I know what the Countess has prescribed for her. She has no business here.”
“This is my domain, harlot,” growled Cook. She shook the spoon in Hedvika’s face. “You think I do not know what goes on at night. Now get out!”
“Vida comes with me,” snapped Hedvika.
The cook thrust out her lower lip like a ledge and pulled Vida to her so quickly the weak girl almost fell.
“Heed my words,” the cook whispered.
“The Countess will hear of your treachery, Cook,” said Hedvika.