Chapter 1 ~ Of Scots
Molly had spent most of her life in servitude at the Estate of the Duke Contair.
She was considered as one of the lowest of the servitude classes. Usually found in the kitchens or gardens, tending to the plants or cooking and cleaning at every hour of the day with little, if any, rest.
But her life before that? Had been scarcely better. At the age of just seven she had been sold into slavery by her very own father, for just a meagre ten pieces of eight, because he had deemed her ’pretty enough to fetch a pretty penny.’ Before then, she had lived with her aunt Eliza. A cruel woman who spent most nights sitting so very close to the drink, she almost became fully of it! Molly, looked after her during the night, and during the day she would beg for food on the streets, but even with the kindness of strangers, she and her aunt barely survived the cruel harshness of their reality.
Really, Molly didn’t blame her aunt for their past. After all, men just like Molly’s father and the Duke Contair, had treated her aunt just as badly as Molly had been cruelly delt. Molly had had word that her aunt had died of too much drink and self-neglect, barely a month after she’d been sold away.
And now she had no-one, and nothing left to cling too in the world. And hope? Well, it felt rather low and heavy. In-fact, Molly’s hope had almost entirely flickered out.
But she had always been a cheery girl. At least, that’s what people said. Someone who no matter what always managed to put a smile on her face, and a skip in her step.
But all of that begun to change, when she was introduced to the estate that she was now to become in servitude too. Molly found herself then, in the harsh hands of the estate’s head mistress. A strict and timely woman who held her nose constantly high and whom every servant, no matter their rank or role, obeyed without question. She had quickly trained Molly in all the skills to be expected of a servant of her age, but she hadn’t bothered to warn Molly, about what would happen at the estate each night.
It had been Molly’s fellow servants instead, most especially a girl who quickly took Molly under her wing, that had told her the low-down of what life was really going to become.
She told her of the predatory eyes of the men who roamed the estate. The dangers of the dukes’ guards, what they did to women they liked well enough to turn them into entertainment, and worst of all, what the duke himself did nightly, to the young servant girls that he favoured at the time.
Molly had fainted, of course, when she’d heard of the horrors. And her first night in the estate, when she’d first heard the screams? She had cried so hard she’d had to sob into her rag that she used as a pillow, and she most certainly didn’t get a wink of sleep. Plagued with idea’s of trying to save the girls being so awfully hurt, and the pure and utter panic that coursed through her veins at the mere thought of what it was that they were screaming about. Of course, on her first night when she had tried to get up and run to the girl upstairs aid, the other servants had stopped her, explaining that she’d be killed, or worse if she tried to intervene.
The very next morning? She took the head girl’s advice and quickly learned how to survive in such a nightmarish place.
Survival, she’d been told, meant blending into shadows. The dirt smeared across Molly’s face became her armour, her calloused hands from countless rose thorn-pricks and years spent on the streets, her sword, and her knotted, filthy hair, her shawl of invisibility. They made her just as unnoticeable as the mice in the kitchen, scurrying around unheard and seen.
But, just as her fellow servants, who had quickly become her most kindred spirited of friends, begun to know, Molly, didn’t give up easy. And almost every single week, she’d carefully present the head servant with yet another crazy idea, to stop the grand duke for good.
Of course, Molly didn’t actually know how to fight. And confidence? Wasn’t exactly her forte. But there was a certain fire within her heart that simply refused to burn out. A fire that burned with empathy for the girls who where hurt or worse by the dukes cruelties. A fire that made her valiant despite her lack of skill or solid plan.
But of course, every idea so far, had been shot down quicker then an archer from the times of Mary queen of Scots. But just like Mary, that Molly had been lucky enough to hear about from the school-children that would often pass her on the streets of her previous life living upon them, she had boldness and bravery.
At least, that’s what she liked to tell herself at night, when the screams of the girls who were still just children, kept her awake and internally screaming herself.
Could she really be as brave as queen Mary? When every hope in that place seemed to dwindle like a candle burning out of its flame?
The more the years spent in servitude to the duke went on, the younger the girls he turned into his playthings, became. And the more Molly found herself needing to do something about it.
Anything.
It was on a regular Monday morning, when Molly had been coming back from the kitchens, that she had heard something of rather extreme importance. Something that might just have been able to change things, and not just for her, but for all the servant girls in the estate.
For the duke, was giving,
a ball.
“Yes it is surely going to be a rather grand spectacle. I dare say he’ll top even that of count Earl’s display last year!”
Molly flattened herself to the wall, holding her basket of bread as carefully as she held her very own breath.
“Quite lovely, I’m sure. Everyone who’s everyone will be invited.”
Molly’s ears pricked up at that, as she leaned in a little closer towards the voices that where exciting her so.
“What’s that you say?” Asked another sudden voice, having must have just jumped into the conversation.
“The duke is giving a ball.” The other voices answered, almost at the exact same time, and Molly couldn’t help but to chuckle to herself at their absurdity.
She often found nobles to be rather funny in their nature. Always seaming to put their airs on display, and it showed in how they acted around other nobles. They didn’t even know how very ridiculous they sounded, but Molly knew.
In fact, it was her little secret. One of the rarer, jollier, things that got her through the harshness of her callous life.
“A ball? Oh, how grand!”
The newest voice exclaimed, and Molly’s heart raced. A ball at the estate? This could be the opportunity she had been waiting for!
With quickened steps, and her pulse racing faster than a tiger on the prowl, she made her way to the kitchens, her mind whirling with thoughts and plans. Plans that might have just been her best ones yet!
She simply had to tell April.
April, head girl of the servants, and Molly’s dearest friend at the estate, had arrived there before Molly had. The two of them had bonded through shared pain and years of survival. At nearly twenty-three, April was older by a few years and had quickly become as such, like a mother figure of sorts to the younger girls. Molly of course, included. Molly was endlessly grateful for that.
It wasn’t until hours later that Molly had been able to get away from the kitchens and do what it was that she had been so urged to since she had heard of the news. She headed down the darkened corridor towards the servant’s chambers, with barely enough light, as per usual, to get there. The chambers where just as dismal as the hall that led towards them. Old wooden barely all their posts held up flimsy hammocks as beds, the roof made of crumbling bricks dripping in places with dew and water from the recent rains, and the hard stone floors made the space the chilliest place in the entire estate. The only warmth the servants could often find, was by sharing their hammocks in the night.
When Molly made her way inside and saw her friend laying on her makeshift bed, she rushed up and shook her body, mayhaps a little too harshly in her excitement as April work up with a start.
“Mm, Molly? What on the good earth is it?”
She grumbled in her sleep ridden voice.
But Molly’s grin and utter excitement, caused the older girl to raise a brow.
She knew that look altogether, too well.
“Good god, what is it this time?” She sighed.
“The duke is giving a ball.” Molly quickly replied in all but an excitable squeak of delight.
April gave her a look. A look that said, in a very sarcastic sort of way, ‘yes, and?’
“Annnd, it might just be the opportunity we’ve been waiting for, for years!” Molly urgently whispered as she looked around them and beckoned for her friend to follow her into another room.
They stood in the make-shift lavatory. An even danker place filled with buckets that let off such an awful stench that the servants couldn’t hardly bare to stay in there longer than a minute at a time. But that made it the perfect place for secrets. Something that April seemed rather fed up with at the time.
“Ok. Talk.” April said only when they were absolutely certain they wouldn’t be overheard.
Molly explained in hushed whispers, her idea both reckless and bold. She would steal a noblewoman’s clothing and mask, blend in with the guests like the shadow she’d become so accustomed to being over the years, and get close enough to the duke to strike, right, of course, when he least expected it.
April listened, her expression a mixture of concern and reluctant admiration. Because she knew that this time, Molly’s idea had some validity, a plan that might just have the potential to actually work.
“It’s a dangerous plan, Molly. Probably the best one you’ve come up with, but reckless all the same.” She sighed.
Molly nodded, knowing fully well the risk that her plan carried. But she was still willing to do it, willing to do anything to put a stop to the duke and his horrendous ways.
“But it’s the only plan.” Molly pushed, and April sighed. Because she knew that her younger friend, as much as she wanted dearly to keep her safe and protected, was right. And she was old and determined enough now, at the ripe age of twenty-one, that April knew there was little she could do to stop her.
“I know I can’t stop you, so we’ll do it together. But we have to be smart about this.”
Molly grinned, her heart pounding in her chest even faster now that it had the whole day. Because they were finally going to do it, what they’d been waiting and wanting to do for years.
April couldn’t help but to grin a little as well, as she looked at Molly, and began to grow the very same sparkle of hope in her eyes that she herself had thought was long ago lost.
“Ok... here’s what we’ll do.”
