Gremyne Sunsets

"Zende, dear...."
Zende looked up and saw her mother fluttering into the room. Her long hair tied up in an ornate hairdo. Her bright red dress flowed around her -rather big- body as she walked towards her daughter.
"Yes Lady Merka?" Zende asked.
"I've invited some friends for your 21st birthday party. Consider them." Lady Merka said and fluttered back out of the room.
As always her mother didn't take the time to explain. But Zende had gotten quite adept at reading her mothers intentions. Her 21st birthday party was tonight. The friends her mother had invited were undoubtedly male and they would make good matches for her to marry and for her father to make allies with.
Zende sighed. Her mother could be so ignorant. Or at least Zende hoped her mother was ignorant. If she knew what was going on in the province and still could eat as much as she did, throw parties and deny help to them, than... Than Zende wouldn't really be surprised. In fact she suspected as much, but she still hoped her mother was a nitwit.
After the visit of her mother Zende got up and snuck out to the kitchen level. Four years now had she been doing this. There were always leftovers in a castle as big as this. She had been trained as a nurse... it was no more than fair that she used her gifts to help the people in need. Not many dared come here though.
"Mariann!" She whispered, calling one of the kitchen maids, "Are there people for me?"
"Just one madam."
"Tell me if my mother or father come."
The maid nodded and posted herself near the exit of the kitchens. Zende walked on and opened one of the side doors leading to a small room with supplies.
"Hello?" she said.
Zende heard some coughing and went that way. Soon she noticed a small light made by a single candle. The man laying beside it was ill no doubt. He was white and coughed almost without stopping to breath.
"What do you need?" she asked.
"Our crops failed and now I am sick. My family has nowhere to go."
Zende had heard these stories before. only when people had nowhere to go they dared come to her. Maybe it was for the better. Too many people sneaking in might get suspicious.
"Come back tomorrow and I'll have food and money for you. Now I can give you some cough syrup that will help you sleep and breath. Rest a lot and you should recover fully." Zende said quickly and then got up. "I must go now, I can't be missed."
She left and raced to her room to get dressed for the party. Her dress was green she saw, a soft pastel green dress made out of silk with thin see-through sleeves. At least her mother let her wear dresses in her own favourite colour. Zende couldn't imagine herself running around in red all the time. She clipped on earrings and a necklace, combed her hair and left for the party. She stepped slower this time. Her mother would freak if she saw her running.
On the dancefloor she danced with every available bachelor. Some were old, some were barely teens. Some were fat, some were rigid... Well yeah, royalty isn't known for being normal. Zende didn't mind being around eccentric people, as long as they allowed her her own eccentric pleasures.
Around midnight she feigned being tired and left the ballroom. About a dozen men watched her go weary. Her mother looked at her back angry for ruining the ball and her father might have been pleased to see the lot of them -they were eating his food, his money- go.
But in stead of going to her room she made a quick stop in her fathers chambers. She knew where he kept his money. She had taken it before. He probably knew it was missing, but money had been disappearing from before she was born. Her mother most likely.
Zende turned the little grey globe and pressed the little button of it's pillar. A small part in the wall opened, cleverly attached to the globe by a miniature of metal wires and hinges. Inside stood the little box her father kept his money in, well part of it. Zende looked in and took out a few bronze pieces. Gold and Silver would stand out and be missed sooner. She reset the globe and snuck back out.
She was halfway down the stairs when she heard her father going up, accompanied by her mother. Zende ran back up, glad her footsteps were absorbed by the tapestry on the stairs. She opened a door and waited, her ear at the keyhole.
"I tell you, she is stealing." her father said.
"honey, that money has been disappearing for ages."
"Yes, but I marked some! Guess where I found it!"
"Where?"
"In the taxes."
"Maybe you paid the servants with that money."
"No, I pay them in iron, not in bronze. And I keep the iron in a different place."
"Oh."
"I've been hearing things about her... servants say she gives it away."
"No!" This of course was unbelievable for her mother.
"She does... No-one takes from me to give it to those workers from the city!"
"Yes, that's not what a good daughter would do. I agree, a punishment."
"I'll deal with her."

Continue to Part 3 of Zende
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All images copyrighted to me except for the dividers. I got those from Dreslough.com