Chapter 6 Chapter Six

At noon, Murray Castle loomed before her eyes, and Aine probably never saw a more miserable sight.It was an old-fashioned castle, built for defense.The windows are riddled with arrow marks, and the battlements are damaged in many places and never appear to have been restored. She, too, smelled the peculiar smell of the place as they approached.In addition to the miscellaneous smell of the European warriors and horses, the castle also emitted a bad smell. "Miss?" Joss whispered.Aini didn't look at her, just looked straight ahead.Lina had told her about the squalor of the place, but she was still taken aback.

First they came to the moat.Apparently all the excrement of the castle was drawn here, and the river was thick with waste, residue, and rotting carcasses of animals.Aini raised her head high, and all her maids coughed from the smell. They rode through a long, narrow tunnel that ended in a courtyard half the size of Ernie's house, but packed with three times as many people.After the smell, the noise has become a new trouble.Blacksmiths were beating, dogs were barking, men were shouting at each other amidst the din. There are two stone steps on Aini's right hand side, one of which leads up to the independent high tower, and the other leads to the lower second-floor building.In this small place there is no distinction between lord and servant, they are all crammed into the same small space.

At the bottom of the stone steps, Aini saw two women.They searched among the newcomers until they saw Aini, and they pointed and laughed.Aine saw that they were only handmaidens, but from the filth of the place they never worked. The two girls came down from upstairs.When they came to the low stone wall, Aine saw them clearly.Both were short, with slender waists and fat hips, and their thick and messy brown hair was braided and hung down their backs.Their clothes were tight and revealing, their hips swayed exaggeratedly as they walked, and their big breasts swayed up and down, and the men stopped to look at them.

When a samurai helped Ernie dismount, she saw the two coquettish women approaching Lowe with their breasts and hips swaying.He was yelling at the unloaders, but Ernie saw him glance at the woman.One of them turned around immediately, showing a triumphant gesture to Aini.Aini wished she could slap her across the face. "Should we go in, miss?" Joss said timidly. "Maybe there will be..." She didn't finish. It was already evident that her husband was not going to show her around the new home.Aini lifted her skirt and walked up the stairs where the two maids were just now.As she climbed, she kicked away bones and piles of what looked like dead birds.

At the top of the stairs was a large room, separated from the doorway by a wooden screen.The screen was originally exquisitely carved, but now it is full of nails, spears and hammers.Behind the screen was a room about fifteen feet long and twenty-five feet wide. Aine and her maid entered the room silently, for what they saw was beyond words.Dirty is an understatement.The floor was covered with bones that seemed to be leftovers from meals that had been eaten for hundreds of years. Flies swarmed on the maggot-infested bones, and she saw something wriggling under the thick debris—she Don't want to guess what it is.

The ceiling was covered with thick cobwebs, and the fireplace on the east side of the hall was at least three feet deep in dust.The only furniture in the room was a heavy black oak table and eight rotten chairs, oily and battered. There were a few windows, some as high as fifteen feet from the ground, but the glass and wooden frames were all gone, so that the smell of the courtyard and the foul smell of the moat wafted into the room. Aini was not surprised when one of the maids began to lose her balance and fainted. "Stand still!" she ordered. "Otherwise we'll leave you lying on the floor." The girl stood up quickly.

Aini summoned up all her courage, lifted her skirt and walked towards the northwest corner. "Jose, follow me," she said. "The others stay here." After going up a few steps, the room is on the left and the toilet is on the right.Aini looked around, but didn't go in.It was full of weapons. Aini continued to walk up to the second floor, followed by Joss.There is a domed walkway here, and there is a room to the right at the end of the court, where on the floor there is a mattress of straw, which has rotted so much that nothing remains but two thin yellow sheets. She then went to the sunroom, a large, bright room with sunlight streaming in from its many windows.On the south wall, there is a wooden script ladder leading to the third floor.There was a commotion overhead that made Ernie look up, and there were perches hanging from the beams of the ceiling, with various hawks perched on them.The walls were smeared with traces of bird droppings and piled up in piles on the floor.

"Miss, what should we do?" Joss asked from behind. "We're going to make my husband feel comfortable," Aine affirms. "First, we're going to clear two rooms, one for me and my husband," she said, blushing uncontrollably. "The other one is for you and other people, and we'll start cleaning up the other places tomorrow. Now you don't have to stand still! Go and call the two women downstairs and let them do something to see if they're happy stand up." Joss was afraid to act alone in this castle, but the attitude of the hostess gave her a lot of courage.She ran down hastily.

Ernie finds another side room in the sunroom.There is obviously a lot less bird droppings here, and the oil paint from the past is still vaguely on the wall.She could repaint the walls as soon as they were clean; she could hang tapestries on the west wall, Ernie thought.At that moment, the stench in the room and the chatter of the hawks seemed to disappear. "They won't come, Miss." Joss gasped from the doorway. Ai Ni returned to reality. "Who won't come? My husband?" Joss looked angry. "It's the maids! Lord Lowe's maids won't come. They were all laughing at me when I called them over to help clean up."

"Really?" said Annie. "I'd like to see what they'll do to me." She was ready for a serious fight.She had suppressed all her anger in the past few days, and now she wished she could find a place to vent it, and these two arrogant and arrogant maids just happened to be her targets. Aini rushed down the steep stairs, walked through the hall, and down the stairs to the noisy courtyard.The two women were at the well just now, and the three warriors were fetching water for them, and their big breasts were rubbing on the man's arms. "You!" Aini pointed at one of them. "follow me!"

Aine turned and walked towards the castle, but immediately found no one following.She looked back and saw the two maids smiling at her, as if they had some privilege that she didn't.For a while Aine didn't know what to do, no servant ever disobeyed his orders, her father always had her back. But now, she stood there, and everyone around her was staring at her.She knew she had to let them know that she was mistress of the castle, but first she had to win her husband's support. Lowe was at the other end of the atrium, directing the unloading work.Annie walked across the courtyard angrily, she was going to protest to him, she demanded the dignity of a castle mistress!But when Lowe turned to her with disturbed displeasure, her confidence evaporated. "The maid won't listen to me," she said quietly. He looked at her in amazement, as if the question had nothing to do with him. "I asked the maids to clean the room, but they wouldn't," she explained. These words seemed to answer his confusion, and he turned back to face the carriage. "They will clean up if they need to. Didn't you also bring the maid?" She came between him and the carriage. "Three of my maids are maids, and the others...well, they can't do it by themselves anyway." "Whoever makes a hole in that helmet, I'll punch a hole in his head!" He yelled at the people in the carriage, and then looked down at Ai Ni. "I don't have time to take care of the maid, not to mention the place is clean enough. You go away, I have to unload these things quickly." He ignored her existence, and Ji Bin roared again.Aini looked at his back and felt the sharp eyes of everyone behind him, especially those of the two maids.It turns out that's what Lina warned her about, and that's what marriage is like. She knew that at this moment she had to maintain her dignity no matter what.So without looking anywhere, she went straight back to the stairs and up the castle.Behind her she heard a double din, mingled with shrill, shrill women's laughter. Aini's heart beat faster because of the humiliation.Lina said that she was spoiled by power in Fei's family. At that time, she didn't quite understand what Lina meant, but now she felt the pain of losing her power. Lina must have felt the same way about the Fei family, she thought.That must be how Lina felt when the servants refused to listen to her. "She feels this way, but she still treats me so well." Aini whispered. "Miss Aini?" Joss called softly. Aini saw the fear on her maid's face, but now she was too tired to think about anything, her most urgent needs were food and sleep. "Send Beth to the kitchen and bring up some food by the way—I'm not eating with everyone today. Then bring my quilt to the sunroom." She held up her hand to stop Joss from speaking. "Get some more shovels, we need to clear a place to sleep, and tomorrow we—" She stopped, because she didn't want to think about tomorrow.If she doesn't even have the authority to command a maid, then she is like being imprisoned in a prison. "Investigate this ghost place as much as you can," Aini said after thinking for a while. "Where's Sir Seaman? Maybe he can... help us." Aine's voice was already weak. "Yes, Miss." Joss timidly replied and left the room. Aini walked slowly into the sunroom.She walked to the window and looked down at the moat. In the thick black water, there was a bull's head floating up and down, looming.This is where she will live for the rest of her life, her home.But what could she want from a husband she didn't quite know? How could she make him love her?Maybe when he and her maid cleared the house, he'd notice a wife in the house, and food.By the way, it is food.If she hired some good cooks and brought out good dishes at every meal, he might begin to appreciate this clever wife.Finally there is the bed.Ai Ni had heard her maid say that if a woman can capture a man's heart in bed, it is equivalent to controlling him.She was going to clear the bedroom later, and he would come to her, because now they could be together in privacy.For the first time since Ai Ni saw Murray Castle, she smiled. After a while, all eight of Aini's maids came to the sunroom. Their hands were full of food, pillows, and mattresses, and their mouths kept chattering. It took Ernie a while to understand what they were talking about.They say Sir Seaman is with some lady or something and won't show his face for three or four days I'm afraid.Besides the lady and her maid, there were only eight women in the whole castle. "They don't do anything," Beth said. "Not one half of them will tell me what they do." "And they're all named after the days of the week. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and on and on, except for one called 'Alternate.' Those are the only names they seem to have," Lisa said. "Besides, their food is terrible. The flour is full of weevils and sand, but the chef bakes it all in the bread." Beth leaned forward a little. "They used to buy bread from the bakery in the town. Later, the boss accused the Ou family of not paying, and it turned out—" "What's the result?" Aini asked, trying to bite off a piece of beef that was old enough to be used as a leather shoe. "The people from the Ou family demolished that man's shop, and used his flour... as a urine bucket." Aini put down the meat in her hands.They cleared a space, and now they all sit on chairs.There was a clear sound of metal rubbing and mouth-chewing outside the window, and it seemed that her husband and others were eating in the room below.But no one thought to invite their new mistress to dinner. "You must have found out where Lord Lowe's bedroom is?" asked Ernie, with as much dignity as she could. The maids looked at each other with sympathy in their eyes. "No," Joss murmured. "But it seems that the big room is his right." Annie nodded.She hadn't yet had the courage to climb up to the room on the wooden ladder.If you can have birds in the sunroom, what can't be in the bedrooms above? After hours of shoveling, they finally cleared the two bedrooms.Aini wanted to help, but Joss wouldn't let her do it. She didn't want her mistress to lose her power over her maid.So Aini sat on the window sill and put a handkerchief to her nose to block the stench from the moat. Finally her room was ready—not clean, but safe to walk without tripping over—a maid persuaded a man to move two mattresses up, and Aine, with the help of Joss, Changed clothes and went to bed.She lay awake for a while, waiting for Lowe to come, but he didn't come. The next morning, she woke up from the loud noise and the pungent stench, and yesterday's nightmare turned out to be real. For three days, Aini and her maids were busy cleaning the sunroom, and she didn't go downstairs for three days.She couldn't face the people of Murray Castle, because they all knew that her husband not only refused to have sex with her, but even refused to give her the authority to command the maids. So Ernie stayed upstairs alone, never seeing her husband, never having any contact with the people of the castle.She stayed bored until the afternoon of the fourth day, then desperately climbed up the wooden ladder and went upstairs to explore.Upstairs was as dirty as the rest of the castle, with a thick layer of dust, as if no one had come up in years. She walked down the aisle, checking the rooms on both sides, and a small sandstorm rose behind her.When she was about to leave, she seemed to hear the whirring of the loom.Aini raised her skirt, walked step by step to the corner room, and pushed open the door. An old woman with dark hair sat spinning in the sun.The room is very clean, the windows have glass, and there are sofas and pillows under the windows.This must be the lady with Sir Seaman, perhaps their aunt or some relation. "Come in, dear. Shut the door, lest we choke on the dust." Aini smiled and complied. "I didn't know anyone was here, especially out there." She felt quite at home with the old lady.The old lady nodded to a chair, and she sat down. "It's really bad, isn't it?" said the old woman. "Even if the dust piled up on the chest, Lowe would swim through it without even noticing." Aine's smile disappeared. "Even if I drown in the dust, he won't notice," she murmured softly, not wanting the old woman to hear.But she heard it. "Of course he won't notice you. Men never pay attention to women who only care about their clothes, food, or quietly giving birth to their children." Ai Ni immediately became alert. "Then what kind of women do they pay attention to?" "A woman like Randy." She smiled at Aini. "You haven't met her yet, he's an old friend of Seaman's. In fact, Randy is the wife of a very old, stupid but rich old man who spends his money but lives with Seaman. " "She lives here? She is willing to live until this... this..." "She has her own place above the kitchen, which is probably the nicest room in the whole castle. Randy always wants the best." "I asked the servant to help," said Aine sourly. "But got nothing." "It depends on what you want." The old lady said, spinning handfuls of spun yarn into fine silk threads. "Don't you love Lowe?" Ai Ni averted her eyes.She was not at all surprised by the intimacy between her and this woman, she was tired of talking to the maids all day long. "I think I loved him once. I married him because he was the only one who was honest with me, and he didn't praise me and flatter me for my father's fortune." "Lowe has always been very honest. He will never lie, nor will he deliberately care about things he doesn't care about." "That's right, and he doesn't care about me." Aini said sadly. "But you're not like that, are you? My dear. The Aine who hides from people all day is not the Aine who used to run her father's estate, the Aine who once faced a mob." Aini didn't ask why she knew these things, she just felt tears welling up in her eyes. "Men don't like the former Ernie, Joss said—" "Who is Joss?" "My maid. In fact, she's kind of like my mother. She—" "She knows all about men, doesn't she? Raised by one man, married to another, and has several men, doesn't she?" "Well, not really, as a matter of fact, she grew up with me. She was an orphan and later married. But no children, and now she sees her husband three times a year... oh, I see what you mean .Actually, Joss has no experience with men." "I don't think so. Remember, my dear, no man will give his life to a woman who cleans his house. They only pay attention to a woman who occasionally shows her strength." Annie laughed. "I can't imagine how I'd do it to Sir Lowe." "Just a mud shirt is enough," said the old lady, with a smile in her eyes.Suddenly she looked up. "Someone is coming upstairs, please leave, I don't want to be disturbed." "Yes, of course." Ai Ni said and left the room, closing the door.She wanted to go back and ask how she knew about the mud shirt, but suddenly Joss came up the stairs to find Aini. For the rest of the day, Ernie was alone in the sunroom.The old lady's words kept ringing in her ears, and she couldn't help but know what to do.Perhaps she should have gone straight to him and demanded the authority of a servant, but that seemed so absurd that he would just turn his head away.Of course, she could draw her sword at him any time, and the thought almost made her laugh.So now she can only wait.Maybe one day he'll come to the sunroom, maybe to catch his eagle, and then he'll see how clean it is, and maybe he'll want to stay, and he'll really love her— "Miss?" Joss said. "It's getting late." "Oh." Aini replied heavily, and returned to her empty bed after changing her clothes. A few hours later, Aini was awakened by a strange sound and light. "Lowie!" she gasped, turning to look, but instead of her husband, she saw a tall, handsome boy.He was wearing a purple gown, baggy torn trousers, and dirty hair hanging down to his shoulders.He stood by the wall, with one foot on a chair, his elbows on his knees, gnawing on an apple, and looking at Ernie by the candlelight. Annie sat up straight. "Who are you? What are you doing in my room?" "I'm here to see you." His voice was still childish, she thought. "You've already seen it, go out now." Is it too late to endure this kind of arrogance in her own room? He took another bite of the apple loudly, showing no intention of leaving. "I guess you're probably waiting for my brother." "Your brother?" Aini suddenly remembered that Lina had said that the Ou family might have many sons. "I'm Sal," said the boy, throwing the pip out the window. "I've seen you now, and you're just like they said. By the way, Lowe won't be coming tonight." He started walking out the door. "Wait for me!" Aini's voice made the boy stop and turn around. "What do you mean I'm like what they said? And where is my husband? Why doesn't he come today?" How much Ai Ni hoped that he would say Lowe, a secret mission for the king or something.She waits. "It's Wednesday," Sal said. "What does it matter what day of the week it is to my husband?" "I heard that you fought with them. There are eight of them, from Sunday to Saturday, and the other one will be a backup when someone has trouble with women during the seven days. Sometimes there will be two of them at the same time. Trouble, Lowe will be miserable then! Maybe he'll come to you then." Aini wasn't quite sure what he meant, but she gradually understood. "Those maids," she said weakly. "You mean, my husband sleeps with a different woman every night? Are they... shifts?" "He was going to have one woman a day for a month, but then he said it would be too many women in the room, so he decided to go with eight. Seaman was different, he said. Dee's enough. Of course, Randy's—" "Where is he?" Anger gradually ran through Aini.From the first time she saw Lowe until now, all the anger came out. "where is he?" "Lowie? He sleeps in a different place every night. He said they'd be jealous if he let them go to his room. This Wednesday, he's supposed to be on the top floor above the kitchen, first door on the left." Aini stood up, her whole body was on fire, every muscle was tense. "You're not going to see him, are you? Lowe doesn't like to be interrupted. I can tell you he has a bad temper. Once he—" "He hasn't seen my temper yet!" Aini gritted her teeth and said. "No one will live to treat me like this!" She pushed Thrall away, walked out of the porch, and grabbed a torch on the wall.She was wearing only her nightgown and bare feet, but she didn't notice the bones all over the floor.A big dog barked viciously in front of her. She waved the torch, and the dog ran away whining and wailing with its tail between its legs. "How did I hear that you are a little sheep?" Saar murmured as he followed behind in surprise.This angry sister-in-law is nothing like a little sheep.What is she trying to do?Whatever it was, Sal knew he had to get to Seaman quickly.