Pawns and Queens--A 15th Century Gwynedd Story--Chapter Twenty-Three

[DerynifanK]

Yes, thank you for not killing either Salim or Riordan. Don't want to see Amina killed but would really like to get rid of her Hope she is not asked to care for the two little girls. That would not be a good idea.
 Hope you get over that cold soon Revanne

Oof, yeah, I can imagine neither Amina nor those poor girls would want to end up stuck with each other. Of course, given that at the moment we've also got a few pregnant ladies in the castle, it could be that there will be a royal nursery set up for the little munchkins very soon. And in the meantime, it's not like Mellie is going to have a ton of things to do initially while stuck in Colin's family's castle as a refugee, so she's quite available to spend time with her own daughters (and Balian, when he's free) for the moment while she adjusts to this sudden upheaval in her life.

I wonder how Soroya  will deal with the appearance of Mellie and the little girls in the castle. I'm thinking only Soroya, Cinhil, and Elisa will even remember her. Maybe many or most of those who spread gossip about her will be gone or otherwise occupied. The Andelonian ladies will not know her if Catalina can keep Amina quiet. She might just be introduced as a family member who required rescue. A different experience from when she was there before.

[Evie]

I wonder how Soroya  will deal with the appearance of Melie and the little girls in the castle. I'm thinking only Soroya, Cinhil, and Elisa will even remember her. Maybe many or most of those who spread gossip about her will be gone or otherwise occupied. The Andelonian ladies will not know her if Catalina can keep Amina quiet. She might just be introduced as a family member who required rescue. A different experience from when she was there before.

I think more people would recognize Mellie than you might think. Mellie grew up at the castle since her father died while she was still a young girl (around Balian's age),  so unless the Haldanes don't have much household loyalty from their servants and staff and have managed to hire all fresh staff in the past decade rather than retaining anyone, a great many of the ones who were there in her younger years would still be around. Keep in mind that this is in a time period where it would be a major point of pride to serve the Royal Family, and even those who entered service without the hope and intention of making it a lifelong career would have stuck with it long enough to make a tidy nest egg that they could use as a dowry, if they were women, or would hope it would provide them with a good living so they could support a wife and family, if they were a man born of common stock. It's not like a job in 2024 where you can expect people to leave to find a better position every three to five years, and even if it was...where would that "better position" be, exactly?  Also, apart from the chambermaids, stable hands, kitchen workers, laundresses, etc., there were also those of the nobility serving as ladies-in-waiting, pages, squires, gentlemen retainers, administrative clerks, Castle guards and their families, etc., and many of those have also been there for over a decade. Cinhil's two senior squires, for instance, were pages at the time when Colin's liaison with Mellie began, and they were already in Cinhil's service. Then you have the lords and ladies who visit Rhemuth at certain times a year like Christmas, Easter, and Twelfth Night Court, and while they don't live there full time, they almost certainly have been making regular visits to the Royal Court throughout their entire lives. (Consider Alaric Morgan, for instance, making regular visits to Rhemuth since his preschool years with his parents and long afterwards, presumably up to whatever year he ends up dying.) That would be even more the case right now, with at least some of the lords of Gwynedd sending families to the greater safety of Rhemuth while they are off at war.

And those are only the regular and semi-regular residents and guests at the Castle itself. Mellie was also known (by sight, anyway) to a lot of people in the City of Rhemuth, given that she had an apartment in the City for a short while when she and Colin were in their early days, and he would have been spotted visiting her. It would not have taken long for the scandal to spread in a crowded city about the beautiful young woman the middle Haldane Prince was keeping under his protection and visiting at all hours of the day and night, especially once she was visibly pregnant. And after years had gone by without him marrying as a properly dutiful prince ought to, the blame for that would have been laid at poor Mellie's door, because of the societal double standard that would shrug at Colin's behavior and say "men will be men," but treat Mellie as an outcast for not remaining pure and untouched until marriage. The poor girl might as well be the poster child for gossip and scandal at this point! There's a reason why she wanted to stay at Candor Rhea at all costs, even to the point of being in denial of the approaching enemy and nearly dying there.

[DerynifanK]

They really need to set up a nursery like yesterday.

[Evie]

They really need to set up a nursery like yesterday.

Agreed, though at the moment, the war prep is taking precedence over everything else, especially now that the enemy has moved to within ten miles of the Rhemuth city walls. In just another two or three chapters, I think, you'll see just how much those royal ladies and the others left behind at the castle have been hard at work on in the past few months while most of the men have been off fighting in the war.