The Goatherd and the King by Julie Steimle (read an ebook week .txt) 📖

/> Rolling his eyes, Zeldar strode over. “And I suppose my stepmother is in there also, or is she lurking about in the bushes to catch us talking?”
This made the driver laugh. He caught himself when he saw the footman’s warning glare.
Clearing his throat, the driver replied, “My ladyship is also in the manor with your lordship’s brothers and sisters, preparing for their village tour. I hear your lordship has been summoned to join them presently.”
To this, Zeldar laughed out loud and nodded with a click of his heels in the proper manner. “Well then, oh noble driver of our humble family car, what do you suggest my lordship to do to avoid certain said ladyship that has harbored in wait within the abode yonder?”
With a smile, now ignoring the footman’s irate stares at the both of them, and the driver replied, “I suggest you enter through the back window. She’ll be watching the servants’ doors. The doorman has been ordered to announce your arrival if you come by the main doors. Undoubtedly she intends to mock your herdsman attire.”
“That is uncalled for speech,” the footman said. “She’ll hear of this. Be forewarned.”
“Fink,” Zeldar replied back and promptly crept down to walk around the house as the driver suggested.
The driver hopped out of his covered perch and placed a hand on the footman’s shoulder, hissing into his ear, “Leave him be. You’d sneak around if you had a stepmother like that.”

Zeldar crept through the bushes under the window, sneaking past gardeners that would have to tell if they saw him. Despite their fondness of him, the household workers were terrified of his stepmother just as much as he was, if not more. She had fired so many in her day and set others to tears. One even had a nervous breakdown. Zeldar had witnessed it on a morning ages ago when his stepmother quibbled over the eggs they were eating. She seemed to take great joy in breaking people now and then just to revel in the fact that she could do it.
Climbing under the window, Zeldar peered up into the opening. It opened into the conservatory room where they kept their instruments. It was empty, thankfully, but the window, when he pushed on it, was stuck.
Grimacing, Zeldar crept down again towards another window and carefully peered in. Immediately he ducked down though. There was Dazder, his six-and-a-half year-old half-brother—the biggest gullible pest on the planet—pulling his half-sister’s curls and taking her candy coated fruit the kitchen maid must have given her on arrival. The kitchen maid liked Minwel more than all the other kids (and that included Zeldar), and always made special treats for her that Dazder often liked to snitch when she wasn’t looking.
Ducking down again, Zeldar peered into another window where he only saw five other servants talking up a storm and laughing about something he could only barely hear through the glass—all about him, of course. They were taking bets on whether he was going to get caught by his stepmother. Knowing their tendency to turn him in for a prank he decided against entering that room also.
Zeldar crawled back to the conservatory window. Minwel was now in that room, crying and closing the door to have privacy. Biting his lip, Zeldar tapped on the glass and then ducked down. Minwel crossed the room and peered out the window, still rubbing her red eyes that glittered despite her misery. Standing up slowly, Zeldar motioned to the window latch. His half-sister looked at him disapprovingly, but she turned the latch at once and opened the window.
“You’re going to catch it sneaking in this way,” Minwel said with a shake of her head.
With a heave, Zeldar pulled himself over the ledge and replied with a cough, “Better that than your mother yelling at me for being dressed below my station.”
Minwel smirked yet said nothing.
Zeldar turned over and sat on the floor with his feet still hanging out the window. Contemplating his dirty herding boots for a moment, he glanced up at his five-year-old half-sister and said, “I doubt I can get away walking though the house like this. Any suggestions?”
Minwel walked over and untied his laces at once. “Sneaking around in stocking feet is suspicious, Zeldar, but it is better than leaving tracks. Mom’ll be watching for those.”
He smiled at her and reached over to take his boots off himself. There was one thing to be said for the kitchen maid, she had good judgment in people. Zeldar had always liked Minwel. He never said so, even to her, but he attributed her good nature to his father’s influence, a Tarrn through and through, unlike Dazder who took entirely after his mother in every respect from his pettiness to his temper. He was even meticulously neat in the same way Zeldar’s stepmother was. The only proof he was a Tarrn were his looks, which made him more like Zeldar than he himself liked. And Dazder was always overeager to point out they were half-brothers just to prove he was of better blood in some way.
With his boots in hand and now off his feet, Zeldar sat cross-legged, watching Minwel close and lock the window again with a smile on his face.
“You are too nice to me, Min,” he said, getting onto his feet. “Your mom might not approve of us even sitting in the same room. She seems to think I’m a scoundrel.”
“You are a scoundrel,” Minwel replied with an innocent smile. “But better a scoundrel than what Dazder is—a thief.”
“I saw,” Zeldar replied with a nod. “I’ll get Darrii to get you another fruit stick.”
“Don’t bother,” Minwel replied hastily. “If you saw me and told her, Mom might figure out where you saw it happen, and then you’re through.”
Walking to the door and peeking out, he replied, “I’m probably pre-mortem anyway. Bentarr is playing behind the door. I can’t get out without being spotted.”
Minwel rolled her eyes then said, “I’ll take care of that. You hide behind the door.”
Zeldar bent over and kissed her on the top of her head. “Thanks, sis. You are one in a million.”
She shook her head, replying in a hiss, “No, just call me a sneak, and I’ll be happy. I’m sick of people thinking I’m such a little lady they have to pamper.”
Almost laughing, Zeldar said, “Then talk to Dad. I’m sure he’d let you spend summers here with me.”
“But Mom won’t,” Minwel replied and opened the door. At once she began to tease their little three-year-old miniature copy of Dazder, including temper; and the boy began to kick back with a wail before running to his mother. As soon as he was gone, she waved for Zeldar to come out.
With haste, Zeldar, pulled open the door and dashed in his stocking feet towards the wide stairs that swept up to upper rooms of the manor house. He nearly slipped, skidding over the shiny wooden floor, and tripped on the rug, catching himself on the railing of the stair banister. Luckily no one was in the room to witness it but Minwel, and she quickly turned to be in another room so as she would not be an eyewitness. Zeldar scrambled up the stairs a bit too rapidly and almost tripped again. He caught himself with a slight thud and hurried up the rest of the way to the top carpet.
“You sneak! I see you!” The high-pitched squeaking changeable voice of a six-year-old shouted in a painful echo. “Mother!”
Zeldar cast Dazder one dirty glare before sprinting down the hall in thunderous leaps to his private room, slamming the door shut with too much haste, and swiftly stripped of his clothes for the shower. Not even after two breaths did he hear the harsh pounding on his bedroom door and the shrill shouts of his stepmother to open his door immediately.
Of course he ignored the yells, and at once leapt into the shower, turning on the hot water immediately and shuddering since it was still cold, only recently turned on for his father’s arrival. Zeldar had not used the house at all when he stayed with the herdsmen. He found it a waste of energy and counterproductive anyway to being among the herders as one of the men.
“I know you’re in there, Zeldar! Open this door!” she shouted louder. “I’ll get a key and unlock it myself if you don’t!”
Zeldar wet down his hair and face and hastily soaped up to get off the grime and stench of goats that permeated his whole body. It was lucky that the soaps were so fragrant though he despised the scent of them: too flowery. However, it was better to smell like daffodils than goats in that house.
“Zeldar! I’m warning you!” His stepmother shouted once more.
Rolling his eyes, the young deviant rinsed off all the soap with a shiver and shook out his hair, running his fingers through his blonde curls before turning off the shower. With a drip drip drip echoing in his ears, he grabbed a towel and wrapped it quickly around his waist for protection. The jiggling of his bedroom lock was growing steadily louder, and he had not managed to close his bathroom door when he entered.
Stepping right from the shower, Zeldar came immediately face to face with his stepmother, a feat indeed since a year before he was staring at her chin, wondering why in heaven’s name he had not grown taller since both his parents were quite tall. Now he was somewhat taller than her. With an irritated grin, Zeldar wiped his dripping hair out of his eyes, clutching his towel with his other hand.
“What is it? Can’t I shower in peace?” Zeldar snapped, trying hard to seem justly annoyed.
But his act did not work, and his stepmother glared at him as she said, “You just jumped in two seconds ago, you little sneak.”
Letting go of the charade, Zeldar walked across the room to his dresser where he drew it open. “Why don’t you call me a big sneak, I’m taller than you now.”
“You impudent scoundrel,” his stepmother snapped with a great turn of her skirt. It flowed with taffeta and lace, looking extra flouncy as she trounced over to where he was fishing out a clean shirt. “I know you snuck into this house by covert means. I have witnesses.”
“Shall I be arrested?” Zeldar replied dryly, trying not to sound upset that she had him.
“You should,” his stepmother replied with a bite of her teeth. She tugged on the cuffs of her lacy gloves as if she needed them to keep the filth of his room off her. Standing at her elbow was Dazder and one of his other half-brothers, Miilkin, a whiny babyish boy of four and a half who was even worse company than Dazder was because he simpered