Chapter 8
“Ankou [travels] the duchy in a cart, picking up souls. In the dead of night a creaking axle-tree can be heard passing down the silent lanes. It halts at a door; the summons has been given, a soul quits the doomed house, and the wagon of the Ankou passes on. The Ankou herself—for the dread death-spirit of Brittany is probably female—is usually represented as a skeleton.”
I slip inside the house when the morning is still new with a hush gesture to one of the attendants and tiptoe up the staircase. A shadow inside my room makes me pause, but the woman waiting for me is neither my mother nor my sister.
“Clarissa?” I call for her, and like all of Maria’s trained healers, she is ready and waiting.
One of them always travels with the Hunter’s family.
A good Hunter cannot focus on the mission and his family, so along with maids and the like, we travel with a skilled physician.
Softly, so as not to risk my voice carrying, I say, “I have need of you.”
“Where?” Clarissa’s gaze sweeps over me from where she waits just inside the doorway of the closet. Next to her is a table with bandages, a lit candle, a basin of water, and assorted canisters.
I lift my arm to expose my bloodied side. “Most of it is fine. Three or four stitches, though, just here would not be amiss.”
She peels off my dress to expose the wound. I swear I waste far too much money on dresses that are slashed, bloodied, or otherwise destroyed. Parts of this one can be saved and repurposed, but most of my side is destined for the burn bin.
“Not deep.”
I refuse to look. My side is decorated with a few thick white lines already. Father assures me that when I become the Hunter, they will vanish—as if I am worried about the marks of fights survived. Scars simply show that I am alive to heal.
“Hold on,” Clarissa orders.
I stretch upward to grip the doorframe of my closet and brace myself for the sharp jab of the needle, but instead, Clarissa dabs the wound with something astringent. It stings briefly and then the skin becomes blessedly numb.
The lack of pain makes me sigh in relief.
“It works then?” Clarissa asks. “It’s an extract of clove with aloe and—”
“It’s glorious, that’s what it is. Can I bathe in it?”
“I don’t think I have that much made up. I mix it fresh, and I thought you were delayed so long you might need healing.” Clarissa’s cheeks bloom with a pink tint. “I am not glad I was correct, but I am glad the ointment helps.”
“Glorious,” I stress.
She cleans more blood away, then holds the stitching needle in the flame of a candle she presumably has lit for that very reason. “Let me stitch the edge. Then you can soak to clean away any lingering dirt and blood . . .”
I wince at the feeling of the needle sliding into my skin. It is far less painful after the ointment, but less painful still aches like more claws piercing my body.
A few short moments later, Clarissa tugs the last stitch through. The feeling of the thread pulling through skin still feels unnatural, but I know I heal faster and bleed less when stitched. “It feels different. Burns more than usual, as well.”
“Silk rather than catgut,” Clarissa says. “Dipped in alcohol, not table wine but a potato extract that is . . . stronger. A few of us took a ship to the coast to learn this new way.” She drops a clean linen over the bloodied rags. “Into the water with you, m’lady.”
I obediently slide into the water, flinching slightly at the temperature.
“Heat on the needle makes it safer, so it goes to follow that heat upon the body will do the same.” Clarissa turns her back on me to clear away the tools of her work, leaving only the small tubs of ointment behind.
After bathing, more ointment, bandaging, and donning my underlayers, I can almost believe I’m not injured. Almost. If I move the wrong way—which I absolutely must do repeatedly while dressing—my body quickly disabuses me of that notion.
Clarissa has just draped the gown for the ball on the bed when the countess opens the door. She slips into the hallway with her hidden cache of bloodied rags as Mother sweeps into the room.
“Today of all days! You should already be dressed. And your face! Do you have any idea how hard it is to hide your bruises in bright light?” The Countess of Fleuriste stares at me. Her face wears a look that hovers between worry and frustration. In her hand is a glass of oxymel.
I’m already dressed in my chemise, drawers, and stockings. Before the countess arrived, I’d stood naked while Clarissa wrapped a long bandage across my chest and under my arms, covering the cut, scratches, and purpling skin.
Mother does not ask, but I’m sure she sees the bulk of that bandage. She expects it. That’s why she brings the oxymel.
“Your sister is already dressed.” The countess pulls the door shut and carries the drink to my dressing table.
“Rylan doesn’t have to patrol.” I pause before using my preplanned verbal weapon. “I saved a child that was being taken.”
“I would also prefer my child to be uninjured,” Mother says in a tone that is hard to counter.
But I try anyhow. “The ball tonight is masked. My eye will be hidden.”
“The balls won’t always be masked.” Mother gestures at my black eye. “I prefer that you are not in pain, Gabrielle. Less of that, please, in the future.”
“I will do my best.” I smile at her thin argument for why I ought to be less injured.
She cannot forbid me to hunt, but the countess often finds excuses to check on my health—and to bring the tonic that she swears aids in my health.
It seems every physician offers the mixes, and I am ever grateful that mine is not as noxious as some.
Isabeau’s was always a chunky green blend.
I push the stray thought of her away, ignore the drink, and peck a brief kiss on Mother’s cheek before I settle on the seat in front of her, back to the dressing table and mirror, and face tilted upward for the salve around my bruised eye.
“It’ll blacken more.” The Countess of Fleuriste gentles her touch as she rubs the bruise paste on the skin around my eye. “Much closer and you’d have been blinded.”
“I wasn’t fast enough.” I whisper it, though. “Until Father passes . . .”
“I know.”
We don’t often mention that the very thing that will strengthen me will also make her a widow.
Father is already old for a Hunter. His own father died young.
Most Hunters die young. In the interim, their Hunter-in-Training has only wits and training to keep them safe.
Mine were not enough this morn—or a month ago in Brimmond Wood.
“I am sorry,” the Countess of Fleuriste says softly, pausing in her ministrations. “I wish I could have given him a son.”
“Never apologize, Mother. I would rather face a few bruises than have lost you because you kept trying to carry babies. You gave me a sister and a home and a destiny. That is everything.” I hate that she feels guilt, but that, too, seems to be part of the burden of loving a Hunter.
That’s why I cannot wed. I don’t say it, but I suspect my mother knows. I simply cannot ask someone to suffer as she has, loving a Hunter and knowing that both her spouse and her child will fight faeries.
For a moment, Mother’s face looks like it will crumple in tears, but the countess is made of far sterner stuff than that. She presses her lips together, eyes closed, and then she lets out a shaky breath before saying, “Your sister is excited at the thought of seeing the queen.”
“Perhaps, we could tell Her Majesty that you only have the one daughter left, send only Rylan . . .” I tease, hoping for a smile.
“Pish.” The Countess of Fleuriste smiles as she pulls and twists my hair into something artful and ladylike. “I have two lovely noble daughters, and if you are to marry—”
“What if I am not?” The words tumble out too fast, too breathless.
“Gabrielle!” Mother’s hands pull tightly, making me wince as she continues, “Women need spouses, and Hunters . . . You’ll need a child to pass on the gift.”
“How do I do that? How do I carry a child, knowing I am asking them to be trained to hunt and kill? How do I deal with the urge to protect my own babe and simultaneously tell them to learn to kill and most likely die?”
“Your father did it.” The countess lifts her chin as if daring me to ask how she did it.
I can’t ask that so directly, but I do remind her, “And he never once treated me as someone he protected or cherished, Mother. You know that as well as any. Has he ever struck you? Or Rylan?”
“Your father would never—”
“Exactly. He would never strike you or my sister. I cannot treat a child as he treated me.” I lift the glass of oxymel and drink it in one gulp.
It’s necessary to prevent my wounds from turning, but the sour honey—a mix of vinegar and honey—has not grown less noxious with all these years of exposure.
For a moment, there is silence between us.
Mother’s smile turns sad. “It’s not only about duty. I want you to have the joy of being loved.”
“I can be loved without a marriage or children.” I hand my mask to my mother. It is a dark-blue creation, decorated with garnets and opals. One side sweeps up into what resembles a butterfly wing.
I hold the mask in place as she affixes it. With my hair falling in one long ringlet on either side, the mask makes me look almost like a flower with a butterfly perched on it.
“No bruises left to see,” the Countess of Fleuriste pronounces. “Stand. I’ll tighten you a little. Tell me when to stop, and we can pretend I cannot see the bandage on your side.”
As Mother tightens the stays over the angry marks on my side, I glance at the mirror to be sure no blood has escaped the stitches Clarissa has sewn into my skin.
For a moment, I can almost believe I am someone else. I rarely let my hair fall so loose; if it’s bound up, nothing can grab it in a fight. Seeing it loose feels like a strange kind of pretense.
“Finish dressing, child. Eligible men and women await!” Mother steps back, and I pull on my petticoat and dress. I settle the dress around my hips. It is a flattering thing, high waisted, low-cut bodice, and flowing in a way that makes the delicate silk seem like a living, writhing creature.
“You should be grateful I cannot weep,” the countess murmurs.
“Do I look so horrifying?”
“You look like a foxglove blossom. My beautiful babe somehow turned into a woman,” Mother proclaims.
My twin, Rylan, comes to stand in the doorway. I’m not sure how long she’s been waiting, but she looks as elegant as the most sought-after noblewomen.
Mother looks from one to the other. “I want you both to find the joy I’ve found as a wife!”
We exchange a look. Like all society mothers, she is obsessed with matrimony. She is atypical in that she is still as in love with my father as when she was a girl. It adds fervor to her words.
“Come now, we mustn’t keep Her Majesty waiting,” I say, pointedly ignoring Mother’s outburst. “I need to speak with her, and there are vows to make.”
The Countess of Fleuriste sighs loudly, but her flicker of maternal excess has passed. She strides forward with her cane in hand and her imperiousness back in full measure.
I am not seeking a spouse, but I do hold a secret hope that I can have a dance with Isabeau. My traitorous heart must remember that we can have no future, but a masked dance might be an option.
One night, and then I can go home . . .