Chapter 4 The Tale of Enzo the Fool #2
“I have foiled yet another assassination attempt, though this one pained me …
the queen had ordered her master tailor to sew her a dress so bright that the moon would rise early out of envy, and goodness, Demelza, you would have loved the gown!
It was poisoned, of course, and so deadly that the mouse that crept in the shadow of its hem perished on the spot …
but still. One must admire the handiwork!
“Thinking of you, dear sister, and confident that you will be the one to solve father’s dilemma.
I am sure by then mother will see that you are more than capable of leaving the nest. My hope is that afterward you too shall know the joy of bringing down an entire kingdom!
Or conducting your first siege! You are Demelza the Dread, after all!
“Yours,
Corisande”
Demelza set down the letter. Then she grabbed a pillow and smushed it over her face. Then she screamed. When she was done, the wyvern blinked.
“If I might be permitted to make an observation … I see that you are disheveled, horizontal, and clearly hungry. Is your frustration with this letter compounded by the fact that not only is our research going nowhere, but also you have already fought with your mother today?”
“I don’t fight with my mother!” said Demelza, tossing the pillow. “I speak to my mother with reason, compassion and patience. And she returns it with madness, meanness and manipulation.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?” asked Demelza. “I didn’t know you had a mother.”
“Oh, not a mother in the sense you understand it,” said the wyvern, twitching its rabbit ear.
“I was essentially born from the union of imagination and man’s insatiable greed, but from what I have gathered from my readings, mothers are tricky creatures.
Imagine a being racked by the resentments of youth, embattled by societal claims upon its body and beset by an abundance of altruistic love.
Even acts of affection might carry poison. ”
Demelza grumbled. “Nothing Araminta does seems like affection.”
“I could pull some tomes on mothers who eat their young if that might change your perspective and improve your mood?”
Demelza shuddered. “No thank you.”
“Perhaps at breakfast you should tell her how you feel,” suggested the wyvern.
“Perhaps,” said Demelza, though she wasn’t sure if there was any point.
With a brood of seven daughters, Araminta’s focus had always been a wavering thing.
Someone’s wing was always acting funny or Eustacia was sleep-flying again or Dulcinea’s throat was scratchy and she couldn’t sing.
Demelza used to love catching a cold, for it meant that her mother would insist on letting her rest in her lap.
But then her sisters began to molt … and everything changed.
When her sisters took lessons on courtly etiquette, Araminta insisted that Demelza study the butchering of beasts.
When her sisters learned to dance, Demelza was taught to run without tiring.
When her sisters practiced cosmetics and beauty, Demelza found that all of the mirrors had been enchanted to blur her reflection.
“But why can’t I learn those things too, mother?” Demelza had asked.
She was tired of wearing the rough homespun of the kitchen staff. She wished to wear brocade like Eulalia. Or brush her hair with an ice comb like Eustacia. Her voice was not beautiful like her sisters’, but did that mean the rest of her had to match?
“You must trust me, my daughter,” Araminta said. “I did not listen to my own mother and I will not have you suffer the same mistakes. Know that I am always doing what is best for you. Always.”
Demelza trusted her mother. At least, she wanted to.
But lately it seemed that her mother was more on edge than ever.
Every time Demelza tried to share her progress about the spell for immortality, Araminta got angry.
As if she knew Demelza could never solve it and didn’t see the point of listening further.
At that moment, a slight chiming sound echoed through the library. A few feet away from Demelza, a bright light appeared on the rugs, slowly expanding into a hollow through which the familiar glass staircase appeared. It was a summoning from Araminta to join her for breakfast.
“At least this time she didn’t send me clothes to wear,” said Demelza.
A little parcel soared out of the hole, plopping at Demelza’s feet. The wyvern hopped down, scrabbling at the ties with its paws. Inside was a tunic made of dried reeds. A few sugar beetles crawled across it. If Araminta thought a few juicy bugs would tempt her into wearing that, she was wrong.
Even before all her sisters had flown the nest, the clothes Araminta left out for Demelza could hardly be called clothes.
Oftentimes they were sooty rags or cloth held together by bramble.
And that was only the clothes. Last month Araminta had thrown away Demelza’s hairbrush, and now her red hair hung in lumpy knots down her back.
For the past year, every time Demelza wished to take her evening bath, her mother insisted she powder herself afterward with the ashes of the fireplace.
When Demelza asked for a coat, she was given stinking pelts. And now … this.
“I shall leave you to change,” said the wyvern, but Demelza raised her hand.
“No. I shall go down in this.”
Demelza was wearing one of Evadne’s old dressing gowns.
Truthfully she could not remember the last time she had felt something so luxurious against her skin.
The robe was the color of dusk, embroidered with silver thread to form wispy clouds along the sleeves and embellished with seed pearls at the cuffs.
“Really?” asked the wyvern. The creature laid its ears along its back. “You do realize this might lead to a confrontation…”
“But it shouldn’t and that is the point,” said Demelza, resolute. “At least this way, she’ll be forced to address me directly instead of making some excuse to discuss anything else.”
“Hmph,” said the wyvern.
Demelza raised an eyebrow. “Unless you have any other suggestions on how to settle conflict?”
“I typically settled conflict by incinerating the individual that offended me, but I suspect this is not welcome in family settings.”
“No,” said Demelza. “That would not be welcome.”
The breakfast room was the least ornate chamber in Hush Manor, but to Demelza it was the most beautiful.
A scarlet carpet lay across the stone floor.
A roaring hearth served as one wall, while the rest were great, tear-shaped windows.
The windows looked out onto the rolling moors of the Silent Lakes, where the low hills appeared splashed with bright purple swamp heather and silver bog daisies.
In the distance, Demelza could even see the enchanted gloom that kept Prava’s realm separate from the rest of the Isle.
Today, the breakfast table had been laid with boiled quail eggs, parfaits of tadpole, spider geleé and toast points. A samovar of tea solemnly puffed steam and marched back and forth across the linen.
Demelza had almost gleefully braced herself for a fight, but when she sat down, Araminta did not look up from the book she was reading.
Her mother was dressed in a white gown. Her shining hair was swept into an elegant bun.
Demelza cleared her throat, but Araminta did not notice.
She never noticed. Sometimes Demelza suspected her mother would not look at her on purpose …
As if she was that ashamed of her youngest daughter.
“Is father joining?” asked Demelza.
“He will be late,” said Araminta, gaze fixed on the page. “I believe Prince Arris is to be married today? Or perhaps tomorrow? And you know how grumpy your father gets when there’s any sort of announcement from Rathe Castle.”
Poor prince, thought Demelza. Royal weddings were so often their own funerals.
“I’m sure father’s mood won’t be helped when he discovers how little headway I’ve made in my research,” said Demelza. “A sacrifice born of … something and beast … I actually think—”
“Stop!” said Araminta. She threw down her book with such force that her teacup rattled. “I cannot listen to this first thing in the morning!”
Heat rushed to Demelza’s cheeks.
“Because you do not think me capable of it, Mother?” she asked. “Because you intend to keep me here dressed in rags?”
Araminta looked at Demelza, her blue eyes widening in shock. “What in Wrate’s name are you wearing?”
Demelza nearly wilted beneath her mother’s stare, but she raised her chin. “I am wearing Evadne’s robe.”
“I specifically sent you clothing,” said Araminta.
“As if it could be called that!” said Demelza, furious. “You sent me a tunic of woven reeds! Dirty reeds, no less! I plucked several sugar beetles off the neckline alone!”
“I hope you did not waste them,” said Araminta. “I know I did not raise a wasteful daughter.”
Demelza almost rolled her eyes and then made herself stop. She had no wish to fight with her mother so early in the day.
“I did not waste them,” said Demelza. “Though they might have spoiled my breakfast. There is no reason for me to wear such clothes.”
“There might be a time where you must make do with what the land provides. Not everything may be laid out before you like a feast,” said Araminta, looking away from her daughter. “Go change your clothes. Now. I am very disappointed, Demelza.”
Demelza did not move. All she had ever done was try to please her parents. Hadn’t she put soot on her cheeks and clay in her hair at her mother’s request? But today, she was cold. And all she wanted was to sit in a beautiful robe and drink tea.
“No,” said Demelza.
Araminta stared at her. “What?”
Demelza took a deep breath. Losing her temper would get her nowhere and so she reached for reason.
“Mother, this is … this is ridiculous! To be honest, it makes me feel as though I am worth less to you than my sisters. I am not a child! I’m seventeen!
And I cannot begin to guess at the reason why you insist on having me comport myself like this! ”
Araminta paled and her hand flew to her throat.
It was a gesture Demelza had seen a thousand times.
She was old enough to understand that her father might be a loving husband, but he was not a kind one.
He was a good father, but he was not a good man.
While her sisters relished their assignments and all of them wished for Prava to possess eternal life and more powers than Wrate himself—ambitions they had been assured were very normal for wizards and nothing to be alarmed over—it was not as though they had been given a choice.
If her father wished, he could turn them all to swans and keep them locked in the oubliettes of Hush Manor.
That he did not was only because he loved them. Demelza alone lay outside his reach.
“I am your mother,” Araminta said, her voice trembling. “How dare you disobey me, Demelza? Go to your library. Now. I shall deal with you later.”
Demelza had charged halfway up the stairs when she stopped, took a breath and stared back down the steps. She did not want to spend the rest of her day angry. Araminta seemed so distracted lately.
Perhaps they could go for a walk. Or talk by the fire. Or simply get out of Hush Manor to understand one another better.
Demelza was making her way back to the breakfast room when she heard her father’s calm, low tone and her mother’s shrill voice.
“I’ve had it!” said Araminta.
“Be reasonable, my love—” Prava started, but Araminta hissed at him to be quiet.
“I will not have a stain on my lineage!” said Araminta. “Demelza must go. Get rid of her.”