Chapter 18
That night, I take precautions against sleepwalking – either from the impetus of my own troubled mind or from the call of something out among the trees, something that thinks if it can’t get to me, it will draw me to it.
I do what I should have done on the second night, even the first, but I hadn’t realised then what was happening.
I take a tall glass of water and drink it down, then I refill it and sprinkle salt over the top and dried lavender leaves, and a pinch of grave dirt.
I push the glass under the bed, as close to the middle as I can get.
The events of the day have worn me out, so I have no trouble falling asleep.
In the morning, the water in the glass is black, shimmering and churning just a little: aqua nocturna.
The water of nightmares, an ingredient witches will pay dearly for – I don’t recall my nightmares, I slept very well, and now their essence lies in a glass.
I decant it into a bottle before breakfast; I’ve no doubt I’ll find some use for it – or Reynald will gleefully pay good gold for it.
* * *
The ritual continues to work and I’m back to remaining in my own bed during the dark hours, and I can focus more on the training sessions that have been scarce in past weeks.
Between the labours leading to harvest, the habitual everyday tasks, and the hours she’s spending with the summer husband, time for magic lessons has been a rare commodity.
Evenings are shortened by exhaustion, the opportunities for, or willingness to, chatter or concentrate are low, and some nights now I don’t even hear their whispers and soughs.
So, this morning, when the summer husband is occupied with threshing the wheat in the barn, I take the opportunity to see whether Rhea’s skills have deteriorated.
Today’s target is two planks attached to a buoy anchored out in the middle of the pond, which bobs and dances a little with the current from the stream.
It looks a little like a person. I’m pleased to note that Rhea’s aim remains wonderfully accurate.
The thing goes up like a church martyr dowsed in oil.
‘Well done,’ I say, nodding approval.
Her face is gleeful as she laughs. ‘Looks like the prince the day I burned him!’
I freeze. She covers her mouth, too late, the secret let out.
‘What did you say?’
She doesn’t reply, but takes her hand away, lips pursed tightly as a gate locked after the horse has bolted.
‘Rhea, I’m serious. One does not burn princes lightly.’
Rhea glances away, sulky.
‘What did you do?’ I insist. ‘Burning a suitor is one thing, a merchant’s son, a what-have-you no matter how rich. You might still escape that. But—’
‘Mehrab—’
‘Child, you’d best tell me. You’re under my roof. My protection – and if you’ve brought such a risk to my house, you owe me the truth.’ I clench my fists, then hiss: ‘Parents of princes don’t give up hunting their son’s murderer no matter the circumstances.’
‘He has no parents,’ she mutters. Then she slumps to the grass on the bank of the pond, hands over her face.
No tears, though, no sobs, just a weary sigh.
I sink down beside her. Vaguely, I hear Rosie whicker in concern from her enclosure; she’s sociable with people and both of us are generous with treats. Not at the moment, however.
‘Tell me.’ I pull the hair from her face, the hands from her eyes.
She hesitates, as if gathering thoughts she’s made a point of forgetting.
‘He is – was – the Prince of Lodellan. My father, ambitious for more than just an increased fortune, finagled an invitation to the Winter Solstice Ball. The Princess Royal, ancient and wrinkled as she is, has run it for decades, and it’s still the event of the year.
Many matches are made, the Princess chooses her next lover or lovers, the Prince too.
’ She clears her throat. ‘He’s been without a wife for twenty years, after the last one went mad – or rather, they’re still married even though she’s been locked away in a sanitorium run by the Sisters of St Abbe in Wulfhere’s Bend. ’
‘Go on.’ It’s all I can do not to wave my hand: hurry up.
‘But word had come that his wife was dead at last – eaten her own tongue or something equally awful. Rumours abounded. Only her demise was a certainty. So, word had it – so many words! – that the Prince would seek a new wife. Possibly more offspring – his heirs had not fared well, taken by Lady Death one way or another.’
‘I’m amazed he’d not continued to use the old wife or have her set aside by the lords of the church. Surely dispensation would have been easier.’
‘My mother whispered he’d have been rid of her except she’s the mother of his children and once the great love of the Princess Royal’s life – and she was loath to let the woman go…’
‘Ah. So, at last the Prince of Lodellan was free, and your father all ambition for elevation and armed with a beautiful daughter…’
She gives a side-eye glance, head tilted. ‘Thought you didn’t know my story?’
‘It’s the same story, over and over, only the names change.’
‘Cynical.’
‘But correct.’
‘Mehrab, I knew none of this. My life was perfect – as long as I hid my strangeness – there was nothing to complain about, I was spoiled as any daughter can be – what did I care for the goings-on of others? Yes, yes, get that look off your face, I know I’m an idiot.
’ She sighs. ‘The invitation to the ball arrived with great pomp. Father promised a beautiful new gown, there’d be nothing like it in the whole world, and I’d be free to dance and dance and dance to my heart’s content.
Imagine, all those glorious shiny creatures in the gems and frocks, those handsome men and boys, all so gaily flirting. ’
‘Did you not imagine a husband, though? That one would be provided for you?’
‘A husband, yes. A prince, no. I’d not thought to look so high.
I’d seen the spouses provided for some of my friends from Miss Belle’s Ladies Finishing Academy – made Father promise me a better one, a handsome one.
’ She laughs, bitterly. ‘Had he been a young man? Closer to my own age? Perhaps I’d not have minded quite so much.
But he was older than my father. Wrinkled and crabbed, his hair all white like spun straw, violet eyes rheumy, and a potbelly pregnant as a sow.
He’s ruled the cathedral-city for so very long.
Had ruled.’ She shakes her head, shudders.
‘I couldn’t bear the idea of him climbing onto me, into me… ’
‘And at the ball?’
‘My father made an introduction, dangled me in front of that disgusting old man like a treat. I was polite but offered no encouragement, yet the very next day he began to pay court to me. There were other girls there, many prettier than me, but apparently indifference makes one irresistible.’ She shakes her head again.
‘Gifts arrived at all hours, flowers and perfumes, gowns and jewellery, puppies and kittens, sweetmeats and fine wines. The house was filled to bursting and I began to send things back because I’d realised there would be a price to pay for all those pretty things. ’
‘You could have become the Princess of Lodellan.’
‘I couldn’t and can’t think of anything worse. A bird in a gilded cage, humped by that old man every time his physicks gave him a virility potion? Caught in a trap by any children I might have?’
‘You could have bided your time, waited him out. Hurried him on his way, perhaps?’
‘Would you?’ She glares at me. ‘Would you bed a relic all for the sake of a title? A crown?’
I pause. I think about the things I did do, those that gained me something, those that netted nothing, and the reasons for them. But not that. ‘No. I wouldn’t have.’
‘Then kindly don’t think so lowly of me.’
‘My apologies. Then what happened?’
‘One day he came to visit himself. Demanded to know why I continued to return the gifts. Who did I think I was? Did I think myself too good for his royal blood?’ She sighs.
‘He was insistent. At first, I was gentle, considering him an old man, harmless, and then – then he was not harmless, and his pants were around his ankles and he was lifting my skirts and—’
‘Fire?’
‘Fire.’
‘Did the Visiting Sister know any of this?’
Tears now, rolling down her cheeks. ‘My mother didn’t tell her those details and urged me not to do so either. She said… she said I had to get out of the house before Father came home, otherwise I wouldn’t survive.’
I take her hand, squeeze it briefly, let it go.
‘It’s hard to realise that a parent you thought doted on you has merely been coddling you like a hot-house orchid for their own benefit.
I’m sorry for that. But you’re lucky in your mother.
’ And I wonder what’s happened to Rhea’s mother, if she’s survived or been punished in her daughter’s place, offered up to the Princess Royal as a sop.
Truly we’re isolated here, that word of the Prince of Lodellan’s death hasn’t reached us.
‘The Visiting Sisters risked so much to get you here. I hope for all our sakes, Rhea, that they covered your tracks well. Princes do not burn without consequences.’
‘I’m sorry, Mehrab. I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to burn or drown or hang… Please don’t send me away. Please.’