Chapter 6 Isabeau #2
I reluctantly allowed her to assist me out of the oversized nightshirt.
Standing naked except for the collar made me feel doubly vulnerable, but Margaret’s movements were efficient and respectful.
She held the dress for me to step into, then worked it up my body, adjusting it around the chain before fastening the hooks up my back.
The fabric was fine against my skin, soft in a way that should have been pleasant but instead felt like another layer of confinement.
When Margaret guided me to look in the small mirror on the wall, I barely recognized myself.
The gown hugged every curve, displaying my figure in a way that made me acutely uncomfortable.
“It’s so... tight,” I said, running my hands over the bodice. “He’ll be able to see everything.”
“That’s the intention,” Margaret replied, her voice bitter. “To display what he considers his.”
I turned away from my reflection, unable to bear it anymore. “Do you have anything looser? The nightshirt, perhaps?”
Margaret shook her head. “He left specific instructions. This or nothing.” Her eyes flickered to my face. “It would be worse to disobey.”
She was right, of course. The memory of Gaspard’s threat against Margaret if I misbehaved was still fresh. I nodded reluctantly, accepting this new indignity.
“I’ll return with thy midday meal soon,” Margaret said, gathering the nightshirt. “And perhaps... perhaps I might stay a while? If thou wouldst like company?”
The offer surprised me. “Yes,” I said quickly, before she could withdraw it. “Please.”
She offered a small smile and left, the lock turning once more.
I spent the next hour trying to find a comfortable position in the new dress.
The structured bodice made sitting upright painful with the weight of the chain pulling at my neck.
Lying down crushed the detailed embroidery.
I settled for perching on the edge of the bed, shoulders rounded forward to relieve some of the strain.
When Margaret returned, she carried a tray laden with more food than I’d seen since arriving at Gaspard’s house. Bread, cheese, dried meats, even a small honey cake. Two cups sat beside a steaming pot of what smelled like mint tea.
“I thought perhaps we might dine together,” she said, setting the tray on the small table. “Unless thou wouldst prefer solitude?”
“No, please,” I gestured to the only other chair in the room. “I’d welcome the company.”
She nodded, pouring the tea for both of us before taking a seat. We ate in silence for a few moments, the simple act of sharing a meal creating a fragile bond between us.
“The dress suits thee,” Margaret said eventually. “Though I understand why thou dislikes it.”
I tugged at the bodice, trying to cover more of my exposed skin. “It feels like another form of imprisonment.”
“It is,” she agreed, surprising me with her frankness. “My daughter felt the same way about the clothes her father made her wear.”
“You have a daughter?” I asked, leaning forward despite the collar’s weight.
Margaret’s face softened. “Yes. Elise. She’s five and twenty now.” A small smile played at her lips. “She has a child of her own, my little grandson Thomas.”
“Where is she?” I asked, hungry for this glimpse into a life beyond these walls.
“Eldagh,” Margaret replied, watching my reaction carefully. “She left five years ago, after...” Her voice trailed off, her eyes clouding with memories.
“Eldagh?” I echoed, surprised. “But that’s—”
“A lawless place, according to most,” Margaret finished for me. “A haven, according to others.”
I’d heard of Eldagh before. The village that sat at the river’s end, bordering the kingdom’s edge.
Papa had spoken of it as a cautionary tale, a place where exiles and thieves gathered, where the king’s guard feared to tread.
No one chose to visit there, let alone live in such barbarism.
At least, that’s what I’d always believed.
“Why would she go there?” I asked, unable to hide my confusion.
Margaret took a sip of tea, considering her words. “In Eldagh, women can own property. They can conduct business, live alone if they choose.” Her eyes met mine. “They can escape men like Gaspard.”
The revelation hit me like a physical blow. A place where women could be free. Where they could own land, make their own decisions. It seemed impossible.
“But... how does she survive there? Among criminals and outcasts?”
“Not all who live in Eldagh are criminals,” Margaret said firmly.
“Many are simply those who had no place else to go. Women fleeing marriages like the one waiting for thee. Families escaping debt. Scholars whose ideas offended the wrong noble.” She broke off a piece of bread, adding softly, “My Elise runs an apothecary there. Uses the herbs I taught her to identify, just as thy mother taught thee.”
My heart quickened at the mention of my mother’s craft. “An apothecary? And she owns it herself?”
Margaret nodded. “She does. And the rooms above it where she lives with Thomas. No husband to claim it. No father to rule over her.”
The possibilities swirled in my mind. Could such a place truly exist? And if it did, could I somehow find my way there? The chain around my neck seemed to grow heavier as hope flickered to life inside me.
“And her husband?” I asked, noticing Margaret hadn’t mentioned him. “Thomas’s father?”
Margaret’s face darkened. She set down her cup with trembling hands. “There was no husband,” she said softly. “Only a master who took what he wanted.”
Understanding dawned, cold and terrible. “Oh,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
She nodded, eyes downcast. “Thou art new to this level of cruelty, but some women are born into it or find it during their employment.” Her hand reached across the table to pat my knee. “Elise was fourteen when it began. The same age I was when I entered service in this house.”
The implication hung in the air between us, too horrible to put into words. Generations of women suffering at the hands of men who saw them as property. Mothers watching helplessly as daughters endured the same fate. An endless cycle of abuse and survival.
“But she escaped,” I said, clinging to the one bright thread in this dark tapestry. “Your daughter found freedom.”
“She did,” Margaret confirmed. “And she isn’t the only one. There are others in Eldagh. Women who refused the path laid out for them.” She stood abruptly, gathering the dishes. “I’ve said too much. I must go.”
“Margaret, wait—”
“Just remember,” she said, pausing at the door, “thou art not alone in thy suffering. And suffering need not be eternal.”
With that cryptic message, she was gone, leaving me with a mind full of questions and the first genuine spark of hope since Papa had been taken.
I sat motionless for a long time after she left, digesting everything I’d learned. Eldagh…a place where women could own property, run businesses, live without the domination of a husband or father. It sounded like a fairy tale, too good to be true.
And yet, Margaret had no reason to lie. Her daughter had escaped there, was raising her son there, free from the horrors she’d endured in this house.
The chain clinked as I shifted on the bed.
I understood Margaret better now. The haunted look in her eyes, the resignation in her shoulders.
Her daughter had been Gaspard’s victim long before I arrived, and she had watched her daughter suffer the same fate, and had somehow found the strength to help her escape.
Now I understood why she cleaned me with such gentle hands after Gaspard’s assault. Why she risked bringing me tonics for pain and sleep. She saw in me her daughter, another young woman trapped in a nightmare not of her own making.
My fingers traced the cold metal of the collar. Eldagh waited somewhere beyond these walls, beyond the Forbidden Forest that had claimed Papa. If I could somehow escape, find my way there...
But first, I had to survive Gaspard’s return. And to do that, I needed more than just hope. I needed a plan.
The frantic knocking startled me from uneasy dreams. Not the methodical turn of the key I’d grown accustomed to, but urgent, desperate rapping that sent my heart racing before I was fully awake.
Dawn had barely broken, the room still wrapped in gray shadows as Margaret burst through the door, her face pale and hair escaping its usually tidy bun.
One look at her wide eyes told me everything before she even opened her mouth.
He was coming back.
“They’ve been spotted,” she gasped, rushing to the wardrobe. “Less than a mile out. The hunting party. Master Gaspard.” Her hands shook as she yanked open the drawer where she’d stored the leather contraption designed to silence me. “We must prepare thee quickly.”
Ice flooded my veins. Three days. He’d promised three days, possibly four.
This was only the morning of the third. Had I truly lost track of time in this windowless prison?
Or had the hunt been more successful than anticipated, sending him home early with fresh trophies to mount and a captive bride to claim?
“Are you certain?” I asked, voice raspy from disuse. My hand rose instinctively to my throat, feeling the raw skin beneath the iron collar. “Perhaps it’s another hunting party.”
Margaret shook her head, pulling the gag from its drawer. The leather straps dangled from her fingers like dead snakes. “Master’s hound leads them. I would know that beast anywhere.” She approached me, apology written across her face. “We must. He’ll check first thing.”
I nodded, swallowing hard against the rising panic. Two days hadn’t been enough. I had no plan, no means of escape, nothing but the knowledge that somewhere beyond these walls, beyond the Forbidden Forest, existed a place where women could be free. Fat lot of good that did me now.
“Do what you must,” I whispered, closing my eyes.