Chapter Twelve
Except for an attendant pulling the drapes shut over the east-facing windows, Sigrid was alone.
This surprised me, for I had pictured her surrounded by musicians and courtesans and ladies-in-waiting.
She didn’t rise when I came in and didn’t acknowledge the footman when he announced me. I curtsied, and then stood, waiting.
“Tremaine,” she said, thoughtfully. “I thought it might be you.”
“My thanks for receiving me.” I stood still, and then, remembering, added: “Your Majesty.”
“Come closer,” she commanded. I complied and walked toward her, allowing her to inspect me.
“It has been some time,” I offered, beginning what I hoped would be a round of pleasantries.
“Sit.” She nodded at the chair across from her, on the other side of a small, round table.
I arranged my dress and consented. Wordlessly, Sigrid began to prepare tea, using a silver spoon to scoop the leaves into the pot.
We said nothing as it steeped for several long moments.
I watched as she added loaded spoonfuls of sugar, more than I could stomach, to porcelain cups.
When she had finished, she handed me a saucer with a brimming cup of scalding liquid.
“Have some,” she instructed. “The leaves are all screened from the sun by silken shades.”
I raised the cup to my mouth. I could feel the steam. It was too hot.
“Drink,” she said, and I did, feeling the water burn my tongue. I couldn’t taste anything through the heat except the sugar. Satisfied, Sigrid nodded. I returned the cup to its saucer, and we regarded one another.
She wore a low-necked peacock-blue dress adorned with dramatic folds of lace that created bells at her elbows and covered her chest in a transparent screen of feigned modesty.
It was a shock to see the age on her face—like a mirror, it confirmed the passing of time.
Unlike the painting, she was freckled and puckered.
Her eyebrows had thinned and she wore two bright spots of rouge on her cheeks, reminding me of a doll. But her eyes were as shrewd as ever.
“What an unconventional introduction,” she mused. “If I recall, Henry didn’t have a title.”
“No,” I acknowledged. I looked down and stirred my tea—Agatha, who had come roaring back into my subconscious the moment I got to the palace, reminded me: clockwise—to cool it off, careful not to splash or clink. “The title is from my second husband, Lord Robert Bramley.”
“I heard Henry died.” Sigrid measured more sugar into her tea, stirred twice, and discarded the spoon with efficiency. “But you remarried? A step up, it appears?”
“My second husband also died.”
“What a touch you have!” She had lost her habit of pairing smiles with her insults. Instead, the queen watched me coldly.
The room felt, suddenly, airless. The heat from the fire too warm.
The drapes at the windows too thick. Helplessly, I complimented her—her appearance, her room, the finery of her porcelain.
“It is,” I added, at the end of my soliloquy, “so wonderful to catch up.” I was incapacitated in the face of our many imbalances, our strange history: I could not right the kilter of our conversation.
“Indeed.” She took a small sip of her tea.
“Time has been kind to you,” I lied, and I could see her catch the lie, and then want to believe it. She looked satisfied by a few degrees, and I continued: “As little girls, you gave me beauty tips. I should have listened.”
Idly, she examined her fingertips, which were covered by her gloves. “Do you live near here?”
“A two or three hours’ journey south,” I said, carefully. Her tone had suggested she knew exactly where I lived.
“Far cry from that pile of rocks you grew up on. And just look where you stand today!” She dropped her hand.
“Do you remember how the wind used to whip and moan at night? And the food. Hardly anything grew out there! Waterfowl for every meal. I’m partial to sweet things.
Red meat. Oh, I do enjoy a bit of reminiscing. ”
She turned away before I could respond and, to the air, said aloud: “We will take our refreshments.”
The paneling in the wall sprang open and through a hidden door came three servants bearing trays of cakes and fruit towers.
A silver bowl filled with so much whipped cream it looked in danger of slumping onto the table was placed between us.
We said little, compiling our plates, until, unable to stand the silence, I asked: “How is your sister?”
Sigrid ladled a small mountain of cream onto her cakes. “Fat.”
Under the table, I held on to my fourth finger, squeezing it, again and again. “She is married to the king’s third cousin?”
“Yes.”
“Lovely,” I managed.
“I met Stellan,” she said, referring to her husband, “at her wedding. He was a bore. Still is!” She laughed at her joke—laughter meant to include me, thus protect her from any judgment.
“Hated dancing. And I was in no mood to dance. So we sat and I listened to his little stories—he loves to recount his childhood. What I would give to never hear another mention of his dead mumma again. He said that his mumma used to love the smell of huckleberry, and I said that I loved the smell of huckleberry. I couldn’t have told you a thing about it.
Now he’s filled the gardens with the shrub. ”
“A romantic gesture.”
“It’s for his mother. He sits on the bench out there each morning and talks to her. When he’s in town, of course. He’s off doing his tour of the kingdom.”
I watched her, trying to make sense of these intimacies. She was like a doll that lived inside of another bigger doll, that was inside yet another hollow doll. I was sure I was not yet looking at the smallest version.
“Tell me,” she continued, “do you still go hawking? You used to be interested in hardly anything else. Or was that just…” She waved a hand.
“For Henry’s benefit?” She brandished his name like a knife—one meant to cut a sharp and sudden line into the past. She didn’t pause to see how deep it had cut me.
“I dislike birds. Hunting—and eating. Though my son enjoys a hunt. Are your daughters accomplished?”
I thought about the smell of rotting apples and walls stripped bare. “Mathilde is an ambitious reader. Rosamund is a marvel with her embroidery. Elin, my stepdaughter—” I considered. “Is a paragon of virtue.”
“No instruments, then?” Sigrid helped herself to more whipped cream. “My daughter is an accomplished player. She applies herself diligently.”
“And your son?”
“Who has time for instruments when you’re to be king one day?”
Every minute of the conversation pained me. “He sounds dutiful.”
“Duty.” Sigrid shook her head. “I hate that word.” She tapped her gloved fingers on the tablecloth, also ready, it seemed, to do away with our niceties. “Etheldreda.” She picked up one of the colorful cakes. “What brings you to my doorstep?”
“Your invitation, of course,” I said, with a game smile. “I wanted to thank you.”
“Invitation?” she said, with a kind of surprise that was so false I assumed she wanted me to read the lie. She finished chewing and patted a napkin to her lips. “Oh, the ball. So you’ve heard, then, we have to find my son a wife.”
“I wish him every happiness.”
“Happiness!” She laughed at the idea. “It is hard enough to find him a suitable match, let alone a happy one.”
“One might endeavor for both.”
“The kingdom loves my son. The most popular prince in history, it is said, though one scholar claims popularity can be fickle to measure.” She chortled before growing serious.
“But I love my son more, which does make it a challenge to find someone, well, worthy. We couldn’t settle for half rate.
Of course, it’s also a ball, and everyone loves a good ball. ”
“Actually”—I chose my words carefully—“the invitation only included my stepdaughter, Elin. But all the girls are of age. You see, they’re not connected with the property.
There likely isn’t a record of them.” In a gesture of intimacy, I put my hand to my chest, fingers splayed.
“I would love you to meet them, after all these years.”
“And you’d like them added to the invitation…” She trailed off.
“Yes.” I nodded.
“Let me see if I have this rightly understood.” Bored, she reached forward with a gloved hand and scooped some whipped cream onto her finger.
She licked the cream off the fabric. Appalled, I had to stop myself from looking away.
“Your daughters were not invited to my ball. And you’d like them to be? ”
“Yes,” I repeated, experiencing the humiliation exactly as she had intended.
For the first time that afternoon, I saw one of her brilliant smiles, starting slow and spreading across her face.
One of her incisors had turned a different color, a fleshy gray, so that it stood out from the rest. Decay that no amount of raw egg or beer wash could have stopped.
Then her lips snapped shut and she finished the last of the cream off her gloved finger and, without raising her voice or turning her head, called: “Send Otto in.”
Sigrid sat back with a subtle look of satisfaction.
As if my request—and admission—had been what she was after.
Saying nothing, she helped herself to lemon cake, which she sliced with the edge of her fork and ferried, in slivered bites, to her lips.
When she chewed, a few trembling wrinkles puckered around her mouth.
Though I desperately wanted to say something, to put an end to the quiet in the room, to find the right combination of words to ameliorate my shame, I could think of nothing appropriate. My request had laid me bare.