Chapter Twenty-Six
There are far-fetched stories of headless men that wander, bodies that keep walking without skulls.
But I’ve killed enough chickens to know: Sometimes a torso just keeps going.
The last pumps of the heart. The legs moving.
The final stumble before the collapse. The rest of the afternoon had the energy of that kind of fall—everything moving forward, but with no more grace than a terminal lurch.
A staggering pitter-patter of footwork toward some inevitable end.
I didn’t know what excuses Otto made to Simeon.
By the time I made it back to the great hall, everyone was already standing, heading toward the doors.
A series of quick goodbyes and reassurances from the prince to Elin.
Darling, he called her. And he was off, back in his carriage, all the guards gathered, the men on their horses, Simeon safe, once more, in his cage.
Inside, I did not allow anyone else to clear the table.
I did it myself, glancing, when I was able, at the mural, the stain, on the ceiling above.
If Otto was right, if all those apples could not bear the weight of the rubble, then I had put everyone in danger.
I pushed away the thought. Hurried to empty the room of dirtied dishes.
The bones of two pheasants. The remaining loaves of bread.
What was left of the sucket was covered in a thin film of white dust.
Otto had been following me. I turned this over in my mind. Thought, with shame, of all the things he might have seen, had most certainly seen: Me, in the mud, with the rabbit. Pawning my last jewel. Straining to catch the love of a prince in an empty field.
But it had worked. For the unintended daughter—foolish Elin, ungrateful Elin, a girl dimmed by the axioms she thought protected her.
But it had worked nevertheless. So why would Otto—in all his efforts to separate our family from the prince—ever have the gumption, the gall, to claim he had been trying to help me?
Not suitable, he had said.
I had felt the abuse of the words like a brand on my own skin.
You ask the wrong questions, he had said.
I could not help but wonder—clearing the last of the loaves, whipping the diamond-patterned linen from the table, shutting the doors to the great hall behind me—not suitable for what?
Morwen was the only other person in the household attuned to the last stumbling steps I was certain we were all taking.
I found her in her bedchamber, packing a satchel.
Seeing me at the door, she strode over to a window shade and pulled it shut, as if securing the place for her absence.
“You cannot change my mind this time.” She gave the tie a proper tug.
I took a step into the room. There was little furniture left except for the bed, which sat like a moored ship in the middle of the floor. The walls had once been a deep blue, but large swaths had since been bleached by the sun. “Morwen, you must tell me what you know about Prince Simeon.”
“I am a lady’s maid—” she began.
“By God’s bones, I know.” I held up a hand.
“And you were not trained to be a parlor maid, or scullery maid. But that doesn’t explain everything.
” I walked across to an uncovered window.
A dead beetle lay on the sill. “I am not insisting that you stay, I am asking—what do you know about the prince?”
She tensed and turned away, not wanting to look at me.
I thought of training hawks, how you must make yourself nothing in the room.
How trust comes slowly, by degrees. I was silent, for a while, and then picked up the beetle and carried it to the fireplace, which was empty and offered no warmth.
“You said you had siblings.” I kept my voice soft. “Surely some of them are sisters.”
“What makes you think I know something of the prince?” Fear, again, in the set of her wide shoulders. Her nervousness felt discordant with her capable body, like she was wearing clothes stitched for someone else.
“A lady’s maid with experience in a good household should have no trouble finding work.
She certainly wouldn’t need to come here, for no pay.
” Still, I spoke softly. Willing myself into nothing.
If I could have muffled my heartbeat, I would have.
I had only a short amount of time to get her to trust me. “I sense you have a story.”
“Most do.” She didn’t elaborate.
“Most would trade their front teeth for a chance to see a prince. Not hide in the kitchens.”
“He’s not worth a donkey’s tooth,” she spat.
“I am only asking for information,” I said, though she had just given me some.
“It need not change anything. So that I might better prepare them. My daughters. Elin. Wouldn’t you want the same for your sisters?
Morwen, please tell me—what do you know of the prince?
Have you waited on him? Did he visit your last household? ”
She snorted.
“That’s a yes, then?”
Morwen sank her face into the heel of her hand and took a deep breath. Glanced at the open door to the room.
“Come, come into the dressing room, then,” I assured her, leading the way. An ornate tub sat empty above wide-planked floors. Little light came through the solitary window. “No candles,” I told Morwen, as she followed me in. “But more privacy. Come in, no one can hear us in here.”
She stepped in, after me, but remained silent.
“Go on,” I told her, gently.
But she remained silent, stubborn—or unwilling.
I reached out and grabbed ahold of her arm. Squeezed harder than I should have. Dug my fingernails into her soft flesh. “Please, Morwen.”
She looked down at her arm. “You’re hurting me.”
I dug in a little tighter. “They are my daughters.”
Morwen held my eyes for a moment. I released her arm, and, as I did, she exhaled. “I used to work in the palace,” she explained.
I nodded, though my pulse began to thrum. Some part of me thinking, Here we are.
“I was Princess Hemma’s lady’s maid,” Morwen continued.
“Simeon’s sister.” I nodded. “What of Simeon?” I didn’t want to say anything to deter her from speaking.
“What of him?” Morwen’s face went dark.
“Please,” I told her.
She nodded. “His nature is common knowledge.”
“At court?”
She chose her words carefully. “He is charming, yes, but … something else, too. He has an ability to make you feel complicit in his desires, in the moment, but after leaves one wondering what happened.”
“What happened, then?”
“People know to avoid him,” she tried to explain.
“Does he harm women?” I asked, too quickly. My fingernails digging into my own flesh now.
She stiffened. “Ma’am, you misunderstand me. Princes are princes. Power is power. People are not concerned with how he treats the women.”
I lost whatever gentleness I was holding on to. “Then what is it that you are telling me?” I demanded. “What is it that I need to know?”
“I am trying to say that his engagement—they could not arrange a marriage for him. They could not find a noble man or cousin willing to marry off his daughter. The ball—that is why they invited all the country women.”
“To find him a wife.”
“To find him a wife.” She nodded. “And quickly.”
Three weeks, I thought to myself. I drew in a breath, trying to connect the pieces. To understand the thread. “But why? Because he is a brute? You are saying he is a brute?”
“Haven’t you wondered, ma’am, why you haven’t seen the princess? Not at the ball, not ever?”
I hadn’t. I had never wondered. She was only a girl in a painting. Abstract and meaningless to me. But I thought, then, of all the closed curtains at the palace. Of the walled garden. Of her absence at the ball. A woman could be kept so quiet it was hard to notice when she disappeared.
I watched Morwen, waiting, but she did not answer her own question. I reached for her arm, again, intending, this time, not to use my fingernails, but to reassure. Morwen pulled away and whispered, “She’s pregnant,” as if the fact itself was my fault.
I blinked at her.
“Kept under lock and key,” she continued. “They dismissed her entire staff, but I knew. She told me. And Simeon must marry quickly, for they—he and his mother—plan to pass the baby off as his own.”
A noise came from the door, which swung in. We both started.
But it was only Mathilde, who stood, a look of shock on her face. We turned to her. Me, dismayed. Morwen, afraid. We were caught together in those last, stumbling footsteps.
Mathilde looked back and forth between us and the headless body fell with a final, echoing thump.