Chapter Three #3
I was given a maid from Queen Cecily’s household.
Bess, whose ambitious father, like all ambitious fathers, brought her to court in the hopes she might charm the king.
The girl was frightened of me. She set the chamber pot by the bed and silently undressed me.
“I hoped for a bath,” I said. “Long journey,” I added.
Bess curtseyed, her bodice scandalously low.
Thick oils dragged through the hot water.
The steam rose, the warmth rapidly escaping, and while stepping into the tub I scalded my feet.
Bess didn’t notice my grimace. As I bathed, I finally allowed myself to steep quietly in my own misery.
My white hair flowed in every direction.
Several times I ducked under just to see how long I could hold my breath.
When I emerged, Bess had returned to the dancing, not even bothering to appear attentive.
She’d probably fetch the dirty bathwater in the morning.
In the bedchamber, candles still flickered, the fire spitting joylessly.
I floated and blinked up at the ceiling, wondering if I should have come here at all.
I sank beneath the water again.
There were so many things I didn’t understand. The Guildfords’ rise, for one. The son, Tom, seemed to be Roland’s friend, but maybe Roland pulled him close so he could sink a knife into his back later.
I heard Prospero’s voice, muffled in the water: There is no magic as great as your mind.
What had he told me about the Guildford family?
They had clawed into the nobility several generations ago, when Tom and Cecily’s great-grandfather was knighted after a war with Lionesse.
This forefather, born under the ram, was a man of relentless ambition.
A Mars family—fiery, bold. When Eleanor was chosen to marry the king, it was the culmination of years of effort and generations of striving Guildfords.
Now Cecily, Eleanor’s younger cousin, was their second chance.
I remembered her vaguely from my time at court: a delicate face, wide-set eyes, and heaps of auburn hair, her arm always entwined with her brother’s.
I could see how such an ascent would appeal to Roland: a family who rose from nothing, almost fell, and now were indebted to him.
I stepped out of the bath and into my plainest gown, wringing out my hair onto the floor, tucking the wet, cloudy wisps into a hood and veil.
My body slowly compressed. I stood shorter, stouter, with brown curls and freckles scattered across my chest and nose.
My breasts pointed in two directions. My eyes inched closer together.
It was always an adjustment in a new body. I had to practice walking, learning the gait of Bess’s shorter legs. Still, crawling into new skin was always a strange relief. Sometimes, I thought I was more snake than mouse: I shed myself when necessary.
I tiptoed through shafts of moonlight cast through the windows, holding a candlestick aloft.
Everything about the castle seduced: the light low and dim, beckoning me closer; the floral perfume I’d smelled on Roland’s wrist when I kissed his ring.
I crept to the side of the palace where the king and queen’s chambers were, and when I passed, every trick door thought I was Bess, returning dutifully to her mistress.
The doors of Redhall were spelled hundreds of years ago by a Saturn magician.
He created boundaries only certain courtiers could cross.
Some, such as the council room, would only open for privy councilors who had sworn oaths to serve the king.
Some required the courtier to wear a certain weight of jewelry or carry its value in coin. Others required a secret.
Better than the most well-trained guards, these boundaries ensured everyone stayed where they belonged in the palace.
Bess, it seemed, had free rein in the queen’s wing. Good to know. When I reached the queen’s presence chamber, her ladies immediately pulled me inside.
“Come,” a young maid of honor hissed. “He’ll be here soon.”
A sullen-looking maid with a long face tugged on my arm. “I thought you were given to the Moonborn now.” She was smug about that. I wondered what Bess did to make the other girl hate her.
Suddenly, the door to the queen’s bedchamber cracked open, and a maid slipped out with a wet cloth.
Queen Cecily lay luxuriantly on the damp sheets in a thin shift.
The ladies scurried inside, and I followed.
Cecily stretched, flexed her toes. “Roland likes when I smell of lavender. Is he here yet?”
“Not yet,” reported the sullen girl.
“Perhaps he won’t come tonight.” She rolled over onto her stomach, glancing back over her shoulder. “You’re looking at me strangely, Bess. Have you forgotten? I said to stay with the witch and watch her closely.”
I bowed my head in the half-hearted way I saw Bess do. “I only thought that after I was done with her, I should return to you.”
Cecily smiled. “Sweet thing. What was she like?”
“Quiet.”
“Joan said Roland was taken with her,” she said, scowling. “Didn’t you?” She shot a look at an older lady-in-waiting with straw-colored hair and thin, chapped lips.
Joan nodded, beckoned forward by the queen. “As soon as he saw her, he took her from the great hall and into his chambers. I saw it. They were there for the entire banquet, almost an hour.”
“Do you think they’re lovers?” asked another girl from atop the sheets, lying by Cecily’s foot and stroking her ankle.
A line creased Cecily’s forehead. “Roland said they knew each other as children. He said she always followed him about.”
“What else did he tell you?” Joan asked.
“That she’s not to be trusted.” She spat this out, then lowered her voice.
“He said she’ll lie to anyone, cheat anyone.
She can fill you with anger, enough rage to kill.
Or she can fill you with such sadness you’ll drown yourself.
” She smiled wickedly with all of her small, white teeth.
“And she can take on any form, even as small as a flea. She’ll suck your blood and jump from scalp to scalp, so you can’t see her while she spies. ”
I was curious if she knew of my weaknesses, too.
Of daylight, which made my body sluggish, more resistant to my magic.
Of new Moon, the most dreaded time of the month, when my powers drained away entirely.
I couldn’t transform, minds darkened to me.
Even my eyes turned all black, my pupils blown wide.
On those nights, I curled up in my bedchamber and didn’t emerge, the vulnerability almost too much to bear.
As Bess, I shook a little. “I’ve never seen one like her before.”
“Her planet’s magic is extremely rare. When I asked my father more about her, he said he couldn’t be sure about her abilities.
” Cecily turned to the window. “He’d only read a fable about a Moonborn.
That magician lived hundreds of years ago.
He had white hair like hers, pale eyes like hers, and he drove the king he served to madness.
” She wrapped a sheet around her chest and sat up.
“My father says it’s a disgrace, to have so many magicians here for my coronation.
Now quick, hand me another cloth. I want to wash beneath my arms before he arrives. ”
The ladies fluttered around her, brushing out Cecily’s tangles with their fingers. “Joan heard from Kitty that he was with Agnes Bryer,” one of the maids reported. Roland, of course, drawn back into the conversation. I huffed under my breath.
Envy writhed within Cecily. “No. Agnes would have said.”
Joan rested her hands in her lap, clearly debating whether to contradict Cecily.
“Well, she was loudly boasting of his—” A blush crept up her neck.
“—talents. I heard her. Roland took her to the king’s tennis court.
She said it only took minutes with his fingers, and that by the end of it, her gown was stained with grass. ”
I folded one of Cecily’s linens into a square, shook it out, then folded it again, listening intently.
“And then,” Joan continued, hushed. “They played a match. Naked.” Suddenly she jumped, clutching her arm. “Ow!”
Cecily had pinched her. “Agnes must tell the same story three times without varying details before I believe her.”
The maids laughed under their hands. As soon as Joan laid cushions from the bed onto the floor and dealt out cards, a page knocked on the door.
He stuck his head inside and locked eyes with the queen, then disappeared as quickly as he came.
A warning: the king was coming. Any moment now.
The young queen’s jaw twitched with determination—she steadied herself, surely, for what was to come—as she continued to shuffle cards.
When I touched her mind, there was no longer envy.
She was gathering courage.
We waited. No one paid any attention to the cards we threw on the ground.
Several maids paged through their Books of Hours—prayer books of hymns and poetry—whispering to Venus in the queen’s name, asking for grace and beauty for Her Majesty.
Our anxious gazes flicked to the door and away.
Just as before, I could hear Roland’s footsteps long before he arrived.
He also stuck his head inside the door, but he didn’t bother knocking.
Pink hair slanted across his eyes as he whispered, “Less than a minute,” and then he, too, was gone. The women bit their lips watching him, blinking as if they’d found themselves in sudden, too-bright daylight.
Joan gathered the cards and blew out every trembling candle besides one. We stood in a line by the door, fixing our fashionable crescent hoods over our hair, while Cecily smoothed down the wrinkles of her shift. The knock arrived again, a gentle one-two tap.
“Come in!” Joan called.
Roland returned, now pale and slightly withdrawn, eyes distant. He was using magic, and it was draining him quickly. It did not take long to find the source of his effort.