The Kingdom of Little Wounds (37 page)

I
N her gleaming purple mourning gown, with a circlet of pearls and a brown wig over her patchy hair, Christina-Beatte sees only beauty as her attendants carry her into the palace’s great hall for her father’s grieving feast. She notes that every soul in the room is instantly on his or her feet — except her sister, Gorma, whose litter is just behind Christina-Beatte’s and who therefore cannot stand as others do.

The musicians raise their trumpets and the courtiers bow; all in silence, of course. Still the air is alive: the whine of silk against silk, the shush of velvet, the creaks of knees and hips worn out with bowing. Count Nicolas, the friend of Christina-Beatte’s father, grips a gilded chair in which the Queen Apparent is to sit.

Christina-Beatte claps as she would clap for actors performing a particularly charming play. After so many months in a sickbed, isolated from the court, she cannot believe this obeisance is for her. Then again, isn’t it what’s promised in every story told to children? A cure, acclaim, a feast. At least at first.

Christina-Beatte likes being Queen Apparent. This means she must be glad her father is dead, which is a terrible thing but only what happens in the natural course of life. Resolutely, she shutters the memory of his dying from her mind; it must have been a dream, or a horrid tale told by a maid. She won’t think about tombs either, or Saint Peter’s, or any other ugliness such as a little brother about to be born to take her place.

Such fun to have a new name, such pleasure to be someone else, someone not as sickly as Beatte Lunedie.

Attendants hoist the Queen Apparent and her young sister into their chairs. The women pant, for the room is warm and the Lunedie daughters are gaining in substance. Hurrah for the health of the Queen Apparent and the First (last) Princess!

But something is not right.

Christina-Beatte considers the women who carried her. Their upper lips are moist, and one of them smells. Onions, sweat, a cheesy odor of unchanged linen.

The Queen Apparent does not need to tolerate such an insult. “You are dismissed!” she cries, pointing one thin finger at the smelly bearer. “Off to the prisons!”

The result is most gratifying. The girl goes away crying, and Gorma looks awestruck — enormous brown eyes in a pinched white face.

Count Nicolas, settling himself in between the two girls, touches his forehead and bows. He says to Christina-Beatte, “You are developing into a formidable woman.”

She feels herself growing warm.

Power,
thinks little Gorma, with a surge of that old sickness.
Pleasure.

The feast itself is boring. The courtiers gaze at their plates rather than at Christina-Beatte, and she must sit between Count Nicolas and the doddering Duke Harald of Marsvin. She fidgets with her heavy rope of pearls. The courtiers think she doesn’t notice that they amuse themselves by counting the tears that flavor the sauces, betting on who can water a plate enough to make the herring swim across it again. Turning her father’s death into a joke. Her father, who always had a gentle word on his tours through the nursery.

Christina-Beatte is sharing a silver charger and a glass goblet with the Duke while Gorma shares with Nicolas. This sharing is both an honor for Marsvin and his due as the current highest-ranking man in the land. But the Duke disgusts her, worse even than that dismissed attendant. His hands are bumpy with veins, and food has crusted around his ragged fingernails. The few teeth that do remain to him are orange, and he slurps his food; his lips are so greasy that Christina-Beatte cannot see the etching along the glass’s rim. Instead she sees a layer of lard.

Politely, the Duke offers her some morsels. Christina-Beatte refuses to eat. She will be ill if she eats from those horrible hands. But she cannot send the Duke of Marsvin to the prisons; this much she understands about rank and court.

Christina-Beatte glares at the Duke’s wife, seated down the dais. The Duchess should tidy up her husband, but Christina-Beatte knows the old woman will say nothing because she is snoring on a dampened chair. Those two have been married as long as Christina-Beatte remembers, longer even than Maman and Christina-Beatte’s father. They are both anciently hideous, but it has been said that the Duchess was scarcely more than Christina-Beatte’s age when they married.

From somewhere comes a memory, a sentence from a story perhaps:
A man might know all kinds of love for a woman, if he raises her up from a child to a wife.
For some reason, this sentence makes her flush warm all over.

The Queen Apparent makes a decision. “When I am twelve,” she says, very loudly, “I’m going to marry an elf. All my children will be changelings.”

As if pulled tight by a cord, the diners all around the hall sit up tense and straight. The dwarfs hide their faces in their hands, and the aprons stare forward expressionlessly. Too late, the Queen Apparent remembers this is to be a feast of silence, even for her.

But Willem Braj, whose rank has him seated far down the table, leans daringly in to make a comment.

“Perhaps Your Majesty Apparent would prefer a merman.” He waves at the tapestries of state history that have been hung on the walls. “In keeping with the history of your realm. One with a mighty tail, of course.”

A few of the ladies titter at this.

Christina-Beatte imagines what they are laughing at, herself next to a man with a long, flowing beard and a fat, scaly tail. Floundering in the bay.

“I can’t swim!” she admits.

She is confused when the table bursts into loud laughter and applause, as if they think this very funny.

Christina-Beatte sobs in fury. The beauty of the occasion is lost.

When I’m Queen in full,
she vows,
I’ll send them all to be tortured.

T
HE poor thing, poor dear Elinor, has turned quite black with illness. Only now does Isabel see it: Her skin glistens; her eyes are glassy; she has an obvious fever that cannot be attributed to her position in the hearth nook, for the fire has all but gone out. And she has broken her vow to silence, for how she groans! Though she is steadfast enough (dear valiant Elinor) not to form the groans into words.

“There, there,” says Isabel, as soothingly as she can. She bends awkwardly, off balance, tipping a cup in the direction of her friend’s lips and spilling a good bit down her own front as she does. The day’s rule of silence does not apply to Isabel. “Have a sip of this draught. It is exactly the same as what I take myself. And when you are stronger, you may have some blood pudding.”

Elinor’s eyes are first round with wonder, then slitted in pain. After a single mouthful of Isabel’s good spiced wine, she vomits. The cup goes flying and clatters against a chest somewhere out of the candlelight.

“Never you mind,” says Isabel, looking down at what’s become of her gown. “I’ll say it’s all mine. Everyone knows you haven’t been sick a day in your life.”

Isabel bustles around Elinor’s corner, wishing the heir would not get in her way. She can’t hoist Elinor (though Elinor is small) into bed herself; she will need help for that. It will be much easier to tend Elinor once she lies among the mattresses.

“It’s not good to be ill in this court,” Isabel confides. “A suffering soul is easily dismissed.”

Elinor’s throat makes a little sound, half whimper and half growl. Her eyes are nearly blue with pain.

“
Shhh, shh, sh,
”
murmurs Isabel. “Do not fret, a maid shall come.”

One, two, three,
and almost done.

To say that I’m surprised by what I find when summoned to the Queen’s chamber would be to underdress my feelings. There is the Queen, on her feet but about to tumble over any moment, bent down and tugging at a figure on the floor — Midi Sorte! — who I realize quickly is the one who’s matted the rushes and carpets with a marshy substance fouler than anything I remember from the Great Sickness. It’s spattered down the Queen’s gown, too, and the bed curtains; it sizzles against the bricks of the fire nook.

“I have been unwell,” Isabel announces with what I might call pride. “Do you see how terrible it’s been? Poor Elinor is quite overwhelmed with looking after me.”

Elinor.

I stare at Midi Sorte, and she refuses to stare back. Indeed, I wonder if perhaps she can’t; she does appear very sick indeed, so sick that I break etiquette and ask a question of Midi.

“Should I fetch one of the physicians?”

Midi manages some sort of grunt that could mean yes or no. Her answer doesn’t matter; Isabel decides, “Oh, goodness, we have everything we need here, don’t we, Elinor? I understand her better than any doctor. Unless” — she sacrifices some measure of pride —“Elinor would like Candenzius to examine her.”

This time Midi’s grunting is clearly refusal; violent refusal. One might almost suspect Candenzius of having been the lover who jilted her, she is so opposed to having him summoned.

Isabel beams. She’s proud to be chosen over a man (both her favorite and, in this case, her rival) trained by the great academies to the south. And maybe she really can understand Midi Sorte’s strange noises. Who but one madwoman could make sense of another?

“Help me lift her,” Isabel commands, and at her direction I hoist Midi by the armpits and drag her toward the bed, never mind the pain in my own bones. The Queen follows behind, carrying the hat that Midi has been wearing as Elinor.

Midi moans. I ease her down to the floor again, where she clutches her belly. The dye from her silk dress has melted in her perspiration and stained my hands a sticky black. I dart a look at the Queen to see what I’m to do next.

Isabel drops the hat and holds out her arms in a cross. “You need to undress us. Both of us. We need a washing and fresh linens.”

It’s clear that she expects me to do everything by myself, but nonetheless I ask, “Should I tell the ladies to come in and wait on Your Serene Highness?”

“
Pas de besoin.
There is no need. After you’re done, Elinor and I will take care of each other.” She looks pleased at the idea.

Of course this is ridiculous, but the last thing I should do now is to argue with the Dowager. So I wait on them both: I strip away the filthy clothes — the fabric tears where it’s been soaked — and swipe my rags across their naked skins.

Which is how I discover what’s made Midi so ill.

The belly that she tries to shield is swelling outward, round and hard as a ripening plum. Just enough to make herself look stocky, which is how she managed to keep the secret from her dorter-mates and then, later, from the ladies who also wait on the Dowager. She cowers from me.

Four months,
I think,
or maybe five.
I remember that time in the dorter when I held her head, and I feel stupid for not realizing it then. Particularly when she started writing Grammaticus’s name.

A stab of jealousy makes me hot and sick myself — thinking of what Arthur gave to Midi instead of me, and at a time when he still spoke of marriage to me. He gave her a baby; he gave her his heart. But in the Queen’s presence, I force myself to keep wiping and rinsing, squeezing the rags instead of Midi’s neck. Then I get to the space between her legs, and my cloth comes back red. A strange red, not the metallic slickness I know so well from the monthlies; more a gluey streak that stays on the rag’s surface.

And . . . I close my eyes.

. . . I’m on the square of Helligánds Kirke, awash in the howls of the madmen and the hiss of the sword swallower. The pain, my pain. The neighbors’ whispers swept along by the red flood that left its stain on the stones of the square . . . A stain that was of my body, not some foreign paste that a desperate girl might use.

With the tears pricking at my eyes, I discover an unexpected well of pity in myself. What else is there for Midi to do? She has even less recourse than I did.

So I perform a small kindness, take care to hide the greasy rags from Isabel. I toss them into the fire, which I build up to a blaze in order to warm the two women I’ve somehow managed to tuck together into the white-curtained bed, Midi with a wad of dry linen between her legs. I wonder if a pregnancy as far along as hers will miscarry slowly or if there will be a sudden rush that reveals her secret.

Isabel puts her arms around Midi, or as close to around as she can manage, cuddling her as a mother does a child. “Bring us some wine,” she orders me. “We need refreshment.”

I don’t even begrudge Midi this service. In fact, I make both a prayer and a wish for her as I curtsy. I pour a cup and hold it to each pair of lips in turn.

When I present the cup to Midi, however, she won’t open her mouth to drink. She pushes her face into the pillow.

Far from noticing, Isabel seems to think all’s taken care of. “Very well,” she says, relaxing against her true friend. “You may clean the room now.”

W
HILE the maid works, they lie together, Isabel and Elinor, whispering secrets. Or Isabel whispers and Elinor listens; the poor Countess needs distraction, to lead her mind away from the demons of illness.