by J. Naomi Ay
When I was a girl, I wanted to be a dancer. My parent's indulged me because I was their youngest and most precious daughter, and so, they arranged for a dance tutor to come to the great hall where we lived and teach me to dance.
I loved ballet. I was graceful as a swan, my father the Duke of Dekoor said. I was as lithe as a feather, my mother the Duchess said. I danced every moment that I could, gliding across the floor, leaping into the arms of my tutor and soaring to the heavens on my toes until the day I broke my foot. After that, my toe shoes were useless, and my dancing ended. I was fifteen.
I had no use for schooling. I could read and write Mishnese well enough. I had learned the history of Rehnor and Rozari and could recite it well enough. I could do sums in my head enough to play cards with my sisters, and I could sing and play piano passably well. I couldn't sew. I had never the patience to make tiny stitches.
So there I was at fifteen, unable to dance with nothing more to learn in this world. I had only to wait to be matched to a sufficiently bred man, which as the daughter of a duke, meant only a son of a duke or prince. Even the son of an earl was not good enough for me.
The problem was, there were precious few men of high breeding remaining in Mishnah and Saint knows though Karupatani was teeming with princes and chiefs, no good Mishnese girl would ever willingly be wed to one of them. On top of that, I was the fourth in the line of Dekoor's daughters and so three dukes must be found first to accommodate my sisters.
There was one prince in our realm, our Crown Prince Yokaa Kalila who at the age of thirty-two, still had not found a bride. He was our cousin, through my father, three times removed and the only child of our king who had accumulated four wives before he managed to beget a son. As you can imagine, Yokaa was a hot commodity.
During the summer of my fifteenth year as I mourned the loss of my toe shoes, the Crown Prince was invited to our estate to celebrate the solstice. Ideally, he was to meet and be enchanted by my eldest sister, Dora, and if she were not enchanting enough, Luka, and then, Nisa were to have a go at it. Never in a million years would anyone imagine that I, Moira, the youngest of the lot, short and skinny with the figure of a boy would even begin to attract the middle aged Crown Prince.
He found me diverting. That was his word. My sisters bored him with their fawning and quest for court gossip, but I was fresh and diverting with my silly childish ways. Though I could no longer leap and dance, I could run and run I did whenever he saw me. Hence, he gave chase. He spent a week at our estate and chased me through the hallways, the gardens, the maze, the forest, and the valley. When he caught up with me, when he found me hiding beneath a shrub or wedged between the garden walls, he would demand a kiss as a reward.
“One kiss, Sir,” I would say and peck him chastely upon his cheek.
Sometimes he would reach for me to demand more and once or twice he managed to brush my lips with his own but like a sprite I would spirit away, and the chase would begin anew.
At the end of this week, the Crown Prince asked my father, the Duke for my hand in marriage although he was more than twice my age. My father insisted he wait until my sixteenth birthday, and in the meantime, I was to move to the Palace of Mishnah where I would begin my training for my position as Crown Princess and future Queen.
My sisters were insanely jealous, but they came to Mishnah with me as my mother insisted they become my attendants. For seven months, I prepared for my wedding and my future duties with a diligence and steadfastness that I had previously reserved for only my dancing.
On the day after my sixteenth birthday, I became the Crown Princess, and my virginity was rewarded to my husband who unbeknownst to me had slept repeatedly with each of my sisters during this time.
“Get used to it, Moira,” my mother snapped when I wept to her upon discovering this news.
It was my sister Nisa who bragged about it whilst curtseying to me as she was now required to do. My mother was inordinately pleased by my match and further still by my sister, Luka, who had quickly become my husband's favorite concubine. She would find no fault for his sins but rather blamed me for my innocence.
“Your son will be the next king, and that is who you must love without fail,” my mother said as if my husband's affections were of no consequence.
I became pregnant quickly and was overjoyed to learn that my child was a girl. My son would belong to Mishnah, my daughter would belong to me.
From the moment of my discovery, I chose to spend the next eight months lying in. My sisters were forced to wait upon me, to pamper, to curtsey to me, and when my angel, my Lydia was born, I made them kiss her tiny feet and pledge to serve her, the Princess Royal, all their days.
My husband the Crown Prince was pleased by our daughter for truly she had the look of an angel with curly hair the color of the sun and clear grey eyes so light they seemed almost devoid of color. Her skin was fair like a Lightie, but her lips were ruby red. The Prince would kiss our child’s tiny hands and her feet, and she would laugh and smile and charm him beyond any other. And, he rewarded me for granting him this beautiful gift. He brought me jewels and filled my suite with flowers. He kissed my hands and called me his beloved Moira, and he soured upon my sister's attentions, and for a brief moment in time, it was only I whose bed he shared.
I became pregnant again and this time with our son. Bells pealed throughout Mishnah announcing this great news and my husband and father-in-law, the King, kissed my feet and declared me a goddess descended from the heavens. I lay upon my couch all day feeling my son move about my womb, watching my beautiful daughter play quietly with her toys and feeling content with this life as never before.
During my lying in, my husband found another maid or two to focus his attentions. He begged my pardon for he would not dare harm his son by penetrating my womb and so, his nights no longer were spent in my chamber but elsewhere. I told myself to care not because within me I had a future king, and it was him I should endow with my love.
My son, Akan was born, and he too was a beautiful child. His hair was brown like my husband's, but his eyes were a piercing emerald green.
“You have the most beautiful children on Rehnor,” I was told by many, and without a doubt it was true.
My children were well behaved and modest though they knew their station and commanded well the servants who kissed their hands and feet and did their bidding.
Yokaa, my husband came to my bed infrequently after that. I had given him what he needed, and if he came to me it was only out of formality. He visited plenty other beds though and so I shared mine with my children, clutching their small bodies as they slept, listening to the even sounds of their breathing and knowing that Akan, the future king, loved me more than anyone.
When my children were young still, a boy came to live with us. His name was Loman, and he was the son of a Lightie woman, a one-time chambermaid of my mother-in-law, the Queen. The chambermaid had died a miserable death of a painful cancer this past year.
The Queen took pity upon the child and brought him to the Palace as no father was ever known to him and no relative would raise him in the mother's stead. He became a companion for my children, their guardian and babysitter as he was twelve years to Lydia's seven.
He was a serious child, perhaps made so by the tragic circumstances of his arrival among us but he was dependable and took care, so much so, I needed only be told that Loman was with them to have no fear of my own children's safety. There was something about him that bothered me though. I thought perhaps it was his lightness for his hair, and his skin were shockingly white, and his eyes were a pale blue and as nearly translucent as Lydia's own. He was large for a boy, but that was not it.
Something niggled at the back of my brain, and as the children grew older, as I watched the childish love dawn in my own Lydia's eyes, my dislike of Loman began to take root.
When Loman was sixteen and Lydia eleven with budding breasts and a
wicked wit, I insisted that Loman be removed from our presence. He was old enough to be schooled elsewhere, mature enough to require neither parent nor guardian, and large enough to pass easily for a man twice his age. My husband demurred. He liked the boy and strangely sought out his company preferring Loman to his own son and heir.
Together they would hunt and ride, sail boats upon the sea and no doubt find maids to ravish when the night time came. Akan was far too young for these pleasures in any case but even if he were not, his father found little use for him. He was my child, my baby and perhaps it was my fault, treating him as if his every breath was precious. His concerns were his hair, his fingernails, and the softness of his skin. He looked upon Lydia's gowns with obvious jealousy and once when he was about nine years old, a chambermaid confessed that she had found him dressing himself in his sister's attire.
Of course, I never shared this with the Crown Prince. I hoped it was a phase and soon it would be done with. After repeatedly airing my many concerns about Loman however, the boy was finally sent off to the Royal Guard Academy. I don't know who missed him more, my daughter or my husband but both of them looked upon me as if I were solely to blame for the boy's absence.
My children's teen years were tumultuous. War began anew with the dreadful Karuptas, and many Mishnese in the cities bordering the seas were killed in attacks. The Karuts suffered worse than us of course as we had better weapons and could annihilate entire villages in mere moments whilst they relied on the techniques of the terrorists. A Karupta Prince was killed, my father-in-law too died of a cancer and all of sudden, my husband was King and I, Queen.
Akan was too young to be declared Crown Prince at this time, but it was a given that he would succeed his father in the next generation despite the reservations my husband held. He did not approve of Akan's effeminate ways which became more pronounced as the boy entered puberty.
At fourteen, my son dressed and spoke in a pretty way. He attracted attention from men and boys of the court who were known to engage in such activities that I dare not even think. I heard whisperings from the maids, from my ladies, from my sisters, but I ignored them. Even when my son took up a constant companion, a boy named Phylyp, his own age and the son of an earl, I would not think about how he too had an effeminate manner. I was told they shared a chamber. I was told they shared a bed. I closed my eyes and covered my ears and repeated to myself that someday my son would be king and whose bed he deigned to toss about in was his own choosing.
I had more worries than just my son. The war with the Karuptas had ceased for the time being, and my husband the King, entertained the Karupta King, a man his own age and sentiments, in the Palace. They spent many hours cloistered together determined to end this repetitive cycle of violence that threatened our planet throughout the thousand years of our history.
While noble in the intent, it was their solution, The Agreement that forever turned my heart cold. My children were sacrificed without my knowledge, without my consent, and in so doing, my husband sacrificed me.
Chapter 7
Sorkan
