by Lana Popovic
“I’ll thank you to keep a civil tongue, Ferenc,” she says lightly, but again I sense that flame racing just beneath the surface. “Anna is a distant cousin, a penniless relation. From a branch of the family fallen on difficult times. I’ve seen fit to take her under my wing.”
I stand bolted in place, both brittle and reeling, as if I’ve been turned into a pillar of salt. Why would she say such an outlandish thing, claim me as her cousin?
“But family nonetheless,” she adds, delicate face hardening, a clear note of warning in her voice. “Do you take my meaning, husband?”
“Oh, I won’t interfere with her, Beth, she isn’t to my taste, regardless. Nowhere near plump enough. No need to stake your claim so crudely,” he says, rolling his eyes. “It is unbecoming in a lady. In any case, I did not come to chastise . . .”
“For once,” she mutters under her breath, allowing herself a hint of defiance.
“. . . but to inquire after you,” he finishes in an acid-laced tone, feigning that he has not heard her rejoinder. “I heard you were poorly, and I wondered if, perhaps . . .”
I catch a distant glimmer of hope in the way his gaze drifts over the lady’s abdomen, and I steel myself for his disappointment and the violence that may come with it.
She shakes her head dully and averts her eyes. “No. Still no.”
His long face contorts, fists clenching by his sides. “You are straining the limits of my patience, wife,” he forces through gritted teeth. “Be warned that I am almost finished tolerating your antics. We have discussed this ad nauseam, your disappointing—no, maddening, unacceptable—behavior. Do not forget that I am this country’s Black Knight, the king’s greatest champion. And with all the latitude I allow you with your games . . .” His hooded eyes glitter so dangerously as they fix on her that I cannot imagine how she does not wilt under the acrimony of his regard. I almost do, and it is not even intended for me. “I should have had my promised heir by now.”
“And you shall have one, Ferenc, I swear it,” she entreats him, still with downcast eyes. My heart shudders with sympathy for her, wed to this boorish, overbearing man. “Please, just . . . grant me the courtesy of a little more time.”
He surveys her for a moment longer, silent, his nostrils flaring. “I leave today; you shall have your reprieve. But come Christmas, Beth, I will return for the duration,” he warns. “See to it that, by then, you have remembered whose wife you are—and all the things I do for you.”
With that, he whirls on his booted heel and strides out the door, slamming it viciously behind him.
Chapter Nine
The Tonic and the Bath
The next day, the countess calls for me.
I am not entirely surprised when Mistress Magda materializes in the cellar quarters before dawn, to drape a finer work dress over my pallet and instruct me to report to the lady’s chambers with my midwife’s bag in tow. Yesterday, the lady was so loath to let me go that I suspected I would be returning to her soon. “Your presence is remarkably soothing, Anna,” she’d said pensively while I finished braiding her hair and leading her back to bed. She’d had me brush her curls for nearly an hour, as long as it took her to calm after the lord’s riling visit. “Like a salve of sorts. And perhaps you could craft me something for this damnable pain?”
“Of course, my lady,” I’d said, struggling to maintain my composure while my heart leaped inside me like a rising dove. “It would be my pleasure.”
Now, as I dress, reveling in the softness of this fresh linen, Krisztina watches me with a sister’s apprehensive gaze. “Whatever would she want a scull for?” she frets, tugging nervously on a fiery coil of her hair and letting it spring straight. “I can’t see how this bodes well for you, Anna. The closer you are to her, the more peril you’re in.”
She cannot possibly understand the fledgling kinship the lady and I shared yesterday, and even if she could, I know better than to share the lady’s vulnerabilities with her. Though I do appreciate her genuine concern for me. “Her health is suffering, that is all,” I reassure her. “I’d wager she wants to make use of my herbs before she resorts to calling for a physician.”
Krisztina nods reluctantly, looking unconvinced. “Mayhap it is. But take care, Anna, will you? Not even your cunning will save you, should you vex her in some unpredictable way.”
I grit my teeth, narrowly restraining myself from rolling my eyes. “I doubt she’ll even want to speak to me,” I lie. “I’ll attend to her needs and be back before you know it.”
She grins, stretching her arms over her head. “Oh, let’s not go that far. Were I given a chance to be rid of the blasted cauldrons for a day, I wouldn’t hurry back myself.”
“Too right,” Ilona confirms wryly, before favoring me with one of her sweet smiles. “Enjoy your rest, Anna. I’m sure you’ll know exactly what to say to keep the lady happy with you.”
Of course I will know, I think to myself as I ascend the spiraling stairs toward the countess’s chambers, my mind bursting with images of the two of us sharing confidences by her crackling fire. My silver tongue is what the lady wants from me, even more than my clever fingers. I am so rapt with these imaginings that even wending through the gloom of the corridors feels less like straying into some gaping maw than it normally does. My step is light for once, despite the keep’s toothy darkness.
But my spirits sink abruptly, like skipping stones plunging when their flight can no longer sustain them, when I find the countess white-faced and ailing, curled up wretched in her bed. Judit and Margareta cower in the corners, wringing their hands, as if afraid to approach their mistress. The kittenish insolence I remember from the day I arrived is entirely vanished, leaving a pair of slinking cowards in its wake.
“A tonic, Anna, quickly,” the countess orders as soon as her eyes fall on me, sinking her teeth into her lower lip to stifle a moan as she huddles with her knees drawn up to her chest. “I fear I may expel my own womb if these cramps do not cease soon.”
“At once, my lady,” I reassure her, already rummaging in my bag. “And may I suggest that your maids draw you a bath? As near blistering as they can make it, without burning you.”
“A bath?” she demands, lifting her bleary head. Despite her fretting over age, she looks tousled and exhausted as a querulous child, much younger than her nineteen years. “Is my womb not inflamed already, with an excess of sanguine humor? Would hot water not make it worse?”
I’m loath to bother her about it now, but I resolve to have her explain these bedamned humors to me as soon as she is well. “The womb is a muscle, my lady,” I explain. “And like any muscle, it pains you when contracted for too long. The tea I will brew for you will help with that, too, but there is nothing like hot water to coax those tight tissues toward coming loose.”
She scrutinizes me with a touch of skepticism, black eyes narrowed, then nods. “As you say, then,” she says, flicking an imperious hand at the chambermaids. “Judit, Margareta—you heard what Anna needs. And make sure to fetch her anything else she asks.”
They dip into twin curtsies, and even incline their heads to me, before scuttling off to do her bidding. My bidding, I think wonderingly with a giddy rush. For the first time in my life, someone else is carrying out my orders, doing as I please. What an intoxicating sentiment it is. No wonder the nobility and their ilk never remove their feet from common necks.
Half an hour later, after Judit and Margareta have hauled in a massive copper tub and filled it with bucket after bucket of steaming water, I help the countess shrug off her robe and hold her hand while she steps in, hissing through her teeth. I try to avert my eyes from her body as the silk slides off her shoulders, but she is captivating, so unmarred by injury or illness that her smooth silhouette seems like it cannot be real. She looks like dessert, I think absurdly, like something fashioned from swoops of heavy cream. Her hair is startling, decadently dark against all that pale skin.
“You aren’t trying to boil and eat me,
are you, Anna?” she jokes, as if she’s somehow privy to my thoughts. Fortunately, I’m already so pink from the billowing heat that she doesn’t notice when I redden further. “I would not take kindly to being the centerpiece of a feast, with an apple in my mouth.”
I laugh lightly as she sinks to her knees, steam wafting around her face and curling tight the stray tendrils of hair at her temples. “If it’s too hot, my lady, I can see to that for you.”
“No,” she exhales, resting her head against the rim. Water laps up over her collarbones, pearling the bow of her neck. “No, it feels divine. Just as you said.”
I hand her a goblet of red wine stirred with chaste berry, black cohosh, fennel, cinnamon, and cramp bark, with just a touch of valerian to relax her. I had intended to brew it into a tea, but apparently her ladyship prefers wine to mask the taste of medicine—and in this case, the alcohol will only ease her further, so I complied.
She takes a sip, making a little moue of distaste at the flavor. “It tastes like skunks,” she complains. “It had better do wonders.”
I laugh again, more freely this time. “And have you eaten many skunks in your time, my lady?”
“No, but the woods behind the keep are rife with them, and the stench is unmistakable. And very like this, besides the cinnamon.” Still, she takes another sip, and I can see the strain seep away from her features. “Oh, this is so much better, what a blessing. You have my eternal thanks.”
“And I did not even have to consult a handbook to the humors,” I respond before I can stop myself. As soon as the words are out, an icy flurry of panic suffuses my skin. What if she takes exception to this disrespect?
Instead, she lifts her head and releases a bright, delighted laugh. “Such quiet scorn!” she exclaims almost gleefully. “I take it you’re not a fan of Galen’s?”
“I know nothing of Galen, my lady,” I admit. “Save that his advice has steered you wrong at least twice now. But I would learn, if you abide by his . . . wisdom.”
She surveys me appraisingly, her lips still pressed together with mirth. “I would prefer to abide by yours, given the results,” she says, swallowing more wine. I can see it take effect in the heavy-lidded glassiness of her eyes, the indolent way she rests her head against the rim. “But I’ll gladly tell you of them, while you wash my hair.”
I take the bar of soap from where Judit left it on a silver platter, and dip it in the water. I’ve never touched soap before, at least not a fine-grained bar like this; it coats my hands with silky suds, and releases a fragrance of exotic flowers and some beguiling musk I don’t recognize. It reminds me of the oil she uses for perfume.
“What is the smell, my lady?” I ask, too curious to refrain. “I’m not familiar with it.”
“Plumeria, sometimes also called frangipani. I love its scent. And ambergris as well. I’m told it comes from the entrails of whales, the leviathan creatures that roam the seas.”
“I see,” I murmur noncommittally, keeping my own counsel. The sea is so distant that it’s always seemed more a tale than a truth, but I’ve seen Lake Balaton and the Raba river with nary a leviathan between them. Whales sound like a child’s fancy, a fireside yarn.
“You don’t know of whales, then?” she asks, amused, reading my mind again.
“About as much as I do of Galen and his humors.”
“It was actually Hippocrates, another Greek physician, who discovered the humors,” she tells me as I pour a ewerful of water over her hair, careful that it not sluice into her eyes. “They’re the four bodily fluids that determine one’s character, and cause illness when in imbalance. Blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile. An excess of each yields the sanguine, phlegmatic, melancholic, and choleric temperaments.”
“How would that be?” I ask doubtfully. “As far as I know, we’re all of us brimming with blood and phlegm. And yellow bile is common when an empty belly purges. Though I’ve yet to see this black bile for myself, unless your Greek sage refers to tarry stools.”
“You know, I’ve often thought the same,” she muses. “What could this ‘khole’ mean, if not excrement? Perhaps I’ll return to the Hippocratic Collection and see if I can find a clearer reference to it.”
I pause in my soaping of her hair, taken aback. “You—you speak Greek, my lady?”
“Certainly,” she replies, nudging my hands with her sopping head to indicate that I should continue. “German and Latin as well. It was part of my studies as a child.” She snorts a little, almost daintily. “Along with less agreeable subjects, such as the teachings of Thomas Aquinas, for which I had very little patience. I was never much given to the study of religion.”
“How wonderful,” I breathe, thinking of the vast multitude of doors that must be open to her, that will forever be closed to me. “I can barely write my name.”
She tilts her head so far back that she’s looking at me upside down, with knitted brow. “And yet you keep such an immaculate store of herbal knowledge,” she marvels. “How is that possible, without record?”
I shrug, failing to see why this would be perplexing. “I simply remember it, my lady. It’s not such a demanding task.”
“So you think,” she remarks a trifle tartly. “Because it’s easy for you, with such a sparking, agile mind that it leaps about like flames. And yet you are unmistakably phlegmatic, with your healer’s heart of stone. So calm, collected, never a misstep or flare of temper. Perhaps even too cool for some tastes.”
“Or maybe, my lady,” I suggest, upending another ewerful of water over her head, “it’s that I’ve never had the luxury of indulging myself with sparks.”
She reaches behind her head and catches my hand, drawing it forward and threading her fingers through mine. A sharp, aching thrill like nothing I have ever felt races through me at her touch. “And would you like to?” she asks, her voice husky with wine. She plays with our tangled fingers, bringing them so close to her lips I can feel the heat of her breath skip over my wet skin. “Have an opportunity for fire? I am decidedly choleric myself, you know. Strong-willed, decisive, vengeful. And always very prone to flames.”
“I should love it, my lady,” I answer, my voice low. “If it will please you.”
Again, she angles her head back so she can look at me, inverted, those red, red lips curving into a languorous smile.
“Oh, it does already, Anna,” she says. “I could not be more pleased that you’ve made your way back to me.”
The following day, she summons me again.
This time, she is pert and refreshed when I arrive. Margareta and Judit are nowhere to be seen.
“Good morning, Anna,” she says in response to my curtsy. “I woke feeling quite myself again, thanks to your ministrations. I’ve dismissed the others, so we can pass some time together. Talk more as we did yesterday, perhaps. I thought you might help me get ready in Judit’s stead—and then we could break fast and occupy ourselves with some pleasurable pursuit.”
She wishes my help to get ready, I think, my heart soaring at the thought. To pass time with me, even! What a miracle, a marvel, an answer to a prayer I never would have thought to utter.
I can scarcely believe my good fortune as I help her dress, gently tucking silk stockings over her finely turned calves, drawing a shift and underdress over her head, slowly—and very carefully, just in case—lacing her into her stays. Finally, I dress her in a gown of plummy brocade, my fingers racing up the row of tiny pearl buttons, like drops of milk, that stitch up the back.
As I finish buttoning the lacy cuffs at her wrists, I notice a bright splotch of blood along the inside hem, which is slightly crooked. How would it have gotten there, I wonder with a pang of misgiving, if there is no stain anywhere else on the garment? Krisztina’s hushed words float to the forefront of my mind, whispering of the seamstress whose fingers were sewn together as a price for clumsy work. Could the poor woman have been forced to correct these inner stitches with her fumbling hands once the dread punishment was done?
I dismiss the macabre fancy with an effort, thrusting it from my mind. The lady embroiders in her spare time, I have seen it. Surely she merely pricked herself and failed to notice a stray drop of blood as it rolled beneath her sleeve.
She watches me in the full-length mirror as I fuss about her, making sure that nothing is out of place. Her scrutiny is so candid and admiring that I struggle not to let it make me clumsy. “How exceptionally beautiful you are,” she comments, “for one with ignoble blood. One would never think, to look at you, that you were born so common. Your jaw, your chin, the way your cheekbones underpin your flesh like tidy little wings. Your bones look noble, just like mine.”
“Oh, surely not, my lady,” I demur. “I’m nothing like you, how could I be?”
“Don’t be silly, just look!” She draws me to her side, brooking no refusal, linking her arm through mine. “Imagine if you were in a gown like this, with your hair dressed to suit you. Where I am dark, you are unwontedly fair, but our skin, see? Almost the same hue.”
I see what she means. Though different, our coloring is equally dramatic, and our features seem to snag and hold the eye. There is nothing unprepossessing about either of us, nothing plain or sturdy to hide behind.
“You are beautiful, my lady, which is as it should be. But sometimes I wish I wasn’t,” I mutter, averting my eyes from where she holds them in the mirror. “It has not been any great boon to me.”
She cocks her head, taken aback. “What do you mean? What greater power could a woman wield than a face and figure that command awe and inspire desire?”
“For one in my position, desire can be . . .” I chuckle a little, wry. “Well. Decidedly undesirable.”
She watches me, silent, jutting her chin to indicate that I should go on.
“It is not just that,” I continue, hesitant. “The other girls in my village . . . they did not find my company pleasing. Not so much because I’m comely—many of them were, as well—but because of the shape my beauty takes. As you said yourself, my coloring is unusual for Magyar blood. They thought me strange, aloof.”
