by Lana Popovic
“Marigold, maybe, or snakeroot,” I suggest, my cheeks simmering with heat. “Something meant to heal rather than please the eye.”
“But why not both?” she asks breathlessly. The water sloshes as she squirms around in the tub, coming face-to-face with me. The lighthearted humor between us dissipates, and something smokier, more dangerous, wreathes up to take its place. “You certainly do heal as though your touch were magic. But you know full well that you are also very pleasing to the eye.”
Before I can utter a word she reaches out, trails wet fingers over my cheek with agonizing languor. When I do not shy back, her fingertips sink lower, down my chin, over the curve of my throat and the sharp jut of my collarbones, creeping beneath my work dress’s neckline. Scoring me lightly with her long nails. Everywhere she touches bursts into stippled goose bumps until my skin feels as though it surges from within, lit by the heat of my own blood.
While I kneel as if hypnotized, barely able to spur my lungs into breath, she curls her fingers around the hem and tugs me forward—until I’m so close her dark eyes blur into one, her breath rushing sweet over my lips.
“Elizabeth,” I manage to half gasp. My heart gallops as though it might buck straight through my chest, pulverize my ribs. “What . . . This isn’t . . .”
“Be quiet, Anna,” she murmurs in a throaty whisper, forbidden and enticing as a crossroads promise. Her other hand rises from the water, dripping, and snakes through my hair to cup my nape. She grips me so tightly it nearly hurts, yet I would have happily died before I ever thought to pull away.
In the space of a breath she extinguishes the distance between us, her plush lips sliding over mine. Even before she parts them with a silken sweep of her tongue, I am aflame. All my cool transmuted to fire, set furiously ablaze. She tastes like white wine and lemons and she kisses me with fierce and deft abandon, her sharp teeth sinking delicately into my lower lip.
“Elizabeth,” I attempt when she pulls back to trace her lips down my neck. I have never been kissed before and it has left me dumbstruck and reeling, clutching her shoulders as though to keep from drowning, my fingertips sinking into her soap-slick flesh. I wonder for the barest moment if it might have been this way, had I ever let Peter kiss me. But I know, just as instantly and surely, that it would have been nothing close to this. Not even the pale ghost of a reflection. “What of your husband? And this is, I don’t know, a transgression, a sin maybe . . .”
She exhales a laugh against my throat, soft as velvet, and I nearly shudder in response. “To hell with my husband, for all I care. And surely you don’t believe this is wrong, clever as you are,” she chides, setting her teeth into my skin until I gasp. “For who could know a woman’s deepest heart, her sacred secrets, better than another woman?” She draws back properly to look at me, water sloshing around her. Her eyes heavy-lidded and lustrously black, palms cupped to my cheeks. “And who else could know your desire better than I could? I, who knew what was between us from the moment we first met each other’s eyes?”
“No one,” I whisper raggedly as she moves to unlace my stays, slides my work dress off my shoulders. So this, then, is desire. Implacable and all-consuming, a ravenous maelstrom that obliterates even the memory of modesty and restraint. I’ve never felt even an inkling of this for Peter, could not have fathomed that it would feel like such a delicious, honeyed madness. No wonder it makes fools of men. “No one, my lady. Elizabeth.”
“Then abandon shame and come, Anna,” she commands, rising from the water in a single fluid movement like some raven-haired sello.
A siren offering me her hands.
Much later, she turns to me and smiles.
“Well, while I did not intend to find myself drawn back into my bed so soon after I left it,” she jests, her eyes sparkling with humor and the aftermath of passion, “I cannot think of anyplace else that I would wish to be.”
“Nor I,” I admit, reaching up, almost shyly, to tuck a lock of her mink hair behind her ear. “Did you truly know when you first saw me, as you said? That we belonged together?”
“Oh, you are so easy to read, Anna, for all your deliberate ice,” she murmurs back, her eyes slitting with pleasure as I stroke her hair. “Of course I knew. It is no difficult feat to recognize a desire that mirrors one’s own so well.”
“Now that I know how it is meant to feel . . .” I lick my lips, considering. I understand much better now why I could not return Peter’s affections. I was simply not capable, and I know that I will never be; such is not the pattern of my grain. Had I known as much before Elizabeth, I might have felt guilt, perhaps even revulsion for the uncommon shape of my desire. But I cannot, not when she has divested me so easily of shame before I ever truly felt it. “I do not think that I . . . I have ever wanted anything like this from a man. Is it the same for you?”
“Not quite the same, my dove,” she replies. “Though Ferenc is loathsome to me, I do not find all men as repulsive. The farrier’s son, you already know about, and there have been others since. Women as well from time to time, when I have a mind. It is easier, in a way; I need not trouble myself to hide them from my husband. My female lovers do not bother Ferenc, since they cannot make a cuckold of him.” Her lips curve a touch wickedly, her eyes lighting like little torches. “It is the choler that lives in me, I suppose, the coiled passion at my core. It has never seen fit to discriminate. Not when it could have everything instead.”
“Well, I am not that way,” I say, more boldly than I feel; so that is what Ferenc meant, when he spoke of her pets. The thought of Elizabeth with others turns my stomach. “I have only ever wanted you,” I realize aloud.
“And rest assured you have me,” she whispers, reaching for my hand and wreathing our fingers together, trailing our joint knuckles over her lips. “And while Ferenc is away, we are free to indulge, to enjoy ourselves together. You’ve worked too hard, Anna, taking care of me. I wish to spoil you in return.”
“Being with you like this is more than enough indulgence,” I say honestly. “I wish for nothing more.”
She nuzzles her nose against mine, wrinkling hers adorably. “Hardly. This was just for starters. I mean for us to have much more fun. I know what we shall do—we shall have a ball, just for the two of us, after dinner! We must find you a dress first, of course, one to complement your face. I may be taller, but otherwise we’re of a size. I’m sure we shall find something perfect among my gowns. And then I shall be your chambermaid!”
“My—have you lost your wits, Elizabeth?” I gape at her as she leaps out of bed, blissfully unconcerned by her nakedness. “What would the other servants think? They hate me enough already for how well you treat me. Flaunting your favor this way, it wouldn’t be fitting—”
“Oh, please, what is fitting, after the morning we’ve just had?” she demands, arching a brow. “Who’s to decide but us? It’s fitting if we say it is, and we do. Here, help me into my dressing gown, and we shall look together!”
Half an hour later, we’ve sifted through her vast wardrobe and drawn out two gowns, one for me and one for her. She’s chosen gem hues that complement each other, a deep sapphire brocade for me—“To bring out the jewels in your eyes!”—and a resplendent amethyst trimmed with Venetian lace for her. Rather than allowing me to lace her into her stays, she remains in her dressing gown and coaxes a corset over my head, directing me to cling to the bedpost so she may lace me up instead.
“My ribs,” I gasp as all the breath flees out of me in the crush. I’ve never been squeezed into a corset in my whole life. “God’s truth, Elizabeth, is it always thus? How do you manage to draw breath?”
“Sparingly,” she supplies, giddy with laughter. “Breath is not vital to a lady, as you will learn. Not at the expense of bosom and posture, at any rate.”
Though I doubt she has ever had cause to dress herself, her fingers are nimble as she attends to me while I stand with blazing cheeks, torn between heady elation and a burning sense of impropriety. So
mehow this feels much more sacrilegious than anything we’ve already done in her bed. Once she’s finished, the blue gown falls over my head in a heavy, perfumed spill, and then she guides me to her vanity, draping a towel over the mirror to hide me from myself until she’s done.
“Something understated, but exquisite,” she tuts, considering, as she weaves her fingers through my hair. “You need to be framed like the artwork that you are. Not overwhelmed with tasteless curls and frips.”
I sip my wine while she works on me, basking in pleasure as she dabs me with camellia oil, adorns me with her own jewels, and dresses my hair. Never have I been so cosseted, with such a light and loving touch. I can feel myself unfurling in response, expanding to fit the space she seems to believe I should rightfully occupy. Becoming who she envisions me to be—even as guilt gnaws at my outer edges, that I should be lavished with such largesse when my mother and sister have never even touched the luxuriance of brocade.
But even this is for them, I tell myself. Depriving myself does them no good, not when pleasing Elizabeth, allowing her to spoil me as she wishes, will ultimately secure them an easier life.
“Et voilà!” she exclaims, tugging me up toward the full-length mirror. “May I present my Lady Sage!”
The breath seems to die in my throat, extinguished by the rising swell of my wonder. The gown is too long, but its pooling length seems almost artful, intentional as a queen’s sweeping train. The pointed bodice hugs the slim arrow of my torso, nipped tight at the waist and flaring to reveal the modest swell of my breasts. My hair has been braided away from my temples, coiled up and around my head in a pale corn-silk crown. An impossibly fat ruby, like a pigeon’s egg suspended from a satin ribbon, sits in the hollow of my throat, its facets winking with light. My cheeks are still flushed, and the heat of it lends fire to my glacial eyes.
For once, I am not even dismayed to see myself shine so brightly. I wish my mother and sister could see how far I’ve come, for all of us.
“What was it that my beastly husband called you,” Elizabeth murmurs, almost reverent, hands set lightly on my shoulders. “A snow-skinned sorceress? My favored dove? I am loath to admit it, but he was right on both accounts. Look at yourself, my love. How tremendous and splendid you are.”
“Thank you,” I whisper, my voice faltering, thready with emotion. Though I’m sure she did not mean it more seriously than a superficial endearment, “my love” echoes inside my head like the tolling of some majestic bell. My love, my love, my love. “You have made me so . . . so grand. So lovely.”
“Nonsense,” she says briskly, dropping a kiss on the curve of my neck. “I have only made you yourself—what you already are, or should be. Now if you would do me the honor of helping me dress, my lady. Our ball awaits us.”
Chapter Twelve
The Harp and the Switch
In Elizabeth’s company, and without Ferenc’s glowering presence, the great hall sheds the heavy pall of menace that I remember. Instead, the massive fire roars cheerfully, and the clusters of candles cast a mellow glow over the room. Even the great stag head mounted above the mantel seems to have lost its hollow-eyed, leering aspect.
Elizabeth has me take her seat at the table’s head with the hearth roasting my back, while she alights at my right hand. “And will Lady Sage enjoy some capon, fed on nectar and ambrosia until it expired of happiness, then brined in brandy for a thousand days to spice its flesh?” she japes, preparing to spear slices of golden-roasted meat onto my plate.
“Indeed,” I say haughtily, lifting my chin. “I feast only on ancient, drunk capon that has met its death by contentment.”
“Of course you do. It’s a mark of peerless taste. And what of boar goulash, braised in our humble homegrown peppers and fruit ferried from the Orient, so rare and exquisite it has yet to be named?” she continues, gesturing with a copper ladle.
I pretend to consider, then turn up my nose. “Perhaps later,” I decide. “When it’s aged to match the capon.”
She bows extravagantly over her arm like a dandy courtier. “As my lady pleases.”
I eat and drink until my head spins, indulging in a compote of spiced pears, crumbled apple cake, root vegetables glazed with honey and citron, and so much wine that the room seems to drip around me like tallow, softening at the edges.
“Do you think,” I muse between sumptuous bites, “that we could have some of this sent to the scullery, once we’re done?”
“The scullery?” she exclaims. “Why ever would we do that?”
“I lived with the sculls, is all,” I mumble, my cheeks heating. “I know they’ve never had better than plain bread and gruel, rarely anything fresh. And all this will . . . It will go to waste anyway . . .”
I falter, fearing I have overstepped. But she surveys me warmly, resting her chin in a cupped hand. “Of course we may, if it would please you. Though I admit I am a bit taken aback to find that my icy sage has such a generous heart for her inferiors. Tell me, what else would you have of me tonight?”
Elizabeth goads me into voicing my desires, and indulges my every whim. She shares mouthfuls of wine with me through kisses and feeds me pomegranate seeds by hand, holding out a plate for me to spit the husks when I’ve sucked off the dainty flesh.
“See?” she says, showing me the fruit’s glossy crimson rind. Something about it, its gleam and fleshy size, puts me in mind of poison apples from the tales my mother used to tell me as a child. “It is just as I once told you. The very same color as your cheeks when something stirs you to passion.”
“You stir me to passion,” I murmur, leaning toward her as if drawn by a compulsion, my face pounding with heat.
“Later, my dove,” she whispers back, tracing a fingertip down my cheek. “Now, I think it must be time for us to dance.”
I glance over to the far corner where Margareta and Judit sit, playing the lute and harp. Neither of them were invited to dine with us, and Margareta meets my eyes with a look so venomous it could be distilled into poison, like a viper milked against a glass. I wonder, with a scalding swell of jealousy, if it is her that I have ousted from Elizabeth’s bed. And if the two of them know what passes between me and their mistress, surely it is only a matter of time before the rest of the keep does as well. I almost cannot bear to consider what kind of grasping harlot my friends in the scullery will think me, so hell-bent on currying favor that I am willing to go so far as warming the lady’s bed. Of course, that is only the shallowest, most vulgar perversion of what Elizabeth and I share, miles from the truth. But I know it is what they will believe, through the distorting lens of their envy.
Since I cannot do anything about it now, I push it firmly from my mind. Why allow such ugly thoughts to ruin a jewel of an evening like this?
“I’m afraid I have not danced a day in my life,” I admit, swallowing the last of the fruit. “I would not know where to put my feet.”
She leans closer, twinkling at me with a close-lipped smile. “Then I shall have to teach you,” she mock-whispers, rising and offering me her hand. “Judit, Margareta—an allemande!”
Her former chambermaids alter the tune, and Elizabeth leads me through a series of exaggerated movements that resemble nothing so much as a bird’s mating dance.
“Would you cease pulling such faces,” she cackles, falling against me. “Oh, I am fit to wet myself.”
“I’m sorry!” I cry helplessly, dissolving into giggles myself. “It is just—It is so ridiculous, Elizabeth, how can you restrain yourself?”
“Perhaps we shall try something else. A galliard might suit better.”
The music picks up its pace, and soon I’m whirling in mad circles around Elizabeth, my hands clasped tightly in hers. I doubt a true galliard consists of such manic twirling, but I am so giddy with her closeness, her grinning face a breath away, that the last thing I wish is to question any part of this. My lady looks so beautiful tonight, her skin like milk against the vivid amethyst of her dress. She has healed so
well that she seems almost lovelier than before, impossible though that should be. And all I can think is that I have never been so happy, rushing around her like one of Aristotle’s stars.
We’re still leaping about like savages when one of Judit’s harp strings snaps.
The crack of it echoes through the hall, so loud that both of us start at the sound. Our interrupted momentum carries us, stumbling, right into the wall by the hearth. I recover my balance, but Elizabeth trips over her voluminous skirts. In the sudden absence of music I can hear the grate of Margareta’s harsh gasp, even as I grab Elizabeth by the elbow and catch her right before she lands on her knees.
“Thank you, Anna,” she says, so quietly that for a moment I think she’s shaken by her near fall, maybe even embarrassed by it. But when she lifts her face, I almost recoil. She looks murderous, tight-lipped and huge-eyed, so abruptly and ghoulishly unlike herself that I nearly do not recognize her.
I know what is about to happen even before she rounds on Judit—and I have no idea how to stop it, to derail her from this path.
“Tell me, Judit,” she begins, and there it is—that serpentine note of danger I’ve heard in her voice only once before. There is something so insidious to it, as though it might slither deep inside you, insinuate itself into your hiddenmost fissures. “Is your service to me a very great burden to you?”
Judit’s mouth works feebly, but no words emerge. Tendons stand out stark in her long, thin neck, and glossy tears bead in her eyes. “N-no, my lady,” she finally manages through trembling lips. “Never.”
Elizabeth nods with a theatrical pensiveness. “So I do not ask very much of you, then, you would agree?”
“No, my lady.”
She wrinkles her nose delicately, as if in thought. “I see. Forgive me, sometimes I cannot be sure what is real and what is my own fancy, so tell me this as well—was it you tending to me this past week, waiting on me hand and foot? Are you so very weary from these exertions?”
