Icestorm

by Theresa Dahlheim

  Her father lifted his head, then gestured to the scribe, who hurried to move a chair so that Tabitha could sit at the table. She waited while her father finished sealing the document, and she wished she had brought a shawl. Her father did not have a fire burning on the hearth behind them, and he was not even wearing a cloak over his tunic and tabard. He liked to say that he was born in the north and never got cold.

  Telgardia was a warmer country than Thendalia, with more sunny days. It would be nice to live somewhere more suited to her.

  “I cleared the court,” her father said finally, and Tabitha looked up. “I knew you would want to hear this right away, but I am afraid the news is not what we hoped.”

  She found that she could not speak, only stare. Her father’s bearded face remained expressionless and his tone matter-of-fact as he stated, “A courier arrived this morning. The Telgards are declining our proposal.”

  “Declining,” she repeated. Declining.

  Her father’s jaw twitched. He was angry about this, but he was controlling it by sheer force of will. “However,” he continued, “there was a note included from Lord Warrich, and it suggested another angle we can pursue if—”

  “It was the portrait,” she blurted out, wishing Master Emon were there so she could scream at him about what his incompetence had cost her.

  But her father frowned impatiently. “No, it was not, and get it out of your head that it was about you at all.”

  “Then why was it so important that the ambassador liked me?” she shot back. “Why did he even meet me if it was not about me? And he did not like me, I know he did not, he thought I was stupid—”

  “Tabitha!”

  She looked down at her hands. Her father let out a sharp, frustrated breath. “You needed to impress the ambassador. You did. He did like you. The portrait was fine. You did nothing wrong. We did nothing wrong.”

  She did not look up, but she nodded a little. Pretty child. “So why did they refuse?” she asked. She actually did not care about the answer as much as she just needed more time to recover from this terrible shock.

  “The official letter cites residency and inheritance terms, but we could have worked through all of those. Lord Warrich says that it was mainly because of the Khenroxans. We knew they would object.”

  “The Khenroxans?” Why did they have to say it was all right?

  “They want you to marry their prince. They think that if you do, I will give them back Cuan Searla.”

  Her face must have shown that she did not understand, and her father frowned at her. “Why do you think I have rejected all their offers? The only thing they want is Cuan Searla, and that is not negotiable.”

  The port. They don’t want me. They want their stupid port back. “But why does that matter to the Telgards? They don’t want it, do they?”

  “The Khenroxans seem to think they will be able to convince me to make Cuan Searla your dowry, and they don’t want the Telgards getting in the way. And for the moment, the Telgards want to keep the Khenroxans happy.”

  “What about keeping us happy?”

  He snorted. “We are not sitting on their northern border with ten thousand cavalry at our command.”

  “But there has not been a L’Abbanist war in the west for decades!” She had just learned that yesterday in her history lessons.

  “So you think they should have one now?” he asked sarcastically.

  “But they would not! Khenroxa would not invade Telgardia just because of me.” Saying that out loud gave her a strange feeling. Not exactly a bad feeling, but definitely a strange one. “Would they?”

  Her father leaned forward. “This is not over. We will wait, and present the proposal again when the Khenroxans are in a weaker position. You are only thirteen. We have time.”

  “But I have been waiting—” She choked back the words when she heard them echo in the hall. She had been waiting months since the ambassador had left! She had been waiting her whole life before then! Now her father wanted her to wait even longer?

  “Your patience is legendary,” he said, in a low, dry voice that warned her of his temper.

  “Maybe we should visit,” she suggested, but she knew she sounded desperate. “Maybe if the Telgards actually meet me—”

  He shook his head firmly. “No. Not without an invitation.”

  Tabitha dropped her gaze to her lap. Her father said nothing more. As the silence deepened, she felt sure that everyone in the great hall, from her father to the guardsman to the scribe to Aime, was staring at her. Even the dogs were staring at her. Maybe everyone was wondering if she would lose control.

  But her father had not, so she would not either. “May I be excused?”

  “Yes.”

  She curtseyed to him, and Aime followed her to the short passage connecting to the ducal palace. The housekeeper would have followed her all the way to her chambers, but Tabitha angrily waved her away.

  She hid her clenched fists in her skirts as she walked through the castle. Walked, not stalked, not ran, walked, very steadily and properly. She was under control. She was holding her teeth together to keep from screaming.

  It’s not fair.

  At last she reached her stairwell, and since no one was around, she hiked up her skirts and let herself run up the stairs. Stupid Telgards! They were cowards, letting another kingdom tell them what to do. She, along with all of Thendalia, was less important to them than Khenroxa was. She was not important to them at all. She was not even truly important to the Khenroxans. Cuan Searla was. They had all rejected her.

  She burst into her sitting room far too quickly. The lamps were out, which made her even angrier, because she hated not being able to see. She did not even wait to catch her breath before she went back out to get the candle from the sconce in the corridor. On the other side of the sitting room, the door to her bedchamber was shut tight, and she had to shove it hard with her shoulder to get it unstuck, which was good, because she wanted to hit something.

  A horrible smell assaulted her as soon as the door opened. She shrieked in disgust and covered her nose and mouth, then lifted the candle high, though it added little to the grey day coming through the windows. She was about to go back to the sitting room to light a lamp, but then she heard a yip from near her bed. She yelped and flinched, but then realized it had to be the puppy. What was it doing in here? It was supposed to be outside. At the very least, it should have been in the sitting room, where its pallet was.

  Tabitha put down the lit candle near the unlit ones on her bedside table, and she found the puppy whining and swishing its tail back and forth. It was sitting on her foot-warming rug, and the rug …

  Tabitha’s stomach heaved, and she nearly fell as she staggered backward. There was a puddle on the rug. The horrible animal had wet itself all over her rug!

  Stupid dog! Stupid Telgard dog!

  Her rage erupted in a sudden, searing itch that spread from her neck down her back like a blanket of needles, and she threw out her arms with a choked scream. The puppy hit the wall of her chamber with a sickening wet crunch. After a horrible, halted moment, it slid down the wall, leaving a bloody smear all the way to the floor.

  Tabitha stared at the dim shape that lay silent and motionless. Her head began to throb, and she quickly sat on her bed because her legs were not strong enough to hold her up. I did not mean to. I did not mean to. A cold sweat covered her at the horror of what she had just done. She had never completely lost control of herself like that before. She did not even remember, she did not remember seizing it and throwing it, but she had killed it. She had killed the puppy.

  I did not mean to! God, please, you know I did not mean to! I was just so angry!

  The smell of urine was now mingled with the smell of blood, and she gagged and pressed her arm to her nose and mouth. She had killed the puppy. She had killed her own puppy. Rage had made her lose her mind. A Betaul should never lose control so completely. A lady of gentle birth should never be so horribly brut
al.

  I did not mean to. I did not mean to.

  The poor little dog had probably been shut up in here all morning. Of course it had had an accident. It was not its fault. It was the chambermaids’ fault, since they were supposed to take the dog outside after breakfast. Why had they shut it up in here?

  “Tabitha?”

  No! Tabitha’s eyes went wide at the sight of Pamela looking through the doorway. Pamela gasped in sudden alarm, dropped her armload of books, and ran to the bed. “What? What happened? Oh, goodness, what’s that smell?”

  Tabitha could not answer. Pamela took a step onto the rug, then exclaimed and stepped off. “So wet! Was Brownie … “ Her words faded, and she looked back toward the door, to the wall, to the floor beneath. “Oh! Brownie!” She ran to the wall and crouched down.

  When Tabitha realized that Pamela was picking up the dead dog, bile rose up her throat so fast she nearly choked. “Don’t touch it,” she gasped, but Pamela was already turning around, cradling the puppy in her arms like a baby and crying. Worse, she sat down next to Tabitha on the bed, and Tabitha shook her head. “No!” She still could not stand up or stop the tremors in her hands or the cold sweat down her back. “Take it away. Take it away!”

  “Sorry,” Pamela sobbed as she clutched the dead dog closer. She took a shuddering breath and stood up. “I will get t-towels and … I … sorry. You st-st-stay here. Just ... I will do it.” She sniffled as she carried the puppy out to the sitting room and pulled the bell cord to summon the servants.

  Tabitha could hear Pamela crying, and the servants coming in, but she still had no strength to move, and her mind kept running in circles from the wet rug, to the dead dog, to the bloodstain on her wall. The smell was horrible. Tabitha pressed both arms to her nose and mouth, trying not to breathe more deeply than she had to.

  “Tabitha.” Marjorie was there, putting her arm around her shoulders. “Come with me.”

  Tabitha shook her head violently. Pamela had taken the dog out there. Marjorie said, “It’s all right. The servants wrapped him up and took him away. We will bury him. But they need to clean up in here now. I am just taking you to my cot. All right?” Marjorie helped Tabitha up, and they walked slowly out to Marjorie’s cot in the sitting room.

  Jenevive was sitting on her own cot, holding Pamela as she wept. Beatris, a grim look on her homely face, followed two maids carrying lamps into Tabitha’s bedchamber. Tabitha let Marjorie sit her down. The smell of urine and blood was much weaker out here, and her headache started to ease. She pulled her arms away from her face and took a deep breath. Someone had put rose petals in a bowl of hot water, and the scent helped to relax her.

  It was all a blur. She could not remember how it had happened. She just remembered being angry, so angry. My poor, sweet little puppy. She had never killed any animal bigger than a bug. She had never thought herself capable of it.

  The others did not think her capable of it either, because Pamela obviously thought that Tabitha had found the dog already dead, and Marjorie’s kindness meant she thought the same. She could not tell them the truth, not ever! What would they think of her? What would her father think of her? It was the chambermaids’ fault anyway, for shutting the dog up in her bedchamber. Tabitha never would have done something so terrible if the dog had not wet the rug. She never would have done something so terrible if she had not been so angry at the Telgards for scorning her.

  Beatris came out of Tabitha’s bedchamber with a deep frown. Afraid that she had figured out the truth, Tabitha blurted, “Did you see? I saw the blood on the wall and then I saw …” She did not have to fake the words sticking in her throat. She truly could not speak of that dim huddled lump of shattered bones.

  Beatris slowly pulled a chair from the table and sat down. “Whoever did it was strong. Very strong. The plaster is cracked, and the wall underneath is chipped, like a rock hit it.”

  Very strong. It gave Tabitha an idea, and she gasped, “Are you saying there was a man in there? In my bedchamber?”

  “Not for sure,” Beatris said hastily. “A woman might have done it. My brother builds catapults, so I have seen rocks hit walls, but I don’t know how strong you would have to be to make a mark like that with something as small as … as …” Marjorie and Jenevive both shushed her before she could compare the puppy to a catapult rock, but Pamela cried even harder. Tabitha wondered if she should make some tears too. But she seldom cried, and never in front of other people.

  “I will ask Aime whose turn it was to take Brownie outside this morning,” Beatris declared, standing up and setting her hands on her hips. “We will get to the bottom of this.”

  “Thank you,” Tabitha said, then shut her eyes as if she could not bear thinking about it. Marjorie squeezed her shoulders and called to the servants to bring chamomile tea with lavender. She was so kind. Tabitha could not allow her, or anyone else, to find out what had really happened. Tabitha had to make sure that Aime dismissed one of the chambermaids for this.

  One of the kitchen servants brought the tea. They all quietly sipped some, and Pamela stopped crying. The maids finished cleaning up in Tabitha’s bedchamber and left. A while later, Beatris came back, and her frown of frustration told Tabitha that she had not found anyone who seemed guilty. “I talked to Aime, and together we talked to the chambermaids,” she said as she slumped down next to Pamela on Jenevive’s bed and accepted a cup of tea from Marjorie. “Thanks.”

  “Who was supposed to take Brownie outside?” Jenevive asked in a low voice, glancing at Pamela as if afraid she would start crying again.

  “Little Nille. But she said she had an errand and that Lise was going to do it for her today. But then Lise said that she thought that was tomorrow, not today. Big Nille said that she did not see Brownie when she laid out the sheets, so she thought he was outside.”

  Not Lise. Tabitha was not going to lose the only truly good chambermaid in the castle, and Aime would not dismiss her own daughter anyway. Big Nille was a half-bald hag, and Little Nille was a lazy whiner. Either of them could take the blame. “Big Nille said she did not see Brownie?” she asked, as if making sure she had heard right.

  “He liked to crawl under your bed,” Pamela said softly, then sniffled.

  Tabitha’s irritation at Pamela melted as her words sparked an idea. “He was hiding from her.”

  “From Big Nille?” Beatris scoffed. “She gives him treats.”

  “When people can see,” Tabitha shot back.

  Beatris shook her head. “She loves dogs.”

  “But she hates me. She probably found the wet rug, and she thought I would blame her, and she took it out on my puppy.”

  “She would not do that,” Marjorie murmured, but she did not look certain.

  “She would,” Tabitha said firmly, then paused. If she was too insistent, Beatris might wonder why. “I think she would, if she was angry at Little Nille for not taking Brownie outside.”

  “She does have a temper,” Jenevive pointed out.

  “But she never hits,” Beatris protested. “She just yells when she gets mad.”

  “When people can see,” Tabitha said again.

  Everyone fell silent, and Tabitha hoped the silence would last a while. The longer no one said anything, the more the idea would grow in their minds.

  Eventually Pamela picked up her teacup again, and so did Marjorie and Jenevive. When Marjorie leaned toward the table to pour herself more, the motion roused Beatris, who looked up at Tabitha. “Tabitha, they asked me if you wanted to bury him. Cook said some of your grandfather’s hounds are buried in a meadow past the gate.” She stopped to comfort Pamela, who had started blubbering again.

  “That would be fine,” Tabitha said, keeping her voice low and her head bowed.

  “We will have a funeral,” Marjorie said solemnly.

  After a moment of Pamela’s sniffles, Beatris said, “I could ask Elder Frederic if he would pray with us. I know he did that for Aime’s cat last winter.”

&
nbsp; “No.” Tabitha had never actually believed that a priest could look straight into a person’s heart and see the sins there. But age-spotted old Elder Frederic had known her since before she was old enough to tell a lie, so she was not going to take any risks. “I think it should be just us. The ones who loved little Brownie most.”

  “Yes,” Pamela said, wiping her eyes, and Marjorie and Jenevive made noises of agreement.

  “All right,” Beatris said. She hugged Pamela’s shoulders. “When? This afternoon?”

  Tabitha shook her head. “Tomorrow. I could not do it today.” If anyone could guess the truth, it was her father, so she had to avoid running into him today. She had to stay in her chambers until she had practically convinced herself that Big Nille had done it.

  “I will tell them to bury him near the other dogs,” Beatris said. “And tomorrow we will have the funeral service.”

  “Thank you,” Tabitha murmured.

  Beatris bit her lip. “I still don’t think Big Nille did it.”

  “Then who?” Tabitha asked with an elaborately helpless shrug.

  “I just …” Beatris shook her head, her dark hair escaping her veil in limp strands. She looked down at the floor, her arm still around Pamela’s shoulders.

  “The ambassador will be so upset,” Marjorie murmured.

  “Oh,” Pamela gasped, looking at Tabitha. “Oh, no. How will you tell him? He loved Brownie. What will you say?”

  “I don’t know,” Tabitha admitted. “But I will have no chance to tell him.”

  “Why not?” Pamela asked.

  Tabitha had led into it reluctantly, but deliberately, because she knew she had to tell them before anyone else did. She was sure that all the servants and clerks and guardsmen knew already. “My father told me that the Telgards have declined our proposal.”