Courting Darkness

by Robin LaFevers

  Dearest Sybella, I am sorry I have so little to give you. In truth, I feel as if I am sending you into a haystack to hunt for a needle. But if anyone can ferret out fellow daughters of Mortain, it is you.

  Please give dear Ismae a hug for me and know that all is (mostly) well here. I will pray for you and the duchess each and every day.

  Annith

  And just like that, my small nugget of hope for the future and my promises to the council vanish like ashes in the wind.

   Chapter 22

  Genevieve

  always knew the crow feather that would call me into service would not appear in the first year, or even the second, but I was certain it would come. I spent hours wondering whether the messenger would be a man or a woman and what guise they would wear. I had nothing to go by or signs to look for. I knew only that someday, someone would arrive bearing a crow feather, the signal that the convent was calling me into service.

  Today, the first day of Margot’s labor, I wish more than ever that messenger would arrive. There are a thousand other places I would rather be than here in this castle as Margot crosses the threshold into her new life, a threshold she can never uncross.

  The men are lucky. By custom, they are not allowed anywhere near the birthing room. Indeed, the farther away they are, the better. So they have embarked on an extended debauch of hunting and drinking and eating, then hunting some more.

  I, too, make myself scarce. In part because of Margot’s own command for me to stay away, but also to avoid the silent questions in the other attendants’ eyes. I have no wish to explain to them why I am not at my best friend’s side as she begins her grueling ordeal.

  * * *

  On the second day of Margot’s labor, I disappear to the castle dungeon bearing two sacks. When I reach the oubliette, I lower one of the sacks down into the prisoner’s waiting arms. Instead of lingering, I turn to leave.

  “You are not staying?”

  I clench the sack in my hand and keep my voice steady. “I have something else I must do today.”

  “Very well. Thank you for the food.” And that is the end of it. He does not poke or prod or pepper me with more questions.

  I retrace my steps back toward the main landing until I stand in front of my altar. Today, as Margot labors to bring her child into the world, it seems a good time to remind the gods that we are here.

  I open the remaining sack and retrieve a flint to light the candles. Next I remove a piece of the silver birch bark, two small willow twigs fashioned into a cross with a leather tie, one of Margot’s forgotten ribbons, an owl’s feather I found outside, and a broken-off corner of a small loaf of bread. It is hard to know what Saint Camulos requires, but I have decided on an arrowhead I found outside the farrier’s hut. For Saint Salonius I have brought a knucklebone, and for Saint Cissonius, a pinch of salt. Last, I lay the pearl necklace Angoulême gave me in front of Dea Matrona’s candle. It is the most valuable thing I own.

  I sit back on my heels. “Please,” I whisper. “Watch over Margot and her babe.”

  For a brief moment, it feels as if the very fabric of the air around me thins, allowing some indefinable essence of the Nine to reach through and assure me. It is like another forgotten piece of myself falling into place.

  I slip from my knees onto the floor to continue my prayers. As I watch the bright flames of the candles, a deep sense of peace comes over me.

  * * *

  I awake with a start. Unsure where I am, I know only that my heart is racing. I push myself up from the floor and see the altar, then put my hand to my chest in an attempt to calm myself.

  But my heart beats slow and steady, which means it is not my heart that is racing.

  I leap to my feet, pick up my skirts, and run as fast as I can back through the wending hallways, the furious pounding of the heart drawing me to it like a lodestone. I take the stairs two at a time.

  When Bertine’s babe came, she huffed and puffed and strained like an ox trying to pull too great a load. Only instead of pulling, she was pushing. The other women sat around her, holding her up, one of them sitting with her back to Bertine’s, giving her something to push against. In truth, it seemed as if it took all eight of them to bring that babe into the world. When it came, it came in a rush of blood and shouts of pain.

  I can hear the screams before I am halfway up the stairs to the birthing room. That’s when my own heart starts to pound. If Margot had wanted me by her side, she would have sent someone. But she did not. Even so, I must know what is happening.

  By the time I have reached the fourth floor, my breath is coming in ragged rasps, my hands and feet icy cold. The door to the room is ajar, so it is easy enough to stand and observe unnoticed.

  Five women surround the bed, all of them working frantically. Margot herself lies sprawled in the middle, her belly twisted and misshapen, her legs spread open. Blood is everywhere.

  My heart—​or is it Margot’s?—​beats louder, more painfully.

  I want to step farther into the room, but my feet have grown roots, binding me to the floor. The midwife stands near Margot’s shoulder murmuring soft words before placing a thumb on her forehead.

  She is administering last rites.

  No, I want to shout. She is not dying! She is not even one of yours! She is Mortain’s. But I cannot find the words. Even if I could, I am not certain I am allowed to say them.

  Margot’s pale, exhausted face turns to me just then, her eyes flying open so that we are staring at each other. She opens her mouth—​to shout? to call my name?—​but it twists in a grimace as another birthing pain racks her body. It squeezes and squeezes, her back arching as she rides it out. When it recedes, her face relaxes once more, and I wait for her to turn this way again.

  Except she does not.

  A moment later, I am met with a silent raw scream that is so full of anguish, I must grab on to the doorjamb for fear it will knock me over. There is no piece of Margot to reach or hold on to, only pain and fury that comes in a long, hot wave, pouring over me, filling up all the space around me, nearly drowning me in outrage and despair so complete that there is no room for anything else.

  In that same moment her heart simply stops. It is so sudden and unexpected that the room grows dim and distant, and I nearly lose my grip on the door. The beating of my own heart feels naked and alone against my ribs.

  A giant fist wraps itself around every organ in my body and squeezes so tightly that I must double over to draw breath. With Margot’s scream still ringing in my ears, I turn and stumble down the hall like a drunken lord.

  By the time I reach the end of the hallway, my feet are working again and I begin to run. It is the first time I have ever run from anything, but I do not know what else to do and know only that I must be away from here.

  I race down three flights of stairs to the main floor. When I reach the door, I fling it open, but outside it is pouring sheets of rain. The porter grabs my arm, pulling me back inside. “You can’t go out there, my lady!”

  I stare at him blankly, not comprehending. When he slams the door shut against the winds, I realize I am trapped. Trapped inside with Margot and her death and all the things I do not want to face.

  I turn back to the stairs, ignoring the porter’s questions. I go down instead of up, down one flight, then another, until I reach the floor of utter darkness. Of stillness and quiet. Of emptiness. If I can just stand in this emptiness for a moment, I am sure that the maelstrom inside me will cease.

  Breathe, I tell myself. But my arms and legs will not stop shaking, and I cannot draw a full breath.

  I bend over, grabbing my knees, trying to force some air into my lungs. When they do finally work again, instead of drawing in a great gulp of air, a ragged sob escapes, the sound so harsh and raw that I clamp my hand over my mouth so I will not have to hear it again.

  Did I botch the offering to Dea Matrona somehow? Lay the cord in the wrong position? Not sprinkle enough wine on the earth?

/>   Were my thoughts and prayers not sincere enough?

  But they were sincere. As angry as I was, I never once wished for her to die. Surely Dea Matrona knows that.

  But not too easy.

  Those simple words, flippantly said, circle back to me.

  No. I shake my head. There is a world of difference between not too easy and wishing death. A lifetime of difference. Those words cannot be responsible for Margot’s fate, and if they are, it is simply that Matrona was looking for an excuse.

  My bones itch and tremble, eager to be moving again, to escape these thoughts, these feelings.

  I begin pacing the antechamber lit by the lone torch. I walk until I am exhausted, my limbs weak. Only then do I allow myself to stop and rest against the wall.

  But as soon as I close my eyes, the image of Margot lying in a pool of her own blood rises up, seared into my vision.

  The horror of it shoves me from the wall, forcing me to keep moving.

  After a while, I have no idea how long, I find myself standing by the grate, staring down into the oubliette. I want to forget. More than anything right now, I wish to forget.

  Exhaustion sets in, and my legs slowly fold under me. I lean forward, pressing my body against the cold stone floor.

  “Hello?” the prisoner calls softly. “Is it you?” His voice is laced with concern, but I cannot bring myself to answer, afraid of what will come out of my mouth if I dare open it.

  “Are you well?” he whispers now, his voice coming from directly beneath the grate. I lift my hand and place it on the grate so he will see that it is me.

  “Another heart wound?” he asks softly.

  “Yes.” The word bursts from me, more gasp than answer. Say it, I tell myself. You cannot hide from it forever. “She is dead.” My throat closes up, and my mouth gapes open in a silent wail I can no more stop than I could the storm. I stuff my fist into my mouth, determined that no sound will escape.

  I thought I knew death. Understood it. Studied it so that it was familiar to me. But nothing at the convent has prepared me for this—​this pain and desolation and sense of having someone ripped from my heart.

  Especially someone I no longer even liked. Who had earned my animosity and was happy to toss it back in my face. “How can I feel this way about someone I have grown to hate?”

  The prisoner shifts on his straw. When it comes, his deep voice feels like the most solid thing in a world gone mad. “Sometimes,” he says softly, “the death of those we hate is harder to bear than that of those we love.” A sense of some old hidden pain floats up from the oubliette, mingling with mine. “I think once they are dead, all the things that might have been, all the truces that might have been called, all the broken pieces that might have been mended, are now sealed for all time. It is final, this hate.”

  Oh, how he is right. That hate, which should have protected me, does not. The world has been altered in some irrevocable way that I cannot mend or put back together.

  “Breathe.” The prisoner’s voice comes again out of the dark. “A slow, deep breath in, then out.”

  “I’m trying,” I snap, but my words catch on a sob.

  “Just keep trying.” His voice is as patient as the standing stones at the convent. “Your body will remember, even if you cannot. Deep breath in . . . out.” In the silence that follows, I hear him take in a deep breath of his own, then slowly let it out. When he takes the next breath, my own lungs respond, following his lead, filling themselves with air. And slowly, in the darkness, with his words as my guide, I relearn how to breathe in this new, broken world.

   Chapter 23

  Sybella

  ephanie grasps her knife awkwardly, glancing up at me with a hopeful look in her eye. “Like this, my lady?” Her voice is pitched low so as not to wake the girls.

  “No.” I reach out and adjust her grip. Her fingers are stiff, but I manage to coax them into the right position. “Like that.” When I look up, she is blushing. I step back and pretend I haven’t noticed. “Do you remember the strike I showed you the first night?”

  “Yes, my lady.” Her movements are stilted and leaden, as if she has never used those muscles before and her mind must struggle to direct the movement.

  “There you are! You’re getting the feel of it now.”

  A quick knock interrupts us, and the door opens to reveal a young page standing breathless in the doorway. “Beast has returned, my lady. He just rode into the stables.”

  The relief that floods my body is so complete that for a moment I am as boneless as a piece of old rope. “Thank you.” As he takes his leave, I turn back to Tephanie. “It is getting late, and your arms are trembling with fatigue. It is probably a good time for us to stop.”

  “Of course, my lady. That is our reason for stopping. Not because Sir Waroch has returned.” Her eyes gleam with rare mischief that is like watching the sun peek out from behind a cloud. I cannot help but smile. I snag a small linen towel from the back of one of the chairs and toss it at her. “Hush, you.” She smirks happily as she blots her face with the towel.

  Beast is back.

  I return my knife to its sheath, lift my cloak from its hook, and pull it around my shoulders. “You will likely be asleep when I return, so I will see you in the morning.”

  Outside the room, Aeva considers me with an air of suspicion. “Where are you off to at this late hour?”

  My eyebrows shoot up. “Not that it is any of your business, but Sir Waroch has returned, and I wish to know what he learned of my brother.” Then I soften. Since they are guarding my sisters, they deserve the whole truth. “It is not widely known, but Louise is the daughter of Sir Waroch’s beloved late sister. He cares for her welfare as much as I do.”

  Aeva’s calculating look is replaced with one of understanding.

  “Now go inside, sit by the fire, and make yourselves comfortable. I’m sure Tephanie will enjoy the company.”

  After they let themselves into the chamber, it is all I can do not to take the stairs two at a time. Joy and relief beat against my ribs. He is alive! And likely unharmed if he was able to ride.

  The stable yard is dark and nearly deserted except for a handful of posted sentries. A lone lantern draws my eye. Beast is stripped to the waist, washing himself in icy water that spurts from the pump. Yannic works the lever with one hand while holding a bundle of clean, dry clothes in the other.

  Beast cups another handful of water, causing his bulging muscles and sinew to flex. The lantern light reflects off the faint rivulets of water that trail down the myriad scars covering his thickly muscled arms and back. Every time I see those scars, I wonder anew that he has been able to survive so much damage and live. Beast has claimed it is a gift from Saint Camulos himself, that the saint’s followers heal quickly. Perhaps that is so, but I suspect his own iron will and pigheadedness have something to do with it as well.

  Beast stops washing and lifts his head, his gaze going unerringly to mine from clear across the yard. He reaches out to Yannic, who lets go of the pump and hands him a towel. After scrubbing himself dry, he trades the towel for a shirt, tugs it over his head, and begins making his way across the yard.

  I want to launch myself at him, to feel with my skin and bones that he is whole and safe. I want to fuss and cluck at him like a mother hen, which would only embarrass us both, so I clasp my hands firmly behind me. “You’re back.”

  “Don’t sound so disappointed.” Drops of water still cling to his thick, spiky lashes, making his eyes stand out in the torchlight.

  Unable to help myself, I reach out and put my finger on his cheek to wipe away an errant drop of water. “Well, you are large and ugly and take up a lot of room.”

  He steps closer. “Fortunately, you have more than enough beauty for both of us.” He shakes his head. “I deserve you as much as an ox deserves to drink from a crystal goblet.”

  I snort. “Where you see a crystal goblet, the rest of the world sees chipped, cracked earthenware. Trust me,
my beauty is only skin deep. My soul has more lumps and scars than you ever will.”

  “Mayhap that is why I love it so.” There is no more space between us, just the immovable solidness of his chest, the planes of his stomach. “Do you wish to know what hap—”

  I place my fingers upon his lips. “Later. Now it is enough that you are back.”

  “You were worried?” He sounds both pleased and disbelieving.

  Worried is far too small a word to contain the all-consuming fear and dread I felt in the days he was gone. “No, you lummox. I would never worry about someone as hardheaded and stubborn as you.”

  “You are adorable when you lie.” His voice is naught but a deep rumble.

  “I am never adorable.” I place my hands around his neck. “And if you do not kiss me,” I whisper against the side of his jaw, “I will be forced to stab you instead, and that would get blood all over the cobblestones.”

  His warm breath grazes my cheek. “The sweetness of your courtship is impossible to resist.”

  “It is one of my gifts.” I slowly pull his head lower until his lips are close enough for me to reach. When our lips touch, all the fear and worry and shame and anger I have held close for the last three days vanishes.

  Like some great alchemist trick, Beast pulls all of that from me, taking all of it in so that I am left only with joy at his safe return. And wanting. So much wanting. The want curls deep in my belly with velvet hooks. I take fistfuls of his shirt, heat radiating from his skin and the warm, solid muscle beneath it. His hands on me are both heavy with strength and as light as those of a lute player. I want to feel those hands all over my body. To know that he is safe with every inch of my skin. To have there be no more distance between us.