Tale of Elske

by Jan Vermeer

  They walked towards the river, where on this morning two boats were tied up at the dock. The Adelinne asked, “Where are you from, Elske? What people? What land? You must be a foreigner, because the Trastaders do not speak Souther.”

  “I am of the people of the Volkaric,” Elske answered, but seeing that the Norther word meant nothing to her mistress, she risked saying, “I am Wolfer.”

  That halted the Adelinne. She turned to face Elske, placing them face-to-face where they stood between the villa and the river, and no one to overhear their words. The girl looked directly into Elske’s face and her eyes shone with the blue of the sea.

  “You’re the one who split his face open, aren’t you? Don’t deny it. Not if it’s the truth. It was you, wasn’t it? They hid him away, they told tales, but we all knew—and he deserved it, and he was not the only one who needed his vile heart showing on his handsome face. I was but a child two years ago, but if I’d had the chance—and my weapon— Is it true, what he boasted? That he’d had many virgins of Trastad?”

  Elske could not answer what the Adel had done except for the time of their meeting, when he had done nothing, she having forestalled him.

  “Was it you?” her mistress demanded. “Rumor said, it was a man disguised as a maidservant, a Trastader trick to protect their women from the Adels. Rumor said, a girl’s brothers had ambushed the Prince, to revenge her ruin, and there was a great skirmish that left many Trastaders wounded. Rumor said, the girl was a Wolfer and she ripped his face in half with her teeth.”

  Elske could not still the laughter in her throat. “It was only a stone. He was only a coward.”

  “It was you.”

  “Yes, my Lady.” Elske didn’t think this Adelinne, this Fiendly Princess, would fear her, or condemn her; and she was right, for at the acknowledgement the Adelinne smiled, a smile like the warmth of a fire on an icy winter’s night, as heady as the wine-rich autumn air they breathed. “It was you. I never thought I’d meet you, and now I have. You gave me courage, two years ago, Elske, and since then, too. I wished to be you, when I didn’t even know your name.”

  The Adelinne reached her hands out from under the cloak she wore, and removed the gloves she wore. She held her right hand out to Elske, as if they were two merchants closing on a sale, and she bowed her head to Elske, as if they were two swordsmen ending a match, and she looked Elske in the eye, as if they were Wolfer captains, about to risk their lives in battle. The girl took Elske’s naked hand in hers and said, “I give you greeting, Elske. I am Beriel, who will be Queen in the Kingdom.”

  Chapter 9

  THE TWO WALKED ON, DOWN to the river’s edge, Elske once again at her mistress’s shoulder, close enough for speech. In appearances, nothing had changed; but the Adelinne had given Elske her name, and so everything had changed.

  “Beriel,” Elske said, “the Queen that will be.” There was no question about that. Every word the Lady Beriel uttered, and the manner of her speaking, every gesture of her hands and turning of her body, were those of a Queen. Elske knew this, although the Volkking like the rest of his people having no wife, the Volkaric had no Queen. In the Lady Beriel’s high-shouldered way of standing and her refusal to give way, Elske could see what a Queen must be.

  At the river’s edge the soil was moist and the grass grew thick. A salty wind blew against their faces, from the south and the sea. These drew Beriel’s thoughts in their direction, for next she said, “I could take one of these little boats, if I never ventured far from shore. Perhaps. If there were no storm. I’d know Pericol from the water and if I had coins in my purse, I could pay my way through Pericol. Although, it’s never sure what gold will do, when you offer bribes to thieves and pirates,” she said.

  “I have coins,” Elske offered, for she did. Var Kenric had given her some, in gratitude, and Var Jerrol had paid her a servant’s wages; she kept them hidden in her Wolfer boots. “You might take them.”

  “I will not give over my land,” Beriel said, not hearing Elske’s words. “In the north of my Kingdom, the forests stretch up the mountainsides, like dark waves running up snowy sands. That country yields up not only timber but also iron, and there is silver, too, buried deep in the mountains. There are lakes in my northern lands, as full of fish as the sea. A great river runs through the Kingdom, with water as good as wine to drink, and to lie in that river, to swim through it, is as if sleeping through a dreamless night. Can you swim, Elske?”

  “Swim?”

  “I will show you. The fishermen taught me when I was a girl, before my nurse discovered us, and you also must know it. In the south, the soil is black and rich. In the south, all autumn long, apples sweeten on the trees—”

  “I never had an apple until I left the Volkaric.”

  “I am afraid I will never see my land again, Elske.”

  “Why should you not? If you wed no Adel, and you are the Queen that will be?”

  “You know nothing,” Beriel said then, swinging around to face Elske in a Queen’s quick fury. “But I promise you this, I would fight to the death to keep my throne.”

  Elske wondered, “Why should you not become Queen, if it is your throne?”

  “Because they will bring me down, if they can. If they have not already. Speak no more of it,” Beriel commanded.

  Now they walked along the river’s edge, far from the broad front of the villa. Beriel seemed lost in thought from which she would sometimes emerge to ask a question. She asked about the wealth of Trastad and Elske told what she knew. Beriel asked about the tribute paid by Trastad to the Emperor, but Elske knew little of this. “Who is this Emperor?” she asked in return, so Beriel told her, “He rules the east. They say he is as tall as three men, and he never sleeps. They say he makes caskets of the bones of those his armies have slain, to hold his riches. The story goes that he traded his daughter to an alchemist in exchange for the formula for black powder. But nobody has seen this Emperor, and his lands lie so far away even the great ships of Trastad have never crossed the distance, so I don’t lose sleep over him,” Beriel said.

  “Could a man be as tall as three men together?” Elske asked, for if this were false, then all the rest was doubtful.

  “Are you a simple after all?” Beriel asked, but gave no time for an answer.

  This young mistress was like none of the women of Trastad, nor of the Volkaric, either, for all that she was as protected as the one and as fierce as the other. Elske thought, walking at Beriel’s shoulder, that if she were a man, and there were battle, she would rather ride to her death for this Lady than for the Volkking, whose terrible revenges earned him obedience. She would rather face danger for Beriel than for Trastader coins.

  Elske also thought it strange that Beriel could be forced to the Courting Winter, and a second time, too; and she wondered by what means her mistress had been made obedient.

  That question was answered in the quiet evening, when the maidservants had brought in the copper tub for a bath, and given Elske the jug of scented oil to sweeten the hot water they carried in, one following the other, steam rising out of the top of their buckets. When Beriel—her brown hair loose for washing—stepped out of her shift and lifted a foot to step up onto the footstool, Elske saw that the Adelinne was belly-swollen with child.

  Beriel, naked and proud, glared at Elske.

  As she soaped the long, thick hair, and poured jugs of rinsing water through it, Elske understood that Beriel must find a husband to marry, and before the Longest Night, too, for she must be near four moons from her time; if this was the first child she carried, when a woman showed latest and least, she might be nearer. So perhaps she was three moons from the birth?

  Beriel leaned forward and Elske poured rinsing water, which fell over her head and down her slim shoulders.

  But Elske had never heard of marriages performed among the Adeliers while they were still in Trastad.

  “I will wash myself,” Beriel said.

  When Beriel sat in her chair by a s
tove so warm that the occasional drops of water sizzled on its tiles, she told Elske to bathe before calling the maidservants to empty and carry away the tub. Elske obeyed, slipping out of her dress and stockings and shift to climb into the tub, and sit there in its failing warmth before taking up the cloth and soap.

  Beriel watched this, whether Elske permitted it or not.

  “Is it a crime among the Wolfers when a girl has a child before she has a husband, then?” Beriel demanded. “Are such women punished?”

  “No, for women—”

  “Do they exile them? Execute them? In the Kingdom, a royal Princess is so punished. The people do not have so strict a law over them as do the Lords, and the Lords run with a lighter rein than do the members of the royal family. What are you going to do now, Elske?”

  “Soap my hair, my Lady.”

  “No, about me. What will you do about me? My shame is yours, when you serve me and I carry shame with the child, for all that the real shame is someone else’s.”

  When Elske had finished, she climbed out and dried herself on her underskirts. Beriel by then had covered herself with her night shift. “Then there must be no child,” Elske said. It seemed simple enough.

  “You know how to rid me of it?” Beriel’s face was transformed by relief. “Have I wasted all of my coins, and two gold chains and a silver bracelet, too, and the medallion of my mother’s house, given to me by my grandfather—? Have I gone skulking around this islanded city, looking to rid myself of this burden in my belly, have I slept cold and hungry and unguarded—? And all the time you were waiting here for me? What do I do? Drink something? Is it a potion? Is there danger it will kill me? Don’t worry, I’ll drink it, but I’d rather know those dangers I face. Or do you reach inside me, to—?”

  Elske understood. “Ah, no, my Lady—”

  “I should have guessed that the Wolfers—”

  “My Lady, I mean when you have birthed it.”

  Beriel withdrew back into a cold pride. “You said, ‘There must be no child.’ And I believed you, and now I am betrayed.”

  “My Lady, I don’t betray you. A woman can give birth and still have no child on her breast.”

  “Ah.” Beriel nodded her head several times. “I see. But how will you do this, Elske?”

  Elske had no answer ready. “Give me time to consider,” she asked.

  “Take all the time you like,” Beriel granted it, almost gaily, “so long as you are ready when I need you.” But then she covered her face with her hands, as if to hide from her own thoughts. “But if I must birth it, where will I go to hide until it comes? I think I am lost.”

  Elske asked, “Why should you hide yourself away? It is winter and your gowns are heavy. When I have altered the waists, the child will be hidden under the high, full skirts.”

  Beriel uncovered her face, to consider this. She looked down at her belly under the heavy nightgown, and nodded. “Perhaps. Perhaps I may go undiscovered. If I do, and if I live, I’ll have revenge,” she said then. “My brother, who led them to me, my cousins, who raped me, again and again, until they had filled my belly—”

  “Why should they wish to ruin you?” Elske wondered.

  If the sea could hold flame, that would have been the color of Beriel’s eyes. “Because I am the Queen that will be. And my brother—he is the King that wishes to be, although I am the firstborn, and thus named royal heir, by law. But I am also the first female to claim my inheritance through this law. Years before, with my mother’s birth, came a new law that a female might inherit her father’s domain if she were firstborn. But my mother gave up her own claim to her Earldom to marry my father, the King. Neither she nor my father now wish me crowned—despite the law, despite the word of the Priests and the will of my people, despite my own worth and my brother Guerric’s base nature. If they have their way, I will be wed into another country; and now if I do not cooperate in that, then I will be driven from my rightful place by the shame my brother has placed on me. If I live, whatever else, I will return to take these cousins, and this brother, too, if I can lay hands on him, and I will feed them black powder until their bellies are swollen with it, and I will put their heads into the fire so they breathe in flame.”

  She stared at the dark window.

  “I’ll have them screaming, swearing they never meant me ill, begging for mercy. As I never did, when they came at me.”

  Beriel caught her breath and looked back at Elske, as much like a wolf as a woman. “If I do not die in childbirth.” As she said that, Beriel’s voice sank.

  “Why should you die in childbirth?” Elske asked.

  “That is the fortune of women,” Beriel announced.

  Elske was puzzled. “I have been at many births and but few deaths.”

  “You know midwifery?” Beriel stared at her, wordless, shook her head as if amazed, and then laughed, as if she were a girl again and not a ruined woman, her belly filled with the child her rapists left in her. Laughter flowed out of her, until she could ask, “Who are you, Elske? What were you, among the Wolfers?”

  “I was the Death Maiden,” Elske said.

  “Which is?” Beriel asked, her voice now quiet, dangerous.

  Elske explained how the Volkking journeyed into the land of the dead with his treasures around him and the Death Maiden to answer his needs. “That is a terrible custom,” Beriel said, but Elske answered that it was the feeding of infant girls to the wolves that she had learned to think terrible. “The Death Maiden was given food when others went hungry. I was kept clothed and sheltered, for I was good fortune to the Volkking.”

  “You are ignorant,” Beriel told her angrily. “These Wolfers are brutes—albeit straightforward brutes, unlike more civilized men. Oh, but Elske,” Beriel said. “Where would I be if Tamara had not saved you?”

  RAIN FELL HARD THE NEXT morning so they remained in Beriel’s apartments, and Beriel called for needles and threads; for her gowns, she told the housekeeper, had been ill prepared. Elske worked at altering her mistress’s clothing and this occupied them until the midday meal. After that, because the rains had stopped, they walked again, following the tall stone wall that hid the High Councillor’s villa from the road. Eventually, this wall ran in among a woods and became no higher than Elske’s knees. That was what Beriel had been looking for. “That is our way out,” she said quietly. “A way out and back in, if we wish it. So we have the road, now, as well as the river, and the window always ready to be opened. Let them think they have me prisoner, when I am not.”

  That evening, Beriel turned to the matter of Elske’s dress. “You must alter, I think, two of my gowns to fit yourself. I’m taller than you are, and you’re rounder—except now, of course.”

  “But I have my own dresses and the Var supplies aprons.”

  “You don’t understand,” Beriel told her. “Don’t be stupid, Elske, not now. The menservants and maidservants display the wealth of their Adeliers, so a poorly dressed servant bespeaks a poorly filled purse. If I wish to answer any doubts, then my servant must be richly outfitted.”

  So Elske and Beriel took out her several gowns, one after the other, and selected two for Elske to wear when she waited upon her mistress at the feasts and Assemblies. One of the dresses given to Elske was as red as groundberries, the other as green as the leaves of crawling ivy; the fabric cut off from the hems, to shorten them, would make scarves to wrap her hair. The gowns Beriel kept were blue and golden and wine red; some of them were sewn over with golden threads, so that they glittered in the lamplight. “You’ll set me off well,” Beriel told Elske, pleased. “My last maidservant was chap-faced and clumsy and I wished to murder her, at least once each day.”

  Elske was cutting out the stitches that held a skirt to a bodice.

  “I have no use for a stupid servant,” Beriel said. “Although if I had been more clever myself, I might not be in this predicament. Elske, you must not tell anyone about the child,” Beriel said, then. “Whatever I choose to do you must
not speak of it. Although I can’t even think about what to do. Other than find some boy stupid enough to take me for bride, and take him for my husband. And that will make him King, to gainsay my will, to share my high position, to keep me tamed. What other ways have you thought of, Elske? Have you thought of another way than marriage? Another way than death?”

  “I can see two or three,” Elske answered.

  “You can see,” Beriel echoed her. “You are one of those who can always see another way, aren’t you? And that’s a gift, Elske. Do you know what a great gift it is to see a way through, or past? Although, when it’s not your belly or your crown, vision comes easier. But if I am ignorant, must I not also be innocent? Yes, I think I must, and if innocent then guiltless. So can I give the matter over into your hands, Elske?” Beriel asked.

  “Yes, my Lady. Of course.” Let Beriel choose which way and Elske would then work out a plan of events. “The ways are—”

  “Tell me nothing. I wish to know nothing of it,” Beriel said. “You must never tell me what you do, Elske. Give me your word on that.”

  “I give you my word,” Elske said, surprised. She had never been asked for her word before. Before, she had not had a word of her own to give.

  “No, Elske, this is not so light a thing, your word,” Beriel said and stood before Elske, where she sat on the low stool, sewing. Beriel crouched down until their heads were level and reached to put her hand on Elske’s shoulder.

  “Swear to me that, no matter what, you never will reveal to me what has happened to this baby. Swear it,” Beriel insisted.

  “I swear,” said Elske, who had sworn to nothing before in her life.

  “Give me your hand on it,” Beriel insisted, as she stood up again, and held out her right hand. Elske reached up to put her own hand into her mistress’s. “For I know myself,” Beriel said. “Whatever I feel now, I know that I will ask you. I will try to persuade you, order you to obey, force you. You must give me your word, for I trust you more than myself in this.”