Katrin heard Menders coming slowly up the stairs well after midnight. She crept to the door of her room and opened it.
He looked terrible, weary and angry.
“I’m sorry, Menders,” she said in a tiny voice.
He nodded and went into his room without a word.
***
Katrin heard Menders moving about early next morning. She got out of bed quickly, pulling on her wig and a dressing gown. She would go with him. It was terrible of her not to go to see Eiren, who’d been nursing her mother for so long only to have it end so sadly. She loved Granddad. She had to go.
She began dressing quickly, knowing from the familiar sounds that Menders was hurrying. She pulled on her underwear and began struggling with her corset, lacing it rapidly in front and then twisting it around and pulling the laces tight. She grabbed a dress and dropped it over her head.
It was too tight. She hadn’t bothered to dress for some time now, living in her dressing gown. She’d gained enough weight that she couldn’t get the dress buttoned. She tried another. It was the same.
A desperate hunt through the wardrobe let her know that most of her clothing didn’t fit any more. She tried pulling her corset strings tighter but it didn’t make much difference. She couldn’t button most of her clothing.
You fat, disgusting mess, she thought, finally finding a loose-fitting dress that would fasten. You’ve got to stop just sitting around. This is the end! You’re going to start exercising and doing something about yourself.
She looked up at the mirror and froze.
A frowsy mess of a woman, overweight, wearing a dress that draped so it made her look larger was reflected there. Katrin saw that her face was swollen. She looked older than she was! Her wig wasn’t well groomed. It would take hours to get herself together.
She pulled the dress off and got back into her dressing gown, just in time for Menders to knock rapidly and come in.
“I’m going back to The Shadows,” he said briskly. “I will need to go every day for a while, because Granddad is not well and Eiren needs me. I will come back at night, but it will probably be late.”
“What time?” Katrin heard herself ask. She went cold as Menders glared at her.
“I will be back when I get back! Damn it, Katrin! I have a heartbroken wife who has struggled along for three years without much help from me. Now her father is destroyed because his wife of forty-eight years has just died horribly! I should be staying there with them, but I’m trying to do the best I can for all concerned. I will not leave you alone, but I am going to be away a lot of the time. Hemmett is going for the funeral today but there are plenty of the Men here, as well as Villison and the Guard.”
“I’m afraid!” Katrin cried.
Menders closed his eyes and she saw he was struggling.
Yes, she was afraid. She wanted him to stay with her. She was frightened whenever he left. Some nights she lay in bed, pretending to be asleep, waiting for him to come in and make sure all was well, just to hear him whisper that everything was all right, to sleep well – as he had every night of her life.
“Go,” she said suddenly. “Please. I’m sorry. I got up and tried to come with you this morning, but none of my clothes fit. I can’t button anything. Go and tell Eiren I’m sorry. I’ll write her a letter. And one to Granddad. Please go.”
Menders opened his eyes and looked at her. There was so much love and sorrow in their pale depths that it nearly made her burst out crying.
He came to her and kissed her cheek.
“I’ll be back around midnight,” he said gently. “We’ll talk then.”
He turned quickly and went out of her room, while she collapsed in her chair, weeping.
***
They didn’t talk when Menders came back. He found Katrin sound asleep, reeking of wine, three empty bottles bearing witness to how she had spent the day.
Exhausted by emotion, by the grief of the people he had tried to support and help all day long, he turned away, went to his room, pulled off his clothes and fell into bed, only to find that he couldn’t sleep.
He tossed and turned for a couple of hours, desperate. He was to leave again early in the morning and had to get some rest.
Finally, he knew what was wrong, why he couldn’t sleep.
He rose, threw on his dressing gown and went back to where Katrin was unconscious, sprawled across her bed.
He put a log on the fire, so it would burn until morning. He pulled the covers up over her and set her wig, which had come unmoored from her scalp, on its stand.
“Everything is all right,” he finally whispered. “Sleep well, little princess.”
He doused the light, and stood there for a long time in the darkness, telling himself that tears on his cheeks didn’t mean he was crying.
The Palace, Erdahn, Mordania
8
Who Cares?
B
orsen wrapped his tape measure around Katrin’s waist.
“Yes, a couple of inches more, but you’re hardly ready to run away to join a pack of walruses,” he smiled. He showed the figure to Varnia, who wrote it on the elaborate chart Borsen used for fittings.
“I should just try to lose the weight,” Katrin said glumly.
“You need clothes, Cuz. Let’s dress the body you have now. If you lose weight, we’ll dress the body you have then,” he smiled, ignoring her tone.
“Oh, why bothe’who cares’ again or I’ll throttle you with my tape measure,” Borsen answered cheerfully. “You can’t just lie around up here all the time, wearing a dressing gown that needs a wash – badly.” He wrinkled his nose.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s disgusting. Don’t fence with me, Katrin. I can come back at you all day long. When it comes to being nasty, you’re a downright amateur,” Borsen replied, taking her hip measurement. “This is three inches more. Nothing that drastic. Now the measuring is done. Let’s talk about colors.”
“I don’t care, just make anything.”
Varnia sighed audibly.
“All right, I’ll make everything in puce,” Borsen responded, coiling the tape measure and slipping it into his pocket.
“Fine. Who cares?”
Suddenly Borsen snatched a handful of Katrin’s dressing gown collar in his fist. It was difficult for her to breathe. It was easy to forget just how strong Borsen was.
“I care,” Borsen said brightly. “You can lie around here looking like a wet week and being as appealing as a wet fart for the rest of your days if you want, but you aren’t ever going to say ‘who cares’ to me again, do you hear? I’ve seen real misery, Katrin. Did you know my mother starved to death so that I wouldn’t? Imagine being in a tiny, dirty, icy room in the middle of winter out on the Sea Of Grass. Imagine weather that makes winter at The Shadows look like springtime. Imagine watching your beautiful, loving mother dying because she hasn’t had any food in weeks and the room is freezing. Imagine being six years old, practically blind, helpless, watching that. When you’ve imagined it for a while, get back to me about whether you want to keep saying ‘who cares’ to me.”
He released her collar and picked up his hat. Varnia stood and folded the chart neatly, her face impervious.
“Now, I will come and visit you anytime I damn well please, because I want to,” Borsen continued, sounding very cheerful. “On the day I don’t turn up, you will know that I’ve ceased to care. Before I come back day after tomorrow, I suggest you give some thought to colors and fabrics. Don’t wear that reeking dressing gown again when I have to smell it, or I’ll rip it off you. Good evening.”
He put his hat on, cocked it rakishly and offered his arm to Varnia. They walked over to Menders, who had frozen in the doorway at the tableau of Borsen throttling Katrin with her collar.
“I’ll see you in a couple of days, Uncle,” Borsen said as they went off down the hall.
“Did you see that?” Katrin gasped.
“Yes. I’m starting to thi
nk it’s not a bad idea,” Menders replied, setting down a dinner tray. “Time to eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Go without. It will set the stage for what Borsen told you to imagine,” Menders retorted sharply, following in his nephew’s wake.
***
“Darling, I will come to Erdahn to see you, but I am not going to stay with you at the Palace again,” Eiren said emphatically. “I’m afraid I will strike her if I’m around her much more. If she says ‘who cares’ one more time, I will. I know I will. I’ll stay with Borsen and Stevahn, or at your house across town, but I absolutely will not be around that any longer.”
“I can’t blame you,” Menders sighed. They were at Malvar’s, having dinner away from the Palace and the long streak of misery and misanthropy Katrin had become. He hated to think of the night without Eiren, now that she was free to come to Erdahn more often. He’d so looked forward to it, sleeping with her in his arms, waking beside her to see her smile at him.
“I’ll come to The Shadows more often,” Menders said, wondering just how the hells he was going to manage it. More and more was falling on him. His network of spies and informants was enormous now and spread over every country in the world, apart from the closed nation, Chetkinkev. The information his operatives gathered poured in at an incredible pace now that Rollig devices had been installed in so many places. It all had to be collated and filed after it had been read and cros-referenced with other incoming despatches.
He was also doing what Katrin’s job should have been, governing the country, at least a much as the Council would permit. For all Menders had done to avoid being the power behind the Throne, he had become just that.
It had come home to him one morning when he found himself forging Katrin’s signature on a document to be put into effect that day. Katrin had been unconscious after the previous night’s binge.
“Did I make her weak?” he said aloud.
“No, you didn’t,” Eiren answered fiercely. “Her heritage did. What a family of weak women.”
“But her grandmother wasn’t weak,” Menders said. “‘The Terrible’? She was far from weak. At the end she was ineffectual due to ill health, but she certainly wasn’t weak. Katrin’s mother was a weakling, I’ll give you that. Aidelia wasn’t weak, just stupid and mad.”
“No-one could have been a better father,” Eiren replied defensively, looking at him with eyes full of anguish and love.
“No, but perhaps I should have been a better drill sergeant,” he answered.
“How do you deal with her behavior now?” Eiren asked, catching him by surprise.
“Largely, I tolerate it. It’s better than constantly arguing with her or having her in tears. She can’t help a lot of what she does, Eiren.”
“Can she? How does she behave around Borsen, now that he’s laid down the law?” Eiren responded.
“Quite well,” Menders answered slowly. “She dresses in something clean and she doesn’t say ‘who cares’ or spar with him. Of course, our boy seems very gentle, but he can be downright frightening if he chooses to be.”
“Perhaps you should take an example from him,” Eiren replied. “It’s tragic that she has melancholia, but if she can control her behavior around Borsen, she can control it around you. Perhaps she can learn to live with melancholia, as some people live with chronic illness or a leg missing – or how Kaymar lives with his madness.”
Menders raised his eyebrows, pondering.
***
Several weeks later, Katrin pushed Menders to a crisis point.
He’d been coping with multiple disasters, governmental, in his own network, domestically and with her. Katrin was in a horrific mood, was drinking more heavily than ever, tried to pick a fight with Hemmett and hadn’t been near her bathtub in days.
Menders was worn thin. He was lonely now that Eiren was back at The Shadows and he was tired of contending with behavior he would expect from an early adolescent.
Katrin had sighed ‘who cares’ to almost everything he’d said that morning, as he tried to make her understand what was happening in the government.
“Oh, leave me alone,” she finally hissed at him.
“Katrin, it’s imperative…” he began
“Who cares!”
Menders rose suddenly and raised a hand, ready to slap her across the face. He barely stopped himself.
“Don’t you ever say ‘who cares’ anywhere I can hear you again,” he said in a low, terrible voice. “If you ever do, I will no longer be able to control myself. You are very close to having me walk out of here and never come back, young lady. I stay with you because I love you and want to help you. You will not ever treat me like so much rubbish again.”
Katrin was staring at him, her mouth and eyes like three circles.
“Now, you read those damned documents, and be ready to talk to me about them when I get back here. I’m going down to Borsen’s to see if he and Stevahn want to have lunch with me.” Menders turned on his heel and stamped out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
Suddenly he threw the door open again, went to the dressing table and picked up the bottles of wine she had lined up there. He took them to the window and flung them out. There was a yell from Hemmett below as they smashed into the courtyard.
“Curb your damned drinking too,” Menders added, slamming out again.
***
When he returned, Katrin was wearing one of the new dresses Borsen had made. She still looked dreadful. Overimbibing had done considerable damage to her looks. She was clean, however, and looked alert.
“I’ve read the documents,” she said quietly. “I need you to explain the situation more, because I don’t have enough background to fully understand it.”
“I’ll be glad to,” Menders replied. He sat down and went through the information, explained several issues at length and then answered the few feeble questions she could come up with.
“Should I sign anything?” Katrin finally asked in a small voice.
“No. There is nothing to sign in this matter, but it’s something you must be informed about,” Menders answered briskly, rising. “I have a lot to do this afternoon, so I will see you later.”
“What will I do?” Katrin asked, sounding lost.
Menders turned to her.
“You live in incredible luxury here in this Palace,” he answered. “There’s the entire city of Erdahn right outside. Borsen has a superb business establishment three blocks away which you’ve yet to see. There are shops, museums and galleries all over the place. You aren’t a prisoner here. You can go anywhere you like. The prison is in your mind, Katrin. I gave you accomplishments you can use to amuse yourself. I spent years teaching you music and dancing. I spent years teaching you to read and write. Why in the name of all the gods, now that I’m having to do your job as well as my own, do you expect me to entertain a grown woman of twenty-seven?”
Katrin looked at the floor and nodded. Menders turned away and went to his work.
Saronilla, Samorsa
9
Preparing To Leave
H
emmett swung his duffel bag onto his shoulder to give his arm a break. He’d been gripping the handle too tightly and now his entire arm ached. The boat trip from Mordania to Samorsa had been rough, a storm blowing up from the south. The train journey from the coast seemed to take forever. He would be very glad to stop moving for a while. The street where Luntigré and Flori lived was a welcome sight.
Luntigré’s balcony was a riot of yellow and orange flowers. They twined around all the fancy ironwork and hung almost to the street. The scent of them was reaching him, sparking many happy memories of Flori fashioning crowns from the rambling vine and placing them on the head of anyone who would let her. He’d always let her.
Luntigré had written to Hemmett, asking him to come to her as soon as he could – and he had been glad to comply. After the gloom and silence of The Palace and the dreary days of pointless drill
and guarding, this dizzyingly colourful, sunlit street was just what he needed. Samorsan warmth was what his body craved and the peace and joy of Luntigré’s home would satisfy his soul.
He ran lightly up the stairs to the apartment, gave the door a quick rap with his knuckles and then let himself in.
He knew the moment he saw her. The light that always seemed to emanate from her was diminished, almost quenched. She was thinner, her motions were slower – but her eyes were still lustrous and dancing with love and mischief as she turned toward him.
Hemmett dumped the duffel and took her into his arms, burying his face in her magnificent curling hair.
“Is there still joy?” she whispered, knowing that he knew.
“There will always be joy,” he answered.
***
“It’s in my blood,” Luntigré explained, lying in Hemmett’s arms in her breezy bedroom. “Doctor Franz came last week and took me to several doctors. There are things I can take to support my health for a time but there is no cure for the illness.”
Hemmett was silent, thinking of the recent painful death of Eiren’s mother, who had acted as his grandmother since the day he had arrived at The Shadows.
With that odd prescience she had, Luntigré said, “There will not be pain, my darling. Only increasing weariness and loss of energy until I pass to spirit.”
“I’m glad for that,” he said honestly. Though he had once seen Doctor Franz as a figure of fun when growing up around the jolly man at The Shadows, Hemmett knew now that he was one of the foremost physicians on Eirdon. If he took Luntigré to other doctors, they were as learnéd and skilled. When Franz said there was nothing to be done, that was the case. Protesting and insisting that more doctors be consulted would only cause pain for everyone.
Love and Sacrifice: Book Two of the Prophecy Series Page 67
