by Amy McNulty
Then she did something I didn’t expect. She bent forward and whispered into my ear. “What sets you apart will be their undoing. Don’t hide it.”
I met her eyes in the vanity mirror and opened my mouth to speak, but she silenced me with a pinch to the cheek that was not still stinging from Goncalo’s blow. It brought forth a rush of darker color. “This won’t do,” she said, lightly touching the bruise.
She nodded approvingly to the other castle women and the women made up like playthings. “Send them down,” she said. “I need one of the boys to fix this one first.”
The women did as bidden, exiting and leaving the old woman and me alone in the room, shutting the door behind them.
She met my gaze in the mirror and squeezed my shoulders.
“I’m Livia,” she said quietly.
“My name is Olivière.”
Livia nodded. “A nice strong name. A bit similar to mine, if I may say so.”
“My friends call me Noll,” I said.
Livia shook her head. “Women here do not need friends. They need a leader. They need Olivière.”
To be needed … a leader. The women in my village needed no such thing, so complacent were they in how things were, how they perceived themselves to be in power. They couldn’t even remember the leader they once had, the one who kept their lives so simple and easy.
The door opened just a crack, and a child squeezed his way through the opening.
“Excellent,” said Livia, sweeping forward to greet the small figure. “They sent Ailill.” She shoved the door closed quietly behind him and put her hands on his small shoulders, guiding him over to the vanity.
“Hello,” I said, reaching my arms out to greet him. I hadn’t seen him in so long, and he reminded me anew of Jurij as a boy. He may not have worn a mask, but he was just the same kitten in demeanor.
Ailill’s eyes grew wide, and he buried his face in Livia’s apron.
“He’s a shy one,” explained Livia. “But he’s the most kind-hearted.”
I smiled. “I’ve met him before. At the commune. He healed me after I was whipped.”
Ailill rustled the edge of Livia’s skirt and peeked over. Livia patted him on the back.
“Foolish child,” she said. “Always off to visit his favorite sister.”
I nodded. “Avery. She’s the one who explained to me how things are run here.”
Livia cocked her head. “So the whispers are true. You are an outsider.”
“You didn’t know? Avery said women knew who belonged to the commune.”
Livia freed her skirt from Ailill’s tight grip and gently pushed him forward. “Oh, no. I’ve spent most of my life here in the castle. I’ve never been a looker, but I can keep the place well in order. The present Lordship’s father was the first to take advantage of that.
“Go on and heal her cheek, Ailill. Please.”
Ailill looked cautiously first at Livia and then at me. At last, he extended both palms outward, and I felt that embracing, violet glow seep the sting out of my cheek. When he finished, Ailill stared at me and touched my ear cautiously, bringing some of the glow back to his fingers.
I took his hand in mine and pulled it gently away. “Those don’t need to be healed.” His eyes widened. “Thank you again, Ailill,” I told him. “Avery told me to find you. I’m so glad I did. My name is Noll, by the way. But people here call me Olivière.”
Ailill backed away, knocking into Livia behind him.
“Thank you, child.” She patted his head. “You may go now.”
Ailill nearly tripped over his feet in his rush to the door. It creaked open, and he disappeared, pulling the door closed behind him.
I turned to the vanity to see my unblemished cheek. Livia pinched it, bringing dark color to its surface. I wondered why she didn’t just leave the slap mark.
“You don’t speak to him with reverence,” I said. “Ailill.”
Livia sighed and placed her hands on my shoulders. “Not yet, anyway. It takes a while for the boys to learn to be heartless. For some, like his Lordship Elric, who made his father especially proud as a boy, it takes far less time than for others. Ailill is slower than most. He’s been tormented, and like his father, he had such a fondness for his mother.”
“Avery said she was very beautiful.”
Livia nodded. “She was. She was a frequent ‘guest’ of the castle in her day. All the men were captivated by her, and she bore many children.”
I cocked my head. “Many?”
Livia exerted pressure on my shoulders and directed me to stand. “Very few—only the hardiest—survived long. She bore more daughters than she did sons, and fathers care no more for daughters than they do for livestock. They only take special note of daughters and sisters to decrease the risk of inbreeding.”
That’s disgusting.
We walked across the room, toward the door. “Ailill was the last she bore, and they say she saw something special in him—perhaps a human heart that no other boy could hold on to. It ripped her to pieces when they took him away. Ailill, unlike most boys, was drawn back to his mother. He started sneaking back into the commune for visits almost as soon as he could walk.”
“And none of the men knew?”
We had reached the door now, and Livia spun me around to face her. “It was known but looked at as little more than an annoyance. A weak boy, a boy with too great a heart, a foolish boy—it led to a lot of torment that halted the boy’s tongue. When his father died, he lost all special treatment he had in their shared fondness for that woman. When hearing of his father’s death, His Lordship Elric rode straight into the commune, caught Ailill in the arms of his mother, and ordered her dead by morning. He made Ailill watch it happen.”
I gasped. Livia nodded.
“Be wary how you deal with His Lordship,” she said. “There are few women who do not wish his downfall, but there are none with the courage to play his game and win it. Perhaps you will be different.”
I clenched my jaw. I would do it. I had won before, when I had everything to lose, and I would win again, when we had everything to gain.
I stepped into the lit dining hall, easily willing each foot to move forward. It was a grand spectacle, and I was late to the festivities. Music blared from a corner in which several castle women plucked at their instruments grimly. Men danced, whipping their women partners to and fro. Other men sat around, eating and drinking, their arms wrapped tightly around one or two women. Castle women moved about, serving more food and wine. None of the women had food or drink. No woman had a smile on her face. There wasn’t a man without one.
Except for the lord. He sat without his hat before the fireplace in a chair I recognized immediately. It was the chair in which he dined with me, although I had seen it only once, after the curtain fell, when so much of the color would be drained from the man who sat there now. Three women sat on the ground beside him, looking away. He cradled his cheek with his hand and tapped on the armrest impatiently.
There was no way to blend into the crowd, not with my late entrance, not with the rose in my shorn hair, and not with my exposed ears. Man after man turned from his women and companions to look upon me. The lord had not taken his eyes from the doorway the entire time; his gaze had been locked there before my entrance, as if he had been waiting for me.
He stood, not noticing or caring that he stepped on one of the women’s hands as he did. The music stopped abruptly.
“Well, if it is not Olivière, the mutilated woman whose name I must use to address her. You made it to the celebration at last.”
The men looked at one another and laughed. The lord held a palm out toward me.
Fighting the urge to flee or vomit, I pushed myself forward and let him take my hand. He brought it up to his lips and kissed it. A cold, dry kiss.
He cocked his head slightly. “What did you do to your hair? Short hair to match short ears?”
“What are we celebrating?” I asked, ignoring the questi
on.
Men around the room whispered. A flicker of delight spread across the lord’s face as he pulled my hand outward to the side, wrapping his other hand tightly around my waist. His golden bangle clashed against my wrist like a block of ice. I put my free hand on his shoulder.
“Why, your arrival, Olivière,” he said. “And the end to all of my boredom.”
He swept us both to the center of the room, and the music struck up again. Other men followed suit, dragging their partners to join us. I didn’t let the lord drag me. Instead, I matched each of his steps with an echo, allowing us to dance as two, active and reactive partners.
It didn’t go unnoticed. The lord leered at me, first concerned and then delighted. “You dance like no other, Olivière.”
“You’ll find I’m like no other,” I said.
“That I can see. It is a wonder I did not notice you earlier.” He freed his hand from my waist to run the coarse leather over the rounded edge of my left ear. “But perhaps it took your mutilation for me to notice your beauty.” He gripped my waist again.
It would be mutilation that attracted your interest. I smiled sweetly, my gaze falling toward the lord’s abdomen, where Elgar was sheathed. “The blade becomes you.”
He laughed. “And yet I feel it drawn more to you—a woman, of all things. Would you care to delight me with the tale of how you procured it?”
“I’m afraid it’s not much of a tale to tell. I was born to wield that blade against a heartless monster, and so it found its way to me.”
The delight fell out of the lord’s face, and we stopped dancing. “They say that each lord of this village finds a woman with whom he could not bear to part,” he said. “I always thought it a weakness. I am not sure my mind is altered.”
I made my best attempt at a grin. “But surely you, of all people, would delight in a change from the usual tedium?” I stopped myself from mentioning he would be less bored if he picked up a tool and worked once in a while.
The lord cocked his head. “I am no longer sure. What do you propose?”
His words shot through me like a kick to the stomach. Whatever he had in mind, I couldn’t bear to give it, no matter what opportunities it might afford me. Besides, Elgar wasn’t yet safely back within my grasp, and I felt that I couldn’t properly confront a monster without it.
“The garden,” I said, suddenly thinking of my old sanctuary.
***
Were it not for the red roses that grew in place of the white ones, and the lack of a statue on the fountain, I would have thought I was back within my version of the garden. I could have sat down at the bench and table and awaited specters to bring me playthings and food. Perhaps some paper and ink. A block of wood. Or a game of chess.
The lord pulled me into his arms the moment we stepped onto the garden cobblestones, running his fingers through my hair, his lips over my face. I shuddered and convulsed and wanted to let him continue and also to scream and rip his eyes out all at the same time.
Instead, I put my palms gently on his chest and tried to push some space between us. “Do you enjoy chess, Your Lordship?”
The look of shock and anger on the lord’s face at my gentle shoving was equal only to the joy that appeared now. He let me go and laughed, running a hand through his hair.
“Chess?” he said. “You bring me to the garden to play chess?”
I nodded. The lord’s smile fell a moment, and he cradled his chin with his thumb and index finger.
“How do you know of chess?” he asked.
My heart raced. I’d said it without thinking, but a lifetime of labor wasn’t suited to casual pursuits. That, and I was sure the lord didn’t think a woman’s mind capable of the intellect required to play.
“I taught her.”
Both the lord and I faced the timid voice. It was Ailill, who stepped cautiously from behind a nearby rose bush to lie for me. I had to lift my hand to my face in order to stop my jaw from flying open.
The lord was not pleased. “What are you doing here, brat?”
He yanked Ailill’s elbow, dragging him across the thorns and ripping small tears in his flesh.
“And you taught a woman chess? Are you stupid?” The lord laughed. “Of course you are.”
He dragged Ailill past him, shoving him to the ground, so he could drop his boot on the small of Ailill’s back. “Still looking for Mama, Ailill? Your sisters and the castle hags not enough to comfort you, so now you’re spending time teaching games to deformed women?”
I rushed forward without thinking, collapsing to the floor and tugging on the lord’s boot. “Get off of him!”
His boot lifted without resistance. He looked down at me, still as a statue, his anger transforming to confusion. My heart beat rapidly, and a familiar feeling swept over me.
I wrapped Ailill in my embrace. He looked up at my face, frightened, but I gave him a warm smile and pushed his head against my shoulder. He started chewing his thumbnail.
The lord placed his arms akimbo and laughed. He raised his head and laughed harder still, like the heartless monster I knew him to be.
“Looks like you found a new Mama after all,” he said once his laughter died down.
“I’m not his mother!” I snapped. “I just can’t believe you would treat him so cruelly.”
The lord’s smile vanished. “She is not a sister, is she?”
Ailill looked up slightly and shook his head no. The tension fled from the lord’s body.
“All right, then,” said the lord. “Let us play a game of chess. Ailill can help you.”
***
We sat at the stone table, the chessboard between us. Once again, I played white to his black. Ailill sat tight against my thigh, watching the game intently, occasionally removing the mutilated thumbnail from his mouth to grab my hand and direct it to another piece. His choices were always right, and it was only with his watchful eye and guiding hand that I stood a chance of winning.
And winning I was. The lord’s face soured.
“I tire of this,” he said, when I stood but one or two moves from victory. He knocked his arm across the board, felling the rest of the bone figures and destroying my chances.
“You have a good teacher, Olivière.” He stood and glared at Ailill, who buried his face in my side. “Too good. Although I admit it has been a pleasure playing against an opponent other than my feeble brother. Even if I think you owe more than a few of your small victories to him.”
My heart skipped a beat. “Your brother?”
The lord gave me a look of bemusement. “You did not know?”
My jaw went slack. I couldn’t form the words. “Then you … you ordered your own mother’s death?”
Her own child killed her. I couldn’t believe it. And here I’d been, thinking he was needed in the village, my heart half softening to him, even though I was still so angry with him. Until then, I’d pictured Ailill’s mother as my own. Ailill nudged his face deeper into my side. The lord laughed.
“I did. She was nothing to me. I was rather annoyed by the hold she had over my father and this brat, to tell the truth, and once my father was dead, there was no reason to suffer her any further.”
I choked. I couldn’t find the words to speak the monstrous anger that spread throughout my blood.
“Get off of her,” said the lord coldly. He reached a black-gloved hand into Ailill’s hair and tugged hard. “This one is mine.”
Ailill moaned. His face pulled backward, tears lining his cheeks.
“Let go of him!” I shouted.
The black-gloved hands let go.
Ailill and the lord both stared at me, their faces reflecting the same puzzlement I felt. And then I knew. I knew for sure what my heart had been trying to tell me.
I shot upward. “Give me my sheath and blade!”
The lord unfastened the loop, removed the sheath from his belt, and handed it to me with both hands. I snatched Elgar from him and tied it back around my waist.
“Lord Elric. I want you to listen very carefully. Set all of the women free from the castle and send them to the commune inside of the carriages. Tell the men you tire of them and do not want a single woman here for the rest of the night. Speak to no one of these orders—in fact, forget them as soon as you have followed my instructions. Now go. Go!”
The lord, his face as empty and nearly as pale as a specter’s, turned and left.
I looked down at Ailill and smiled. He breathed heavily, his face flooded with tears as he gazed up at me.
I grabbed his hand gently, but he tore it away.
“I think you should come with me,” I said.
Ailill shook his head and stumbled back toward the rose bush from which he had first appeared in the garden.
I heard a loud ruckus coming from the entryway beyond the garden door. Voices, whispers, screams, and gasps. The thunderous clomping of the hooves of horses from outside.
“Ailill, come with me! Hurry!” I shouted.
Ailill shot out from the rose bush to my side. We joined the bewildered rush of fleeing women, the men still shoving and pulling them this way and that.
As we climbed into a black carriage, I caught a brief glimpse of Ailill’s face in the moonlight. His eyes were wide with terror. He had seen a monster.
“We strike tonight!” I shouted. “Before the rest of the men have time to think about what might happen with all of the women gathered here in the commune.”
I stood before a roaring bonfire in the middle of the commune, still clad in my white gown and black shawl. All of the women and girls of the village crowded in a circle around me. Some still clung to each other, but quite a few more than usual now seemed ready to stand on their own.
Avery stood beside me with a few of the potential rebels. Ailill still wept into the folds of his sister’s skirt, while one of his free hands clutched Livia’s beside him.
