Merek narrows his eyes. “Not you, too. It’s a story, Twylla.”
I push my plate away with more force than I mean to, spilling melted butter across the tablecloth. “I didn’t mean the fairy tale version, I meant the history of Tallith. It is real, is it not?” I don’t remember much, but I recall the legend sprang up in part from the truth; the last heir to the throne sickened and the kingdom eventually fell because of it.
“Forgive me,” Merek says immediately, leaning across the table in earnest. “I was rude. You’re right, of course; the history of Tallith says the heir did succumb to some kind of sleeping sickness. And obviously without him to rule and refill the treasury, wars and chaos broke out and destroyed the kingdom. So the stories say.” He drinks from his glass again. “But it’s not a cautionary tale we need to heed,” he adds.
“We’ll never be like Tallith, Twylla. Especially not in terms of riches, I fear. But we’ve survived this long without alchemy; I daresay if we carried on without it we’d be no worse off. I do want what’s best for Lormere, though. I will fight for it.” He looks at me searchingly. “Now I have told you of what I have learned; you must tell me what you have done these past two harvests.”
I pause before answering. “I sang and fulfilled my duties as Daunen.”
“And that was all? Did you learn anything courtly, dancing or to play the harp? Did you learn to read?”
“There was not much time to spare,” I say, and he frowns.
“No, of course not. I assume dealing with traitors is consuming. Luckily there’s no one for you to execute this moon. So far, at least.”
His brow is wrinkled, his jaw clenched with anger or disgust, and my face burns again.
Then he sighs, pushing his own plate away. “Forgive me again.” He lifts the carafe and refreshes his goblet. “What happened to those two children who laughed at dandelion fuzz?” he says softly. “Are they gone forever, do you think?”
I can’t look at him.
After a moment he clicks his fingers again, summoning Lief, who removes both of our plates. I wonder if Lief will chastise me later for not eating the oysters. He returns within moments with more food: squab, fennel, shallots, parsnips, all in a sauce.
Merek does not speak or look at me, instead methodically cutting and eating his meal, sipping from his goblet in between bites, and I follow his example, grateful to have something to do. When he puts down his knife I put down my own, though there’s still food left on the plate.
“Do you wish for me to go?”
“Your Highness?”
“Merek! I have asked you to call me Merek. If you must ration your speech with me, at least use my name when you deign to talk. You’re going to be my wife; call me Merek.”
Halfway through his outburst I hear Lief enter the room and then the door close swiftly behind him as he leaves and I glance at it, unsure of how much he heard before he left.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t know how—”
“How to what? To talk to me? Just talk. Be at ease, please. We’re betrothed, aren’t we? We should talk to each other, confide in each other. Gods—we should take comfort in each other! I know how the role of Daunen works, Twylla. I’ve studied it and I know what it is you do.”
I nod, wishing I had told him to go. I don’t want to talk about this, not with him and not with anyone.
“You hate it,” he says flatly, and I look up. “The executions. I don’t blame you. My mother told me that you do it, and that you don’t like it. She knows.”
I’m surprised. Since Tyrek, I’ve said nothing, given nothing away about it, or so I’d thought.
“I asked her to stop it,” he says. I am stunned by his admission, looking at him with wide eyes. “She won’t,” he continues. “Not until we’re wed. It is one of Daunen’s duties but—” He breaks off, his mouth open as he leans forward and I wait. Then he shakes his head, whatever he was about to say gone. Instead he lifts his glass again. “You mustn’t feel guilt over it. They are traitors. We will have to pass death sentences when we rule.”
“I know,” I say finally. “That’s not it. Not all of it.”
“Then what?”
“Is it a sin?” I ask cautiously. “Isn’t it a sin to take a life, no matter the reason?”
“I don’t understand.”
“When my mother Ate the sins for the old executioner, she had to eat crow. The sin of murder. I don’t want my sister to—” I stop myself, pausing and raising my wineglass.
“You don’t want your sister Eating crow for you,” he says, and I nod.
“I don’t want her to have to do that.” I’m not sure whether I mean the crow or the Eating at all.
It always hurts to talk of Maryl, or to think of her. She was more mine than she was ever my mother’s. Every time a storm raged over our cottage, it would be me she cuddled into, me who held her close as she shook with fear. I tended to the splinters and cuts she suffered. I rubbed her gums with cloves when she was teething. I curled her hair on my fingers so it danced around her face. She was beautiful, my little sister, with white-blonde curls and a sweet smile, a small gap between her two front teeth. She was sunshine and joy and happiness, and I cried for her the whole first year I was at the castle. It’s only because of her that I can bear doing what the queen asks me to do.
“You miss your sister?” Merek says, and I nod. “And your mother?”
I pause as I search for the words I need. “Sin Eating came first, for her. We were mainly left to fend for ourselves. When she wasn’t working, she would retire to her room, in repose, contemplating all the sins she carried.”
I think of villagers forking their fingers at us to avoid ill luck as we passed their homes. I recall the stares of other children as their parents pulled them away from us. I think of the night my mother gave birth to my sister and how the with-woman wouldn’t come to her aid and how I had to help her. I remember blood and the stench of loosened bowels and the way my mother bellowed like a stag at a rut. I see the flesh on her thighs quivering as she squatted and how I held my hands out to catch Maryl as she slipped from my mother’s belly. Mine was the first face she saw; I cleaned the mess from her eyes, wiped the caul from her head. And now I can’t be sure I’d recognize her in a crowd. Because I left her, and no matter that it means food and money going to the house, it also means she’ll be the next Sin Eater. It should have been me, but I left. My mother at least stayed.
“She has a job to do,” I add finally. “Her role is her life.”
He stares at me, his head nodding slowly. “I said we were alike, did I not?”
“You are your mother’s life,” I say to him. “She adores you, you must know that. She lives for you.”
“She certainly tries to live for me,” he says, twisting my words.
“I didn’t mean—”
“I know what you meant.” He lifts his glass again, frowning when he realizes it’s empty. “What is your guard’s name?”
“Lief.”
“Lief,” he calls. Lief opens the door, his eyebrows raised in polite inquiry. “We’re finished with our food. Clear it. Twylla, do you wish for a sweet course?”
I shake my head, embarrassed by the way he spoke to Lief.
“Very well. Remove the plates. Bring more wine.”
I can feel Lief bristle even as he does as he is bid, though Merek seems not to notice. When the wine is replenished and the plates gone, Merek raises his glass again.
“What are your dreams, Twylla?”
“I—I have none. I have all I want.”
“I don’t believe that. You must have some dreams—everyone does.”
“I want … I want to be happy,” I say, realizing at once that it’s a stupid thing to say.
But to my surprise he’s nodding, a smile tugging at his lips. “I want to be happy, too.”
* * *
He doesn’t stay much longer and we don’t speak of death or dreams again. Instead he tells me about his
drawings and the lessons he took as a child. I tell him about my worry for Dorin and he promises to look into it, and to make sure he’s getting the treatment he needs. It’s easier when he talks like this, and if this is how our marriage will be, then I’ll be able to bear it easily. When he has finished his wine he calls for Lief, asking him to send for his guards and for serving staff to remove the table and chairs from my room.
We stand silently, side by side, watching as the maids scurry in to take the glasses, candlesticks, and vase away. Two of Merek’s guards remove the table and chairs, then return and, with Lief aiding them, replace my bureau by the window. When they are done, they turn to Merek.
“Wait outside for me,” he commands, and they leave, Lief trailing behind them.
“Have you enjoyed tonight, Twylla?” he asks.
“I have, Merek,” I say.
“Liar,” he accuses softly. “It will get easier.”
He bows to me and then he is gone, the door standing open with me staring through it, hoping he is right.
Lief appears, entering and pulling back the curtains on my bed. He turns down the sheets and lights the candle on my bedside stool, but his movements are brisk and aggressive.
“Thank you,” I say softly.
Lief grunts. “My lady.”
“Are … are you well?” I ask.
“Perfectly, my lady,” he says stiffly.
I watch him shaking the cover of my bed as if it has insulted him mortally before I speak. “I’m sorry,” I say. “If he seemed rude to you. He’s had servants all his life—they’re invisible to him now.”
It was the wrong thing to say and he shakes his head angrily. “Invisible? I know he’s a prince and I’m a guard, but I am a human being, same as him. We’re no different, if you take away the title.”
I sigh. “Lief, you can’t say that.”
“It’s the least of what I’d like to say,” he mutters. “Forgive me, I know he’s your betrothed.”
“That’s not why you mustn’t say it, Lief. He’s an anointed prince and one day he’ll be king. The queen would be angry if she heard you speak like that.”
“It’s not treason to say someone is an ill-mannered pig,” he says, and I stare at him.
He’s going to get himself killed if he doesn’t learn to keep quiet. Whoever Eats his sins will get a stomachache from all the Guinea pepper they’ll have to consume for his anger. If he is allowed an Eating at all.
“You need to learn to control your temper, Lief.”
“I am controlled.”
“No, you’re not. You called the prince a pig.”
“Well, he is,” he says.
“Lief, if the queen—”
“Her …” he says dismissively and again my mouth falls open.
“Careful, Lief,” I say slowly. “Tread carefully. I told you a lord died because he disobeyed her. I didn’t tell you how he died. She unleashed the dogs on him. She sent him running into the forest and she sent them after him. For the crime of whispering while I was singing. And they tore him apart as we listened. We could hear every scream, every crack of bones, and every wet sound they made. And do you know what she said? She told me to sing louder. To sing over it.”
His mouth opens and then closes, and I can see the bravado leaking from him as he weighs my words.
“And you know what I am. What I can do. Do you want me to lay my hands on you as you sit tied to a chair? Do you want me to take your life on her orders because you’ve committed treason? I executed the only true friend I’ve ever known because he betrayed the throne of Lormere. It could easily be you next if you don’t mind yourself. Your recklessness has to stop. I’m one of them, Lief. I’m going to marry the prince.”
By the time I’m finished, my breath is coming in pants and my skin is flushed head to foot. Lief looks at me as though I’m a monster, and perhaps I am. If that’s what it takes to make him see, then so be it. Without another word he bows and wheels from the room.
Finally it seems I’ve gotten through to Lief, and my reward is that he’s become the guard he should have always been.
“Have you heard anything from Dorin?” I try to rekindle our almost-friendship with the old opening lines. But Lief keeps his back to me, briskly transferring logs from a basket to the pile beside my small fireplace.
“He remains the same. They’re doing what they can, my lady.”
“Has he sent any message?”
“No, my lady.”
“Tell the maids to pass on my best wishes. Tell them to tell him I ask after him.”
“Yes, my lady. Will that be all?” He turns and looks at me blankly and I nod, flinching when he closes the door behind him.
It hurts. What’s worse is that I feel like a hypocrite for telling him to control his anger. I’m angry at my mother, and at the queen, and at Dorin, and at Tyrek. I’m angry at myself. And sometimes I’m even angry at the Gods, because I can’t feel them while I’m trapped inside this room, and I need them. What do they want from me? What am I supposed to learn from this?
“Ours is not to question,” my mother said once. “Dæg gives life where he deems it best, and Næht, in her infinite jealousy, takes it away when she deems fit. They alone know the secrets of the balance we live in. It is a perfect circle. It’s not for us to understand their decisions, only to accept that it’s the Gods’ will.”
I’ve asked their forgiveness time and again for my anger, but I suspect Lief won’t be the only one who will have Guinea pepper Eaten when he passes. And though it pains me, he needed to understand how the court works. I won’t kill another friend. I wouldn’t survive it.
I am standing in my room singing “The Ballad of Lormere” to myself as I dress. My voice sounds strained, and it’s not helped by the black smoke that curls in through my window, another funeral pyre. I don’t know who it’s for, nor why they died, but I pray they have more peace than I’ve known lately. When there is a knock at my door I expect it to be Lief but it’s not. A strange guard stands there, white-faced, the corners of his mouth turned down with disgust as he informs me that the queen has ordered him to come and escort me to her. Hope rises inside me that she’s assigned this new guard to me and that I’m about to win my freedom back, but the look on his face tells me I couldn’t be more wrong; it seems the queen wasn’t lying when she said there was no one else willing to act as my guard. I wonder what this one did, or what he was threatened with, to draw the short straw of guarding me today. Then I realize he is alone and panic grips me—this is why I’ve been summoned to her: Lief has resigned, too. He’s left me here; I pushed him too far; I’ve lost him.
“Where’s my other guard?” I ask shakily.
“Here,” he calls, jogging up the last few steps. “Forgive me, I was sharpening my sword.”
My relief at seeing him there takes me by surprise.
* * *
We walk through the halls, silent but not peaceful. The corridors reek of charred flesh from the pyre, the odor horrifyingly similar to the smell of a pig on a spit. There is something in the air, something sharp that cuts through the stench of cremation, making a scent all its own. The sun is shining, lighting the dust that my dress disturbs on the carpets, and the sky is clear, but it feels as though the castle is holding its breath.
I turn automatically toward the long gallery, but the queen’s guard does not do the same. It happens so quickly that I don’t have time to stop. But Lief is fast, faster than either of us, and he shoves the guard aside with only a fingernail’s grace saving him from contact with me. I slam myself against the wall in shock, knocking the air from my lungs, but the guard draws his sword, pointing it angrily at Lief, whose own face is lit with rage.
“You dare—” is as far as he gets before Lief rounds on him.
“You fool,” Lief hisses. “Do you want to die?”
With a look of terror the guard sheathes his sword, but Lief has not finished his tirade yet, his fists bunched, his arms shaking with the ef
fort of not lashing out.
“What kind of idiot does not know how to escort a lady, particularly this lady? To get to the south tower where the royal solar is, we turn south. Your mistake would have cost you your life had I not saved you. You’d be on the floor, shaking and bleeding through your nose, dying like a poisoned rat.”
The guard looks back and forth between Lief and me. My hands are clenched by my sides, my body flooded with horror, and I cannot catch my breath. It was so fast, I didn’t see it coming.
“Forgive me.” The guard’s voice wavers.
“Why did you not turn?” Lief demands.
Again the guard shakes his head. “I—we do not go to the royal solar today. We go to the Great Hall.”
“Why?” I find my voice, though my throat is taut. “I thought you said the queen wished to see me.”
“She does, my lady. In the Great Hall. All of the court is there.”
“Why?” Lief asks. “And why did you not say so before?”
“I thought you knew,” says the guard, glancing at Lief, who shakes his head with puzzlement. “There is a trial. One of the ladies is charged with treason.”
My stomach drops as I look at Lief. He stares back at me, all formality faded from his gaze. For too long we stare at each other, both confused, both afraid. Then he nods, taking control and returning to my left.
“We’d better go, then,” he says grimly, waiting for the other guard to stand at my right, though now he keeps an embarrassingly large distance between us, especially in contrast to how close Lief stands to me. It strikes me that though Merek can touch me and not be hurt, he takes such pains to never come too near, to never risk contact. Whereas Lief comes dangerously close, sometimes leaving only an inch or two between us.
It’s with further shock that I realize I like it.
* * *
In the Great Hall the long tables have been pushed back and there is no fire burning in the fireplace. The court sits on benches, row after row of pale, waxen faces, all facing the dais where the king, queen, and prince sit on intricately carved chairs. They’re talking amongst themselves, and I watch them as I search for somewhere to sit. The king looks angry; he’s speaking to the queen, who keeps shaking her head. Finally the king turns away from her sharply and she stares at him before turning to look at Merek, who also looks away.
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