Cinder-Ugly

by Laura Strickland

  Rupert told me we’d pose for a wedding portrait later, if we had the opportunity; I could not even imagine it.

  Afterward, we retired to the Queen’s private rooms in the castle for a meal. There, Rupert found waiting for him a formal declaration of war from King Ortis. He read it in dead silence and snorted bitterly. “So he declares our treaty null and void and gives me the option of peaceful surrender. Surrender!”

  He turned and looked at the rest of us, his eyes glowing green as those of an angry cat. “I will show him surrender.”

  The Queen asked through wooden lips, “What will you do?”

  “First I will go draft a reply to this, and then I will celebrate my wedding night. Tomorrow morning we’ll ride out to meet Ortis’s army.”

  Wedding night. I confess, I’d barely let myself go there in my mind.

  Rupert came to me. “Forgive me, my darling. I must go to my secretary and take care of this. I will return just as soon as I can.”

  “I understand.”

  “Do you? God, I hope so.” He turned to Robin, Donella, and his mother in turn. “Please, keep my new wife company. Enjoy your meal. Cindra, those flowers on the table are for you.”

  He caught my fingers and pressed them to his lips. As swiftly as that, he left me.

  ****

  I did not see my bridegroom again until much later, when he came to our chamber, where I awaited him. The room, an enchanting space situated at the top of the highest tower, offered the privacy I craved, or at least an illusion of it. A warm fire burned and a second supper had been set out on a small table. The four-poster bed had been turned down, but I’d not ventured there. Instead, I paced the circular space on pins and needles.

  I wore a gorgeous bed gown with which Donella had presented me, all lilac satin and lace. It failed to make me feel lovely, however, because it revealed far too much—skin and subsequently scars—that I usually kept well hidden. I did not wish Rupert to see them.

  He came at last, quietly, and let himself in. He still wore his wedding suit but had lost the jacket somewhere. The collar of his shirt lay open, and his hair stood all on end as if he’d combed it repeatedly with his fingers.

  I turned to face him, and my heart lurched. All the breath left me in a rush.

  “Thank God! I thought I’d never reach here.” He crossed the floor and took me in his arms.

  And just like that, it all came right. Whatever else happened, whomever he or I might be, whether or not our world fell apart, I was meant to be with this man.

  He kissed me and ran his hands down my back; they trembled. “You look…”

  “Do not say ‘beautiful.’ I’ll never believe you.”

  “Then you’ll need to muzzle me this night, and that would be a terrible sin. I have plans for my lips.”

  I laughed shakily. “Yes?”

  “Oh, yes. I doubt a council of war has ever before been held while its leader thought only about disrobing his wife.”

  “Let me extinguish the lights.”

  “No.”

  “Please, Rupert,” I begged.

  “Cindra, I will not say ‘no’ to you often. Tonight I must. I will need these memories to take with me when I ride out tomorrow.”

  “Must it be tomorrow?” I gasped in dismay.

  “At first light. And I must do my best to leave you with my child before then. Do you understand what that means?”

  “I think so.”

  “This night, for a few hours, we’ll become one. Our hearts will join and our bodies also.”

  “Our hearts have already joined.”

  “Yes. So, my Cindra, you will deny me nothing?”

  I met his eyes, unflinching. “Nothing. But my body—it is not beautiful.” I steeled myself and reached for the ties on my negligee. “I’ll show you.”

  “No, let me. This may be the only opportunity I have to undress my wife.”

  I surrendered myself to his hands. He removed my bed gown slowly, gently, and with inexpressible tenderness. His lips followed everywhere his fingers went—down my neck, across one shoulder, to my breast.

  When he turned me around, he froze. “This…” I heard him choke and knew he’d seen my scars. “Did your mother do this?”

  “Yes. Please, now can we put out the lights?”

  “Wait.” He kissed the scars on my back, the touch of his lips butterfly light. Many of the welts had healed without mark; only those that had cut deepest had left ridges. Feeling his careful caress, I began to weep.

  “No.” He turned me to face him. “There’ll be no tears this night.”

  “No. No tears.” I kissed him and felt some of the pain melt away.

  He swept me up and carried me to the bed. What happened thereafter, I cannot bring myself to describe. Except…I’d never imagined such completeness as found me when we became one in truth. Our hearts beat together, and I clung to him and defied him by weeping after all. But for the first time in my life, they were tears of joy.

  Whether or not he succeeded in giving me his child during that night, I could not tell. I knew the time flew much too quickly and pain beset me when dawn lighted the sky beyond the tower.

  “Husband, do not go. Make the night come over again.”

  “I would, if I could. I don’t want to leave you.” He buried his face in my neck and inhaled my scent. “Be brave for me.”

  Brave. Did he know what he asked? He left me in a public forum, facing the sensation caused by our private wedding, without him at my side. But—but—he went to face something far more terrifying: warfare and the defense of our kingdom. Surely if he had the strength, I must also.

  I wound my arms around him. “Promise me something.”

  “What, love?”

  “That you’ll return. Whatever happens, you’ll come back to me.”

  He withdrew far enough to gaze into my eyes. I saw agony hone the planes of his face before I heard, “I cannot make that promise, Cindra. I wish that I could. But I was born to spend myself for this kingdom—prepared all my life for it. I never expected to find a woman who—”

  “Who?” I prompted, aching.

  “Brings such comfort to my soul. All I can promise, love, is that I will move heaven and earth to come back to you—only my death or capture will prevent it.”

  Death or capture. Panic set my pulse to pounding.

  “And,” he told me, “I will carry you with me every moment.”

  “You must return,” I told him. “For do I not hold your heart in my hand?”

  He made love to me again there in the dawn light, one last time, before we rose and, hand in hand, went out to face the world.

  It didn’t take long for necessity to break in upon the fragile peace we’d forged. He was almost immediately called away to matters of state and to review the troops, mustered in the square down below the castle. I did not so much as see him again for hours. When I did…

  How can I hope to describe that final scene, burned forever into my mind? The plaza overflowed with people—soldiers, Rupert’s advisors, and the clergy standing by ready to give a blessing, along with every citizen who could press his or her way close enough to watch the scene.

  A very public leave-taking. I stood on the lower terrace at Rupert’s side and with Donella at my elbow—I do not think she’d realized Robin would be leaving, also, till he showed up in uniform, looking determined and grim. The Queen stood by, appearing a mere shadow of herself, and Rupert made a speech during which he announced our marriage by introducing me.

  “My new wife, Queen Cindra Octavius. I hope you will all love, venerate, and honor her as I do.”

  Queen. I confess, I had not grasped that detail till he said it. The Queen was the Queen—Dowager Queen now, I supposed. Rupert could not have found anyone more ill-equipped to fill the place.

  But he loved me. The truth of that lay in his gaze that caressed me, the lingering touch of his hands on mine—all we were permitted then. I must do as he asked and be stron
g.

  Not for me, but for him.

  Yet his dearly loved face and form blurred before my eyes as he moved away and, to the sound of cheering, led his troops—nearly every fit man of the kingdom—away. I stood swaying on my feet, praying I would not fall, with the clatter of their departure all around me. Weapons and voices and horses’ hooves on the cobbles. I stood, and everyone with me, till we could see only the dust of their passing on the morning air, and then not even that.

  The hush, among so many people, became uncanny. When at last I withdrew my gaze from the far distance, I realized they all looked to me.

  To me! Oh, God, oh, God.

  I supposed my family must be there somewhere, though I certainly couldn’t locate them. My mother. That made it harder when I sucked in a breath and said, “Pray for them.”

  As if I’d summoned him, the bishop moved forward to my side. I returned to the castle on his arm and heard the citizenry disperse behind me.

  I only hoped none could see the dark pit of terror in my soul.

  Chapter Fourteen

  When flowers were brought to me the next morning, I broke down and wept inconsolably.

  I sat at the breakfast table with Donella and the Queen—Dowager Queen—and a young boy came in carrying a posy of yellow blooms with one red rose at its heart.

  After I mastered my tears, the lad told me, “My father is the florist in town. The King arranged for us to send a bouquet every day so long as the flowers hold out, Your Majesty.”

  So long as they hold out. A stark reminder of how our lives would change during wartime. All the things we took for granted, even I who had not lived in luxury, would fade and die just like these blooms.

  All except his love.

  I thanked the lad, who then ran off. The Dowager looked at me.

  “I must confess, Cindra, I did not know what to think when my son decided so precipitously to marry you. But I am glad he has your love now. And I hope you will soon have good news for us.”

  “I hope so too, Madame.” I looked at the flowers and not at her. “I wish only that he—that all of them—might come home soon.”

  I did not get that wish. At first we received news daily from the front, just as I received flowers. Rupert sent couriers with dispatches over which his ministers pored. Our army had engaged King Ortis almost immediately, on the northwestern border. Fighting was fierce, but they hoped for a swift victory.

  I lived for the arrival of those couriers. As long as Rupert continued to send messages, I knew he lived. I lay in our big bed at night, praying for his safety and reliving the short hours we’d shared together. My heart beat for him.

  And the time dragged far more slowly than chilled honey flowed.

  For all that, Donella’s estimation proved correct. It could not have been three days before my family came calling. Father, considered too old to enlist, had stayed back and taken up duties defending the city. My sisters and mother arrived all clothed in their best, a dazzling display of color and elegance. I had rarely seen them got up so fine, and it stunned me that they would prepare so, just to see me.

  I received them—as I decided I must—in the comfortable chamber where I and the Dowager Queen often sat, which had begun to feel like my own. I’d only shortly before received a report from two of Rupert’s advisors—the dispatches were still spread on the table—when my family was announced.

  I hastily gathered up the papers and thrust them back into the leather portfolio—all but one, most precious. Rupert had written me a note in his own hand, and had drawn a tiny flower next to his name. That one I tucked into my bosom.

  I rose to my feet when my family came in, pulling my emotions around me like armor. If I could have refused to see them, I would have.

  But as Queen, I could not. I’d already received a staggering number of people—tradesmen warning they would soon run out of stock, mothers complaining about the lack of police presence on the street. Mostly I listened. I felt I did so in Rupert’s stead.

  This encounter felt vastly different. My visitors came not to see Rupert but me.

  And I’d forgotten—forgotten in the safety of Rupert’s love—just how beautiful my sisters were. They entered wearing those familiar expressions of superiority and with every golden curl in place. Bethessa wore blue and Nelissa pearl satin, perfection down to their tiny slippers.

  I might have done well to remind myself they could no longer intimidate me. I was now Queen. In truth, they did still intimidate me, an involuntary response that reached to my bone.

  Still, easier to face them than my mother—I could not look at her at all beyond one swift glance that showed me she’d come clad in ruby silk and still wore a veil.

  “Cindra,” one of my sisters cried, and they both flew at me. Horror at finding myself in their embrace had me stepping backward; I held up a hand.

  “Please do not touch me.”

  They paused, barely an arm’s length away, and I added, “Anyway, don’t you mean ‘Cinder-Ugly’?”

  “Do not be that way, Daughter,” said Mother. “We’ve come to make amends.”

  I did look at her then. Through the veil I could see that her face twisted in rage, and I had a sudden memory of the leather strap rising and falling.

  “Amends,” I repeated. “Truly?”

  “Yes, of course. We are your family.”

  She tossed the veil back from her face, and I barely kept from gasping. The lovely woman she’d once been no longer existed. Instead her features looked unnatural, the skin too tight. A crescent-shaped scar sat at each temple. She’d arranged her hair artfully in an attempt to conceal them, but my eye became drawn there anyway.

  I took all this in with one flicker of a glance and looked away again.

  “Ah,” she said, “I can see your shock.”

  You are no longer more beautiful than me. I did not speak the words, though little to my credit I ached to. I wanted to ask her: How does it feel?

  Instead I waved a hand. “Will you sit?”

  They did, scattering among the chairs set close together.

  Mother asked peevishly, “Cindra, why did you not send us word that you were to wed?”

  I focused on the flowers in the vase on the table beside me—blue delphiniums, today’s gift from Rupert. “It was a private ceremony.”

  “But we’re your family,” Nelissa protested.

  I lifted my eyes to her perfect face and encountered blue eyes bright with something that might be spite. “Are you?”

  She shifted in her chair. Before she could speak, Mother rushed in, “Well, certainly. I understand Robin and Donella were there.”

  She was interrupted at that point by Donella herself, who burst into the room, breathless. Donella’s gaze flew to me before she acknowledged her in-laws.

  “La! This is unexpected.”

  Mother replied waspishly, “I fail to see why. Aren’t we expected to visit our daughter and sister—the Queen—and congratulate her on her marriage?”

  I saw then precisely why they had come. I heard Mother say again as once she had, My daughter will be a princess.

  Or a queen. But I did not feel like a queen, and they did not feel like my family.

  Bethessa spoke before anyone else could. “It was a terrible slight for you to exclude us.”

  Donella snorted.

  Mother pressed, “The Prince—King—did not even ask our leave for your hand. It isn’t proper.”

  “King Rupert asked Robin’s permission,” Donella replied, “since Cindra was living beneath our roof. Anyway, she’s of age and needs no one’s permission.”

  Bethessa narrowed her eyes. “I think it’s suspect. Why, I’m betrothed, and my fiancé spoke to Father first.”

  I said the only thing I could. “Congratulations.”

  Bethessa’s face crumpled. “He’s gone off fighting.”

  “Which is, in part, what brings us.” Mother spoke briskly now. “If the battles go badly, or so we hear, the city is l
ikely to come under attack. This castle will then be the safest place to be. We think you should move us in.”

  “In? Here?” I squealed.

  “Indeed. These walls are defensible. I understand there are supplies in case of siege. And as your family, we deserve special consideration.”

  I surged to my feet. “I would like you to leave. Now.”

  “Cindra!” Nelissa breathed.

  Mother arose, and we stood facing one another, nearly of a height. “How dare you dismiss me?”

  “How dare you sue special favors from me?” I returned, furious. I’m not sure I’d ever before felt anger toward her. Fearful, ashamed, cowed, and humiliated, yes, but angry? No.

  Now rage set me to shaking. “You come to me seeking privileges? Shall I offer you the same you offered me beneath your roof?”

  Donella touched my arm. “Cindra…”

  Mother yanked her chin higher. “Whatever lies between us in the past, we are still your family. And this is a crisis. I should think you’d do what’s right.”

  “I shall. With God’s help, I hope to. Our men—those we love—stand in danger. I refuse to countenance the possibility of them falling. But I forget—you don’t know the meaning of love.”

  She stepped forward and lifted her hand to strike me. Donella and Nelissa both hurried to intervene.

  “No, Mother, it is treason,” Nelissa warned.

  Mother’s blue eyes shot sparks. “Ungrateful wretch! Tell me but one thing. How did you entrap him? How trick him into marrying you when my beautiful daughters couldn’t catch his interest?”

  With friendship, laughter, and comfort. But I didn’t speak those words. Instead I walked to the door, hauled it open, and called to the nearest footman, an aged fellow brought out of retirement in the absence of the younger servants.

  “Please show these guests the door.”

  “Cindra,” Bethessa gasped in turn.

  I stood at the sitting room window till they went. Then I fell into Donella’s waiting arms and wept.

  Chapter Fifteen

  We continued to receive sporadic dispatches from the front, which is how we learned the fight went badly. First the loss of one battle, and then another. Our troops slowly gave ground and suffered devastating casualties.