Broken Mirrors

by A. F. Dery

  “I am not...I do not believe I am a suitable choice for bonding,” Kesara admitted in nearly a whisper. She had never before said those words aloud, tried not to even think about them.

  Graunt’s bunched up face finally relaxed. “But those harpies believed otherwise?”

  Kesara swallowed hard. Graunt really did know everything. “Um, not exactly...I mean, they thought me suitable-”

  “But you did not share your concerns,” Graunt interrupted dryly. She settled back in her rocking chair with a disconcerting shuffle of wood-brown folds. “You feared what they would do, eh?”

  She said nothing. What was there to say?

  “Will this...unsuitability...of yours be a danger to Milord?” Graunt’s tone was almost casual but her little black eyes could have been made of black lava.

  Kesara swallowed again, her throat impossibly dry. “No, not if...not if he is not a danger to me. And probably not even then.” Her mind returned briefly to the guard that first time she’d met him, clutching his shoulder as he staggered next to the door, and she wrenched it back to Graunt’s shiny little eyes.

  “I believe you,” Graunt said simply, her grayish tongue darting out to wet her lips. “If you lied, I would know it.” And she tapped the side of her head with a long, pointy fingertip. Kesara realized for the first time with horrified fascination that the creature had no fingernails, it was her fingers themselves that tapered to sharp-looking points. “And I believe that whatever your concerns about your so-called suitability, whatever quality time you can give Thane is important. He is what holds this country together, and he has no heir. He will never have. He finds those women who would have him in spite of his flaws for the mere honor of bedding a Lord as repulsive as those women who won’t have him find him. He is not one of those doomed to longevity, but he is not yet an old man, and the times grow...complicated, politically speaking. Eladria needs him to see her through the dark days that are coming. Thane has the High Lord’s favor, and he must not lose it- and won’t lose it, if he can keep him satisfied. That is a hard thing, with his aches and pains and the headaches coming more often, as they have been of late.”

  “Will they kill him?” Kesara asked faintly. She wasn’t certain why the thought troubled her, or why she thought Graunt would know. Perhaps because she seemed to know everything else.

  Graunt shifted a bit in what looked like a shrug. “The headaches, you mean? Possibly. They seem to be related to the amount of stress he is under. That amount only increases with the High Lord’s demands.”

  “Can you tell me about those demands, madame? Or this High Lord? His Lordship mentioned him to me earlier but I do not understand how the politics here work, or who this person is that commands such respect even from the Dread Lord of Eladria?” Kesara tried not to show too much interest, lest Graunt suspect her of being a spy or some such thing. She wasn’t sure whether Graunt had the traditional Eladrian distrust of foreigners, or even considered herself to be an Eladrian, but it never hurt to be careful.

  But Graunt gave a raspy laugh. “What and whether you should know any of that is for His Lordship to decide,” she said a little mockingly. “Far be it from his old Graunt to meddle in his politics...or with his paranoia.”

  Something occurred to Kesara and she asked tentatively, “May I ask, madame, if Graunt is your name or your position?”

  Graunt’s lips spread in the widest grin yet, her sharp, jagged teeth glistening brightly in the firelight. “Both, so far as I’m concerned, little rabbit.”

  And Kesara knew with the return of that leporine moniker that their discussion was at an end.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Lord Malachi slapped down the latest letter from the High Lord onto his desk with a sigh. The man was requesting a meeting, had been politely requesting one every second week like clockwork for the past two months, beginning the very day the Mirror had arrived. Malachi knew he had indebted himself with his acceptance of that gift, but he’d had no idea that the cost would be invoked quite so...promptly. Ordinarily the High Lord seemed to prefer collecting favors the way the ladies of the Court collected jewels, tucking them safely away until a particularly grand one could be chosen and set out to dazzle the throng. He’d expected that he would be allowed some time to forget the nature of his debt before it was thrust back in his face with alacrity, but no, the High Lord clearly wanted something, and even with the Mirror’s presence, Malachi could not bear to be away from Margaret for very long. Even without the pain she had once suffered, she was still unwell. Whatever had been wrong seemed to have remedied itself: there had been no more bleeding, the babe in her belly was clearly very lively, and she could move from the bed to a chair for short periods of time without any change in her condition.

  The Mirror, Elsbeth, was adamant however that she was still experiencing a great deal of discomfort on her lady’s behalf. Malachi would have been suspicious of this, given Margaret’s apparent improvement, but the young woman had changed within mere days from the rosy-cheeked picture of health in his audience chamber to a pale and sickly version of herself, forbearing to eat or speak but little and tension radiating from every pore, as if she held herself in a single piece by willpower alone and that willpower was a pale and fragile thing, easily daunted. She spent her every moment, waking or sleeping, in the corner of Margaret’s bedchamber, often resting on a chaise that had been brought in for the purpose and appearing oblivious to everything around her, her eyes staring off as though into some faraway place, just as they had when she had first met Margaret.

  It was, to put it plainly, creepy. Malachi frowned, wondering how much longer the sorry creature would have to remain with them. He was grateful for Margaret’s comfort and would have paid any price for it, but the sheer pathos of the creature suffering in her bedchamber on her behalf invoked an odd sense of disgust, not only in himself, but, as the weeks wore on, Margaret as well. Eventually she began to keep the curtain round her bed drawn on the side that faced the Mirror, blocking her from easy view, and arranging for the woman to bathe in the adjoining chamber during Margaret’s brief sojourns to the chair by the window so she would not have to look at her.

  “I feel terrible that she’s suffering so for me,” Margaret confided to him one evening in a near whisper, her eyes darting anxiously to the drawn part of the curtain and then back to him. “And even worse that I can’t stand to see it anymore. Her very appearance makes me feel ill, and I know I could not possibly have looked any better myself when it was me feeling it instead. I know I must sound horrible, so ungrateful, but truly, I am not. She is doing such a wonderful thing for me.” She hesitated, chewing her lip nervously before finally asking timidly, “Did you feel that way about me, before she came? When it was I who always looked so?”

  Malachi forced himself to hold her gaze steadily as he pressed her hand to his lips and murmured quietly, “Of course not, my love. It is not at all the same thing. You are my beloved wife, and she is a stranger to my eyes. Your pain caused me nothing but pain, when it was yours.”

  But the truth haunted him in the days that followed as he tried to push the memory of their conversation from his thoughts. For the fact was, it had been difficult not to tire of even his beloved Margaret’s ceaseless suffering. As heroically as she had borne it, as indisputably blameless as she was when it came to its cause, as hard as she had tried not to let it show...of course it had still shown, with the same unrelenting persistence as the fading young woman in the corner of her bedchamber, and after the first couple of months, it had begun to grate on him. Not so sharply or intolerably as he was feeling with the Mirror, but to his everlasting shame, as much as he loved his wife, as much as he longed to be with her every moment, when his desire was granted and he was at her side, it was more a thing to be endured through clenched teeth than anything. It pained him to see her suffer, and to be rendered so thoroughly helpless in coming to his own wife’s aid, he should have been capable of providing for all of her needs. It sickened him
to see her so, reduced to a shade of her former, vibrant self, and to know he was the one at fault for it. Rationally, he knew her sighs, her moans, her involuntary tears were not ploys to invoke sympathy or assign blame or remind him of his powerlessness, but there had been moments in those long days before the Mirror came when he had nearly bit through his lip in a surge of anger or annoyance, thinking just that before he could banish such traitorous musings and reason could reassert itself, instantly feeling disgust and loathing at no one but himself for such foolish and unreasonable reactions, going out of his way to try to atone for these unwilling but, in his mind, most grievous slips, even though she knew nothing of them. Or at least, he hoped fervently that she didn’t.

  For he truly did love her, and when he thought of those dreadful lapses, he felt greater shame than he had for anything in his life. And now, with the Mirror, what had been mere lapses with Margaret were now a perpetual state of being, and seeing it mirrored in his kind-hearted and lovely wife absolved him of none of his guilt in his own eyes; rather, it only seemed to feed his own discontent with the situation, and it grew harder and harder to even politely acknowledge the ghostly presence in the corner, until by the end of the second month of her presence, he did not even bother to, nor to ask after her from anyone else. It was Margaret who made sure the pitiful looking creature was still being fed- for he could not even bear to think of her as a “woman” anymore. It was Margaret who forced herself to try to be hospitable and even converse with the creature from time to time, and he loved her all the more for it, and thought he could never possibly be worthy of such a fine wife.

  For the Mirror was now, more than any gift, an unceasing reminder of his wife’s suffering; of his own powerlessness to assist her; of the High Lord’s bountiful generosity, which even now, persisted in demanding some unknown recompense with atypical regularity; of each and every moment he would far sooner have preferred to forget, when he had felt for his beloved wife echoes of the annoyance and disgust that plagued him unrelentingly whenever he looked at, or thought of, the Mirror with those distant staring eyes, that chalky, drawn, thinning face.

  It was on the heels of a long morning spent tinkering with one of his pet projects without much enthusiasm and being hounded by such thoughts that he went up to see Margaret again, barely suppressing a shudder when he opened her bedchamber door and saw the ashen-faced Mirror moving towards the adjoining washroom as Margaret carefully lowered herself into a chair by the window, the midwife at her elbow. He waited until the door had shut behind the Mirror before letting out a sigh and going up to his wife, kissing her hand before taking the chair next to her.

  “How have you been, my love?” he asked, feeling some of his agitation draining away as he studied her. She still looked paler than usual, but it was astonishing how the absence of pain had seemed to take years away from her, rendering her almost girlish in appearance again, some color back in her cheeks and a bit more weight on her frame.

  She smiled at him and he felt his heart lift. “Much better. Still best to take it carefully, of course, but Lina thinks the danger has passed.”

  Malachi had to think for a moment before he recalled that was the midwife’s name. He looked to her for confirmation with a slightly raised eyebrow.

  “My lady has shown no signs of labor restarting, and no further rushes even with movement,” she said, nodding. “She may be able to tolerate short walks now, but she should always be accompanied, and return to her bed at the first sign of any fatigue.”

  “So she doesn’t need this Mirror creature anymore?” Malachi asked hopefully.

  The midwife hesitated. “I’m not sure how..that...even works,” she said carefully. “But it seems obvious to me my lady must still be experiencing discomfort, even without the early labor, or the Mirror would not be. Isn’t that the way it works, my lord?”

  Malachi sighed. “Yes. That’s how it works. What is causing all this pain?”

  “I’m not entirely certain,” the midwife admitted. “My lady’s condition does admit for some aches and pains, but it ought not be this severe or persistent. At first, I thought perhaps it was the result of the all the stomach sickness she was having. That can be normal, though not usually so bad or lasting for so long. But now it looks like the sickness was being caused by the pain. I can’t explain it, my lord. It could be she has weak bones and the babe is taking from them, or that her very blood isn’t really strong enough for childbearing. I could consult some others of my trade, but I have been afraid to leave my lady long enough to seek answers that may not be known to anyone anyhow.”

  “You...you think something might be wrong with me, then?” Margaret said, her voice ending on a squeak. “I thought...it was just this pregnancy...but it might always be like this? If we had another one day...?”

  “There is time enough to think of that later, my lady,” the midwife said soothingly, patting her shoulder. “As I said, I don’t know know what the trouble actually is. Leave future worries for the future to fret over, that’s what I say.”

  But Malachi could see his wife’s eyes were troubled, though she said no more. He asked the midwife to leave them to themselves, and when she had curtsied and departed without further comment, he took Margaret’s hand, noticing her fingers trembling in his.

  “Margaret, love, don’t worry,” he said gently. But again he felt his helplessness settle like a weight of iron on his chest.

  “I always thought we’d have a big family,” Margaret murmured. He could tell by the way she refused to meet his eyes, the stiff bearing of her shoulders, that she was trying not to cry. “And what if this babe isn’t a boy...or gods forbid, doesn’t live to see the light of day at all? Perhaps you chose poorly in me, husband.”

  Malachi stared at her in astonishment. “I didn’t marry you for breeding stock, Margaret. I love you. If we have no children at all, I will still be perfectly content just to have you at my side. Though an heir would be preferable, we will manage without one if we must. That blighter Eladria plans on it, why can’t we? We could always take in a foundling, if you really want a child so badly. It will be all right, you will see.”

  “But I wanted to have your child, I wanted to give you that much,” Margaret whispered, then turned her face away as the tears started. Malachi scrambled for something to say that might comfort her, but he could think of nothing at all. He couldn’t begin to understand why it would be so important to her, and was afraid of upsetting her even more if he asked. Perhaps he was supposed to feel that way, too, and was letting her down in some new way because he did not.

  “You may still be able to,” he said at last. He reached out and patted her belly gingerly. “You still are expecting this one, aren’t you? And the midwife said she couldn’t say as to the future, didn’t she? We will see, that is all. Please don’t upset yourself, my love. Be strong for the little one we already have, and we will concern ourselves with the rest later.”

  Margaret sniffled, drawing a handkerchief from some unfathomable place in her sleeve and dabbing her face. “You’re right, of course, Edmund. I’m sorry. Tears come so much easier since..well...you know.” She glanced at him long enough to give him a rueful smile.

  He returned it. “I know, Margaret. Be at ease.”

  “I just...” she hesitated, crumpling the handkerchief in her hand. “Let’s not send Elsbeth away so quickly, that’s all. I don’t really want her here anymore either...you know that...but still. You never know. She might be the only way...if we have to...you know...try again.” She bit her lip and finally met his gaze. “I know that sounds terrible,” she admitted in a rush, her voice dropping to a whisper. “It’s just that things have been so hard...even now, without anything going wrong, it’s hard to be hopeful. I’m beginning to forget what the outside of this room even looks like, and every time I look at her, and see what should be me...”

  Her voice trailed off as the washroom door opened.

  Malachi patted her hand. “I understand,” he s
aid quietly, even as his stomach felt like it was dropping to his knees.

  He would have to endure the Mirror awhile longer. Hopefully, if this child was born alive, he could talk his wife into seeing reason about the prospect of future offspring. He rose to his feet, going to kiss his wife’s cheek before giving her hand another pat.

  “We’ll talk again later,” he said gently. “I have to answer some correspondence now.”

  Margaret nodded sadly. “I know why you’re really leaving,” she whispered, with a slight nod directed over his shoulder. The Mirror was hovering in visible uncertainty by the washroom door.

  Malachi choked down an irrational surge of anger at the pitiful looking woman standing there and forced a smile for his wife’s sake. “I will do what I must, for you, my love,” he said softly, and took his leave without another glance at the creature across the room.

  Margaret felt as though her heart was breaking as she watched him leave. He did not move with undue haste, but it was plain to her eyes that he was eager to be gone, now that Elsbeth had reappeared. She couldn’t blame him, but it distressed her greatly that she was causing her own husband to suffer so, for her sake.

  Something inside her murmured at her own selfishness, wishing to keep the poor woman around any longer than strictly necessary for this confinement only, even knowing her husband’s feelings on the subject- whatever he failed to say seemed all too apparent in his eyes, at any rate- but as she felt the little one kicking inside her belly and placed a loving hand over the corresponding ripples, she wondered how her heart would survive such a loss, if there were not even any hope of ever holding a child of hers and Edmund’s in her arms, not ever...

  “Elsbeth,” she said abruptly, trying to distract herself from such dark thoughts, “Have you ever given thought to having children of your own someday? Do Mirrors...well, I assume they must, or how would you be here?”