by A. F. Dery
The Mirror sat gingerly on the edge of her chaise as Margaret carefully readjusted herself in her chair to face her better. “My lady, Mirrors are born...well...at random, it seems. Sometimes there is a history, sometimes not. Usually we do not breed. Such a condition would be...difficult, to say the least, given the nature of our calling.”
“Couldn’t you put it aside awhile?” Margaret asked. “Just for a few months, if you wanted?”
A weak smile curved the Mirror’s lips. “No, my lady. We never stop, it’s not even possible once a Mirror attains maturity.”
“What of the men? Are there no male Mirrors who could father children?”
“Occasionally, there will be a male. They make very poor Mirrors, though. Pain is the work of women, my lady. We are made to bear it, as we are made to bear children. Men cannot bear it like we can, even those with the ability to be Mirrors. They rarely survive their training. None in my own lifetime have,” Elsbeth said, with a small, dismissive shrug.
“How...how do you bear the idea? What if you loved someone? Do you love someone, back where you’re from, Elsbeth?” Margaret suddenly clamped her mouth shut, reddening as she realized how inexcusably nosy she was being.
But Elsbeth looked more surprised than offended. “No, certainly not, my lady. My calling is everything to me. There is no time or opportunity for anything, or anyone, which would distract me from it. If I were to develop such feelings for someone else, I would never presume to act on them, certainly not in any way that would bring a child about. As I have never had the hope or expectation of any such occurrence, it is not difficult at all to ‘bear the idea,’ as you put it. It simply is not an option and never has been, and I mourn its loss no more than a bear mourns the fact that it can’t fly like a bird.”
Margaret regarded Elsbeth thoughtfully. “I had no idea you were so pragmatic,” she mused, mostly to herself. “I suppose there is much I don’t know about you, Elsbeth. It is so easy to forget-” and again she clamped shut her mouth.
But Elsbeth smiled tightly. “It is my place to be unobtrusive, my lady. I am only sorry that I cannot be more unobtrusive and still assist you. Ideally, Mirrors should be like those made of glass, merely decorative at best and forgotten entirely at worst.”
“That seems a terribly lonely life,” Margaret frowned. “Don’t you get lonely?”
Elsbeth looked away, her face turning blank. “Lonely,” she echoed distantly. “Who’s to say what loneliness really is? I have all I need. That is all that is important. Any other life is reserved for those in the favor of their gods. I do not ask for more than what I merit.”
Margaret stared at her a moment in pure confusion before shaking herself a little and ringing the bell by her elbow. The midwife was staying in the next nearest bedchamber and would come when she heard it, to help her back to her bed. She thought perhaps she’d had enough of strange Mirrors for one afternoon.
As if plucking the very thought from her lady’s mind, Elsbeth’s tight smile returned. “I’m very sorry, my lady. I’m not trying to be cryptic. It is difficult to remember that people in this part of the world don’t know about my kin. Don’t allow your tender heart to be troubled over me, please. I am content with my calling and the life it demands of me, and most pleased to be of service to you and the High Lord.”
The midwife came in and Margaret barely stopped herself from sighing in relief as she greeted her. As the older woman helped her carefully to her feet, Margaret said to Elsbeth, “And I am most pleased to have your aid, Elsbeth. If there is more we can be doing to be proper hosts to one of your talents, please don’t hesitate to ask.”
Elsbeth did not answer, closing her eyes as Margaret settled back in her bed.
It was three days later that the sickness returned. Once again, Margaret could not eat, and though she felt no pain from the heaving that resulted when she bravely the attempt, the feelings of sickness and exhaustion were entirely and relentlessly evident.
“I don’t understand it, my lord,” the midwife admitted nervously when Malachi questioned her. “I thought it had passed, or perhaps even been the result of the pain she had been suffering.”
Malachi gave a noncommittal grunt, as he inwardly made plans to hire a new midwife. Or midwives, for that matter. He promptly wrote another letter to the High Lord explaining this latest development, hoping that if the man understood, he would cease in the constant and disturbingly polite requests for Malachi’s presence at Court.
Then he spent the afternoon at his wife’s side, watching helplessly as her stomach heaved even with nothing in it, so intensely miserable that she barely even noticed his presence. Sweat beaded her forehead and again her cheeks were white.
He at last left her bedside to stand by the window, cracking it open to let in some fresh air. He felt despair swelling bitterly inside of him, a spreading pool of poison, and struggled against his own self-loathing.
This is my fault, he thought, staring out the window. His hands clenched and unclenched helplessly at his sides. I have allowed this to happen to her. I should have known somehow she would be too delicate for childbearing. I am an old man, what right do I have of the demands of a younger one?
He turned from the window and caught sight of the Mirror, ashen-faced where she sat on the chaise, her entire body rigid and trembling, but her face blank and her eyes as glassy as one of his sentries.
“Is Margaret’s pain worse?” he asked her curtly.
There was a moment of silence before she answered, a moment in which he shamefully contemplated throttling the words out of her, before she finally said in a thin, barely audible voice, “It is worse, yes, my lord. Any movement is hard on her joints in particular, and with the dry heaving, she moves quite a bit.”
“What the hell could be causing this?” he demanded of no one in particular, but to his surprise, after another moment, the Mirror answered.
“I don’t know about the joint pain, my lord, but if the sickness is not caused by her increasing, and there is no plague going through the area, then perhaps she is being poisoned.”
“Poisoned?” Malachi’s lips continued to move without sound after the word had slipped from them in shock. He couldn’t even seem to carve any further words from his brain. So at last he said again, “Poisoned?”
“Any number of poisons could cause this kind of illness, my lord,” the Mirror said, sounding a shade defensive now.
“Yes, but...poison?” Malachi stared at her wide eyed, seeing her anew, much as he had the pig in his audience chamber those months ago. “Who would poison my Margaret, in my own house? Who would dare?”
“Your servants don’t like her,” the Mirror said flatly. “And they have easy access to her food and water each and every day. As does the midwife, for that matter.”
“As do you, for that matter!” Malachi eyebrows knit together, anger beginning to replace his bewilderment.
“Your lady can tell you herself that I spend all my time on this chaise or in the washroom,” the creature answered dryly, looking entirely unperturbed by the implied accusation. “I regret you think so little of my intelligence, if you truly think I would voluntarily point out my own attempt to murder your lady to you, and you had only to ask.”
“The servants don’t dislike her,” Malachi said stonily, opting to ignore her.
“No, they hate her with a burning passion. That’s quite a different thing from ‘dislike.’ She’s afraid of them, you know. She cringes every time she thinks she’s left alone with one of them.”
“And how would you know that? Has she said something to you?” Malachi’s eyes flashed a challenge at her.
“She forgets I’m here, at times,” the Mirror said calmly. “Or else does not see me as a source of aid. Your wife is not much more than a stranger to me, and yet even I can tell that your servants worry her at the best of times and frighten her outright at the worst. Make of it what you will, my lord, but that is what I have observed. It does not mean they are ac
tually trying to harm her, but it is the reality of the situation, just the same.”
Malachi did not fail to notice the implied criticism- that she seemed to think he had not noticed this vital fact about his own wife- and it stung. He felt a surge of anger and was suddenly sure that if Margaret did not need this contemptible creature, she would make an excellent supply of entirely organic fuel for his next generation of sentries.
“My lady is...uneasy, with ruling over people. She is a commoner by birth, and it has been a difficult adjustment for her. Perhaps you are misinterpreting this unease as fear,” Malachi said through clenched teeth.
The Mirror suddenly looked weary, again looking away. “Believe what you will, my lord. I would not presume to argue. My apologies.”
Malachi grimaced but had nothing to say to that. He could deny the possibility to her, but not to himself. He had always been easier with his inventions than with living people; he had thought his perceptiveness as extended to his wife was a different creature entirely. Perhaps not. Had he been wrong all this time? Was it, in fact, fear of very specific people that had been upsetting her, and not discomfort with her new role in life at all?
The thought troubled him greatly. So disturbed was he that he left the room at once, his usual custom of at least kissing Margaret’s brow upon his departure entirely forgotten in the sudden tide of suspicion that was threatening to drown him. He found himself not long thereafter standing in the middle of his own kitchen, not quite remembering ever actually deciding to go there, and not particularly caring.
“You’ll get the manservant,” he told one of the women coldly. There must have been something in his eyes, in his tone of voice, that managed to alarm the usually desultory woman, for she moved with a speed he’d never witnessed in her before, and without her typical put-upon air. The other woman, who appeared to be kneading some sort of dough at the table, her arms powdered white nearly to her elbows in flour, froze with her hands still in mid-punch of the shapeless blob before her, her eyes wide.
Malachi paced before the ovens in his agitation, barely able to hold himself still. When the woman reappeared with the man some minutes later, he rounded on them at once before they’d scarcely passed the doorway, growling, “I will know, and I will know now, what your sentiments are towards my wife. If you are working evil towards her, I will know it, make no mistake! And you, my faithful servants, will know something else entirely.”
“M-my lord?” said the wide-eyed, floury woman.
“I’m ‘your lord,’ now, am I?” Malachi sneered. “I don’t care much for creatures made of flesh and so I have been willing to overlook your lack of courtesy and protocol all these years. Those things have never mattered to me, so long as you kept out of my damned way and did what you were hired to do. Now I see that perhaps I have been sadly mistaken in this regard. Perhaps the external display is in fact necessary in order for you to carry on each day without such barbaric displays of contempt as to trouble my lady wife. I don’t know your opinion of her, and I never cared if it did not interfere with your service. And it interferes if it upsets my lady, and I know, at the least, that you have upset her. So I will hear it from you now, you plodding beasts! What will you say, eh? What will you tell ‘your lord,’ I wonder, that you did not mind demonstrating in action to your lady behind his back?”
The trio stared at him mutely until he hissed, “One of you will answer, or none of you will leave this room in any way recognizable to what you are at this moment. I promise you that.”
It was the woman who was not covered in flour who answered in a rush. “My lord Malachi, it is true we do not care much for the commoner you took as wife. We do not see her as a true lady, but we have been loyal in our service, as we have always been, out of fealty to you. If one of us has upset her, or all of us, we can amend our ways to her satisfaction, you have only to tell us how, my lord.”
“Ah,” said Malachi, and he smiled without showing his teeth. “I understand now. Three more critics of my marriage, under my own roof. I should hardly be surprised. You are disappointed in my choice of bride? That is all?”
“Of course, my lord, and certainly we live with it,” the man volunteered hesitantly. “We just do not think she is suited to the task, that is all. Many, if not most, would not be. It is a weighty thing to thrust on common shoulders- I speak as a common man myself.”
“Oh, indeed, and you care so much for the state of her shoulders,” Malachi said dryly. The smile lingered, but his eyes were hard. “Perhaps if her welfare as my wife mattered so much to you, and you were so concerned over her fitness as my wife, then seeing that her position is not to be altered, you would seek to make her life easier rather than more difficult, and bolster her confidence rather than seeking to chip away at it through whatever nefarious means you servants like to employ with the masters who displease you. What was it with my Lady, I wonder? Overheard remarks in the corridor? Gristle left on the meat at dinner?” The smile abruptly vanished, his voice turning as hard as his eyes. “A special vintage with that dinner, one that you failed to share with your lord as well? Should I be expecting my portion tonight? Because really, I must insist.”
The floury woman began to tremble, and the man, glancing quickly at her, said, “We thought it would please our lady’s appetite, with the difficulties she’s had eating, my lord. We did not withhold it from you for any reason except it is in limited quantity, having been a gift from one of my lordship’s friends.”
Suddenly Malachi frowned. “Gift? What are you about, man?”
But it was the other woman who spoke now, her words tumbling out so quickly that it took a moment for his mind to sort them out. “Yes, my lord, the cider in your cellar. We hoped to tempt your wife’s appetite, given that she’s breeding our heir. We gave it to her for a while when her morning sickness started, and began again when her appetite improved so well recently. There’s very little left now. We thought it would be good for the babe. If you want some, certainly, we will give you what is left. We meant no offense, my lord, truly-”
“Cider?” Malachi interrupted, bemused. “Who in hell gave me cider?”
But in his question was his answer. He only knew one fiend who lived in a place he had often called “hell,” both in his own mind and to the fiend himself, more glibly to the latter than the former, but still.
“Eladria,” he spat the name like an epithet.
“Y-yes, my lord, Lord Eladria gifted it to you at the announcement of your betrothal,” the man said, with a quick sidelong look at the woman next to him. She nodded slightly, as if in confirmation.
Malachi was silent for a long time, staring immobile into the fire that flickered behind the oven’s grate while his servants watched him warily, with ever growing unease. At last he said so abruptly that they each jumped a bit as though one person, “If there are any other ‘gifts’ from that filth anywhere on these grounds, they will be brought to my workshop at once for examination, including what is left of that cider. None whatever is to be served to my lady, it should go without saying, and in the unlikely event any other ‘gifts’ should arrive in future, they should be brought to me at once, understand?”
The three servants immediately indicated their assent as Malachi left the room with the alacrity of renewed purpose.
He had another letter to write, and three servants to replace.
Margaret awakened early the next morning with a pounding heart to match her head. She rubbed at her eyes and slowly sat up, wary of her usually lurching stomach.
But this time, unlike mornings past, no lurching came. Her belly felt calm- well, calm apart from the child within, who seemed to be writhing about with eight arms and legs as he bounced around. She patted the bulge beneath her blankets affectionately, her relief at the lack of nausea giving way to new anxiety, this time about her husband. She’d not seen him since sometime the day before, which was unusual for him, and now that she didn’t feel like she was about to die, she worried about his abs
ence.
“How are you feeling, dear?” the midwife asked from the chair next to her bed. Edmund’s chair, thought Margaret uneasily.
“Better,” she admitted. “A lot better.”
“That’s wonderful!” the midwife smiled warmly at her. “Perhaps you might try a bite of something...?”
Margaret barely suppressed an impolite groan, but to her surprise, she actually did feel a little hungry. The midwife motioned to someone beyond the partially drawn curtains of Margaret’s bed, and to her abject shock, there was a total stranger bearing her breakfast tray, a tall, big-boned woman with her hair in a long, graying braid who nearly dropped the thing in her haste to curtsy when her eyes met Margaret’s startled ones.
“G-good morning, milady” the woman stammered, quickly steadying the tray and bobbing a bit again at the knees. “I’ll admit, I’m just that surprised, a lady being awake at such an hour! But Mother here said you’d be up by now, and so you are!”
The midwife looked faintly smug but forbore to comment.
“Good morning,” Margaret said uncertainly. “Um, forgive me, but...who are you?”
“My name’s Nora, milady,” the woman said with another bob as she carefully set the tray across what was left of Margaret’s lap. “Naught to forgive, I was only hired on but yesterday. By his lordship himself,” she added, an unmistakable note of pride creeping into her voice and a faint flush into her cheeks.
Margaret stared at her, her eyes wide with disbelief. “Ed- I mean, Lord Malachi hired you?”
“Yes, milady, the man himself,” the woman grinned toothily at her. “Me and my sister both. And a couple other folk from town.”
“Um, what do the...other...servants think about that?” Margaret asked, trying to sound nonchalant, but inside, she was thinking, They’re going to eat this one for dinner. Possibly raw.
