Rather than abashed, Natilde seemed pleased at the prospect and waved a hand. “I care not, but I can understand such a thing might reflect poorly on you. I bend to your will, husband. Whatever you find to occupy her, it must be simple. She is a low thing.”
“Understood.” With that, he stepped into the cooler, cleaner air of the hall.
And wondered how he’d force himself to go back in again.
* * *
Nix knew how to do many things. She could dance and speak several languages, able to make charming conversation in all of them with diplomatic skill. She rode with a perfect seat, understood how to feed a village, the political status of all the known kingdoms—the Twelve, Kooncelund and beyond—along with who stood to be an ally or an enemy. Not to mention all those small spells to please and divert the faeries, to ensure continued good luck. Nothing like her mother’s sorcery. She’d never managed that, something of a disappointment in that arena. Which made her all the better to be sent off to be a foreign bride.
She’d trained to be a queen—skills not at all useful in a servant.
Under Mrs. Crocker’s gentle, but insistent questioning, Nix found herself as wanting as the housekeeper clearly did. She dared not risk revealing her true nature. Couldn’t even contemplate what Natilde would visit upon her. Not again. To protect Falada and herself, she must be forever nothing more than the serving maid she appeared to be. One who’d somehow never done a useful chore in her life.
“You cannot cook or sew,” Mrs. Crocker recapped with some exasperation. “You’ve never done laundry, scrubbed a floor or served at dinner. What on earth did you do at your previous home?”
Flailing for an answer, she cast about the warm kitchen, empty of other servants in this lull before supper preparation, hoping for inspiration. Then gasped aloud when her gaze fell on Prince Cavan, darkly imposing, standing in the doorway and staring hard at her, anger in the line of his jaw.
For a panicked moment, she imagined he’d somehow found her out and, flinging herself back in an instinctive need to hide, she nearly toppled over the rude bench, saved only by the rung she’d tucked her feet behind, scraping her shins painfully. Mrs. Crocker followed the direction of her gaze, but seemed unsurprised to see the prince standing there. Or, rather, not taken aback by it.
“Your Highness,” she nodded, but did not rise. “What can I do for you that you could not send for?”
His gaze lingered over Nix, taking her measure in a way she recognized, a way she herself had been taught, to weigh the value of a person, their relative worth and usefulness. But with no glimmer of any other knowledge. He believed her a servant, which meant Natilde would have no reason to make good her threats. Easing her breath, she watched him through her lashes. She’d spotted him before, standing in the tower window, warm light framing his lean body, face shadowed. This close, he looked no less brooding, body lean and lethal as the sword he was reputed to wield so well, gray eyes like granite framed by lashes as black as his coal-dark hair. For his part, he looked away, dismissing her as beneath further notice and turning his attention to the housekeeper.
“My bride requires a maid or two to assist her. I’m sure you know the best choices. Send whoever you choose up along with a hot bath, soap and so forth. Anything she requests, of course.” His words, all graciously chosen, nevertheless seemed barbed with displeasure.
“Of course, Your Highness.” Mrs. Crocker folded her hands around her tea cup. “And for you?”
He hesitated, an almost palpable pause that tempted Nix to glance up, though she managed to tame the impulse. “Have you any of that Branlian whiskey?” he asked quietly.
With a knowing sigh, Mrs. Crocker, heaved herself up. “Don’t be telling your father I gave it to you is all. And don’t drink so much that you can’t do your duty by Princess Natilde, hear?”
“I want it so that I can do it.” He sounded wry, a hint of a laugh behind it.
Fortunately neither he nor Mrs. Crocker appeared to notice Nix’s reflexive start at the sound of her name. Not anymore. Not ever again. Nix studied her hands, fervently wishing to fade into the floor.
“Is she so terrible, then?” Mrs. Crocker sounded as if she gossiped with the royal family on a daily basis. “She looked lovely enough. Does her disposition not match her pretty face? Sorry, Nix, if you have an affection for your mistress and we offend you.”
“I bear no affection for her, no,” Nix whispered. She sensed the prince’s eyes upon her again. Then his bootsteps sounded on the scrubbed stone floor, pausing next to her. His fingers on her chin, raising her face to meet his penetrating stare. He held the bottle of whiskey in his other hand and took a long drink as he studied her. “Your mistress would have had us send you out into the winter.”
It sounded like a dare. A statement he clearly expected her to answer, though he didn’t pose it as a question.
“I should go then,” she managed, though her voice quavered at the prospect. Leave Falada? It would be the severest of blows, but not unexpected. But he did not release her. Instead those strangely hypnotic eyes held her fast, even as he took another swig of whiskey.
“Your people must be heartless, to accept such barbarity. I would no more abandon the infant heir I hope to get on your mistress to a blizzard than have you sent away in this season. You barely made it here in time. Winter is setting in firmly.”
“Nix and I have been discussing what she might do.” Mrs. Crocker had a soothing tone. Why should the prince need soothing and why would the housekeeper be the one to do it? “No one will be sent away.”
“Good.” The prince grunted the word, then took another pull of whiskey, still holding her chin, but gentling his grip, stroking the bones of her jaw, not unlike she’d settle Falada. “What have you hit upon?”
“We’ve yet to decide on the perfect place,” Mrs. Crocker tempered with a diplomacy that surprised Nix. “She’s not been here long and is still recovering from her journeys.”
“Ah.” The prince seemed to recall himself and released her. “Of course. I’ll leave you to your duties and attend to my own.” That wry tone again. He turned away, took a step, then spun back with such liquid grace she imagined he could have run her through before she knew it, had he a sword in his hand. “Your mistress—has she more of that perfume in her belongings?”
Impossible, given her nerves and despair, but Nix nearly laughed at the consternation on his face. Superstitious of bathing, the newly minted Princess Natilde had instead doused herself with the perfume she’d bought from a lady of Duranor they met at an inn, using Nix’s coin. Nix would have warned her from using too much, even owing her only enmity, had the woman been inclined to listen at all. Suppressing the urge to smile at him, she shook her head. “I believe she used it...all. There is none left.”
“This explains a great deal,” he muttered, and drank of the whiskey yet again, gaze lingering on Nix.
“I’ll take that liquor away from you, young buck,” Mrs. Crocker scolded, “lest your whiskey dick leave you unable to perform.”
Her face hot with scandalized shock, Nix goggled at the housekeeper, terrified that the prince would strike her down for her insolence. Instead he laughed, losing the brooding mien and sounding carefree, and suddenly much younger. Even more astonishing, he kissed the woman on the cheek and pinched her ample hip. “Aw, Brenna. Don’t be jealous. You’ll always be my first love.”
Mrs. Crocker actually giggled, then made a swipe for the bottle, but he held it away from her, took one more long pull, then set it in front of Nix. “Here. What was it—Nix? You have the rest. You need some color and spirit. No more cringing like a ghost haunting our kitchens. You’re not the one facing a burdensome fate, after all.”
He’d gone back to mean and wry. Had he been forced into this marriage? Nix had thought him willing all along. At least as willing as she, with the hope they’d build something together. For the first time she considered her dire circumstances with a sense of reprieve. How wo
uld it have been to be the woman waiting upstairs as he sneered about her in the kitchen, fortifying himself for the dreaded duty of divesting her of her virginity? Perhaps he and Princess Natilde deserved each other.
The prince must have read some of it in her face because he shrugged and gave her a self-deprecating twist of his mouth. “Don’t look so shocked, little ghost. With your mistress I shall be all that is gallant and noble. She’ll never guess what’s said of her in the kitchens. You’ll keep my secrets, won’t you?”
Unable to muster an answer, oddly flustered by his trust in her, she nodded. He ran a hand over her hair, then kissed her forehead with the same affection he’d shown Mrs. Crocker. Then, with a wink, slipped the whiskey from her hands and took one more drink before handing it back. “We who are about to fuck, salute you.”
“Oh, go on with you now!” Mrs. Crocker plopped aggrieved fists on her hips, but laughter sparkled in her eyes.
The prince held up his hands as if surrendering and headed to the doorway. Just before exiting, he turned back and pinned Nix with a discomfiting stare. “She likes horses,” he said. “Something in the stables, perhaps.”
3
Prince Cavan left as abruptly as he’d arrived, leaving Nix feeling rather as if she’d been battered by one of the squalls off the ocean. The room felt emptier for the absence of his ferocious and playful presence. How had he known she loved horses?
“I hope you don’t mind his ways,” Mrs. Crocker settled herself at the table again, taking the whiskey and pouring a generous helping in with the cooling tea in both of their mugs. “His Highness spent a great deal of time hanging about my skirts in these kitchens when he was young and still frequents from time to time. With the queen ill for so long, it was a refuge for him. I imagine things are not so informal where you come from.”
Nix had no idea. She’d never set foot in her own castle kitchens and had never thought to. “I don’t mind,” she said.
“I love the prince as well as my own,” Mrs. Crocker added, looking to the doorway as if Cavan still stood there. “Particularly with his mother passing so young. But also because he has a tender heart, more than he ought to have, for his station. He’d never say so, or go against the king and his duty, but this arranged marriage business goes hard on a man like him. Some men can marry without love, but I’m not sure my Cavan is one.”
“Why did he agree then?” Nix asked tentatively, unsure if she wanted to hear the answer. Just as she’d never thought of the kitchens, it had never occurred to her that her husband might hate the thought of her.
“You imagine the nobles have more freedom than we, with all their riches and power.” Mrs. Crocker nodded to herself, not needing Nix to confirm. “Those of us of lower stations may look upon them and envy their fine clothes. Perhaps you imagine if you were Princess Natilde, you could wave your hand and command yourself into a better situation.”
Nix flinched, knowing just how untrue that was. How weak and pitiful she’d been. How easily brutalized and cowed.
It was only a week’s ride from the small port on the coast to Castle Marcellum, the letters from King Wyn said. Queen Isyn, with her failing health and disaster on all fronts, had needed all her guard. Besides Erie held no danger. The messengers confirmed that. With High King Uorsin’s famous peace, she and her waiting woman could travel on horseback through the rough hillside country far more quickly than with an armed guard and necessary supply caravan.
They hadn’t counted on the cold, though. So much more wintery than the isles, and growing more uncomfortable with every league they traveled. Particularly when they found all the streams frozen, hours between inns and they had no water left in their bags.
Desperately thirsty, Nix had asked her waiting woman—a strange, dark-haired woman who’d volunteered to attend her in the foreign land—to break the ice and fill their canteens.
The woman, who’d been growing more abrasive by the day, sneered at her. “Get it yourself, Princess.”
She hadn’t known how to handle that. A servant had never refused her anything. So, she dismounted.
“I’ll tie the horses,” the serving woman offered, sounding meeker, so she’d agreed. Falada wouldn’t wander off, but no one was to know her true identity. She wouldn’t like it, but she’d put up with it to travel to this land where no one believed faeries existed, out of friendship for Nix.
Kneeling on the frozen mud of the bank, soiling her pretty gown, she took a rock and banged a hole in the ice. Not nearly as easy as it looked, but finally she broke through to water, a shock against her bare fingers.
“You’ll want a bigger hole than that,” the waiting woman advised, standing behind her. “You have to dip the canteen in, dummy.”
Shocked, Nix sputtered. “You...you can’t—”
“What, Princess? Mommy isn’t here to help you now.” The words, the ugly expression on the woman’s face, chilled her more than the icy water. Moving slowly under the oppressive sense of looming terror, she worked to make the hole bigger, frantic flapping thoughts beating in her brain.
Hard hands hit her back, sending her sprawling onto the ice, half in the open hole she’d made. The water froze her lungs and stole her breath. She shook her head, trying to clear it. The white cambric with her mother’s blood, the talisman, fell from her bodice and into the black water, swept away under the ice. With a cry, she reached for it, but those same rough hands seized her by the hair, yanking her back and dragging her up the bank. She clawed at the hands, but her fingers were numb, her brain still muzzy from knocking her head. Some ways away, Falada whinnied in anger.
“Here, Princess. Your clothes are all wet. Let me help you out of them.” Rough fingers tore at her laces. The waiting woman had never been all that gentle with her assistance, but she lost all pretense of it, ripping at Nix’s gown, scoring her skin with sharp nails. When Nix tried to push her off, the woman slapped her hard across the face, making her vision darken.
Nix gaped at the woman in shock, cradling her cheek.
“Never been struck in your whole pampered life, have you?” The woman slapped her again, then another time, red mouth curving in cruel pleasure. “You’re just a weak, fearful child and you will kiss my feet when I’m done with you.”
She stripped Nix of the gown, leaving her shivering in a thin silk sheath. “Let me just hang this up for you, Princess.” More carefully than Nix expected, she did, taking it to a nearby tree and hanging the priceless gown from a branch and smoothing it to dry properly. Beyond her, Falada screamed in anger. She had been hard-tied to the tree so she couldn’t break away. Both painful and humiliating.
“Falada!” Nix stood and took a step, the snow biting into her bare feet.
“Don’t worry about her.” The waiting woman returned with a length of rope. “You have lessons to learn. Put your back against that tree.”
“I won’t. Let me and Falada go and I won’t report you.”
“Oh, look at that spirit. I thought you had no spine at all.” The woman grinned. Then punched Nix in the mouth, hard enough to draw blood. “But you are right that you won’t report me. You’ll never say anything about this to anyone. If you convince me, I might let you live.”
She pushed Nix against the tree, easily out-muscling her, forcing her wrists to meet behind and tying them so tightly the coarse hemp dug in with brutal pain. The waiting woman dragged back Nix’s ankles, too, looping the rope around one, then the other and shortening the rope so her thighs were spread.
The smile on the waiting woman’s face when she came around to face Nix, made her cringe. “Please...”
“That’s better.” She stroked Nix’s cheek. “But when you beg me, call me ‘Princess Natilde’.” Nix stared in shock and the woman slapped her, then stroked again. “What do you say?”
“Please, Princess Natilde,” she whispered.
“Better!” The woman smiled cheerfully and nodded, petting her wet, snarled hair. “Now let’s take a look at what King Wyn b
ought for his son.” Pulling out a knife, she cut away the fragile underthings, ignoring Nix’s pleas, deliberately scratching her with the point of the knife, laughing when Nix begged her to stop.
“Look at these pretty tits.” The waiting woman squeezed them roughly. “Are you turned on, my little pet? Your paps are hard.” She twisted Nix’s tender nipples until she screamed. Let her sobbingly recover, then did it again.
“Please, Princess Natilde!” Nix moaned after what felt like hours. Her hands had gone numb from the ropes, her feet the same from the snow. She bled from various cuts and her nipples felt as if they might fall off. “I’ll do anything. Give you anything. Please let me go.”
“You do sound more humble.” The woman tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Will you give me the Prince?”
Nix frowned, confused, then shrieked at the bite of the blade on her breast. “Yes! Yes, Princess Natilde. He’s yours.”
“And you’ll never tell anyone.”
“Never,” Nix agreed over sobs.
“I’m going to make sure of it.” The woman held up the dagger she’d been using to torment Nix, showing her the hilt. “Meet your husband, little virgin.”
She thrust the hilt between Nix’s spread thighs, shoving it into her and rending her maidenhead. It might as well have been the blade end, the way it hurt. But Nix had lost what little fight she’d possessed. She only wept as the hilt raped her.
“Do you like this?” The woman pumped this in and out of her. “It’s much better than your prince would have done. Thank me for it and I’ll stop.”
“Thank you, Princess Natilde,” she cried, unbearably grateful to have the invasion removed.
“Good pet.” She held up the bloodied hilt. “Your virgin blood. You’re worthless now. The one thing that made you valuable is gone. Poof! Like magic. Shall I leave you here? Now that you’re ruined, I’m sure any passersby would be happy to help themselves, even if you aren’t so pretty anymore.” She made a little moue of her mouth. “You might freeze first, though, and I did promise to let you go. If I do, will you be a good little pet?
The Twelve Kingdoms: Heart's Blood Page 2
