The Twelve Kingdoms: Heart's Blood

by Jeffe Kennedy

  For her part, she fell on the food with gusto—and unfortunate manners. He dispatched his share quickly, all the while calculating how long until he could gracefully withdraw. Not for hours yet, certainly, as the castle denizens expected him to service the new princess numerous times. Fortunately custom also decreed that they keep separate sleeping chambers going forward.

  Natilde had changed into an ivory velvet robe, which also seemed to be too small, her generous breasts straining against the low neckline. Catching his look and mistaking it for one of interest, Natilde smiled at him across the narrow table, and licked sauce from her fingers. It should have been appealing, but was somehow... animal. Falling woefully short of the sensual scene he’d so foolishly imagined.

  “Ready for another round of rutting, husband?”

  He caught himself before he frowned at her for the crude question, but she seemed to catch his discomfort, raising her brows in mockery. Nix had blushed, delicate pink infusing the winter white of her cheeks, when he and Brenna teased each other in the kitchen, as if truly scandalized. She couldn’t be an innocent, no matter how young she looked. Servants lived earthier lives and learned rough language early. But a servant girl wasn’t a princess, no matter how dainty she appeared. Had Brenna found a place for her? He squelched the impulse to go find out. He’d abandoned his bride once. Twice would begin to look suspicious.

  “I merely noticed that your robe seems small. Is it comfortable?”

  Natilde laughed and clasped her breasts, lifting them lewdly. “These things just spill out of everything! But you bring up a good point. I need new clothes, lots of them.”

  “I’ll ask the seamstresses to attend you tomorrow.”

  “Good. And I need the jewels that were sent ahead.”

  Now Cavan did frown. “They were part of your dowry and I believe King Wyn had everything catalogued and added to the royal treasury.”

  Natilde’s eyes narrowed, going poison green in her displeasure. “They’re mine.”

  Had his princess been raised with no sense of responsibility or duty to their combined people? “Natilde,” he said carefully, feeling his way through the diplomatic bog he hadn’t expected from his wife, “you understand the terms of the alliance, yes?”

  “Of course!” She drank her wine and poured more. “I’m not an idiot, you know.”

  “The thought never crossed my mind. So you understand that the dowry—everything your mother sent—is earmarked to fund what we need to do to consolidate our two kingdoms.” And to pay High King Uorsin’s extortionate tithe to allow the merging, even though it added to his realm.

  “It can’t be that expensive,” she replied airily, waving a hand. “Keep the gold cups and silver trinkets. I just want my jewels.”

  “It will be expensive. Your people have suffered great privations from the flood-ruined crops and resulting plagues. We will have to move armies to shore up your defenses against Kooncelund’s aggression. Possibly even hire mercenaries. We have the experience and ability to do what needs to be done, but your dowry will be funding it. We need every piece and then some. I thought you knew all of this.”

  Her mouth took a mean slant. “You just don’t want me to be happy. And here it is, my wedding night. Has any bridegroom been more cruel?”

  Cavan fought down his impatience, his burgeoning distaste. Instead of growing fonder in her company, he only seemed to dislike her more. At that moment, he’d have traded her “pleasant visage” for the character of a true queen, who would do true credit to the throne. How could this have gone so dramatically wrong? And now they were stuck together, the marriage and alliance sealed. It made him ill to contemplate an endless future of this.

  “Cat got your tongue?” Natilde jibed, wetting her lush lips. “I hope not because I plan to have you use it on me.”

  “Forgive me,” he said abruptly and stood. What in the name of Danu was he doing? “I’m afraid something in the food has unsettled my gut. Please excuse me.”

  With that weak excuse, and before she could muster past her shock to reply, he strode out of the room. The servants in the anteroom gaped at him with the same astonishment, their expressions so a reflection of Natilde’s that he wondered how he looked. Unable to find it in himself to smooth his expression, he offered them the same explanation, then bolted for his own rooms, sending away his valet and barring the door, as if truly ill, indeed.

  5

  The next morning, gossip everywhere had it that Prince Cavan had taken ill and had been forced to retire alone. Nix had always known the servants talked and news spread among them like fire in late summer grass, but this was her first time to be part of it. It nearly shocked her, how much everyone knew of the supposedly intimate events in the bridal chamber. The marriage had been consummated, so word was that no insult had been given to Princess Natilde, the king and queen were pleased to have the alliance sealed and Cavan’s illness was expected to be minor and quickly gone.

  The prince’s sudden indisposition had prevented more than one bedding and Natilde had been vocal in her unhappiness to her new maids. Several sly whispers hinted that Cavan had looked more angry than ill and many speculated he did not care for his new bride.

  Nix thought of the laughing, wry man who’d chugged whiskey in the kitchen while teasing her, how he’d touched her with concern, and hoped it hadn’t been overindulging that made him sick. More, she worried that Natilde had done something to him, in her sly cruelty. Perhaps she’d found a way to hurt and deceive him, also. He was a man, much bigger and stronger than Nix, but Natilde loomed large in her mind, radiating menace. It pained her stomach to remember what had happened by the stream, how the woman had raped her with the dagger hilt while she described how the prince would fuck her instead, licking Nix’s tears and making her say how much she liked it.

  But she hadn’t. It had made her ill and, though it made no sense, she worried something of the same had happened to Cavan.

  She had no choice, though, but to keep her head down and concentrate on the task she’d been given. Conrad, no less supercilious than the night before, but pleased that the geese had caused no trouble, showed her how to open the outer doors for the birds to trot happily out. Though the sun hadn’t quite broken the horizon, despite the late hour, the sky had cleared and held the promise of blue when it lightened fully. The sun set earlier here and rose later than at home. Another reminder of her changed circumstances, as if she could forget. But a night of sleep with her pains eased by Mrs. Crocker’s balm and without the fear of further torture put Nix in a better, if not exactly peaceful, then less terrorized frame of mind. Despite the crisp cold of the air, it felt good to be walking with Conrad, following the geese on their familiar path, out the side gate, through an archway in the outer walls, and past the village.

  The road streamed with activity that the geese serenely ignored, self-importantly waddling along on the verge, certain of their direction. Wagons laden with food and other supplies passed them going the other direction, carrying their burdens to the castle or the village market. As promised, Erie enjoyed far greater prosperity than her ravaged isles, even with the winter so bitter. If Cavan made as good a king as his father did, her people would be far better off for this alliance that would rescue them from the long decline caused by natural disasters, an aggressive neighbor and an ailing ruler. A warming thought in the wasteland of her heart.

  The geese turned off at a path and followed it down through a snow-covered pasture to a pond frozen at the edges, with open water at the center. They took to the water with enthusiasm, flapping their clipped wings and seeming not to care that they skidded across ice to get to it, paddling around and diving under without a flinch for the freezing temperatures. Nix shivered for them, remembering the chill of the stream and her sodden dress, soaking her to the bone. Despite the layers of clothes she’d donned, that ice never seemed to leave her blood.

  Conrad patrolled the perimeter of the lake, reminding her of the geese with his puffed
-up strutting. He carried a staff—to fight off any wolves that might attack he told her—and spent a great deal of time staring suspiciously into the woods, then looking to see if Nix had noticed. What she mainly discovered was that the winter day, even with the bright sunlight, made it far too cold to sit. She began pacing a circle around the lake also, keeping an eye on the geese, following the path worn in by many feet.

  “I’m watching for wolves.” Conrad strode up to her on her circuit. “That’s a man’s job. You are to watch the geese.”

  “I am watching the geese,” she returned mildly, “and trying not to freeze to death.”

  “Cold, are you?”

  “A little.”

  Conrad’s expression shifted into something unsettling. Much as she’d seen on her serving woman’s face, just before...

  “You have such pretty hair,” Conrad reached to grab a lock, but she jumped back in time. Not again. Never again.

  “Where are you going?” he chased after as she backed up, unsteady on the frozen mud. “I just want to touch your pretty hair.”

  “No. Desist immediately.” In her fear, the curling sense of nausea, she forgot and shut him down with all the regal poise she’d learned over the years and that had eluded her in her shock and consternation over losing the talisman. Confused by it, and well-accustomed to obeying that tone, Conrad halted. Then glared at her.

  “You’re not special—you rank lower than me.”

  “I’m a goose girl, not your doxy.”

  “Fine.” He thrust the staff at her. “You can fend off the wolves. Or get eaten. See if I care.”

  He left her there in his righteous fury, probably hoping she’d call after him. But apparently something remained of her shredded pride because she managed not to. The sudden truth of it took her by surprise, that she’d rather face wolves and the possibility of being their prey than the prospect of anyone putting their hands on her like that again.

  A good thing to know about herself, that she had some resolve still. She might be a goose girl, but she could make a life of that. She might be trapped as surely as the geese, her wings clipped and her life as circumscribed. But the world held far more horrifying fates.

  She’d survived and that was something to cling to.

  * * *

  Cavan met with his father privately in the morning, ostensibly to report on the Princess Natilde, but truthfully in the hopes that his father might give him much-needed perspective. And advice on dealing with his distaste for her. King Wyn listened without interrupting—as was his habit and discipline, to hear out any tale or petition to the end before he formed an opinion—then stroked his beard when Cavan finished, thinking.

  “Princess Natilde is quite young,” he finally said. “She is far from home, newly married, bedded to a stranger and divested of her innocence. It would be surprising if she had not acted emotionally, no matter how gently you treated her. Give her what she asks for, so she can feel secure in her new home. If having jewels makes her happy, let her have them. You have many years to learn each other. The more she feels cherished by you, the easier she will be to work with in the future.”

  Cavan doubted that, having glimpsed the shallowness of her heart, but he did not argue. His father’s words pricked at his guilt, that he had not treated Natilde gently. In truth, she’d been so expert at handling him that he’d forgotten her virginity. Still, it hadn’t seemed to hurt her and she’d prodded him for more. Which he would have to muster the will to do.

  “Remember that she is a foreigner in her ways. We may speak the same language, but that does not mean we naturally communicate well. Be patient and learn to look past the difference in manners.”

  “You’re right, of course. I just need to get to know her better.”

  “Get her with child,” the king advised. “Women settle when they have babes to grow and care for. And she no doubt feels the responsibility to get an heir as much as you do. She’ll forget trifles such as jewels when she discovers the pricelessness of a child.” He clasped Cavan’s shoulder. “I did. You are my greatest treasure, my son. I’m proud of you for how you’ve handled this.”

  Moved, Cavan searched for words. “It’s the right thing, this alliance. I’ll find a way to make this marriage work.”

  With renewed resolve—and chagrined to have lost sight of the bigger picture—Cavan arranged to have the seamstresses sent to his bride, with instructions to make her as many gowns as she wished for. He visited the treasury and asked to see Natilde’s dowry, something he hadn’t given much thought to, beyond converting it into currency to aid her people and his own. It was an impressive array of riches, indeed, and he filled a chest with all the jewelry he could find, intent on carrying it to her himself.

  He stopped by the kitchens on his way. Partly out of long habit and more than a little with the sense of reaching for his touchstone. Consult with his father and confess to the woman who’d been a mother to him. Brenna spotted him and, with a long look, pointed him to sit at the table. She scooted several of the kitchen girls along on various duties, emptying the room, pulled some warm cookies out of the oven and set them before him. Still raw from the talk with his father, Cavan took a cookie with a profound sense of gratitude and tasted in it all the love Brenna had showered on him from his earliest childhood.

  He needed to stop behaving like a spoiled brat and show Natilde the same care.

  “Sick, were you?” Brenna raised an eyebrow. “I should not have let you have at that whiskey.”

  “It wasn’t the whiskey,” he replied, shamed to admit it to her, but holding his own feet to the fire. “I just needed to... get over myself, I guess.”

  Brenna nodded and took a cookie. “You’ll do, my boy. It’s not easy, acquiring a wife, one who is a stranger to you and with foreign ways to boot. You’ll find your way.”

  Her faith and understanding took him another step toward seeing it possible. “How is little Nix?” he asked. A reasonable question, given their encounter the night before. It betrayed nothing of how she’d gotten under his skin. A good ruler should take interest in even the least of his subjects.

  Brenna sighed. “She’s a wounded thing. I’m a bit concerned for her.”

  “How do you mean?” Wounded. Yes, he’d noted the same look in her eyes.

  “It’s hard for young serving women. They’re easily abused by the world. Your thought was a good one though, and I’ve given her a chamber in the stables, with a door she can lock, and tasked her to watch the geese.”

  “The geese?”

  “An easy job to start, one that gets her out of the castle and gives her time with her thoughts. Young Conrad goes with her still, in case they meet with wolves.”

  “Good.” He supposed that should be enough, to know her settled. That should let him concentrate his own jumbled thoughts on Natilde. No more fantasies of Nix. He stood and picked up the chest of jewelry. “I’d best go see my bride. Thank you for the cookies.”

  “Take some to the princess, if you like.”

  An excellent idea. The more peace offerings, the better. A simple way to share the taste of love he couldn’t find in himself.

  He found her surrounded by a dozen seamstresses, her chambers piled high with fabrics of every imaginable color and texture. And in a fine sulk.

  “Well look what the cat dragged in,” she snapped at him. “Done puking and shitting?”

  Several of the seamstresses blanched and one gasped. Be patient and learn to look past the difference in manners. He could learn to forgive what seemed crude to him and show her by example.

  “Yes, my lady wife,” he gave her a courtly bow. “I am much improved today. I apologize for my churlishness last night—and I’ve brought you gifts to make up for it.” He presented her with the plate of warm cookies. “My favorite childhood treat. A sweet way to start your morning.”

  With a growl, she dashed the plate from his hand. It hit a seamstress on the cheek and the cookies went flying. Glaring at him, Natild
e stepped off the stool she’d stood on and deliberately placed her bare foot on one of the cookies, grinding it into the priceless rug. “That is what I think of your pitiful apology! You disgust me. If you want to appease me, give me what I asked for.”

  Demanded, he wanted to correct her, but choked down his hurt and fury. Ridiculous to be wounded by the sight of the cookie crushed under her uncaring foot. Her ways are not ours, he reminded himself, and presented her with the casket of jewelry. “Will this suit better?”

  She seized the heavy chest, set it on a table and flung open the lid with a squeal. Laughing, she pulled out the precious gems and began draping herself with them. Cavan tried his best to enjoy her pleasure, to appreciate that she seemed to be happy with this. His father had a point. He still had much to learn about governing himself.

  Natilde turned a glowing look on him and sauntered close, winding her arms around his neck and rubbing her lush bosom against him. “This suits much better,” she crooned. “See? We can learn to get along with each other.”

  “Indeed.” He kept himself from pulling away. “Enjoy your fitting. Is there aught else you need?”

  “Probably, but I’ll send for it if I do. Unless you mean for me to pass all requests through you?”

  A sharp prick of insult there, but one he likely deserved. “Not at all, Princess. This is your home now. Your word is anyone’s command, as much as mine.”

  That pleased her and she wriggled against him. “And you’ll attend me this evening? We have an heir to beget.”

  “I look forward to it.” On pretext of giving her a courtly bow, he escaped her grasp and left the room, acutely aware of the enormity of his lie.

  6