Arren, Corland, the Second Day of Spring's Ending, 991 KY
The tidy little townhouse in Arren was filling up with strangers, unusual at this early hour but then this was an unusual day. Rodder Pawl the footman grimaced at the hallway carpet: one big track of grime. Mistress Ambleson would be very upset were she to see it. The bell rang, and he opened the door to a tall figure wearing the hooded black robes of a priest of Harla. Pawl tamped down his dread and let the priest in.
Once inside, the figure pulled off the hood to reveal a kind-faced older man, hair shorn very short—almost bald—in the manner Friends male and female alike preferred. Behind him followed two men and a woman, dressed and shorn alike. The largest man carried a pair of poles wrapped in canvas; the woman carried a folded white sheet. "Where is she?" said the lead priest.
"This way." Pawl led them from the entryway up the stairs to the room where Mistress Ambleson sat. At first glance, she appeared to have fallen asleep in her chair before the sitting room fire. On closer inspection, her skin was white and waxy as a taper. Her chin listed down and to one side; her eyes were closed. Beside her on her workstand stood a small half-drunk glass of barisha. One hand held a letter. Three bored-looking Guardsmen clustered in one corner chatting in low voices with the fidgeting, anxious cook; in an opposite corner on a footstool sat Ianna the maid, her apron over her head as she rocked and cried.
A green-clad Sister stood looking out the bay window onto the street, hands folded under her gray overdress. She turned and bowed as the group entered. "Siblings, I am Sister Dagmissa," she said.
The lead priest answered her bow. "Friend Hames, Sister. Who was this lady in life?"
"Mistress Tellis Ambleson," replied the Sister. "I've been treating her for nerves lately."
"Mr Pawl," said Hames. Pawl flinched; he'd hoped the priest had forgotten him. "When did you find her?"
"About two hours ago. I called for Ianna—" he jerked his head toward the crying maid—"and she was no help so I went for a Sister right away, and then she sent me for the Guard, and then they called for you, your honor," he said, bowing and nodding.
"'Friend' is enough, Mr Pawl. How long do you think she's been dead, Sister?"
"I'd say about seven hours or so," said Sister Dagmissa, crossing to the corpse. She took Mistress Ambleson's free hand and flexed the fingers. "She's stiff but not completely. D'you agree with that time, Friend?"
"I do. Your guess at the cause of her death?"
Sister Dagmissa flicked her hand at the worktable. "She killed herself. Tincture of poppies in her barisha. I'd prescribed it for her nerves."
Pawl gasped. "But Mistress would never do such a thing! There's Miss to think of, and Mistress always thought of Miss before everything!"
Sister Dagmissa plucked the letter from Mistress Ambleson's stiff fingers. "Did you read this, Mr Pawl?"
"No, Sister, I can't read much, and besides it didn't seem right."
"It says Miss Ambleson has eloped with an 'Adrik.' Do you know anything about this?"
Pawl fingered Mr Adrikov's gold piece in his pocket. "Not as such, ma'am. I know Mr Adrikov and Miss are very much taken with one another. Mistress disapproved, and their running off—well, it doesn't surprise me any."
"Hm," said the Sister.
Pawl wondered if she could see the guilty gold piece through his trousers. What if they blamed him? He'd never imagined Mistress might do such a thing. Mr Adrikov and Miss were so attached, and no one thought Mistress right to keep them apart—it had seemed kind to help, and he knew Mistress would forgive the couple when they came back. Then there was the gold piece, more than he made in a spoke, with another to follow on the newlyweds' return. "So...so what's to happen now? Who's going to pay me my final wages?"
"Where is the lady's family, Mr Pawl?" said Friend Hames.
"I don't know, sir. She never spoke about where she was from or who her people were. She and Miss have lived here in Arren close on a year, if that helps."
"Not in the least," said Friend Hames. "Captain," he called to the head Guardsman, "with no family to inherit, I believe the contents of this house are now forfeit to the government."
"But I said I didn't know her family, not that she didn't have any—what about Miss?" said Pawl.
"If a relative steps forward, the proceeds from the auction will be given to him, minus the tithe to the Hill and taxes. Miss Ambleson is the responsibility of her new husband, assuming the rascal married the poor girl."
The thought had never occurred to Pawl. What if Mr Adrikov didn't marry her? If she came back in shame to an empty house, what would become of her?
The Guardsman motioned to his men. "Thank you, Friend Hames. I'll report back to the Accountsman's office, and he'll send his men round to pay off the servants and begin the inventory. I leave the body to you, then." He bowed to the Friends and the Sister, and left with his men.
The two priests of Harla unrolled the canvas: a stretcher, a red silk tassel tied in black thread dangling from the ends of its black poles. They spread it on the hearth rug as the priestess manipulated the corpse's arm back and forth at the elbow. "Still somewhat bendable, but not for long," she said.
The priests positioned Pawl's Mistress on the canvas as best they could, and the priestess spread the white sheet over her; all four Friends raised their hoods and the two junior priests picked up the stretcher poles. Somehow the tassels' sway and the lump under the sheet broke free the whimper Pawl had been holding back for two hours. Mistress was dead, and he was responsible. If he hadn't helped Mr Adrikov and Miss—but how was he to know this would happen?
"Please," he said, catching at Friend Hames's sleeve. "Please, when it's time to...may I do the final rites for her in the Hill? Miss won't be back in time, and there's no one else."
"There's me, Rodder Pawl!" said the maid in the corner, her wet, somewhat snotty face emerging from her apron. "I was the one combed her hair of a morning, wasn't I? Not you. I should comb it at the last." Ianna resumed bawling and threw the apron back over her head. Cook said something lost in Ianna's renewed sorrow that Pawl assumed was a demand to be among the mourners as well.
"Hush now, good Ianna," said the priest. "Save your tears for Mistress Ambleson's final bath. We'll send a messenger for all three of you later today." The Friends carried the body from the room, the priestess before and Friend Hames behind; the Sister followed into the hallway with Cook, leaving him alone with the weeping Peg.
Pawl stared at the empty chair, now fouled with the corpse's final mess. He supposed the Accountsman's auditors would have it destroyed. He crept up to Mistress's work stand, where the letter lay forgotten. Beside it stood a miniature portrait of Miss Mattie, and the fatal glass of barisha.
He'd done this. He'd driven Mistress to suicide. He'd have to make it right somehow.
Pawl picked up the letter and the miniature, glancing at the corner; Ianna still had her apron over her head. He slipped the letter and miniature into his waistcoat. He shouldn't take them, but who'd know? He'd watch for Miss's return, make sure Mr Adrikov had done right by her, help her if not. For now, he and Cook and Ianna the maid would help bathe Mistress's body and sew her into her shroud. There was a start, at least, and may the Gods forgive him.
Inside a well-appointed carriage, Mattie woke up, cuddled against Adrik under a huge pile of furs and carriage blankets. The weather had turned bitter cold; the heavy brown velvet curtains were shut tight against the chill. Even so, her breath formed in the air, and the bricks at their feet had long ago lost their heat. How long had she been asleep? They must be approaching Maryakuspa by now, where a friendly, discreet Father Adrik knew would tie their marriage cord. Adrik stirred and tightened his arms around her; the thought left her head, to be replaced by the one that had plagued her all night.
Why hadn't Mama relented? Mattie hated to leave with nothing but a note on her mother's workstand. On the other hand, eloping on Neya's Day could not be more romantic. No one could blame them, not even Mama.
Adrik kissed her. "Second thoughts, darling?"
"Oh, no, not at all! I was just wishing Mama could be at the wedding. I know she won't be angry when we return home, but she's going to worry until we do."
"I left things in a way to soothe your mother's mind."
Mattie settled into his arms again. "You're so good to us."
The final trouble that had dogged her far longer than their plans to elope now took precedence: her parentage.
Mattie should have told him before they left. She'd even tried to tell him; he distracted her, and she lost her nerve. She must do it now, before he tied the marriage cord round her wrist. Nothing could change his mind, she was certain, but what if he did? She was compromised now.
She would tell him she was a child of Farr—that her real father was an unknown rapist. Close enough to the truth, for how could Mama have refused the King? Papa had married her mother and taken Mattie as his own. She'd had his name, at least until a year ago. Oh, she should have told him before they left.
"Adrik," she faltered, "I need to tell you something. Something about...about my family."
Adrik opened his melancholy eyes. "Oh? I know everything about your family I need to know, I'd wager, but if there's something you wish to tell me I shall gladly listen."
"I meant to tell you sooner..."
"Darling, it cannot be as bad as you think it is."
Mattie told him the amended story and watched his face anxiously. He brought his free hand to his mouth to smooth his mustache; had she not known better, she would have sworn he hid a smile. "Oh, my Mattie, how happy I am that you trust me. Shall you confide the last part as well?"
"What last part? There is nothing more to tell."
"Let's start with your name. It isn't Ambleson. It's Dunley."
"Dunley? No," said Mattie, keeping her voice as blank and calm as she could despite her jittering insides. "My stepfather's name was Ambleson. It's the name he gave me."
Adrik laughed. "One of the things I love about you, Mattie, is that you're terrible at subterfuge. Your emotions cover you head to toe. You fell in love with me the first day, when you twisted your ankle, didn't you? My sweet girl, I would marry you no matter what your name is. I don't use my real name either."
Was Adrik in similar circumstances? Not long ago, when she lived in Reggiston and didn't have to lie about her name and didn't know whose daughter she was, she would never have considered the suit of a bastard. She couldn't very well put herself above one now, could she? She burrowed closer to him, and he hugged her tight. "If my name is not to be Mistress Adrikov, then, what is it to be?"
"I am Adrik Antremont, some day to be styled Adrin of Tremont."
"Adrin? But that's a royal name, surely you mean Adrik—Antremont? But you can't be!" A horrible supposition came to her: could he be another bastard of King Harsin's? She pushed away from him, thinking of the night at the Estate with her drunken half-brother. If she hadn't attracted Temmin's attention she'd still be Mattie Dunley of Reggiston, and here she was again with a man who might be her brother! Neya, why would you send me two of them?
"I have every right to the royal family's name. You see, you and I are cousins. My father is King Ruvin of Tremont, whose place your father usurped some forty years ago."
He knew! How long had he known? Always? She peered through the carriage curtains. The carriage rolled along a hard-packed dirt track through flat plains. Tough-looking grass poked through a light dusting of late snow. No crops, no houses, no people. Nowhere to run and no one to help her. "Where are we going?"
He smiled, but his downturned eyes did not. "We've already gone. Over the borders into the Northern Wastes, where your father will never find you."
"My father is dead," she whispered.
"Would that he were, sweetheart. Then I wouldn't be skulking about the countryside and my father would be sitting on the Tremontine throne where he belongs."
"What makes you think His Majesty is my father?"
"He's not Darwas Dunley, that's certain," he retorted. "Your uncle is a right prick, by the way, throwing you and your mother out of your tavern when your stepfather died. You are Mattisanis Dunley, or were raised as such. Your mother's maiden name was Ambler. She and the King—your father—had a brief affair when he came to the Estate for your brother Temmin's birth."
She fought down shame and increasing panic. "He's not my brother—I've even never met the Heir!"
Adrik shook her by the shoulders. "I am the Heir, not that whelp. He's still your brother whether you've met him or not. With luck you'll never meet him. He'll be dead."
Whenever Adrik touched her in the past, a warm melting flowed down her body beneath his hands. Now this stranger gripped her arms not quite tight enough to hurt her but tight enough to let her know she wasn't going anywhere, and his hands burned like ice. "You don't love me at all!" she said.
His down-tipped eyes softened; he was her lover once more. "Oh, there you're wrong, my darling, my Mattie. I do love you, though I hadn't intended to. I had intended only to woo you by stages safely and quietly, then take you away with me. When we reach my father, I will tie the marriage cord round your wrist just as I said I would. It is no hardship. I love you." Adrik dipped his head to kiss her, but she turned away. He turned her back, fingers firm on her chin, and kissed each brimming eye. "Never worry, you're safe with me. I shall not touch you until the cord is tied, and no one else shall either. I promise you."
"My mother's expecting us back. The note I left said we were coming home after the wedding."
"Don't worry about your mother, sweetheart, I have taken care of it," he answered. He tucked her into the corner of the carriage under a mound of blankets and furs. "It's cold. Now, sleep. We'll be there in another few hours."
Though she closed her eyes, Mattie did not sleep. She cursed her father for being King. She cursed Adrik for his falsity. She cursed her mother for being right about him, and she cursed herself for believing him.
They stopped soon after, but no comforting inn stood nearby; a change of horses waited on the wide, empty plains, alone but for a native groom holding their reins. The man's hair was a white-blond so pale it was almost transparent, his eyes a flat, acid blue that did not leave her even when she crouched a small distance from the carriage to relieve herself. At least Adrik and the coachmen turned away.
Nowhere to run, no one who might help her. No way to return to her mother—at least right now. She would get home to Mama somehow, and then they would go to the King and demand proper protection. He owed her at least that much as her father, and she wished her mother had demanded it from the beginning. It would have saved Mattie from whatever awaited her at Ruvin's outlaw court. Don't worry, Mama, I'll find my way back to Arren somehow.
The flat grasslands of the Northern Wastes turned into forests of pine and newly-greened larches and birch, patches of snow purple in their shadows. They traveled miles through these trees until the road burst into in the open, traveling along the shoreline of a lake so large it could fairly be called an inland sea. Islands greater and smaller rose up from its surface, the small crowned with gray stone buildings, the larger with villages. Boats plied the water and clustered on the many docks; how cold it must be on their decks. At any other time, Mattie might have found the scenery charming and exotic. Now she looked only for opportunities to escape—and saw none.
They drove onto what at first she took to be a causeway, though she soon realized it could not have been manmade. A natural ridge rose up from the water, a broad road planed from the top of its steep, forested slopes. It slithered this way and that through the lake, ending at a bridge to a large island. An ancient castle took up all of the island's cloverleaf of a rock, its rough, gray stone walls rising from rocky shores sheering into the water. Towers ringed at the top in ruddy stone rose from each of its several corners; their many round windows stared out at the surrounding waters like lidless eyes. Conical roofs of green copper topped each tower.
Adrik pressed against her back and kissed her temple. "Welcome to Gremassem, Princess Mattisanis, and the court in exile of King Ruvin of Tremont."
Great iron gates driven into the rocky ridge blocked the bridge. At the coachman's call, the gates ground up on their winches; the obstinate doors balked on their enormous hinges but eventually obeyed and opened. Over the bridge and into Gremassem went the carriage, and Mattie with it.
Inside the great main courtyard, Adrik handed her down into a bustling world: women carrying laundry to the tubs; chickens scrabbling underfoot; boys running to take the leads of the carriage horses; a man with a whole pig carcass over his brawny shoulder; handcarts with loads of potatoes, turnips, steaming dung.
Mattie could see her breath. She clutched her bandbox, all she'd taken with her. Adrik marched her across the cobbles to a stern-looking native woman dressed in a gray woolen gown and a long quilted vest; she stood in a stone archway leading from the courtyard. A gray knitted lace shawl covered her head, and her strong blue eyes tilted downward at the outside corners. Behind her stood three serving girls, each more stoic than the last, and two men. A beam of sunshine hit one of the men just so, lighting up the yellow of his beard and the array of knives at his belt.
"Ma Kupar," said Adrik with a broad smile, "may I make known to you Princess Mattisanis of Tremont."
Mattie twisted the bandbox cord around her hands. "Please stop, please, Adrik, stop making fun of me. I'm not a princess!"
Adrik ignored her. "Ma Kupar, please show Her Highness a room where she may freshen up."
The woman sized Mattie up; for a moment, Mattie expected her to open her mouth and inspect her teeth. The woman nodded her head and gestured for Mattie to follow. The miserable girl fell in behind her. What else could she do? She was at least two hundred miles from Arren, probably more. After more than two days straight in a carriage with stops just long enough to change horses, she was tired, disoriented, hungry and filthy. When she had recovered some strength, some sense of where she was, she could plan an escape, perhaps. They walked down endless corridors, up stairs, through echoing halls and on and on into the fortress's heart. Somewhere in this enormous place there must be someone who'd take pity on her. She just needed a little help, a foothold—
"Here, Your Highness," said Ma Kupar, opening a thick dark wood door set in an arch. She stepped aside, and Mattie crept into a surprisingly bright room. The three servants pushed their way past her. One snatched the bandbox from her hands; another took a great iron kettle from a hulking brick stove, whitewashed like the rest of the room, and poured its steaming contents into a large basin on a stand; the third twitched Mattie's felt bonnet from her head and her cloak from her shivering shoulders.
"Please to undress here before the stove," said the woman. "You will be so cold but a moment." Mattie had heard this barbaric accent in Arren occasionally; it reminded her of the ridge road, steep R's and T's at variance with a sibilance curving the woman's speech in long arcs. Ma Kupar gestured to the basin, now cooled with water from a silver pitcher standing beside it. Mattie timidly washed her hands.
The woman made an abrupt gesture; the serving girls stripped Mattie to her stockings before she could squeak an objection and started in on her with steaming wet flannels and soap. "T'would be best were you to take the stockings and shoes off as well and be clean all over. We have new for you."
Already half-soaped, Mattie let them have their way. They scrubbed her from the toes up as she turned one side and then the other towards the stove in an attempt to warm herself; the cold raised goosebumps on her skin and puckered her nipples.
The girl who'd taken her hat and cloak returned with clothing. Mattie slipped on thick but finely knitted cream wool stockings, a linen chemise and thin woolen petticoats. The women burned Mattie's old things in front of her.
The new clothing was made of much finer stuff than even Ma Kupar's. The soft, lilac wool shift used the same embroidered high band collar as did Corrish traditional clothing, belted just under the breasts with a wide silk band woven in dark blues and reds. Over it came the long quilted vest Mattie had seen on both men and women, this one of fine slate blue silk brocade with silver thread shot through its borders. For her feet they gave her fur-lined half-boots of the same brocade. They slipped fingerless mitts knitted in a fine slate silk thread onto her hands. Over her hair they spread a filmy lace veil that matched the mitts; though it weighed nothing, it settled a cozy warmth about her head and shoulders.
Looking at herself in the cheval glass was like looking at a picture from a Corrish fairy tale book, as if she'd gone back in time some 700 years. She had to admit she was warm as toast for the first time since they'd left Arren: practical clothes for a cold climate.
"Come now, ma'am. Your King waits," said Ma Kupar.
"He is not my king," said Mattie. "He's no one's king!"
"This is not the concern of the Gremas," the woman answered, taking her by the elbow. "Our Headman has allied with him as kinsman. You are among the Gremas, you are Tremontine, and so here he is your King. Be quiet now, you will stand before the Headman and your King."
Ma Kupar led Mattie past guards set three and three beside a great arched door banded in iron, and left her in a high-vaulted hall; tapestries covered the stone walls, thick carpets the wooden floors. Mattie was the only woman in the room. Men in native costume filled the benches—the Gremas? She had never heard them called anything other than "northern barbarians," but Ma Kupar had used the name "Gremas." Red heads and brown heads sprinkled the crowd, but most were blond. Almost every eye turned toward her was blue.
At the hall's far end, a roaring blaze filled an enormous fireplace hooded in the same verdigris copper covering the turrets. On a dais before it sat two men in ancient, ornately carved chairs. Both wore richer versions of the common clothing—woolen trousers tucked into modern riding boots, and high-necked shirts. Their long quilted vests were silk embroidered in gold. The one on Mattie's left had hair so shot through with white that the blond strands remaining looked like sunlight streaked on snow. The other's hair was as dark as her own, though heavily threaded with silver; his beard, trimmed more neatly than those of the men around him, was almost completely gray. Something about his lean, angular face resembled the King's profile on a five-silver piece.
Adrik appeared at her side, for all his falsity still handsome in a dark blue high-necked shirt and quilted vest. He placed her numb hand on his arm. "Gremas clothing suits you, darling Mattie. Don't be afraid. No one intends you any harm. Quite the opposite. Now, come." He led her to the dais. He said something to the blond man on the left in the native language; it had the same steep slopes and sibilance of Ma Kupar's accent. She recognized her own name among the unfamiliar words. Adrik turned to her and said in Tremontine, "Mattisanis of Tremont, this is Uole, Headman of the Gremas." To the dark man on the right he said, "Father, may I make known to you Mattisanis of Tremont, your niece. Princess Mattisanis, your uncle, King Ruvin of Tremont." Mattie knew she was expected to curtsey, but she couldn't move. She wanted to go to sleep, she wanted to go home, she wanted away from the man who'd broken her heart and the men who now studied her from atop the dais.
The Headman said something she didn't understand to Ruvin; Adrik's arm stiffened beneath her hand. Ruvin chuckled in response and stood. "Ah, my niece, and aren't you a pretty thing. Welcome home, Adrik."
"Thank you, sir," he replied, putting his hand over Mattie's. "When shall we tie the marriage cord?"
"The day after tomorrow, I think. The bride looks as though she might profit from a day's rest." Ruvin descended the dais and took Mattie's hand from Adrik's arm. He turned her round, inspecting her from every side as if they were dancing. "Never did I think I would marry again, and certainly not to such a lady as my son has brought me," he smiled.
Adrik stifled a gasp. "Excuse me, Father, but I don't understand you. Who are you marrying?"
"Why, the Lady Mattisanis, of course."
Adrik paused, clearly shocked. "She was to be mine. You said so."
"Did I? I said to woo her and win her, something like that. Don't worry. You are my Heir, Adrik, and that won't change even if she bears me sons." He raised his voice and said something in the native tongue, then added in Tremontine, "I have sworn before everyone here."
Mattie snatched her hand away as the conversation sank into her weary mind. "Are you saying you intend to marry me?"
Ruvin recaptured her hand and kissed it. "It helps cement my claim to the throne, my dear, to marry a girl of your lineage."
"My lineage? My mother was a housemaid, and my father owned a tavern, that's my lineage. All right, very well, yes, my mother told me I'm a royal bastard—" Mattie spat the words "—a royal bastard like you. I have as much right to the title 'princess' as you do to 'king'—none!"
Ruvin crushed her hand in his grip until she cried out, her legs buckling. "You will speak to me with the respect due your King, woman, and you will never call me 'bastard' again." Adrik stepped forward as if to stop him, but checked himself. "You'd best think twice, son," said his father. "Did you come to believe your own lies, Adrik? I'd swear you actually love this girl."
Adrik's down-tilted eyes took on that hard look. "You said she was for me, that my marriage to her would shore up my own claim since my mother was not of the blood."
"I will not accept this!" said Mattie through teeth clenched against pain. "You will never find a Father who will bind a woman in marriage against her will!"
Headman Uole spoke. "You are not in Tremont, Lady. You are among the Gremas, and Gremas women do as they are told. We have no Fathers, or Mothers, Sisters, Friends, Scholars, Lovers or Beloveds—none of them. Only Brothers, only Farr the Warrior, and He does not listen to women's prayers."
"No Fathers? How else is one to marry?"
"We tie the cord ourselves, at knife point if necessary," said Uole. "That is the way of the Gremas. Once it was the way of the Tremontines, to take the woman whether she would or no and tie her to the bedpost as we still do. We have kept the faith they have forgotten, the faith your King Ruvin swears to bring back to your people."
Ruvin shrugged her away. "You're valuable, Princess, but only if I marry you. You're of no value at all otherwise, not even wed to my son. In fact, you're a danger to me. Adrik's tender feelings notwithstanding, I'd slit your throat myself." Mattie's smarting hand crept to her neck. Uole spoke a word to a servant, who left the room and reappeared with the silent Ma Kupar. "Take Her Highness to her room," said Ruvin. "Bring her food and let her rest after her long journey. The day after tomorrow is either a wedding or a funeral."
Ma Kupar led her away. Mattie took a last look at Adrik; his eyes remained the same hard, flat brown, but he was glaring at his father and spared her not a look.
They walked her down numerous hallways to her bedchamber, a grand, whitewashed affair of tapestries, carpets, and a stove tiled in brilliant blue; the room's mullioned windows looked out at the great lake and its hundreds of islands and thousands of boats. They fed her a light meal: oatcakes, salted fish and some sort of dried berry compote with custard. Mattie offered no resistance when they undressed her down to her chemise, nor when they tucked her into bed, pulled shut the bed-curtains and darkened the room.
Her mind did resist. Would she rather die than marry Ruvin? Perhaps if she offered them compliance, they might grow complacent in time and she could make good an escape. As things stood she had no knowledge of the country nor of the language, and not a friend to help her. Adrik looked as if he wanted to come to her defense, but was it because he wanted the advantage marriage to a daughter of Harsin would confer? Or did he love her, and if he did, would he go against his father?
Mattie peeked out of the bed-curtains. Ma Kupar guarded the room, rocking slowly in a chair by the stove but quite awake. "Go to sleep, Your Highness," said the woman without turning her head.
Mattie sighed and settled back among the pillows. She was so tired, so heartsore. She missed her mother when she'd gone to the Estate to work, but Tellis was just down the road in Reggiston then, waiting to see her on her half-day off every Paggday. Now her mother was who knew how many miles away in Arren. Across a hostile country at the least. The tears she'd held back since Adrik revealed himself drenched the pillow. "I tell you, go to sleep," said Ma Kupar from the other side of the bed-curtains. "Tears change nothing for any of us, but for you, very much not. Sleep."
"I don't want to sleep. I want to go home," sobbed Mattie.
"I want you to go home. You are one more trouble for me, one more trouble for my Adrik." The woman rocked a few more times. "I am his mother, you know."
Was Adrik illegitimate, too? "Is that why he calls you 'Ma?'"
"It is title for married women here. It will be yours soon. I was Ruvin's third wife. He had two others, both dead. I am set aside long ago, and yet lived. You take my place."
"I don't want to take your place. You can have it!"
"I cried when he set me aside and I tell you again, tears change nothing. Sleep."
Mattie's exhaustion overtook her in time, and she slept straight through till late the next day. She saw none of the wedding preparations when the day came; they kept her to her room, where she wavered between defiance and despair and wore her nerves thin pacing before the stove. At least it was warm there; outside, a fitful late spring snowfall tried the patience of the newly-green trees.
It grew dark. Ma Kupar and the silent serving girls came in bearing candles and another neatly folded stack of clothing. Mattie hesitated, but in the end chose to live in hope. She put on the heavy white silk gown, an overdress of gold brocade replacing the quilted vest. On her head they placed a gold diadem, covered with a white lace cobweb shawl. Around her neck and in her ears hung freshwater pearls and amber, set in intricately worked gold—"very old, among the great riches of the Gremas," Ma Kupar noted. Mattie wondered if Kupar had worn the jewels at her own wedding to Ruvin.
At night's end, once Ruvin had knotted the marriage cord three times round her wrist himself, once Adrik's cold stare devoid of sympathy flickered over her, once she'd been led by the cord to the marriage bed, once Ruvin had tied her wrist to the bedpost and taken her virginity with casual cruelty, once he'd collected the proof of consummation on a length of silk, once she'd been left alone still bound to the bed while Ruvin and his allies feasted in the great hall so loudly she caught echoes of it even through the stone—then, she lost hope. She stared at the bed-curtains, aching in body, dull in mind and bruised in both, and understood the futility of escape attempts. She would never see her mother again. She would die here, alone and friendless. She wanted to die.
Adrik had never loved her—had never existed at all.
Ruvin was standing on a table top, a dressing gown over his long nightshirt. His bare legs stuck out the bottom, and he roared a Gremas wedding song as he waved the bloodied silk over his head and the drunken men around him stomped an accompaniment. Adrik stayed to one side. He kept his face in the cool mask he'd perfected over years of subterfuge, both in his father's service and his own.
He would never have let himself fall in love with Mattie if he'd known she was meant for his father and not for himself—no, of course he would have. One look at her and he'd opened as if she'd been his key, no matter how hard he'd struggled to keep himself closed.
That spring day a year ago in Arren when he'd arranged their little meeting and she'd stumbled into his arms, he'd chalked his awakening up to professionalism; if he had to play the lover, he must allow himself to feel at least a little in love. She was a target, an instrument, a means to an end; marrying her shored up his family's claims. It was just his good luck she was beautiful, passionate, innocent, trusting, kind, loving, funny, cheerful—that she filled his empty, secret heart. He'd had trouble waiting until the appointed time to take her away, but soothed himself that she would be his. In time she would accept her fate as future Queen of Tremont because she loved him. How could she love him now?
Ruvin shouted a greeting to him; Adrik smiled and raised his cup in response.
His father had lied to him—to what end? Adrik had killed for his father, more than once; he'd been the one to deliver the final blows to both his uncles, the other two bastard sons of old King Temmin the Fifth. Adrik had been raised to his father's service and cause above all else, his loyalty absolute. Did Ruvin know Adrik's own ambition so little, or did he think Adrik would do a more thorough job if he believed the prize was his?
Ruvin fluttered the silk, stained with Mattie's blood and his own semen. Adrik imagined snatching the silk from the older man's hands, twirling it into a cord—he'd done it before before with silks much like this one—and squeezing his father's neck until he crushed the windpipe beneath.
His father had been everything in the world. He'd believed in his father's right to the throne, and his own right as Heir. Now his father had betrayed him. On its face, what was his promise to keep Adrik as his Heir, if Mattie gave him sons? They would have more royal blood than Adrik from both sides of their parentage, and thus a better claim.
"Did you come to believe your own lies, Adrik?"
Yes, just as I believed yours.