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Merrigan focused on listening. The other man's voice was deep and too hearty. He sounded like several members of her father's court who were entirely too certain of their value in the world, their power and influence, and their right to stomp on anyone who didn't give them their way. Such people had thought they could stomp on her, when she was a child. Merrigan had taught them a thing or two and enjoyed it.
"If there is any justice in this wretched, magic-sickened world," she whispered.
"Is something wrong, Mistress Mara?" Fern asked, coming back to the bench.
"Not if I can help it." Merrigan smiled, though the effort hurt her face. How she loathed having to hide her feelings, when there was no one to tremble in the face of her anger. She put down her sewing and got up to find Master Twilby.
A man stood on one side of the long sewing table, hands braced on it, leaning over the table and making Master Twilby cower back a step. He was exactly like those odious courtiers Merrigan remembered. Big—big shoulders, big hat, big voice, big nose, big triple chin, big belly. The tone of his clothes was big as well, the colors just a shade too bright, and too many colors together, for Merrigan's taste. His tall walking stick was ebony, with an ivory handle in the shape of a lion's head. Too ostentatious for this size of town. It lay on the table in front of his braced hands, like a dividing line between him and Master Twilby.
"I don't understand why you are so unreasonable. It's a perfectly sensible solution," the man said, his jolly smile entirely too big. How could anyone talk and smile at the same time? Maybe that was what made his voice so big?
"What you are asking, Judge—"
"Ah, so this is Judge Brimble?" Merrigan swept into the room as she used to sweep into one of Leffisand's meetings with the council of lords. He had always found great amusement in her ability to interrupt the meeting at the most crucial time, intimidating the nobles dimwitted enough to resist his plans for the country. She just wished she had her full skirts and long train. The simple black dress and widow's cap utterly ruined the effect.
Still, from the widening of the judge's eyes, the straightening of his shoulders, she hadn't quite lost her touch. Maybe he had no idea why, but he felt intimidated.
This will be fun.
"Master Twilby, have you told him our plan yet?" Merrigan held out her hand to the judge as she once used to do with ambassadors and visiting princes.
Judge Brimble was just provincial enough to frown at her hand for a moment before reluctantly, with the grip of a limp fish, bowing over it. She supposed she should be grateful he didn't kiss it. No one liked being kissed by a limp fish.
"What plan is that?" Brimble said, his voice only at half the previous volume.
"I assume you have come here to ask once again about Master Twilby fitting in your entirely necessary order for clothes to befit your station, despite the previous and honor-bound commitment to take care of the mayor's daughter's wedding clothes."
"Err ... yes, exactly." His piggy eyes—the only things about him that weren't big – narrowed, and he looked her over as he released her hand. "And you are?"
"Mistress Mara, formerly of the courts of Avylyn and Carlion. I sewed for the royal family in Avylyn and came to Carlion when Princess Merrigan married King Leffisand. With all the upheaval after the death of King Leffisand, well ... the wise flee before they can be caught up in turmoil they had no part in causing." She nodded her head once, in what she thought a sage manner.
"Sewed? For royalty?" Judge Brimble turned to Master Twilby. "And when were you going to tell me such a talented woman worked for you?"
"Did you give him time?" Merrigan asked, as Master Twilby's mouth flapped several times and no words came out. "I only arrived today. Such a pity you weren't informed. So depressing, the lack of the niceties in these provincial backwaters. But you, sir, I hear you aim for bigger and better things. Your wardrobe must reflect your potential. Master Twilby and I have been working out a plan for me to design your new wardrobe. All done as discretely as possible, so as not to incur the wrath of the mayor. Master Twilby didn't want to make promises to you, raise your hopes, before he had anything solid to offer. A man of your stature, after all, shouldn't be disappointed. Master Twilby had considered putting me in charge of the wedding clothes, but then he decided your new wardrobe had higher priority."
"Yes ... yes, of course." Judge Brimble's face brightened and he let out a satisfied chuckle that shook his massive girth. "Clever, Twilby. I appreciate you putting my feelings ahead of your profit. Shows you have more common sense than most people in this benighted town. No wonder you hesitated over my suggestion."
"What suggestion was that?" She fluttered her eyelashes at him and took a step closer, as if inviting him into her confidence.
"He wanted me to send Fern to live at his house and tend to the sewing. He thought it would give us more room to work, and save time, running back and forth." Master Twilby gave Merrigan several sidelong glances. Almost as if he feared her.
"Splendid idea," she said, and fought hard not to burst out laughing. She hoped her face wasn't bright red from her repressed mirth. So unbecoming.
"It is?" The poor tailor's voice cracked, and he went whiter than his starching powder.
"That will support our decision to be discrete. If I live in Judge Brimble's household, no one needs to know that I am actually in your employ. Everyone will believe that I have been hired by the judge. He can let my credentials be known—entirely by accident, of course, because a man of his stature has no need to brag about the talents of those in his employ. No one will know that you put the judge ahead of the mayor, or that the judge is paying you for my services. In fact, providing for my room and meals will cut down on the higher fees I usually charge for my services."
She fought more laughter when Judge Brimble's mouth and eyes twitched at mention of "higher fees." She had pegged the man accurately. A miser about paying decent wages, but lavish with his own comforts. If he thought he was saving money by having her under his roof, that was his error, and made willingly.
"I'll leave the two of you to work out the final arrangements. Dealing with money is so tedious," she said, dropping a curtsey to them both. Merrigan was certain both men held their breaths as she swept out of the room.
Mistress Twilby burst into tears and flung her arms around Merrigan, after she told her what had happened. She found it rather irritating and slightly discomfiting when the woman insisted that she must have been "sent." Stuff and nonsense—she had made the choice. No one had made her come to this town. She was inflicting a little justice on Judge Brimble for her own satisfaction, and for the sake of the miller's son—she still couldn't remember his name. Merrigan still needed to find the man who had stolen the mill from him. He had done it with the help of the judge, so she was one step closer to her goal.
While it was lovely to have the gratitude of the Twilby family, being in the judge's household would make it easier to find the man who had taken the mill. When she had dealt with that cheat, then she could leave Smilpotz. Perhaps when she got out onto the main road, that alarmingly handsome Fae would be waiting for her, ready to grant her some much-needed and highly deserved help.
Everything was working out perfectly.
~~~~~
JUDGE BRIMBLE'S SERVANTS were suitably cowed, for the most part, from the moment Merrigan walked through the door, early the next morning. She arrived before there was enough traffic on the streets of Smilpotz for anyone to see her leave the tailor shop and walk to the judge's house. The household staff consisted of two overweight, pock-marked serving girls who seemed to find the floor fascinating; a bald, swarthy-skinned cook with a peg leg and eyepatch, who had the audacity to wink at her; an elderly, stiff-backed seneschal who looked down his nose at Merrigan; a pasty-faced clerk who looked like he should still be in school and not studying for the law under the auspices of Brimble; and two boys who saw to the stables and drove the judge's carriage. The house sat on the far edge of town and was large enough to impress Merrigan. Four stories tall, built of stone, the narrow window slits gave the impression the manor house had originally been a fortress.
She decided the judge was indeed too big for his britches as soon as the seneschal took her on a tour of the premises to find the perfect room to set up her workshop. He had entirely too many rooms for a man who had yet to find a wife and, according to town gossip, preferred to entertain in the largest tavern in town, instead of his own home. Half the bedrooms didn't have any furniture. The windows were shuttered and then sealed with waxed sheets of linen. They all smelled musty. The servants lived in the back of the house on the second floor, with plenty of room between them and the judge's living area. He occupied the front of the house on the first two floors, occupying a massive bedroom, another room twice as large for his wardrobe, a sitting room, an office, and a dusty dining room. One other room was of note, but as Merrigan learned quickly, he never really used it. The library sat on the second floor, spanning the office and the dining room below it.
Merrigan lost her breath at the sight of the library. Between the floor-to-ceiling shelves jammed with books, the thick curdles of dust over everything, and the knowledge of just what a perfect location that was to listen in on everything transpiring in the office, she wasn't sure which detail impressed her most. Or maybe it was the delight of seeing the seneschal go white when she declared she would use the library for sewing, and he had to have it thoroughly cleaned. Immediately. After all, when she had chosen all the fine cloth for the judge's new clothes, the material had to be handled in spotlessly clean surroundings.
The seneschal couldn't argue with her, because it only made sense to use the library. No one else was using it, as attested to by the curdles of dust that turned all the thick leather book spines the same drab shade of gray. The windows between the bookshelves provided light from the south and east. The three long study tables in the middle of the room could be pushed together to form one long worktable to handle several pieces of clothing in various stages of assembly. The thick-cushioned chairs were a bonus. It was as if the library was made to order.
She decided to move into the library, once she saw the parsimonious bedroom allotted to her. The cushion on the deep window seat would make a much more comfortable bed than the thin pallet on a narrow frame waiting for her.
It wasn't as if the judge would be inconvenienced. From the thickness of the dust, he hadn't consulted his library in years. To carry out his duties properly, he would need to continually consult the volumes of law. Yet he obviously didn't. Her father prized men who kept learning, who weren't ashamed to admit they didn't know something, then sought to learn twice as much as they needed to carry out their duties. Despite his softer qualities, her father was a wise man and a good ruler, and Merrigan trusted most of his assessments of people's worth. The King of Avylyn would loathe Judge Brimble just as much as she did. Yes, such a dunderhead deserved the punishment she would levy on him and his co-conspirator.
The two stable boys came to fetch her shortly after the cleaning effort started. Merrigan left the two serving girls battling the thick layers of dust with damp rags. She followed the boys outside, to the back courtyard, where the judge's coach waited. He was pacing in front of its door, eyes bright and step amazingly light for such a big man. When he saw her, his arms spread wide and Merrigan cringed at the horrified thought that he might try to embrace her.
Of course, he didn't know a beautiful young queen hid behind the decrepit husk of Clara's curse. His emotions ruled him, not lust.
"Mistress Mara." He bowed to her, and straightening, pulled a leather pouch from his pocket. "I entrust you to obtain everything necessary for creating my new wardrobe. The lads have been instructed to take you as far as Carnpotz, if need be. Here is my letter of introduction with my seal, so no one will dare say no to you. In fact, dear lady ..." His eager-little-boy expression dimmed as he looked her over. He sighed. "I think perhaps your first stop should be to procure better clothing for yourself. It is a tragedy that the failings of others put you in such dire circumstances. How shall I put this delicately for a lady of your great talent?"
"I do not look the part. Some people might think I lied about having handled Queen Merrigan's clothes personally?" She kept her voice dry and light. She had found that softening her tone effectively made people with booming voices stop booming.
"Indeed. You do understand."
Merrigan understood very clearly that if the judge weren't in such a dreadful hurry to have his new clothes, he might have showed some common sense and investigated whether an old, white-haired woman named Mara had indeed been a seamstress for the courts of Avylyn and Carlion. That kind of investigation could take moons, and require crossing the ocean. She had been counting on the judge's impatience and vanity to keep him from investigating. Only a fool took a total stranger's word as fact. This was another proof of her theory: people assumed the elderly, frail, daft, and very young were trustworthy and truthful.
"I do understand, Your Honor." She took the pouch of coins. It was satisfyingly heavy and didn't jangle as she slipped it into the bag still slung across her chest. "I do thank you for trying to be delicate about a woman's vanity." She fluttered her eyelashes for good effect, and nearly burst out laughing when the judge shifted backward half a step.
Did the self-obsessed fool think she flirted with him?
"I shall repair my outward appearance so that I will not embarrass you, if anyone should remember who bought the material for your splendid new wardrobe. I shall make sure every penny is devoted to my task. The outcome shall be most satisfactory for all involved."
There—let anyone take apart her words and prove she promised to spend all the money on him, rather than putting as much as she could into her own pocket. This further ensured that he paid for his part in cheating a decent-if-gullible young man out of his inheritance. That would satisfy the Fae who had presumed to lecture her. Just because he had magic in his blood, that didn't give him the right to criticize. If Merrigan hadn't learned the painful lesson of dealing very carefully with majjian folk, she might have told him a thing or two about the twisted, unreasonable expectations of the magical races in general.
Merrigan's estimation of the judge's foolishness increased when she found a basket packed with food for the journey, tucked into the carriage. The man was falling over himself to please her, without any proof of her skill.
She had plenty of time on the carriage ride to plan her actions for the next few days. Servants knew everything within a household. They became invisible to their employers and they saw and heard things that many people kept hidden from their own spouses and children. Their invisible, all-seeing position made servants rather valuable—once trained properly.
As the first step in gaining the confidence of the entire household, Merrigan rapped on the roof of the carriage, asking the boys driving it to stop. Much as she would have preferred to keep the provisions to herself, she shared the meat rolls, honey cakes, and the thick stone bottle of cold milk with the boys. It was amusing to see how their eyes lit up, and to observe the visible shift in their attitudes toward her. Such simple, malleable people, these peasants. She had to assume the judge was so cavalier about the treatment of his servants, any kindness earned their admiration. If she could simply remember to continue such treatment with the entire household staff, she would have them eating out of her hands. A somewhat disgusting thought, if taken literally. In short order, she would have their confidence and they would help her in taking down the judge. Destroy sweet young girls like Fern Twilby, or cheat the miller's son of his inheritance? Not while an intelligent, determined woman was anywhere in the neighborhood.
The first shop she visited was to provide herself with better clothes than the rusty black widow's weeds. While Merrigan would have loved to indulge in the deep jewel tones she saw on one rack of bolts of cloth, the material was too expensive and fragile. She had learned the value of having sturdy clothes while living on the road. Besides, the rich burgundy or the deep emerald green, while perfect for her coloring when she wore her own face, would look utterly ridiculous with her pale, sagging skin and white hair and washed-out eyes. Much as it galled her, Merrigan chose from the clothes the shopkeeper offered. She assumed the unfashionable clothes were discards from people who no longer wanted or needed them. Along with fresh new underpinnings and much better shoes, she chose two complete outfits in dark blue and a rich gray with hints of purple. Both were too large for her, but the shopkeeper gave her a box of pins for free. She used them to adjust the blue dress so she could wear it out of the shop and present a much better image to the other merchants she would have to deal with today. Once she altered her new clothes, she would be quite well-dressed, even if on plain and simple lines. She would prove her talent, even before the judge walked about in his new clothes.
Now, if only she could remember that spell Nanny Tulip had taught her, for making collars that choked their wearers days and moons after she had made them.
~~~~~
THE LIBRARY WAS SO utterly transformed when Merrigan returned to Judge Brimble's house that evening, it astonished her into a good mood. She did love the smell of fresh lemon wax and floor polish and the aroma of cleaned leather. The bindings of all those lovely books shone with quiet splendor as she walked around the library, inspecting the cleaning job the two serving girls had done. The library in her father's palace had been her favorite place, her retreat from an unkind, critical world, and her heart had ached a little when she saw the neglect inflicted on this place. The stable boys moved the tables into position in the center of the room, under the massive oil lamp chandelier, under her direction. Then they brought in the packages from four different shops, full of all the supplies Merrigan needed for her tailoring work.
The fresh, hot meal the girls hurried to bring her, before she could even ask, raised her spirits even more. Merrigan thanked them and, according to her long-term strategy, asked if they wanted to see all the lovely fabrics and thread and buttons and trimmings she had bought. When she offered to teach them fine sewing, to better their stations, the girls clasped hands and muffled little squeals of delight. Merrigan knew she had them in the palm of her hand. With some surprise, she decided they were actually pretty, under their dull clothes and an extra stone or two of weight.
Judge Brimble was entirely too jovially pleased with the choices in cloth and colors and patterns, when he came to inspect her purchases the next morning. Merrigan feared he might embrace her this time. Fortunately, she was already hard at work, using the sharp new scissors bought with his money. He never asked her how much everything cost, though he did care which merchants she patronized and who might have seen her in his carriage. He also complimented her on the improved image she presented in her new clothes. Merrigan almost felt a flicker of sympathy for him, when she thought of the tidy stack of silver coins tucked away at the bottom of her bag of buttons and trimmings. Between a mixture of respect for and fear of Judge Brimble and casually mentioning that she had been a seamstress to royalty, many shopkeepers and merchants offered Merrigan lower prices on her purchases. She knew they depended on her to come back, and likely planned on improving their reputations by boasting that they had sold to her. Whenever Judge Brimble came into Carnpotz, they could point to his clothes and say that the material came from their shops.
Master Twilby expressed his gratitude for Merrigan's intervention with a basket of fruity pastries, fresh from Fern's clever little hands, when he sent over Judge Brimble's measurements. That saved her the somewhat distasteful task of having to get close to the man and touch him. Now all she had to do was make patterns to suit the current fashions.
Judge Brimble was in such a jolly mood that his voice boomed through the house all morning. Merrigan sat in her library, measuring, marking, cutting, smiling, and listening. The pipe for the heating stove in Judge Brimble's office connected with the pipe for the library stove. It perfectly funneled sound up to Merrigan for her to hear every conversation he had there. She had plenty of paper and ink and ten fine quill pens that the serving girls had procured for her. Flora and Fauna. She made sure to remember their names, since it was important to her plan. Whenever something interesting came up in the judge's meetings, Merrigan made notes. She didn't learn any plots that first day, or even hints of plots to cheat other people, but she did learn quite a bit about the town of Smilpotz. The judge considered himself not only admired, but well-liked. He treated all his visitors with a jolliness that had Merrigan gritting her teeth several times. Even with a floor between her and them, the tones of the many voices, the hesitations, the broken sentences taught her the people coming before Brimble might respect him, but from fear and desperation, not admiration. Her father, by contrast, had ruled Avylyn with justice and honor, and the people had been intensely loyal by choice, not through intimidation. Bribes and threats didn't work well on people who were loyal to an admirable man.
What Merrigan heard solidified her resolve to have Brimble taken down a few notches, his benefactor mask torn away. He simply was not admirable. Not like her father. And not just because she owed the miller's son a good turn.
"Why can't I remember his name?" she muttered, nearly skewering her finger with the needle she had been trying to thread. "Oh, bother ..." She sighed, put down the needle and thread, and rubbed at her temples.
She had been sitting too long. After what felt like years of walking from village to town, she wasn't used to sitting for more than half an hour at a time. She felt restless. Oddly, she thought she might miss, just a tiny bit, being outdoors and on the move.
"That can be fixed easily enough," she muttered, looking around the massive library. Two or three circuits of the room, and then she could concentrate on the judge's conversation with the baker, who was upset over someone spreading false tales about finding ashes in his bread. Merrigan knew those were lies, because she had thoroughly enjoyed the light, tasty bread the baker had given her for free. A man who adulterated his flour and lowered the quality of his goods wouldn't give away free bread. Cheats didn't have that generosity of spirit. Anyone with a bit of common sense could figure that out in two seconds.
She circled the room twice, making a game of walking as silently and lightly as thistledown. The baker had been disturbed by the rumors enough to confront the people spreading them, to demand proof that the bread they had eaten was bad. Merrigan snorted at hearing that. If the bread was bad, they should have returned it and demanded their money back, instead of just complaining. Any fool knew that. Talk was no good without proof.
"Told you so," she muttered, when Judge Brimble echoed her thoughts, but in more formal, legal language. Then the baker said the people he confronted had only repeated what others said.
Her attention caught on something on the far side of the library. A stray beam of sunlight had moved across the wall as the afternoon aged, and landed on a jumble of old papers tucked into a corner bookshelf. She found that odd, because Flora and Fauna had done a splendid job of cleaning. Even odder, while the papers seemed jumbled and discolored and dusty, there was a sparkle in that dustiness. Still listening to the now-boring conversation in the room below her, she crossed to that odd bookshelf. Why hadn't the girls straightened out those papers while cleaning? Why did the papers sparkle?
She shuddered at the idea that bit of glitter in the air might be magic. Merrigan shook her head. While there was plenty of magic in the world today, much of it was in the hands of solitary enchanters who preferred to be left alone, or in the hands of interfering, judgmental busybodies. Or people like Clara, who never took into account the dreadful circumstances that forced people to lie to defend their rights. Nanny Tulip had told her stories about the wars between great and powerful majjians who tried to impose standards on all others who worked magic around the world. Many had vanished, either drained by their battles or simply because they no longer cared. According to Nanny Tulip, the dreadful results of their battles remained in the world, and the non-majjian suffered for it. The chances of encountering some magic in Judge Brimble's too big, too ostentatious house were very small.
"I should have guessed," she said on a sigh, when she reached the corner bookshelf and discovered a sheet of wavy, green-tinted glass across the nook in the shelves. Corner bookshelves were useless for storing books, because most of the books were tucked out of sight. They were most often used for hiding things, or getting useless things out of the way.
Merrigan lightly ran her fingertips along the frame holding the glass in place, seeking the latch. Someone at some time had decided that jumble of papers was worth putting away behind the glass. She suspected Brimble might not have entered the library since he inherited it, and didn't know this corner and those papers existed.
"I do wish I could find a latch of some kind," she muttered, and stepped back to let the fading light stream past her. It sparkled on the glass and the papers behind it, and Merrigan let out a sigh of exasperation. There, where her fingers had pressed not two seconds ago, was a hinge. She looked on the opposite side of the frame. There was an indentation, allowing her to slide three fingers in between the frame and the bookcase and tug the glass door out. Now why hadn't she seen that before?
She opened it slowly, anticipating a swirl of dust from the movement of air. A loud creak. She jumped and froze. No, the creak came from the judge's office. She smiled at her jumpiness. Who would walk into the library without knocking first? Wasn't the library her domain now? Besides, she doubted anyone in this household cared about books.
Merrigan, however, loved books, all the treasures of knowledge and secrets and useful information hidden inside them. A soft moan of dismay escaped her—that wasn't a jumble of papers sitting on two shelves, covered in dust that had filtered in behind the glass panes.
That was a book, cruelly ripped from the binding, the pages tossed into uneven piles. She held her breath as she brought the piles out and put them on the table under the light from the chandelier. This was an old book, hand-written. Such odd, old-fashioned, looping handwriting. The yellowed vellum pages were stained by water and what might just be mud. The ink had run in some places—the words still legible, though—and in others were dimpled from water. She found the broken binding and empty wooden cover panels and torn pieces of the leather cover buried among the pages. Merrigan's hands shook from anger as she lifted a few pages to examine. Why would someone so utterly destroy a book, and yet save the pieces?
"I suppose some idiot destroyed it in a fit of rage, and someone else salvaged it, intending to fix it." She lifted a few more pages, squinting at the loopy handwriting and old-fashioned spelling. The pages had headings, so she sorted through the first twenty or so pages and put them into groupings by the headings. That would certainly help in re-assembling the book.
Merrigan stopped short at that thought. Why would she even want to assemble the old book?
After a few moments of internal debate over the waste of time versus doing something she would enjoy, which Judge Brimble hadn't paid her to do, she put the papers down and dug out the broken cover. Merrigan move slowly, delicately. Not because she expected the book to be valuable, but just because it was a book.
She saw writing on the spine. Tiny and faded, but retaining enough golden sparkles to make the letters legible. The fact someone had written with gold ink had to mean it was valuable.
"Of the great secrets of this land," she read aloud, slowly piecing together the words. "I do like secrets." She put the cover down slowly, carefully, spreading it out flat so the inside surface faced upwards.
The book waited for its torn pages to be put back into place. Like a hand waiting to be filled.
She shuddered from some feeling she couldn't understand, and shut the glass panel with a careless, soft thud. Merrigan fought the urge to stick her tongue out at the piles of pages, and walked back around the table to resume her sewing. She had work to do, a little bit of justified punishment to levy.
Oddly, when Fauna brought her supper tray, the girl didn't notice the broken book lying at the far end of the long worktable. Even more odd, Merrigan kept looking at those papers all through her evening of sewing. She imagined sewing the pages back into the binding with the same ease as she sewed the first seams of the snowy linen shirt. She couldn't push aside the thought of reweaving the book together, even when she was tired enough to lower the chandelier on its long chain to blow out the oil lamps. She left just one lamp to light her way to bed in the thick chair cushions piled in the big, deep window seat. Sighing with satisfaction, she adjusted the clean blankets that smelled of lavender, and closed her eyes, falling swiftly into sleep.
Merrigan heard a voice through her dreams, whispering, pleading with her to fix the book, and promising her rewards beyond her wildest imagination.
She didn't believe in wild imagination. She believed in common sense and having a careful plan and making calculations and carrying through. And not trusting in anyone but herself for success, as she had learned through bitter experience.
Still, would it be so bad, hedging her bets?
When she woke the next morning, she dismissed the night's dreaming and pleading and considerations as just that—dreaming. Yet the idea of putting the book back together lingered at the back of her mind while she cut out the material for a second shirt and basted the pieces together. During her noon meal, she overheard the judge laughing with someone about the baker's frustrations with all the lies being told about his wares.
That decided her.
The book had to be valuable, to someone. She would repair it and take it with her when she left, and serve Judge Brimble right if it turned out to be a treasure he had overlooked. The man was odious, and his cruel treatment of a book just proved it.
She had to do something to punish the egotistical bag of hot air, since she still couldn't remember Nanny Tulip's handy little spell for choking collars. After a full day of listening to that man talk, the false joviality in his voice, comforting and advising one man over problems that provided amusement to someone else two hours later, Merrigan wanted to do more than frighten him. That was all the collar would do—choke him a few times, frighten him, turn his face red and cut off his voice at inopportune moments. Eventually the spell would wear off, or he would throw the collar away. She couldn't do anything permanent. She had never been able to do anything permanent.
"That's the problem, isn't it?" she muttered as she put aside the tray with her half-eaten meal and picked up the pieces of the first vest. "Only simpletons get permanent. Granted, if they have the wisdom to protect it. Most of them do learn to be a little more alert. Why can't I get permanent? My problem is that I get soft and rely on other people. I never should have trusted Leffisand to hold onto the kingdom. Or his own life, for that matter. Oh, Leffisand, why did you have to be so stubborn? Would it have been so bad to let that noble idiot cousin of yours heal you?"
Merrigan stopped, the words catching in her throat, at the sight of three, now four, now five, drops of water on her sewing. She wasn't crying, was she? She hadn't let herself cry in years. It was such a waste of time and energy. Someone always came in and caught her crying, and that was simply embarrassing.
Sniffing and then swallowing hard, to ensure a sob didn't escape her, she got up from the table, walked around it three times to steady herself, and blotted at her eyes. Rubbing only added to the redness from tears, and that simply wouldn't do. Whatever was wrong with her, to get so weak and weepy?
Before she quite knew it, she had a bundle of pages cradled in one arm and had sorted several dozen according to the headings of the pages. Oddly, she found the motions somewhat soothing. She glanced at the headings and sorted and her mind drifted. At least she wasn't dithering over Leffisand and his foolish—
"Scorch it," she muttered, and nearly threw the papers down. "Just when I was starting to feel better. I wish I could—no, I don't really want to forget about Leffisand entirely. Those few years we had together were rather enjoyable. I liked life in Carlion much more than I did back home." A sigh escaped her. "I don't want to forget Leffisand. After all, what use would it be trying to get my kingdom back if I couldn't remember why I was Queen of Carlion? No, I just wish it would stop hurting so much."
She paused in reaching for another stack of pages to sort. Odd, how this work was going much quicker than she had anticipated. Merrigan could have sworn someone called her name. Her real name. She was going by the name Mara. False names were much better for protecting her dignity. It wouldn't do for someone she had met along her exile travels to show up in Carlion, expecting payment for the piddling little good deeds they had done for her.
Merrigan paused, half the pages sorted, caught between the urge to fling them across the room and to sort faster. What was wrong with her? It was like there was an argument in her head, correcting her every time she spoke her thoughts aloud.
"Granted, Leffisand employed far too many lies and nasty tricks, but wasn't he justified in punishing people who got in his way? He was the king. He had to protect his throne, his kingdom, his people ... his lies." Merrigan looked at her empty hands and the sorted piles of pages. Somehow, she had gotten through the first stack of ripped-out pages and had ten piles of pages now. She rubbed at her temples. She actually felt a little better, as if she were accomplishing something important.
"Poor Fialla. She simply wasn't the right wife for Leffisand. Much too sweet and good-hearted and weak. King Conrad would have been a much better choice for her." Another snicker escaped her. "Thank goodness he ran away in horror when someone proposed he ask for me. The only one who really wanted me was Bryan, and he ..."
Merrigan closed her eyes to wish away the image of a long-forgotten, handsome, young face. She hadn't thought of Prince Bryan of Sylvanglade in years. Had it been ten, or more than that? At least he had never formally proposed marriage. The youngest son of a large royal family in a small kingdom, he had no chance. Even before she learned to always consider power and never accept anything less than an heir, she had known better than to encourage Bryan.
It just showed how low she had fallen in the world, to think of him now. Better to concentrate on other things. Such as all the handsome crown princes who had looked at her and either shuddered in fear or stomped away in disgust and wounded pride when she refused them. Conrad of Jardien had been one of the former.