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The cold of the dungeon made Maria shiver, no matter how tightly she wrapped herself in the thin blanket. They had been kind enough to place a makeshift bunk bed in the basement cell where she was now placed. It was a relief that she didn’t have to sleep on the floor, but it was no more comforting than that.
Trying not make a sound when she moved her bruised arms, she gently placed a hand on the bump on her stomach. Even though her hand was below the blanket, she still couldn’t help but look around. There was no one outside of the bars to the cell.
She closed her eyes, while she gently stroked her stomach, imagining the baby on the other side of the skin. The pregnancy had begun to show but luckily it wasn’t visible because of her loose-hanging dress. Thankfully, the rough handling by the guards when they had been caught didn’t seem to have impacted the baby.
The small cell she was in was meant for thieves, witches and other criminals awaiting trial. She had only been here once before as a child. She had been allowed to play hide and seek with her older brother Torsten and some of his friends. Since they were all three or four years older than her, they were much better at the game and knew all of the best hiding spots within the castle. Maria had desperately wanted to find a great place to hide.
The door to the basement had been open and she had gone down into the dark, even though it was the scariest thing she knew back then. Even though she had been told time and time again that she wasn’t allowed to.
The guard room had been empty but there had been someone sitting in the cell that Maria was in now. The person leaned against the wall with the head hanging down. She couldn’t even tell whether it was a man or a woman. The long hair was loose and almost touched the ground. She had been so afraid, but she wanted so badly to beat Torsten and his friends that she quickly hid behind a couple of barrels.
The guards had come back in shortly after. At first, she had found it amusing that Torsten and his friends probably wouldn’t dare to go past the guards, even though they were much older than her. But when she could hear them calling in the courtyard and didn’t dare run out to them, she realized that she was stuck.
As she recalled she had been sitting there for hours before someone had found her and taken her up to her parents. It had been on that occasion that her father had decided that she was too old to play anymore. She had been seven at the time.
After that she had watched Torsten and his friends play from the window, but had herself started her training to become someone’s wife. Maria sighed. She felt just as afraid and insecure now as she had when she had been hiding behind a barrel almost 20 years ago.
She looked up when she heard someone enter the guards’ room.
“The lord wants to see her,” the soldier said.
The lord, that meant that Gustaf was back. Maria’s heart pounded faster at the thought of meeting her brother. The guard unlocked the door to her cell and both men entered. Maria tried to get up from the bed but her legs were stiff from the cold and being in an odd position too long. It seemed that she was too slow for the soldier; he grabbed her arm and dragged her to her feet. Maria couldn’t help but cry out in pain when he placed his hands on exactly the same spot that her bruises were. The soldier didn’t seem to care, and his hand remained in a tight grip around her arm like an eagle’s claw around its prey all the way to Gustaf’s private chambers.
“Well, if it isn’t my little sister, the queen,” Gustaf commented and sent the soldier away with a wave of his hand. He bowed sarcastically to Maria, who remained standing right inside the door. “Please come closer and sit down. You know how good a host I am to my guests.”
Maria remained standing, clenching her jaws together, trying not to reply.
“Very well,” Gustaf said and sat down. He leaned forward in the chair. “I hope you’re not offended by me sitting down in your presence. I just assumed that since you are my prisoner, and that my wife very soon will take your place, maybe you wouldn’t mind it.”
He smiled a catlike smile that Maria remembered from when they were children, and he was able to get away with something that she or Torsten would have been scolded for doing.
Maria stepped closer. She would have one chance to reason with her brother and knew that it was next to impossible to do so.
“Gustaf, release me and Anna now. If we get to go back to Jonathan and you stop this....” She was searching for the right word while she fidgeted nervously with her hands. She knew that she wasn’t making a good impression on him. “...this crusade to be king, then we all get to live peacefully together.”
“Really?” Gustaf said in a smug voice while pouring himself a glass of wine. “Did you honestly think that that would work on me?”
Maria stepped even closer. She wasn’t going to give up now. If not for her sake or for Jonathan’s, then at least for the baby.
“But can’t you see that you are tearing the country apart? People will be starving because they’ve had no chance to sow and harvest the fields. A starving people will rebel in no time...”
Gustaf made a waving gesture.
“A firm hand is what the people need. They are peasants, Maria. You talk of them as if they have a mind and an opinion of their own.”
Maria was glowing with fury now. How could her brother, her older brother, whom she had always regarded as bright, always looked up to, how could he talk like this?
“They are not single-minded simply because they are uneducated. If you believe so, then you are dumber than I thought imaginable,” she said.
Gustaf got up from the chair and stepped towards Maria with his hand raised. Maria braced herself, but nothing happened. Gustaf moved away from her again and laughed soullessly.
“I see I was right in speaking to you. You’re not the Maria I knew any more. That man has changed you.”
“Is that why you wanted to speak to me, to know where my loyalty lies? In that case, I’m sure that you have no doubts now.”
“No,” Gustaf said shortly and had the guards take her away at once.
***
Jonathan was standing on the other side of the bars looking at her. She was calling out for him, but he was just standing there watching her. His face was completely stripped of emotion. She ran to the bars, stretched her arm out to touch him, to grab hold of him and draw him closer. All the while she was saying his name. But he just moved further and further away until she couldn’t see him anymore. For the first time Maria felt sure that she would never see him again.
Maria couldn’t help but look at the hallway behind the bars when she opened her eyes. There was nothing there except a grey sliver of daylight. She closed her eyes again. Maybe she could go back to sleep, but all she could see before her was Jonathan’s emotionless face. Her stomach turned and she quickly opened her eyes again.
How could she ever make him understand why she had written that letter to Gustaf? After seeing him last night she couldn’t even believe that she had tried to save his life. Why had she risked her marriage, the love of the best man that she had ever known, to save a brother that was so indifferent towards her?
She could feel the nausea getting worse and quickly sat up. Maybe it hadn’t just been the thought of Jonathan that had brought it? She found that she would get nauseated every time she was hungry. But luckily, she hadn’t thrown up again. She couldn’t risk drawing any more attention to her situation.
She quickly stroked the small bump on her belly. Anyone seeing her would probably just think that it was a roll of fat but with the little food they were getting they would probably also quickly realize that she couldn’t have gained weight while being here. Hopefully the child would be alright even though she didn’t have that much to eat at the moment.
Her stomach rumbled and she felt even more nauseated. Maria crawled over to the bars and held her head close to the wall so that the guards hopefully wouldn’t see her.
“Anna,” she whispered. “Do you have anything to eat?”
She could hear Anna getting up from her bed and sitting down on the floor next to Maria’s cell.
“No,” Anna whispered.
“Have they been here with breakfast?” Maria whispered.
“A couple of hours ago. You were sleeping. I thought they left you something.”
“No.” Maria paused for a moment. “I’m so hungry that I’m nauseated.”
“I’m sorry,” Anna whispered. “I should have saved you some of my food.”
“No, you need to eat as well. I’ll ask them for some food.”
She could hear Anna crawl away from the wall and get back into her bed. Maria got up slowly. Her legs were stiff from lying and sitting so much. She tried to walk around in the cell each day to get some exercise, but it was clear that it wasn’t enough.
“Guard,” she yelled with all the authority she could muster in the situation. “Guard!”
She could hear the guard grunting.
“What?” he yelled as he was walking down the corridor to her cell.
“I missed breakfast. I should like something to eat,” Maria said in a tone that she hoped was both kind but also showed that she wanted no trouble with him.
The guard had reached her cell now.
“Do you think this is an inn? Or maybe you’ve forgotten that you’re not back at your fancy palace having people wipe your ass and fetching your food whenever you feel like it. I have better things to do than to get food for you.” He turned around to leave.
“But I’m really hungry...” Maria had to stop speaking to fight the nausea.
“Too bad,” the guard said.
Maria could feel her stomach turning and rushed to the furthest corner of her room where her waste bucket was and threw up. She tried to do it so silently as possible, but she was sure that the guard had heard everything anyway.
***
Maria had feared that she would have to face Gustaf again when both she and Anna were collected from the cell. They were led to her old room, and for a moment Maria thought they would perhaps be staying here again and not in the cells. But then Margaret entered with the wise woman.
Maria tried to compose herself, but she couldn’t help but gulp. She felt the sound was awfully loud since her mouth was completely dry.
“I hear you’ve been sick,” Margaret said in a voice that said that she had no interest at all in Maria’s health.
Maria didn’t say anything.
“We’ll have to examine you again,” Margaret said and gestured for the woman to get closer to Maria.
“If Your Majesty would remove the dress,” the woman began, in a humble tone.
“Don’t call her that!” Margaret said fiercely.
The woman looked apologetically at Margaret but didn’t say anything. The woman helped Maria open the dress in the back and step out of it. Then Maria removed the shift herself. Standing naked in front of the three women she felt that it would be obvious that she was pregnant. She could see Margaret squinting when she saw Maria’s belly.
“I’m sorry, my hands are cold,” the woman said as she placed them on the lower part of Maria’s belly. Maria couldn’t help but to tighten the muscles in her stomach when she felt the woman’s icy hands.
“Just relax,” the woman said gently. “When did you last bleed?”
Maria couldn’t remember what she had told the woman last time. They had been here two weeks, or was it three?
“Neither of them has bled while being here, so you better examine the other one afterwards,” Margaret said in the distancing tone that Maria couldn’t connect with her sister-in-law at all.
“Hmm,” the wise woman mused. “Are you eating enough?”
“Of course they are eating enough!” Margaret put in. She sounded truly angry at the thought of them not treating their prisoners well.
“I didn’t have breakfast,” Maria explained. “That’s why I was sick.”
The woman nodded. She turned to Margaret.
“Well, I can’t say for certain whether she is pregnant or not. Not bleeding and being sick can be signs of other things too. Like starvation.”
“But look at her belly!” Margaret said indignantly and gesticulated towards Maria. Maria couldn’t help but look down herself. She had always been slim, but now there was clearly a bump on the lower part of her stomach.
“It’s quite common for people who are not eating enough to have their bellies swell up,” the woman said.
Maria couldn’t believe her courage in standing up to Margaret. If Margaret learned that she was lying, the woman would be sent away from Gustaf’s estate. She had a young daughter, as far as Maria knew. Where would they go then?
But on the other hand, the wise woman had lost a child of her own, trying to help Maria conceive. She guessed that it was natural that the wise woman felt protective of the child as well. If Maria ever managed to get away, she would have to reward her lavishly.
“So, when can you know for sure whether she is pregnant?” Margaret pressed, annoyed.
“In a couple of weeks, maybe – if your ladyship makes sure that she is fed properly.”