“How very nice to – see you again, milord.”
I heard him chuckle softly from somewhere deep in the gloom, and was glad, then, for the lack of light, else he would’ve seen the shiver of fear that ran through me at the sound.
“I have waited all day, writing letters to His Highness, Prince Kharles, to His Excellency, Duke Warrington, to inform them of the strange maid at an old lodge in Earlkone who claims to know of Mariadelle Tadstreet, Grand Count’s daughter. But they will not be here for long days, and so I have time to keep you to your promise.” There was something in his voice at this last sentence, as though he were lying, and trying very hard not to allow it into his voice. I frowned, for more reasons than one.
I shut my eyes tightly, but the darkness neither increased nor lessened – I felt as though I might smother in the pitch-black, stumbling this way and that, not caring much where I’d find myself in the end.
“Now, we begin,” he said softly, and I was not sure exactly what he meant, even when two hands grasped my shoulders from behind and pulled me into his waiting arms. “What do you know of Mariadelle, little maid?”
He turned me ‘round to face him, and I could only just see his face through the shadowy darkness.
“I know why she ran, sir. I know where she went, and with whom, and I know where she’s hiding now.”
Raymond, as I most clearly recollected, had not ever been good at hiding his emotions, and so I saw easily the gleam of excitement in his eyes as my words settled into his mind. “Then tell me, dear Hannah, and perhaps you will escape the night unscathed – if that be your wish.”
That was when Aimthaer chose to step in, if I ever after had to guess a time. The Earlkonic accent fell from my voice, and I once again spoke as Mariadelle would, with the affects of a girl from the higher class of Therien – quiet, clear, and gentle.
“She set off into the strip of forest between Therien and Earlkone, trying to escape the fate of Duke Warrington’s bride. That very night, as she fled along the well-worn path ‘twixt town and city, she met a group of drunkards, stumbling the opposite way towards Therien. What became of her there, I cannot know or say. The following morning, ere the sun rose, she and a girl – and I must admit, I do not know how the girl came to be with her – entered into the bar of The Troll’s Eye, asking for work, room and board. She was given it, as was her new friend, whose name I soon gathered was Triedtha – or Dai, as most call her.” I paused for a breath, and would have put a hand to my mouth if Raymond had not trapped my arms so securely beneath his own. With all due respect, Aimthaer, I wonder if you haven’t gone mad, I thought despairingly, as my mouth opened again to speak words I would otherwise not have allowed Raymond to hear. “She stayed there, under an alias quite simple and ordinary, for many months. Fall passed to winter, and winter, in turn, faded to spring, and still no one heard aught of that disobedient, ungrateful girl who had so rashly tried to cheat Lady Fate.” I blushed at this, for I supposed – correctly – that the last bit had not been put in merely to further the story, but perhaps to berate the girl who spoke it. Was he really so displeased at my actions, or had the other gods wished these angry words into my unexpected speech?
“Go on,” Raymond whispered, and I knew now he did not only hold me in his arms for the sake of the action, but to make it very clear that he would not wait another day to hear the rest of my tale.
“Do you remember, perchance, the gown Miss Tadstreet wore to the wedding?” I asked softly, and yet without quite knowing where the question was meant to go.
“Of all the confounded things to ask – of course not! A busy man like me, keeping track of the dress of every maiden in Therien?” He was annoyed, and frustrated that I hadn’t yet given him the alias, nor the place where Mariadelle was hiding. How ironic, I thought, with a smile twisting my lips, that he holds her even now, in this numbing embrace.
“Ah, and I did not say you should, milord. Yet, if not, do you then remember, when I pulled the curtains from the window but a night ago, the simple dress with which I had arrayed myself?”
“I…” he began, and then halted, reconsidering what he had not truly considered at first. “Yes. Yes, blue – and it did not fit you well, as if made for a slimmer, smaller woman; I thought, fleetingly, I had seen it before, but where…?”
I felt his whole body tense as pieces slowly put themselves together in his none-too-clever mind. The carefree, almost cheery sensation that had filled my body as Aimthaer spoke through it left without sound or warning, and I shuddered, feeling as though I had shrunken through its loss.
Raymond released me, and I heard heavy footfalls as he dashed across the room, pulling the curtains aside to let fresh beams of moonlight into the darkened space.
“Mariadelle?” he gasped, and I brushed a strand of cocoa-hair from my eyes to – cocoa, I thought, horrified. I looked down at myself, and the scanty uniform, so patched and so familiar, hung on my suddenly slimmer, more petite form. Raymond took a swaying, almost drunken step towards me, rather like a man afraid to approach a dangerous beast. I did what seemed expected of me, the only course of action that seemed possible, sensible.
I ran.
The door stood framed in moonlight, so close and yet so impossibly far away. I dashed towards it, for once thanking the undersized skirt of my uniform, for it did not hinder one as a long gown would. I reached for the door, felt my fingers brush against the cold metal of its handle—and then, like a ship brought abruptly to anchor, an arm slung around my waist and yanked me backwards.
“Mariadelle?” Raymond repeated. He turned me ‘round again to face him, studying me with wide gray eyes. He seemed to finally decide I was not a ghost or wraith of memory, and with his decision came a bright, triumphant smile. “I called the lords to meet a hint to the riddle, and ere they come they’ll find the answer herself!” Raymond grew suddenly less joyful, and he said in a quieter voice, “But I fear for you, milady, when in through the door comes Duke Warrington.”
I shivered once, for I saw no lie or jest in his eyes. “When do they – prince, duke, and king – expect to arrive?”
He glanced over his shoulder, out the window, as though anticipating an answer’s appearance there, and then turned back to face me. “His Highness – tonight, unless he chooses not to come. The duke shall arrive tomorrow morn, I am sure of that; as for King Orendell, his reply was merely, ‘Leave the lovebirds to themselves,’ although what he meant exactly, I do not know.”
Brushing aside the King of Jharrim’s remark – which, I knew, only I would understand – I challenged Raymond’s earlier “Reply?” I queried. “I was certain you said you had written the letters to them but this morning.”
He smiled again, but this was a secretive, almost sly smile and it did not look quite right on his face. “They were delivered in a rather more speedy way than you might imagine. But by all accounts, Miss Tadstreet, not a one of them will be happy with you, unless I know nothing.”
“Please,” I breathed, trembling slightly, “please, Raymond, if you still hold any love for me in your heart, let me go. I never wish to see my fiancé again, and I have not begun to wish otherwise now. Please.”
For a moment, his grip on my waist seemed to loosen, and my heart leaped with renewed hope. I can still escape the trap Aimthaer led me into, I thought, and the idea was the only that kept my tears from spilling over.
“No,” he said.
“What?”
“No. Because of your attempt at escaping the duke, war has broken out between Jharrim and Ape’erafer. Men have died, and will die, unless peace is bought. We buy it through you, Mariadelle, and I will not be the one to decide otherwise.”
His tone was flat, his words final. I was locked in a cage, and the key was being dangled before my eyes. I wrenched myself from his arms and fell to the floor, tears spilling over onto my fear-flushed cheeks. “Raymond,” I cried, “Raymond, please.”
“Mariadelle, I do not understand you! All the time we grew up together, you told me of the wonderful life you were preparing to lead – oh, the balls you would attend, the prince you would marry, the children you would so skillfully raise… why are you so differently-minded now? What happened to the curious, courteous, responsible woman I knew but a year ago?”
“She…she is gone,” I said through tears, too shaky to rise and yet too anxious to sit. I looked pleadingly up at him, but the question I had been prepared to ask for the third time lost itself on the way from mind to throat, as I saw the resolute look upon Raymond’s face. “I am maimed, Raymond.”
“But you will marry him anyhow, as we all said from the start. The king himself arranged the marriage, and you ran, so unlike the Count’s daughter I thought you to be.” The scorn in his voice stung me, and I opened my mouth to deny it… yet he was correct; I had been a coward. I had let men, good soldiers die so that I could avoid marriage, could avoid servitude to a man I hated from the moment we met.
“If—”
A light, cheery voice came from the direction of the door as it creaked open, interrupting me. “Hullo! Have I missed much?”
I hastily swept the tears from my face with the back of my hand, looking through blurred eyes at the man in the doorway. “Aimthaer!” I said, and was caught between turning my back on him in contempt, and rising to curtsy.
“My dear, my dear, please call me Wimbledon. You know how I hate those stuffy titles,” he said, bouncing over to smile down at me. “Don’t worry, child, my ideas always turn out right. There will be… prices to pay, for the gods are angry with you, but in the end, we’ll be much happier – every last one of us.” He chuckled, as though that settled it, and patted me gently on the back.
I sighed, not deigning to face Raymond as I spoke once more. “I will go to my room, now, if that’s quite all right with you, Lord Leek.”
He came around to stand in front of me, and I took his proffered hand. However, when I looked into his face, I did not see none-too-intelligent-yet-perfectly-respectable Raymond.
His hand caught my arm as I made for the door, and there was still that un-Raymond-like intelligence in his voice as he said, “You shall sleep here tonight, in my room. Do not look at me so! I will be on the sofa, dear lady, and you in the bed. For I would not suffer for you to leave my sight ‘til dawn brings the duke. I fear the prince has not deigned us worth his time, at the moment.”
I sighed in utter defeat, and shot Aimthaer one last, imploring glance – he was the god of luck and lies, after all – but my hopes were dashed, for he gave me one jolly shake of the head, as a father might when his daughter is asking for a sweet he has decided not to give her, before almost sashaying out of the room.
“A good friend of yours, perhaps?” Raymond asked, and I looked at him in honest dismay.
“Aimthaer, friend? He’s a god, for goodness’ sake!”
By the guarded expression on his face, I could tell he didn’t truly believe me – but then, something about the way he hardly reacted at all when Aimthaer entered the room told me that perhaps the gods were meddling in my affairs… again.
“A god, you say? Surely a lesser one, for I have ne’er heard of Aimthaer, milady,” he said. As I sat down on Raymond’s bed, I reasoned he might have been raised in a household where the gods had different names than in mine – Raymond had never looked quite Ape’erafian.
“Never you mind who he is, he’s no help to me now.” I pulled the bed sheets over me and curled quietly up within them, pointedly failing to bid him good night.
The morning sunlight crept slowly into the room, nosing around in the corners and chasing away the dark until it had found my eyelids. There it curled up comfortably, content to wait until its buttery glow brought me back from deep slumber. However, any hopes of a peaceful and slow road to awakening were dashed as a door slammed shut, Raymond’s voice barking, “Milady, you must rise and go downstairs with all possible haste. His Excellency, Duke Warrington awaits you.”
If the man had said any other words, I would have pretended to sleep too soundly to hear, and perhaps spent the next twenty minutes delaying in any way possible – if he ever managed to pull me from my bed – but he spoke of my fiancé, and Duke Warrington was the only man I did not deem it wise to anger.
I pulled myself slowly into a sitting position, looking through bleary eyes at Raymond. “Milord, I would like to go fetch my travel-bag, if ‘tis at all possible. To go down in this patched—”
I was startled from speaking the rest of my request as he tossed something brown and bulky at me. It landed rather neatly in my blanket-swathed lap. “Dress, wash, do whatever you wish, milady, but hurry.” Before I could reply, he had turned and exited, again slamming the door behind him.
I slipped quickly from under the covers, shedding down to my shift. I remembered that I was no longer Hannah Slate, and saw that the rough white underclothes I had bought and worn while working in Earlkone simply did not fit me anymore. Picking up my bag, I dumped its contents onto Raymond’s bed. I searched feverishly through the pile until I found suitable clothes for the occasion, and, hoping that with my change from Hannah to Mariadelle had come some sort of enchanted, split-second bath – for I had not bathed since two nights before – slipped into the smaller underclothes and gown.
When I reached the top of the stairs, I began to wish I were dead, and by the time the last stair was beneath my feet, I wouldn’t have minded if it were an extremely slow, painful death. Duke Warrington, although I could not see him, was somewhere in the square, low-ceilinged hall before me, and might come striding towards me at any moment.
I felt a hand rest on my forearm, and started, head snapping sideways and upwards to see Raymond. My heart, which for a moment had been beating rather violently in my bosom, slowed its pace, and I nearly sighed in relief.
“Follow me – His Excellency is most anxious to see you again, milady,” he said, and his voice was almost mechanical. I quenched the fear in my mind, knowing what little good it would do me in the days to come, and allowed him to pull me straight into the heart of the hall, past many rowdy tables filled with ruddy-faced farmers and pale shopkeeper’s wives alike. I recognized only a few of them, and, naturally, none recognized me. If my foreign face and silky brown hair were not enough to baffle them, I was dressed in a long, pale pink gown, with crystals sewn into the neckline and around the wrists.
With a suddenness that nearly sent me into a faint, all my thoughts and all my emotions became vague and half-forgotten, as Raymond led me steadily towards a table in the very center of the hall. Sitting at the far end of it, and the only occupant to be seen, was a man with coal-black hair and cocoa-colored skin. He had cut that hair since last I saw him, and it was now short and jagged, like the sharp rocks at the base of a cliff. The silver velvet of his coat, and the familiar black of his breeches were the last I noted before I drifted to a seat beside him.
“Ah, if it isn’t my runaway bride herself. Somehow, dear, I had imagined you less pristine after so many months in… such crude hiding,” he purred quietly, and yet I heard him very clearly over all the noise in the hall.
“If you’d like to kill me, please do it, or my heart shan’t last the day, waiting for a death-stroke that never seems to come,” I gasped, and the coldness of his dark eyes frightened me as nothing else could.
“Kill you? I’ve spent months of time searching everywhere for a petite young woman with dark blue eyes and chocolate-brown hair, and atop that I was forced to do it in secret. Why would I go to all that trouble simply to lop your pretty head off? No, my dear, your fate is much worse than easy death,” he said, laying a hand atop mine as it rested on the table. If I looked for anything in his face, it was not anger, nor scorn, but pity for what I had done, and what he must plan to do to me. Yet I found none.
“What is my fate, then, milord?”
He took my chin ‘twixt his thumb and forefinger, pulling my face upwards so I was forced to look into his dark eyes. “To manage the affairs of the Warrington household until your dying day. To marry me, and to care for my children – to obey my orders always, whatever your own wishes are.”
I stared into those deep, cold eyes, hypnotized, unable to look away. “I was not aware that you had – had children, milord.”
A thin smile stretched across his lips, as though he knew something I most certainly did not, and was taking grim pleasure in the thought. “Oh, not yet, of course… but soon, Mariadelle – soon.”
The glitter in his eyes told me what his words did not, and I drew back in my chair, as a mouse that is caught in a trap and knows its doom is near, yet instinctively attempts to escape.
“And here we are, whiling away our time in a hovel of an inn, when we have kings to meet!” he said suddenly, standing and pulling me with him.
“R-royalty?” I asked, bristling at the word he used to describe The Troll’s Eye. I had become rather fond of it, truth be told.
“Yes. We must speak with King Manfred – he desires for the wedding to be in the palace, but King Orendell imagines it in Jharrim. On the whole, it does not matter much to me, so long as my bride has not disappeared.” As he said this, I saw a flicker of anger spark in his face – raw, heated anger, and directed at none but me. I shuddered, looking away.
Without asking permission, without even allowing me to bid my friends good-bye, he led me out of the inn, and to the carriage waiting beyond. “The journey to King Manfred’s castle in Therien is but an hour, and so we have decided to meet there rather than in Jharrim – we wished to arrange things as close as we could to the, ah, dwelling-place of the bride.”
The careful way he minced around saying hideout caused my stomach to lurch uneasily, and I distracted myself by climbing with abominable lack of grace into the small coach. It was much less elaborate inside than Aimthaer’s had been, but then, what did I expect? The duke, wealthy as he was, could not contest with the riches and whims of the gods.
I was shaken from my thoughts as the duke seated himself across from me; he smiled pleasantly, and said, “I assume that Miss Tadstreet was informed that the wedding, whether celebrated here or in Jharrim, will take place ere the sun sets tomorrow night? By your woeful expression, milady, I gather you were not – no matter. Those whom it was crucial to inform were informed, and nothing but perhaps less chance for schemes of escape will be brought of your ignorance.” His smile became more of a knowing smirk, and I, determined not to be baited by such a – a foreigner, turned to look out the pitifully small window as he prattled on. “Talk, as we both know, is abundant in Ape’erafer, especially rumors. I heard a rather amusing one from a cook’s assistant last night; something about Lord Raymond attempting to assassinate you in the night.”
I gave him a disdainful glance before returning my gaze to the window, muttering, “He was not far from the mark.”
“Was he not? Then tell me, milady, exactly what Lord Raymond did try to do.”
I blushed profusely at the question, knowing that I had escaped the fate I was afraid to speak of only yester-night, and that because of my strange transformation from Hannah to Mariadelle. If Aimthaer had not changed me when he did… I shivered, silently – and guiltily, for I had been much less grateful the night before – thanking the god of luck and lies.
“It – it was nothing. If it pleases you, Your Excellency, I would refrain from besmirching the name of – of so great a lord as Sir Raymond, for what he did he did merely as a man who, as any, will err now and again, no matter his fame or piety.” I gave up my lookout at the tiny window, for the road was all alike – dirt, patches of grass, and multitudes of weeds. Nothing I could not see anytime; Duke Warrington’s dark face and almost hawk-like nose, his thin lips and deep eyes, were yet another matter.
“I’m gratified that my fiancée is so averse to idle gossip and rumors – I would not have a wife who spends her days as any peasant woman might, chattering and idling with her fellow women while her work long awaits her.”
I nodded once, although I had not truly heard his words; my mind was elsewhere, with Hare and Dai at the inn. On a day such as this, I would just be sitting down for lunch with my two friends, hearing the latest news of town from Dai and the strangest jests and jokes from Hare.
“As for the wedding, milady, I have decided to make it a quieter affair than your sister’s was. Perhaps just a few handpicked guests, our immediate families mostly. Do you have any opinion on the matter?”
His question, I knew, was mere formality, and so I looked down at my lap, mumbling an incoherent string of words that could easily have been interpreted whichever way he liked. Of course, I thought, of course Chelsea’s been married. I wonder how she’s faring with Sir Matheson?
“Oh, so you caught my little allusion? Yes, dear Chelsea is married. In fact, there are even rumors running about; something to do with Madame Matheson and an expected child,” he said, and his eyes sparkled.
“C-Chelsea?” The marriage might have been less than a shock, but to imagine my fifteen-year-old sister with child…
“Well, they were married seven months past. It is nearly summer now, if you’ve forgotten.”
I had not, although I refrained from saying such aloud. He turned to less important things – the crops, recent uprisings in Jharrim, and my mind wandered. Whatever had Hare done when he found Hannah Slate gone, and whispers of her sneaking into Lord Raymond’s room, and never coming out? I twisted my hands together as I had done the day of the prince’s wedding, and still Duke Warrington’s voice droned on, if a royal drawl such as his could drone.
“But tell me, milady, what was all this I heard from Lord Raymond concerning you and a god? Aimthaer, he said, though the name means little to me.”
I stirred slightly in my seat, half-submerged in thoughts and memories. “Wimbledon, he prefers, milord. You would not believe me if I told you the half of my – unexpected journey to Earlkone, and so I shan’t try to relate it. Is there not any news of Therien or Ape’erafer that you might tell me? What of my mother and father?”
My hesitance to speak overmuch of Aimthaer seemed to puzzle him, yet he nodded at my former question, saying, “I forget, milady, that you are Ape’erafian, and do not hail from Jharrim—for now.” He smiled. “However, such a mistake matters little, for there is not much to tell. King Manfred and his council have spent every waking moment since the night Mariadelle Tadstreet disappeared struggling to keep up the lie that she went off to stay with His Excellency, Duke Warrington, for several months. When I came to the Count’s manor the day after… your sudden holiday – Dieux Ci-dessus, I will not be so unkind as to recollect for you the woeful state of the household.”
Again, I did not reply, but painful guilt boiled in my stomach, and I easily enough could picture it. Liza, sitting on her pallet in my bedchamber, rocking back and forth as she cried. Father, grim, face gray and anger pent up inside until he snapped like a brittle old branch. I shuddered, trying hard not to imagine what Chelsea and Mother must have felt, when they heard of my escape.
“I am a coward, milord, and if ‘tisn’t enough, I am selfish, too. After an event such as this, ye might be better honored by marrying some other noble girl, who will not run to save her pretty skin,” I murmured, and felt tears of shame prick at my eyes. There was a noise, almost alike to a snort, yet only just too elegant to be one. Duke Warrington smiled at me, as an older brother might smile at his naïve young sister.
“Ah, but you miss how clear my preference is, milady. You see, I don’t want a simple-minded, proper young noblewoman. I want…” he grew quiet, pensive, and reached across the small space to brush my cheek with a dark hand. “I want you.”
I remembered saying just those three words to Prince Kharles, so many long months ago. But I could not bring myself to reply as he had, no matter the soft expression on Duke Warrington’s face.
“Well you have me, milord,” I said, quietly, and spoke no more.
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Yeah. And I haven't looked over this in a looooong time, so if it sucks, it sucks. I'm too lazy to put the italics in, soz. Rip it into leetle teeny pieces. =D
