Damsel, page 7
Queen Isabelle rose from her throne. She placed her hand gently on King Rodrick’s arm and whispered something to him, which seemed to rouse him from wherever his thoughts had taken him, and he stood, as well. Together, they approached Elodie and Henry.
The queen passed a golden ceremonial cloth to the king, revealing a jeweled dagger in her hands, its hilt the same gold mosaic pattern found elsewhere in the palace.
She took Elodie’s hand roughly and slashed through her palm.
“What—!” Elodie cried out in both surprise and pain.
Henry held his hand out to his mother, evidently expecting the same treatment. He didn’t even wince at the cut. Queen Isabelle pressed his palm to Elodie’s, mingling their blood.
Suddenly—
A flash of two golden-haired boys—one merely a toddler, the other, on the brink of adolescence.
The younger one following the older everywhere he went.
Then, a few years later, Henry discovering a cold, empty bed, and the sharp blow of knowing that his brother was gone and Henry was suddenly all alone.
Elodie gasped and looked at him. But Henry just smiled reassuringly and tightened his hand around hers. He showed no sign of knowing she’d just seen into his past, and there was no indication he’d experienced anything of hers.
Queen Isabelle, however, was watching Elodie, and their eyes met. But then the queen looked away so quickly Elodie wasn’t sure if she’d imagined the moment.
“Rodrick?” Queen Isabelle asked. “Are you ready?”
The king lifted the gold matrimonial cloth. His own hands shook violently as he wrapped the silk around Henry and Elodie’s hands. When he was finished, he didn’t let go of them. “I—I remember when gold silk was wrapped around my—”
“Hush, Rodrick, dear,” Queen Isabelle said kindly, drawing him away from the matrimonial cloth. “There will be plenty of time to recount memories of our wedding later, but right now, this is Elodie and Henry’s time.”
The king startled and looked at Elodie as if shocked to see her there. “You’re new.”
The royal physician rushed out from where he’d apparently been waiting behind the pavilion, the summons for his assistance inevitable at some point during the ceremony, and he led King Rodrick back to his throne.
“Should we postpone the wedding?” Elodie whispered to Henry. “The king seems unwell.”
“It shall be all right,” Henry said. “We’re nearly finished with the ceremony.”
All of the guests smiled at them, as if the king had not just forgotten he was attending his son’s wedding. Only Elodie’s father, Floria, and Lady Bayford seemed concerned about what had just happened. Was Aurea so accustomed to King Rodrick’s illness that they were used to carrying on without him? Elodie couldn’t imagine ever doing that if it were her own father who wasn’t feeling well.
Nevertheless, an attendant brought the queen a gold tiara, a circlet with a familiar mosaic pattern on it, and Queen Isabelle smiled at Elodie and Henry. She placed the tiara on Elodie’s head.
“I hereby present my son and new daughter, Elodie, princess of Aurea!”
The wedding guests erupted in cheers. The proclamation quickly erased any thoughts of the king, and Floria leapt to her feet, clapping and shouting. Father looked at Elodie wistfully, crying while trying to maintain his dignity at the same time. Even Lady Bayford’s eyes glistened with tears.
Elodie turned to take it all in.
I am a princess, she thought. Just like in a storybook, except for the blood oath part. Still…
I am a princess, and this is all real.
* * *
—
The wedding banquet was held in the royal gardens, and it was even grander than the feast from the night before. The dishes were larger and more elaborate, from seafood platters served in abalone shells as large as shields to a six-foot-tall pastry shaped like a dragon and filled with beef and roasted vegetables. There was roasted wild boar served with fried saffron rice cakes, whole lambs over a crackling firepit, and sangberry jam–glazed Cornish hens nestled in aurum wheat noodles. For dessert, there was silver pear ice cream, dark chocolate tarts, and rose petal pie. And of course, Aurean barley beer with its aroma of peaches, nutmeg, and crisp memories.
During the serving of the wedding cake, which was modeled after Elodie’s dress, the aristocracy of Aurea lined up to pay their respects to the new couple. The orchestra played music that sounded familiar as the guests began to dance. Was it the same song Elodie had heard from the tower when she’d first arrived? A popular Aurean song, then. But she couldn’t really listen to it, as she had to pay attention to those bowing and bearing wedding gifts for her and Prince Henry.
After the twentieth nobleman—or was it the twenty-second?—Elodie leaned over to Henry and whispered, “How long must we stay? It’s late…it must be well after midnight now.” She was quite tipsy, in part from the euphoria of the night, and in part because she had drunk too much of the delicious Aurean beer. Whereas a sober Elodie might have been able to sit patiently through her new duties as a princess, an intoxicated Elodie was more than eager to begin her first night with her husband in their wedding bed.
Henry laughed as he moved her hands, which she’d placed suggestively on his thigh, back onto the gold table. “Try to enjoy yourself. This banquet is all in your honor. It ought to be the greatest night of your life. At least, I’d like to think it so.”
Elodie could think of other ways to make the night even greater, but she kept the innuendo to herself for now. There would be plenty of time for that later anyway.
The music shifted to something more playful in tone, and a troupe of acrobats tumbled and cartwheeled into the gardens. Meanwhile, another nobleman stepped up to Elodie and Henry’s table and bowed.
The nobleman opened his mouth to begin the requisite speech about the graciousness of His Highnesses, but he was interrupted by shouts and a commotion at the other end of the lawn.
“Halt!” a knight yelled. “Hold her!”
Elodie rose to see what was happening.
The guards held a frantic girl, punching and kicking like a fox trapped in a snare. She flung her thin limbs fiercely, and one of her kicks smashed forcefully against the side of the guard’s knee, bending it in a way it was not supposed to bend. He crumpled in pain and the girl broke free, tearing through the dancers. She leapt through a hedge of roses and ran toward Elodie, her arms bleeding where the thorns had scraped.
It was the girl who’d been shoved by the bullies in the wheat field. She sprinted straight for Elodie’s table. “It must stop!” she shouted.
Several knights threw themselves in front of Elodie and Henry. Swords were drawn.
Elodie jumped to her feet. “She’s just a child!”
The girl shouted, “Princess, you must not—”
One of the guards hit her in the back of the head with the hilt of a sword.
The girl fell limp and unconscious to the ground.
“What have you done?” Elodie cried.
No one answered her. In a scrum of shining armor, the knights removed the girl from the wedding.
Henry brushed himself off, smoothing out the wrinkles on his tunic. He clucked his tongue. “Antimonarchists.”
“But she’s just a child,” Elodie repeated, staring wide-eyed at where the girl had stood.
Everyone else around her seemed unfazed, though. Conversations picked up where they’d been interrupted, the lute and the dancers began again, and servants descended immediately upon Elodie and Henry, as if they’d simply been waiting in the wings and now was their moment to shine. And shine they did. They polished all the goblets and glasses, the forks, knives, and spoons. They replaced used porcelain with clean ones, even though the cake had already been served and there was, as far as Elodie knew, no more food forthcoming. They even wiped off a tiny splatter of wedding cake on Elodie’s velvet slipper, which she hadn’t noticed and probably wouldn’t have, had they not so diligently tidied her.
Then everyone and everything about the wedding night continued as if the peasant girl had never been there.
How could that be?
Henry noticed Elodie sitting frozen. He gave her a full stein of Aurean beer and placed a comforting hand on her cheek. “Nothing to fear, my princess. The knights shall see the girl home safely with a firm reprimand to her parents. All is well.”
“But…she seemed so upset. What was she shouting about?”
“The vast majority of Aurea respects the royal family, but there are always one or two bad apples. The antimonarchists are simple folk; they cannot understand how much we do for the kingdom, and how much more we are willing to give than they would, were they in our place. But let’s not allow a single dissident voice to ruin your night. In fact, drink your beer, and then let us dance. We shall waltz our worries away.”
Still stunned, Elodie followed his directions, draining the stein while reviewing everything that had just happened. The beer did, indeed, endow the drinker with crystal clear memory. Elodie could remember every detail of the girl’s embroidered tunic, every bit of wheat chaff that flecked the fabric, as well as the distress and urgency in her eyes.
There was something bizarre in Aurea’s ability to look the other way when something inconvenient happened. A king forgetting he was at his son’s wedding. A girl bursting into a royal reception and being erased a moment later. Even without the beer, Elodie wouldn’t be able to forget this night.
When Elodie set down the empty stein, though, Henry rose and bowed before her, offering his hand. “Will you honor me with a dance, my princess?”
Unease stuck in Elodie’s throat like a wedged fishbone. But at the same time, she was very aware of the fact that although she was a princess now, Inophe’s future still balanced on the Aurean family’s goodwill, and that meant the will of Henry and the queen.
Elodie also admitted to herself that she was uneducated in the ruling of a kingdom. Helping her father manage a small, impoverished duchy was complicated enough. And there was so much Elodie didn’t know yet about Aurea.
Perhaps I should not jump to conclusions without understanding more, she told herself. Her instinct was to side with the girl, because Elodie had a soft spot in her heart for the less powerful. Being Inophean, she’d known firsthand what that was like all her life.
And yet, here was Henry standing before her. A kind and generous ruler, beloved by all those around him. As a practical woman, Elodie was not one to discard evidence simply for gut emotion.
She rose and accepted Henry’s hand and followed him to the lawn where the wedding guests were dancing. Perhaps, with time, she would understand Aurea and its people, and everything would make sense.
Wouldn’t it?
ELODIE
Dancing had the ability to make Elodie feel more graceful than she usually was. After Henry, Father had asked for a turn with Elodie. Swirling around the gardens, they floated to the music like dragonflies on the wind. Two admittedly tipsy dragonflies, but Elodie was quite sure that they were, regardless, the paragon of elegance.
As the song came to a soft close, Father pulled her into a tight embrace. “You know I love you, don’t you, Elly? To the moon and back again, and then to the sun and beyond.” He pulled back and shook her. “You know I love you, no matter what?”
Elodie gently pried loose his grip. “Yes, Father, I know. What’s gotten into you, other than the beer?”
“No, not the beer. I could not bear the beer tonight and all the memories it would bring. I partook of wine, glorious wine, which blurs one’s past until one no longer has to face it. I—”
“Father, you’re rambling. Perhaps you ought to sit down?” Elodie said, guiding him to a stone bench under a trellis of golden roses. She sat beside him and held his trembling hand.
Floria, who had just finished dancing nearby with a nobleman’s son, spotted Elodie and their father. She skipped over, cheeks rosy from the exhilaration of the last waltz. “Everything all right?” she asked.
“My other precious daughter,” Lord Bayford said, drawing Floria into a maudlin hug.
Floria tilted her head in question toward Elodie while making a drinking gesture with her hand.
Elodie nodded. Father did not get drunk very often, but when he did, he was prone to outpourings of affection. There were worse qualities in a man, though, than to heap love on the women of his family when he’d had one too many glasses of wine. Lady Bayford usually whisked him off to his bedroom around now.
“Where is Stepmother?” Elodie asked.
“She…felt unwell,” Floria said.
The sisters sighed in unison. How typical of Lady Bayford to come up with an excuse to skip out on Elodie’s wedding reception because she didn’t approve.
Henry poked his head around the bend of the garden path and caught sight of them under the trellis. “There you are, my love. I thought my new bride had run off.”
Queen Isabelle trailed in behind him. “Princess Elodie. I trust you are enjoying your celebration?”
“Indeed I am, Your Majesty.”
“Wonderful. If I may, then, I would like to introduce you to another Aurean wedding tradition. It will, unfortunately, take you away from these festivities, but if you are willing, it will be the highest honor of your life.”
“It would be my privilege,” Elodie said.
“Wait!” Father cried. He hurled himself at Elodie and planted a sloppy kiss on her cheek.
Floria giggled. But then she took her turn kissing Elodie on the cheek, too. “I hope I’m half as beautiful someday as you are today.”
“You’ll be twice as beautiful,” Elodie said with a final kiss on the top of her little sister’s head.
* * *
—
Whereas Elodie’s experience with the palace thus far had involved climbing up staircases, the queen now led her down, deep into the heart of the castle. Or, more accurately, the bowels, for they were far underground, below even the kitchens and the laundry in the basements. The walls here were not gold, but granite, and the only light was the flicker of torches set into sconces in the cold rock.
Henry had not come with them; he’d said this part of the night was dedicated to women only.
Elodie tried to puzzle out what was to come but had no inkling. Was there a special vault down here with the crown jewels or archives that the queen wanted to show her? But that wouldn’t require excluding the men. Perhaps it was a ritual to prepare Elodie for her wedding bed, a private prayer ceremony to bless them with children?
She cringed and hoped that wasn’t the reason.
They turned a corner and stopped in front of a heavy oak door. Purple mist seeped out from the crack beneath it and around its edges, and chanting emanated from behind it.
“You are about to take part in a sacred ritual,” the queen said. “Will you do the great honor of opening the door, Elodie?”
A sacred ritual. The gravitas settled into Elodie’s chest, and she nodded, half proud to be a part of this, half disbelieving that she was truly a princess who got to be a part of this.
She heaved the door open, and the purple mist rushed out to engulf Elodie in tendrils of herbed smoke. A round chamber revealed itself, the walls lined with elderly women in crimson robes, all holding fat candles and chanting softly. In the center of the room, the heavily tattooed priestess who had conducted Elodie and Henry’s wedding ceremony burned branches of sage and dried lavender.
“You were not raised in Aurea,” Queen Isabelle said, “so you are unfamiliar with our customs. This may all seem…unnatural to you.”
Elodie smiled politely. “Our people have their customs, as well. I am sure they would seem just as unfamiliar. But I am a princess of Aurea now, and I am eager to uphold any traditions this kingdom may have.”
Queen Isabelle looked her up and down, and for a second, Elodie thought she caught a glint of sadness in the queen’s eyes. But it must’ve been just a trick of the candles, because a moment later, the queen nodded and said, “Very well then. Let the priestesses of Aurea prepare you.”
The women along the walls bowed deeply to the queen, who then took a seat in the corner in what appeared to be a smaller version of her throne. The head priestess shut the heavy oak door. Then the others set their candles into iron sconces in the granite walls and approached Elodie.
The first priestess removed Elodie’s necklace. Then the next took out the gold combs from her hair.
“Wait,” Elodie said. “Henry wanted me to wear those.”
“We shall put them in the imperial vault for safekeeping, Your Highness,” the priestess said. At the same time, another woman unfastened Elodie’s earrings and whisked them away before Elodie could protest further.
“Tonight, you honor our Aurean ancestors,” the head priestess said. “Generations before us have practiced this sacred ceremony on the evening of every royal wedding. You are special, Princess Elodie, and yet you are but one in a long line of those who have sworn a solemn oath to Aurea, to give yourself body and soul to its needs, to honor it with all that you are.”
Elodie dipped her head in acquiescence.
Suddenly, the head priestess by the fire let out a feral shriek that seemed to go on and on.
Elodie jumped. The women around her grabbed her, keeping her in place, as if afraid she was going to bolt.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Elodie said, confused by their overreaction. “I was simply caught off guard by the, er, screaming.”
They released their hold on her but still kept close watch as they began another low, rumbling chant in a language she’d never heard before. It sounded ancient, full of hard consonants and whispers.
Rykarraia khono renekri.
