by Lana Popovic
I find the estate even lovelier than described. Csejthe Castle sprawls upon a craggy cliff like a grand stone queen astride her throne, with rolling woods and farmland unfurling below. Unlike Nadasdy Castle with its white walls and red roofs, more of a sprawling manse than a castle proper, Csejthe is a keep exactly as a child might imagine, peeled from the pages of storybooks. Its pointed towers spear the sky, and massive ramparts hunch around the gatehouse and turrets. The forests below the keep are full of nightingales, the twilight alive with birdsong. The moon has risen early on the afternoon we arrive, a sharp crescent hooked in the bruised-plum sky. Though the air is still chilly, the year is creeping into April. I can already see the first few bold snowdrops nosing past the soil. And there is that sweet, wet smell of spring, budding green and newly fertile loam.
It is nothing like Nadasdy Castle, and I could not be more grateful.
I hang my head out of the closed carriage like an eager hound, breathing the air in. It smells like exactly what I need. “You like it, I see,” Elizabeth says, a smile restrained in her voice. “Is it as I promised?”
“Even better,” I reply, closing my eyes as a breeze riffles through my eyelashes. “Perhaps it will be as you say. Perhaps I will be better here.”
“You will,” she assures me, reaching out to squeeze my hand with the warm ember of her own. “I know it.”
Once we are settled in the keep, I walk through its clean stone corridors, gaining confidence as I find myself consistently alone. No longer bedeviled by bugs, whispers, or menacing phantom smells. These hallways are high-ceilinged and well lit, much airier than those of Nadasdy keep—and better yet, uninfested with Ferenc’s taint.
In any case, Elizabeth does not allow me to languish indoors. For my sake, she has even become willing to expose herself to the day, though she makes sure to carry a broad-brimmed parasol. Each day after breakfast—now that I am able to eat again—I accompany her to the small orchard nestled against the west wall of the keep. The spindly apple, plum, and cherry trees are only just now budding with the lacy blossoms that precede fruit. At first our forays are brief. My limbs are weak, and I squint feebly at the sky like some subterranean creature unfamiliar with light. But soon, at Elizabeth’s behest, I bring along a basket and my sickle knife, so I can show her which herbs are good to cut and brew into tonics. She has never seen them in their native forms, and each new specimen strikes her as a revelation.
“This one is agrimony,” I say, indicating the spears of clustered yellow flowers flourishing by a root. “Wonderful for so many things. My mother liked to use it for belly gripes, though it’ll settle a sore gallbladder, too. You can even apply it to wounds and warts.”
“Marvelous,” she tells me, a smile lighting her eyes. I have been like a child for so long, dependent on her and struck dull by my distress, that I can see her take pleasure at even this tentative revival. “And this yellow one? Is it of the same family?”
“Not at all.” I cut one of the flower heads and present it to her with a flourish, twirling it between my fingers. She plucks it from my hand with a coy smile, and tucks it behind her ear as I scramble clumsily up to my feet. It seems my former grace will need more time and coaxing to reappear. “Other than serving as an ornament for my lady, goat weed is a blessing for the constitution. It uplifts the spirits and banishes the doldrums.”
“Well then, why don’t we try it on you?” she exclaims, biting her lower lip with anticipation. “Surely there are others like it, are there not? Revitalizing herbs to bring you back to strength? If you show me, I could even make the brews for you!”
“You do not need to do that, after everything else you’ve done for me,” I demur, though it reassures me to know that she is not weary of my unending weakness. “Look, my hands barely even shake anymore. I can make the tea myself perfectly well.”
“But perhaps I wish to make them for you, as a gift,” she counters, taking my proffered hands and placing them against her chest. My insides tighten at the delicate jut of her collarbone beneath my fingers, the satiny give of skin suspended above it, the softness of her bosom under my palms. We have not touched each other this way since before Ferenc died, but my skin remembers well.
It is my heart, I find, that is the trouble.
As she leans toward me slowly with parted lips, a vision of the infernal banquet brands itself across my mind—the memory of leaping firelight licking hungrily at the walls, Elizabeth’s disheveled hair unraveling around her face, the exultant glee in her eyes as she laid into Orsolya’s back with the bullwhip. My mouth turns abruptly dry as sand, my stomach clenching with revulsion.
As much as I long for the comfort of her closeness, I find I can no longer bear to let her touch me.
“I’m sorry,” I say faintly, turning away from her so she cannot see the turmoil clouding my face. I cannot allow Elizabeth to know that I am rejecting her; I fear not even I would be safe from the retribution she would exact for such a grievous wound to her pride. “But I’m feeling a bit light-headed. Perhaps I’m more tired than I thought. Will you be terribly disappointed with me if we go back inside? I think I may need to lie down for a spell.”
I hear the sharp intake of her breath, followed by the trace of a sigh. “Of course not,” she says eventually, forcing cheer into her voice. When I turn back to her she is wearing a determined smile, though uncharacteristic uncertainty plays in her eyes, along with veiled speculation. “Rest is exactly what you need. After all, it’s why we came here, is it not?”
“Yes,” I say, weak with relief that she has not seen through my pretense. “Thank you, Elizabeth. Surely—certainly I’ll be much better soon.”
She loops her arm through mine, squeezing me to her side as we turn back to the keep. “You will, my dove, I know it. I will make it so.”
Chapter Seventeen
The Poison and the Elixir
Though I walk on eggshells for the next few days, Elizabeth seems to have taken me at my word.
Following my instructions, she brews tonics for me, tisanes to soothe the mind and lift the spirits. I drink goat weed and golden root and cat’s claw, augmented by tinctures of valerian and lemon balm. She has never made her own concoctions before, and the process of it delights her so thoroughly that her solar transforms into an apothecary’s cabinet seemingly overnight, littered with vials of essentials and absolutes.
When the medicines leave me languid, prone to lengthy naps, Elizabeth diverts herself by charging out into the estate on horseback with her bow and a brace of arrows. She brings back squirrels and rabbits and sometimes geese—once even a tawny mountain lion speared right through its amber eye—proudly brandishing them at me before they’re whisked off to be cleaned. She even has some of her prizes stuffed, and installed into the keep’s cavernous great hall as ornaments above the marble mantel.
“You will empty the forests if you go on this way,” I chide her gently, laughing, though the sheer number of them leaves me a touch uneasy. “Surely we don’t need so many!”
She gives me a wide smile, almost a baring of the teeth. “Well, I must do something while you recover, mustn’t I?” she retorts with just the slightest edge, dropping a quick kiss to my cheek before striding back off. “Quiet as it is here, sometimes I feel as if I will atrophy.”
If anything, her restlessness spurs me more quickly back to health. I do not want Elizabeth to feel that her life with me is dreary, that her convalescing former lover has consigned her to this mountaintop. She assures me that such is not the case, that she could never be impatient with me. But with every new kill she brings in, I redouble my efforts to regain my strength. Now that my mind has cleared, a dark and slippery notion has come to plague me, darting in and out of the corners of my awareness like a silverfish—that I have unwittingly secured Elizabeth exactly the life she wants, all while keeping her hands clean of her husband’s death. And giving her a noose to hang around my neck, should she ever have reason to take against me.
&n
bsp; Which means I must take much greater care to pacify her than ever before.
I cannot afford to have her tire of my company, especially now that I can no longer imagine losing myself to her touch. If I turn away from her entreaties without diverting her in some other way, who am I to her, besides the once-deranged murderess responsible for her husband’s death?
“Are you happy, my dearest dove?” she asks me on one of our walks through the orchard, when we have been in Csejthe for nearly two months. “You seem more yourself every day.”
“I do seem to have found my footing again,” I concur. “Thanks to you.”
“And you have experienced . . . nothing unwonted here?” she asks, taking care to keep her voice light. “No nightmares, no whispers? Nothing like that?”
“Nothing at all,” I reply frankly. Whether my madness was born of restless spirits or my own guilt, it has blown away into nothing in the clear mountain air. What is done is done, and though I will atone for it all my life I refuse to destroy myself over it any longer. And I have not failed to notice that not a single servant has suffered Elizabeth’s wrath since Ferenc’s death. I don’t dare hope that having him gone has bled her entirely of the need to spread pain—all the game she fells is testament to the enduring nature of that need—but it does seem to have helped.
Perhaps my grievous sin has not been for naught.
“That’s wonderful news,” she effuses, squeezing my hand. “Then perhaps I might ask you for some help in my experiments.”
“Experiments?” I ask doubtfully, the back of my neck prickling with foreboding.
“I am thinking of crafting potions to enhance not just beauty but vitality as well,” she explains. “Inspired by the herbs we’ve gathered together and the tonics I’ve made for you. My face has begun to sag even worse of late, especially around the eyes. And you see how these frightful grooves have carved themselves around my mouth. I’d like to see how I might recapture the flush of youth—perhaps even to re-create the freshness I once shared with my son.”
I glance over at her, find smooth skin with only the most cursory of creases from her smiles. I don’t spot any semblance of this harpy that she seems to see within herself. “If you say so, Elizabeth, though you seem to me as beautiful as ever.”
“Thank you, my dove,” she replies with a tight-lipped smile. “But you do not know this face as I do, nor are you constantly reminded of its flaws whenever you chance across a mirror. Nor do you have a pressing need to fend off the ravages of age. And without this at its prime . . .” She gestures to her face, rolling her eyes. “How will I secure another husband?”
So it is the fear of losing the weapon of her beauty that dogs her still. That is no surprise, though the notion that she thinks to marry again rocks me with a squall of fear. If she finds another husband, where will that leave me? Her favor is all I have—all my family has. I cannot afford to have her discover that, with another, more suitable husband in hand, she no longer has any need of a pet sorceress. Or whatever else it is she thinks I am.
I realize with a bitter twist that I find myself in exactly the sort of cage I feared marriage to a man would bring. Except far, far worse—for Peter would have been unfailingly kind, never bending my talents to nefarious purposes known only to him.
“You plan to marry, then?” I ask, striving not to betray the fear. She has only just settled, laid her instruments of torture to the side. What if she finds a husband with his own sharp tastes to rile hers back to life? “I had thought it would be just the two of us for a while, at least.”
“I am in no great rush, do not fret,” she reassures me. “But yes, I will wed again. Being without a husband leaves all my holdings at risk of being plundered.” Her face darkens at the thought. “Should they be stripped from me by greedy rivals, I shall be reduced to nothing, no one of account. Relegated to the nunnery to cluck prayers at the lord for the rest of my days. With all the other unwanted hens.”
“Well, he shall be lucky to have you,” I say warily. “Whoever he will be.”
“He must be wealthy and highborn, of course, else why bother?” she muses, eyes turning inward, calculating. “Certainly more pliable than Ferenc, easier to mold—and so taken with me that he shall be the one pinned under my thumb. Though he will protect me and steward our estates, it will be only in name. In truth I will lead and he will follow.” She flashes me a rakish smile, arching a brow. “To draw such a man, I must make myself irresistible. That’s what the experiments are for.”
“And what do you have in mind, exactly?”
“Oh, so you will help me, how lovely!” she crows, as if I have a choice. The familiar elation in her eyes sends a cold runnel of a chill sluicing down my spine. “I’ve been thinking a great deal about blood, you know. How that thorn’s dirt sickened my own child’s blood, how it nearly stole his life with a single prick.”
“I see,” I venture warily. “And what has that to do with preserving your face?”
“Well, if blood can sicken, it stands to reason that it can be purified. Made more robust than it already is,” she theorizes, growing even more animated. “And since it is called ‘lifeblood’ for a reason, would that not exert a great effect on one’s well-being as well? Perhaps it might grant a much longer span of life, and nurture the bloom of youth long past youthful years.”
“It is an intriguing notion,” I allow, my mind racing to grasp the implications. I have never been much concerned with blood for its own sake, beyond knowing how to call forth the flux or staunch its flow when needed. But blood sustains us, and sluggish circulation can lead to death. I suppose the opposite does have potential. “And how do you aim to achieve this effect?”
A slow smile blooms across her lips, both barbed and sweet. “I thought we might begin with arsenic.”
While I was recovering, it seems Elizabeth had been reading of poisons.
“Have you any experience with arsenic, Anna?” she asks breathlessly once we are back inside, ensconced in her solar. She flits between the tables, laden with glass beakers, flasks, and tubes, books splayed open everywhere. From one she plucks a vial of silvery powder, sifting back and forth as she wiggles it in her grip. “See, look, here it is.”
“I’ve never heard of it,” I say. “Is it an herb of sorts?”
“No, it is a metallic substance, quite poisonous,” she replies so cheerfully I almost think I’ve misheard her. “But only in large doses, according to my books. In smaller increments, it can be very healthful as well.”
“Many herbs are such,” I allow, as if my insides do not already quake with trepidation. “Anything powerful enough to benefit can usually wreak harm as well.”
She beams at me approvingly. “Exactly! I’ve read that it can be consumed with chalk and water to improve the complexion. I’ve also heard of ladies at court making it into a cream to rub on their arms and faces. It is meant to induce a very supple rosy glow.”
“And are you thinking of using it for such a purpose?” I ask, alarmed.
“Not exactly. I was thinking that we could tinker with it a bit, you and I. If it brings about such a pleasing flush, I imagine it must have a benign effect on the blood. And perhaps, with some imagination, we could make an alchemy of this pursuit. Fashion it into a vitalizing and beautifying elixir.” She clasps her hands together, peering into my eyes until her gaze bores into mine. “What do you think?”
“If we did this,” I say slowly, “how would we test the efficacy?”
“Hence the experiments!” she proclaims, casting me a dazzling smile. “We shall first rely on your knowledge and mine to craft the tonic. Then we will find a volunteer.”
“Like who?” I press, as delicately as I can, wondering who would be inclined to drink something unknown and likely poisonous.
“Oh, I’m sure we’ll think of someone,” she says breezily. “After all, what woman does not wish to enhance her beauty and extend her life? So, what do you say, now that you are recovered? Shall we beg
in today?”
Watching her glowing face, her unbridled eagerness to begin this endeavor, I sense that this is no true question.
“Of course, Elizabeth,” I respond, deferential, though my stomach churns with dread—for myself, and for the future subjects of this experiment. “As soon as you like.”
She throws herself into the pursuit of this elixir with a single-minded resolve and passion unlike anything I’ve seen in her before. We work side by side through the night in the candlelit solar, while the sun swoops away and then alights upon us again. The tonic we produce contains an amount of arsenic that, neither of us having any real familiarity with the recommended dosage, could induce any effect from nothing at all to ghastly death. So I strive to counteract any ill effects with benign herbs, everything from bay leaf, clove, and basil, to nutmeg, foxglove, sage, and thyme. It also contains the most animating plants I could think of, bursting with magnolia berry, beetroot, oregano, and holy basil.
The resulting concoction is a vivid violet, and smells both herbaceous and spiced. As if it should be healthy, at any rate. Still, I myself would not be quick to drink it.
But our combined ignorance does not dissuade Elizabeth.
“We must try it out at once!” she cries, though neither of us has slept nor eaten since the night before. Her eyes are glazed with sleeplessness, but her cheeks blaze with anticipation, as if she has already sampled the tonic herself. “Judit!”
A moment later, the disgraced former chambermaid rushes in. It is unclear what her station currently is, given that she has not been sent away even though she hasn’t tended to Elizabeth in months. Now she is clearly torn between delight at being summoned and apprehension at what is needed. “Yes, my lady?” she says breathlessly, bobbing into a curtsy.
“Fetch me someone from the scullery!” Elizabeth orders, and my heart swoops toward my feet. Does she truly mean to test this unknown substance on one of my former friends?