Mistress Sabine and Pamela both looked up, and even Jenevive seemed tensed to listen. “Not good,” Tabitha said, shaking her head. “She would not talk to me. She would not say anything.” Before anyone could respond, she pressed her hand to her head. “Excuse me.” She quickly crossed the room to her bedchamber and shut the door.
When she was finally alone, she started to shake. She lay down on her bed and trembled convulsively, feeling cold, feeling hot, her heart pounding, her heart skipping. She prayed, and she cursed, and she thought of Alain and she thought of Marjorie. Above all, she tried, tried, tried to fall asleep, fall away from all of it, but she could not.
Twice she heard the outer door open and shut. She heard muffled voices but did not try to listen to them. No one knocked on her door to give her any news. When the chapel bells rang to call everyone to Godsday service, the soft sound reached her like a needle piercing through her ears and through her head.
God is calling me to confess. She cringed and buried her head under her arms.
A few minutes later she heard a knock on her door, and she pretended to be asleep, but Lise came inside anyway. There was nothing to do but to get up and allow the chambermaid to help her put on a wrap, cap, and veil. Only when she was ready did she think to pretend to be sick, but it was too late by then, and she never got sick anyway. She met the others in the sitting room, but nobody spoke or even looked at each other, and they followed Mistress Sabine out.
There was no guardsman at the door to Mistress Sabine’s bedchamber anymore. Apparently Tabitha’s father had had another place prepared. A secure place that is fit for a lady. Not the guardhouse jail, certainly not that. One of the small storerooms? A servant’s bedchamber?
They took the servants’ corridors, winding through to her father’s council chamber and then to the short passage connecting to the great hall, picking up a guardsman and his dog along the way. The great hall was dim, but not empty, for two scribes were writing at the head table. On Godsday? They stopped their work to watch the girls pass through the hall, and Tabitha wanted to scream at them, because she knew what they were thinking. Look at the noble ladies. Not so perfect now. Maybe even the Jewel of Betaul is a secret whore. She could not stand the thought that they were right. She almost did scream when they stood and moved to follow, but then she reminded herself that they were going to Godsday services too. Why were they even here in the hall, working? Were they writing up the execution order for her father to sign?
Calm and still. Calm and still.
Above the door that led out to the covered walkway hung a kite-shaped shield. It was two hundred years old, but the swan painted on it was the same proud swan that graced the banners of the hall and the pennants of the castle. The shield had been borne by a Betaul knight, a Betaul lord, her ancestor.
Her ancestors had done great deeds. They had won great battles. They had been kings.
I have disgraced my family. I don’t deserve my name.
Calm and still. Calm and still.
Out beneath the covered walkway, the wind was blowing very cold, and even though Tabitha was certain that God would strike her dead as soon as she passed over the chapel’s threshold, she found herself hurrying in the midst of the others. They entered, and God did not strike Tabitha dead. The chapel was crowded, as it always was for services, and as Tabitha and her friends came forward, she could feel every set of eyes looking at her, like the touch of a hundred accusing fingers at her back.
But that touch was a caress compared to what lay before her eyes. She stopped abruptly, for she usually took her place at the front of the choir, but the choir benches were empty. Before the altar, below the Godcircle, the holy well was covered. It was only covered when there had been a death since the last Godsday. Alain’s coffin lay across the top of the well, and as Tabitha looked at it, she felt sick and faint.
Beatris guided her to the first bench behind the empty space for the choir. Tabitha gripped the bannister in front of her and bowed her head, swallowing hard. She glimpsed Jenevive doing the same, and strangely, it helped to steady her. It’s normal. It’s normal. I can appear upset and it’s normal.
There was no welcoming song. Elder Frederic simply picked up the Godsday hourglass and turned it over. “We now stand outside time,” the priest intoned. Then he set his cowled hood over his head, and the ritual words changed. He recited the same ones he had used the Godsday after Nan’s death. In all that time, no resident or guest of her father’s castle had died. “And, today, we now stand bereft, for one of our own has died. One of our own has been taken to the loving heart of our most holy Lord Abban.”
Yes. Alain is at peace. As the priest droned on, Tabitha tried to think about how happy Alain must be in the halls of heaven.
Where I will never go. The small comfort drained away.
His coffin was not fancy, for his family did not have high rank or wealth. A true lhamors’an was huge, but this box was not even as wide as Tabitha’s mattress. The silver overlay only covered the lid, and the carvings on the sides were simple trees and leaves.
She could not quite believe that Alain was inside that coffin, that his body was now cold and lifeless. Last night he had been so warm.
She could not think about that! She squirmed, then froze, and hoped no one had noticed.
One was not supposed to track the minutes one spent in Godsday services. The clocks had been stopped, here and everywhere in every L’Abbanist kingdom, and would not be started again until the hourglass ran out. But Tabitha felt each minute, each second, of the blasphemy of her standing, sitting, kneeling there in the holy chapel, before the altar and the well and Lord Abban Himself, before the coffin of a good man. A gentleman.
Elder Frederic finished the last prayer when the hourglass still held a few grains. Everyone stood silently until the sand ran out. One of the acolytes left to ring the bells, which would tell the men in the watchtower to start the big clock again. Then, men from Tabitha’s father’s guard and men in Lord Daniel’s service came up the aisle to the coffin. Tabitha ached to leave, but she was trapped by courtesy, and with everyone else, she watched the men lift the coffin from the well and carry it out of the chapel. Alain was going home, to be buried near his family’s chapel, where his family could mourn him. Tabitha could never visit his grave. She could never ask his forgiveness. It was all wrong and there was nothing she could do about it.
When Tabitha followed Jenevive and Pamela out of the chapel, she belatedly realized that Beatris was not with them. Among all these people, it would not be seemly for her to turn back, but she knew that Pamela, at least, would look. When they were outside on the walkway she touched Pamela’s arm. “What’s Beatris doing?”
“Kneeling,” Pamela said. “We should wait for her.”
Servants were moving past them. Mistress Sabine shook her head at Pamela. “Mistress Cortille is with her. Come. Jenevive. Tabitha. Hurry along.”
They hurried along. Everyone else seemed to want to get away from the chapel as much as Tabitha did. When they got back to the sitting room, Pamela wanted to wait for Beatris before they started supper, but Mistress Sabine overruled her. The food came, and they all sat down, but only to pick at it.
Beatris did not come back while they were eating. Lise and Fiem cleared away the supper dishes, and Tabitha watched them, knowing that they and the other chambermaids would eat whatever Tabitha and her friends did not. Servants did not ever refuse food, not even when they were grieving. If they were grieving. So few of them seemed to have any feelings at all.
She should do something, say something, to make people believe that a servant girl had been the one who had been with Alain. Tabitha knew she needed to implicate Fiem or someone like her, but she did not know how. And she knew that it probably would not work anyway. Everyone would think she was only trying to save Marjorie. Which she was.
The door thumped behind Lise and Fiem as they pushed the cart out. Mistress Sabine stood up. “Stay here,” she told them,
putting on her cap and veil. “I am going to find Beatris. Mistress Cortille should have brought her back by now.”
After she had gone, Pamela got up and started pacing. Jenevive went to her cot and lay down facing away from them. Tabitha sat at the table and picked at the loose stitches on the trim of her sleeve.
Had Beatris managed to find where Marjorie was being held? Was that where she was? Was she trying to convince Marjorie to talk to her? No. If Marjorie will not talk to me, she will not talk to anyone. More likely Beatris was just sitting with Marjorie to keep her company.
“Where is she?” Pamela asked no one. It was her fourth or fifth outburst since Mistress Sabine had left, and Jenevive rolled over, looking ready to tell her to shut her mouth. But then the door to the sitting room opened, and Beatris and Mistress Sabine trudged inside.
“Where were you?” Pamela all but leaped at Beatris, seizing her arm. “We were so worried! Did you see Marjorie? Is that where you were?”
“Yes.” Beatris gently shook her arm free. “A moment. I am still a bit chilly.” She went to the fireplace and held out her hands to the meager flames.
“Where is your wrap?” Pamela demanded as she took a blanket off her bed and shook it out. Mistress Sabine sat down at the table next to Tabitha.
“I left it with Marjorie,” Beatris told them. “It was cold in the chamber. They will not let her have a fire.” Beatris sat down in front of the fireplace and heaved a sigh, and Pamela sat down next to her and gave her the blanket. Beatris thanked her and spread it over her lap, then took off her veil. Pamela grabbed the poker and stirred up the flames, and the firelight made Beatris’s brown hair look red.
“Where are they keeping her?” Jenevive asked.
Beatris looked at her for a moment without answering, and then said abruptly, “I am sorry for what I said, Jenevive. I did not want to embarrass you, but I could not let you lie. Not about something this serious.”
Jenevive pulled in her breath, and Tabitha thought she was about to shout at Beatris again, but then she deflated. Her hair was frizzing out of its braid. “I know.”
Beatris nodded, closed her eyes for a moment with another sigh, and opened them again. “She is in one of the guest quarters. She is in one chamber, and they are rotating guardsmen at the other. Aime was staying with her, but I sent her out.”
“Why no fire?” Pamela asked.
“Aime said they are afraid she will hurt herself.”
“Or they are afraid she will try to burn the place down and escape,” Jenevive said in disgust.
“‘They’ is my father,” Tabitha reminded her angrily. “And stone doesn’t burn.”
Beatris gave her the same long look she had given Jenevive. “Tabitha,” she said finally, “do you believe Marjorie?”
“Of course I do!” Tabitha let herself sound offended. “She could never have done something so terrible!”
“She thinks you don’t believe her,” Beatris said. “She said that she looked at you, and she was sure that you did not believe her.”
“I do believe her,” she said wholeheartedly. “I don’t know what I said or did to make her think I did not.”
Beatris heaved a sigh and nodded.
“What did she say, Beatris?” Mistress Sabine asked softly.
Beatris did not answer immediately. Her frown told Tabitha that she was trying to find the right words. Then she startled everyone by wiping at her eyes. Beatris never cried, so what horrible thing had Marjorie told her?
“Beatris?” Pamela prompted.
Beatris gave her head a quick shake. “I am sorry.” She took a deep breath and began. “She shouted at me. She said she had told the duke that she had never been alone with Alain, and that was all she was ever going to say.” Beatris stopped, and had to settle herself with another deep breath. “But I knew that with the blood on her robe, and with Sister Raula saying that she is not a virgin, it … I … I told her that we all wanted to help her. Then I said ... then I said that the duke had sent a message to her father, and that he was probably on his way back here. I thought that would make her feel better, that he would be here with her, but instead she started crying. Then she told me.”
“She told you?” Marjorie had talked to Beatris? She had not talked to Tabitha, but she had talked to Beatris?
“The reason she is not a virgin is—” Beatris choked, but managed to get the rest out: “Her father rapes her.”
Tabitha gasped and could not draw another breath. She herself had been alone with Baron Louard before, more than once. What if he had tried to—to—His own daughter, my God, his own daughter!
Jenevive sat frozen, and Pamela’s hands had flown to her puffy cheeks. Mistress Sabine made a small noise that sounded as if someone had stabbed her.
“It started after her mother died,” Beatris went on. “She got her moon blood for the first time and she thinks the chambermaids told her father about it. He started hugging and kissing her more than he had before. More than fathers should. He would tell the seamstresses to make new gowns for her and he would show her off to people, talking about how grown-up she was. She said it made her skin crawl. But then …” Beatris trailed off.
“Then?” Tabitha prompted after a few seconds, her own skin crawling as she remembered dancing with the baron in the great hall at a festival. Many festivals. He visited Betaul often.
“Then her brother came home for a visit and there was a feast. She said she had gone back to her bedchamber when her father came in. He was drunk, and he raped her.” Although her voice had descended into monotone, Beatris had to wipe her eyes again. “She was sick for days.”
“Did she tell anyone?” Mistress Sabine asked.
“She did not have anyone to tell!” Beatris’s voice was so bitter it gave Tabitha chills. “She had no one. Her mother was dead, her sisters were all married and living far away, and her nanny had been dismissed.”
“What about her friends?” Pamela demanded. “She must have had friends!”
“She said her friends had all gone away. I think most of her friends when she was small were servants’ children.”
“What about a holy sister?” Mistress Sabine suggested. “There is a cloister there.”
“A cloister for holy brothers, not holy sisters. There were no women near her with any power to help her.”
Tabitha shuddered. She could not imagine it. She could not even think it, it was so horrible. Now that she knew how it felt to be touched … instead of Alain’s gentle hands and tender kisses, to have to submit to—no, no—she was turning inside out with horror.
“She was crying so hard she could barely talk.” Beatris herself was still having trouble getting the words out. “I hugged her and kept telling her that everything would be all right, that he would never touch her again. When I think of how long she kept that secret locked inside … I wish, I wish, I wish she had told us.”
“So do I,” Mistress Sabine murmured. “That poor girl.”
Tabitha found that she was pressing her fist to her mouth so hard her teeth were biting into it. It was so awful, so wrong. Marjorie was so sweet and kind and good. She was the last girl in the world to deserve this.
“He did it again after that,” Beatris went on, her tone flat, as if she could only control herself by pretending it did not affect her. “He started coming to her bedchamber even when he was not drunk. She said she never knew when it would be—that weeks or months, even, would go by without him doing it, and then suddenly it would be three nights in a row. She wrote to her oldest sister—she lives in Jen Onell—and asked her to ask if she could join a cloister there. She told me that she did not really want to be a holy sister but it was better than being anywhere near her father. Her sister wrote back and said yes, there was a place for her at the cloister near her sister’s house, but that their father would have to pay a dowry to it. Of course, he refused. She said he left her alone for a little while after that. But only for a little while.” Beatris’s fists clenched
. “My God, I would kill him with my bare hands if I could!”
“Beatris,” Mistress Sabine admonished her halfheartedly.
Beatris took no notice at all. “But then she came here. The duke asked her father to come here to teach Tabitha Telgardian, for the ambassador. Marjorie wanted to stay home, but her father insisted that she come too.”
Tabitha felt sick. “He did not do that to her here, did he?”
“I think he wanted to, because why else would he insist on bringing her?”
“Because we wanted her to come,” Pamela said. She looked at Tabitha. “Remember? You said you would ask for her to come with him.”
Beatris nodded. “And it’s a good thing he did bring her. Tabitha, you saved her. You asked your father if she could stay here, here in your chambers, and her father could not refuse your father’s request. Once she was here, he could not get to her anymore.”
“I would have asked her sooner if I had known,” Tabitha declared.
“She is always so quiet after her father visits,” Pamela said, with tears now gleaming in her big brown eyes. “One time, I asked her if she missed her home. She did not answer.”
Tabitha shook her head, all her emotions a squirming knot in her stomach. It was horrible. It was so horrible. “If she had only told me, I could have helped her.”
Beatris got up from the fire and sat down at the table beside Tabitha, her brown eyes urgent and earnest. “You can help her now.”
“How?”
“Convince your father she did not do it.”
“But why has she not said so? She could say why she is not a virgin. No one would think she was the one who …” She could not finish. She could not say the one who killed Alain. The words choked her.
But Beatris did not notice. “She had never told anyone before, Tabitha. No one! She was sure that no one would ever believe her. That it was so monstrous, everyone would think she was lying. And what’s worse is she said it’s her fault that he rapes her! She really believes that somehow she deserves it! I told her that it’s not her fault, and that she does not deserve it, and that I believed her and I would always believe her. She said that no one else would. She said that when Sister Raula examined her, she looked at her and she said, ‘What did you do?’, and she was so angry, Marjorie knew she would never believe her. Marjorie said that she knew Sister Raula thought she had killed Alain. Slept with him. She said she did not know which one Raula thought was worse.”
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