16. Shadow Angel
THE WHIP SLICED into his back. The barbed end of the leather came away with bits of his flesh, his blood, and his pride. Was this a dream? Was it a memory? Either way, it hurt like hell.
“Again,” Rumbold said. His wrists were raw from pulling at the rope that bound him to the ship’s mast. The captain had ordered ten lashes; he’d counted only seven. “Again!” he yelled to the black giant who stood behind him like a late-afternoon shadow, but no more came.
The captain slid into Rumbold’s blurry field of vision. “You want him to hit you?”
“I know the punishment for disobedience. I disobeyed you. I should be punished the same as any man.”
“Any man wouldn’t have disobeyed my order in the first place.”
“I am not any man.” Sweat stung his eyes, and the salt from the spray stung his back. He basked in the pain. “But I mean to be reprimanded as such.”
The captain knew who he was, but Rumbold was not sure how far down the ranks this knowledge had spread. “Nor do you act like any man.” She brandished her knife and sawed through his bonds. “You ask too much expecting me to treat you as one. Besides,” she whispered, “this will be a greater punishment to you than any physical torture I could ask Mister Jolicoeur to exact.”
She was right. It burned Rumbold more to think that he was still being singled out and treated differently because of who he was. Well, if the captain would not willingly finish carrying out the prescribed punishment, he would force her to. Heedless of the raw, broken skin at his wrists, he captured her waist and kissed her full on the mouth. She tasted of fresh air and apples. The men hooted and hollered. She kicked him in the groin and sent him crashing to his knees on the deck before her.
Rumbold heard the first mate snap the whip in his giant hands. Now, he thought. Now she would punish him properly.
Instead, she laughed at him. Her brown eyes and red-gold hair sparkled with sunlight, freckles sprinkled like spice across her nose. “So,” said the captain, “what do you suggest we do with this one?”
“Make him walk the plank,” one man suggested.
“Keelhaul him,” said another.
“Make him swab the deck,” offered the man currently swabbing.
“I think we should promote him,” said the Pirate King.
“So do I,” said the captain. “He’s a complete pain in my neck, but he’s got spirit.”
“If anyone should be fond of that particular asset, it’s you, my beloved,” said the Pirate King.
“Plus, he’s not a terrible kisser,” said the captain.
“Keelhaul him!” cried the Pirate King.
“Stand him up,” said the captain. The giant Jolicoeur helped Rumbold to his feet without touching the fresh wounds on his back. The captain slid her knife beneath his jaw. “You are lucky, boy,” she said. “I should split you open, cut out that silver tongue of yours, melt it down, and buy myself some pretties. Unfortunately, I am bound to keep you in one piece. So, as you are nothing but trouble, then ‘Trouble’ it is.” She sliced a “T” deep into the meat of his left upper arm.
The actual cut did not hurt as much when it happened as it did when the first mate took up the swabbie’s pail and doused him in salt water. Rumbold screamed, shook, and defiantly refused to fall to his knees before her again. The captain noticed. “Oh, I do like you,” she said. “Far more than I should.”
“Just remember that you’re mine,” said the Pirate King.
“That I am, beloved,” said the captain. “Forever and a day, until the seas dry up and there are no more ships to plunder.” She kissed her husband lightly, and then turned to Rumbold. “T for Trouble,” she said. “And T for Thursday. You are not just any man now, Prince. You are family.”
Rumbold smiled. “Yes, Captain.”
***
Rumbold’s chamber door opened, and Erik entered with a flourish. “May I announce His Grace Velius Morana, Duke of Ouch-More.”
“There’s nothing wrong with me, you twit.” Velius slapped the back of Erik’s ginger head.
“Au contraire” said Erik. “There are many things wrong with you. A hangover just isn’t one of them.” He sat in one of the velvet-covered chairs and poured himself a glass of water. “Your fey cousin here has the miraculous ability to hold his liquor—and mine, and yours, and the king’s, and half the country’s, I expect.”
Velius waved a hand. He really did look no worse for the wear, despite his pitiful episode in the courtyard the previous evening. Rumbold hated him a little for that. The prince was proud merely to be eating solid food.
His dreams had become more vivid, though, and more draining. He pulled down the left collar of his nightshirt and ran his hand over the skin of his unblemished arm. It was hard to tell anymore which were dreams and which were memories and which were both. At least he hadn’t woken up covered in soot on the floor again.
“Inferior spirits,” said Velius, “both wine and wit. You humans have such weak constitutions.”
“You asses are far more sturdy,” said Erik.
Rumbold was too distracted to play along. “Velius, did my mother know she was going to die?”
“Gods, now I do need a drink,” said Erik.
“Leave it to you, Cousin, to sprinkle salt on our confection,” said Velius. “The truth is I don’t know. Madelyn had many friends but few confidants. She spent all her time with you.”
A woman who had known her life was going to be cut short might have spent all her time with her only son and not have made close friends. “Perhaps she thought the death of the first queen was just a tragedy.”
“First time’s a fluke; second time’s a coincidence,” said Velius.
“Third times tradition,” finished Erik.
“There will be no third time,” said Velius.
“So Wednesday has cause to be alarmed?” asked the prince.
Erik answered. “I wouldn’t want to take her place.”
“Then why are we all in here?” said Rumbold. “We need to go to her and find some way to prevent whatever’s going to happen from happening.”
Velius cocked his head. “I think I liked you better when you were a raging idiot.”
“No, you didn’t,” said Erik.
“Carrots is right,” said Velius. “I didn’t. But I still should have thought of that first. Let’s go.”
After dressing his charge, Rollins directed them to the guest wing of the castle, where Wednesday had been installed in Monday’s rooms. Erik knocked on the door and a young maid answered, slightly flustered and mildly surprised. “Oh! I thought you were the man with the dress.”
“He could put one on for you,” said Velius. “He’s got the legs for it.”
Erik winked at the maid, and she blushed mightily.
“We have come to call on the future queen,” said Velius, closing in on the maid with a predator’s skill. “Please take your time in summoning her.”
“I’d thank you not to render Marta completely insensible, Velius. Wednesday will be out in a moment.” Monday walked to the maid and whispered, “You’ll want to assist her ladyship while your innocence is still intact.” Marta curtseyed with a giggle and scurried out of the room.
Erik quickly dropped to a knee. Velius spun like a dancer, bent at the waist, and took the princess’s hand. Monday wore a dress of the lightest blue, a fabric one might have taken for ivory but for the deep azure of her eyes that brought out the shade. A pale golden circlet crossed her brow and disappeared at her temples into similarly golden hair. Each alone, her features were too large, too broad, and too sharp; together, they created a face so fair that no man could easily tear his eyes away.
“Dearest Monday.” Velius’s voice was as smooth and dry as the kiss he placed on the back of her hand. “You look ravishing, Your Majesty.”
“Thank you,Your Grace,” she said. “I’ll be sure to summon you as soon as the desire to be ravished comes upon me.”
“I
won’t hold my breath,” said Velius.
“I would be very sad if you did,” said Monday. “I would hate losing one of the few friends I have at this court. No, yours is not the heart I wish to carve out and serve this afternoon.” Monday extracted her fingers from Velius’s grasp as smoothly as he had captured them. Her eyes moved to Rumbold. “I have larger prey to snare.”
“Please,” said Velius. “It wasn’t his fault. It was I who made your sister’s presence known to the king.”
She put a hand to Velius’s cheek and smiled with those rose-petal lips, a gesture so much like Sunday’s, it stole Rumbold’s breath. “Do you feally think the king wouldn’t have found Wednesday on his own? My poetic sister, the perfect image of the woman he will always love but never possess? It was inevitable, my darling. All you did was hasten the meeting.” She moved to stand before Rumbold, though she still clearly addressed his cousin. “I thank you as well for turning the attention away from my youngest sister and her scandalous escort.”
“It was my honor,Your Majesty.”
“Tell me, Velius, what do you suppose your cousin’s intentions are toward my sister?”
“He loves her,” said Velius.
Monday raised one curious eyebrow at Rumbold, a talent that the prince himself did not possess. Her face was not only beautiful but expressive. “Love? After only one night of dancing and one night of—well, no one really knows where they disappeared to last night, do they?”
Rumbold could no longer hold his tongue. He knew Monday’s legend. “Many years ago, was a dark and stormy night not enough to breed its own love?”
It was a jest intended for a future sibling. The prince did not expect the cold reserve that washed over Monday’s face. “It was not,” she said. “Nor was the decade following.”
Rumbold bowed low to Monday, wishing he were a frog again. “Forgive me,Your Majesty.”
“A man born four times has nothing left to speak but truth,” said a voice to his left. The prince straightened. “Wouldn’t you agree?” Wednesday’s thin frame haunted the chamber doorway. Rumbold wasn’t quite sure how to address her, this woman only several years his senior but oceans wiser, and who would become his stepmother before the night was over.
“Four times?” he asked.
“Boy, menace, beast, man,” she counted. “You will take more roles in the future, but you have made your last transformation.”
He was relieved to hear that there would be no more shape-changing in his future, and slightly annoyed to be labeled a menace for those years the spell had been postponed.
Wednesday read his mind. “You were no more a menace than any other rebellious teenager born with more privilege than sense. I would tell you to take heart, but it seems you already have my sister’s.”
“I gave my own in return.”
“What is a heart bundled in lies?” she asked.
“What is a heart without love?” he fought back. Neither Monday nor Wednesday had a response. “I did not lie to her.”
“No,” Wednesday agreed. “You have tortured her with silence. You let her grieve for a soul she did not lose, mourn a heart that should not have broken, and berate herself for betraying the man she loves ... with the man she loves.” She was tall enough in her stocking feet to look him straight in the eye. “It can’t be ‘true’ love without truth, Rumbold.”
Wednesday’s wisdom astounded him. He was perhaps a fool to think he could find a way to save his future stepmother better than she could herself.
“We are all fools,” she said before he could respond, “blessed with the knowledge that certain events will come to pass no matter what path we take to get there.” She said “blessed” in a tone that meant just the opposite. “The wise ones follow their angels while they may.” She looked to Monday, whose fey-kissed features certainly seemed divinity incarnate.
A sharp rap on the door brought Marta scurrying out of Wednesday’s chambers to answer it, and a footman navigated his way into the salon. He carried an enormous white dress as if it had once been a woman whod fainted and then shamefully faded to invisible in his arms. Some sort of form held the bodice of the dress in place—a form that would have been modeled after the last body to wear the queen’s bridal gown.
Rumbold’s mother.
A woman entered the rooms directly after the dress. The inky waves of her hair framed her cherub face and set off her skin’s magenta hue. She was from the north, then, of the mountain folk, which explained her hearty build and shrewd eye. The footman held the dress out before the woman while she closely examined the fabric. Satisfied, she nodded to the man, and he gently laid the dress out on the nearest sofa. There was a slight breeze as the skirts settled, and Rumbold smelled lavender.
I will always be with you.
“Yarlitza Mitella.” Velius bowed to the magenta woman and crushed her palm to his lips like a lover. “It has been too long.”
“Yet you are still a picture, damn you.” Yarlitza Mitella made a show of pulling her hand away and gently slapping his face. “I am the same woman in not the same body, alas.”
“I see before me the woman who once haunted my dreams,” said Velius, “and still does.” Was there any woman who didn’t succumb to Velius’s charm? Rumbold rolled his eyes ... right over to where Wednesday stood. Perhaps there was one after all. But just the one.
Yarlitza Mitella swatted the duke’s arm again. “Enough. Introduce me now to this woman who shall be queen.”
Velius took her elbow. “Miss Woodcutter, this is Mistress Yarlitza Mitella, the esteemed seamstress.”
With a fist,Yarlitza swept her skirts up to the small of her back, displaying layers of intricate black ruffles and shiny leather heels. She leaned forward in a gesture that was half bow, half curtsey, and wholly of the mountains. She drew her thick black eyebrows together and scrutinized Wednesday’s face as intensely as the wedding dress. “We have met before, yes?” Yarlitza asked of Wednesday.
“Once or twice,” said Wednesday. “In the future.”
This seemed to make sense to Yarlitza, though it made none to Rumbold. “You are She Who Will Be.” Yarlitza deepened her bow. “I am honored, my lady.” Her sentiment was followed by a sentence in the mountain tongue that sounded like a prayer, or a message of sympathy. “Now if you gentlemen will excuse us, I need to squeeze every moment out of the precious few hours I have left. Avas!”
Rumbold spared one last look at the queen’s gown as Yer-litza herded him and his companions to the door Marta held open. He should have felt upset about Wednesday wearing his mother’s gown, but even his mother had not been the first woman to don it and bind her soul to king and country. And as he hadn’t been born yet, he held no sentimental memory of seeing her in it.
Or did he?
Rumbold halted in front of the empty dress on the couch and the invisible woman who listed drunkenly inside it. He had seen this dress before. His mother had been wearing it when she had come to him in his dreams, the waking nightmares drenched in soot and ash. He reached out to touch a sleeve and then hesitated, not wanting to sully the pristine fabric with his cinder-covered hands. He looked down at his fingers; they were clean.
Rumbold. Rumbold.
“What?” he said to no one.
“Stop up your ears,” Wednesday answered. “Listen with your heart.”
Rumbold’s brain was too filled with sisters and riddles. The smell of purple rising from the dress gave him a terrible headache. He was tired and needed a nap before the long evening to come. A very long evening. He needed to tell Sunday the truth, and the anticipation weighed upon him. It tasted like fear. He wasn’t sure he could go through with it, and yet he knew it must be done. It must be done.
Kill me.
“Until this evening,” said Velius. “We bid you gentle ladies farewell.” Yarlitza couldn’t move them fast enough; had there been a broom handy, she would have surely swept them out with it.
“Listen with your heart,” Wednesday rep
eated softly as Marta closed the door.
Free me, said the voice in Rumbold’s head.
***
In full court dress, Rumbold wandered the halls and fought with the monsters in his mind. How was he supposed to tell Sunday the truth about himself now? She liked him well enough, he hoped, as a man. She had that way of looking at him that made him feel like he’d built the world for her and given it to her as a gift just that morning. The second he opened his mouth to tell her the truth, that smile would vanish. She would walk away and never look back. He was an idiot.
Wednesday had told him to listen to his heart. Sunday was his heart; did she have something to say that he needed to hear? No ... Wednesday had told him to listen with his heart. He put his knuckles in his ears, closed his eyes, and listened. Anyone who walked by would see him and say, “Look at the crown prince of Arilland; the insanity of kings runs thick in his blood.” Thankfully, he didn’t particularly care what “anyone” thought.
Listen with his heart. Listen. Listen.
Listen.
Nothing.
He braced himself for Sunday’s scorn and hatred. That would never happen, but he would expect it nonetheless, to lessen the blow from whatever disappointment lay ahead. That matter settled, he opened his eyes and watched the wall sconces lining the empty hallway before him gutter and extinguish.
Perhaps he really was insane.
He stepped back; the lamps behind him were still lit. He continued backward slow step by slow step. He refused to run from this darkness, but he wasn’t fearless enough to walk blindly into it. Rumbold backed up far enough to reach a junction. The corridor to the right was pitch-black. To his left, the torches between each sculpture and mirror and portrait still flickered, happily ablaze. The darkness wasn’t just whispering; now it was leading him.
In the corner of his eye, a shadow fled on enormous dark wings. Rumbold caught a whiff of lavender. He walked down the hall. The cold darkness closed in behind him. The wise follow their angels while they may, Wednesday’s voice said in his head.
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