The Sin Eater's Daughter

by Melinda Salisbury

  In Lormere only women become Sin Eaters, as it was a female who committed the first sin. Næht tempted Dæg and stole the sky, bringing death to the land. To atone for Næht’s folly, Dæg decreed a mortal woman must bear the burden of the sins of the dead, generation after generation of daughters loaded with the weight of more and more; sin is inherited in our family, as hereditary as the maladies of the royal line. So now Maryl will take up the mantle when my mother passes, and her first task will be to consume the sins of my mother. I don’t imagine it will be much of a meal.

  * * *

  It’s peaceful in the garden and I’m lost in my thoughts until a thud on the dusty ground makes me turn. Dorin has fallen, clutching at his arm, and when he pulls off his gauntlet I see the skin beneath is red; an angry, large blister has formed in the center of his forearm.

  “Why did you not tell me?” I demand. “Why did you not say you ailed?”

  “I’m fine, my lady,” he says, but it’s clear he isn’t. Bright pinpricks of blood under the surface of his skin circle the wound, and his face has taken on the pallor of sickness.

  “Go and get a poultice,” I tell him, but he shakes his head. “You must, lavender and oxymel. Come, I will take you now. Please,” I say. There was a child in the village who reacted badly to a bee sting once, and it killed him in the end. “Dorin, we must go. You’ve already waited too long. I order you to go to the healers. Now.” I look at Lief. “Help me.”

  As Lief steps forward to take Dorin’s good arm, the older guard raises it. “No. I’ll go, my lady. Lief can stay with you. You”—he turns to Lief—“you cut down anyone who tries to harm her. You stay close and you make sure she is safe.” Lief nods solemnly.

  “My lady, I will be back as soon as I am able.”

  “I know you will.” I try a smile. “Now go. Rest if they tell you to. I will see you soon.”

  He bows, grimacing, and then he is gone, leaving me alone with my new guard. We both watch Dorin until he passes through the doors into the castle. There is a moment when I yearn to run after him, to help him, to keep him by my side. Guilt eats at me—I should have noticed sooner; I should have made him go to the healers immediately. Is this the Gods’ way of telling me not to make a screen of flowers? Is this somehow a warning to me?

  I turn to go home but Lief doesn’t follow. When I look back at him he’s staring at a plume of opaque black smoke rising from behind the wall of the stables and I shudder. I know what that smoke means.

  He looks at me searchingly before he bows slightly. “Forgive my impertinence, my lady. Is there a fire?”

  “No. It’s a funeral pyre. Lord Bennel … passed recently.”

  “Ah, forgive me, my lady. I did not know the dead were burned in Lormere.”

  I nod. “We used to bury them, but there was … Winters here are harsh—they make the ground hard, and it’s cruel to wait for spring so people can lay their loved ones to rest.”

  Lief nods and I wait, wondering if he’ll press on. It wasn’t a lie. In winter it is impossible to dig a grave; the ground freezes solid, as though the mountains are trying to take the land back by crawling underneath our feet as we sleep. The queen’s mother died in winter, back when we still buried the dead. After the Eating her coffin was moved to an outbuilding to keep the corpse from stinking while they waited for the ground to soften so she could be interred.

  But the dogs found her long before spring came. Despite the fact that they prefer live prey, they made an exception for their owner. It was only when King Kyras found his wife’s wedding ring in the courtyard with her finger still inside that they realized what had happened. What remained was burned, and all the dead have been since, regardless of season.

  “I hope he didn’t suffer, my lady.”

  I pause briefly, my stomach rolling before I speak. “He met with an accident. It was swift.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss, my lady.”

  I nod, turning away and continuing on my path back to my tower, thinking of Dorin. He will be fine, he will be fine. I will go to the temple and petition the Gods. I will beg forgiveness for my sins. I will be grateful and I will trust in them. I’m repeating the mantra when Lief speaks to me again.

  “My lady, forgive me. What kind of accident was it?”

  Again I stop and look at him, and he returns my gaze, his head held quizzically. “He disobeyed the queen,” I say after a long moment.

  He looks at me with his eyebrows raised and I wait for his next question. But it doesn’t come; instead he looks thoughtfully at the smoke before he bows his head and I begin walking again.

  * * *

  Later, I am sitting at my screen, trying to sketch an outline of flowers. There has been no word about Dorin, so when the door flies open I expect it to be Lief with news. It is Lief, white-faced, but he is quickly obscured by the grave face and forest-green gown of the queen. The charcoal I have been drawing with falls to the floor and rolls away as I dip into a deep bow.

  “You may rise, Twylla,” she says as she closes the door herself, shutting Lief from the room and leaving us alone.

  I do as she bids, the strength draining from my legs until I have to keep my knees bent under my gown so I don’t fall. She has never visited me before. If she wants to see me, I am summoned to her, never this, never her attending me. First the prince and now her.

  I keep my neck bent as I watch her examine my quarters, her ivory fingers trailing across the golden counterpane of the bed, along the wooden posts that hold the canopy. She crosses to the bureau, looking down at the sketches scattered across it. She gazes at them, her lips pursed.

  “What is this?”

  “I plan to embroider a screen, Your Majesty.”

  “With flowers? Not the sun and moon?” she asks, her head tilted in question though her eyes remain hard.

  “It … it was the prince’s idea, Your Majesty.”

  She looks at me sharply. “And when did you speak to the prince?”

  “Two days past, Your Majesty.” I don’t mention that he came to my audience with the king. “He came to the temple.”

  “Did he? Those are his drawings, are they not?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty. He lent them to me to aid me.”

  The queen stares at me. “Good. It’s about time you two began associating. It’ll make your marriage easier if you’re not total strangers.” She smiles crookedly. “Let us sit, Twylla. I have come on account of your guard.”

  I wait for her to sit in my chair, my heart speeding again as I kneel before her and wait.

  “I’ve been good to you, haven’t I?” she says.

  My stomach drops to the floor. “Your Majesty?”

  “Haven’t I always done what’s best for you? Haven’t I brought you here, guided you in fulfilling your role serving the Gods? Don’t I take care of your former family? Haven’t I invited you into my family and offered you my son?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty. You’ve been too kind to me.” I try not to shiver, though each word she says feels like someone is walking over my grave. It’s dangerous when she’s reminding me how much she cares for me.

  “I can’t allow you to wander the castle with one guard, Twylla. It wouldn’t be safe.”

  “I understand, Your Majesty. I won’t go anywhere in the castle, save for my temple,” I say dutifully.

  “No, Twylla, you misunderstand me. I don’t want you leaving this room until the other is fit to return.”

  “But, Your Majesty—the Gods … the temple … my duties …”

  “The Gods will understand. You don’t need to worship them there to receive their blessing. You’re Daunen Embodied. Wherever you are you can worship them. The king and I don’t spend all our days in a temple, do we? I told you once before, you worship them by pleasing me, in the way their daughter pleases them.”

  “Your Majesty, forgive me, but is there no one else you can appoint to me while Dorin recovers? Is there no other guard who can be spared to protect me?”

/>   The queen looks at me with pity. “Come, Twylla, you’re not so naive. You go through guards so quickly it’s becoming harder and harder to find suitable men to fulfill the role. Why on earth do you think I allowed a Tregellian to become your guard? He was the only one willing to take on the position, though fortunately for you he is skilled enough to reassure me he’s capable of protecting you. But I would trust no one man with that role. You know how much I value you, the lengths at which I go to ensure you are safe. You will remain here, at my pleasure, where you are safe. Let that be an end to it.”

  She says it so candidly, it sends a shiver down my spine, and it strikes me how much at times she reminds me of my mother. Both of them favor manipulation as a means for control. With the queen, it’s the reminder that all she does is for me, how ungrateful I would be if I spurned it. My mother was the same, playing on guilt and gratitude to get her way. She might not have had the queen’s absolute power, but she has a command of her own and she was always willing to wield it like a knife if she had to.

  It is known that the soul will linger near the body for three days and nights after a death. During that time, the Eating must take place so the soul can ascend, otherwise it will drift to the West Woods to join its damned brothers and sisters in the trees. Though nowhere in Lormere is more than a whole day’s ride away, dawn to dawn, sometimes my mother would deliberately delay to repay a slight she felt had been visited on her. Once, when a woman gave birth to a sleeping child, my mother attended the Eating, only to be angered by the single cup of ale offered to her.

  “He was never in the world,” the child’s father had pleaded. “He never knew sin or wrong.”

  My mother accepted the token payment of a silver coin with icy contempt and left. The following day the man sent a messenger to call us back to his home; his poor wife, unwilling or unable to stay in a world without her child, had died in the night. My mother listened to the message and said her thanks.

  Then she went to her room and closed the door.

  For two nights and days she stayed in there, ignoring my knocks at the door as I grew ever more anxious. At the last possible minute we left our cottage and traveled to the farmstead.

  The feast was much, much larger that time.

  So yes, I know the lengths to which the queen will go. She, like my mother, plays to win. But time has taught me how to endure them both; it’s my specialty. “I understand, Your Majesty,” I say. “You’re right. I’m grateful for your concern.”

  “You’re my daughter, or as near as, Twylla. How else could it be?”

  Her words, too close to my own thoughts, make my skin tighten. “Thank you, Your Majesty.”

  She nods and stands, having already accepted and disregarded my thanks, and I bow deeply to hide the anger on my face, remaining low until the door has closed.

  As soon as she’s gone I rush to my bed to straighten the counterpane and smooth the dent her finger left. When there’s a knock at the door I panic, hastily running my own finger back down it so she can’t tell I tried to remove it.

  “Enter.”

  I breathe a sigh of relief when it is only Lief, though again his face is the conduit for my emotions; both fear and worry play across his handsome features. “The queen says Dorin will be away for some time, and that all duty now lies with me.”

  “Yes.”

  He looks at me before nodding slowly. His mouth opens and closes as he bites down on whatever he was about to say. Finally he speaks. “Very good, my lady. Shall I light your candles now? Do I need to fetch your supper from the kitchens?”

  “No, one of the maids will bring it to you at the door of the tower. She’ll bring both yours and mine—you’ll hear her knock. But you may light the candles.”

  He nods again and bows, and I jerk away from him as he walks past me without waiting for me to move.

  “My lady?”

  “You must … You must not walk so close to me.”

  He smiles. “I’m not so close, my lady.”

  “You are,” I say shakily. “You must always keep an arm’s length between us. Always.”

  When I take another step back he nods.

  “Of course, forgive me.”

  As he turns away I catch his scent: slightly sharp and citrusy, leather, a hint of wood smoke. It’s somehow calming and I breathe deeply, taking it into my lungs and holding it there as I watch him move about the room. He takes a taper from above the fireplace and lights it, carrying it carefully around the candles until the room blazes with light, much brighter than I normally keep it. The taper burns quickly and he has to shake his hand to stop the flames from licking his skin. He walks back to the doorway and stands in front of me, taking two steps back and holding an arm between us. When I flinch, he frowns and lowers it.

  “I’ll bring your supper when they send it, then. Will that be all?”

  I nod and he smiles at me, that all-tooth smile with his tongue peeping between his teeth as he bows. As soon as he closes the door I rush to my looking glass and try it myself. I look like a fool.

  * * *

  My supper remains untouched, the grease congealing on the stewed meat doing nothing to tempt me to eat. My old life with my mother loaded certain foods with meaning and though I know the difference between eating and Eating, I cannot help but silently measure the morsels when it’s food I remember from an Eating. Most of the food I eat here is castle food—the queen would never eat what the commoners eat—but now and then something comes along that I know of old. A heel of seeded bread is a lie, a wedge of hard cheese is a debt left unpaid. Stewed meat is for obstinacy, and I wonder if the queen had it sent deliberately. Lief chides me when he comes to take the bowl away.

  “You’ve not eaten, my lady.”

  “No.”

  “Can I bring you something else?”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “But … it is such a waste.”

  I look at him in surprise. “They’ll give it to the pigs. It won’t go to waste.”

  He stops dead, his eyes stony as he bows stiffly and takes the tray. He says nothing more, sweeping from the room with a disdain that would impress the queen. His foot hooks around the door and pulls it closed, the breeze from the movement blowing out some of the candles. My mouth is open as I stare at the door; I had thought I was immune to disapproval by now.

  My skin feels too tight, memories of my mother washing over me. The shadows under her eyes that made her look like one of the corpses she was supposed to atone for. The sound of her voice summoning me into her room, always in darkness. The windows covered in thick woolen blankets so the air was heavy and cloying and full of her reek. She would spend hours washing herself, the cleansing both ritualistic and obsessive, daubing jasmine oil under her armpits and in her groin and along her neck. She kept a fire in her room, burning day and night, no matter the season, and I would sit and swelter on the small stool as she lay back in her bed and instructed me in the words and rites we had to perform. The smell of jasmine would strangle me as she sat sweating in her own private hell and telling me how one day I would do the same. She would look down her nose at me, her eyes cold, as if she knew well in advance what a disappointment I’d be to her.

  I cross to my window and lean out, taking great gulps of the clean, crisp air, my fingers gripping the cold stone. I am Daunen now. I am Daunen Embodied.

  I leave the shutters at the window open all night.

  * * *

  Sleep comes in bursts, light while my body rests and I watch the fireworks behind my eyes, and deeper bouts that leave me gasping for air when I wake from them, tangled in the sheets. Dawn takes a long time to arrive and I am eager to put the night behind me. I wash and dress, waiting for my breakfast. I’m toying with the idea of sending it away immediately, to show him that I won’t be bullied by him, when he knocks on the door.

  But all thoughts of banishing him and the food leave my mind when he enters, the tray balanced carefully on one arm. Instead of porrid
ge, bread, and cheese, it contains flaky, buttery pastries, their centers bright red with jam, fig marmalade, a small bowl of viscous, golden honey, and soft, fresh white bread, so different to the seeded loaf I ate at home. All of my favorite foods. He lays the tray unceremoniously on top of Merek’s drawings and turns to me, a shy smile on his lips as he pulls a slightly squashed bouquet of flowers from inside his tunic and offers them to me.

  “I’m sorry, my lady. I behaved out of turn last night.” He bows, brandishing the flowers.

  For a moment I can only blink in surprise. Then I remember myself. “So this is an apology?”

  He nods and gestures to the tray, and I finally notice the piece of paper resting beside my knife.

  “My mother always told me a gentleman commits to an apology in writing,” he says. “So the lady knows he doesn’t mean to take it back.”

  I pluck the note from the tray and scan it, ashamed by my inability to read it but determined not to let him know I can’t. I pretend to examine the marks, my eyes blurring over the long strokes and round curves, none of it meaning a thing to me. I can only assume from the slightly smug, expectant look on his face that what I’m holding is an eloquent note on the evils of wastefulness disguised as an apology. The kind of apology that admits nothing. When my face begins to heat up I drop it back onto the tray, not even flinching when it lands in the marmalade.

  “Pretty words. I’m sure your mother would be proud.” I let my annoyance at myself slip into my voice, directing it at him to try and exorcise it. “But I don’t need your apology, guard. You’re perfectly entitled to your own thoughts on my wastefulness. However I don’t need them detailed to me, not out loud and not on paper. I answer to the Gods, not to you.”

  He opens his mouth, an argument forming there before something sparks in his eyes. He looks from the note to me, before speaking gently. “Perhaps you would allow me to read it to you? Sometimes it’s hard to say what you mean on paper; sometimes the tone of a word is needed … my lady,” he tacks on.