Four or so outings later, and Faty no longer referred to Lucas as a wolf-bear-thing. From time to time, Yzabel would catch the Moura petting Lucas with a distracted hand while she scowled at the mirror as she tried to access her own powers. To see her precious dog and her precious friend finally accepting each other filled Yzabel’s heart with so much warmth she almost forgot her current predicament.
Almost.
Once he’d deemed Yzabel had eaten enough, Denis would leave. Fatyan would break fast then, and Yzabel would take whatever was left, turn it into flowers, and try to change it back to whatever food it’d been. But she was still too overcome with grief and anger, and the sheer despair of it all burned every flower to a crisp.
The scene would repeat itself at lunch, then at dinner. By the end of the first week, Yzabel had attuned herself to Denis’s comings and goings. Thrice a day he came to her, each visit more miserable and strained than the last. Yzabel could’ve cut him down had she been able to take the tension and fashion it as a weapon; she seriously considered sticking him with the letter opener, at least.
Every time, he told her, “If you want out, you know what must be done.”
Every time, she replied with, “I refuse to let you coerce me into borrowing Fatyan so she can spy for you.”
And once Denis left, Fatyan would always say, “I can do it, Yza.”
“You don’t have to do anything for me. You shouldn’t even have to stay anymore.” Her voice wavered, and bewilderment pinched her brow as she looked out the window. “I’m in control of the gift. You’re not bound to me anymore.”
“But I am.” Fatyan’s approach shimmered through Yzabel like summer sunshine casting away cold shadows, wrapping warmth around her waist, laying the weight of her head on the back of her neck. “Our bargain won’t be met until you turn roses into bread and prove mastery of the sahar.”
Another reminder of her failures. Bitterness rose to her tongue, disappointment sunk her stomach. She kept expecting Fatyan to say something different, to hear her say she was staying with her because she wanted to, not because she had to.
On Second-Fair, while the kettle warmed in the fireplace and Faty had left to grab broas from the kitchens, a gentle rapping nudged Yzabel from her place at the table. She swiftly hid the roses under the bed, swept the bits of bread into a bowl and set it by the window before asking, “Who is it?”
“Dom Domingos, Your Highness. May I come in?”
The hairs on the nape of her neck stood with palpitating nerves and hesitation. The Chancellor-Mor hadn’t seen her since before Vasco’s death, and not for lack of trying. Several times now Yzabel had heard them talking in the solar, Denis telling Dom Domingos she was resting and not to be disturbed. The several days of continued insistence to convince Denis she was not at risk of falling prey to the Chancellor’s preaching had paid off at last.
Dom Domingos had soiled Vasco’s thoughts against Brites and Faty, sowed doubt that had killed as efficiently as a dagger to the neck. Wariness straight on her shoulders, Yzabel sat on the three-legged bench before the fireplace, moved the kettle around just for the sake of it and said, “You’ll have to ask Matias to unlock the door.”
The familiar tumbling noise of key on lock, and Dom Domingos crossed into her chambers, short white hair catching the light in contrast to his black robes as he looked around the space with a calculating eye. Satisfied to see them alone, he shambled toward her, hand on his back as he lowered himself onto the bench next to hers.
“I’ve yet to offer you my condolences for Dom Vasco,” he began. “Such sudden loss must weigh heavily upon you.”
She narrowed her eyes. “It brings me much grief, yes.”
A small smile tugged at the Chancellor’s thin lips. “He was a great man. I still remember when he recommended you for queen as if it were yesterday. How he stayed with you for five years until you were prepared to come.”
“Yes, I…” The memory chipped at her cold resolve, softened her demeanor and tone. “I owe him much and shall miss him even more.”
For championing her. For protecting her. For letting her bring Brites.
“And just as I’d convinced him to finally denounce his friendship with that unholy woman, too.” He shook his head and let out a breath. “I realize your affection for her blinds you, my princess, but Brites Sande is a dangerous woman, with a head full of dangerous ideas.”
What little gentleness she’d gathered slipped through Yzabel’s fisted hands, and very slowly, she turned to face the old man. “And what dangerous ideas might that be?”
Flustered, Dom Domingos shifted on his seat. “Surely you’ve heard of her disease. Of her pact with the Dark Lord that allows her to command nature. Brites’s very presence threatened your place at our Lord’s side, and it’s a shame it took Dom Vasco’s passing for His Majesty to do something about her influence.”
If she told him of her own magic, would he accuse her of bargaining with the Devil as well? Keeping the sneer from her features, she asked, “Is that why you wanted to see me? To stomp on Brites’s good name?”
“Good name? With the things Dom Vasco and her own son have confessed to me, her name is anything but!” Dom Domingos reached for her hand. She let his bony fingers wrap around hers, parchment-thin skin smooth and slippery. “Your Highness, the sickness and the paganism are only the beginning. Brites’s most nefarious plan is yet to unfold.”
Yzabel loathed the curiosity that made her ask, “What plan?”
“The…” He leaned in, drawing a sign of the cross over himself before whispering, “The Enchanted Moura she brought you.” She tried to yank her hand, but Dom Domingos’s grip, surprisingly tight for a man his age, held her prisoner. “Dom Vasco told me everything before he passed, and Matias corroborated. The king might not believe it, but that girl you have serving you now…she’s an Enchanted Moura that Brites has been seeking for years, going so far as to rope in a nun from the São Francisco Convent in Estremoz to help her. As the stories go, to free such a creature requires a bargain, and…” He inhaled sharply as if to prepare himself to speak of hideous things. “I’m afraid she offered your throne in return for the Enchanted Moura’s power.”
Yzabel’s mask cracked at the audacity of it all, and she could no longer help the flippant laughter from bubbling in her lips. She couldn’t even be angry at Vasco’s memory for telling the Chancellor about Fatyan and using Brites as a shield, not after hearing the wild tale he’d spun. A bargain existed, yes, but it was between Yzabel and Faty, and it was without the involvement of the Portuguese throne.
“My princess, this is serious!” Dom Domingos chided, pulling at her hand. “Dom Vasco and I shared the same suspicions and talked about it at great length. This Fatyan is trying to rob you of your place. And someone who looks the way she does would have no trouble convincing the king to annul your betrothal and take her as his sole mistress. If he stays unmarried, it leaves the way free for her children to inherit the throne.”
Newfound strength hardened her limbs, and she reclaimed her hand with anger grimacing on her face, hissing, “Fatyan’s not interested in that.” She’d told Yzabel many times that she valued her freedom too much. That she found men as unappealing as rock. She’d told Dom Domingos as much when he’d interrogated her about it.
“That’s what she tells you—but I’ve seen her conversing with the king, all batting eyelashes and pretty smiles. And while our king may have many virtues, he has one great weakness. He’s young still, prone to the temptations of the flesh, and that one, well…”
He let his words hang in the air, and somewhere deep down inside her, doubt began taking root. Faty had been talking to Denis? When? And had she been truly smiling, or had Dom Domingos misread the situation? Why did wondering twist at her heart and steal her breath?
Willing calm into her body, Yzabel crossed her legs and asked, “And that’s diff
erent from every other mistress how?”
A question asked softly, yet it had Dom Domingos reel back as if slapped. “It’s not. But in this one, you at least have a choice. Your betrothed’s soul is at risk as it is, and there are only so many dalliances the Lord can forgive him. Even before you’re officially married.” A touch on her knee brought a creepy shiver to her leg. “I beg you to take pity on the king. Dismiss that woman and the temptation she brings.”
Without an utterance, Yzabel didn’t move her eyes from the hand he’d placed upon her knee. He tucked it away with embarrassed apologies, but she was done with him, done listening to his horrible ideas meant to trip her into feeling guilty. Ideas that made the fate of the king’s eternal soul all about her when it was only about Denis and Denis alone.
At least now she knew exactly how he’d poisoned Vasco’s mind—tall lies and baseless conjecture, born out of the notion that every beautiful woman had to be an ambitious temptress who longed to birth kings. After all, what other heights could they possibly aspire to?
“My betrothed is his own man, Dom Domingos, and I do not appreciate you referring to him as an animal that can’t think for or control himself,” she said. “Neither do I appreciate this malice toward Fatyan, and if you continue spewing it, then I shall invite you to leave.”
He opened and closed his mouth before clearing his throat and rising with a nod. He hesitated, swaying on his feet like a branch in the breeze. “One more thing, if I may?”
She looked at him from the corner of her eye. “If you must.”
“His Majesty informed me you’re no longer fasting.” Before she could interrupt and tell him to get out of her sight, he hastily added, “Which I understand, since you will need to give him an heir after you’re married. For that, your body needs sustenance. As such, you need to purify your flesh in other ways if you’re to remain in the Lord’s good graces.”
Although he didn’t say it out loud, his meaning was clear, and the judgment in his voice throbbed on the scars along her back and around her thigh. Yzabel hadn’t worn the cilice since the springs, hadn’t brought out the cat o’ nine tails for almost as long. Whenever she’d felt the need to, she’d remember Faty’s hands chasing the length of welts, asking, Notice how they tell you to starve and suffer, when God’s own son wanted us to love one another? How they tell you every kindness you do is never enough, even though one small act of goodness enriches the soul and the world better than unnecessary pain?
Dom Domingos accused Brites and Faty of wanting to replace her, when in truth, it was he who wanted someone else on the throne. The conditioning of years finally lifted from her eyes, and Yzabel saw his intentions as clear as daylight; saw how he only liked her because she’d taken everything he’d said about the Lord’s teachings without question. Teachings that had left her feeble and pliable, for he sought not death of the body, but of the mind, chipping at her willpower all these years so she’d become a husk of her former self. A wooden doll filled with his ideals, and not her own.
And still, the pull to put the cilice back on lingered. The need to use the whip and let the pain overwhelm everything else simmered under her thoughts. There was sound logic behind Faty’s words, yes, but… What if she was wrong? What if God did want her to suffer for the lies she’d pervaded between herself and Denis?
Yzabel didn’t give him the satisfaction to see how much he’d affected her. “I’ll think on it,” she said without granting him a look. “Have a good evening, Dom Domingos.”
Alone, she hugged herself, rocking back and forth on the little bench, the fire’s warmth lost to her numb skin. Her head dropped to her lap, and Yzabel didn’t know how long she sat that way, curled on herself as terrible feelings hosted a ball in her head.
Faty talking to Denis, waltzing with, You need to cleanse yourself, draped in a gown of You need the pain.
She found herself moving, kneeling before the commode and sliding open the bottom drawer. Under nightgowns and socks, the stone, pulsing with faint energy. Farther back, against the corner, supple against her fingers, the cat o’ nine tails. Her hand closed around the handle, leather strips whispering as she dragged it out—
“Are you looking for something?” Faty asked.
Lucas bounced across the room to come lay his snout under Yzabel’s arm, and she dropped the whip to hug her dog instead, burying her face in his neck to hide her blushing guilt. “No, I…” She slammed the drawer shut. “It’s nothing.”
Two clicks on the table as Faty set the plate of cakes and bowl of bread down. “Then why are you scowling?”
“Dom Domingos came by while you were gone. He…” She wanted to ask her if it was true, if Faty had been talking to Denis behind her back, but the question couldn’t make its way past her dry throat or her swollen tongue. To give it voice was to admit she didn’t trust Faty, that she didn’t believe her when she’d said she wasn’t interested in sitting on the throne.
It would be to call her only friend a liar. Her friend, who beheld her with apprehension slanted on her brow and lips. Worry Yzabel refused to question. “He asked me how long it’s been since I’ve mortified my flesh.”
Warmth enveloped her back, arms closed around her waist. Faty rested her chin on her shoulder, hugged her tight, tight, tight, and whispered, “Don’t let his words affect you.”
It should be easy to cast Dom Domingos from her mind. Should be easy to remember all the things Fatyan had done for her. Too many to count, especially in this past week, when everything Yzabel did involved Faty in some way. Talking, braiding hair, eating, or simply being. While they sieved and crushed herbs for salves, stories flowed between them, two rivers of memories merging into a sea of shared experiences. When she’d begun to yield to despair and sob out of nowhere, when she’d wanted to do nothing but scream, Fatyan had always come, always held her until the raging fits passed, always let Yzabel sink into her and breathe the scent of almonds from her skin.
Faty wouldn’t have done those things if she didn’t care.
“Come on. I brought more bread for you to practice.” Faty’s nose nudged the curve of Yzabel’s neck, climbed to her jaw, and she was suspended in that motion, imprisoned in the kiss placed upon her cheek. Every syllable brushed against her skin with a hot whisper; something so small shouldn’t leave her short of breath and speedy of pulse, but it did, and she was.
Neither of them moved as the chords of fado winked in Yzabel’s ears, wondering if they’d always been meant to meet. That God had made her starve to leave her without options and kept Faty trapped through more than a century so she could guide her into the path she must take. Terrible atrocities and excruciating pain, done in the name of a greater good.
Or was it a symptom of constant proximity? Of friendship? Of something else? When they were like this—which was often over the past three weeks—she found herself remembering their one kiss, done in the name of breaking a curse; found herself remembering how she hadn’t needed to return it but had done it regardless; then found herself picturing it happening again. Would she still taste cinnamon, and would her mouth still feel as soft as velvet?
It’d be so easy to find out. All she had to do was turn around, to hold Faty’s face, lean forward—
Yzabel laced her imagination with wine and set it on fire. This wasn’t the time to wade in the miasma of misguided feelings warring in her breast, and it was with bleak resolve that she shed Faty’s arms and marched to the table. She took a piece of bread, held it between her fingers. “I’m all that’s keeping you here,” she muttered, willing the gift into the flower.
“You are.” Fingertips trailed fire along Yzabel’s left arm to wrap around her hand, winding her so tight she released neither breath nor grip on magic. “But not for the reasons you think.”
When she said things like that, with unnecessary touches that always lingered too long, Yzabel was sure Fatyan knew the effect s
he had on her and did it all on purpose. And therein lay the problem, for if seduction was Faty’s plan, then Denis would’ve been the better target.
Cold shock speared her breast. Yzabel had never opposed his affairs—why would this one be different?
Why was it different?
Unable to keep those thoughts from spreading, Yzabel’s hold on the gift loosened, letting the magic unspool in tendrils of light. The stem and petals widened and thinned into paper-like pieces that crumbled between her fingers, not to ash but—
“Flour,” Fatyan said, catching the white dust in the palm of her hand. Yzabel leaned closer, squinting as she touched the little mound.
Not the slice she’d started with, but it was something.
“You’re almost there,” encouraged the Moura. “Keep trying.”
Yzabel did.
But she still couldn’t stop thinking of Fatyan and Denis entwined as man and woman. Neither could she stop the ugly jealousy from festering, or the pain from flaring every time she imagined them.
It wasn’t there when she pictured Denis and Aldonza. Why was it there with Faty? Was it because Yzabel thought her a friend? Because Faty was here to help her, not Denis?
And why was she so afraid to learn the answers to all these questions?
Chapter Eighteen
Persistent Doubt
Morning came again. Afternoon. Evening. Yzabel asked about the prelates, and the king told her they’d found no more evidence yet. A funeral would be held for Vasco and no, she could not attend the service. Not unless Fatyan did a favor for him.
“I can’t believe you’d use his funeral for such a self-serving purpose,” Yzabel said, fisting the fabric of her skirts. “Have you not a drop of kindness in your heart?”
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