“You’re dressed quite finely,” he said, when I stayed silent. “It appears your husband has no issue directing royal funds into a new wardrobe for you. I’m sure his soldiers won’t thank him for that when their armor starts to rust.”
A flush of rage spread across my cheeks. “If you have a purpose here, Uncle, I am willing to hear it,” I said, my voice coming out louder than I intended. I wanted to be perceived as graceful and indifferent, coolly dismissing him, but my deep-seated fear rose to the surface and betrayed me. “Otherwise, you may return to your house with Aunt Hestia.”
“You misinterpret my motives as always, Niece,” he said. “I’ve only come to find out how you enjoyed your first foreign visit.”
“Itomius is a lovely country; it was an honor to spend time there.”
He stroked his collar; even in the heat of summer he insisted on wearing his fur robe. I suppose it gave him some kind of comfort. A memento from his days as king. “It’s a pity about the prince’s death,” he said smoothly. “Such a terrible accident.”
“Indeed,” I said, my stomach twisting at the memory of the boar hunt. “It is a great tragedy for Itomius, as well as my husband.” Since our return, Adam had thrown himself into the coronation and festival, working himself to the point of exhaustion each night. I knew he was desperate for a project to help him through his grief, so I said nothing to deter his enthusiasm, but my worry for him kept growing.
My uncle, sensing the strain in my voice, smiled. To anyone else he would have looked like a doting relative full of compassion. But I knew better. “It’s a great responsibility you’ve taken on, Niece, and I hope the weight of Myrilla doesn’t prove too heavy for your shoulders. I hear you’re to be coronated tomorrow.”
I lifted my chin a little at that. “You heard correctly.”
“I’m sure it will be a beautiful ceremony. My own certainly was a spectacle not to be missed. We feasted for days; wine flowed from every fountain. People brought pitchers and jars and cups to the castle to fill them up. We had powder poured into the river to tint the water gold, like the wheat fields.” He gazed wistfully toward the window, lost in his memories. “It was an endless parade of beauty, my coronation.”
“I wouldn’t remember,” I said, determined to not let him get the best of me. “I wasn’t invited to attend, if you recall.”
My uncle ignored me, keeping his gaze out the window. “I swore to the people of Myrilla I would be the greatest king they had ever known. I promised to make our name formidable, and to show the world just how strong we were. I came very close, many times. It was right in my grasp, and I lost it to that vile prince.”
He clenched and unclenched his fist as he said this, though I don’t believe he knew he was doing it. I watched him as he spoke, studying his eyes, alight with passion for the future he’d never brought about for the kingdom he stole. I looked down at my feet and noticed for the first time he was standing beneath me, that now I was the one on the dais. He could no longer force me to do his bidding any more than he could force me to live in the tower again. The very thought was absurd, even laughable. I was so far out of his reach he could never touch me. In that single moment he utterly transformed. He was no longer a tyrant, a violent king to be feared. Instead he became a piteous and contemptible creature in my sight.
“Go home,” I told him, unwilling to argue further. “Go home to your wife and enjoy your memories, Uncle. They are all that’s left of your time as king.”
He glared at me. “Take care, insolence is most unbecoming in a queen.”
“It is not I who should take care, but you,” I told him, my voice hard and steady. “You forget yourself. Look out the window. Look at the fields. Did you bring about the harvest?”
“No, and neither did you,” he replied sharply. “The gods may have taken pleasure in you for the moment, but it will not last. It never does. Smile while you can, Niece. Your triumph will not endure. Sooner or later you will have to pay in blood, just as I did.”
“And whose blood did you use as payment? Not yours, surely. You were happy to spill it as long as it never fell from your own wounds. My father’s, my mother’s, anyone’s but yours. Go home,” I repeated, suddenly exhausted. “If you ever set foot in this castle again you’ll be removed from Myrilla for as long as you live.”
He didn’t so much as flinch at my edict. He simply bowed and turned to leave the throne room. Before he reached the door, however, he stopped and looked over his shoulder. “I wish you well, Niece. You certainly have your health. Though, you should know, you’re not looking as well as I’d hoped. Or as the rest of the kingdom hopes, I should say.”
I swallowed, sensing his trap. “What do you mean?” I asked, unable to resist.
“It’s been many months since you married and your belly is as flat and uninteresting as ever. It appears the foreign prince came off poorly in our bargain. What good is a fertile kingdom if he’s forced to share it with a barren wife?”
With one last bow, he pushed through the heavy doors and was gone.
It was the last time I ever saw him.
• • •
I didn’t tell Adam of my meeting with my uncle. It would have only upset him further and I found no benefit to burdening him with the details. In a moment of spontaneity I suggested we take our dinner in the garden, so Adam had the servants pack our food into a large wicker hamper. He carried it himself from the castle and set it on a thick patch of grass once we’d closed the garden door behind us. The sun was low in the sky, casting the summer flowers in a rosy glow and edging the tree branches with molten gold. We ate quietly, listening to the bees humming at the end of their workday.
My uncle’s words played over and over in my mind, particularly the bit about my failure in producing an heir for the kingdom. If he had noticed, surely others had as well. It may sound very naïve and foolish to you, but it never occurred to me that the people of Myrilla would expect me to have a child so quickly. Such a thought was almost amusing, considering how greatly Adam had despised me at the start of our marriage. And whatever affection I held for him now, it had yet to ignite any desire between us. It was a love too gentle, too fragile, to withstand such passion.
When we finished our dinner Adam picked up his lyre and tightened the strings. But before he started to play, he looked at me. “You’ve been quiet all evening, highly unusual for you. Out with it, Alyce,” he teased. “What are you plotting?”
I managed a smile. “You needn’t fear; I’m not plotting anything.” I looked over my shoulder. Just over the high garden walls I could make out the roof of the north tower, where I had lived for so many years. The site of my most painful memories.
Suddenly decisive, I pushed myself to my feet. “Come with me. I want to show you something. Leave your lyre with the dinner things. We won’t be gone long; we’ll come back to collect them later.”
He obeyed, placing the lyre in its lacquered box and following me to the garden door. “A mysterious errand? How thrilling. I am at your disposal, Alyce.”
I led him into the castle and through the corridors until we reached the entrance to the north tower. I stood for a moment and studied it; not since Adam’s army invaded had I so much as looked at this door. Servants scuttled past, ferrying empty trays from the court’s dinner toward the kitchens. One rounded the corner too fast and nearly spilled the flagon of wine she was carrying on me. I barely noticed her hurried apologies; I had reached out and clasped the latch, and it took all of my strength to lift it and pull open the door.
The scent overwhelmed me at once, transporting me to the past. That damp, musty odor of stone left too long in the dark. I put my hand on the cool wall to steady myself, then started up the curved staircase without a word. Adam climbed the steps after me, though my heart beat so loudly I couldn’t hear his boots on the stone. Higher and higher we wound our way up, until I stood at the door to the main chamber. With the handle caked in dust, it was already cracked, as though the serv
ants who had cleaned the room following my uncle’s fall had simply emptied its contents and then promptly forgotten its existence. Looking back, I’m thankful the door was partially ajar. I don’t believe I could have summoned the courage to open it myself.
I touched the door with trembling fingers and gently pushed it. The hinges creaked violently, rusted and whining with neglect. The circular room opened before me and I stepped inside. The late evening sunlight poured through the narrow windows, illuminating the thick sheet of dust covering every surface.
Adam joined me and swept his eyes over the bare furnishings.
“What is this place?” he said, whispering as though we were in the presence of a ghost.
I swallowed the thick, hot tears that had sprung to my eyes. “This is where I grew up,” I told him. “From the night my mother and father died until the morning you brought your army through the mountains, I spent nearly every day in this tower.”
I felt him looking at me in astonishment. I had never divulged so many details of my childhood before. It was a moment before he cleared his throat to speak. “What happened to them?”
“Nobody ever found out for certain. They became ill one winter and died soon after. Within hours of each other, in fact. The coughing sickness was especially rampant that year, and the physicians found no trace of poison.” I looked down at the threadbare carpet, fraying on the edges. “Any number of causes are possible. Though there are some who say…” I trailed off and swallowed. “Some say it was more sinister than a simple illness. It probably won’t surprise you that my uncle hated my father. They were brothers, and nothing my father did was ever enough to please Uncle Falwyn. When my father died, my uncle should have taken his place as regent until I was old enough to marry. Instead he and my aunt ordered that I be shut in this chamber, and took it upon themselves to erase any memory of me from the people.”
I fixed my gaze on the small table below the window, lost in my past. “This is where I ate my meals,” I said, running my fingers over the dusty wood grain. “Only one chair, you see? A few of my braver maids would stay with me while I dined. We’d hold whispered conversations in tiny snatches, careful never to say too much in case the guards outside the door overheard. When I was a young child this served as my writing desk, too. I had just begun to learn my letters when my parents died, and an elderly maid named Iryna smuggled in parchment and ink to make sure I continued my studies.”
He watched me circle the room. “A screen stood right here,” I said, motioning with my arms. “There wasn’t a proper washroom, just a tub behind the screen. The maids would fill it with water so that I could bathe. If the guards were in a good mood the maids would bribe them to heat up the water instead of leaving it cold. They’d drop sprigs of rosemary into the bath and perfumed steam would rise up, filling the chamber with the scent of Kore.”
I stopped beside the bed and touched the mattress. Moths had chewed holes into the bedclothes, and a puff of dust rose from beneath my fingers. “This was my bed. It was never warm enough in the winter. No matter how many blankets and rugs my maids managed to sneak past the guards, I always lay shivering. In the summer it grew so hot I’d sprawl on top of the bedclothes in nothing but my shift, praying for a breeze to waft through the windows and cool the sweat on my brow. There wasn’t a single morning when I awoke and didn’t hope that it was all a dream, that I wasn’t cursed to live in this tower any longer.”
I walked to the other side of the bed and bent over. There, blended with the dust on the floor, was the small round glass I had used to study my reflection on the morning of my escape attempt. I held it gingerly and, using my sleeve, wiped the dust from the smooth surface. My own face greeted me, though I could scarcely believe it was the same one I had seen the last time I looked in this glass. All the fear and determination of that early morning came rushing back to me. The dread of what would happen to me if I were caught; the certainty that I would die anyway if I didn’t try.
I carried the glass toward the high window, where the last orange light of sunset turned it into a pool of shimmering liquid. I stared at it, watching the light fill my hand until I couldn’t see myself in the glass anymore. “I can scarcely remember their faces, but I know they loved me. I wonder…” I said, my voice quavering, “I wonder what they would think of me now.”
With faint footsteps Adam joined me. The threshers’ cheerful songs carried to us from the distant fields, signaling the end of another day’s harvest. He turned to me and touched my face, gently brushing my cheek the way a man does before kissing his lover. A thrill ran up my spine as I thought for a wild moment that he had planned to do just that, but he pressed his lips to my forehead instead.
“They would be endlessly proud,” he said quietly, “just as I am. As I always will be. Alcestis, Queen of Myrilla.”
Chapter 26
My coronation took place the following morning. Just like Adam’s nearly a year previously, it was held in the throne room before the court while the rest of Myrilla stood outside the castle gates, waiting for the celebration to begin. With Lilianne acting on Kore’s behalf, I knelt and lowered my head to receive the white-gold laurel wreath Adam’s mother had given me, for there were no other crowns in the Myrillan treasury. I wore the white gown as well, and I remember thinking with the bizarre clarity that often accompanies solemn events that I hoped the stone floor had been sufficiently cleaned before the ceremony. The last thing I wanted were dust imprints on my knees. I vowed to seek the gods’ guidance in all my decisions and to protect Myrilla from harm, no matter the cost. The next thing I knew, Adam was holding out his hand to help me to my feet and the ceremony was over. I was Queen.
The feast wouldn’t begin until later in the evening, but Adam had planned an elaborate tournament in my honor. The great expanse of green lawn outside the castle walls had been converted into a playing field for all kinds of sport and games. Swordplay, boxing, games on horseback, and a half-dozen other events I can’t recall, culminating in a great archery contest. Tiered wooden benches were erected on scaffolding around the field for people to view the games, with a royal box in the very center. It was to this field that Adam and I walked, our route lined with people singing and showering flowers down upon us.
Half the stands were already filled with waiting Myrillans as Adam and I climbed the wooden steps to the royal box. They burst into deafening cheers upon seeing us, and I couldn’t help beaming with pride. I sat in the ornate chair to Adam’s right; the arms were carved to resemble a tangle of grapevines with a bunch of grapes for the sitter’s hands to rest on. But instead of sinking into the chair beside me, Adam gestured to a basket filled with small wreaths woven from rosemary and wheat.
“Those are the prizes, Alyce,” he said. “After each event you’ll crown the victor, and then the next one will begin. I’m sorry I won’t be here to see it, I know you’ll do well.”
“Where are you going?” I asked, alarmed.
“Did you really think I’d sponsor an archery contest and not participate?” he said with a sly grin. “Perhaps I’ll enjoy the honor of being crowned champion by your fair hands.” He bowed low and left the box, followed by a handful of other courtiers who planned to compete as well.
Shaking my head in mirth, I settled in my seat and waited for the games to commence. It was very exciting; I had never watched so many different sporting events. Turius won the spear-throwing contest and another nobleman won the sword, but many of the champions were ordinary citizens. One farmer proved to be a vicious boxer, knocking his final opponent to the ground, unconscious, with a single hit. A vineyard worker won the wrestling tournament, and a young woman from the village took the wreath for the longest jump in the kingdom. I handed out the prizes with as much dignity as I could muster, making sure to smile graciously and share a kind word with all the participants.
Finally, it was time for the archery contest. The very air shifted in anticipation; everyone seemed to have come out to watch Adam shoot. O
ne by one the caller introduced the athletes, and all waved politely to the crowd. Some had stamped confident smiles onto their faces, while others looked slightly ill at the prospect of competing against their king. Even I got caught up in the excitement, and sat on the edge of my chair as the caller made his last announcement.
“The final athlete in today’s contest will be…” He drew out the pause to an unbearable length “King Admetus!”
From the roar that greeted Adam’s entrance, you would have thought one of the gods had walked through that gate instead of a man. A grin spread over my face as I watched Adam step onto the field. He was dressed in his finest armor—I recognized it from our wedding day—and he wore a simple laurel wreath on his head. The sun glinted from the hammered steel covering his chest and shoulders; he looked so strong and handsome I couldn’t stop the blush creeping across my cheeks. He craned his neck, searching the faces in the royal box. When his eyes met mine his mouth broadened into a huge smile and I found myself beaming back, as though we were a common boy and girl enjoying a summertime courtship, and not the king and queen of Myrilla. I wished I had thought to give him a scarf or little token to carry, as a sign of my favor, the way a great lady in an old story would have done. Suddenly shy, I turned my face away, but when I glanced back he was still watching me.
The archers took their places across from the targets, spaced out in perfect military precision. There were a dozen or so in all, with Adam positioned in the very center.
“Your husband looks well prepared,” murmured Turius’s wife, from my left shoulder. “I’ve heard Turius talk of the king’s ability with a bow. He sounds like a man of rare skill.”
I nodded, not taking my eyes from Adam. “Indeed, he is.”
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