You had not spent so much concentrated time in her company since you were a child. Then, as now, you were given instructions. She didn’t know, in fact had not asked, what you had seen on your journey. The time alone with no demands, no expectations, you were yourself, not her daughter or the king’s mapmaker. Aoife, traveler. But had she asked, that wasn’t what you would have said. You would have told her so little. How could she understand?
You returned as a shame to her. Vanished! Worried me sick!
Then the announcement you were to marry Wyl. Elation! Oh, happy day!
You endured fittings in silk. She knew, as the seamstress had to pluck the stitches and expand the seams, she knew your secret. Why the limited pageantry. Why Wyl insisted you get your wish for little fanfare.
You stood mute and thought of the southwest border near the sea that you had not yet drawn. There would be less terrain to cover when you arrived. That land Wyl had given up in his exchange for you instead of another king’s daughter. How arbitrary, the movement of borders and the acquisition of property. Yet there it was. Wyl assured his father this was no disaster. You were valuable because of your contact with those across the river. You came from a good loyal family.
YOUR FIRST WEDDING DAY. YOU REMEMBER BEING COLD. YOUR BREASTS crested over the bodice. You could not breathe. Despite the week’s purgatives, your body fattened and threatened to rupture every stitch.
Wyl wore a dashing long coat. It was dark blue, almost black, embroidered with yellow leaves and trimmed in ermine along every edge. He also wore a simple crown. Gold, of course. He looked happy and handsome, unbearably both.
You exchanged rings and vows. You smiled as the line of guests wished you and your husband well. The feast could have fed a village for a day but stuffed a wedding party for a night. Wyl led you in the traditional dance of which you hardly knew the steps. You managed. Your dress seam gave way at the hip and midback. For the rest of the evening, you kept your right hand pressed below the waist and the veil bunched at your spine.
Each of you bade farewell to the large group who enjoyed endless food and drink. Then you went to the chambers prepared on the castle’s second level. Someone had built a fire and tended it well. You heard a latch drop. Wyl stepped away from the door. He looked at you muted in the light of candles and fire. What shall come of this? you thought.
You tried to fill your lungs full and could not. Another seam ripped. A fury spread beyond your skin. You pulled the veil from your head. You kicked your slippers across the room. You grasped the bodice of your gown and ripped it away. Ripped the entire frock from your body. Naked, you were. There had been no room left for undergarments.
Wyl threw his coat on the ample bed. He had stared at you in that way before. This time, he misunderstood your actions.
What talk there will be among the servants. It’s true. I cannot wait, said he.
His hands | warm, a mercy | cupped your cheek, a breast.
You glared at him with a passion not for consummation. You gathered the torn gown and threw it into the hearth. You took an iron and stoked the fire until you were certain every fiber would turn to ash.
So literal, Wyl, you said.
You knew your wifely duty. You lifted the bright crown from his chestnut hair, set it aside, and worked his buckle loose.
You enjoyed every moment in spite of yourself.
TELL THE TRUTH.
You wished you had been taught plant lore. That knowledge power you needed but didn’t know who to safely ask. When you walked alone in the forest, leaves seemed to reach out. You chewed them and made teas. They tasted of bitter freedom but failed to give release. You no longer hit yourself because of the pain it caused you. No matter the method, you are not the only woman who ever has or ever will do what you intended. What would have been lost would have seemed routine. Men take so little notice of the spill of women’s blood.
Women concerned themselves, though. You noticed how other women reacted when they learned of another losing a child. Miscarriage, stillbirth, any manner of death. They clutched their chests and bellies. Their hands and lips fluttered uncertain as moths. The anguish they felt with the mother. The sincerity of the pain. You would not understand this for many years, until Wei.
The life inside engorged.
You were perplexed by the women who came up to your swollen body. Remove your hands, you wanted to say. Don’t touch me. What a blessing, said they. What a blessing? No, you were an animal, you thought, a heatless bitch, ewe, cow, doe. You carry one of your own kind. The conception is nothing. That happens whether chosen or not. It is the persistence of life. One is begotten. One begets.
Beasts easily make more of themselves. Almost effortless.
You felt like a beast, but you weren’t simply one. Once you accepted the pregnancy was yours to bear, you did become vigilant. They were to grow. You were to tend them. But you were mystified by other women’s joyfulness at your condition. You remembered overhearing, as a girl, their talk of how a young woman would hear a coo one day that would turn her soft and make her want a baby. Such a thing had never happened to you.
In their presence, you felt flawed. Not with guilt but curiosity. You wondered if women lied to each other. So little was allowed them. A home, the people in it. Through generations, out of necessity, complicity transmogrified into desire. Separate the act, the biology, that inevitability. Consider the will, the awareness, that consequence. Where did the true power lie?
Surely you didn’t feel as you were supposed to feel. The terrible ambivalence. The dread. Surely you would grow to love the children. Oh, no, you did not wish this to happen, but there it was. A result of your beastliness. You acted with nonsense. If you would have stopped to think, you would not have done what you did. But Wyl was so beautiful.
Somehow, you thought it might be possible, after the birth, to return to mapmaking with the company of a nursemaid. You spoke this aloud to your husband one night.
Are you earnest? Am I to join you? asked Wyl.
You did before.
That was before. You are soon to be a mother, no longer a maiden. Besides, we have what we both wanted now, don’t we?
His response, composed, almost mirthful, was clear. For a moment, you thought perhaps Wyl would acquiesce in time. Certainly he wouldn’t take that from you for good. He rolled you toward his muscular body. You stiffened under your soft flesh.
Your mapmaking days were numbered, whether you married me or another. A man wants his wife at home where she’s safe, said he.
I see, you said.
This is your place now, said Wyl, but it was your mother’s voice you heard.
Stay in your place. Take your place. Know your place.
But Mother, what if my place is not here?
You were once slapped for saying that. Your father’s tined hand caught your cheek and raked your mouth bloody.
Boundaries drawn, invisible. The line in the bed you shared with Wyl. One’s sphere of influence. The domain of woman, the domain of man. Where a nobleman’s holding began and another ended. The kingdom’s edge. Your place in the world shrank tight as the skin of your belly. You felt breaths away from bursting. You thought of the freedom you had known, soon to be denied.
Tell the deeper truth.
That was all a ruse, a lie. Your skillful mastery was immaterial. You were only as free as the King had allowed you to be. You made maps for him. Any displeasure or disfavor, that would have been the end. He made an exception but that didn’t change the rules. What a fool, to believe yourself beyond such constraints.
For weeks you lay confined with the reasons why you would never be so indulged again.
THOSE WHO COUNTED THE DAYS BETWEEN YOUR UNION AND THE births might have thought you more ewe cow doe than woman. None said a word. Wyl married you after all.
You were unprepared. Never had you cared for an infant or small child. Once, twice, by accident or necessity, you may have held one. Ciaran was older by seven years.
There was a dead child before and after you. Spared of sibling supervision, you spent time among other children as a playmate rather than a caretaker. You understood the basics. Mouth to breast, wet hungry cold, swaddle to shift to shirts and dresses. The women claimed a mother knew what to do when the time came.
You had overheard tales of labor full of pain and blood. What you imagined was difficult. What you experienced was violent. Agony. You felt terror when your body took over itself. A mounting relentless rhythm of contractions. No amount of will could stop it once it began. You could have ripped a man in half with your bare hands. You remembered a cow that had bellowed through an awkward birth, its calf a breech. And there you were screaming on a bed covered with straw in unreasonable summer heat. No better than a beast.
Dawn became noon became night.
Then there was the girl. When you heard the midwife declare her to be, an unexpected apology rushed to the back of your tongue. I’m sorry, Wyl. You swallowed the sounds. The sudden anger of your first thought upon hearing of your first daughter’s birth stuck in your throat.
An apprentice took the girl, but the pain returned. You both screamed in unison as her brother was born. A prince, a prince, the midwife’s herald.
The vessels closed. The two membranes were expelled. The midwife and apprentice peered over the gore. They brought the twins swaddled tight in linen, eyes open. You regarded their smallness. You felt a twinge of pity. So helpless, you thought. So the obligation begins.
With relief, you thought then you were not a monster. Your instinct wasn’t to abandon them. Not at the moment. Not when they mewled like kittens and your breasts weighed heavy in their waiting function.
You were given the option of a wet nurse. She would attend the necessity of their nourishment. You might also preserve your shape. Too late, you thought, when you saw your belly and wondered how it would ever tighten again. Wyl, even before the twins arrived, had no complaints about how your chest had changed.
Wyl did appear to love the children. Even the girl. He would go into the room you shared with a nursemaid and the twins. The place lingered with the smells of vinegar and rosemary. He unswaddled them in turn. The nursemaid was aghast. He held their hands and feet in his palms. He talked to them, about what, you do not know, because he whispered.
Already there are secrets among you, you said.
He smiled, no malice, no hint of conspiracy. Strangely, he didn’t hold them, not for any longer than it took to remove them from their crib to your bed. Always gentle, always, but he did not hold them. You didn’t think to ask why. Babies, after all, as you witnessed, were women’s work.
You soon grew bored of the castle and courtyard. Once your strength returned, you would leave the twins in the nursemaid’s care and go into the forest to be alone. You stole moments away from what you had brought upon yourself. You were restless, exhausted, but resigned to their care. The beastly mother returned to her children when her teats began to leak. You would walk in just as their crying became wails.
What a good mother you are. You know when they need you, said the nursemaid.
The Queen saw them on the day of their birth and rarely again in your presence.
Your mother couldn’t seem to keep herself away and visited almost daily.
Oh, they will settle you nicely, Aoife. Enough of the men’s business and the company of common people. Do as you are meant to now.
You did as you were meant to do, as your mother might well have perceived it. Bared your breasts for the twins, at times for Wyl. He desired you but you lacked it for him. The intensity never returned. You assumed the disinterest was because the twins required constant use of your body. Perhaps you’d made a mistake not taking a wet nurse. However tired you were, your mind could still think. You had no carnal thoughts at all. With enough effort, Wyl could stir sensation without actual pleasure.
YOU BEGAN TO DAYDREAM MORE OFTEN OF THE SETTLEMENT AND HOW peaceful you felt there. You knew nothing of how they lived or how the people related to each other, but you sensed it. You thought of the young man who had led you in and out of the forest and settlement. You’d never met someone like him. He gave you immediate comfort. You weren’t afraid of him after he encouraged you to breathe on the way there. He treated you with kindness. You felt it. It perplexed you how you and the cook and Burl the oarsman could all have similar reactions, almost as if you’d been under a spell. You’d learn it was no enchantment.
The events of your experience in the settlement weren’t as important as the emotions you had about them. You wanted to live someplace where you could breathe and be. How could you possibly know the Guardians offered this and more? You wouldn’t speak of the settlement to Wyl or anyone. Its memory was a refuge. You walked among their roads, stared at the Wheels in the settlement center, waved at the people, content in the quiet.
The daydreams surprised you. You were a woman of action, not reverie. They gave you comfort, however, because in the day-to-day you felt uneasy. You sensed danger.
WYL MENTIONED THERE HAD BEEN MOVEMENT ON THE RIVER TOWARD the settlement’s presumed port. You knew as well as he did that a trade road connected to the river on the other side. Activity likely happened all the time without anyone watching. You realized there must be men stationed along your kingdom’s bank who hadn’t been there before. You asked Wyl why there was such attention on the border.
Raef visited the village when I was on my quest.
How do you know?
He told me.
And?
He found them suspicious.
Of course he did, you thought. You said no more. You knew Raef had some fodder under him after what Wyl said about the hoard.
Then you were called to a secret Council meeting. So were the steward, the oarsman, Raef, and four other men.
Your father presided in his role as the King’s most trusted adviser. He said that there was curious activity across the river as of late. The Council wished to speak again to those who’d been to the other side.
First, the steward told the same tale as he had to you and Raef so many seasons before. He handed his piece of the gold road to your father, who passed it among the members.
Burl the oarsman faced the Council next. He clearly didn’t wish to be there, although he didn’t appear nervous. He answered with polite Yes, sire, No, sire, to the Council’s queries. All other responses were terse. Burl kept to the facts. He was asked if he had a last statement, and he did.
I felt as if I’d been to a place where I belonged. That is the manner of their peace, said he.
Then you learned of Raef ‘s visit. He had asked the kingdom’s best miller, smith, woodcutter, and farmer to join him. No envoy of guards, no officials of the King, except for himself. The Council asked what they had seen.
The miller said the people used water, not yoked animals, to turn their mills. Beyond the settlement was a tall structure bridging a clear rapid stream. Outside, a giant spoked wheel with paddles dipped into the water. Its movement powered a shaft and gears inside the building. Connected to the mechanism were the millstones which rubbed together to grind the grain. A large bin dropped grain to the stones, and a chute under that led the ground meal to waiting baskets. The miller surmised they produced more grain than the settlement’s people could eat.
The smith spoke of a tremendous forge built of stone farther down the stream. He listed the well-crafted tools hung on pegs and lying on tables. There was a blazing fire kept alive with the split logs piled nearby. The smiths were teaching young people that day, two of them girls. In a storage structure there were pieces to be mended or melted and chunks and ingots of metal yet unused.
The woodcutter described a forest with trees larger than he had ever seen. He and his fellow visitors weren’t shown vast empty spaces where the wood had been cleared. Sparse areas had been planted with saplings. Where trees were felled, care seemed taken to disturb few others. He mentioned the store of heartwood timbers and firewood.
The farmer told of the black soil that smelled sweet and crumbled with ease. The vegetable crops were prosperous, the orchards well tended, the grain fields full. The oxen grazed nearby, the sheep and goats not far. Even within the settlement, fruits, herbs, and vetches grew near the dwellings.
The men all agreed that they had been treated most graciously.
Raef addressed the Council. He affirmed what the four men said they had seen and how they’d been hosted. He stated that while the miller, the smith, the woodcutter, and the farmer visited with others of their respective trades, he visited within the settlement. Through the course of the day, Raef noted they possessed cloth, furs, leather, and jewelry fine as any he’d ever seen. Everyone adorned themselves with these items. They claimed to make and grow most of what they had, and traded on occasion. The elder hosts, a man and a woman, said their people wished to live in harmony with each other and with that which surrounded them. Raef said he found their wealth and behavior odd. They were a rich people, although he couldn’t discern who owned it all. No one would confess or confirm.
Then you spoke. In all the reigns of your people’s kings, never once had there been a confrontation with those across the river. You took them at their word that they wanted peace. You noted they carried no weapons, not even the Guardians on the border.
You risked a conjecture of your own.
You said your long-ago visit to them resulted in knowledge of a dragon’s treasure. The people chose its discovery as your husband’s quest. You chose to follow to learn for yourself. What Wyl and you saw confirmed that a hoard existed. However, not one among you knew what the treasure suggested or represented. It was so far away that it would be impractical and difficult to move its stores. For all each of you knew, it might be the spoils of a lost civilization or the repository of a great one. Regardless, you thought it reasonable to leave the stores alone.
The Mapmaker's War Page 6