The Cracked Slipper

by Stephanie Alexander

  At first Dessick refused her request. She persisted. “Master Dessick, don’t women dance in your country?”

  The fat drummer licked his mustache. “Of course, Your Highness, but we always assumed you Cartheans would not appreciate our ladies. They are a bit…raw for your tastes.”

  “Perhaps our tastes are changing.”

  “There is another problem,” he said, with brutal honesty. “I don’t think one with your training could ever master the technique. All those years of stiffness suck the life out of you.”

  “Well, we are in luck, sir,” she said. “I may be the only lady in Cartheigh with absolutely no training.”

  He finally agreed to teach her. They pushed the furniture against the walls and brought out two drums because the whole set would be too loud, even on the far side of the grounds. Only Margaret, Eliza, Anne Iris, and Chou Chou were allowed to enter the cottage yard, and Gregory and his friends were thankfully off on a hunting trip. Eleanor talked Dessick’s wife Tressanel and his daughter Mendi into performing with her. She saw they were grudgingly impressed with her attempts. Their respect lifted her confidence.

  She examined Mendi’s costumes and declared Cartheigh was not ready for their skimpiness. She called in a peddling magician from the village to magically alter her riding leggings. He ballooned the legs and cinched them under her knees for freedom of movement. Next he detached the bodice from one of her dresses. He removed the stiff capped sleeves and replaced them with gauzy silk. Her leggings sat low on her hips, and her navel peeking over the waist sash made her self-conscious.

  Tressanel would not let the magician raise the waistline. “How can your hips move,” she said, “if they are bound in fabric?”

  So after two days of practicing, Eleanor and her unhindered hips waited for their cue at the home of Eliza’s in-laws, Sir Edward and Lady Alice Harper. The Harpers were well liked, and their parties legendary. Eleanor knew no one would miss this ball. It celebrated the height of summer, the beginning of the weeklong Waxing Fest.

  The guests had seen the Mendaens set up their drums and eagerly awaited another performance. The drummers struck their gong and Eleanor walked to the center of the room. The conversation hummed in her ears as people recognized her. She knelt on the floor in front of Tressanel, her heart pounding. Mendi had rubbed a jezza’min cream on her shoulders for good luck, and the spicy sweet smell clung to her nostrils. She hoped the sweat already beading on her forehead would not send her heavy Mendaen makeup running down her face.

  The drums were beginning, slowly as they always did. She unfurled her body, and with no need to watch for her partner’s clumsy feet her limbs relaxed. The rhythm led her as it built. She focused on the front of the room and did not see any specific person. Three women and a driving beat, and she lost herself.

  The drums crashed to a stop and she dropped to the floor with Mendi and Tressanel. Her knee slammed the marble, adding insult to the deep bruises of her practice sessions, but she hardly felt it. She lay prostrate on the cold stone. As her breathing slowed she heard something. She lifted her head.

  The guests were cheering and yelling. Mendi and Tressanel were already on their feet, and they blew her kisses and applauded. Mendi reached down and helped Eleanor stand. She curtsied to the crowd. Her cheeks burned with pleasure.

  Gregory strode across the floor, lifted her into his arms, and kissed her mouth before setting her down. He held both her hands and bowed before her. She laughed and he pulled her close again. He whispered in her ear.

  “You always surprise me,” he said.

  She smiled at Gregory and linked her arm through his. Her eyes scanned the crowd for the one person whose opinion mattered most. She couldn’t find him.

  She couldn’t find him because he had excused himself as soon as Gregory swept her off her feet. He moodily walked the garden paths for half an hour, exorcising the sway of her hips, the flash of her belly, the joy crying out in every twist of her body. Dorian sat on a bench, trying to suppress the ache that followed him everywhere these days, but he couldn’t beat it down because he wasn’t sure where it originated. It traveled from his head to his chest to his stomach to his groin. He managed it on a sober afternoon but tonight it was a living, breathing monster. He knew he should go inside. She was probably looking for him.

  He grabbed another whiskey from one of the serving trays as he entered the ballroom. Eleanor was still in the middle of the floor, accepting compliments in her makeshift Mendaen costume. He wished she would change. He knew every man in the room appreciated the view. Gregory didn’t seem to mind. He stood proudly at her side.

  As if he deserves to be there. Dorian pushed the thought away. She’s his wife, his wife, his wife.

  Eleanor excused herself, rubbing her shoulders, and made for one of the doorways. Her face lit up when he stepped in her path. “Dorian! Where have you been?”

  “I just took some air,” he said. “You were marvelous.” He couldn’t help it. His eyes raked her body. He took a tiny step closer and she held her ground.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I’m so glad you think so.”

  “How could I, or anyone else, think otherwise?”

  Something hard set in her eyes. “I wanted to slap them in the face. To wake some people up.”

  “You slapped them, and they liked it.” He drained his whiskey. “And Gregory looks wide awake.”

  As soon as he said the words he regretted them. She started to walk away, but he took her arm. Perhaps the night air brought on the gooseflesh he felt as his fingers trailed down to her elbow. “As he should be,” he said.

  She gently removed his hand. “I do as I must.”

  “I begrudge you none of it.”

  “Thank you.” She glanced over her shoulder. “I have to change.”

  “I can come with you, if you need help,” he said, hoping for a smile.

  He got his wish. “Now that would not be helpful at all.”

  He watched her go, graceful in her bare feet. People called out, and she took their hands and their good wishes. Dorian was proud of her, even if it was not his place.

  Once she disappeared he turned his attention to the myriad women circling the dance floor. That release brought him no relief after the Egg Camp, but he tried again. It did not take long to find someone amenable to helping him.

  CHAPTER 16

  Her True Face

  Eleanor assumed Sylvia must be the owner of an enchanted wardrobe. She had managed to attend at least two social events a day for weeks and Eleanor swore she never saw her in the same gown twice. On this fine afternoon she drifted around The Falls in pink and green organza like a cherry blossom caught on a light breeze. She was supervising the Annual Fleetwood Fencing Tournament. It seemed odd to call it the annual tournament, as it was the first one, but Sylvia was already creating her own summer traditions. Eleanor had to give Sylvia her due. Her pregnancy had not slowed her down, or so far even expanded her waistline.

  Eleanor sipped her punch beside Margaret. Some vaguely remembered baroness had cornered them. Eleanor looked for Anne Iris or Eliza as the woman droned on, in the hopes of providing both Margaret and herself with an escape.

  “…and you just would not believe how expensive it is to have anything sent to Solsea. I’ve had my eye on a dining table in Pettibone Lane for months, but the cost to ship it by carriage would be more than the table itself! Not that money is an obstacle of course…”

  Sylvia waved and started toward them. For the first time in their long acquaintance Eleanor greeted her appearance with relief. She beckoned Eleanor and Margaret toward the narrow creek that gave the estate its name. The water ran across the property before pausing in a wide pool in the garden. It left the pool in a series of terraces and made its way to the cliffside, where it plunged into the sea.

  Sylvia addressed the martial magician standing at the pool’s edge. “My sister and the princess are here to offer us advice. Your Highness, Margaret, the falls are borin
g me. I thought we could dress them up a bit for the royal family. What do you think, purple or green?”

  The magician waved his hands and the pool flashed between the two colors.

  “I prefer green,” said Eleanor, and Margaret nodded.

  “Really? Purple is so much more dramatic. Purple it is.” Sylvia dismissed the magician. “So, Margaret, Mother tells me you have an admirer in our new Svelyan friend.”

  Color flooded Margaret’s face, and Eleanor doubted it had anything to do with the summer sun. “So she tells me as well,” Margaret said.

  “Well, aren’t you lucky. He is something.”

  “He’s been very gracious.”

  Sylvia snorted. “Gracious? Please, you can’t play the innocent with a man like Christopher Roffi. Although he does have unusual taste.”

  Margaret started in with a stumbling rebuttal, but Eleanor knew in Sylvia’s presence Margaret’s mind always went blank.

  Sylvia shrugged and flashed her most charming smile. “Well, I’ve heard Svelyan women are a tough lot. Anyone with a Carthean accent must seem attractive!”

  Eleanor had hoped to give Margaret a chance to defend herself, but she could not let that last comment lie. “Some hide malice behind a sweet voice and pleasing countenance, Your Grace. Excuse us.”

  “Oh, ladies, your corsets must be too tight. I’m just teasing. Don’t run off yet.” Sylvia pointed across the lawn. “Look, there’s the Svelyan in question!”

  Roffi joined the crowd of men practicing outside the fencing court.

  “Aren’t you going to speak with him?” Sylvia asked Margaret. “Too shy? Dear sister, you must let me show you how to handle him. I can help you!”

  Before Margaret could reply Sylvia made a straight line for Roffi and slipped her arm through his. Margaret frowned as Roffi’s handsome face lit up. Sylvia laughed and ran her hand over the hilt of his sword.

  Eleanor tried to drag Margaret away. “Come, don’t give her the pleasure. We’ll speak with him after the match.”

  “No, wait,” Margaret said, and tipped her head in the direction of the court.

  Christopher Roffi was looking over Sylvia’s head in their direction. He said a quick goodbye and strode across the lawn. Eleanor did not miss the surprise on Sylvia’s face. When he stopped in front of Margaret he cut quite the dashing figure. His hair had grown over the summer. It danced around his head in soft white curls. He had shaved the goatee, and it softened the angles of his face.

  “Mistress Margaret,” he said in his exotic voice. “My match is next. It would be honoring me if you would stand on my side, for I am sure you will bring me luck.”

  Apparently Margaret was at a loss for witty words. She just nodded. She took Roffi’s arm, and when she looked back at Eleanor over her shoulder her face somehow conveyed both panic and exaltation. Roffi led her to the edge of the court and kissed her hand before trotting out to meet his opponent. He reached Gregory and put a hand on the prince’s shoulder. He said something Eleanor could not hear, but it must have been amusing. As Gregory laughed Margaret waved to Eleanor. Eleanor smiled and returned the gesture.

  Roffi had abandoned Sylvia for Margaret, something Eleanor imagined both sisters would have believed impossible. She counted anyone who would make such a choice a fine gentleman indeed.

  Eleanor enjoyed the Waxing Fest more than the other revelries of the past year. No longer so consumed with her own worries, she appreciated the little intrigues around her. Margaret grew more enamored with Christopher Roffi, and Eleanor watched with pity as Raoul followed her around every party. She couldn’t blame Margaret, but Raoul was a gentle soul. Eleanor wished Margaret had not forgotten him so quickly. Anne Iris flirted with anyone who paid her mind, and transferred her affections nightly. Eliza, who would soon return to Maliana and wait out her pregnancy under the eye of the witches of Afar Creek, chastised Anne Iris regularly for her lack of decorum.

  “You only care,” Anne Iris sniffed, “because you finally have cleavage but your belly takes all the attention.”

  As for Gregory, after threatening to disown her, he proved again to have a short memory. Eleanor found she admired his ability to move on. Eleanor, on the other hand, could never completely set aside the last few weeks. They never spoke of the woman in the red dress or the lost baby, but the night of her performance with the Mendaens he returned to her bed. The first time she fought the urge to turn away from him, but she got used to his affections again. She did give up, however, on his attempts to pleasure her. Through quiet exploration of her own body, often long after Gregory had fallen into a satisfied sleep, she learned to relieve that pressure herself. Neglect could be a good teacher.

  She saw no other choices, and she preferred the happy, life-of-the party Gregory to the silent, sulking one. She grieved as she came to this conclusion, for it meant her love for him was wearing away, like the face of a statue long battered by changing weather. She might envy his uncomplicated happiness, but she couldn’t replicate it.

  She did keep her promise and show her true face. Whether people’s opinions of her changed, or if she just stopped paying attention to them, she didn’t care. Rosemary’s soft admonishment that she do some good with her position stayed with her. Even after Hazelbeth and Rosemary’s expression of faith in her abilities, she had been so focused on trivialities she neglected the real problems of everyday people. She sought the Godsmen for better understanding of the challenges faced by the villagers, and what she learned alarmed her.

  She called on the most desperate cases, the mud and thatching shacks hunched like cowering rabbits in the rocky fields beyond the cliffs. She doled out her allowance, which had always seemed silly since her staff met her every desire with the snap of a finger. She listened to the people’s woes and complaints and promised to deliver their messages to the king. After a few visits she dragged Gregory along with her. At first he balked, but she pushed until he gave in.

  She took him to three tiny cabins on the first day, and they heard the same story at each. At their last stop a man called John Blade offered Gregory a cup of weak tea and sat across from him on an overturned stump. His ragged children danced around them in excitement over their elegant visitors. Eleanor sat with his wife and held their new baby.

  “I have six children, Your Highness,” John Blade said. He couldn’t have been much older than thirty, but his hair was thin and his teeth were dark and cracking. “In the summer we scrimp by serving in the big houses, but in the winter it’s a hard row around here. We can’t grow nothin’ in this soil, and the seas get so rough we lose men each year at the fishin’. The rich folk need us to keep up the empty places, but they know we’re desperate so the pay is, pardon me, chicken shittings. Even in the summer they know we’re too afraid to ask for a decent wage. You get tossed out and your children ain’t eating.”

  “No pardon needed, sir,” said Gregory.

  “All I want is just pay for the work I do, sire. I ain’t got no sights on being rich, but I’d like not to starve.”

  That evening the king called Eleanor to his receiving room on the third floor of Willowswatch. Casper finished reading a document, signed it, and handed it to Ezra Oliver. The king dismissed him. Neither Eleanor nor Oliver acknowledged the other’s presence. She and the king exchanged greetings.

  Casper tapped his fingers on the arm of his throne. “Gregory tells me you have been visiting the local people. He said you took him with you today. Why?”

  “I’m called to it as a human being who has been elevated to a position of great fortune. I’m also called by my love of the crown to spread good will.”

  “And you bring Gregory as a chaperone.”

  She spoke frankly. “Yes, as a chaperone, but also because I think it will serve him well if he understands the needs of his people.”

  “He demanded I set a fair wage for the people of Solsea,” Casper said.

  “I believe in the justice of his request, Your Majesty, but I would not suppose to k
now your mind.”

  He walked to the window. “I think you have good instincts with the commoners. Do you have a desire to continue this work?”

  “I do.”

  “Then you have my blessing, but you must keep Gregory informed of your endeavors. If we reject one of your plans, you will stand down without a word. Understood?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ll have Oliver draw up the decree on the standard wage. You may go.” She curtsied and made to leave but the king called her back. “Oh, and Eleanor, do take Gregory with you when you can. I admit in this matter you may teach him something.”

  After Chou observed Ezra Oliver accepting a message from the Duke of Harveston’s private courier, Eleanor redoubled her efforts to understand the unfathomable friendship between her stepmother and the Chief Magician. She sent Chou on a fact-finding mission, as while she had first-hand knowledge of Imogene’s unsavory personage, she knew little about Ezra Oliver beyond what he had revealed in their notorious argument. Suspicion now tainted her previous congenial interactions with him.

  Chou delivered his report in her bathing room as Eleanor soaked away the grime of a long ride with Teardrop.

  “So,” Chou said as he paced the edge of the bathtub like a strategizing general. “Here is the first thing one must know about Mister Oliver. He is indisputably the most powerful magician to emerge in Cartheigh since the Desmarais came to power. He’s served the past three kings. Longer than any other Chief Magician in history.”

  “Yes, the history books are clear on those facts. How did he come into their service?” Eleanor asked. She blew a clump of lavender-scented suds off her nose.

  “An interesting question,” Chou said. He whirled around to march back down the tub, but he lost his balance and nearly tumbled into the bubbly water. When he regained his footing and his dignity he continued. “Oliver was born in Meggett Fringe. On the seediest street in the slum, so they say. His mother was only fourteen at his birth, and she vanished into Pasture’s End. She left him in the care of his grandmother. I hear tell she hated both the boy and his powers from the first day. It must have been a relief to both of them when the Covey claimed him. I think he was about five years old.”