Nettle & Bone(18)

“Then you can’t have any more children!” said Marra hopelessly. Her mind was full of horses with black bridles, a funeral procession of mourners, the wrapped body that must be Damia’s. “You can’t! One could be a boy!”

And if she does not bear children, she will no longer be useful to him. He will kill her and marry the next sister in line, to get that son.

The next sister.

Kania gazed at her steadily and Marra realized that her knowledge must be written across her face.

“You see how it must be,” said Kania softly. “If there is a way out, I cannot find it.” She drew herself up, every inch a queen. “But I endure. For the sake of our people, I will endure.”



* * *



The next three days were nauseating in the dullness of their horror. Marra did not dare speak to anyone about what she had learned. The prince would hear. He must. Kania had not dared to speak of it except in the chapel, to her sister and the body of her daughter. I do not dare speak of it to anyone. He will know. He will know.

But just as there was no speaking, there was no way to stop thinking about it. There was no moment, waking or sleeping, when it was not burning in Marra’s brain. She choked down dry toast and dreamed about the marks on Kania’s arms, and the only mercy was that everyone took her horror for grief.

Her niece’s coffin was interred in the crypts below the palace. All Marra could remember was great iron doors opening, then a procession through a maze of cold stone corridors. She walked behind Kania with her hands tucked into her sleeves and watched Vorling’s face and realized that she had never hated before now. This must be what this new feeling was. It took up so much space in her chest that she did not know if she could breathe around it.

When she and her mother left the Northern Kingdom, relief took her so strongly that it felt like joy, as if she might fling herself out of the carriage and dance in the road. I cannot be relieved. Kania is still trapped. I was never the one in danger. I do not deserve to feel this way. But she felt it anyway and the shame of it struck her in waves, but when they ebbed, the wild joy of being away from Vorling’s palace was still there.

She stayed only one night in her father’s palace. Her old room was still kept for her. Even a small, poor kingdom can usually afford to keep a princess’s room for her. It was much too young, filled with stuffed toys, and Marra was thirty years old now. But I can hardly ask them to change it, for a room I use one night in a decade. That would be wasteful. The abbess would have looked down her nose at the extravagance, which might have gone to feed the poor, and the Sister Apothecary would have shaken her head and laughed.

There was one thing that she could do, though, in her father’s house, and one thing only. Marra took her courage in both hands. It had not occurred to her that living as a nun might have robbed her of bravery, and yet facing her mother seemed far more alarming than it ever had when she was a child. She was too aware that the other woman was the queen first and her mother second, and that Marra herself was a small, insignificant piece in the game.

“I need to talk to you,” she said, when her mother looked up at her. “Uh, Your Majesty. Mother. Please.”

Well, that was even worse than I expected, she thought. She had never been terribly clever with words, but apparently she had lost what little skill she’d ever possessed.

A line formed between the queen’s eyebrows. “Leave us,” she commanded the waiting women, and they filed out, glancing curiously back over their shoulders.

“Kania’s in trouble,” said Marra, as soon as the door closed behind them.

The queen cocked her head to one side. “How so?”

“It’s the prince.” Marra swallowed. Her throat felt very dry. She’s listening—that’s something. “Prince Vorling. She’s scared. She’s very scared. I think … I’m pretty sure…”

She could not say the words. They were right there in her head. He’s hurting her. And yet she couldn’t seem to get them out. I can’t say it. Why can’t I say it?

It felt as if she were about to say something horrible and shameful. Her throat wanted to close up, to prevent her from saying such awful things, even if they were true, even if it wasn’t Kania’s fault, it was Vorling, but for some reason even just saying the words seemed impossible. She swallowed. Her face felt hot.

Say it. Say it. She thought of the line of violet fingerprints again and tried to focus. Why was this so hard? Kania hadn’t asked for her help, but she had to get the words out. Their mother would fix it. The queen fixed things—it was why their father had married her. She understood politics and expediency and she would fix it somehow.

“He’s … he’s doing…” Marra took a deep breath. Say it. You have to say it. “He’s hurting her. There were marks. We have to get her away.”

“Ah,” said the queen.

Does she believe me? What if she doesn’t believe me? All the memories of childhood reared up in her head, all the childish lies, Kania saying that she was just jealous because she didn’t have a prince … Oh, Lady of Grackles! What do I do? Do I drag her back to the Northern Kingdom and show her Kania’s arm with the marks?

The thought was absolutely shattering. She watched as the queen bent her head over the bit of embroidery in her hands. Marra could identify the stitch from where she stood, a cranefly knot, and thought that she would have done it better and more neatly. That gave her a tiny shred of courage, that she was more skilled at something than the queen, and she had so little courage left.