Wintersong(69)
The Goblin King’s eyes met my own, and for the briefest moment, I saw him—truly him—behind the mask of Der Erlk?nig, down to the boy he had been. But he blinked, and the mantle was upon him once more.
“And what of you, Elisabeth?” he drawled. “What would you do, if you were free?”
I turned my head, eyes stinging. He had returned my question with a particularly vicious volley, and we both knew it.
“We can play this game all you like,” he said. “Question for question, answer for answer.”
“You can keep your answers to yourself,” I replied. “I have no further questions.”
“Oh, Elisabeth.” His voice was sad. “What happened between us? What happened to you? You were once so passionate and open with me, and now I can barely see the friend I once knew. Why won’t you come out and play, Elisabeth? Why?”
He had all the questions, but I had no further answers. We finished our meal without another word between us.
*
After the goblins had cleared the last of our dishes away, the Goblin King invited me to join him in his retiring room. A slight tingle of excitement began at the base of my spine at the prospect of being in his private chambers again, and I agreed. I wished I could sort out my feelings for him, my lord and jailer, friend and foe. Part of me yearned to draw him close, while another wanted to keep him at arm’s length. The Goblin King offered me his arm and we left the dining hall on a breeze.
When I caught my breath, we were in a beautifully appointed space with two fireplaces, the near wall lined with bookshelves, the far wall lined with enormous silver mirrors that showed snow falling on a winter wood. A klavier stood at the center. A white gown smudged with dirt hung from a rack beside the instrument. I frowned.
“This,” I began, but my voice squeaked. I cleared my throat. “This is your retiring room?”
The Goblin King nodded. “Of course, my dear. What do you think of it?”
“But it’s—it’s the one connected—” I could not finish the sentence.
“The one connected to your bedchamber?” he asked dryly. “But of course; we are married, after all.”
A flush heated my cheeks. “And then your bedchamber—”
“Is on the other side of this wall.” He gestured to the wall on the opposite side from my bedroom. I noted no threshold connecting his quarters to the retiring room. The Goblin King saw me searching and lowered his voice.
“There is no direct path from your bed to mine,” he said softly. “And I could remove them even farther from each other, if that is your wish.”
My cheeks flared even hotter, but I shook my head. “No, no,” I said. “It’s fine.” I straightened my shoulders and lifted my eyebrow, matching his dry tone as best I could. “After all, we are married.”
A twitch at the corners of his lips. He conjured two chairs and a reclining couch before one of the fireplaces. “Relax, my dear.”
I sat on the reclining couch. Two comely youths crawled from the shadows, one bearing a decanter of brandy, the other a tray with two cut-crystal glasses. I was startled by their appearance, not just because I hadn’t seen them in the dark, but because of their humanlike appearance. Most of the goblins I had seen were of Twig and Thistle’s ilk: more creature than kin.
One of the attendants presented me with a glass of brandy. I gasped; for the space of a breath, I thought it was Josef beside me.
Then I blinked. The face waiting so very patiently by my side did not belong to my younger brother; the skin was too pale, the cheekbones too angular, the features altogether too pretty. Yet there was something of Josef in this youth’s face, in the sensitive tilt of his mouth, the cant of his brows. But the eyes were pure goblin: a flat black that left no room for the whites about the pupils.
The Goblin King gave me a sharp glance. “What is it, my dear?” He saw me staring at his attendants. “Oh, Elisabeth,” he said, “surely you’ve not forgotten my changelings?”
He rested his hand on the youth nearest him, affectionately caressing the boy’s face. The attendant’s expression betrayed nothing, but when the Goblin King tilted back his head for a kiss, the youth complied with a razor-toothed smile. It was a lascivious, knowing sort of smile. Then I realized he was one of the goblin swains I had met at the goblin ball, one with whom I had played games of bluff.
I took a sip of the brandy to disguise my discomfort. It tasted of summer peaches, of sunshine, of life, and it burned all the way down. I coughed.
The Goblin King studied my face, burning bright and red, and nodded at the changelings. They vanished without a word.
“So,” I said, trying to smooth the awkwardness between us, “what shall we do to pass the time?” I couldn’t tell if it was the room or the brandy, but I was suddenly warm—too warm.
The Goblin King shrugged. His eyes flitted to the klavier, where it gleamed in the glow of the fire and fairy lights. “It is up to you,” he said. “I am at my lady’s command.”
It felt all so surreal and strange to be sitting with him, in this beautifully appointed room with a glass of brandy in her hand. When K?the and I pretended to be rich noblewomen, we had played at their airs and graces, their refined and elegant tastes. But when confronted with the reality of it, I was at a loss. At the inn, there was never any time for leisure. After dinner had been served, there were dishes to wash, tables to clean, and floors to sweep and mop. It had always been Mother and me, working our hands to leather while Papa went out with his friends, while Constanze rested in her room upstairs, while K?the primped and preened, while Josef played.