Midnight in Everwood(44)
‘Then I shall share my story with you,’ Pirlipata said. ‘It is long and painful and I shall only speak it once.’
‘I would be honoured to hear it.’ Marietta waited for her to begin.
‘There has never been war in Celesta. We are unlike those great worlds that span vast continents and landmasses, where distant wars might never beat their drums upon your own shoreline. Celesta is a small world, its three kingdoms nestled close and much entwined. When tensions grow taut, they are resolved, not easily so, but to mount an attack would be to cut into ice only to have it shatter beneath you. It was during a diplomatic visit that King Gelum latched onto me. He believed that possessing me would lend him a certain cachet. A credibility to his role as king that was taken, not earnt.’ Pirlipata’s words grew rigid with anger. Hard and powerful and vengeful. ‘When he declared that we were to be wed, he failed to take into account the possibility of my refusal. I was travelling home along the Thieves Road with my beloved cousin and favourite attendant when his soldiers ambushed us. They had been sent ahead to hide amongst the firs and bide their time. They seized us and slit our attendants’ throats. Their bodies were left to the beasts in the forest, but the king ordered them reclaimed. He wanted me to witness his power. To fear him. I had to endure their decomposing bodies on display in the throne room as a warning to both me and anyone residing in the palace what we would invoke upon ourselves if one word of our fates was whispered to Crackatuck. I have remained here ever since. But I shall never be his. I am my own master, king and hero.’ The golden sequins on her dress blazed in liquid sunshine, their beam transmuting Pirlipata from princess to goddess.
When they faded back to gold, Marietta retained the warm glow of their inspiration. ‘Thank you for sharing,’ she told Pirlipata. ‘Ladies, I do believe it is time the three of us forged an alliance,’ she said. ‘I have heeded your words, Dellara, that nothing is worth the loss of our lives, yet is not living them here, entrapped in this palace, beholden to a cruel king, an equal loss? Do we not owe it to ourselves to reclaim our rightful positions, rulers of our own destinies? With our combined skillset, I am certain we have the means with which to shape the perfect plan to achieve this.’ Dellara’s scars and her own sharp pain gave Marietta pause but she was determined not to be too blinded by fear to fight for herself. She would not live out the remainder of her days locked in this suite, this palace. Everwood might be spun from sugar and enchantments but it was rotten to the core. ‘What do you say?’
Dellara tilted her head to one side, considering. ‘No.’
‘No?’ Marietta repeated. She’d mistaken their first, tentative confidences as the beginning tendrils of friendship, reaching out to include her in the bond between the two women. She hadn’t known she’d even yearned for that until now. Dellara and Pirlipata were woven together in a friendship deep and elaborate, wrought over time and pain. Marietta couldn’t pirouette in and be granted a small piece of that in days. She was just lonely and had been lonely for longer than she’d realised; dancing had filled her days and soul but it had cost her friendship.
‘No,’ Dellara said again. ‘Oddly, I don’t possess the slightest desire for you to have us all executed.’ She sauntered off to an amethyst chaise longue perched beside the thick sugar wall, the backdrop a soft lilac glow framing her spiky midnight suit. She plucked a small bottle from a golden tray and began painting stars on her feet.
Marietta was affronted by the dismissal. She felt wild, ravaged by a fever dream of hope.
Pirlipata rested a hand on her arm. ‘Try not to let her bother you; she always behaves in such a manner with new people. It takes time for Dellara to trust. And time is all you have now that you’re in this palace.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
That evening, Marietta was forbidden to dine but forced to witness Dellara and Pirlipata’s silent feast. Faceless guards flanked them, monitoring each twitch of their fingers, each look they traded. Marietta had attempted to remain in the bathing room, idling in the steam, but the guards had dragged her out to sit with them as dinner was served. It seemed King Gelum intended Marietta to become acquainted with hunger before she declined to dance for him again. Her stomach tilted at the creamy wild mushroom soup Pirlipata was eating, casting an apologetic glance at Marietta. At the chocolate hazelnut meringue tart Dellara was indulging in, maintaining shadowed eye contact with the guards. When the huge tray was cleared away, the scent of the feast lingered. Marietta could almost taste the chocolate. She drank a surplus of cool water directly from the tap, plying her stomach with water to forgive the lack of dinner. A headache mounted an attack with a vengeance and her wounded feet bit at her with fiery teeth. Eventually she struggled into a pale imitation of sleep, a thin veil draped over her consciousness.
Upon awakening, the punishment continued. Faceless guards stood over her, monitoring her as she envied the breakfast fruit, buttery golden pastries and pot of rich drinking chocolate that Dellara and Pirlipata shared. She considered bluffing the king, refusing to dance for him, wondering if he truly was prepared to lose his latest entertainment, but his summons never materialised.
‘Food is always linked with power,’ she overheard Pirlipata saying darkly. It prompted an unbidden memory of Victoria mentioning words to that effect when her suffragist mother had undertaken a hunger strike in prison. At the time Marietta had not paid it much heed, had been far too preoccupied with dancing Myrtha in their production of Giselle, devouring Victor Hugo’s Fant?mes as one of the original inspirations for the romantic ballet that had debuted in the Salle Le Peletier. Now she twinged with guilt as she watched lunch, and then her second missed dinner, pass her by like the ghost-maidens. It was a ghastly affair. Unthinkable that women should suffer so for their voice to be taken into account. Frederick had been right: she was not as well aware of her own privilege as she ought to have been.