Midnight in Everwood(46)

Marietta heard their urgent whispers as if from a great distance. She opened her eyes to plead with them not to risk themselves on her account, that she no longer hungered, wondering why their faces were unusually grave, why the words were shaped like icicles upon her tongue. Before she could force them out, a pair of faceless guards marched in and wrenched her up onto her feet.

The room blurred and her head roared. She heard a protest but it was quashed by a soldier’s voice she did not recognise. ‘She has been summoned. King’s orders.’





Chapter Twenty-Three


Against her expectations, the soldier escorted Marietta further up the spiral, her head tipping back, the hollowed centre of the palace a dizzying prospect. They lapped around it and it loomed at Marietta until she felt its nothingness, its vacuity shift into something more tangible, gobbling up the heart of the palace and hungry for more, a beast that would devour everything in its midst.

They halted before another identical door. The soldier knocked. His fist sounded as hard as the bronze lion knocker mounted on the townhouse door and for a moment Marietta expected to hear Jarvis announce a guest for dinner. Though the voice that bid them enter was not his. The soldier threw Marietta onto a small wooden chair, the force with which he handled her sending her slipping off the side. Her body felt as insubstantial as a will o’the wisp, drifting over a sea of ice.

The door slammed shut. A pair of strong arms suddenly lifted her back onto the chair. A murmured, ‘What have they done to you?’

Marietta forced herself to look at the man swimming into her vision. The captain. He seemed to be peering back at her in some concern. A hard rim brushed her lips and she tasted liquid, registering that it was hot and salty and satisfying. Her preservation flared to life and she began to gulp it.

‘Pace yourself or you will bring it back up again,’ the captain said.

She drank slowly. The mist encasing her brain receded. Captain Legat handed her a roll and she bit into it, groaning at the taste. It filled her, warming her from the inside. She glanced at their surroundings as she ate.

It appeared as though she was sitting in a log cabin. It could have been perched atop a mountain in the Swiss Alps for all its rustic idyll. The walls, low ceiling and floor were hewn planks of frozen gingerbread, a fire crackled before plump chairs and furs, and a large desk sprawled out across half the cabin’s cosy interior. She was seated before the desk, the captain at her side, monitoring her. She looked at him and he stood, offering her a wry smile. ‘Has it passed your examination?’ He took the carved gingerbread chair behind his desk and passed her a fresh glass of water in an ice glass. Large lanterns were mounted on the walls, lending the space a flickering glow.

‘Why have you summoned me?’ Her voice felt harsh, alien to her after days of drifting in and out of consciousness, weak and silent.

He sighed, running his fingers roughly through his bronze hair and closing his eyes for a beat. ‘I could not, in all good conscience, allow the king to starve you.’

Marietta met his eyes. They were warmer than the rest of his face, as if within them it was impossible to hide his emotions. She decided she admired his eyes; they were honest and kind. Aware that she’d been staring into them for longer than she ought, she lowered her gaze to the desk. There was an abundance of papers, fountain pens, a half-drunk cup of molten chocolate and wax seals stamped with sword-fighting mice. She frowned at the latter, the image resonating through the time-fogged looking glass of her memories.

The captain cleared his throat. ‘When you leave, take care to appear as weakened as when you entered. I cannot afford to nurture suspicion.’

Marietta inclined her head. The cabin gave a sickening swirl. ‘Of course.’ She fought to her feet. Captain Legat rose from his chair to help with the endeavour. He spread a thin swathe of cloth over his desk, placing another few rolls along with several oat and nut biscuits upon it. ‘Wrap this around your waist, your dress has grown loose enough to hide it,’ he said, meeting her eyes. She nodded and he turned around. Her hunger a gnawing fiend, she failed to feel a sliver of embarrassment at hiking up her dress in the presence of a gentlemen. Though she did manage a smile at the thought of Ida’s reaction to her situation, certain her mother would have decried her as a cigarette-smoking, scarlet crêpe de Chine-wearing fast girl.

‘Thank you,’ she said after she had finished. The captain turned round and surveyed her. He gave a curt nod then checked his timepiece. ‘We can afford a little longer.’ He motioned to the seat.

After a brief hesitation, Marietta sat.

‘Can you manage any more?’ he asked and she nodded. He slid a pot in her direction and she picked up the accompanying fork and ate the baked dish. He sat and sifted through his papers, marking the occasional note on them, and time drizzled by.

When next he glanced her way, she asked, ‘Why?’

The quill in his hand stilled. Its feather glistened white as snow, soft as ermine. It could have been plucked from Victoria’s Odette tutu; overlaid with swan feathers that fluttered as she channelled Anna Sobeshchanskaya, the original Odette at the Bolshoi. Though Victoria had delighted in informing them all that Anna had been replaced for the premiere after selling the expensive jewellery a government official had gifted her and marrying the dancer cast as Siegfried instead. Marietta had remarked how telling it was that Siegfried hadn’t been recast for the offence.