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Authors: T. Kingfisher
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wound across her throat.
“Show Rhea here back to her room, Ingeth—and take the short way, damn you. It’s late, and no one’s soul is being saved tonight.”
Ingeth bared her teeth at Maria. Then she turned away, jerking her head at Rhea to follow. Rhea scooped up the hedgehog and hurried after her.
The way did seem shorter. Ingeth’s back was a hard line in the dimness. She pointed to the door of Rhea’s room, then turned on her heel and stalked away.
Rhea wanted time to think, but she was so tired that the moment she climbed into bed, she fell down into a dark and dreamless sleep.
She woke and for a moment she could not think of where she was.
The ceiling was white, not thatch. She was in the wrong place. She had woken up, every day of her life, looking up at the thatched roof (or occasionally at the beams of the mill, although sleeping near a grinding mill is not easy).
This was not thatch. It was white beadboard, thin lines and thick ones, running over her head.
What—where— why —
And then she turned her head and saw the hedgehog curled into a neat ball on the chair, and she remembered everything.
It seemed like a strange and horrible dream—the white road, the bird-golems, the falling floor. Impossible to believe in during daylight hours. But Maria the cook, blind Sylvie—the other wives—
That Rhea could believe in.
Lord Crevan has six wives, Maria said. Five, I suppose, if you don’t count the dead one.
Dead wives were automatically respectable, but not if you had five others who were alive.
And me. The seventh.
Not that I have to marry him now, do I? I mean, he’s got wives already! He shouldn’t even have asked me!
But he had asked. And if she went back to her father saying that he had a half-dozen wives, a full house of them…
Would anyone believe her?
She chewed on her lower lip. The blankets were coarse grey wool, very clean, rough against her fingers. She scraped her fingertips over the hem, back and forth, thinking.
You’d think we’d have heard that he had wives already. People would have talked.
Wouldn’t they?
Although some of them…the golem-wife? What’s that? And the clock-wife? You can’t marry a clock. Maybe he’s only got the three. And the dead one.
Three living wives were not significantly better than seven. Really, any number over none was pretty bad.
Somebody should have said something!
Still…it wasn’t like there was a lot of gossip in town about Lord Crevan. Maybe nobody knew. Gossip about lords was mostly limited to the local squires and the peccadillos of their teenage sons.
They didn’t talk about Lord Crevan. Not in a horrible-dark-secret-way—villages ran on horrible dark secrets, they were as good as currency—but in a vague “Oh, is that the name of the lord who owns that stretch of forest?” way. He did nothing. He wasn’t interesting. He had no scandals, he had no teenage sons, the estate was all wildwood and there were no stewards to manage it. People undoubtedly poached deer out of the forest, and there was no gamekeeper who cared.
Until he had shown up to marry Rhea, there was nothing to gossip about.
Nobody knew he had extra wives. I could go home—I could tell everyone—
The hedgehog sat up and yawned.
—and it would be my word against his. A peasant girl against a lord. Do I expect my father to storm his house and drag out the cook and get her to testify?
She thought of what was likely to happen to a man who did that. Even if he was right, the mill would undoubtedly change hands. The old Lord—the one who owned the village—would not like someone who embarrassed a peer of his. Even if that person was absolutely right. And when the time came to renew the leases—the leases that had been merely a formality for generations—
Rhea sat up. Her heart was a dragging weight in her chest. Nothing had changed.
She was still going to get married.
It was just going to be
“Show Rhea here back to her room, Ingeth—and take the short way, damn you. It’s late, and no one’s soul is being saved tonight.”
Ingeth bared her teeth at Maria. Then she turned away, jerking her head at Rhea to follow. Rhea scooped up the hedgehog and hurried after her.
The way did seem shorter. Ingeth’s back was a hard line in the dimness. She pointed to the door of Rhea’s room, then turned on her heel and stalked away.
Rhea wanted time to think, but she was so tired that the moment she climbed into bed, she fell down into a dark and dreamless sleep.
She woke and for a moment she could not think of where she was.
The ceiling was white, not thatch. She was in the wrong place. She had woken up, every day of her life, looking up at the thatched roof (or occasionally at the beams of the mill, although sleeping near a grinding mill is not easy).
This was not thatch. It was white beadboard, thin lines and thick ones, running over her head.
What—where— why —
And then she turned her head and saw the hedgehog curled into a neat ball on the chair, and she remembered everything.
It seemed like a strange and horrible dream—the white road, the bird-golems, the falling floor. Impossible to believe in during daylight hours. But Maria the cook, blind Sylvie—the other wives—
That Rhea could believe in.
Lord Crevan has six wives, Maria said. Five, I suppose, if you don’t count the dead one.
Dead wives were automatically respectable, but not if you had five others who were alive.
And me. The seventh.
Not that I have to marry him now, do I? I mean, he’s got wives already! He shouldn’t even have asked me!
But he had asked. And if she went back to her father saying that he had a half-dozen wives, a full house of them…
Would anyone believe her?
She chewed on her lower lip. The blankets were coarse grey wool, very clean, rough against her fingers. She scraped her fingertips over the hem, back and forth, thinking.
You’d think we’d have heard that he had wives already. People would have talked.
Wouldn’t they?
Although some of them…the golem-wife? What’s that? And the clock-wife? You can’t marry a clock. Maybe he’s only got the three. And the dead one.
Three living wives were not significantly better than seven. Really, any number over none was pretty bad.
Somebody should have said something!
Still…it wasn’t like there was a lot of gossip in town about Lord Crevan. Maybe nobody knew. Gossip about lords was mostly limited to the local squires and the peccadillos of their teenage sons.
They didn’t talk about Lord Crevan. Not in a horrible-dark-secret-way—villages ran on horrible dark secrets, they were as good as currency—but in a vague “Oh, is that the name of the lord who owns that stretch of forest?” way. He did nothing. He wasn’t interesting. He had no scandals, he had no teenage sons, the estate was all wildwood and there were no stewards to manage it. People undoubtedly poached deer out of the forest, and there was no gamekeeper who cared.
Until he had shown up to marry Rhea, there was nothing to gossip about.
Nobody knew he had extra wives. I could go home—I could tell everyone—
The hedgehog sat up and yawned.
—and it would be my word against his. A peasant girl against a lord. Do I expect my father to storm his house and drag out the cook and get her to testify?
She thought of what was likely to happen to a man who did that. Even if he was right, the mill would undoubtedly change hands. The old Lord—the one who owned the village—would not like someone who embarrassed a peer of his. Even if that person was absolutely right. And when the time came to renew the leases—the leases that had been merely a formality for generations—
Rhea sat up. Her heart was a dragging weight in her chest. Nothing had changed.
She was still going to get married.
It was just going to be
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