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My pet gander’s racketing woke me at dawn. I had not
slept until late into the uneasy hours and cursed as I swung my bare
legs from a mattress stuffed with new hay and sweet herbs, encountering
icy cold even through a thick bed of rugs. From the corner of my eye, I
saw Marus, the serving girl, back out the door with a tray in her hand.
“Shut up, you fool,” I mumbled, pulling
back drapes to open my bed chamber shutter. Outside a window with a
specially inserted pane, the gander sat atop a ramp. Born of a
misalliance between a domestic goose and a gray one, my pet was a roan
color that caused the tame white geese to shun him, but he was too heavy
to fly south each fall with his wild brethren. I had taken pity on him
when I heard him honking his life away on a promontory and so he haunted
my mornings, fat and entitled.
“Here.” I tossed him half-frozen bread
with a rude gesture, though I did want to be up early. On this
Awakening Day when I was ten-and-eight, two years past the age of
betrothal, Father had finally given his word that I would be pledged.
The only question was…to whom?
Seeking solace, I raised my eyes to the
impregnable defense of the cliffs. A scant handful of yards out and
three hundred feet below, the Alcinic Ocean roiled, jade green, frothing
against black rock. Gulls and terns floated on thermals, white specks
against darkness, while hardy Alcinic sheep grazed perilously close to
the edge. My vision was keen and I could see fog banks sitting like
guardians offshore, nearly obscuring the island called Lady’s Weeping
for its habit of causing wrecks. The rank, icy wind blowing out to sea
promised a foul day, but should delay the arrival of our ancestral
enemies. It had been a dreadful winter, so cold that I saw a hen with
its eyeballs frozen, and everyone knew the Tumagis were starving. As
soon as that wind ceased, they would swarm upon our shores like hungry
demons.
I had no appetite, just a heavy sense of
dread. A fancy dress and accoutrements lay spread on benches and I knew
Marus lurked outside with my breakfast, so I made haste to the door and
slid its bolt, locking her out. There must be no witnesses to my next
actions. I was freezing, but I didn’t stir up the fire before going to
my altar. It was penance.
While I had been on retreat with the Holy
Sisters, supposedly preparing for marriage, my father had had an altar
constructed next to my hearth. Though I could expect to use it for only
a short time, no trouble or expense had been spared. Father would give
me anything but freedom; he could hardly grant what he did not possess.
Instead, I had a private niche of blue marble from Easterling—creamy
white stone shot with blue-green mineral stain, highly prized, available
only to the wealthy.
Shivering, I knelt on freezing marble
willing myself to calm as I turned a fixed gaze upon tapers burning for
Goddess, Lady and Mother. Focusing on blue-orange-yellow flame, I
sought the trance that would enable me to shed bodily concerns. I had
been well schooled by Sisters and the state came quickly, giving me a
serenity which touched the eternal.
“Lady, You know my heart,” I appealed to
the ruling face. This was proper for one of Royal blood expected to
rule upon earth as the Lady did in the Ether. “I come to You with a
true heart to ask Your intercession and I make you my Vow. If, of Your
grace, You grant me the man I desire, a child of my womb will return in
service to You. It is sworn.”
Recalled to the earthly plane by the
effort of speaking, I felt a flush of triumph. No offer of a Royal
child had been made in centuries. The dowry for such a daughter was
magnificent and would not come from the Treasury, but from funds which
were mine upon marriage. It was a splendid bribe. My vow could not be
contravened once made to the Deity. It committed the life of an unborn
child to a fate that child had not chosen and I was not unaware of the
moral implications. Yet, after much soul-searching, I had concluded
that it was not wrong to promise a child away from the lonely life I saw
beating my father to his knees. |
