The Kingdom of Little Wounds (33 page)

The dream breaks apart when Arthur Grammaticus bustles in, looking important with his furrowed brow and sheaf of papers. I have waited for him too, and recently, but he is not the person I want now.

When he stops, his robe sways as if it would like to keep going. “There you are,” he says.

It’s such a stupid beginning that I lose the last shreds of my fantasy. I glare at his floppy hat and his graying beard, his slightly shabby black robe and the papers in his hand. I still hate to think it: I have shared a sweetheart with Midi Sorte. And both he and Midi rejected me.

I ask, “And where have
you
been?”

“Gathering information.” He waves his papers as if to demonstrate. The writing on them looks like charts of some sort, not the long accounts he normally composes. “For the chronicles. The order of succession.”

“Then why are you here now?”

“I came to find you.”

“Well.” I stare at his bony face, the lips in the middle of his straggly beard, but he does not smile or say more. “Since these are Count Nicolas’s chambers, not the servants’ dorter, I think it’s far more likely that you’ve come for a favor and that seeing me now is a surprise.”

I think I’ve won a point, my single victory in this ugly day.

Grammaticus stays calm. “I knew you would come here when you heard about your father.”

“Why would you care about my father?”

“I care,” he says, “when you use my name as a passport at the prison door. You can’t help yourself to it as if it’s a cup of small ale. I have a
reputation.
”

I feel as if I’ve been slapped — or stabbed. I stand. The man who once said he wanted to marry me denies me even a single use of his name! “If
your
father were still living,” I say, with the hot pain starting in my eyes again, “you’d do anything possible to save his life.”

“But I would be more cautious about how I used my friends to achieve my own ends.”

“I only
mentioned
you — I’m sure they didn’t even believe I really know you, Arthur.”

“Well, then.” He seems slightly mollified. He looks around the room as if he can’t meet my eyes, but when he comes back to me, he’s angrier than ever. “So did you mention Count Nicolas? Did they believe you know
him
? Did he promise to help you? Have you met him here often?”

“I’ve never been in here before,” I say. I see Arthur make a mental reminder to himself; he will add this fact to his chronicle later — if humble lives like mine can be worked into that great history.

For a moment, I see no difference between him and Nicolas Bullen. They are gatherers of stories, users of women, and gobblers of hearts. I feel a flash of anger so strong, I almost forget I’m trying to persuade one of them to help me. But I do remember. And I think I may have more luck with this one than with the Count.

I’ve thought it before, many times, this afternoon: how vulnerable I will be when I ask Count Nicolas to intervene with the arrest. Grammaticus has never endangered me, even when I asked for his touch.

I put my head back to meet his hooded eyes. I try to muster some charm, though I have never felt so charmless. “I haven’t seen Count Nicolas yet. And I came to him because I didn’t think you would help.” I try to summon my old self by running my hands over my face, feeling the heat there. “
Will
you help, Arthur?”

“I’m a historian,” he says. “I cannot interfere in history, only record it.”

I drop my hands. “Why do you hate me so much? What have I ever done to hurt you?” Suddenly I’m crying again. I can imagine plenty of reasons to hate me, starting with that bloody splash by the church and moving through my humiliation with Count Nicolas — but I don’t see how any of them can bother
him.
Not if he doesn’t love me.

“I don’t hate you, Ava!” He seems shocked. It seems I’ve finally excited his kindlier side, the one he used to show me all the time.

He holds me at arm’s length and studies my swollen eyes, my red face. “Ava, tell me about your father,” he says.

I choke. “What do you mean?”

“I need everything you know about him.”

“Will that help with his case?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

I realize. I flinch. But I should not be surprised; I’ve thought it before. “It’s for your chronicle. Just for your chronicle?”

He opens his mouth, hesitates.

“Can’t you do
something
to help? If I tell you everything . . . Could you help then?”

He is almost shamefaced. He is
just a historian,
with no will to better any life but his own.

And yet. And yet he is the one hope that presents itself to me now. I untie my cap and let the yellow braids fall to my waist. Jacob used to tell me my hair was one of my greatest treasures. I get down on my knees and take Grammaticus’s big hand in mine. “Please?”

I wait to see if he’ll accept me. My heart hammering, hoping he’ll say yes, not just because I need his help but because, above all, I need to hold another soul within my arms.

W
HEN Nicolas Bullen says the unthinkable, Isabel tries to swoon, but it cannot be convincing; she is too stunned. It’s strange that she doesn’t swoon anyway, on her own, but she doesn’t.

Poxed,
she thinks.
Pox.

As she lurches away, Nicolas catches her wrists. His pale eyes melt into hers. “How old were you? Thirteen, fourteen, how old?”

The Italian — or
French
— Fire: half the lords who passed through her father’s castle had it. They used to declare that they burned with love for beautiful Isabelle des Rayaux and her sisters; in their bedchambers, the girls joked among themselves about the true cause of the burning. They had nothing but contempt for the lords, though they could not help kissing the handsome ones from time to time. As Isabel did that time behind the tithing barn, just after her visit to Uncle Henri’s château, when she longed for beauty and amours.

A branch breaks apart in the fire. Isabel says, “I came to this court as a virgin. The documents are clear.”

Nicolas picks up her hand and begins to stroke the back of it, lightly tracing the scars that came of administering medicines to her children.
Not of pox.
She will not even think it lest Nicolas somehow hear her thoughts.

“Isabel,” he whispers. “Isabel. How did you feel when that first red sore appeared . . . frightened, disgusted with yourself? Was it in your mouth, behind your teeth, or somewhere even more hidden? Perhaps you thought nothing of it, as the first chancre does not hurt . . . But then came the aches and the rashes and the throbbing head. Is that when you started covering yourself in mercury? Or did you wait till years later — age eighteen, nineteen? — with the boils and the white pus and the gleet . . . How you must have feared it! A sign from God — a condemnation! But you were already married and expected to produce a child. Children. Who were bound to fall ill themselves.”

At his touch, Isabel is dazed. “I have always been true to my husband,” she says, with the image of Candenzius’s face before her, the memory of his fingers inside.

“There are many kinds of betrayal, my lady. And many people who would be interested to know you’re afflicted.”

The fire pops again, another shower of embers.

“Afflicted.” She allows her eyes to close. That beautiful dizziness, the quicksilver mer-girls . . .

“You do know that you’re quite mad,” Nicolas says gently.

“Mad?” Her eyes open.

“It happens as the disease progresses.” He continues to stroke her hand. Under his touch, the scars itch, which feels somehow good, even though it reminds her of those old days of the rashes on hands and feet — how she had to wear gloves even at meals, and dancing was agony. She told herself this was some little infection, not a great one, not
that
pox, and she learned to make unguents to soften the skin and soothe the burning. But there were all those nights of swiving Christian . . . then the bellies, the pains, miscarriages, the joy when her first live baby was born, followed by another and another and another . . .

Christian: he was not poxed. Was he? Should she have Candenzius investigate his corpse?

Nicolas says, “It would be a shame if this madness were to interfere with your daughter’s reign. Or your son’s.”

Isabel shudders. She has spent her entire existence protecting some reign or other.

“I can describe how your life will be,” Nicolas says, tracing a circle around the ruby newly on her finger. “Now that you have reached the age of madness, it will go and come in waves. Some days you’ll feel quite clear, and others you will be exhausted unto death.”

“I
am
weary,” she says. Her eyes droop. “But I am not unwell.” She suspects herself of lying; everybody lies.

Nicolas continues, “Many days you will not remember; these will be the good days. Other days will be painful. You will rave; you will hurt yourself. Your children, alas, can expect the same.”

“The children,” she murmurs. “I did not . . .” She can’t bear to say more. She is admitting nothing. “Candenzius . . . the treatment . . . mercury . . .”

“Krolik.” Nicolas runs a sharp fingernail down the inside of her palm. “He’s a good man. His special guaiac unguent is effective in treating the pox. Wouldn’t you like to be cured, like your daughters? And he’ll keep your secret. If, that is, he’s appointed to a position in which he is
able
to keep secrets. Under a man to whom he vows discretion.”

“My husband made him Master of the Nursery.”

“Which is how he knows the truth about you. And the children.”

Isabel feels dizzy, confused. Convinced, almost. She takes another sip of her special wine. “Am I really mad?” she asks.

“And will only grow madder.”

In a way, this is a relief. It explains so much, and it removes a burden. The burden of deciding about things, of fighting. Now she can simply be.

Nicolas keeps stroking her palms and wrists with that long, light touch. It has become pleasurable, though she sees it’s turning her skin red. “You must relax, my Queen. You must let yourself be taken care of.”

“The baby,” she says, wishing his hand would move toward her belly.

“The baby, of course. The baby will be taken care of too.”

She looks at the ruby, now on her hand instead of his. “I may ask for what I want? I may make a condition?”

“Of course.”

Recklessly: “Then I want Candenzius.”

“Very well.” Nicolas’s expression does not change.

“I can have him?”

“You may have anything you want. You have the power to elevate as you wish.” He pauses, strokes the inside of her wrist. “Of course, it would all be easier if you were to designate someone to assist you. A second regent, as it were. One who would carry out your commands. One who would see to the worst business of the kingdom for you, so you can concentrate on yourself. And on your secret.”

He has abandoned the idea of a substitute regent in favor of a cooperative one. Isabel feels she’s won a point without arguing it; she is already victorious — though even in her madness, she knows the Count is manipulating her. “The Duke of Marsvin?” She can test Nicolas, a little, as he tests her.

He bends, breathes on her wrist in a way that warms her to the core. “Or someone else. Your most willing servant.
I,
” he adds baldly.

Christian trusted him; why not Isabel?

“And you would send me Candenzius?”

“He could come to you tomorrow.”

Isabel feels the first real happiness in months. “I need him to examine me. He must check on the baby.”

“Whatever you wish.”

Whatever you wish —
has anyone ever said this to Isabel and meant it?

“I want the dark nurse too,” she says. “The one who sees after my daughters — she can help Candenzius. Sophia always said she could soothe a stomachache. And I’m going to keep this ring,” she adds, for clarity.

His eye on that red stone, Nicolas bows.

Thus the affair is settled.

Beatte never were so happy. She sing her self in bed whilst the maids bring arms full of fancy clothes that once belong to her sister, her mother, her cousins. They now will be made to suit an apparent queen. Every kind of gleaming thing, cloth of silk and metal, embroideries, jewels.

What of this one, Majesty?
ask those ladies, and
What of this?
Each dress will become more rich, at least so long as she be queen. Old Lady Drin who have become chief in-waiting promise it. She thinks may be to make Beatte beautiful in this way.

Beatte hugs her self. She loves it all, she loves to be queen, she forgets to feel her pains and itches. She sing-sing-sings.

And this one?
ask Bridget Belskat.

Beatte raise her voice to sing the louder.

The song I do not recognize. It sound like some thing to which nobles might dance, but Beatte be too weak for dancing, and any way a dance is unpermitted on the day in which every one is to weep till mid night. Beatte hums and watch the work and does not appear to know how far her life will change, for be cause she now have status of a queen she must also have more lessons to prepare her for it, and more guards to protect her from plots, and more ladies and more maids and hours with her councillors and regent. She will see the days of glass leaves and fairy stories as a kind of story in they selves, some thing that is pretty to think but not possible to believe.