The Sevenfold Spell (5 page)

With my neighborhood off-limits, I haunted the taverns near the center of town. I decided to use the men as they used me. We’d begin by flirting, then dandle for a few weeks, and then move on when the newness faded. I did have a few favorites, but I allowed none to touch my heart. I helped a few of the younger, more insecure men gain some experience before their marriages. And I kept the widowers warm on cold nights.

My infrequent confessions went something like this:

“I have not been chaste, as a maiden ought,” I would say to the priest.

“With whom have you not been chaste?”

“A butcher. A baker. A candlestick maker.”

“And are you sorry for these sins?”

“No, I can’t say that I am.”

“Then until you are, your soul will bear its burden.”

The local bachelors talked about me, I know. They traded stories—but they always went happily to my bed. To the aisle? Never.

I spoke of it to Harla, sometimes. “I would make a good wife,” I said.

“I’ve no doubt of that,” she said.

“I’m ready to be faithful to a good man who would have me,” I said. “I would devote myself to him and his children.”

“You’re thinking of Willard.”

“Yes.”

“Did you love him, then?”

“I didn’t think of it as love. There wasn’t any time to think of anything but
having
him.”

“We all thought you went mad for him.”

“I did. I wanted his child.”

She looked at me in shock. “Out of wedlock?”

“I couldn’t have him, so I wanted a piece of him.”

“Then, you really did love him.”

I didn’t reply, but I did wonder about that. Why did I offer myself to him? Although to lie with him had been my own choice, it would have never been a choice I would have made had we been able to marry. I thought of the child I had wanted so badly, of little Aurora who was never conceived. She would be coming on her menses about now, had she been born. More often, I thought of Willard. Eventually, I realized that I had loved him, just like Harla said. It was the only explanation that made any sense.

And it was the only explanation that accounted for my odd taste in men. I was picky, in my own way. I looked for the men so often rejected by other women: the too thin, the too chubby, the too pocked, the too graying. But I also looked for shyness, for awkwardness, for the socially inept. Was I looking for another Willard? Perhaps. I never found one, but I did find some men who stayed with me for lengths of time that measures in months rather than weeks. One even stayed with me for over a year.

Only one was handsome.

I met him, of all places, in church.

I typically crept into the church during odd hours, as sinners are wont to do. Before dawn, during dinner, after the pubs closed. I would slip into a pew in the very back alcove and pray in the most unobtrusive spot I could find.

It was no wonder that he never saw me. He stalked up to the altar in the manner of a hypocrite—or of one who has few sins to hide. There, he swept back his cape and started yelling at God.

“Why, Lord?” he cried. “Why create a girl who can never be a woman? Why make her so wonderful? Am I, too, the victim of a spell? Or do you send the devil to torment us all?”

He fell silent. I wonder if, perhaps, he was getting his answer from God.

His next words I would not have heard at all if the church had not been designed to carry sounds so well. “Why make me love her when I can never have her?”

And then he collapsed into a pew and wept. His cape fell about him so he only appeared as a shadow.

I watched him for a moment. I suspected he was very young. Only the young seem to feel anguish with such acuteness. I crept up the aisle and sat in a pew several rows behind him. He wept on, unaware.

After a few moments, I ventured to speak. “I think I know your pain,” I said. He stilled. “I loved a man, and he was sent away to become a monk.”

He lifted his head. After a moment, he turned around to look at me. Until that moment, I had not seen his face. When I did, my breath hissed in.

I caught a glimpse of pure wonderful. I had to avert my eyes. I could not have even said, in that moment, what he looked like, only that he was too beautiful to have rested his eyes upon the likes of me. Had I known he was so handsome, I never would have spoken to him.

However, he didn’t flinch from my face, and I became brave enough look again. His hair was dark. That much registered. He regarded me in all seriousness.

“How long have you lived with this heartbreak?” he asked.

“Almost fourteen years, now.” His eyes were light, but whether they were blue or hazel, I couldn’t say in the low light.

“And how do you bear it?”

I was silent for a moment. Then, I said. “In the arms of other men. But that is not an approach I would recommend.”

Unexpectedly, a twinkle appeared in his eyes. Green, they were—or perhaps gray. “I’m not likely to find comfort in a man’s arms, anyway.”

I giggled.

He stood, and swept his cape back once again. “Walk with me,” he said.

I did. His tone told me that he was used to obedience.

We walked through the dark streets. He asked me of my love, and I told him of Willard. I spoke of him long into the night. I told him of our three weeks together and, like Harla, he didn’t judge me.

At one point, I asked him of his own love.

“I will not speak of her,” he said. “The wound is too fresh. For you, the passage of time has been a balm, and it brings you comfort to speak of him, I think. Does it not?”

“Yes, it does, I confess.”

“Then, pray, speak. It brings me comfort to bring you comfort.”

I wondered why, but I didn’t question him. Instead, I spoke of my longing for Willard’s child, of the blood that denied it and of my heartbreak afterward.

By then, it was close to midnight. “I have enjoyed your company,” he said. We were standing on the top of one of the bridges that spanned a river cutting through town. “I have not asked your name.”

“Talia,” I replied.

“A lovely name. I am…Andrew.” I did not miss the slight pause, and I wondered what his name really was. He was obviously a noble, and a powerful one at that.

“May I meet you again?” he asked.

“If you wish,” I said.

“I will come by here again tomorrow night, by nine bells.”

“Nine o’clock,” I said. “Until tomorrow, then.”

***

He was exceedingly punctual. Again, we wandered the streets at random. On this night, without telling him of the spinning wheel, I told him of my seduction of Master Caleb the wainwright, and of some of the men who followed.

“It’s strange,” he said, when I reached the end of that tale. “I would not have expected you to be a loose woman when I saw you in the church.”

I didn’t know how to respond.

“I suspect it isn’t in your nature,” he concluded. “I suspect, had you been able to marry your Willard, you would have been faithful to him.”

“I would have.”

“And you seek these men to replace Willard.”

“Yes.”

“Did something else add to your sadness?”

“Yes. There was a small child. A little girl. I was something of a nanny to her. I don’t think I could have loved her any more if she had been my own. But she was taken away from me.”

“You ought to have been a mother. You ought to have taken in some child.”

“Perhaps I should have.”

We walked on in silence for a space, until we reached the top of the bridge again. He took my hand and pressed his lips to it. “May I meet you again tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

Although I agreed, I didn’t know what to think. What could he want of me? I judged him to be in his early twenties—what did such a young and handsome man want with me?

The next evening, his demeanor was strangely awkward. We walked the streets in silence. I sensed he had something to say, that his purpose in getting to know me would finally be revealed. However, we walked six straight blocks before he even began to broach the subject.

“You have probably guessed that I am nobly born,” he began.

“It’s evident.”

“It is traditional among my class for a young man to find an older woman to—Not that you seem that much older than I…” he amended in a rush of words.

“How old are you?” I asked.

“I am two and twenty.”

“I am ten years older than you.”

“Yes, well…it’s difficult to know whom you can trust, you see. I believe you have spoken to me from the heart. I believe I can trust you.”

“Trust me with what?”

“My…education.”

“I have no education. You seem much better educated than—”

“Not that kind of education.” He turned to face me and looked me square in the eye. He took my hands in his. He looked like he was facing down a mortal enemy as he opened his mouth and spoke again.

“I want you to make a man of me.”

My mouth dropped in the most profound shock I ever felt. I was unable to speak.

I could see his face turn dark as a flush overtook it. “You see, a man in my position cannot command the respect of his men unless he has been…touched by a woman. What’s more, a woman of my class expects the man who brings her to his marriage bed to have skill enough to…to perform without awkwardness, and to be able to relieve her of her…of her maidenhood without undue pain.”

“I don’t think—”

“Do you find me undesirable?”

“What? Of course not! But…but you cannot find
me
desirable!”

“Of course I do.”

I didn’t know how to respond. He took away the need.

“I know you think yourself ugly, Talia. But you are a very desirable woman. Not beautiful, certainly, but desirable just the same. I’m sure many men think so.”

“No, you must be wrong.”

“I know I am right. I would not be asking you this, otherwise. Will you do this for me?”

I looked away. “It would be wrong of me to take away your purity.”

“I assure you, if it’s not you, I will find someone else.”

“No, you must not. Save yourself for your future wife.”

“Why? So she will laugh at me in the marriage bed? So she will ridicule my ineptness with her friends the next day? No, I will not be mocked in such a manner.” I stared at him. “You don’t understand such marriages,” he said. “My future wife—whoever she is—will be a political partner, nothing more. Love is unlikely. But I must have her respect.”

“No, I meant for your original betrothed.”

“I told you that is impossible.”

“Perhaps a way could be found.”

“No!”

I silenced. He held up a key.

“This is the key to a small house by the river.” He placed it on the wall of the bridge and told me how to get there. “If you agree, take the key and be there at nine tomorrow night. If you cannot do it, then leave the key. Good night.”

With that, he walked off.

I touched the key. The river flowed by under the bridge as I pondered. A cloud swallowed the wavy reflection of the moon.

Finally, I picked up the key and put it in my pocket.

***

I arrived before he did. I found a house that had been prepared by now-absent servants. A banked fire burned in the kitchen. Covered plates of wine and cheese were in a sitting room. Another chamber had a bed with the quilt turned down and a fire burning low.

He arrived.

“Thank you for coming,” he said as he doffed his cape.

“I’m not here for the reason you think,” I said. I had thought about his proposal all day, and had come to a decision.

He paused and looked at me.

“I wanted to tell you something else about Willard and me.”

“Very well,” he said. His voice was somewhat frosty, so different from the warmth he had shown on the previous two nights. He poured me a glass of wine and handed it to me. I took it. He gestured for me to be seated, and so I did.

“I know you are suffering from a heartbreak,” I said. “But—”

“You wanted to speak of Willard,” he said.

“Yes, of course.” I let out a sigh. He was not going to make this easy. “You must know that Willard and I were both untouched when we came together.”

“Yes, you’ve said as much.”

“What you cannot know is how much it means to young people when they are each other’s first lover.”

He frowned. “I’ve already spoken of this. I would never have the respect of my wife if I did not command the marriage bed.”

It seemed so strange to me. When I thought of my time with Willard, I had never thought him in command of me, nor I in command of him. “I’m talking about your betrothed. The one you love.”

He stood. “That is impossible, as I have stated.”

“I know you think so now, but perhaps she will come to love you.”

“You don’t understand. She loves me already.”

I was thoroughly confused. “Then, why—”

“Because she does not know love, in such a way. She only knows love as a child.”

“Then she is still young, yet?”

“She is barely fourteen.”

“If you give her some time—”

“No! It’s impossible! How can I make you understand?” He paused, attempted to speak, twice, and then finally sighed. “She is a child! Loving, beautiful and pure, but a child. She will always be a child, even when she grows into a woman.”

I blinked at him. “A child?”

“Yes. When she speaks, it’s with the singsong voice of a young child. She understands nothing. I am her playmate, a beloved playmate, but nothing more. How can I bring such a woman-child to a marriage bed?”

I stood, but too suddenly. I felt a rush in my ears, and I swayed.

He jumped up and caught me. “Talia! Are you well?”

“Rose!” I said. “Your betrothed is named Rose!”

The color in his face leached away. His arms could no longer hold me up, and I collapsed on the couch.

“I see that I’m right,” I said. “She is exactly the right age, and her mind—it’s just as you describe! There cannot be two such girls.”

“That’s her middle name, and her childhood nickname. But how do you know of Rose?”

“She’s the child I spoke of—the one who was taken away from me.”

He sat across from me. I regarded him, as more and more things became clear. How she was so beautiful, so loving and yet so flawed. How her godmothers had taken her away the moment they had learned of our spinning wheel.

“You are a prince,” I said. “And Rose is Princess Aurora.”

He looked at me, his face reflecting bleak pain. And I knew I was right. He picked up his wineglass and took a deep drink. He sat there a moment, lost in thought, swirling the dregs of wine in his glass.

“It’s all true, all of it. Her name is Aurora Rose. And I’ve been betrothed to her since her birth.”

He sat in silence for a moment, while I could do nothing but stare. “I’ll never forget it,” he said, “standing there beside her cradle, holding her tiny hand while I spoke the words of the promise. Her father stood as her proxy, and his eyes never left mine. When I was done, I wiped my hand on my trousers and went to stand next to my father. I only had a dim idea of what I had promised, but for the most part, I was just glad it was done.”

He looked up at me. “It was all part of a grand week of festivities. Perhaps you remember it.”

“There was dancing in the streets.” I said. It was the only time I had ever danced with Willard.

“The next day, on Sunday, Aurora was christened, and all seven of her fairy godmothers were invited. After the christening, they gave her their gifts. Or, I suppose I should say their gift, because their gift was the Sevenfold Spell, of course. However, the evil fairy…strange that no one thought of her as evil before that day…interrupted the spell. She put a death spell upon the princess.

“They had left her out, you see. Omitted her. The seven fairies had all some sort of connection to the throne and there is a strong tradition of fairy godmothers among royal families going back generations. The fairy that we all call evil was of a fairy family that was trying to gain entry in that tradition. They certainly will never succeed now.”

“She cast the spell out of spite?”

“It’s said that fairies can nurture spite until it becomes a living thing. They say that’s where fairy changelings come from.

“So she cast the spell and vanished. Everyone was horrified. The godmothers came up with a plan to weaken the curse with the spell that the one fairy godmother had not yet cast. The best she could do was to modify the curse so it would send her into a sleep that seemed like death. And for it to seem like death, the duration had to be so long that it would outlast her loved ones. And so, she will sleep for a hundred years, until her true love awakens her with a kiss.”

It seemed to me that the spell to cure her was almost as bad as the death spell itself.