But even this is for them, I tell myself. Depriving myself does them no good, not when pleasing Elizabeth, allowing her to spoil me as she wishes, will ultimately secure them an easier life.
“Et voilà!” she exclaims, tugging me up toward the full-length mirror. “May I present my Lady Sage!”
The breath seems to die in my throat, extinguished by the rising swell of my wonder. The gown is too long, but its pooling length seems almost artful, intentional as a queen’s sweeping train. The pointed bodice hugs the slim arrow of my torso, nipped tight at the waist and flaring to reveal the modest swell of my breasts. My hair has been braided away from my temples, coiled up and around my head in a pale corn-silk crown. An impossibly fat ruby, like a pigeon’s egg suspended from a satin ribbon, sits in the hollow of my throat, its facets winking with light. My cheeks are still flushed, and the heat of it lends fire to my glacial eyes.
For once, I am not even dismayed to see myself shine so brightly. I wish my mother and sister could see how far I’ve come, for all of us.
“What was it that my beastly husband called you,” Elizabeth murmurs, almost reverent, hands set lightly on my shoulders. “A snow-skinned sorceress? My favored dove? I am loath to admit it, but he was right on both accounts. Look at yourself, my love. How tremendous and splendid you are.”
“Thank you,” I whisper, my voice faltering, thready with emotion. Though I’m sure she did not mean it more seriously than a superficial endearment, “my love” echoes inside my head like the tolling of some majestic bell. My love, my love, my love. “You have made me so . . . so grand. So lovely.”
“Nonsense,” she says briskly, dropping a kiss on the curve of my neck. “I have only made you yourself—what you already are, or should be. Now if you would do me the honor of helping me dress, my lady. Our ball awaits us.”
Chapter Twelve
The Harp and the Switch
In Elizabeth’s company, and without Ferenc’s glowering presence, the great hall sheds the heavy pall of menace that I remember. Instead, the massive fire roars cheerfully, and the clusters of candles cast a mellow glow over the room. Even the great stag head mounted above the mantel seems to have lost its hollow-eyed, leering aspect.
Elizabeth has me take her seat at the table’s head with the hearth roasting my back, while she alights at my right hand. “And will Lady Sage enjoy some capon, fed on nectar and ambrosia until it expired of happiness, then brined in brandy for a thousand days to spice its flesh?” she japes, preparing to spear slices of golden-roasted meat onto my plate.
“Indeed,” I say haughtily, lifting my chin. “I feast only on ancient, drunk capon that has met its death by contentment.”
“Of course you do. It’s a mark of peerless taste. And what of boar goulash, braised in our humble homegrown peppers and fruit ferried from the Orient, so rare and exquisite it has yet to be named?” she continues, gesturing with a copper ladle.
I pretend to consider, then turn up my nose. “Perhaps later,” I decide. “When it’s aged to match the capon.”
She bows extravagantly over her arm like a dandy courtier. “As my lady pleases.”
I eat and drink until my head spins, indulging in a compote of spiced pears, crumbled apple cake, root vegetables glazed with honey and citron, and so much wine that the room seems to drip around me like tallow, softening at the edges.
“Do you think,” I muse between sumptuous bites, “that we could have some of this sent to the scullery, once we’re done?”
“The scullery?” she exclaims. “Why ever would we do that?”
“I lived with the sculls, is all,” I mumble, my cheeks heating. “I know they’ve never had better than plain bread and gruel, rarely anything fresh. And all this will . . . It will go to waste anyway . . .”
I falter, fearing I have overstepped. But she surveys me warmly, resting her chin in a cupped hand. “Of course we may, if it would please you. Though I admit I am a bit taken aback to find that my icy sage has such a generous heart for her inferiors. Tell me, what else would you have of me tonight?”
Elizabeth goads me into voicing my desires, and indulges my every whim. She shares mouthfuls of wine with me through kisses and feeds me pomegranate seeds by hand, holding out a plate for me to spit the husks when I’ve sucked off the dainty flesh.
“See?” she says, showing me the fruit’s glossy crimson rind. Something about it, its gleam and fleshy size, puts me in mind of poison apples from the tales my mother used to tell me as a child. “It is just as I once told you. The very same color as your cheeks when something stirs you to passion.”
“You stir me to passion,” I murmur, leaning toward her as if drawn by a compulsion, my face pounding with heat.
“Later, my dove,” she whispers back, tracing a fingertip down my cheek. “Now, I think it must be time for us to dance.”
I glance over to the far corner where Margareta and Judit sit, playing the lute and harp. Neither of them were invited to dine with us, and Margareta meets my eyes with a look so venomous it could be distilled into poison, like a viper milked against a glass. I wonder, with a scalding swell of jealousy, if it is her that I have ousted from Elizabeth’s bed. And if the two of them know what passes between me and their mistress, surely it is only a matter of time before the rest of the keep does as well. I almost cannot bear to consider what kind of grasping harlot my friends in the scullery will think me, so hell-bent on currying favor that I am willing to go so far as warming the lady’s bed. Of course, that is only the shallowest, most vulgar perversion of what Elizabeth and I share, miles from the truth. But I know it is what they will believe, through the distorting lens of their envy.
Since I cannot do anything about it now, I push it firmly from my mind. Why allow such ugly thoughts to ruin a jewel of an evening like this?
“I’m afraid I have not danced a day in my life,” I admit, swallowing the last of the fruit. “I would not know where to put my feet.”
She leans closer, twinkling at me with a close-lipped smile. “Then I shall have to teach you,” she mock-whispers, rising and offering me her hand. “Judit, Margareta—an allemande!”
Her former chambermaids alter the tune, and Elizabeth leads me through a series of exaggerated movements that resemble nothing so much as a bird’s mating dance.
“Would you cease pulling such faces,” she cackles, falling against me. “Oh, I am fit to wet myself.”
“I’m sorry!” I cry helplessly, dissolving into giggles myself. “It is just—It is so ridiculous, Elizabeth, how can you restrain yourself?”
“Perhaps we shall try something else. A galliard might suit better.”
The music picks up its pace, and soon I’m whirling in mad circles around Elizabeth, my hands clasped tightly in hers. I doubt a true galliard consists of such manic twirling, but I am so giddy with her closeness, her grinning face a breath away, that the last thing I wish is to question any part of this. My lady looks so beautiful tonight, her skin like milk against the vivid amethyst of her dress. She has healed so well that she seems almost lovelier than before, impossible though that should be. And all I can think is that I have never been so happy, rushing around her like one of Aristotle’s stars.