“Come, my lady Elizabeth,” I say softly, taking her by the arm. She sags against me, wrung out by the force of her own wrath. “I’ll take you to bed.”
“Thank you, Anna,” she murmurs into the curve of my neck, head lolling. I glance back over my shoulder at Margareta, who is patting at Judit’s slack cheeks, trying to rouse her. When she meets my eyes, I mouth, “I’ll come see to her later.” The girl’s face shutters, grows frigid—I can see she holds me complicit for Judit’s plight—but she nods curtly before looking away.
“You were right,” Elizabeth continues, yawning hugely. “I should not have pushed myself so hard. I am fearsomely weary.”
You are certainly fearsome, my love, I think to myself, my heart sinking like lead. And how am I to contain you?
“But now the discipline is done,” I soothe her. “And you may rest.”
Though she barely managed to stumble into bed, Elizabeth wakes not long after me, hearty and refreshed, as if the blood spilled last night has rejuvenated her.
“Good morning, Lady Sage,” she murmurs languorously to me, stretching her arms high above her head and arching her back like a cat. “Did you sleep well? And enjoy our night?”
“The feast was lovely,” I say, allowing her the opportunity to repent for the grotesquely outsized ire that followed it, to make even an attempt to explain herself. But she merely beams at me, making no mention of Judit—though I spent an hour cleaning and tending to the welts on her striped back.
It is like a nightmare dissolving in the dawn, dispelled as if it never even happened. In a way, I am relieved, for the longer the memory of Judit’s anguish is allowed to draw breath between us, the more abjectly guilt-ridden I would feel for having merely stood aside, a silent, useless witness to her suffering.
When it’s clear that she does not intend to bring it up, I continue. “We have our first snow,” I remark placidly, gesturing at the window as I drip almond oil into her wash basin. I’ve taken the liberty of drawing the curtains for once, as the day is so densely overcast that no sun will dare threaten Elizabeth’s precious skin. A frosty flurry wheels beyond the glass, flakes so fat and perfect they seem almost unreal. Like a child’s first dream of snow. “Winter is truly here.”
She gasps, delighted as a little girl, tumbling out of bed. “Oh, it’s beautiful,” she exclaims, crossing her arms over the sill, her cheeks flushing with excitement. “I do love snow. We must go outside, Anna, and catch it on our tongues as I used to do when I was small. Perhaps we will even take a winter ride!”
Snow is usually no cause for rejoicing in the village, as the harbinger of even emptier bellies and ruthlessly cold nights, but her enthusiasm seems to be catching as brushfire. “I would love that. It’s been a long time since I sat a horse by myself.”
She turns, cocking her head at me in question. “Have you ever had one of your own?”
I chuckle at the thought of such luxury. “Not even close,” I say ruefully. “But my best friend used to let me borrow his. A lovely dappled mare.”
“His?” She raises an eyebrow. “Your best friend was a man?”
“Yes.” I tilt my head, considering. “Though I suppose I often still think of Peti as a boy, not the man he is.”
“How funny,” she ponders. “I’ve never even considered befriending a man. I would not know how to trust one.”
“Usually I would feel the same. But Peter is a rare person,” I say fondly. “Clever, well-mannered, so gentle. I’ve never heard him so much as utter an unkind word.”
Her lips twitch, and I am run through by a sudden spike of fear—what if she takes these compliments as backhanded criticisms, for her own distinctly ungentle behavior last night? “You sound as though you are half in love with him,” she retorts, almost accusingly, and I relax a fraction. Jealousy I am equipped to handle. “Despite what you told me yesterday. Is he so very handsome, then? Enough to sway even one such as you?”
“He is handsome, but it has never made me want him, not even for an instant,” I assure her, purposely leaving out his proposal. It would only irk her further. “We were raised together. He is more like a brother than anything else.”
She nods, satisfied that he poses no threat to her. “And I’d venture that for all his admirable qualities, he has never given you a horse,” she offers coyly, widening her eyes in delight. “As I am about to do.”
“Elizabeth!” I gasp. “That is far too generous, I cannot accept, I—”
“Nonsense,” she counters. “Let us get dressed, and then we will visit the stables and pick one out for you.”
“I . . .” I falter, wrapping my hands in my apron. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Say nothing, then.” She reaches over and presses a soft kiss to my mouth, drawing back to wink at me when my breath hitches in response. “And let me spoil you as you deserve.”
After a breakfast of hot milk porridge and mulled wine, we cross the courtyard and traipse to the stables, swathed in Elizabeth’s luxuriant furs. A fluffy dusting soon gathers on my borrowed ermine hood. Elizabeth has dispensed with hers altogether, letting a sugared sprinkle gather in her hair and sparkle in her lashes.
“How lovely everything looks,” she gushes, parting her lips to shape the billow of her breath into neat little puffs. “So clean and new. All the dirt and ugliness concealed, hidden away until the spring.”
“You think Nadasdy Castle ugly?” I ask, surprised that she might unwittingly mirror my own feelings on the keep.
“There is ugliness everywhere, when you peel back the skin,” she responds darkly. “But let us not ruin this day by speaking of it.”
“Certainly, not when everything is so . . .”
The words sour in my mouth as we step over the stables’ threshold and into the musky animal heat—to find the stable boy who had accosted me pressing a girl against one of the stall doors. They’re tangled in an impassioned embrace, the girl’s smock pushed down to reveal the sharp jut of her collarbones, the pert bob of her breasts. Unlike me, at least she seems more than willing.
“What is the meaning of this?” Though Elizabeth’s voice is soft, it slices like a scythe. “Have my stables become a bordello for my servants to rut in at their leisure? How extraordinary. Here I thought they were for the keeping of horses.”
The two spill apart, the girl frantically arranging herself back into her dress. I recognize her now, though I don’t know her name; she’s one of the scullery maids, a particular friend of Krisztina’s. By the flash of revulsion that gallops across her face before panic chases out everything else, she recognizes me as well. My stomach hollows out at the look, at having my worst suspicions confirmed. The rumors of my doings must already have reached the cellars.
“Beg pardon, mistress,” the boy croaks desperately. “I was—we was just stealing a kiss and a fumble to warm up in this blasted cold, not—not rutting—”
“Silence,” Elizabeth orders, sparing barely a glance for him. “You, girl. What is your name? Beyond shameless harlot, I mean. I assume your mother saw fit to give you one.”