“Wait!” she calls out, lumbering after me.
As much as being near her is like pouring salt into a fresh wound, I do not have the heart to force her to shuffle after me, clumsy and awkward. I slow my pace. “According to you, we have nothing to say to each other.”
“I have something I must tell you. Ask you,” she corrects.
I slowly turn to face her, but she is peering down past her belly at her feet. She has not talked to me—or asked me anything—for more than four months. I cannot imagine what has changed her mind. Something unfamiliar flutters deep in my belly, and I cannot tell if it is annoyance or hope. That I can still feel hope where she is concerned angers me. “So ask.” I resume walking, but more slowly.
She grabs my arm. “Would you stand still for a minute?”
I am so startled by the faint note of desperation in her voice that I stop. “What?” Concern creeps in past the armor I have erected between us. “What is wrong? Is it the babe?”
“No. Yes. Maybe. I don’t know.”
Her voice sounds so lost, so close to despair and maybe even fear, that I find myself caring in spite of my vow to never again give a fig for anything she says or does. “Should I call a doctor? The count?”
“No!” she says, her face stricken. “It is nothing like that.” Her eyes slip from mine to study the tapestry on the wall behind me. “It is just . . . I have a favor to ask.”
This time it is I who bark out a laugh. Of course she wants something. “I cannot imagine what it is that I could do for you. You have made it abundantly clear that I have nothing to offer you anymore.”
“There is one thing that only you can do for me.”
Her words snag me like a hook. But I cannot make this easy for her. Not after all the pain she has caused me, so I simply wait in silence.
Her cheeks grow pink, and she fidgets with her hands. That is when I notice she is holding a red silken cord. I recognize it immediately—it is one she cut off of her finest dress when we first came to court, thinking it would make an excellent garrote. It has sat unused for five years.
Her hands grip the cord tightly, as if drawing on it for strength, then she thrusts it at me.
Keeping the pearl necklace carefully concealed in my left hand, I take the cord with my right. “Is there someone I am to strangle for you?” I do not even try to keep the disbelief from my voice.
“Saints no, Gen! Stop searching for the convent in every single thing!” Her voice is low, but it feels as if she is shouting.
I glare at her mulishly. “If you’re asking a favor, mocking me seems an unwise approach.”
“Would you just listen?” The note of desperation is back, so I relent.
She glances left then right to be certain we are alone, and lowers her voice to a whisper. “This has nothing to do with the convent, but everything to do with the Nine. There is no one else I can ask. You and I are the only ones who still worship the old saints here.”
Even though the Church insists we call them saints, they are gods to me. And the convent. She has my full attention now.
“I need you to make an offering to Dea Matrona.” She nods at the red cord I now hold in my hand.
“And how am I to do that?”
“Under the light of a waxing moon, you must untie the knots and bury the cord with an offering at the base of a silver birch. If you do, it is said that Dea Matrona will widen my passage so that the babe can pass through easier, allowing for a less painful birth. I would do it myself, but in my current condition”—she flaps her hands at her overripe body—“I cannot sneak anywhere, let alone be certain I can lower myself to the ground or get back up again. Please. Will you do this for me?”
The faint note of panic is unmistakable now. She is afraid. Afraid of what is coming and her powerlessness to stop it.
“But we are not friends anymore. Surely only friends do these sorts of things for each other.”
“But we are sisters.” Margot’s eyes burn into mine. “Surely you would do this for a sister.”
“You have treated me more like a maidservant than a sister for nearly two years.”
She has the grace to be embarrassed. “Everything is a trade with you—a negotiation. If you will do this, then I will do that.”
I do not understand her frustration. “That is how the world works.”
Exasperated, she nearly stamps her foot. “Will you do it?”
I stare down at the red cord, wanting to shout at her that if she had only listened to me, none of this would have happened. She would not need to invoke Matrona’s help or fear the pain of childbirth. Instead I say, “Tell me exactly what I must do.”
?Chapter 7
ell past midnight, when all the others are either asleep or engaged in bedplay, I slip from my room carrying the red silken cord and a small sack filled with all the things Margot said I would need.
No one sees me, and even if they did, they would simply assume I was on my way to meet a lover, for that is the way of things here at Cognac.
At the French court, our lives were constructed to make us pious, disciplined, and obedient. But the court at Cognac is designed around sensual pleasures, self-indulgence, and a great passion for the arts. After my upbringing at the convent and the austerity of Madame Regent, it felt as if I had been plucked from a barren winter tree and set down amidst a vibrant and dissolute summer garden.
I hated it. I still do.
Although, it amuses me greatly to think how Madame Regent would feel if she learned she had installed us in a den of libertines.
Outside, the gray clouds scuttle across the moonless sky. There is barely enough light to see my way through the castle’s courtyard down past the farrier. I cut a wide berth around the kennels for fear of setting all the count’s hounds to baying.
When I reach the castle wall, I let myself out through the small north gate that opens onto the field beyond. The entire countryside looks as if it has been dipped in charcoal dust, naught but shades of gray as far as my eye can see. Luckily, the silver birch is the lightest of them all, making it easy to spot.
The wind picks up, moving through the yellow dying birch leaves so that they sound like ghostly whispers. I ignore the shiver that trickles along my shoulders and kneel on the ground. Using my knife, I begin to dig, stabbing the blade into the earth at the base of the tree, the dirt rasping against the metal.
Of all the ways I had hoped to use my knife when I left the convent, preparing the ground for an offering to Dea Matrona on Margot’s behalf was not one of them.
I stop to push the hair out of my face. Everything about this is wrong. It is so wrong it makes my teeth ache, and my bones want to dance out of my skin. This is not what the convent wanted for us.
And yet, what did the convent want? For they have never, in all the five years, contacted us.