Rosamund finished: “The queen?”
They looked at each other, and then back to me, aghast.
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I suppose I do.” I looked down at my own red, raw hands. “I’ll need gloves.”
CHAPTER TEN
For so many years, I knew every inch of my children’s bodies. The creases at their wrists. The crooked teeth pushing through inflamed gums. The folds of their groins and the pebble shapes of their toes. And that body familiarity goes in hand with such a deep sense of knowing—of voice, of habit, of every intention—that even years after their initial demands for privacy, that primordial knowledge still sat, a bedrock, informing our every interaction. (You,you,you,my darling,you.)
A mother gets to choose. My body, my mind, were not made available to Rosie and Mathilde for such scrutiny. And though proximity offered them undeniable knowledge, it couldn’t be mistaken for a complete picture. In the sharing of every detail of Henry they had asked for, in the recounting of the many stories that were demanded, I still chose to omit.
My omission: Sigrid. All of her. The whole of her. Not just the wasps, or the birds, but the fact of her in my history. All the more egregious, for she—my onetime rival—had gone on to marry the man who became the king.
When Henry asked for my hand, for a few brief weeks, it seemed as if all the world had tilted in my favor: Life had indeed put a check on Sigrid’s expectations and surpassed my own. But, shortly after my wedding, at the Tremaines’ main manor hall, I received a letter:
Dearest Ethel—or shall I call you Mrs. Tremaine?
You may soon call me HRH, for I do have news to share. I am back home and have finished convalescing. My hand is much healed, though I likely have my mishap to thank for my present circumstances. A trade most would take. I am to be married—to the king’s first son! We met at my dearest sister Mary’s wedding to the king’s third cousin, as you may recall. (And she thought she was the one orchestrating a triumph!) A lovely bit of happenstance, though you of all people would understand sometimes luck is by design.
I owe you my thanks, for perhaps if it were not for you, I might find myself spending the rest of my years married to a third-born with a penchant for feathered fiends. You did me a great kindness and I will look back on our summer of girlish closeness fondly. I would say that when we should see one another next, we shall embrace as friends. Alas, I do not expect to see you very soon, for it is now determined that we will live very different lives. The sun does not think about the other stars, after all, for it is the sun.
Your friend always,
Sigrid Camelia White
The news had felt improbable. I had only just bid Sigrid adieu a few weeks before, feeling satisfied and victorious and regretting little. But in one swoop, she had recast my victory. Thrown a shadow on my triumph and sapped its pleasure. How had she done this, I wondered, inhorror and awe. How does one meet and marry a prince in such a short time? How do some people appear to find soft carpet beneath them, no matter where their feet fall?
Henry’s family had been thrilled for what they understood the news to imply: friendship with the future queen. I knew better. For all the following years, the Tremaines—and I—were not invited to court. Errol’s long-promised peerage failed to materialize. The family was not rewarded their annual royal charter on spices and lost their monopoly. There were sudden fines for breaking trade regulations that had never been enforced previously. Protective tariffs were withdrawn, exposing the family’s wares to further competition. It took but a small handful of years: The Tremaines quickly grew further from social grace and power and, eventually, their money. And I grew a disdain for the crown’s rule and developed a jealousy of its splendor.
The seasons ticked by, and news of Sigrid’s life was unavoidable. She had her first child—a boy—the same year I had Mathilde and the kingdom rejoiced. After the death of his father, her husband became king and Sigrid was crowned and her face put onto coins. Her very likeness burned into metal and jangling in my pockets. Later, her daughter’s name day fell around when Henry died, and I had to listen to pealing bells and walk past flapping celebratory banners as my own joy turned to ash in my mouth. As I watched my daughters grow, observing them learn to navigate the world, seeing how their futures became like pawns on the increasingly desperate Tremaines’ chessboard, Sigrid’s presence—her pervasiveness—only served to underscore my growing conviction: Those who played by the rules, who laughed sweet laughter and sang songs and weaponized the tools given to us—who turned the rules into a ladder, then a dagger—did best.
You could place a kind of blame. The Tremaines’ ruin stemmed from Sigrid’s acrimony over Henry’s choice. A choice I had tried to force. The seeds I had sown with the venom of a thousand wasps.
And still—still—I was choking down the rotten remains of that harvest.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Whenever the need arose, Alice would dress herself in men’s attire and oversee the chaise, drawn by Arno, our spindly horse. Alice sat, in cap and livery, waiting for me. “Goodness,” she exclaimed when I finally emerged from the house. “What a charming sight!”
“You’re one to talk,” I scoffed, but we regarded one another with a shared smirk, and then I pulled my skirts up with one hand so I could climb into the carriage beside her. My dress—one of Rosamund’s elaborate patterned concoctions, an affair so draped and pleated my head was like a decoration on top of a cake—had elbow-length sleeves with flared cuffs and a two-foot train. I arranged the fabric around our feet so it wouldn’t dirty. “Shall we open the calash?”
Alice clicked and Arno lurched forward. “Might rain.”
I looked up at the cloudless sky. “That’s the spirit.”
“Don’t let them see those.” She nodded at my feet.
“I know that!” I slid the old leather latchets behind my skirts. With the exception of my footwear, I had been cinched and tied into the shape of respectability. Over a linen shift, I wore bone stays, followedby a quilted silk petticoat, a bow-covered stomacher, and an open-faced robe. Engageantes and combs decorated my elbows and hair. Though I carried nothing but a fan and gloves, I could not have looked more prepared if I had been wearing a knight’s brigandine.
“Just…” I waved my hand in the air. “Drive.”
Alice looked forward, not quite hiding the roll of her eyes. The calash remained closed. And we were on our way, bumping along the country road until it could be called that no more.
Eventually, the city arose before us, appearing first as a smoke-covered anomaly in the green country hills, then making itself known through the increase of hagglers and traders and children running amok as we reached its outskirts. We passed under an arched gate in the ancient outer walls and made our way through crowded streets. The air thickened with the smell of woodsmoke. As we approached the city center, people and livestock filled the mud-slick roads. When we could move no longer, Alice directed Arno to the side of the road, stopping behind an old man selling roasted nuts from a cart.
“You’ll make better time on foot.” She climbed down and held out a hand. “Watch the muck.”
“An appropriate city motto.” I held on to Alice as I lowered myself, wishing I could give her a shilling so she could buy some of the chestnuts. The cart’s aroma might at least disguise some of the other smells: The open sewers and the sulfuric stench of a tannery and the blooming algae from the palace moat.
