Seeing—and misunderstanding—my dismay, Sigrid laughed, but it was a gentle chiding, not the self-satisfied chuckle I would have expected. “No doubt you’ve recognized all the ways the wedding will benefit all your daughters. One doesn’t need to marry a prince to gain from his majesty.”
“The wedding,” I repeated. I was doing a poor job of keeping up. It was like playing a game where your opponent knew every card in your hand.
“Oh,” she said, and sat back. “I presumed you had no objections. Your eagerness being on full display.” Her lip twitched, as if in contact with her own poison. “But fate has a sense of irony. Who am I to argue with the tides that guide our children? I have made it clear to Simeon that there is no reason to delay the union. We’ve determined they should be married in three weeks’ time.”
I managed to say “That is quite soon” through my surprise.
“Yes, but enough time for you and I to put our scratching aside, I think, and at long last embrace as old friends. A union like this would make us practically sisters.” Sigrid’s fingers crept along the edge of the blanket and then she reached forward and took hold of my hand— a gesture of female complicity. We sat there for a moment, my glovein hers, and she squeezed my fingers. She could not have shocked me more. I resisted the urge to pull away.
I tried to steady myself in the miasmic air by peering at the carriage canopy, which had been painted like the night sky. The constellations reminded me of Sigrid’s long-ago letter:The sun does not think about the other stars, she had said,for it is the sun. But what are stars if not suns themselves? Lowering my chin, I looked straight ahead at Sigrid—her yellow hair now faded, her cheeks beginning to sag—and said: “It would make us mothers-in-law.”
“What are two mothers if not sisters of some sort?” She dropped my hand. “I can assure you of the king’s support in the matter. Elin’s father was titled. You all live on a gentleman’s estate. You’re in good enough standing. So there you have it. My son has set his heart. We will host a reception, and you will all be the better off for it.”
We stared at one another. Sun or star, there are moments when you must tuck in your tail. If I could overlook all the thorns—the unfairness of Elin’s dowry going to royal coffers, the acrimony of my own embarrassment, the plain fact of Rosie’s hurt—a simple truth remained: A royal marriage in the family would improve my own daughters’ futures. Howeverunsuitablethey might be, the proximity to court would be life-changing.
“I have no objections,” I said, after a long moment.
“Do not worry, Ethel. They will live happily ever after.” Sigrid held my eyes. “I will make sure of it.”
Back outside, I felt grateful for the cold, wet air. Alice and I waited until every member of the royal retinue was well out of sight before I recounted all that had happened.
“He really, truly means to marry Elin? And the queen supports it?” The reins in Alice’s hands went as slack as her jaw.
“It appears that way.” I nodded. I myself was still adjusting to the idea.
“It’s odd, innit? The urgency?”
“Plenty of weddings have been planned in less time.” I looked out at the wet landscape. We moved at a slow pace, for the rain had turned the road to muck. “I wish they had gotten to know one another more formally, but they’re already engaged.”
“A royal ball is the epitome of formality.”
“Aye.”
“But I don’t mean the wedding date, m’lady. Why would the queen ride out and meet you in a muddy field?”
The ground around us was more brown than green. “Even royalty cannot stop the rain from making mud out of dirt.”
Alice only clucked at Arno, who did not need clucking at. Her way of disagreeing with me.
“I do not think we should pick at it,” I told her. “This wedding has the capacity to change everything. Not just right now, but forever.” My daughters lived in a society where women were taught to hold their tongues and say little—where we were measured by our ability to disappear. Currying favor in this context was like being challenged to speak without a voice. If Sigrid was allowing the marriage, then I would likewise need to put aside my own humiliations—unsuitable,your eagerness—and embrace an undeniable truth. My girls still had no dowries. They had little means to advance themselves. But, now, they could have something else: kinship with a future queen.
“Then you shall continue your ruse.” Alice sighed.
“It’s not a ruse.” I bristled. “It’s a performance. And artifice is a language as common in the courts as it is in the hamlets. The only difference is it is calledorchestrationif you have money anddeceptionwhen you don’t.”
“And if your performance is found out?”
I clenched an unseen fist beneath my cloak. “It won’t be.”
“Right now all the girls are guilty of is poor circumstances. What if your charade unravels? You’d leave them worse off than they started.” Alice gave up her clucking and shook her head at me directly. “Thehouse is going to fill up with every manner of visitor and guest, not to mention the royals themselves. You’re going to have to feed and entertain them, with little help and no money. Forgive me for saying so, but you are treading a precarious path.”
“Then we must be sure of our footing.” I nodded, staring off, lost in thought. Alice was right, in her own stiff way. “The house must be ready to receive, always. We’ll need to open more rooms, have more food. We’ll need more people to help us.”
“No, no,” Alice reprimanded me. “That is not what I meant.”
I pointed ahead. “Drop me off at the village and I’ll walk the rest of the way home. Go to the walls outside the palace. There are people in need of work there. See who will come and who will work in exchange for room and board.”
“No one will want to work without pay.”
