Mathena would be bent over the garden or out hunting with Brune. Lying here next to the king, his hands still imprinted on my skin, seemed so wanton and decadent.
I stood and slowly made my way off the high bed, to explore. Here was where he’d been, all this time. All the days I stared at the palace from the tower, he’d been right here.
Outside the window, the castle grounds lay before me, the gardens and several small buildings in the distance. Beyond them, houses with thatched roofs and the wall surrounding all of it.
I ran my fingers across the large bureau, the desk on which several manuscripts lay. I picked one up, marveling at the exquisitely penned letters. I began reading, carrying the manuscript back to bed with me.
It was a long poem, in a complicated rhyme. I read lines here and there, about a dark wood, a poet who’d lost his way. There were beautiful illustrations beside the text, brightened by gold leaf.
“Are you partaking in some morning study?” he asked, causing me to start.
I smiled. “You have interesting taste in literature,” I said.
“This comes from far away at great cost.” He sat up and took the manuscript from me. “It’s about a sinner who journeys through hell and sees the punishments of the damned.”
“How delightful.”
He laughed. “It’s fascinating. And the words the poet uses are so precise and beautiful. It’s like he’s captured the sound of a rainstorm.”
“I’ve not had much opportunity to admire the beauty of words,” I said.
“You will now. There’s a magnificent library here, and you’ll find much to amuse you in it. I’m having books brought in from distant lands, dozens every week, the rarest manuscripts.”
“That’s wonderful,” I said. I reached up to kiss him, full of admiration for him. He was so learned, so filled with passion. I could feel it pulsing from him, in a heartbeat.
“Today you might spend time with your ladies,” he said, “or exploring the castle. I have much business to attend to.”
“Oh,” I said, surprised. Of course, he was a king and had important things to do.
“You will be all right, will you not? This is your home now. You are well loved here.”
“Of course,” I said.
We dressed, and I called for Clareta to put up my hair. We went to Mass, as was the custom, past the handsome young men in sharp uniforms and into the hallway. We walked down the curving stairway and across the courtyard to the chapel. It was a wonderful room; walking into it was like entering a gemstone. Light shone in through multicolored glass windows. When I looked more closely, there were whole scenes inside them, showing saints pierced through with arrows or hanging over flames. Snow White was sitting with her nurse in a raised seat to the side of the priest, staring intently at a small book in her hand, her brow furrowed.
The priest, whom I would come to know as Father Martin, stood at the front of the room. He was startlingly handsome, and had a charisma about him that explained why all the ladies in the chapel were dressed as if they were attending a palace ball. When he began speaking of sin and punishment and hellfire with a vividness that shocked me, I felt compelled by it, despite myself. It was all so different from anything I’d heard before.
He spoke of God’s wrath. The sinfulness of worshipping false gods, consulting medicine doctors and witches. I stiffened but made sure to look at him without wincing, though I could feel the eyes of the court on me.
Throughout the service, the court stood and sang, and then sat down again. Their voices melded together, expressing every kind of emotion all at once. Tenderness, love, and yet the most dramatic fear, anger, wrath. Even though I loved to sing, I knew I could not sing these songs the way they did here. It was completely alien to me, all of it as extravagant and strange as the jewels they all wore, wrapped around their fingers and wrists and necks.
I felt embarrassed that the courtly manners were all so foreign to me. I felt tricked by Mathena, who’d talked to me of Artemis and Apollo, Hera and Zeus, and taught me about herbs and stars rather than God. It was infuriating, even. Why hadn’t she taught me how to behave properly? Why hadn’t she taught me about God?
After, Josef leaned in to kiss me. “I will see you this evening,” he said, and almost before I could answer, he was surrounded by his advisors and being led away.
My heart sank as I watched him leave. Snow White and her nurse left after them. My own ladies surrounded me.
“Where are they taking the princess?” I asked Yolande, who had positioned herself to lead me back to my chambers.
“To her lessons.”
“I suppose we can relax this afternoon, can’t we?” I said, smiling, with more enthusiasm than I felt.
We retreated to my chambers, and it occurred to me for the first time that they might become a new tower for me, in a way. I sat on the couch while my ladies arranged themselves around me. Clareta and the youngest girl, Cicely, started playing cards together. Yolande offered me my choice of fabric from a basket, and I selected a piece of pale silk as well as some gold thread, thinking I might embroider something sweet for the young princess. Yolande placed herself on the floor next to the couch, and began embroidering a kerchief with a wonderful smattering of tiny flowers, while next to her Lilace worked on a silk pillow, using colored thread to create a scene of lords and ladies in revelry. Stella, the redhead, crocheted a bit of lace for her sister’s upcoming wedding.
I watched and studied them. They still seemed more like a mass of painted faces, dangling ribbons, and twirling skirts, and less like distinct people to me, but they were there to attend me, entertain me, comfort me.
I found myself thinking of the princess more than anything else.
“Why do they call her Snow White?” I asked. “Is that not an odd name?”
“Oh,” Yolande said, smiling. “She was such a beautiful infant. None of us had ever seen a baby with skin that pale and lips that red, and that black hair already covering her head. She was an astonishing child. One of the ladies even thought she might be a changeling.”
“A changeling?”
“Yes, a faerie exchanged for a human child. She was that unnatural-seeming.”
“I know what a changeling is,” I said. “I just did not think people spoke of such things here.”
“It’s true; the priest was not happy about the rumor, Your Highness,” she said. “There was quite a controversy.”
The other ladies were nodding now. “People started giving her tests meant to detect a faerie imposter,” Stella said.
“What did Queen Teresa do?” I asked.
“She was furious. She was very devout, you know.”
“The priest even gave a sermon about it,” Clareta said. “Telling us that faeries were false gods. It didn’t stop all the talk, though.”
“She was just too perfect,” Yolande said. “We couldn’t believe she was real.”
I laughed. “That’s so silly. Changelings have withered, dry skin and deformed limbs. They’re not beautiful at all.”
They all seemed to gasp at once, and then burst into giggles, at my words.
“You must not let Father Martin hear you speak of such things,” Yolande said.
“The king does not care what Father Martin says,” Clareta said, turning to Yolande.
“It’s true. He ignored Father Martin’s advice about his marriage,” Lilace added.
“His marriage?” I asked, turning to the girl sharply.
She shrank back, her face going red. “I didn’t mean—”
“The king’s marriage to me, you mean?”
Yolande rushed in to answer for her. “Lilace does not mean to offend, my queen. But it is true that the palace priest urged the king to marry a devout woman. And to do so less . . . quickly. But Father Martin disapproves of many things the king does.”
“Ah, I see,” I said, nodding gravely. “And what about you, Yolande?”
“Your Grace?”
“Do you . . . believe in faeries?” I smiled at the surprise on her face. She had expected me to reprimand her.
A blush drifted over her pale cheeks. “Of course, my queen. But I would not talk about it openly at
