He laughed. Tm afraid not, Lady Marguerite. I take my orders from Lord Donskoy. I am here on his behalf, in fact. And I believe it is you who must go. Are you not expected soon in Lord Donskoy's salon?'
'Mot until this afternoon,' she replied.
'You have underestimated the hour.'
Marguerite looked up at the sunless sky. Was that possible? Had she slept so long before she arose?
'And of course,' continued Ekhart, 'you will want to change your attire before you see your lord, and 'freshen up1 a bit.'
Marguerite flushed with annoyance. His comments were rude and improper, but he was right. When she returned to her room, she exchanged her boots for silk slippers and donned the purple silk gown, the one she had worn on the night she had first met Donskoy. Perhaps the gown would bring her luck.
She found her husband in his salon, sitting beside the hearth, nursing the tip of his water pipe. He greeted her with a red-eyed leer and smiled.
'Do you dance, Marguerite?' he asked abruptly.
Her mouth gaped. 'I'm not sure what you mean.'
'I mean, do you dance? I mean do you strip yourself bare and bend like a willow, and weave your wicked little spells in the moonlight?'
Marguerite paused, her expression blank. He was delirious again.
'No,' he said. 'I didn't think so.' Then he patted the pillow beside him on the floor. 'No matter. You can dance for me another way.'
*****
The following morning, Marguerite found a new note on her breakfast tray. Donskoy carefully dictated her whereabouts in the castle-her chamber, the music room, the library, and of course, his salon. Ekhart had told him of her visit to the stables, and Donskoy had not been pleased. He said that such forays were «beneath» her. Further, he instructed her to keep contact with 'all servants' to a minimum, for to behave otherwise was unbefitting the lady of a castle. When Marguerite sought out Zosia or Ljubo, she could not find them.
A week passed. Marguerite entertained herself by reading a few mundane selections from the library, and, when that grew stale, she collected the makings of a tapestry with Yelena's help and set to work on it in the music room. Her hand was not steady or practiced. She often pricked her fingers and had to stop the work to keep from staining the fabric with blood. It was a wonder, she thought, that she had once helped in preparing her own wedding gown-the white gown she never wore. It saddened her to think of it. Darkon. . her mother's face softly illumined by the fire. . the long nights spent stitching and chatting together: these images rose before her. Sometimes, she knew, her mother had torn out Marguerite's own poor stitches and later redone them in secret, in the hours just before dawn. Marguerite had not minded. It all seemed so distant now, so unreal, like stories she had read in a dream.
Soon the days gained their own kind of rhythm. First breakfast in her room, alone. A visit to the music room. Reading and stitching. And, if the weather was passable, a short walk with Ekhart at Donskoy's behest, 'to keep her healthy and fresh.' Then, as the afternoon waned, the obligatory visit to Donskoy's salon for the ritual coupling. This was followed by dinner with her husband, who clearly preferred that they eat in silence. After a while, Marguerite preferred it too.
TWELVE
One day merged with the next, until more than a fortnight had passed since Marguerite's arrival. A cold gray haze hung over the land, unchanging. The routine in the castle remained the same as well, but with the slow progression of hours, a certain tension began to emerge between Marguerite and her husband. She could do nothing to ease it, despite numerous attempts. Twice she suggested to Donsky that they again ride over his lands. And twice he declined, insisting she walk the grounds with Ekhart instead. In another effort to please her husband, Marguerite spoke of the travels they might one day undertake with their children. Lord Donskoy became venomous and spat at her.
'Do you seek to torment me?' he hissed. 'You know I cannot leave.' But Marguerite did not know, and she did not really believe him.
The true cause of Donskoy's displeasure was clear. Once, while he lay with Marguerite in his red salon, Donskoy rested his hand upon her bare stomach.
'Do you not share my desire for an heir?' he asked, tracing a circle across her skin. He proceeded to draw another circle within it, mimicking the pattern Zosia made on the mornings of her frequent pregnancy tests. After the first divining, Donskoy had remained patient, as he had promised. But now his patience was wearing thin, and Marguerite felt its loss acutely.
'My lord,' she said, noting that the pressure of his fingers on her stomach had increased. 'You know I desire a son as much as you do.' The scene was so queer, yet so typical, that Marguerite began to wonder if she were the one who partook too freely of the hookah smoke.
'Yet I doubt your sincerity,' Donskoy replied, moving his hand, plucking idly at her skin. 'I wonder if perhaps you do something to keep my seed from taking hold.' He pressed his sueded finger into the cleft between her ribs, and Marguerite felt pinned to the floor like a bug collector's specimen.
She swallowed hard to steady her voice. 'Surely you don't really believe that, Lord Donskoy. Why would I do such a thing?'
'I could not venture a guess,' he replied. 'For certainly you must know what happens to wives who don't conceive.'
Marguerite kept silent,
'They are set aside,' Donskoy continued, 'discarded for the useless vessels they've become. Sloughed off like old skin and cast into the mists.' He paused, chortling darkly. 'Or they're sold, passed to some gold-rich party who has no interest in their capacity to multiply. Sold for pleasure. Sold for parts. . ' His fingers trailed across her body, and he kissed her gently on the thigh. 'But I'm sure you wouldn't allow that to happen to you, my dear.'
'No, my lord,' she replied quietly. Marguerite closed her eyes to block out the scene, but what she saw behind her lids was worse. 'No,' she repeated, in a voice too soft for anyone to hear.
*****
Two days later, when her blood came, Donskoy could not contain his rage and struck her, Stunned, Marguerite fled the salon and hurried to her room, where for the first time, she wished the door could be locked from the inside.
Briefly, she thought of leaving. But to go where and do what? She had known only two homes in her life, and despite her idle daydreams, she had never wandered far from either. Life with Donskoy was still preferable to eternal unlife-the fate she surely would have known had she stayed in Darkon. And she had pledged herself to be his wife, giving her sacred promise before a priest-though a priest like no other she had ever seen. If only she could bear her husband an heir, her fortune would turn.
The following morning, her tray contained the usual note from Donskoy. It included a veiled apology and announced that he would not require her companionship that day- For a moment, Marguerite imagined him making arrangements for her sale. Then she managed to dispel the notion. /Vo, she thought, he would remain in his salon, savoring the tender bite of his hookah, oblivious to everyone and everything beyond the boundaries of his own mind. Marguerite dressed and went down to the kitchen to seek the only solace possible. To seek the assistance of a Vistani witch. She hoped that Zosia would be there.
The smell of garlic and boiling meat grew stronger in the passage as Marguerite approached the kitchen. She paused at the threshold, staring into the room. On the table lay a pair of rabbits, skinned and readied for the spit, their pink muscles firm and glistening. Nearby was a mortar and pestle, a pile of little skeletons resembling frogs, and a large wooden bowl fitled with mash. Small piles of dried herbs rested in a circle upon a wooden platter. At the center of the platter lay a slimy heap of tiny purple-red orbs, presumably roe. It occurred to Marguerite that she had seen comparatively little evidence of Zosia's cooking until this time-usually she saw only the results when Yelena materialized from the shadows bearing a fully laden tray.
Zosia squatted upon a three-legged stool before the fire, her black skirts spreading on either side. Her dark, kerchiefed head was bent toward the sooty maw of the hearth. The embers glowed red, and a thick, churning smoke swirled from beneath the lintel, but Zosia appeared oblivious. She hummed a sort of dirge as she worked,
