“Chosen consort! Gentry-bride! Pah! There are natural enough explanations for every one of her scandalous lyings-in. Likely she is using the Gentry Invasion to camouflage her weakness for stable boys!”
I was too adrift to answer then, but I will defend myself here, and next time you see Caro, or Günter, or Bernard, or any of them, you may quote me directly.
First of all, I did not even know we kept stable boys! It would be extraordinary if we did, for we certainly do not have any horses! Mother used to keep chickens, but the red fox came and killed them all, then slunk into my bed that very night and kissed me with his bloody mouth and got me with twins, and I do not think she has owned so much as a pullet since!
I know none of this for certain. It has been a while since I was allowed access to the out of doors.
Thank you for your letter! Such fine materials and artistry went into the rendering of it! Mother says the like can only be had from the Holy See at Winterbane. What favors do you perform for our venerable Abbot that he gifts you with illuminated vellum and peacock-colored inks and a young monk, no doubt, to take your dictations in perfect calligraphy?
I tease you, dearest grandmother. You tell me news of the twins. Do not think me ungrateful.
So little Sebastian Morgan is mad about the militia, is he? This obsession would certainly be hard to avoid with the infantry quartered at Feisty Wold, so near the Holy See.
I am including with this letter a scarlet coat with golden frogs that I embroidered. Mother has carved him a wooden sword, and says not to mind the marks along the blade, they are not runes or blessings or wards or anything that might upset the Abbot; it is just a toy. Not a shrubbery within stone’s throw of your courtyard will neglect to beg leniency of my second oldest son’s blood-thirst. He is too tall, you say, for a two year old? With red hair? Tell me, does he have a tail? His father had a fine one with which he tickled me until I screamed. I cannot remember if it hurt or not, but I remember I screamed.
“Sebastian Morgan seems in extreme good health,” I informed my mother, thinking she would be glad for the news.
But “Mmn,” was all she said. Was she talkative as a child? To me she seems more laconic every time I wake. To be truthful, I do not wake often enough to take accurate measurements.
For this conversation, she was sitting on her rocker in one corner of my room. Creak, creak, moooooaaaaan. That is the sound the rocker makes. I find it soothing, really. Like a heartbeat. A mortar sat in her lap. Every time she came to a forward stop, she ground down at its contents. From the powdery sting in the air, I surmised the bowl was full of whole peppercorns. I sneezed. (Sneezing, Grandmother Elspeth, in my state, gives me accidents, but from the number of towels beneath me, I conceive that mother has more than prepared for this. Besides, I find the suddenly pungent quality of the air invigorating.)
“Sebastian Morgan,” I repeated to her. “There is a name I can almost be proud of.”
My mother rocked back. The ready tension in her shoulders and all the lines of her face relaxed for one infinitesimal moment. I wish she would not work so hard.
“You were nearly coherent at his birth,” she recollected.
“Was I? I recall nothing of it now.”
I consulted your letter again, Grandmother.
“She writes that Sophia Candy—ugh! I was not coherent for long, was I?—Sophia Candy wants to take orders. Listen to this: ‘A very pious toddler, young Candy has aspirations to the Abbacy.’”
I laughed, but mother did not.
“Isn’t it marvelous? One changeling in the army, another in the church. And did not Auntie Hortensia write just last week—was it only last week? No, don’t answer! It was three months ago or something of that lapse; I can read it in your eyes—to tell us that Darren bodes well to be a politician, with his gravity and knack for diplomacy. It is almost as if, as if…”
As if it were all on purpose, I almost said, Grandmother. But what do I know of these matters? I am not eighteen, and have spent most of the last four years in bed!
“We need a strong Abbess,” grunted my mother, rocking forward again, grinding. “Our current Abbot meddles with…”
For a moment her gaze met mine. All the women in our family have dark eyes.
“Unholy spirits,” she finished.
“Well,” I told her, “Sophia Candy does not come by her devoutness from me.”
“No,” my mother agreed.
“Mother, is there no legal way to change her name? Some fee we might pay and have done with it? We cannot have an Abbess Candy!”
“You are not religious,” she reminded me. “Besides, one takes a Saint’s name with one’s orders. She might be an Abbess Sira or an Abbess Rahzad.”
“Either! Both! Anything but Candy.” I lapsed back into my pillows. “Have I given birth yet?”
“No.” My mother’s voice was so gentle I presumed I was going under again. She came close to me, bringing her wooden mortar with her. The smell was so strong I started sobbing.
“Soon,” she said. “Not yet but soon. Close your eyes.”
I did, I do, I think I’ll put this letter down now. My pencil grows heavy….—E.A.
There is a rhyme about pepper.
Black Piper whistles to rupture what’s tight
White Piper softens and moistens and serves
Green Piper sings out the young and the bright
Red Piper seals, Pink Piper preserves.
It is possible I just made up that rhyme, or heard my mother singing it when I was asleep. Regardless, I wake up covered in a crust of pepper. My mother has basted my body in honey, has crusted that honey thickly with black, pink, red, green and white pepper only partially ground.
I ask you what it is for, but it is mother who answers. My voice seems a meager thing in my throat.
“You lost a lot of blood. The pepper will give you back some heat.”
She speaks so low I do not think you can hear her through the windowpane, and I am glad, I am glad, because she is mine and you shall not have her too! She is the best hetch never caught and tried by the Inquisition at Winterbane. I have told you that, I think, have I told you that? What did she have to trade them to make them leave her and me be?
Her craft is solid. I had been cold and now am growing warmer.
“I had another baby?”
“Yes.”
“And the placenta? Did I deliver the placenta?”
If I fear anything in this world, it is the idea of carrying around a rotting placenta inside me. I am always more concerned about the afterbirth than the birth. Have you noticed this? You, who are always with me. Sometimes I do not think you care a jot if I live or die so long as I perform my duty.
“It is drying on the windowsill now.”
She shows me the placenta when I prove too weak to turn my head. You will eat it before dawn, I know, and grow strong, strong enough, perhaps, to leave my windowsill and go torment some other girl. But I do not mean that. How could I? I desire no other maid to suffer from your winks and taps and smiles. Also, I would be a little jealous, I think.
“Is it a boy or a…”
“Girl.”
“What did I name her?”
“Sophia.”
Is my mother laughing at me? She is smiling, but in a way that harrows the edges of her eyes. I grope for fitness of thought. Clouds, nothing but clouds. All I can do is wail.
“No, no, I named my other daughter Sophia! Sophia Candy! We were just talking…”
“Well,” my mother interrupts briskly, “this one is also named Sophia. Just Sophia. Not Sophia Candy—who will likely change her name when she takes orders.”