The door.Frantic, I looked for the small crack in the illusion, the wavering torchlight of the château hallway I knew lay just beyond it. It was still open, close enough that I could see the edge of the blue carpets. But I could get no farther, and I realized in horror that I was almost to the altar.
The new baron and baroness were seated to my left. I couldn’t see their faces, but I recognized that fur trim on his robe. They sat in the pew they paid for, at the place of highest importance at the front of the congregation. The pew opposite them was open, and I knew, in that dream-magic way, that I was supposed to sit there. Sweat dripped down my back under the layers of finery. The congregation stood and I spun in a panic, thinking they were coming to seize and drag me off. The village crowded in the aisle, coming toward me like a mass of bugs from some uncovered hole. They would take me like they had Valerie. They would burn me alive. The smell of crisping flesh flooded my nose. I screamed, but no sound came out.
The crowd split around me. As if I weren’t there. Sweeping me forward. Jostling around me like struck cattle, never saying a word.
They were only lining up to receive the sacraments.
Relief eased some of my panic. I was like one of those gruesome spirits, caught in the flow of life like a rag in the wind. I grabbed the arm of a woman passing me, but she somehow slipped away and didn’t look back. Notice me. Kick me out! The winds of my emotions reversed so quickly I felt breathless in the tumult. I caught the eye of the man behind me—a farmer I recognized. He met my eyes but looked blank, as if he looked at nothing.
Darkness swallowed everything but the circle of wavering light thrown on the stone by the altar candles. The priest kept his low murmur of absolution, but there was no absolution for me there. I moved along with the others, sweating like a pig in my elaborate dress and veil. The woman ahead of me kneeled and received his blessing. I couldn’t see where she went. I stood before the priest. He looked expectant and I did not know what else to do. I kneeled.
He looked at me with the knowing all men have, a knowing that always laid like a thick film over my skin. He knew me, would recognize me. He’d once laid naked between me and Dacia. Sweat gathered at my temples as he looked at me. I was on my knees, head tipped so far back my veil shifted back and my breasts strained at the edge of my dress. Slowly, I extended my tongue. My heart thrilled when he lowered the Communion wafer toward me.
“Come closer, my child,” he said. “Don’t be scared.”
I was already close enough to cling to his robes. He looked at me and I at him, and then, as if drawn by an unseen force, I straightened and looked over my shoulder.
Behind me, a merchant’s wife stood clothed in a simple brown tunic and white veil. She sank onto her knees, her eyes downcast and pious, blush fresh and pink on her gleaming cheek. Everything about her screamed maidenly and innocent.
And then she lifted her chin and she was no one.
I reared back, falling onto the steps and the priests’ robes. She was no longer a flesh-and-blood woman, she was a spirit in rags, fury and hunger, lunging for my neck, hands outstretched.
I forgot that I had entered this moment of my own free will, that she could not truly hurt me. I scrambled frantically across the floor to keep from her hands.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a door on the side of the altar. It was small and arched and I could have sworn it had not been there before. I suddenly felt the weight and clink of the keys still in my pocket.The keys!I remembered some of myself and bolted for the door, slamming it shut against the horror behind me.
I found myself in a grand hall. It’s arched ceiling and walls were lined with rich tapestries woven of golden threads that caught the glimmering candlelight and made it seem as if I floated in a world woven by the gods. The room was filled with strangers in rich clothes that whispered and winked light with every breath, and it felt like they were all oriented around the center point of the room.
I turned.
He was a tall man with regal bearing, a golden crown, arched and studded with jewels big as the ripest summer berries, and his face hidden behind a boar’s mask. A hush fell that was unmistakable—unlike the church, here I was glaringly noticed.
Every eye was turned to me, sharp and whetted behind their fine masks, feathers and diamond headpieces. A long table set with gold platters and silver plates and suckling pig had been laid right there, but they only had eyes for me.
Bewildered, I mumbled an apology in French and then in German and Latin. No language seemed to register. I curtseyed, but when I went to grasp my dress, I was astonished to find it had again changed.
Someone tittered.
Dress was a gracious word for what I wore. From my throat to my ankle and wrists, I was clad in a finely twisted silk scarlet netting. Small diamonds were sewn into the intricate patterns, but it was cut so tight against my naked skin that it pinched my flesh. There was no backing, no shift, no stockings, no second layer. No wonder every eye was turned—I was a spectacle, trussed up like meat for roasting.I started to retreat, but there was nowhere to go. The door had disappeared and only a wall stood behind me.
“Mademoiselle écarlate,” the man who I thought must be a king or an emperor said, standing from the table. “Nous vous attendons.” Attendants pulled back his chair just as he seemed to move, and he rounded the long table toward me, hand outstretched.
I thought maybe I would find him, up close, to be Lord Death, so I did not panic, only took his hand. But it was not him. I did not know where I was or who any of these people were. If I could have remembered who I was outside those rooms, I would have been frightened, but I could not, and so I stood there confused as he took my hand and spun me into his orbit. I stumbled to follow his dance, my ankles caught in the red netting, my bare feet sticking to the wood floor.
“Regardez ça,” he said to the crowd in dulcet tones, turning me one way. “Succulente.” And he spun me the other way, hand flowing elegantly down the line of my exposed body.
Fear pricked at the edges of my skin, but in a way that I could feel the bite of the scarlet threads, the cut of each diamond, and even the whisper of his hand across my puckered flesh. I closed my eyes on the people watching me, watching us, and for a moment let myself feel both the fear and the pleasure. His breath came to my neck, smelling of sandalwood and something rich and warm. “Maintenant se régaler,” he breathed, teeth nipping just at the edge of the scarlet netting.
Opening my eyes, I startled.
I was not in the Emperor’s hands, but between two of his attendees. They were dressed in silk livery, and instead of wearing masks, they were blindfolded with creamy silk that matched their tunics. One took my wrists and the other my ankles, lifting me between them.
Stupidly, I didn’t think to fight or flee, for I had been too well trained in acquiescence. Too aware of the watching crowd of fine ladies and gentlemen. The men moved me to the table toward two poles and it wasn’t until they lowered me that I realized.
I was the suckling pig.
I gasped in pain as the hooks caught the netting, pulling it tight. Diamonds on my wrists and ankles popped off onto the dinner plates of the ladies and men closest. They laughed and picked them up, marveling for a moment, then brushing them away. I screamed and twisted, trying to rock myself off the spit, but the men lashed me tighter with a red silk ribbon. I called for Lord Death, though I only knew him by that name and none other, and so it simply sounded like I cried forDeath. I cried for him to rescue me until they shoved a red apple into my mouth, and I choked on my tongue and the apple’s hard flesh.
