“Good.” Abbot Junius gave me a short nod, his version of approval. “Now listen closely, because we have very little time, and someone must tell you what to expect from being married to a man with Lord Stefan’s extensive experience and dubious reputation…”
What followed was the most mortifying hour of my life thus far, and I did my best to absorb only one word out of three.
“…demand that you pleasure him with your hands and mouth as well as coupling with you in the more expected manner that will also relieve your curse,” Abbot Junius droned on, accompanying the words with a gesture that I could’ve gone my whole life without. “In that case, I recommend—”
No. I simply couldn’t. “I will surely allow my husband to guide me, but I won’t allow him to make demands that will cause me unhappiness,” I ventured, hoping it would stem the abbot’s flow.
A cock in my mouth? I wasn’t sure if that would cause me unhappiness or not. Probably. I’d tried to suck my fingers once to see what it might be like, and I’d gagged, nearly thrown up my supper, and been put rather off the whole idea.
“You will be obliged to obey him whether it makes you unhappy or not, as we’ve discussed,” the abbot said. “If you displease Lord Stefan, then Lord Stefan will be displeased with his father for choosing you, and that will annoy them both—and they’ll blame you, despite your having had no say in the matter.It’ll end poorly for you, Remi. Great and powerful men never allow themselves to be wrong, which means everyone else must take the blame.”
And after he added a few more equally encouraging remarks, thankfully without any further hand gestures, he allowed me to flee at last, sending me off to pack my very few possessions and say my hasty farewells.
Before even the faintest gray of dawn had crept through the narrow window of my tiny room, the door opened to admit another novice sent to wake me—unnecessarily, to my gritty-eyed, heavy-headed regret—and bring me down to the refectory to break my fast.
Even in the ascetic atmosphere of the abbey, only a few of the brothers had risen this early. I took my bread and cup of black tea in near silence. Abbot Junius joined me as I choked down the last few crumbs, and he silently escorted me out the side door. A wagon stood waiting with my small trunk already loaded into the back. Ser Prendian was in the act of climbing stiffly onto the box.
Looking down the hill to the beach and the water beyond, all I could see of the ship that would carry me away were a few lanterns, bobbing like fireflies. A chill breeze ruffled my hair and slid up under the hem of my cassock to tickle my calves.
“Come along,” Ser Prendian called down, glaring at me from under the rim of his broad hat. “I won’t tolerate delay.”
The abbot sighed. “Write to me, Remi,” he said. “And the gods go with you.”
My throat too thickly choked with tears to permit me a single word, I merely pressed my lips together to hold in any betraying sounds, nodded, and climbed up into the back of the wagon. We rattled our way down the hill. I gazed back at the abbey until the abbot became a dim gray speck. Blinking back more tears, I turned away. The peachy gray of dawn had begunto light up the sky behind the ship and cast a sheet of endless glimmer on the vast stretch of the sea to the east.
How many times had I gazed out this direction and imagined that if I strained my eyes, reached out with my mind, I could catch a glimpse of my home?
But I never had. And now I wouldn’t be going home at all. To Calatria, yes, insofar as that was my home—but home meant people, not places. My sister would be turning sixteen soon, and I hadn’t seen her since she’d been a little girl of only ten, clinging to me and weeping as the abbot’s envoy took me away.
We’d set sail within minutes of boarding the ship, and since then it had been three days of rocking, heaving, gurgling seas, and my rocking, heaving, gurgling belly, with Ser Prendian alternately ignoring my misery when I remained in my cramped cabin or scolding me when I didn’t.
The shipmaster had told us that the following morning would bring us to harbor in Calatria, and I prayed to every god whose name I knew that there’d be no delay.
Perhaps this seasickness had been Ennolu’s gift to me. No matter how nauseating the sight or touch of my new husband might be, he’d seem downright pleasant by comparison.
The ship tilted, paused—and rolled down more violently than before, the contents of my stomach following a horrid, crucial half second after.
“I cannot believe I must repeat myself!” Ser Prendian’s voice rang out, strident despite the whip of the wind. I blinked up at him, and he took a step closer, staggering as the ship rocked but keeping his footing rather impressively for a man of his age. “This is improper! No future son-in-law to the Lord Chancellor ought to be sitting here, on the open deck, observed by these leering common sailors!”
Tiiiilt. Paaaause. Oh, all the gods preserve me. As the ship rolled once more, I gave in to Ennolu’s will, leaned forward overthe deck, and vomited up everything I’d eaten since I boarded this misbegotten overgrown bucket.
I subsided against the locker, smiling slightly for the first time in days, because the last thing I saw before I closed my eyes to rest from my labors was the disgusting spatter on the previously shiny tips of Ser Prendian’s shoes.
Hopefully my marriage would offer me even half as much satisfaction as the look on his face. But I wouldn’t hold my breath.
“No, you’ve managed excellently, Prendian. He’s just as I’d hoped,” the Lord Chancellor said, leaning back against the edge of his desk and stroking his gray beard.
I’d never been examined like this, like an object, a thing, as inanimate—if not nearly as beautiful—as the elegant marble statue of a nude goddess that stood in the corner of his study.
Honest lust might’ve been less disturbing, even given his position as my prospective father-in-law.
Ser Prendian bowed in acknowledgment of his lord’s compliment to his abilities, but his frown deepened another fraction.
“Won’t he need extensive assistance to be palatable to someone of Lord Stefan’s discerning taste, though?” Ser Prendian asked dubiously, making me even more glad I’d taken my opportunity to throw up on his feet. “And even with limited time, Lady Estella’s couturiers could surely do something to improve matters.”
To my seething humiliation, my appearance absolutely justified Ser Prendian’s doubts. After five days of sweaty nausea in this unchanged cassock, I’d been rushed from the ship to a stuffy carriage and then through a dizzying series of passages within the palace with no time to refresh myself. My face hadgone fever-hot, my pale skin surely a brighter red than my hair. I doubted Lady Estella’s couturiers would be any happier to have me foisted upon them than Ser Prendian had been.
“No,” the Lord Chancellor said, “I think not. We’ll dress him plainly, as befits his recent departure from his retirement. He’s a novelty, Prendian. You understand?”
